Barnmaven

They grow on you

Maybe it's because I'm tired. I've been involved in a project at work that has been, to say the least, consuming. We are undergoing a major systems upgrade and I'm one of the team leads. The conversion starts tonight, and I think as the upgrade part of the project wraps up and the actual launch of the new system has become imminent, I find myself feeling a lot of big emotions. Pride in my work and in the team I've been honored to work with; concern for the people I manage whose workdays will be tough for a while because such a big change makes accomplishing your daily workload pretty tough; anticipation of the period of time beyond those post-launch difficulties, when I'll have less on my plate and more time to be there for my team, more time to listen, more time to engage in my usual activities. 

Considering all of this, it shouldn't be a surprise to find myself overwhelmed by tears this morning as I was driving to work. I'd been idly thinking about the kids' upcoming fall birthdays. My daughter will turn sweet sixteen. My son will become a teenager. They are far past the halfway point in their evolution towards being independent young adults. Sooner than I am ready for, my daughter will learn to drive. The leap of growth that will naturally follow this new independence is going to be the start of her transition into being not my child, but my adult daughter. She will learn what it means to make big decisions, she will learn what it means to have more responsibility, what it means to take care of herself not as a child in her parents' households, but eventually as a young adult in her own living space. All of this big change, it occurred to me, is just a few short years away, far closer on the timeline of being her mother than the years where she still needed help tying her shoes. My thoughts went into overdrive, and I imagined her going off to college somewhere, or moving into her own apartment someday not very far off, and I burst into tears.

I know my job is to turn her into an independent adult. I have always known that someday she would leave my care and go out into the world. I understand that's the deal we make when we bring them into this world. It's just that there was never any point, until now, that I realized just how little time I have left with her. How could anyone ever be ready to see their baby take those first steps out into the world? Even so, I couldn't be prouder of who she is and who she is becoming.  I just have to figure out how to navigate that change without being overprotective while at the same time being just protective enough. You can't let go and cling at the same time; you have to let them know that you're OK with them growing up and that their job was never to take care of you. You have to trust them, trust yourself to let them enter a world that is going to be hard and beautiful and terrifying and exciting. You have to let them experience failure, and make sure they hear you cheering when they have success. I want, more than anything, adult children who need only a minimal amount of therapy to tell their friends, "I have a really good relationship with my mom."

I know all of this, and still, I get to feel my feelings and be sad that my babies are growing up. That's how it works.

 

Larger than Life

I've not written much about my dad here.  Our relationship has been, for as long as I can remember, complicated by our similar natures - emotional, prickly, invested.   Most of my memories of my dad from my late teens through my early twenties involve yelling and tears.  Neither of us seemed able to stop trying to be "right" louder than the other long enough to listen to what the other was saying.

Dad is larger than life in a million different ways.  People don't meet him without being impacted by his huge personality.  I like to think I take after him in that way, but for both of us this is often as detrimental as helpful.  He is deeply emotional, and most of his words and actions bear testimony to it. 

Dad grew up dirt poor.  The youngest of six, he was born to working class parents in Ononta, MI on the Upper Peninsula in 1927,  just before the onset of the Great Depression.  Dad recalls never having new clothes, only hand-me-downs, and when the weather was warm they went barefoot.  When dad was still very young, his family left Michigan on a train bound for Idaho.  Like many depression-era families, his parents hoped to find work, and a better life. 

After the family settled in Post Falls, Idaho, my grandfather did find work, on the CCC and WPA government projects.  He drowned while working on a WPA project on the river in Post Falls .  My father was only 12 years old.

Loss, poverty, hard work - these things shape a person.  Dad is one of the hardest working men I have ever known.  He dropped out of high school at 16 to start earning a living wage in order to help out his family.  He served one tour as an enlisted marine.  He worked on Foss tugs in Alaska, earning his captain's license.  When he met and married my mom he already had a decade behind him as a fireboat captain for the Seattle Fire Department.  In those days, firemen didn't make a terrific living, and so he worked weekends too, taking carpentry and painting jobs to supplement his income so my mother could stay home with my brother and I. 

 

Before he retired from the SPD he and mom bought some acreage on Marrowstone Island.  He built a house there, working on it on his days off.  Retirement didn't last long, however, and it was not long before he started a second career, working on the decks of the Washington ferry system. 

