Setting Examples

So I've seen a lot of articles recently that speak to being a better example for our children when it comes to perceptions of our own appearances.  They're poignant and absolutely true.  But the thing is, I've never had the same affliction that some of these women describe when they speak about how the envision themselves, and how the speak about themselves and their appearances in front of their children.

The core point behind the articles is to resolve the nagging voice inside your head that says "you're fat", "you're ugly", or worse "you're stupid", and demonstrate to our children that we in fact feel differently by virtue of how we actually speak out loud in response to those inner voices.  The articles highlight how we envision the absolute and perfected beauty in our children, and fail to see any of that in ourselves.

I read this and suddenly, I feel pretty awesome about myself.  You see, I have those same nagging voices.  Truth is however, they are both true and slightly inaccurate.  Because in my mind, beauty isn't what is outside.  It really never has been.  Nobody's ass is beautiful.  It's an ass.  And those old sad statements of "she has such a pretty face, if she'd only lose the weight" when you actually can't disassociate the two.  At least not in my mind.  If I have a pretty face, well then, c'est touts.  It's a pretty face.  That doesn't change because the size of it is larger or smaller or somehow related to the size of my very ugly ass or the belly that carried and nurtured my child that never somehow went away.  I can honestly say that I never look at an actress or a model on a magazine and say - yep I'd die to look just like her.  I have plenty I'd like to change on my body, don't get me wrong.  But I don't really want to live up to someone else's distorted objectification of beauty - ever.

Beauty, in my mind, is entirely in one's character, which can manifest itself in the brightness of a smile; the twinkle of one's eye; the peak of one's eyebrow; or for that matter, the absolute perfection of any other feature.  But to be clear, none of us are Shakespeare, and one arm is not generally any different than another.  No foot is any less footy than someone else's.  But spirits and characters are either made better or worse by the life experiences they've had.  The outward features of their faces and bodies, are mere reflections of how life has affected the spirit within.

So with that, yes.  My life has worn on my face, my hands and my body.  They take a toll, and if you saw a photo of me without my child in my hands, you would probably see a weary, tired, and less than exuberant mom type person who spends no time cherishing herself, or wearing nice clothes.  In a close up, you would see wrinkled, blemished skin, saddened and heavy eyes.  You would see the subtle downturn at the corners of my lips and a furrowed brow - probably because my mind never stops.  I'm planning and juggling a million thoughts in my head simultaneously every moment of every day, and trying to keep them all straight with one another.  Motherhood represents a level of schizophrenia you could never possibly imagine if you weren't a part of the same sorority.

But if you saw a photo of me with my child, with my husband, with the two people who make my furrowed brow and headache worth wearing every day, you would see exactly what I see.  Infinite beauty and happiness.  Gentle kindness that speaks louder than any wrinkle, blemish or fat ass could yell.  You would see the serenity of a woman who has devoted every breath to sustaining a happy, somewhat healthy family, and who is so very happy, glad, and proud to do it.

And then again, if you were to look at a photo of my husband or my daughter you would see my own beauty.  Because what makes me beautiful, is the light and unparalleled love that I breathe into them every single day, and the light, power and radiance they breathe into me.  And so yes, just like those other bloggers, I see the infinite beauty of my child every single moment of the day, but I also see that it's already a reflection of me.  I see in the way she looks at me, that she feels that way too.  And it never hurts when you're snuggling with her before bedtime and she looks at you, tweaking your cheek and says "you're so cute" of course, either.

At the end of the day however, whatever I do, to modify the way my life's experiences are reflecting on my outward appearance, are always an example of how I'm choosing to live my future.  Not my past.  And this has nothing to do with superficial opinions that what is on my outside is what is "beautiful" or "ugly" or "nondescript" for that matter.  And when I speak to my daughter about what is beautiful, it will always be approached in terms that define it as smart, kind, happy, and wise.  It will always be in terms that help her understand we are all beautiful, even if we don't sometimes see our physical appearance the way we feel it inside.  And I plan to be honest with her that the nagging voices should never have a power over one's view of one's self.  The nagging voices belong to people on the outside who don't have enough self awareness to see the beauty of this world in it's entirety.  They can't appreciate true beauty, because no one's ever shown them their own.

I work to show my daughter every day that her beauty is inside her heart and her mind, and it's in her smile and her laugh.  And I remember every single day that I'm beautiful like that too, even on the days when it's harder to do it.  And the fact that I can proclaim that level of self awareness is something I'm truly grateful for.

The role fate plays

When it comes to forgotten dreams, or plans that never panned out, and the general dissatisfaction one feels about their lot in life, it can sometimes be very easy to blame fate, and things outside our control.

