I feel like I'm in the eye of a hurricane at the moment. Why? Because it's May, and that means life is our household is a whirling dervish of must-dos, want-to-dos, and have-to-dos. Don't get me wrong, all 3 of us thrive on being busy but DEAR GOD, it's a little bit crazy.
Since the kidlet is passed out and the Hubby is hopefully winning some money at his bi-weekly card game in the basement, I wanted to take a few minutes to add to my random ramblings with - you guessed it - another random rambling.
I have no real agenda for this particular post other than to just write out my thoughts, in no particular order, and not necessarily with any hook.
I am enjoying a nearly empty glass of vino verde. Investigation Discovery is on in the background. Hall & Oates and BeeGees songs bounce through my head, no thanks to the American Idol finale last night (Crystal was robbed!). And there is no one asking me stupid questions or complaining about the new process we implemented at work or asking me if his homework is in his bag or getting confused about which activity is when and reminding me that I control the family calendar. PHEW!
I had an interesting conversation with a friend the other day. We'll call the friend M for ease of typing. M and I were talking about a bad piece of luck - or a series really, that had befallen M. We mused over whether you can be simultaneously unlucky and blessed and, although we often don't agree on much, concluded you certainly can be. Where we disagreed on was whether or not you should dwell on, or even acknowledge, your bad luck if you are, in fact, blessed.
I think you need to acknowledge the good and bad. M is at place where denial works better and thus does not want to see the bad, because it's easier to pretend it's not there - M can then construct the fantasy aspect of life in such a way to believe that it's all sunshine and roses. As a realist (or pessimist as Hubby says - and he's WRONG), I think this is a mistake. Knowing M - who is a good friend - like I do, I know why that's the coping mechanism at the moment - or in the decade (argh), but it makes me a little sad. I fear for the day M wakes up and really sees the big picture - because I know it will hurt. Horribly.
In any event, I see blessings and bad luck in my own life. I used to be a dweller - I would get stuck in a quagmire of self-pity and sadness over my lack of fortune. I am not a horribly unlucky person (thank goodness) but, let's face it, we all have streaks of bad luck. And damnit, my FIL dying when he did, the day before my wedding, it was bad fucking luck - bad for me, way worse for Hubby, and it took a long time to even partially recover from it (we haven't and I fear will never fully recover).
I got stuck in feeling sorry for myself in that bad luck, and it took me a long time to snap out of it. I have my moments where it still frustrates me, because I know that was a huge factor in how my life changed - changed in a way I never expected or anticipated, in a way that's been really difficult and sad and still confuses me. But working through that, experiencing the grief behind it, made me understand you CANNOT dwell in your bad luck. It will suck you into an abyss if you let it.
But you also can't deny the bad shit. You can't pretend it's not there. I struggle with this, too. I can see the bad and difficult stuff, and it hurts me - but sometimes I don't know how to deal with it. So I try to fix them. Weird. I'm a chick AND a fixer?!?!?
My shrink and I had a little chat about that the other day, because trying to fix things is a male trait (generally). I was mentioning it in the context of a new employee at work, who is really faltering. I know in my head that his failure is 90% on him - yet I can't help but think it's 50% my own failings. That's me. I didn't hire this guy, and I am responsible for him to a point - bad luck. I've tried to mentor him and I feel like I've done a shitty job. I am running out of patience yet I am still trying to fix it. I didn't give our boss 1 iota of negative feedback for 4 MONTHS because I felt like I'd get him in trouble. UGH!
That's me. I'm nuts. And a fool, I guess, for thinking I can fix things, for thinking things only partially under my control are my fault.
But I think M - while wrong about trying to pretend the bad luck isn't there - is right. We should see our blessings and embrace them. M is damn good at that (too good). I, on the other hand, suck at it.
This is one of my goals for personal development. I need to see what's good in my life. My health. My job and career. My amazing child. Financial stability. My fabulous, do-anything-for-me friends. My Hubby who, despite maybe not being perfect (or maybe even quite right) for me, is a good dad and a good guy.
I need to remember that - when work frustrates me. When my kid gets a yellow at school for the 8th day in a row. When I am so exhausted from running here, there, and everywhere that I question my own sanity.
I need to balance - good and bad. We all do. We can't wish the bad away by pretending life is all good. And we can't fix the bad without letting the good envelop us and give us strength.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
clarity as time marches on
We had some old friends over tonight - they live in the same town as us and we used to get together once a week. But that arrangement fell apart over the last 2 years and while Hubby has seen the guy (K) - we haven't gotten together as a couple for at least 18 months. They are a lot of fun and it was great to see them.