Whenever I recall my dad during the years of my childhood, I picture him working constantly. If he wasn't at his job, he was fixing a car, putting up fence, building a barn.

I will never in my life hear the phrase "Hard Working Man" without picturing my dad.

I spent most of my childhood thinking that my dad was angry.  It is only with the perspective of a working adult that I realize he was probably more tired than anything.  He was also a man of strong conviction about how people ought to treat other people, about doing the right thing, and those beliefs drove almost everything about him - and to others, often translated into orneriness.  He had no patience for cheaters or people who took the easy way out. 

There's another word that comes to mind when I think of my father:  Love. 

My dad has loved me unwaveringly for my whole life.  Even though I can think of only a handful of times he has said so in words, he has spent my lifetime showing me his love by giving of himself.  Anyone who knows my father knows that his family is the most precious thing to his heart.  He gave me endless hours of his time, teaching me to drive, teaching me to change my oil, driving me to horse shows and basketball camps, coming to my musicals and plays and games to cheer me on.  He valued education, particularly because he had to interrupt his own, and he and my mother put a priority on making sure my brother and I would have a college education available to us.  

Dad has always seemed larger than life to me, and in retrospect maybe I argued with him so much because if I could convince my Dad that I was right about something, nothing else would ever again seem difficult or impossible.  He was that stubborn.  Earning his approval has driven me for nearly all of my life.  It wasn't until I was in my forties that I realized I didn't need it.  Having his love was always more important, and his love was always unconditional.

Dad's in the early stages of dementia now, but he's still larger than life and his love for his family is undiminished.  He's difficult, to be sure, but then again, he always has been - another trait he so generously passed on to his daughter.  Living with his difficulty was the worthwhile price for being one of the people he loves.  

The relationship between a father and his daughter is the relationship by which she will judge all other men.  If our relationship was somewhat codependent, it was also resilient.  I could always, always trust that my father would love me and that he would be there for me, and that trust has been the rock solid foundation I could rest on.  No matter what goes wrong in my life, my Dad still loves me.  That is a priceless gift to give your child.

I owe him far more than I could ever repay.  Happy Father's Day, to the first and best man in my life.

 

Screaming at the walls

A much-loved friend is coping with the unimaginable horror of saying goodbye to her 23 year old son this week, which provides very necessary perspective to my own life.

I would lose all faith in God except that I never believed he was some Santa Claus in the sky waiting to give us things we ask for and who keeps us safe if we behave ourselves and keep to the script.  I suppose that's what people who do not believe imagine that those of faith think, which makes the scoffing entirely understandable.

How do you tell someone things will be all right when you have no grounds whatsoever for believing that to be true?  Nothing is ever entirely all right, not ever, not in this sea of humanity where fate is often cruel and people do both terrible and wonderful things to one another.  I only know that if there are answers, I do not have them and therefore I have to simply muddle along like everyone else, hoping to make sense out of the things I can see and touch.  The magic, I suppose, comes from the the inexplicable within me, whatever place that is that generates my thoughts and dreams. Soul or subconscious, it is the source of my best and worst moments and I suppose for all of us, it is what makes us each unique.  I choose to believe that is the creation of the Divine, and that it is both the place where the best things and the worst things we do spring from,which is what makes God such a mystery.

I want answers, but I know I'll not get them. and so I just stand in the shower and scream at the walls and hope a little bit of the grief and horror of witnessing my friends loss from afar swirl down the drain along with my tears and the last of the suds from the shampoo.

The cliche comes easily.  Far from trite, it bristles with truth:  Life is short.  

Too short.  

I watched Alyx grow up from afar, through pictures and stories his mom shared in a small  group of mothers I met when I was still pregnant with my son, over a decade ago.  We were - and are - a tight little band and we have always been there for one another.  We've shared things with each other that even our partners and our families don't know.  We've been there for one another through medical crises, marriages, breakups, job successes and job losses, births, lost pregnancies, family drama.  When my brother died some of the most comforting words came from these friends, along with a box stuffed full of love and concern.  But this - this is the worst imaginable thing ever to happen to one of our own.  We've all lost someone who we held a small part of in our hearts and we're struggling to know what best to do to give our friend some measure of comfort, how to be there for her in the days, weeks, months, years to come and how to say the right things (or not say the wrong things, there's always that).  