I struggle with this, and as you already know, if you're reading frequently enough, one of the major components of my depression and anxiety comes from not living up to my own potential.  Everything is triggered by not feeling good enough, or feeling satisfied with what I have.

And the more I struggle with it all and think about it, I have come to understand that if the fates can be at fault for not giving us what they want, why can't they take credit for helping us avoid larger failures and pitfalls?

There's an old saying that failures or mistakes are simply lessons to learn from.  If you take a more positive spin on how things naturally evolve through choices we and others make in a situation, then however things wind up, is basically how they were supposed to.  If the fates have a role to play, why does their job have to be about thwarting our progress and reversing our luck?  Why can't they actually be working overtime to make things turn out better for us in the long run?

Here's where it all boiled down to this understanding for me.  For as long as I could remember, I wanted to be a teacher.  Everything I did in my schooling and extra curricular activities was bent and designed to drive me in that direction.  I volunteered at my old highschool as a TA (absolutely voluntary - no extra credit or pay involved), I worked part time at a tutoring centre, and did a co-op placement at a french immersion middle school...EVERYTHING was a choice to pave the way for a teaching degree.

It came time, and I applied for Teacher's college - I even applied to school's way out in the sticks with the hopes if the larger more prominent schools rejected me, then at least I'd have an ace in the hole.  Well, as good as my GPA was, it wasn't good enough for even my third choice school.  I was faced with finding a job  and making a living with the urgency of a car slamming on it's brakes to avoid colliding with a brick wall...

Turns out that wasn't such a bad thing.  I made a great career for myself, started earning great money, did a lot of travelling and got to live in another country even.  But I never had let go of my dreams of being a teacher.  So when an opportunity presented itself to write a curriculum and partner up with someone to start my own private event planning school, I jumped at it.  A year into the process everything unravelled.  I had toiled, sweat and worked through the first half of a well deserved maternity leave trying to give this school wings, and my partner screwed me over.  A classic situation of someone in way over their head, with more money than they really know how to handle, and a really big fear of success.  She lied, that lie caught up with both of us, and in a screaming second, my teaching dreams were snuffed again.

I still have the dream, and if I ever had the opportunity to retire and teach for fun, I think I'd jump at it.  BUT in the meantime, I'm closer to retirement than I may have been if I'd been a teacher full time.  And perhaps I live in a nicer house than I would be if I were a teacher.  And now I'm able to work from home and have enough flexibility that I get to spend just about as much time with my kid as I would if I were a teacher, or possibly even more.  And I watch the teachers dealing with back to work legislation and I see their rights are being violated by our own government and I think - at least I'm not dealing with all that.

But even better than all of this, I've realized I'm teaching people everyday.  Just not out of a book.  And best of all, I'm teaching myself.  I'm learning lessons by living my life, and observing others.  And the best teacher of all is my child.  She's showing me the beauty of this world all over again and it's incredible.

So do I believe that the fates have a role to play?  Sure.  I'm fanciful enough a thinker to believe there's something solid about plans meeting up with the right timing and circumstances.  But I don't think they're always out to get us.  And this has helped me cope with my depression and anxiety to some degree.  If there's always a reason for why things happen, the reasons may not always feel good at the time, but in the long run, if you're doing everything the best way possible, then you know that the way things work out are then for the better.  So thank God or the Fates, or Mother Earth (whomever) for the unanswered prayer sometimes.  She may answer a few more if you do.

The noise

Cancelling out the noise is a critical part of maintaining my own mental health.  It's never easy, and never often enough, but when I find a moment to cancel out the noise and centre my mind, it's bliss.

I live with a lot of noise.  Even though we now live in a small quiet town and I'm not subjected to hearing sirens and traffic all day long, I work, and therefore the constant hum of electricity in the house, the lights, the computer screens, the phone and the conference calls.  All this is book ended by the noise of harping at a two year old, and the nattering of a husband who is frustrated with diabetes, work, commuting, child rearing and often times with life in general.  It can be almost unavoidably impossible to cancel it out.  To hear silence, and revel in it.  I might be one of only a few rare people who greet a power outage with a smile.

