Looking back, and forward

It's incredibly strange (and a touch embarassing) to stumble onto the musings and dallyings of your twenty-something self.

So young, so naive. So much time. I thought there was so much time to be had in life. Actually, no - that's not true. I didn't even give it any thought. I lived like there were always going to be tomorrows. I lived like I could always start tomorrow, start learning that instrument or writing that book. Start that life I really wanted.  

This side of forty, with forty-one just weeks away, I am in a strange crossroads of slowing down and speeding up. As I get older life comes faster and faster. I have a clear sense of being halfway through the journey and I can see the less-distant endpoint, something I never gave thought to as a younger woman. At the same time, I feel like I am finally learning to slow down and be present in the moment.

I've made a lot of mistakes. As a perfectionist, it is hard for me to start again, feeling like I've already muddied the waters. When I was a child, if I messed up on a drawing, I was that kid who would crumple the page up and start all over again on a fresh sheet of paper. I can't do that in life, and being forced to live with my past as I try to build a future is a wonderful exercise in growth. Sometimes it feels like a scratchy tag in the neck of my t-shirt, periodically creating little moments of discomfort. But I'm learning to be still with my dis-ease, let it exist. For so much of my life I swam against the current of anxiety and didn't realise how exhausting it was. I pushed and splashed and made things harder for myself. By letting go, I have more control than I ever did when I was trying to exert some. I can't control anything else, but I can control me. I'm working on it. 

Anti-status updates

I logged into Blogger for what appears to have been the first time in about 16 months. This is the last post I'd written, back in January of 2019. Thought I'd click publish just for grins.

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Apparently I’ve always presented a fairly polished exterior, even before the world of social media. It’s only recently I learned how much people assumed that I have my shit together. I don’t. I’m a hot mess as much as anyone, maybe more.
I look back at my Facebook and Instagram from the past couple of months since my separation, and it sure does sound like everything is ducky. I am sure and peaceful in my decision, and I know in the long run I will be happier, more peaceful, hopefully more mindful and more kind. But it is a journey, and I have largely shared the ups but seldom the downs.
So, on that note, here is a list of divorce social media "status updates" that have come across my mind in the past months:


I can do anything alone. Except put the leaf in my dining room table.

They say that motherhood is like having your heart live outside of your chest. Divorced motherhood is that, except that you only get to be with it half of the time.

It’s disorienting, not having anyone to check in with.

Spending more time than nurses usually do, crying in the bathroom at work. Mostly triggered by little old couples who grew old together and take such tender care of one another.

Clouds

(I wrote this last fall.)

Clouds are funny things.

On happy days, clouds pair perfectly with a mug of spiced chai and a good book. Their dense fluff drapes gently over your shoulders much like the soft, tattered afghan your grandmother crocheted for you so many years ago. They envelop both you and the story into which you are slipping. You pull the clouds, and your blanket, closer around you as you settle comfortably, contentedly into the words and the mist.

But on sad days, you feel the wet, dense grayness of clouds bearing down heavily on your soul. It's hard to draw a deep breath against their weight, let alone get out of bed. Draw the covers over your head instead, shielding yourself from the damp melancholy. The clouds shower you with your cold, wet insecurities and fears. You burrow deeper beneath the quilt to escape the drenching downpour of self doubt. Perhaps you, and the sun, will try again tomorrow. 

And some days, clouds have no meaning at all. They simply exist. Some days you feel the same way. 

But the best days - the very best of days - are the days on which the clouds brilliantly showcase the splendor of the world. They team together with the sun, painting declarations of joy with sunset colors in the sky. The evening sun bathes the horizon with rich, thick light, but it is the clouds that capture it, soften it, make it art. The clouds reveal the beauty. 

Maybe clouds aren't funny at all. Maybe people are. 

Emotions, feelings. 

As unpredictable as the weather.

The thing

Writing. Writing has always been one of my favorite things. It’s been years since I spent any real time doing the thing. It’s not so much that I ran out of stuff to say (have we met?), but I ran out of time and energy to say the things I was thinking. And the things, they got bigger. Broader. Required more work to wordsmith than time I had free in the day. I grew discontented writing little snippets of my life (not to mention that microblogging like Twitter and Facebook statuses more than satisfied that need), and I wanted to say more.


