breathing

life has been hard lately. i have felt so tight inside...homeschooling, marriage, finances, mothering, balancing all of it, friends going through tough times and i never feel like i can give enough because of all the previously mentioned things...add in the small things like trying to eat a balanced diet, or trying to exercise a thirty-six year old body that's birthed five children (holy moly! five!!! really?!?!), family things swamping me in the beginning of this year, eczema trying to take over my face, doctor appointments, dentist appointments i keep meaning to make, eye appointments and glasses, rearranging my house...blurg and ack and pant, pant...i was having a hard time breathing.

but tonight feels light. feels brilliant, to tell the truth. i have an amazing circle of friends. soul sisters, and sisters, and cyber sisters, and friends here doing amazing things for me that i can't even express...kids who just keep hanging in there and being wonderful to boot...a church family that continues to draw me in and give me inspiration...i am blessed. and grateful. and i can breathe.

my writing lately has felt like trying to talk through a mouthful of sludge. garbled and not quite right and hard to understand, even for me. but it is something that helps me, even when it's crappy. i guess a lot like life. so i just wanted to put this out here before another mouthful crammed it all up again.

peace

the wisdom of youth

i often feel like i find wisdom in folks who've gone before me or traveled alongside me. but i know that jesus said we should come to him as children. and i do know that i've learned a lot from children. my years spent as a counselor at a camp for special needs children were probably some of the most formative years for how i view the world and those in it. but a lot of those lessons came from how that time stretched me, showed me who i could be, how i could meet the needs of others and find that i was meeting needs i wasn't even aware of in myself. i learned the power of watching and listening and in the end, found a voice in me and learned to listen to that voice.

a few nights ago, i was babysitting my three year old nephew. my children had played outside for a long time that day and were pretty droopy when my nephew got here. he was ready to play and hang out and they were ready to rest. so i got to play instead. and it was magic.

while we were doing our thing, at one point, my nephew asked me "what can i do to tell you i love you?" now, i'll be honest and say that he wanted to make valentines and that's how he asked me. it took me a minute to figure that out. but what an awesome question to be asked. it made all of us stop and listen. it was one of the sweetest moments in my life.

tonight in our high school youth ministry meeting, we talked about the sacrament of marriage. and as we talked about love and growing up and relationships, it reminded me of the adoration service speaker i blogged about earlier. about lust being the opposite of love. about how looking to serve your own needs is the opposite of offering something purely for another. and i've been thinking about how tricky that can get...i can love my kids. but i can also get caught up in wanting my kids to reflect well on me. and that's when i tend to make poor parenting choices. because i am not trying to meet their needs...i'm trying to meet my own. and i do the same in my marriage...oy, my marriage can be so tricky sometimes.

but my nephew gave me the string to bind all of these thoughts earlier this week. when he asked me how he could tell me he loved me. it felt awesome. but it's a question i need to ask more often. because we can all read the books about different love languages and explore our needs, but i know that i need to look at what those around me need. it always changes. my friend lana and i were just talking about the changing needs of our children tonight. and i think i've plugged into those changing needs fairly well...i mean, i know they're changing at least, and i'm aware of the need for me to change to be able to meet them. but i don't often think of my spouse's changing needs. or my own. they always seem stagnate to me. maybe because we aren't developing pubic hair or starting periods... but even once those milestones are met and passed, our needs still change. so this will be the new ball of yarn the kitten in my mind plays around with...the new sign posts my eyes search for...and the prayer i send up and try to stay open to the answer to.

peace

still learning...always learning

i have this post about judgment brewing, but it's not for tonight. tonight i went to an adoration service with my teen, and we heard a speaker, and that's what i want to write about.

it wasn't just my teen and i...i took the babiest girl, too. and then the other three joined us once their religious ed classes were over. there was a speaker tonight from another youth ministry in another town. he wasn't the best speaker, but he made so many jokes about what a bad speaker he was and what he would've done differently if he were a good speaker, that you couldn't help but like him by the end.

my teen's been asking me to attend these once monthly adoration services with him, but i know he doesn't mind going alone. and i've felt kind of proud to watch him go alone, to tell the truth. but i knew he was kind of waiting for me to go, so i went ahead and went tonight. and i'll admit, it ran through my head that i could actually have a few minutes to myself tonight if i didn't go. but i've been working on being a vehicle for love...not the genesis of it, but a vehicle. so i decided to leave behind my selfish desire and join the group. and i'm so glad i did.