My family has been hit rather hard this year by the Health Hammer.  That's right, I've given it a name.  It's lived with me long enough, it's like that rotten stray dog that came in one day and decided my furniture looked tasty enough to eat, but has never somehow left and moved on to someone else's home, someone else's sofa legs, or area carpet.  My daughter has caught every bug known to man this year and I think I've boasted once already that we have finally seen our first full month of preschool without a sick day.  That isn't to say we haven't continued to be hammered while she's been at school though.  The hubby has had a resurgence of bad blood sugars and his diabetes is officially out of control enough again to warrant insulin, which he laments at every. single. opportunity he has to speak about anything at all.  And then I've had my own lady issues that need not be spoken of, outside of which to say that I've been in agonizing pain, so much so that it's likely an undercurrent driver for some of the anxiety and depression I've been experiencing lately.  Combined with ailing mothers and grandmothers and holiday prep that is already in full swing despite the fact that Halloween hasn't even happened yet, geesh...stop the world, I want off some days.

So with all that, how do you cancel out the noise in your head to get the space you need to remember how to breathe?  Good question.  Just a few minutes ago, I covered my ears, very like a child would do when trying to shield herself from an extremely loud bang.  Where do you have to go to find silence?

Whew - catching a breath

So, I'm very sorry that I went quiet.  It's been a frenzied few weeks in all aspects of my life, and well, there just wasn't spare time to do a whole lot of posting.

I'm hesitant to complain though.  I've had some ups and big time downs in the last couple of weeks, and I'm exhausted, but when you think of what other people are dealing with right this very moment, I'll take my hits thanks, and keep on trucking.

What's been happening you ask?  Well work has been out of control pressured.  Last week I think I had meetings from the crack of dawn til dusk nearly every single day, and in every spare second I could find, I spent it painting my daughter's room.  It took 3 coats of primer and 2 coats of paint to go from circus side show to somewhat chic (as chic as you can get with paint in a 2 year old's bedroom.  It looked great, and my design vision was feeling totally zen, until I carted all of her toys and books back into her room, and now it looks all junked up again.  I'm trying not to stress out about it, because I know that at least now, I'll be able to change things up as she gets older without having to rearchitect the whole darn thing.

When we're all done, I'll post some photos of our home's transformation.  It's been a lot of work, and there's still plenty to be done in the way of getting artwork and personalizing the spaces...but with the bones now complete and sturdy and neutral enough, it shouldn't be too hard now.

In other news, my mother in law has begun radiation and chemo treatments this week for lung cancer.  While we're not there every day taking care of her, I know it's been weighing on both my husband's mind and mine, and I can tell you that dealing with the emotional strain of not being there is not as easy as one might think.  Both the hubby and I are fixers.  And while I suspect he'd be lost in space up there, I know that I'd be busy as stink taking care of her basic necessities.  Part of me is glad I'm not there to do all that, and the other part of me is ill thinking that it might not be getting done.  This is not where my father in law exceeds expectations either.

My own mother has been ill, and trying hard to recover from heart troubles, and she's not rebounding as easily as she did the first time.  They've put 2 new stints in one of her arteries, and well, her body isn't taking too nicely to having them there.  Because of the heart attack that is induced during the procedure and complications from emphysema  she's not able to walk the length of her driveway without feeling in trouble and in need of a rest.  This is probably weighing heavier on my mind because again, with a toddler and a full time job and responsibilities of my own, I'm not able to pitch in and take care of her the way I would like, and the way I think I should be.  It's another one of those complications that comes from having children late in life.  When I should be worrying less about my kids, or having my kid help more so that I can have more time for elder care, I'm still in new mommy mode, and unable to devote the kind of attention she needs to her, precisely when she needs it.  You know, old people stop caring for anything that happens in the world after 4pm.  And when it happens, it's not like it's gradual.  It just stops.  And nothing you can do to suggest doing something after 4pm will work.  It's like the hard wiring of their synapses changes.  It's completely irreversible.  And what makes it all harder is that I keep listening to her tell me what she's doing to look after my Grandmother.  oh what I wouldn't give to work part time right now, without taking a financial hit.

But what puts all of this into perspective for me is this.  I'm able to complain about such things as not having enough time to devote to more people as though it were a luxury.  I don't know exactly if that's good or bad, but I think, depending on your perspective, it's not all that bad.  These are the people in my life who mean something very dear, and who are in some respects, my best friends.  And I have so much love and so many people who are special priority for me, I'm so very lucky and blessed to have them.  And none of this is about wanting to find any time to be with them, because none is usually spent at all.  It's about finding "more" time to spend with them.  It's about the fact that I recognize the fragility of everything around me, and the idea of not getting 150% of every single opportunity I can get with them is unacceptable, and stressful to me.

So I'm tipping my hat to the "have nots" today.  May you find peace, good health, comfort and unconditional love with someone who is a trusted, true and faithful companion forever.  May you one day find yourself as lucky as I am today.

Hindsight

I participate in an online community for moms.  I connected with it, when I got pregnant with my daughter and was spending that dreadful first three months with the biggest secret of my life, and morning sickness that made me curse all the women who had given birth before me.

