quote

my quote of the moment: "if you can attain repose and calm, believe that you have seized happiness." ~julie-jeanne-eleonore de lespinasse

January 9, 2013

strange days

these are strange days, full of strange thoughts and weird coincidences.

maybe it's from the foggy haze my brain is in because of this lovely head cold and resulting on slot of medication, but things just seem not quite right. like the world in on a slow, shuffling march forward. things are happening, things always keep happening, but it seems more like the world is spinning on whether or not we are interacting with it. so we plod along just to get by. it's like everything is gray, not good or bad but just is.

(on a random side note [and everything lately seems random], i finally learned the gray/grey trick. i was always confused which it was. then i read somewhere that it's grEy in England and grAy in America. why did nobody tell me this years ago?)

the other thing that strikes me about reality lately is all the coincidences that have been happening. it's like when you learn a new word, and suddenly you see that word everywhere. what's been happening to me is the same sort of thing, only much more depressing, because it's all been suicide and crisis intervention. for instance, i follow people on twitter, famous people and not famous people, who i know don't follow each other, and yet there were bunches of them talking about stress and bullying and mental breakdowns and where to turn if somebody you know needs help. it's honestly a topic i've always thought needed more discussion and openness when regarding it, just strange to hear it brought up by so many at the same time.

maybe it's just the holidays and the new year and everybody's in the slumps. i'll admit i'm not quite fine, but honestly i never really am. things are as good as can be expected. i'm not overly up or down. i just am. oddly enough, a few weeks ago i had a conversation with somebody who was commenting on all the bad luck i've had over the past few months. i thought it strange, because though i usually will dwell on the bad, for every instance of evil he brought up my first thought was how much worse it could have been and how lucky i felt i was. like i said, it's been strange days lately.

one thing i know though, even if the rest of the world has the surreal quality of a dream, i'm still me.

January 7, 2013

the hardest part of motherhood...

...is trying to answer "why?"

bad things happen to good people, and that is a fact of life. things just happen sometimes, not through any fault of anybody, not because they deserve it or were expecting it or planned contingencies for it.

and sometimes terrible things happen to truly innocent people. and that's when it's the hardest, trying to explain how it was a once in a million situation, something that no one every really thought could or would truly happen.

it happens that while you're driving along down the highway of life, sometimes the bad just sideswipes your car and runs you off the road and speeds off into the distance before you can exchange insurance info. and the trick is to try and not live in fear of the what-ifs. even though there is bad in this world, we must try and find the good. we must strive to look for the light in our darkest days.

these concepts are hard for adults to embrace, but it's a million times harder for kids to understand. and so they turn to their parents and ask that magical little word: why? and sometimes it's hard to admit that we just don't know. though when we try to explain, we leave out the unspoken truth: one day bad things will happen to you too. and you'll have to try and pick yourself back up and put all the pieces back together and move on. but you can't let fear and worry rule your life and ruin your day. because worry doesn't stop bad things from happening. the best we can do is surround ourselves with people who love and support us, who will help us when we need it most.

there are so many answers to the question of why, things that we say and things that we left unsaid. our job as parents is to prepare our children for life, all the while trying to reassure and comfort them. and at the end of the day, all we can do is hope that our efforts were enough.

January 4, 2013

welcome to the new year

it's been a while since i've posted. and i really do hate writing those words, but it does seem like i take a break every few weeks. and then i dissappear for a few weeks. but i'm back! again.

and it's the new year already! it's mostly still new. and so i'm going to post a few of my hopes and wishes for this new time, pretty much like every other person anywhere is doing right now.

first, allow me to make the usual excuses for my absence. simply, i blame life. yes, all of it. the unpredictability, the bills and worries and school and family. and kids being kids. life and being out living it and dealing with it and sometimes just struggling to get through it is why i haven't been around.

and now that the excuses are out of the way, on to the promises: i will post more. i will be here and i will share and i won't pull dirty tricks like writing ten posts in one day just set to auto publish. i'll be here and around and will let you all know what is going on. as much as i'm able to at least.

see, that seems to be my problem. i have a very specific line, defined over years of trial and error, of the things i will and will not talk about here. and the biggest thing that happens in my life is that i get so overwhelmed by something i can't see anything else going on in my life. and if that something is a something i refuse to discuss on the interwebs, then i kind of don't have anything to write here.

so that's my other resolution if you will. and something i've been trying to work on for a long time. i am attempting to see more going on in my life then my problems. me being overwhelmed by them is an understatement, sometimes i feel like i'm drowning. and it's not good for anybody when that happens. everything else in my life gets fuzzy when i begin to obsess on one specific issue. and i know i can't do that, i have too much going on at all times. i just don't have to luxury to act that way. i need to realize that sometimes things will work themselves out, and so instead of worrying about the things i can't change and all the stuff i have no control over, i need to shift my efforts and energy to the things i can affect. and then i need to pull back a little further and see all the things in my life that aren't problems or to-dos, all the wonder and amazing things that are always present that i forget to notice when things get stressed.

i'd make other resolutions, but really those are the things that need the most work in my life. i have been and will be working on them, getting better at seeing the wonders of the world around me and sharing it here with you. and honestly, they're not new resolutions, they're my everyday, trying to get better at, slowly but surely improving type things. because working harder at connecting to the people around us is something i think we all need to work a little harder on, every day.