What was interesting about the visit...hmm...ok.
So these friends of ours are childless - by choice at this point although they told us they are "getting closer" to "sort of being ready" to have a kid. LOL, love it. BTDT.
Now - I am the first person to say that I do not give a shit whether people have children or not. Contrary to Hubby, I do not think that we as humans are or should be "destined" and "preprogrammed" to have children. Having a child - as I told them tonight - is hard. Really hard. Oh it's incredibly rewarding and as I said the other day, I can't imagine my life without G and sometimes I can't remember what life was like without him. But anyone who says parenting is easy is either blissfully unaware or full of shit.
So I have a great respect for people who know their limits well enough to not have children. Or to have one child. Or stop at 2. Or whatever.
Given that, they certainly don't have to rationalize to me why they haven't had a child - I told them that, too.
Having said that, as we were chatting, they were asking us questions about G and just about life in general. They both noted that we seem "really busy" and that "being a parent must be overwhelming". I agreed. I told them that parenthood was really a long series of leaps of faith - the first time you drop your kid off at daycare, the first day of Kindergarten, the first time he uses a public bathroom on his own or plays outside by himself or you let him roam the neighborhood without you - or hell, the first time you leave him in a room alone. They are elicit heart attacks and it's SO easy to just not want to (or not) do them to avoid the potential pitfalls. But the job of a good parent is to recognize those fears and then WEIGH them and figure out a way to do what you need to do, to foster that independence with love, despite them.
It's scary as friggin' hell.
In any event, as we were talking to them, and afterwards, I did start thinking a bit about my pre-kid life. And it's funny how vague it seems in some ways - and how I felt many of the same things they are feeling now. Somehow, it was validating to see them as I was 9 years ago and realize I wasn't "abnormal" despite my thinking so.
I don't know that there is an entirely a point to this post beyond some musing on "paper". I think I always get a little introspective about parenting as G's birthday comes and goes. I think about how time is marching on and how I really am ok with it. I get wistful and I can't believe my "baby" is getting older and - as someone astutely pointed out last week - is now halfway to driving age (yikes). But this is life - and watching him grow is pretty damn cool.
It'll be interesting to see what happens with our friends over the next couple of years. I think they would be great parents. They are nervous about putting someone else besides themselves first. And that's a hard shift to make - maybe that's why we get little helpless babies, to make it easier on us to give ours own needs a back seat for a while.
And if the opt against the parenting road - hey, that's fine with me too. I'll certainly understand.
What was interesting about the visit...hmm...ok.
So these friends of ours are childless - by choice at this point although they told us they are "getting closer" to "sort of being ready" to have a kid. LOL, love it. BTDT.
Now - I am the first person to say that I do not give a shit whether people have children or not. Contrary to Hubby, I do not think that we as humans are or should be "destined" and "preprogrammed" to have children. Having a child - as I told them tonight - is hard. Really hard. Oh it's incredibly rewarding and as I said the other day, I can't imagine my life without G and sometimes I can't remember what life was like without him. But anyone who says parenting is easy is either blissfully unaware or full of shit.
So I have a great respect for people who know their limits well enough to not have children. Or to have one child. Or stop at 2. Or whatever.
Given that, they certainly don't have to rationalize to me why they haven't had a child - I told them that, too.
Having said that, as we were chatting, they were asking us questions about G and just about life in general. They both noted that we seem "really busy" and that "being a parent must be overwhelming". I agreed. I told them that parenthood was really a long series of leaps of faith - the first time you drop your kid off at daycare, the first day of Kindergarten, the first time he uses a public bathroom on his own or plays outside by himself or you let him roam the neighborhood without you - or hell, the first time you leave him in a room alone. They are elicit heart attacks and it's SO easy to just not want to (or not) do them to avoid the potential pitfalls. But the job of a good parent is to recognize those fears and then WEIGH them and figure out a way to do what you need to do, to foster that independence with love, despite them.
It's scary as friggin' hell.
In any event, as we were talking to them, and afterwards, I did start thinking a bit about my pre-kid life. And it's funny how vague it seems in some ways - and how I felt many of the same things they are feeling now. Somehow, it was validating to see them as I was 9 years ago and realize I wasn't "abnormal" despite my thinking so.
I don't know that there is an entirely a point to this post beyond some musing on "paper". I think I always get a little introspective about parenting as G's birthday comes and goes. I think about how time is marching on and how I really am ok with it. I get wistful and I can't believe my "baby" is getting older and - as someone astutely pointed out last week - is now halfway to driving age (yikes). But this is life - and watching him grow is pretty damn cool.