Hold your loved ones tight my friends.  They are not yours, they never were, and the profound love you feel for them is no barrier against what life may bring.  Every single day - EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. - you spend with those you love is a fucking GIFT.  Please don't waste it.  Resolve, if you haven't already, to create value in those moments with your children, your family, your partners, your friends.

Goodbye sweet Alyx.  You are one of the best that ever was and you are going to be deeply missed by many.  

 

 

Introducing LaLa

At about 7 am this morning LaLa made her grand and much-anticipated entrance.  Mama went past her due date by more than a week, but I guess we should not have been surprised, since her previous two foals were also born on April 24th.  Now LaLa shares a birthday not only with her full sister Princess, but with her half-brother Bugs.  

I am filled with gratitude that she is healthy, but also so tickled that all my silly wishes came true.  I wanted a filly.  I wanted color.  LaLa is the whole package.  She's perfect.

I haven't settled on what to register her as, but her barn name "LaLa" got stuck in my head about a month ago.  I suppose its a good thing she's filly, that would be a horrible name to stick on a colt.

Welcome to this great big world, little filly.  You and I are going to have such fun!

 

Special thanks to Michelle who let this mare have just one more filly before breaking the mold and for letting her be mine.  

 

Doing it for myself

Photo by Mary H Peret, 2013.  Coyote sets a good example for people who need to learn to depend on themselves.

Owning your feelings, actions and results can be so challenging at times.  Before I began to learn about how to be self-dependent and not co-dependent, I would find myself mired in thoughts of how things would be better if only other people would do something.  I thought healing was something other people did for you, that if I simply received enough bolstering at the hands of caring others that I would be OK.  Clinging to that expectation was actually one of the things that prevented me from really healing at all.

Its not that love and compassion don't help.  When I'm having a hard time it feels good to know that other people are thinking of me with love and concern.  Its uplifting to have a friend or loved one reach out.  Other people can be so helpful, but ultimately I'm the only one who can do what's necessary to heal and grow.

I think I will always be learning this process of sitting with my feelings and letting them happen instead of trying to avoid them by any means possible.  Feelings can be huge and scary and sometimes they feel like they're going to swallow me whole.  That's when it seems easiest and best to just avoid them altogether.  Distraction can wear a thousand faces -- a drink, a movie, exercise, getting together with other people to talk about things NOT related to feeling bad.  The list is long.  Distraction isn't always bad -- sometimes you need a chance to back off from that big dark emotional weight and let a little light into the room.  Eventually, though, if you are going to truly get to a place where that feeling no longer controls you, you're going to need to sit down and get cozy with it.  Let it happen.  

Once I was able to start letting feelings happen I found I was also able to start letting circumstances happen, and then...my whole life changed.

But it started with the kernel of an understanding: No one else can fix me.  It isn't their job. 

Believing that, I then began to understand that I also was not able to fix anyone else either.

I wanted to keep doing that, and so I argued with myself that not fixing other people meant I didn't love them or that I didn't have compassion for them.  So I had to struggle for a while to learn that in truth, having compassion for other people meant caring for them while they dealt with their own struggles, not trying to solve their circumstances for them.  Which is more loving?  Assuming another person is incapable of handling their own problems, or loving them enough to give them the freedom to find their own truths?  

I often wonder what my turning point was, when it was that the scales fell from my eyes and I realized that my struggles were my own responsibility.  I remember the very first time I was talking to someone who was having a crisis and when they told me of their pain, for the first time instead of offering myself as a resource, I simply said "I'm so sorry this is happening to you" and left it at that.  I resisted the urge to do or say more, and let them continue to talk to me about how they were feeling, continued to listen and offer empathy and made no offer of solutions.  After I hung up the phone I had to sit quietly for a little while.  It was a big change for me, and it felt simultaneously amazing and awkward.  I experienced some humility, because it finally occurred to me that I was NOT such an amazing person that I was the answer to people's problems.  I realized that when I acted in that way what I was really doing was trying to be important.  That stung, a little.  OK, maybe a lot.  It was a big first step, swallowing the fact that I was not the good person I imagined myself to be.

That was the rock that fell down the face of the slope that started the landslide, that started my journey.