the speaker tonight talked about love. he asked what the opposite of love was, but then he just went ahead and told us (i think he was trying not to forget his point right in the start...). he said the opposite of love is lust. and that really surprised me. i'd never thought about that before. but as the love he was speaking about was godly love, selfless love, then lust as a selfish love meant to fulfill your own desire made a whole lot of sense to me. i've been playing with the concept all night in my mind.

the people i know that i feel the most drawn to and that i admire the most seem to be filled with a godly love...a love that comes from something bigger and beyond them, a love that is their beginning and end. they share it easily and reflect it readily. they're just fun to be around. you always receive something from them, if it's just feeling better for some reason you can't pinpoint or if it's something more specific like a shoulder to cry on or an ear to listen or even a hand to hold. but when i've tried, consciously tried to be that way, i often feel like whatever someone will receive will come from me...me being the generator of something positive for someone else. and i haven't always failed. but i have often ended up wondering what all the hoopla was about, because sometimes it can leave you feeling quite icky and empty and even resentful. but when i give, focusing on how i'll feel or even just focusing on myself as the giver, i think that's more self-centered love than i mean to be giving. and according to this speaker, it's lust. and i have greatly desired to be loved in my life. and that's the opposite of love...in the godly sense. which really, is the only sense of the word to me.

this feels pretty disjointed because it is still pretty fresh in my mind, new to my thoughts, and something i'm still stumbling over as i roll around in this new area of contemplation....

the music was really good tonight and the people were awesome. and babiest girl was the sweetest little thing...

peace

blurg

that's what my teenager says when he feels, at least as i imagine, like i feel right now. blurg.

my house is torn up. i guess this is what you do when your baby girl is four and a half months old and you've had time to look around and see all that's gone to pot during pregnancy and the last four and a half months. and then you get a little time, the babiest is entertained by her brothers, the spouse is tearing up the garage, so you have a go at the living space. and because you tend to work in a domino effect style of reconstruction, and because that babies is still four and a half months old, you get halted along your domino process and regular life takes over and you're left with a process you've begun but don't have time to complete. blurg.

my friend jeanni is going home tomorrow. she's completed her first round of biochemotherapy and is doing alright. and as much as i yearn to share space with her, i know peace and prayers are what is called for. i am hoping to visit her this weekend, but you just never know how life will go... blurg.

my great aunt died last week. her name was celie. her husband died before her and his name was c.b. when i was a little girl, i told them i couldn't wait to be an old person if i could be as funny as they are. and because they were such joy loving folks, they just laughed when i said that. (they were probably fifty when i told them this...snort) my aunt celie was 91 years old when she died. and she was an energizer bunny type of woman. i took my kids to celebrate her 85th birthday and told her that i was so grateful that they could celebrate with her as children the way i did as a child. and she took a sip from her bloody mary and gave me a very sweet hug and i can still feel if i think about it. she was living up north when she died and they had a memorial service for her there today. i can only imagine the laughter and smiles that were there. there will be another service closer to home sometime in the future and i plan on attending with my kids...if life doesn't get in the way... blurg.

my fil was admitted to the hospital tonight. he went to the e.r. for stomach pain, but because of his heart attack two years ago, they tested his cardiac enzymes and they were somewhat elevated. so he was admitted and will probably be cathed tomorrow. that in and of itself is something to offer up to prayer. but then my husband's sisters are not getting along. it's more than not getting along, but that's a whole 'nother blog for a whole 'nother day. but one of his sisters is stating her case for this whole deal right now to him on the phone. sigh. because this is energy that i realize needs to be spent, but at the same time, it's...yes, you guessed it...blurg.

so what, in fact, does blurg mean? i guess it means yuck. yawn. okay. i'll sit in it. well, that's the best i can come up with.

busy day ahead at co-op tomorrow. robotics is half over, so i don't have that tomorrow. but there is a soccer game and soccer practice and oh yeah, chemistry. i should get to bed. babiest is sleeping and while it gives me time to blog, i have to be careful not to miss my chance for some sleep, too.

peace and prayers...lots and lots of peace and prayers

joy

ever wish you had someone to share joy with? hehe, i promise i'm not going to turn this into a pity party...