So the thing is, I want to write a story. My god, do I have a story to tell. Love and learning and hope and fear and passion and loss. And growth. But before I endeavor to put pen to paper for something so big, it’s time to begin writing small. I need to tinker and fuss with words about things that mean less to me before I tackle something that means my heart.

So here, on this largely defunct platform on the backwaters of the internet, I will begin to write again. I will write here so that one day, I will be ready to write.

I just want to go home

The phrase “I just want to go home” has such a different meaning as an adult. When I say it now I mean something more than wanting to return to my place of residence. It means more than returning to my parents’ home. I think it means returning to a time and place where I felt safe, felt sure, felt home.
Some days I’m tired and I just want to go home.

The rules have changed.

There's nothing like a letter or a call from an old friend. It's fun to get a blast from the past, to play catch up and learn what's happened in their story since you were last in it.

These days, this is done differently. We are, in essence, in touch with almost everyone from our past via social networking sites. I no longer have to wonder what is going on in the world of my best friend from sixth grade, whom I have not seen in fifteen years - she's posting on facebook, and I get her updates regularly. The information flows in from friends from college, high school, even elementary school. I personally love the feeling of connectedness this gives me. Even though many of the people I am in contact with online are not an active part of my world, it's wonderful to see the joys and adventures of their lives. The flip side is that being constantly plugged in to my whole history of acquaintances keeps me in constant contact with my past. Much of it is fond memories of good times and old friends, but this connectedness also tends to, on occasion, dredge up chapters of my life that I would prefer not to revisit on a regular basis.

I don't have big scary skeletons in my closet. It's about down times in my life, times when I wasn't someone I feel proud of, ruts I was stuck in. These moments, events, phases of my life already live on a well worn film loop, which runs on repeat through my wary brain on the occasional sleepless night. I don't like having another gap in my world for them to slip in through.

This change in social connections came, as all advances do, before the etiquette to utilize it. I have friends in my lists of contacts with whom I have no connection other than the fact that we sat next to one another in a class at one point in my middle school career. Most of those people I added years ago when I first joined facebook or other social networking sites, out of the sheer amazement of "wow, I know that person!" Also in my news feed are ex-boyfriends, spouses of friends, ex-spouses of friends... I very much like everyone on my friends list, but I can't help but wonder -- are there some people we're just supposed to lose touch with? I don't mean that in a negative way at all, I just can't help but think that in some ways there are supposed to be people who only exist in our lives as fond memories. The rules have changed, but I'm not sure we know what they are just yet. Twenty years from now, it'll be interesting to see how the social world has evolved.

Running foo'

Yesterday I went for my first outdoor run since November of 2009. It was amazing...ly hard. It felt great to be outside - just me, the pavement, my ipod, and some sunshine. In some ways, though, it felt like starting over. Two and a half miles had my lungs searing, and the extra weight on my frame made me feel like I was running in slow motion. Clearly, I have some work to do, if I'm going to keep my date with the 2011 Missoula half marathon... I stood her up last year, what with being enormously pregnant and all, and I don't want to leave her hangin' two years in a row.

Resolve 2011.

2010 was an amazing year for me. Left a job. Started a family. I really began a new chapter in my life. Experienced new levels of happiness, new kinds of fear. My experiences over the year have helped me to recognize some of my best personal qualities, but also some of my worst. I am choosing to use this knowledge to learn, and hopefully to grow into a better person over the coming year. So with that, here are my resolutions:

Eliminate envy. I have a lovely home, a comfortable life, plenty of stuff. In today's commercial, material world, it's easy to want for more, and I am so susceptible to envying a friend's car, house, whatever. I need to remember to be grateful for the many things I have, and quit comparing my life to others'. I read something I really liked not too long ago - it said, "Happiness isn't in getting what you want, it's in wanting what you've got." Good plan.