It'll be interesting to see what happens with our friends over the next couple of years. I think they would be great parents. They are nervous about putting someone else besides themselves first. And that's a hard shift to make - maybe that's why we get little helpless babies, to make it easier on us to give ours own needs a back seat for a while.
And if the opt against the parenting road - hey, that's fine with me too. I'll certainly understand.
Friday, May 14, 2010
My baby is 8
I can't believe it - G is 8.
Funny how time flies. I remember him being an infant, and the days dragging by. He was a colicky, silent refluxy baby. Feedings took, on average, 45 minutes and involved lots of screaming (on his part) and a fair amount of crying (me). I sometimes thought I'd never survive his infancy - thanks PPD for those thoughts.
But I survived...and I've made it through a fall off the changing table, a fall down the stairs, a rather large egg on his forehead, a face plant at daycare on his first birthday, a tumble off the top of a twisty slide...calls about his biting, then hitting, the overall aggression...calls about his explaining what the word "erection" meant...stomach bugs and strept throat and random fever viruses...and a mystery chin lump that was temporarily suspected to be a tumor (thank God it was a bone bruise). I've read more books out loud - sometimes the same ones every day for a month - than I ever thought possible. We logged hundreds of miles with the jog stroller and planted 5 gardens. I've been infected by his colds and also by his hysterical giggle.
Motherhood is an amazing and incredibly overwhelming and daunting journey. I was afraid to do it.
And now that I've jumped in feet first - I don't regret it. I don't need to do it again - I am complete with my one child - but I'm glad I took that chance.
Happy birthday G. Sometimes it's hard to remember what life was like without you here. I love you, Baby Bear. :-)
Funny how time flies. I remember him being an infant, and the days dragging by. He was a colicky, silent refluxy baby. Feedings took, on average, 45 minutes and involved lots of screaming (on his part) and a fair amount of crying (me). I sometimes thought I'd never survive his infancy - thanks PPD for those thoughts.
But I survived...and I've made it through a fall off the changing table, a fall down the stairs, a rather large egg on his forehead, a face plant at daycare on his first birthday, a tumble off the top of a twisty slide...calls about his biting, then hitting, the overall aggression...calls about his explaining what the word "erection" meant...stomach bugs and strept throat and random fever viruses...and a mystery chin lump that was temporarily suspected to be a tumor (thank God it was a bone bruise). I've read more books out loud - sometimes the same ones every day for a month - than I ever thought possible. We logged hundreds of miles with the jog stroller and planted 5 gardens. I've been infected by his colds and also by his hysterical giggle.
Motherhood is an amazing and incredibly overwhelming and daunting journey. I was afraid to do it.
And now that I've jumped in feet first - I don't regret it. I don't need to do it again - I am complete with my one child - but I'm glad I took that chance.
Happy birthday G. Sometimes it's hard to remember what life was like without you here. I love you, Baby Bear. :-)
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
blogger ate my post! or at least I thought so
I just wrote this well thought-out, insightful, important post.
I went to post it.
BLAM. I lost it.
Oh I am so very sad.
I found it. Thank goodness for auto-save. ;-)
I went to post it.
BLAM. I lost it.
Oh I am so very sad.
I found it. Thank goodness for auto-save. ;-)
a series of moments
When I was a senior in high school, building my yearbook "page" (just about this time, a whopping 19 years ago - God help me), I was on a hunt for good quotes. This was long before the Internet, let alone Google - so my resources were thin. A good place for quotes was Reader's Digest, of all things - and my grandfather had been giving my mother a subscription to the damn thing for eons by then.
So I grabbed a few copies and sat down and found my talisman almost immediately.
"You never know when you're making a memory."
I thought, at 17, that I understood what that meant. And in my own 17 year old way, I did.
But now, from the perspective of a 36 year old - you know, older and older - I feel like I get it in a different and deeper and more humbled way.
Life is a series of events and experiences and moments. Many of them are the mundane, the day to day, the must do - especially when you get past the bliss and optimism of being 17.
I was thinking about this quote and this reality today - a day which by all accounts started out in the mundane, the ordinary, the must-do - and had some moments I will never forget dispersed within. None of those moments were so momentous (I don't think) that I would rank them in the top 10 moments of my life - but they were moments that meant something - that mean something.
