Bedtime Sucks

enough said?

Lighting the Darkness

There is a darkness, a bit of a shadow to the holiday season ending. As much as I was glad to take down the tree and pack up Christmas for another 11 months, I am missing the lights. I miss the soft glow of the tree lights. Night seems extra dark when all the houses only have yellow windows, their own personal vegas style extravaganzas being taken down, and replaced by nothing. I love the lights, from one dinky strand thrown on a bush to homes and yards that look like Santa threw up all over them, it is one of my favorite parts of the holidays. I remember the time of let down after Christmas as a child that came after the last present was unwrapped and after all the build up, excitement, anticipation of Santa, it was over. It all sort of fits together, the darker days, the post Christmas time where the glitz turns a bit gaudy, and the reflection that a new year brings. After all the family, the celebrations, a time for a bit of introversion, a time to rejuvenate, set intentions, take stock, remember, and simultaneously grieve the loss of the passing year while welcoming a new one.
I don't have any resolutions this year. I am not planning to lose 20 pounds by Valentine's Day, get out of debt, or learn Spanish. I have some intentions for things I would like to do better, or different. But I didn't hit a magic button on the 1st and try to start up a new regime. Of course I would like to be healthier, richer, happier, etc. Who wouldn't? But I also understand it is about making smaller changes that are doable, that lead to the whole. That making exercise a regular part of my life is different than I will go to the gym 5 days a week. Maybe what I call intentions someone else would call resolutions, but there is something about this label that takes the failure piece out of it, and that in itself is a bit freeing. And all of it really comes back to wanting to simplify life, for me and my family, in ways that bring us more connection, to each other, ourselves, and our community. Have less stuff so we can enjoy our home more. Plan meals in advance so dinner time isn't hectic and crazy. Take care of our bodies so that we aren't too tired or sore to do what is required to maintain. Slow down and really be with each other. Connect to nature. Read more books, watch less tv. This is sounding a lot like what makes the covers of so many magazines, but it is more than Ten Steps to a Happier Family! and more about living in tune with our values, our Intentions, than another thing to do.
So here is to presence, to simplicity, to being and becoming in 2012 and always.

That Woman

Yesterday I was that woman. The one in the store who everyone knows her kids names because they are being said over and over again in sentences like "get over here now!" and "this isn't how to behave in a store" and "if you run away/take one more thing off the shelf we are leaving without buying anything". And those demands are being met with loud protests of "No mommy!" in a distinctly 3 year old stubborn power-struggle way. These lovely public parenting interactions were interspersed with the loud cries of a fussy 2.5 month old, who would not take a pacifier and was eventually removed from his carseat to be held. This stopped his crying but made chasing his sister down that much harder. And so, in this fabric store, that I am in to buy fabric for a cape for the child who is beyond testing the limits of life outside the cart, I avoided all eye contact, my internal judgement much harsher I'm sure than what I might have met in the eyes of the other shoppers who were out on a Sunday afternoon having to listen to my kids and my reactions to them in a otherwise small and quiet store. With over 3 years of parenting in public places, I thought I was more confident than this - and I guess maybe I am with things that I feel are meant to be more out of my control, like the baby crying. But when Sophie acts out and is bratty and defiant and trying out attitudes on me I feel more self conscious. Especially when my reactions are not as patient as I would like them to be. Before having my own kids I would have judged someone dealing with that kid in the store, judged their parenting, what had they done to create a bratty kid? Now as a mom, I have so much more compassion for when shopping goes bad. It was late afternoon, Sophie was tired and we hadn't left the house all day. I know this is when she will push more, but I wanted to get out of the house and it was an errand we had talked about doing, and we were there and had what we needed in the cart so I wasn't about to really leave and pack up and leave it all to try on another day. I don't like it when I yell at her, don't like the feeling inside of knowing that my patience is gone, that I am not being the mom I want to be in that moment. And when that happens when there are other people around to witness it, then I am that woman that I swore I'd never be. There is so much about parenting no one could ever have truly explained, but I think loss of anonymity in public places has been the most socially challenging for my introverted little self.

Not waving, but drowning

That line from a poem read in a college poetry writing class, Not waving, but drowning, popped into my head this morning. I am not waving, but drowning. I'm a little lost. Or have lost myself. Or don't know who this new self is? I feel like my "life", my day to day has been put on the sacrificial altar of motherhood and is no longer mine. That sounds dramatic, and maybe a bit whiny for a life that I have consciously chosen. The counselor I saw to prepare for my son's birth said last week at our follow up appointment that I have postpartum depression, referred me to Kaiser's psych dept for more care, asked how I would feel about taking an anti-depressant. I don't want to take one, know that there is no magic happy pill, and just so wish this wasn't how I was feeling right now. In my mind, I am happy with my life - I set it up this way. I am married, living in a house in the town I grew up in near family and lifelong friends. I went to grad school and have a career that will be there to build when I am done with this young children stay at home mommy phase of life. I have two healthy kids, a girl and a boy. From the outside, from this list that all that time in college and mid-twenties soul searching put into place about what life should and will be, I would think I would be ecstatic to have finally arrived. But I was naive in my life planning, not knowing that you never get "there", that there will always be more, that even if you become the person you thought you wanted to be, or have the life you thought you wanted, that just opens up more possibilities, more dreams, more who am I? and more what if?. And this is both what is amazingly beautiful and rich about this human existence and what makes it sort of suck all wrapped into one messy burrito we call life. So where does that leave things - I just got of wave of self-consciousness, the self-inflicted shame that comes with saying I love my kids, love being a mom, know I am blessed to be able to be home with them, and yet there are days, moments, when it is so hard, or when it just is not enough, or when I wish I could for once finish an email uninterrupted, or go to the bathroom by myself. And my internal struggle feels a bit lame, because it is a privileged one to have when there are women in Iran being stoned for supposed extramarital affairs, and women in my very city who work 2 jobs and wish they were home for bedtime. I am not finding the words that will end this post all nice and clean like a good sitcom, so maybe it needs to be left here hanging, drowning, or waving....

Coronation

The younger sassier version of myself wanted to be Queen of the World. A naieve and optimistic cockiness that I somehow knew better and could solve the world's problems, big and small. I would even fill this out in the business name line of things like magazine subscriptions so that my mail would come to me this way. Not at all a flaming narcisscist, just a young idealist who got joy from happy mail. But now, a decade plus later into life and I no longer want that job - life has taught me a few things and God, that job sounds exhausting. And I am tired, and I can't figure out how to how to shop for groceries so that we actually have meals so I am pretty sure I am not close to qualified to run the world. It seems the older I get, the more I realize how much I don't know. The idealist college girl has grown into a mid-thirties mom and life is not what she thought it would be. In some ways better, in some ways so much harder than ever imagined. So the Queen - I am trying to find that spirit again, give it some life in this stage of life, reconnect with that vibrancy from this place. This place that has a little more wisdom, a lot more responsibility, and so little time.