One of the threads in that community got me to thinking.  The question posed was "what advice would you tell your 15 year old self?"  I couldn't come up with just one thing.  Now that I'm staring down the double barrel of 40, there is sooo much I would tell myself at 15.

Here's my list of 15 things I would tell my 15 year old self:

1. You are more precious than gold. 
2. You are worth every good thing given to and done for you.
3. You will change the world somehow, some day, for someone, and you probably already have a million times.
4. Your grandfather was right. There is a lesson and an opportunity in everything you do.  Learn from watching others mistakes as well as you learn from your own.  And learn how to be diplomatic when you speak.
5. Don't fight with your father, and go on every single family trip you can no matter how appealing the extra cash from working is, or how dull the vacation sounds.  You only have 6 years left with your father.  You won't remember the fights, but you'll have a hard time remembering the good moments too because there were just too few of them.
6. The best moments and the best memories happen when you make them, and are better when they are every day moments.  Soak up every last one of them, and remember every possible detail.
7. Stop worrying so much about boys.  Boys will come eventually, and over time, there'll even be a couple good ones.  The best ones for you, will be the ones your parents dislike the most, BUT you should always trust the instincts they gave you.  They're good.  And when they tell you to get out, do it and don't look back.
8. Being alone is as much awesome as it is the suckage.  One day, you'll be so entrenched in family and togetherness you'll be desperate for a good chunk of alone time.
9. Learn to love exercise right now.  Today, you are not fat, despite what everyone in the world keeps telling you.  Listening to those voices is going to hurt you for so long.  If I could show you a picture of yourself in 25 years, you'll completely understand why.
10. You are always good enough, and better than you give yourself credit for.  There are a lot of painful moments heading your way, and lots of disappointment.  But every single day of your life, there are a million things to love and be happy about.  
11. Belly laugh every single day and marry the man who makes you do that even on the days you want to shake him.
12. You are going to have the most awesome kid one day.  She is perfect and she is yours and she is just like you in so many ways.  Motherhood is the most rewarding job you will ever have, but it's also the  ost challenging, and I'm serious about that - it's not as cliche as it sounds.  Some days you're going to wonder if that child was sent to kill you - but she's not.  She changed the entire universe the first time you saw an extra line on that stick, saw her first ultrasound, and heard her heart beating for the first time.  She could run a country one day.  She's that bad ass.
13. When it comes to figuring out what you do with your life, do what makes you happy every single day, and the money will come.  What I mean by this is don't get sucked into "just gotta get a paycheck", cuz those jobs pay great, but they make for a long and painful death.  Do yourself a favour and take some practical theatre courses at university, and think about doing something charitable for your day job.  Live your life for some of the stories you can tell versus the paycheck.  Seriously, it's worth putting the time in now to find a passion and make a career of it - they get sick benefits and lifelong careers at some of these charities and it's impossible (really impossible) to make the switch later on.
14. Love yourself and your own company.  You are a pretty freaking awesome individual, and despite your flaws you are your family's primary bread winner, primary caregiver, and that dream you had of being super woman, well, you've been there, you've done it, and you got the t-shirt.  It really isn't worth the ativan, BUT, you did it!  And you were awesome at it!  
15. You rock and I love you.

Sanctuary

Anyone who treats someone suffering with depression and anxiety will tell them that the bulk of their recovery and management of the illnesses are lifestyle.  Medications do their part and are often the most critical part of getting control of the illness early on.  I've said it before that they gave me the head space I needed in order to confront some demons, and to build the coping skills I'd need to manage the illness long term.  Let's face it, once you have it, you always have it.  It's not a virus that just outstays it's welcome a while or leaves in a few weeks.  Mental illness has some serious staying power.  It's really a dark horse you seem to have to ride forever and ever.  Kinda like the Ghost Rider.  You're never really rid of it, even when you try to use it for good.

So for me, I think I've said it before.  I try, the best I can to reward myself often (probably too often), and I try to make sure that I make moments where I'm able to laugh at least once each day.  I try to do something fun with my kid every single day, and I sometimes fail miserably at all of it, but trying is 50% of the battle.

Because I work from home, I have the added challenge of doing all this while staying within the same four walls just about 22-23 hours of every single day.  I don't get out a lot, if it's not to run errands or drop and collect the child from preschool.  That's a lot of time to stay couped up.  Sure, it's awesome.  I don't have to fight traffic during a commute.  I add about 2 hours a day when I can hang out with my kid instead of worry all the way home about what I'm going to make for dinner, and generally speaking on slow days, during my work breaks, I can do my laundry, clean my dishes or dust something.  All this I couldn't trade for the world.  But nothing comes with out a price, and the price I pay is not having much of a social life, not getting much interaction with people who aren't collecting money at the end of a grocery store checkout, and frankly all that means that the four walls I see every day, better create an environment that brings me peace, air and tranquility.