Today, in my life right now, I have lots of emotions that I'm dealing with.  Anxiety, fear, loneliness are there.  But they are intermingled with joy and love and contentedness.  I can't avoid being lonely, but I can talk to that feeling, invite it in for a sit-down.  I can acknowledge it, touch the pain it brings, let it move through me.  It is a wave - it comes, it peaks, it passes.  Fighting the waves makes the swimmer tired, makes her gasp for her breath, drains all of her energy.  When she lets go and allows herself to float on top of the wave she is no longer in danger of drowning.

A lot of lovely friends and family have expressed concerns over how long SG will be gone on this job.  I hear them, and I cannot be dishonest and claim this will be easy.  But I know who my husband thinks I am, and that is the woman I want to be.  The woman he sees when he looks at me knows how to take care of herself both physically and emotionally.  The only reason (other than money) that he could feel OK taking a job out of state for such a long period of time is because he believes not just in himself but in me.  He's not immune to my feelings nor am I to his.  But he loves a woman he sees as strong and self-reliant.  I need to let that fact sink in and remember it during the times when I'm challenged by my loneliness and fear.   He can't fix it for me whether he's here or not -- I can only fix it for myself, believing that I have everything I need within me.  

And I do.

 

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Extremes and the going to of them

The perfect relationship.  The perfect mate.  The perfect marriage.

SG and I on our wedding day, Nov 2011

 Do these things exist?  Perhaps they are merely chimeras that distract us from the more distressing realities of adult relationships.  When people are ready to discard the fairy tale and acknowledge that relationships are messy and hard and not as constantly satisfying as the diamond sellers' commercials would have us believe, they are faced with the daunting task of sifting through their relationships past and present.  Eventually you have to pick a place to stand, and if the fairytale is the only genre you wish to attach to your relationship, likely you will end up standing alone.  

This is not my "perfect relationship."  In my perfect relationship, my partner and I get to be both together and apart in relatively equal portions.  We nearly always have the opportunity to express our affection in ways that feel good - hugs and kisses, holding hands, a neckrub at the end of a hard day.  When we're apart it is only for long enough to remind us to appreciate each other's presence.  

I find myself continually needing to relearn the lesson of letting go of "perfect" and being happy with what I have.  Some days it is easier than others.  On this Valentine's Day it is particularly challenging.

I find the most difficult part of being married to someone who works for long periods on the road is getting used to being a ping pong ball flying between paddles labeled ALL and NOTHING.  When he's home, he's home 24/7.  When he leaves, I'm on my own.  

When he's home, he wants to help with everything.  I don't know if that's just that he is a person who gains pleasure from doing all that he can for the people he loves or if he's assuaging some level of guilt over not having been able to be physically present, but my husband doesn't want me to have to do much when he's around.  Like every couple we each have our preferences for the kind of chores we prefer to be stuck with, but even if there are few tasks I usually end up doing, he carries the bulk of it.  Meals, laundry, dishes, dogs, getting kids out the door to school.  I had to beg him to stop feeding my horses so that I would be able to have a chance to see them every evening.  In the mornings all I'm responsible for is getting myself out the door.  I come home in the evening and if he hasn't already got dinner on the table he suggests we order something; never does he expect me to come home from work and cook.  He picks up things he knows I like at the grocery store.  I'm spoiled rotten and I know it. 

When SG is gone, I build my own routine.  My days, while lonely, have a comforting rythym.  I am much more disciplined with my time when I am the only one home to tend to things - dishes and laundry get done, things get picked up, meals get made and animals get fed.  There isn't much wiggle room for lollygagging in the morning, so I quickly learn to be efficient and not play so many games on my phone while I'm eating breakfast.  The kids and I turn into a cozy little team.  I involve them in the decision making a little more, we have more one on one time.  I try to find things to depend upon them for so that they learn to be dependable.  I remember to appreciate not only how spoiled I am by my husband but to be appreciative of my independence and ability to take care of things on my own.

Usually it feels like I've no sooner gotten into the swing of my routine when my husband returns.  It is a period of adjustment for both of us -he's been on the road with only his own needs to tend to.  We've both gotten used to having time to ourselves.  Its really hard for me, I think harder because at least SG gets a break from people while I'm at work.  I, on the other hand, spend almost no time alone in my own home.  Between mid-December and yesterday the longest I was alone in my house was one Sunday when SG went to church and I didn't want to go.  