Practice patience. In some situations, I have endless patience. Somehow, I haven't been able to translate that patience to parenting as well as I would like. I hope over this year to begin growing into the parent I want to be - patient, understanding, consistent, kind.

Live in the moment. I often feel like I am waiting for life to start. Waiting for something to change, waiting for something to happen. With all this waiting, I'm missing out on life. I'm going to spend more time celebrating little moments and enjoying life while it's great, which is right now.

Lean on myself. I've gotten so used to being able to rely on my amazing family and friends when I'm having a tough time, I feel as though I've gotten wimpier. It's time to buck up just a little. :)

Stand up straight! From nine months of pregnancy and now infant toting motherhood, my posture has been beaten into submission. As my high school marching band teacher said "Shoulders Up, Back and Down!"

And in the true spirit of New Year's Resolutions...

Lose weight. I have fourteen baby pounds to go. Treadmill, here I come.

Wishing a very happy, peaceful New Year to you all.

Merry Christmas!

We got plenty of happy, content baby photos, but this is still my favorite:

Hope your Christmas was merry and bright!

A boob is a short leash.

I am breastfeeding my daughter. She took to nursing like a pro, latching on the delivery room just minutes after she was born. It is a wonderful bonding experience, and I enjoy it, despite the difficulties we've encountered along the way.

Little bear has a sensitivity to both dairy and soy proteins, so I've had to eliminate all sources of dairy and soy from my diet - which unfortunately rules out most prepackaged goods (flip over and read the package of almost anything, and you'll find that dairy and soy are common additives to most foods). I'm trying to view this as an adventure to combat the feelings of deprivation. I prepare a lot more things from scratch now, and am very familiar with my local whole foods, the Good Food Store. But I miss cheese. And butter. And bagels with cream cheese. Omg, cream cheeeeeseee... Okay, enough dreaming about foods. Overall, I'm doing pretty well with the diet thing. It won't be forever. And when it's over I will eat my body weight in cheddar cheese and butter.

My little bear is a HUNGRY bear. Breastfed babies naturally eat more frequently than formula fed ones (breastmilk is easier for their little tummies to digest, so it moves through more quickly and they feel hungry sooner than their formula fed friends), but this kiddo is a serial nurser. At three and a half months, she still nurses every two hours, all day, like clockwork. She does sleep a decent four or five hour stretch at night, so I do get a little break then. I'm hoping she'll turn a corner any time now, but if she doesn't soon then she's going to get to start rice cereal a little earlier than originally planned!

I have a nice breast pump so that we have milk available if I'm not there to nurse her. In the first couple of months we gave her a few bottles of breastmilk, just to make sure that she could figure out how to drink from a bottle. She did it with no problems, so I didn't think much of it. However, we haven't had any need to give her a bottle for probably the last month, and since we planned to leave her with a babysitter one day this week, we thought we should test out her bottle skills. EPIC FAIL. She seemed absolutely affronted that we would even suggest she drink milk from anything besides mom. She screamed and screamed, and left my poor husband a little shell shocked from the experience. I have to admit, after this development I had a small-ish breakdown. I have been apart from her from maybe three feedings ever, so I was really looking forward to leaving her with a sitter and going out with Luis. Everything I do at present must fit into the hour and a half I have after she nurses and before she wants to nurse again. For errands and such it's no biggie, we just park the car and nurse wherever - but I would really love to go join the grownup world for an evening every so often. We're in the process of trying different bottles and nipples, and other tricks for getting a breastfed babe to drink a bottle (change of scenery, change of schedule, etc). I'm hoping one of these works, but if not then I'm not sure what comes next.

I know I'm complaining a lot here, but honestly I'm still happy that I chose to breastfeed and have been able to stick with it. I love the quiet times in the middle of the night, snuggled up in our rocking chair nursing. It's so beautiful, so natural. I am in awe of my body and how it just knows what to do. (Seriously. I freaking make milk. Craziness? I think so.) A year from now the difficulties will be a distant memory, and I'll probably yearn for those special nighttime moments with my little girl - but the benefits she gets from nursing will last her a whole lifetime, and I can't think of a better gift to give my daughter.