anyway...life is what we make of it. i get that. but it's nice to have folks along that either celebrate the joy while it's happening, or help you remember it when it's not exactly happening...or better yet, help you find it when you think it's gone.

i try to be one of those people. but i know i fall short. i know i get caught in my moods...and i know i share those moods when i should probably shelf them for a bit before looking for someone to share them with.

tonight i'm in one of those moods where you feel on the cusp of joy, but weighed down by something that i can only guess isn't joy. and you just wish someone would push you over. but probably, when i feel this on edge, i should just go to bed.

i wish i had a beer...

it does bring me joy to think of my sister fishing with my dad right now. i can almost feel the wind on the gulf when i think of her doing that. i can definitely hear her laugh. and she might not be laughing right now. but i'm pretty sure if i was there, she'd be laughing...(probably AT me, but i digress...)

my sister is on a journey to be a mother. she's not pregnant...at least not physically pregnant. but i think she's probably pregnant in other ways...reading about parenting, thinking about kids, wondering what hers will look like, imagining how she'll rearrange her home, her life, relationship with her partner once her kids arrive to her. she's going through the process to foster to adopt. and i am so proud of her. and so grateful to be able to be a part of her journey. i'm joyously excited to be looking forward to meeting my nieces or nephews or both...whichever she is given. (she's looking to foster to adopt a sibling group, but like always, i guess we'll see what life shoots her way...)

i am also thinking of my friend, jeanni...at the hospital in the middle of her first round of biochemotherapy. jeanni has taught me a lot about joy...feeling it in the moment...appreciating it. i will go stay with my friend lana and her beautiful, wonderful family next weekend so that i can visit jeanni and her family. this brings me so much joy, i think i might cry.

and tonight...tonight does bring me joy. it's been pretty warm lately. but it rained today. and now it's really cool outside. with a little breeze. the weather has a huge affect on me and tonight feels awesome. like i could sail away in that breeze, arms open wide, feeling it all.

ok...that's enough of that...
peace out

just some stuff today...

things i thought or said or heard today...

my youngest son, e, started off this morning by finding a long lost stuffed animal, squirt, and declaring it a "happy ever after kind of morning"...this is one of the beautiful things about having children.

ack...he later said something to n, my baby girl...but i cannot recall it. grrrr.... maybe it'll come to me before i finish typing.

at mass today, we had our penitential rite. i like this part. i missed it for YEARS when my older kids were small and i consider it making it to mass on time if i made it before the second reading. so it's meant a lot to me to be able to make it and recite it these last number of years. "i confess to you almighty god, and to you my brothers and sisters, that i have sinned through my own faults. in my thoughts and in my words. in what i have done and what i failed to do. and i ask almighty god and blessed mary ever virgin and you my brothers and sisters to pray for me to the lord our god." the thing i thought while i said this was that i am one of those sisters everyone else in the church is asking to pray for them. how i missed this for so long, i'm not sure. i may have the tiniest bit of egocentricity. i often look around and think about everyone present at church (and those not present) as my community....as my brothers and sisters....as folks traveling along this same earth. but i guess since i'm still kind of new to the penitential rite, it makes sense that this would be a new revelation. i have a lot of praying to do...

and my friend, mama jeanni, has completed her second day of her first cycle in her clinical trial for bio-chemotherapy. facebook has become the avenue to hear how she's doing...funny, isn't it? i almost fell over dead when jeanni joined facebook...she's just not much of a techno mama. well, i mean she's one hell of a techno mama...all programming space shuttles and whatnot. but she's not much of a recreational techno mama. but how grateful i am to get to hear about her on facebook. :D she and her husband and her son continue to be in my thoughts and prayers and, as always, in my heart.

why is it that after working on my lawnmower today, i can't stop smelling gasoline off and on? it's grossing me out.

my sister and i had a text discussion today about that lawnmower. and i am, as always, grateful for my sister.

and i am keeping my nose out of everything...even my own life. i realize that out of all the havoc i can cause in life, it's never as much as the chaos i'm capable of bringing to my own life. so i'm just staying out of it. hehe

and that's it. obviously, i'm just typing here to exercise my fingers and put some thoughts on the screen...organize a little of the knot of thoughts and experiences and feelings and words that is my brain. things are alright. but i am just tired, tired, tired.