But when he's gone, the loneliness can get unbearably difficult.  There is an ocean of difference between being alone by choice and being alone because you can't be with the people you love.  When the kids are also gone, the first few hours feel like heaven and the rest of the time feels like punishment. 

No, this is not easy.  

But -

I'm not alone because my husband doesn't want to be with me.  He's just as lonely as I am when he goes on the road, at least once he gets beyond those first heady days of enjoying his solitude.  He misses those hugs and date nights just as much as I.  If it were up to me I might not have picked a career on the road for my husband, but isn't my choice to make.   I might be happier if he were here, but when he had a less-than-satisfying job that kept him home, he was really miserable.  I'd far rather have a partner who feels good about his work and his contribution to our family than one who is miserable and angry and feeling trapped.  

I know there are people right now who would be thrilled to have a two-income household even it meant their partner had to be somewhere else for a little while.   So I'll take my first-world problems and I'll remind myself to continue to find positives so that maybe the bad days won't roll around so often.

However --

Valentine's Day can seriously kiss my first-world ass this year.

Into the Deafening Silence

I don't know what to write here anymore.

I lost my mojo.  I lost my will.  I have things to say, but fear this is not the place.  I have truths to share but I cannot share them without hurting other people, so I hold them inside.  I have learned things about love, life, work, relationships, things I want to share but risk exposing myself and others in uncomfortable ways.  I have stories about my kids but realize as they grow older that their stories are not mine to tell.  I  I am not ready to give this space up, yet, and so I will work on finding the right words with which to fill it.

Today:

I am on a journey in a landscape I could never have dreamed of as a child - as a parent, as a professional, as a partner and as a human being.  I'm living in a balance between extremes -  I feel I've accomplished everything and nothing all at the same time.  I'm stuck in the churn of the waves washing up on the shore, tumbling about and never sure which way leads to the sky and air and which way leads to the rocks.  

One of the most interesting things I've learned lately is that I'm happy.  I really am happy.  I'm also unbearably sad.  And strangely I can feel both of those things at the same time, comfortably.  Somewhere along the way I must have improved my coping skills.

I'm happy because I am loved and I am surrounded by people I love.  I'm happy in my lifes' circumstances, with my family and my friends, my horses and my farm, my job, my faith and my lifestyle.  I'm blessed richly and I know that I had better enjoy all of the goodness this life contains because it could change on the flip of a coin.  

I'm sad because life is so often sad, because people I care about have problems I can't fix, because like everyone I've suffered losses and miss those loved ones so, because sometimes my own circumstances can be as challenging as they are beautiful. For instance:  SG will leave sometime in the next ten days and won't return until the end of the year.  Right now it feels a little overwhelming, but I know that this is not a bad thing, its just a thing.  For SG its a wonderful thing because he will be working and making money and that makes him feel good and safe, feel like he is providing for us.  For me it means a little more heavy lifting but I have good support and I'll be OK.  We'll both be lonely; it won't kill us.  He will most likely be able to come home for a couple of long weekends and I suppose I'll be spending some of my vacation days to go catch a gander at the east end of Nebraska.  

It makes me both happy and sad - happy for my husband because he is happy.  Sad for being alone when I have such a great husband and friend to share time with.  Happy to have time to myself to do things that only I enjoy the doing of.  Sad to think of weekends, special days, family moments without an important part of our little family with us.  Happy to know I have a great relationship that can withstand long separations.  Sad to know I have a great relationship in which long separations are part of the deal.

This is my life today.  

Thanks, God, for this wonderful life.

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Happy New Year, friends.  Thanks for spending your valuable and precious time reading and commenting here.

We've had freezing fog for several days now.  Everything outside looks as if it has been flocked, even the sagebrush.  Its beautiful and miserable at the same time.  Dry cold and dry heat share similar qualities in that they don't cling to you like the humid versions.  The guy from the heating & cooling company that was out to do our semi-annual service looked so miserable SG tipped him extra so he could go get a hot lunch somewhere.

