Treasure

My husband and I went on vacation to someplace warm and sunny a while back. It was a wonderful relaxing get away, something that we had not done without our children EVER! That alone was exciting. Our schedule was our own and I guarantee if you try it you will love it. Of course we have waited over 20 years to do it. I have grey hairs from waiting so long. Annnyyyway...one of the things that I found interesting and relaxing to do was search for sea glass and shells that may have washed up on the beach. Sea glass comes from glass items that deteriorate in the water and the little bits and pieces wash up having been tumbled and smoothed in the sand...brown, white and green, and on a lucky day you might find the elusive blue. It was like treasure hunting, finding these pretty pieces and tucking them into my pocket to admire and put in a jar when I got home.

Thinking about these treasures made me also think about my treasures. Bits and pieces of me that have been tumbled and polished over the years and also the pieces of me that have become trapped and don't seem to surface as they once did. These are the treasures that we set aside over time thinking we will come back to them one day.

I want so badly to find away to get back to that part of me. 

I want to focus on the wonder and joy around me but many times get trapped in Facebook scrolling through so many wonderful sayings and stories and then often times horrified and saddened. I spend way to much time flicking my finger on the screen scanning the treasures of others while mine sit dormant. I know I have something in me that is tumbling and polishing its self and I just need to stop and take the time to search for it.

It will not be as easy as walking on the warm sunny beach...(sigh) but somehow I know if I take the time to relax and focus on the calmness and the thrill of the hunt I may even find an elusive shiny something that reminds me that I have treasure left inside me.

The Mean Girl

The Mean Girl

I was raised by a single mother. I spent a good part of my life moving from one place or another and back again. I moved so often I never really had good friends or relationships with other families. Generally I was the odd one. Always being the new kid with acne and no Dad, pretty much made me odd most of the places I moved too. Let’s just say that being bullied was not on anyone’s social awareness radar and name calling and hurtful events ensued. I would share some of the mean things that kids did and said (since when you are bullied, you never forget), but honestly it serves no purpose. The wound is still open and I don’t want to add salt.

After years of being bullied it became part of my inner dialogue. After a while I became my own bully. Looking in the mirror and seeing an ugly girl who was never good enough. No matter how hard I tried to be “good enough”, I failed. I would end up looking in the mirror ridiculing myself or carrying the mean girl bag around with me so if I had a free minute I could find a reason why I was not good enough. It’s really not hard to be your own bully once you have the right tools.

There I was standing in front of the mirror telling myself I am ugly. I dress poorly, I’m fat, no one likes me and cursing the fates for dealing me the acne card. I was uncomfortable in my own skin to the point of not being able to walk in to a restaurant alone for fear someone would see how ugly I am and make me leave. My inner mean girl dialogue reminding me that when people are looking at me all they see is someone that doesn’t measure up. I bullied myself so much that I know I have emotional scars from it. 

I have spent many years working with therapists trying to remove my inner mean girl and learning to believe in myself. I think at this point in my life I am as good as I’m ever going to be to myself. Just as I get there, my aging process decides to put a few reminders on my face and body that I am no spring chicken. Awesome! Now I have a whole new agenda for my personal mean girl to point out, aging. I know I am a mean girl to myself and I know that I am not really the person I think I see in the mirror or imagine I am. That however does not stop me from reaching back to those days of being the odd new fatherless girl with acne. I have to be honest those bully’s from my youth really got there words worth of damage in. 

My point with all this is, we are better than we think we are. If we just give ourselves a break and look around we realize that we are all flawed. Even the mean girls who found such pleasure in hurting someone else just so they felt better about themselves. Now I see that the people that strike out the most at others are the most wounded of us all. That reflection we think we see means nothing. It’s who we are, how we love others and how we do our best to reach out and remind others that there is always someone to take their hand and walk with them through the tough stuff. 

My mean girl has become faint and she is less critical, but she hangs around still. Why give up a good gig when you’ve got it? I’m not sure I will ever be completely done bullying myself, but I have come a long way since the sad days in front of the mirror. Now I have friends that love and support me. A husband that loves me just like I am and reminds me of that often, and finally my 3 daughters who have grown into amazing self sufficient women. So back off mean girl, I’m not all that bad after all!

REDEFINING

Here we are, early spring, birds chirping, sun shining, light hearted and ready for snow to slip away. Spring always seems like it sweeps in to remove the thorn of winter and make things right again. I guess in away, spring is our hero.

The birds are chirping, even on this frost covered crisp morning. I have watched birds flutter about trying to find a place to call home. Their excitement for this new season has ignited my own excitement for the changes ahead. I keep looking out for the fluttering wings and beautiful colors that spring unfolds for us. It is like spring slowly opens her hand and shares her rainbow of color and tosses excitement into the creatures around us. I felt such joy the other day when I saw a cardinal perched on a tree in my backyard. I stood watching the beautiful bird preen and look about for the next place to fly to.