So we've been working hard at getting that in place.  The people who owned our house prior to us had some strong paint preferences, and did a piss poor job of loading up every single space on the walls with photos/prints or some other kind of chachke, and they used everything from cement anchors to screws, to all out 2 inch nails to hang some of this crap.  And most of the rooms were colour blocked - as in 2 completely opposite colours in the same room.  Seriously.  We're not talking feature walls...we're talking colour blocking.

And so the effort we've undertaken so far is to lighten the place up, and balance it out.  Every room in the house doesn't have to be the same colour, but they should at least make sense, be neutral and calming.  We're almost done, and then furnishing and art and decor will take this all home.  It's already been 10 months of slogging through the hardest parts.  We have literally 2 rooms left to paint, and my house will be a sanctuary that will support my mental wellness the way it should.  I have a winter planned already of heavy duty sewing that will replace most of our window coverings, and am dreaming up plans for landscaping and artwork in the spring.  Come this time next year, I'll be able to focus my spare moments to making halloween decorations, and doing crafts with my child.  I'm so looking forward to that!

Zsa Zsa Moments

So, there's a blog almost every single person in the world knows about, but I'll be honest, I've only been reading her for the last few months, and I enjoy it.  It's the Bloggess, and she even won herself a spot on Katie Couric's show in it's inaugural month of shows.  That's extremely high praise, and it's most definitely deserved.

Why I connect with Jenny Lawson from the Bloggess.com, is because she experiences the same disease I have, and while she is far more extreme in her sense of humour, I most certainly get it.  I think it, she says it.  Works for me.

Some of my friends read her too, and one recently posted a link to Jenny's speech on being furiously happy.  I'm going to pay it forward because it really means so much to live like this.  Especially when you suffer from illnesses like depression and anxiety.  It's worth the watch.  I enjoyed it.

For my part I have been attempting to live my life in a more muted fashion but with the same goal.  Reality is, that I live my life every day for my family and try to carve out enough time in my life to satiate my soul so that I don't up and walk out, wringing my own neck and pulling out my hair on the way to the looney bin.

So for me, that means I weave in little Zsa Zsa moments.  If you're too young to remember Zsa Zsa Gabor, you'll miss many of the references, so I'll just hang on a moment, while you catch up on her background.  Essentially, this woman made mug shot synonymous with celebrity.  Before Martha Stewart, Zsa Zsa was the quintessential bitch slapping diva they all painted Martha with.  In fact, Lindsay Lohan and Naomi Campbell were jokes compared to Zsa Zsa.  When Zsa Zsa said or did something, she pretty much meant it, stood behind it, and then she left you to rot in your own unworthiness.  She married 9 times.  Yes.  9.  Once even to Paris Hilton's great grandpappy.

I think she had a competition running with Liz Taylor.  She married royalty, she married actors, she modelled and acted herself...and never in her hay day would she have been caught without her face on, her diamonds in, and her nails (err. talons) done.

You know how they say "no one smiles for their mug shots"?  Well, Zsa Zsa did.  Yep.  Cuz that's how she rolled.

This is a mug shot of one well put together lady who wouldn't have missed out on her luxuries for a second.  Luxury was her middle name.

And so I have Zsa Zsa moments.  They are those moments when I indulge myself in something innocent (not slapping officers or marrying billionaires here), but where I spread a $10 jelly on my toast at breakfast because I frigging deserve it after changing a million dirty diapers and where I take the wine to the bubble bath because gosh darnit, baths require wine.  And where I just flake off work for an hour or two to write my blog because darnit, my soul needs a little love too.  It's my equivalent to living furiously happy.  I smile and laugh every day with my kid and my husband, even on some of my most challenging days.  They keep me balanced with the frustration and the frenzy that is Monday to Friday and sometimes Sunday too.  But my Zsa Zsa moments keep me being "me".  100% me.  Nobody else.  Nothing artificial, temporary or cloaked in a role or responsibility.  Just me, being good to me.  Selfishly happy.  Wining and dining my soul.

The $10 jelly is equally awesome.  I recommend it to everyone and there's one here waiting for you.  Comment and tell me why you need a Zsa Zsa moment, and I'll randomly select a winner.  $10 jelly could be on it's way to you, and you could be eating some seriously bitchin Zsa Zsa'd toast for breakfast!

So did Martha.  Just sayin.