oh hey, but i remembered the other thing e said. as baby sister was clocking him on the head and grabbing handfuls of his face in a way that was painful, and i was coaching him on different ways to work with her so that they could interact but him help her to be a little more gentle, he said, "mom, you sure know a lot about babies." and he then smiled his million watt smile. and that was awesome.

peace out

god's thumbnail

tonight the moon was what my grandmother used to call "god's thumbnail"...i believe astronomists call it a crescent. but it just seemed exactly like god's thumbnail once my grandmother pointed it out, and it's been that ever since.

i like to look at the sky at night. i'm looking for operating instructions, to be honest. sometimes it's very bright...sometimes it's very clear. i can almost always see orion in the late fall and winter, it seems. although i will admit i am so spatially challenged that as we rotate at night, i have a hard time finding him and it makes me shake my head and roll my eyes and laugh because it seems like as he moves in the same direction each night, it shouldn't be so hard to find him...but i admit i often walk inside, shaking my head and laughing and having no idea where the hell he went.

there's a sky i see sometimes...it's dark blue...midnight blue i guess (haha, snort)...but there's enough moon that when the clouds make this cool pattern, it looks like a dark blue tie dye pattern. and it reminds me of my friend jeanni. i think she has a shirt like this, but maybe i just made that up. so either way, it is what i have termed in my mind a "jeanni sky." and three nights ago (hell, i think it was three...it's been a busy week), there was a jeanni sky. and it didn't surprise me. jeanni's had some stuff going on, and i've been thinking about her lots. and i hadn't heard from her that night, so i'd been thinking about her especially because it felt kind of foreboding that i hadn't heard from her..."no news is good news" be damned.

i have since heard from her and it wasn't good news. it wasn't necessarily bad news, although jeanni could probably argue that with me if she had a mind to. and she might have a mind to. but she might also not freaking feel like it. the news was that life will change...and it always does...damn it. but why is it that when life deals you those lessons about change, it's always more than you ever wanted? and it is never the way you would've chosen.

marriage comes to mind at this point. we obviously choose to get married. but even then, it rarely goes the way you would've chosen and it's often more than you ever wanted.

but there's been a lot of change in this new year.

my friend julie is here with her new daughter...she's a week old...in her life as julie's daughter. well, a week and a day. julie's daughter is actually four years old. and she's from india. and she is the most amazing thing to hit my house since my daughter. this little one, who i've been calling ruby-roo, is beautiful and mesmerizing and just a damned good sport all around. no, she doesn't speak english. and no, we don't know her language. but we teach her a few words and she teaches us a few words and we all smile a lot because we are just so darned happy to hang out together. i am very honored that julie brought her here to share with all of us and hope it's been worth her while. (what the hell does worth her while mean? i mean, i know what the phrase means, but is that really how it's written out?...) but i'm not going to share with julie my feelings right now about change being more than we ever wanted or rarely going the way we would've chosen. we'll let her get a little further down the way and see if she notices this on her own...

but for me, right now, as i sit in the middle of these changes this year has brought, to those i love (and god, do i love them), as well as the change it's brought to my own life, i can't help but reflect on the things that stay the same (you totally saw that coming, right?).

love. love stays the same. it changes in our relationships, strengthens, weakens, waxes and wanes...like the moon...but it's always there. sometimes in different people, in different relationships, in ourselves and out. but it's there. we may ache for it in the same relationships, ache for it in ourselves, ache for it in the same ways it used to be there. and the ways will change. but the love will always be there. will always find us.

the older i get (and while i realize i may not be THAT old, i don't think anyone would argue that i'm not THAT young anymore either), the more surprised i am by the places i find love that i never would've thought i'd find it. and i'm even more surprised by how much love i find in me. now maybe that's because i've given up the belief that i am the generator of my life and i've opened myself up to the Love that is the true generator of us all. but even that surprises me. it's an act of faith. and while i've always had an easier time believing in good things (i mean really, santa and the easter bunny have never been a huge stretch for me and i never saw the big deal in my parents being the ones to really do it all...it all still happened and was good in the end...), i've always also believed that if i was good enough, did the right thing, earned it somehow, love would come. but now i know love is always there. always has been. always will be.

it may be a perspective thing. one person's trash is another's treasure type of deal. and i have learned not to push my trash on someone who doesn't want it...and the same goes for my treasure. people like to make these evaluations for themselves. we have to. that's part of the whole deal. but i know that love will always, in the end, find us. just like god's thumbnail found me tonight.

peace