Now I realize I am in my own spring. I have an overflowing agenda in the next couple months. Lots of excitement as my youngest daughter graduates college, my grandson who radiates joy and a zest for life turns one year old and brings an opportunity to see my oldest daughter and share that special time with them. Last but not least, my middle daughter will be getting married. All wonderful exciting events that I am looking forward to.

Eventually I will be back to redefining myself. I am moving out of the season of mothering into the season of being me. I struggle with the thought of focusing on myself. It is not something I have done for sometime and I believe I have lost the ability to look at myself as a priority. I am so use to wanting happiness and a good life for my family that I have tucked myself away in my mothering cloak. I may have to wrestle a bit of myself out from under the cloak. This will be a good time to do a little spring cleaning of my own and discover the treasures of who I am when I am not completely responsible for someone else’s well being. 

I am excited to rediscover myself. Who is this person that I tucked away and does she want the same things or is she ready to switch things up? One thing I know is that I have been a huge slacker with my writing and I miss it terribly. I have wondered if I set it aside so that I could just rest my brain or if I lost faith in myself and the stories I share. Whatever the reason was its time to return and let my words tumble out of my head into my fingers and on to my personal nest.

Nesting my thoughts and bringing them to life are a joy for me. The stories I have written bring me joy and they have made me cry, but each one has a big piece of me hanging out there that I want to share so that someone else feels like they are not alone. Laughing and crying over who we are, where we are and where we want to go makes us better. Each moment of revelation is another twig in our nest as we begin to rebuild ourselves. Sometimes its not about flying away, sometimes its about making a new nest with new ideas, new plans and loving ourselves because...just because, the sun is shining, the birds are chirping and its spring. Exciting, beautiful, sunny, lighthearted spring.

Facebook Vs Friendship

There is nothing quite like a hot cup of tea or coffee, a candle burning and quiet music playing. It is calming and centering. This was how I would begin my morning writing session. I use to make time for this habit each morning and then I discovered Facebook. I avoided Facebook for a while and then after some good natured pressure by friends that wanted to “keep in touch” I made the leap. Now it feels like there is no going back. 

How do I leave Facebook? I have friends and family that do not live near by and I am able to keep up on what is happening with them and their families. There are funny quotes and dog and cat videos and and and blah blah blah. Basically, I have trapped myself into following the crowd instead of blazing my own trail. I use to encourage people to join Facebook and I use to except friends left and right. Now I’m thinning out my friends list and expressing admiration to the few that say they are not on Facebook

It started when it hit home that not all those people were my friends. People that actually asked to be my friend would walk past me and not even acknowledge me. That hit me kind of hard, “Wait...what’s wrong? Aren’t we friends?” Obviously, I didn’t say that, but I would walk around with a giant chip on my shoulder and complain to my poor husband (He could care less because he got off Facebook) because “Why would someone ask to be your friend when they don’t know you well enough to recognize you?” That’s when I stepped back and thought Ohhhh. I am just as much to blame, I accepted their friend requests.

Somehow I had the idea that each and every one of them truly wanted to be my friend. The truth is I was probably a friend of a friend of theirs and hey why not? Friendship is a big deal to me and I treasure each and every person that IS a friend of mine. I like seeing the new babies and the weddings and the joyful families all together. That’s what really matters to me, the relationship. Relationship comes from sharing life with people not staring at their feed on Facebook.   

I enjoy meeting with my friends for coffee or lunch or dinner and actually hearing their voice. I look forward to the times when I can relax with friends and share stories and talk and laugh and truly bond.  There isn’t any true bonding going on as I flick my finger past peoples lives on Facebook. People share and say some crazy crap on Facebook and many times I’m sitting here wondering if they would say the same things if they were face to face with the person, actually talking instead of hiding behind Facebooks shield.

Truth be told I’m not leaving Facebook. I am a glutton for punishment. I am, however, going to be more discerning about using Facebook as a way to relieve my waiting room moments or  the times that I could be just sitting and watching the sunrise quietly or reading a book. Actually a book is a terrific idea. I haven’t read a book in quite a while. I was too busy keeping up with all my friends on Facebook (insert eye roll here). I think my plan now is to choose friendship and face to face contact over  Facebook and flicking through someone’s life. I want to be experiencing life with them. Wish me luck my friend and SEE you soon!

Swallowed Whole

After a very long break I am ready to get back to sharing my life for anyone willing to read it. I have spent way to long feeling grumpy/sad/depressed and basically a no fun grumbly human being. My friends noticed, I know they did. No one directly asked “What the heck is wrong with you?” But you could tell. I have good people in my life, but usually they are very careful about calling out the person who is bringing the party down. Sometimes calling out the grump ruins your whole time with said grump and everyone else that wants to be there and enjoy themselves.