I took some days off over the holidays and we were devoted practitioners of the art of lounging around in our pj's.  Settling in on the sofa underneath a quilt and watching shows on Netflix is a perfect way to exist when the outside temperature refuses to rise above freezing.   Yes, I'm fully into lazy mode.  SG came home on the 18th, so I took a couple of days off that week, worked the Monday before Christmas, took more days off after Christmas, and just went back to work yesterday.  I spent most of the last two days realizing just how many emails are in my inbox awaiting response and trying desperately to prioritize them.   One does not simply return from vacation all primed and ready to function like a real adult.  No, one does not.  This one, at any rate.  

The sensation 2013 left in me was that of riding a bullet train.  I may be simply echoing what so many others are saying, but the nature of time to march forward with ever-growing impulsion leaves me feeling somewhat out of breath and out of step.  I look back and realize I've hit middle age without every really seeing it coming.  Now is the time of life for me to really concentrate on enjoying the moment I'm in; the hourglass of my lifetime is running out of sand faster with each passing year. 

The more I try to fit everything in, the less time I have to enjoy any of it, the less I am able to allow each moment to distill by not being present.  So although I will be following my own tradition and not making formal resolutions for 2014, I do think the theme for this year will be to slow down a little bit and spend more time drinking in the quality of my life, experiencing and expressing gratitude.   

Even if our cold snap ends before tomorrow I have a feeling I will be spending more time in my pjs.  It will be a good start to the year.  May the New Year bring us all more days of peaceful enjoyment and fewer days of hurry and worry.

Peace and God bless.

 

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Brrrr!

Oh Christmas.

A (sort of) love story, in pictures

Juliet loves Roscoe.   He isn't her Romeo, but he is her third-favorite pillow after Amazon Girl's lap and mine.

He's not the love of her life nor she his, but they do share a sweet, special kind of relationship.  

The Nap Dance usually follows the same format.

1.  Roscoe finds a cozy place to take his afternoon siesta, usually the couch, or like today, the easy chair that used to belong to SG's Grandma Lois.  Juliet, searching for her own cozy place, spies the object of her affection.

2.  She approaches carefully, checking to make sure he isn't averse to her affections:

3.  Once it appears he accepts her affections, she gives him a nice back massage as a thank-you:

4.  Massage complete, now its time for siesta!

What is this "fighting like cats and dogs" of which you speak?

Saying the right things

I was talking with a friend about how you know you've met the right person.

She related a conversation she'd had with a potential new love interest.  She'd asked a pointed sex-related question and had just loved his response.  "It was the absolute perfect answer!"

I think back to when SG and I were dating.  There were a ton of those moments, and there still are.  When you're having a conversation and questions come up - big questions, small questions, silly questions, serious - the answer given can either remind you why this person is the yin to your yang or give you pause about whether you were possibly drunk when you decided to commit.

The interesting thing about it, at least to me, is that where those answers come from tell you as much about your relationship as the answers themselves.

The perfect answer when its spontaneous and unfiltered is a heady thing.  Its confirmation that you are compatible.  You mesh in ways that make communication easy because in some important areas you believe in the same things.  Those answers are the answers that tell you your partner will be reliable in an emergency, that he'll pick the right things to take out of a burning house, that when faced with a deadline and a choice of Valentine's Day presents he'll bring home the one you'll like best.

But there's an even better perfect answer.  

The best perfect answer is the one that comes from a place of having gotten to know each other deeply.  Its the answer that you will get from someone who understands you, cares about you, respects you.  Its the answer that isn't off the cuff, the one where he pauses for a moment and carefully considers his words, then delivers a remark or phrase that lets you know he understands what is important to you.  Maybe he's pulling verbal punches or maybe he's stretching an unimportant truth to please you.  Maybe he's backing away from an emotionl reaction in order to meet you in a better place.  I'm not sure it matters why so much as it matters that it happens.

There are times when I don't get the perfect answer.  Sometimes the answer is good enough, sometimes its something I choose to ignore, because you know what in any relationship you aren't likely to be in harmony all of the time.  Sometimes its an answer that stings a little bit and you respond in kind.  But in the whole, when the perfect answer is there more than its not, when love and care for you shine in the words he speaks and the look in his eyes as he speaks them, you'll know.  This is the one.

Never forget, though - perfect answers work both ways.  Be as generous in giving them as you are grateful to receive them.  Your perfect match deserves to hear them.