There was a little epiphany in the midst of a chaotic workday, where everyone around me was frustrated and angry and stressed (as was I). It was a realization that after months of being really hurt and angry and truly heartbroken in some ways by the actions of someone important in my life - I've moved beyond the day-to-day pain...I don't know how. I wished for that moment over and over for the last 6 months and there it appeared, unexpected, in the middle of a conversation about shoes of all things. It was just a realization that that biting hurt that had been sitting under the surface for months - it was missing.
A memory. A moment.
This prompted another realization - that I am so blessed to have some of the friends I have in my life.
I know, aren't we all?
But I am an extremely guarded person. Over the years, I have been accused by friends, lovers, and strangers alike of being both snobby and standoffish. I am neither - I think I am a warm and genuine person who loves deeply and cares too much about people. But I am guarded. I have been hurt so many times by people I loved, by friends who were important to me - so me letting people into who the TRUE Andrea is - it's a frightening proposition for me and it generally only occurs after months of careful consideration.
So the fact that I have a small collection of good, close friends, with whom I've shared my biggest triumphs, my deepest fears, and my lowest lows. Some know just how much I struggle, how false (not phony, just occasionally misleading) my outwardly confident persona is at times...how much I question my every decision, my every move, the feelings that are in my core. These are people I love with all my heart.
I'm lucky.
And it was that silly, light-hearted, odd ball conversation about shoes and the virtues of zappos.com and piperlime.com...a nothing conversation in the broad scheme of memories and moments, that triggered this understanding of this feeling of peace, and this reminder of how lucky I am.
So to the friends I love so dearly, and trust with my deepest fears and secrets - thank you from the bottom of my heart. In ways that that naive and scared 17 year old never would have anticipated, my life is far more confusing, complicated, hard, and amazing that I expected - and it's only because I have such amazing friends that I can walk through it with only an occasional nervous breakdown.
Life is a series of moments, memories. And today - today there were moments, meaningful moments.
So I grabbed a few copies and sat down and found my talisman almost immediately.
"You never know when you're making a memory."
I thought, at 17, that I understood what that meant. And in my own 17 year old way, I did.
But now, from the perspective of a 36 year old - you know, older and older - I feel like I get it in a different and deeper and more humbled way.
Life is a series of events and experiences and moments. Many of them are the mundane, the day to day, the must do - especially when you get past the bliss and optimism of being 17.
I was thinking about this quote and this reality today - a day which by all accounts started out in the mundane, the ordinary, the must-do - and had some moments I will never forget dispersed within. None of those moments were so momentous (I don't think) that I would rank them in the top 10 moments of my life - but they were moments that meant something - that mean something.
There was a little epiphany in the midst of a chaotic workday, where everyone around me was frustrated and angry and stressed (as was I). It was a realization that after months of being really hurt and angry and truly heartbroken in some ways by the actions of someone important in my life - I've moved beyond the day-to-day pain...I don't know how. I wished for that moment over and over for the last 6 months and there it appeared, unexpected, in the middle of a conversation about shoes of all things. It was just a realization that that biting hurt that had been sitting under the surface for months - it was missing.
A memory. A moment.
This prompted another realization - that I am so blessed to have some of the friends I have in my life.
I know, aren't we all?
But I am an extremely guarded person. Over the years, I have been accused by friends, lovers, and strangers alike of being both snobby and standoffish. I am neither - I think I am a warm and genuine person who loves deeply and cares too much about people. But I am guarded. I have been hurt so many times by people I loved, by friends who were important to me - so me letting people into who the TRUE Andrea is - it's a frightening proposition for me and it generally only occurs after months of careful consideration.
So the fact that I have a small collection of good, close friends, with whom I've shared my biggest triumphs, my deepest fears, and my lowest lows. Some know just how much I struggle, how false (not phony, just occasionally misleading) my outwardly confident persona is at times...how much I question my every decision, my every move, the feelings that are in my core. These are people I love with all my heart.
I'm lucky.
And it was that silly, light-hearted, odd ball conversation about shoes and the virtues of zappos.com and piperlime.com...a nothing conversation in the broad scheme of memories and moments, that triggered this understanding of this feeling of peace, and this reminder of how lucky I am.
So to the friends I love so dearly, and trust with my deepest fears and secrets - thank you from the bottom of my heart. In ways that that naive and scared 17 year old never would have anticipated, my life is far more confusing, complicated, hard, and amazing that I expected - and it's only because I have such amazing friends that I can walk through it with only an occasional nervous breakdown.
Life is a series of moments, memories. And today - today there were moments, meaningful moments.
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