The hardest part about being in a slump like I had was the fact that some of my friends most certainly took it personally. How could they not? My droopy attitude was not exactly the light in the room. Your people are there having a wonderful friendly time and crab ass is working hard at being invested, but just can’t quite get there because her sad self is focused on how disconnected she has become and how (thanks to the way my mind thinks) no one likes her. Here is the thing...If no one liked me, why would they want to be with me? I don’t have idiots for friends or in my family. Why would anyone intentionally invite you to a party if they don’t like you? It’s not like we are all 12 years old and their Mom made them!

There are a few reasons for why I shut down inside. I know what they are and I have let them go. I realized the best way to fight back the inner ugly me was to remember what made me happy and start doing those things again. My first step was to turn to my writing. Writing is something that heals me. I definitely need to keep healing so you are witness to step one of my road back. You read it here first! 

My second step was working hard to be more connected to my family. I really struggled with my family growing up and leaving home. I of course knew this would happen. That’s what parents shoot for, right? The truth is I selfishly expected them to work hard on being in touch with me and I didn’t think about the two way street. My girls all have busy active lives. To expect them to constantly touch base with me is so unfair. I loved being a Mom and mothering my daughters. They may have wondered at different times in their lives if this was true, but being a Mom is the best job I have ever had. Somehow in my mind when they all grew up, my mind decided it meant I was done. Truth be told, you are never done being a Mom. You just change from Full-time Mom to Part-time. That leaves open time for Mom to try new things and focus on herself for the first time in honestly, decades. Now, I try to call and touch base with each of my 3 daughters as much as possible. Many days one or more will cross my mind and I just send them a text to check in or plan a call for a specific time. That’s life in 2020 catch them when you can!

My third step is to reconnect to the love of my life, my husband, Mark. These last couple years have been very busy and with a grumpy/sad/depressed wife you can imagine how fun I have been. Mark and I both know that it takes two to tango and after some intense talks and honest conversation, the people we were, have started coming back to life. The truth is love changes, but your heart knows love and doesn’t let it go. We love spending time together and doing things together, we just got swallowed up in all the “to do” lists and life’s happenings while we were making other plans and forgot that we need each other as much as we do. It feels good to be able to openly talk about the feelings that I carried around and angrily blamed him for. 

My heart is finally healing and my head is mostly clear. I would say that I am probably 90% better. There is still a little piece of me that lurks on the darker side but those things are not things I can control and I do my best to glance in that direction to keep tabs on things, but not let myself get swallowed whole and revert to Debbie total downer again. It just isn't fun to be sad. It literally brings me to tears just writing that, but its true. No one goes there on purpose. No one wants to be grumpy/sad/depressed. It just slowly grows inside you and one day you realize you have been swallowed whole. If you are swallowed whole, or know of someone that is please talk to them, share your heart, phone a friend or just slowly find your way back. Trust me, you are missed. 

Be Careful What You Wish For

On The Edge Of Parenting

Well, its a week and a half away. The day my youngest moves back to college for her senior year. I have complained and nagged and laughed and cried over the last few months and now I am faced with letting go again. Say what you want about parenting, but you have to admit that even the worst days with our children are always forgotten and the joyful times seem to rise to the top. I'm a bit melancholy about this next lift off for our young one. All that fussing and frustration is melting away and I’m looking down the barrel of all the alone time I have craved.

It  wasn't too long ago (maybe a few weeks) that I just wanted some peace and quiet. Now the possibility of endless time alone is just days away and I'm wondering if the old saying “Be careful what you wish for” might apply here. This person that Mark and I worked so hard to get ready for the world is just about to launch and I’m starting to drag my heels a bit. Perhaps my alone time is overrated. I realize our girl isn't going that far, but its more the emotional distance. As our girls have grown so has their independence. They are each building lives of their own and doing a darn good job if I do say so myself.

I am proud and happy for each of our children. They have had their struggles, but they all have the skill needed to find their way out of them. I have missed each one as they have grown and moved into adulthood and this last one will be no different. I know I complain about the different ideas and ways things are done, but in the end those things really do not matter. I wish I could remember that when I am on my last nerve.

Now I am learning to parent from the edge. No longer knee deep in my children's business, I circle around the outside like a good mother bird, waiting to swoop in if I am needed. I am not needed often but the girls know I am here. This will be a learning process for me now, learning how and when to swoop in. I wish I could say something that sounded confident. Something that would sound like I will handle this life change without losing balance, but I am sure that there will be a tumble here and there. I am going to fall off the edge now and then, that is to be expected. I have been watching over these girls for almost 34 years (when my first was born). Learning not to mother is going to take some time.

So if you are bored check in on my blog now and then and see how I’m coming along. I hope to be better about writing, I miss it. Knowing there is someone out there curious about how crazy I really am keeps me coming back.