I may have said this before ...

Mother's Day.

I used to cry in church, every Mother's Day, because I wanted children so badly, and I was barren.  And then I would look around me and think everyone knew why I was crying, and I would cry harder.  (Why on earth I forced myself to go to church on Mother's Day, I will never know.  God wouldn't have minded.  I know that now.)

Several years ago, when my own invisible, unknown-even-to-me demons were making my parenting hard on everyone in my household, I found myself approaching Mother's Day with an astonishing measure of self-pity.  When I caught myself thinking "well they probably won't get me anything anyway", I was finally appalled enough at myself to snap out of it.  Since that year, this is what Mother's Day has meant to me:

Today is the day that I say "Thank you, God, that I get to be a mother, after all."  I hope I cry in church today, out of gratitude for these two incredible fascinating funny smart athletic interesting people that live in our house with us.  They're tall and lean and brown and fit and they have great hair and both of them have great senses of humour, in very different ways.  They are both capable of great kindness, and I love being with them.

Today, especially this year, is also the day that I celebrate the fact that my own mother is still "this side of heaven."  I will say this, too, because she would say it as well, that she is mothering me more at this stage in my life, while I am enduring an absolute storm of recall of repressed memories of severe, sustained abuse, than she ever has.  As horrible as the stories I have to tell are, and as heartbreaking as they must be to her, because the perpetrators of my worst abuses were not unknown to her, she has never once doubted me, never once faltered in her absolute resolve to be strong for me.

The gift I want today, on top of those? as if a person should need any more than that?

A picture of three of them together, these extravagant graces in my life, a memento to mark this moment in time.

I needed to hear this today - maybe you did too?

This is from Annie Herring's CD, Glimpses

He's the one who loves you more than you will ever know
He's the one who dries the tears you cry
He has formed your very soul and knows your every need
He will guide you through your darkest night

For you
still carry inside you
His light that never dies
and you
are always before Him
the apple of His eye

He's the one who holds you close when no-one will come near
The one who sees what no-one else can see
He's the one who keeps your burden light enough to bear
For He will be your strength when you are weak

For you
still carry inside you
His light that never dies
and you
are always before Him
the apple of His eye

Nothing in this world
could ever keep His love from you
and He gave His life
to see this promise through

He's the one who loves you more than you will ever know
And He has counted every tear you've cried
He will mend your tear-stained heart and make it light as snow
And He'll become your wings so you can fly

For you
still carry inside you
His light that never dies
and you
are always before Him
the apple of His eye

Give and take

I've been writing this post in my head for a few days, but I wasn't sure I'd post it.  I like to post the positive, and also, there's a lot about my current journey that I haven't written in public about. There's a journal, and I've had face to face conversations with people, but cyberspace is another leap. I'm not ready to make that leap yet, and so it's easiest just to post the peripherals, like smiling at myself in the mirror on a daily basis.

And then I read this post:

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/culture/tech/stop-instagramming-your-perfect-life

and thought, okay, I'll post it.  I am resisting the urge to polish this post.  Let's post things that aren't beautifully worded!


This is still not a full-disclosure leap.  It's maybe even nothing new, the peek into what some of my days are like this will give, but it feels more raw than anything else I've posted since this began.

Wednesday was a very hard day.  Something happened Tuesday evening that triggered me badly, and I'd been feeling pretty much stunned ever since.  I couldn't feel my body, and I couldn't think. I couldn't name the trigger, and I couldn't figure out my reaction.

But there was this moment ...

I'm driving to pick A up from rugby, and as I turn off our street onto the main road, a woman in a long black coat half-raises her arm to flag me down.  She looks as stunned as I have felt all day, and I don't even think twice before pulling over, and rolling down the window.

"I - I just need a ride."  She is crying.  "A ride to an address near here."

"No problem," I tell her.  "I know how it is to feel completely lost."

The address she gives is quite close to where we are.  On the drive over, I make sure that where she is going is safe, because clearly she was not where she felt safe moments before.  She tells me a little about what happened, a moment of unexpected violence, and "Thank you for helping me."

I think of myself, an hour ago, huddled under the covers, begging God to send me some help, because I knew I needed to find my way back to 2013 but I couldn't do it on my own ...and the phone interrupted my prayer, one of my dearest friends calling to ask how my day is going.

"No problem."  I tell her.

She gives a few more details.  "He's my ex.  He said he'd cook dinner for us."  She's distraught, and I have no idea how much of this she will remember, but I have to say something.

"It's hard to remember that the people we care about aren't safe just because we want them to be."  She will never know that I am speaking out of my own immense pain.

She doesn't say anything, cries harder.  I hand her Kleenex, drop her off, make sure she gets into her house safely.

An hour later, after having picked A up at rugby, gotten her something to eat, and dropped her off at youth group, I am once again sobbing, on the phone with a friend, because my own darkness has descended again.  I try very hard to minimize the effect my current struggles are having on my family, and knew that I shouldn't be home right then.  It takes a lot of courage for me to be vulnerable enough to ask if I can just come sit on someone's couch until I'm together, but that's what I did.

Such an exhausting day, I tell God on my way over to the couch.  Why I am always taking?

And He reminds me of the woman in the long black coat, who looked as I lost as I felt, who found ten minutes of sanctuary in my van, and there is, once again, comfort.

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way to The Mirror

I think most of us are like this.  We go to the bathroom, and as we're washing our hands afterwards, we catch sight of ourselves in the mirror, and think "I need a haircut." or "Is my face really that colour?" or we remember that we've always hated our eyebrows ...

The psychologist I am seeing suggested that I try to develop "positive mirror talk."  Look in the mirror and think something nice about yourself.  I will not tell you what I thought of this idea, but I will tell that I have ever been one to do what she's told to do.  So I tried it. 

It took some work.  I finally stopped thinking about the physical attributes at all, and started to just lean forward, look deep into my own eyes, and say "I like you.", with the kindest smile I could muster up.

Sometimes I had to do it more than once, because I'd catch sight of my profile or my hair that was too flat in that one spot or some other such horror - but I'd do it.  As many times a day as I went to the bathroom - lean forward, eye contact, "I like you", big smile.

And then something started to shift.  I'd be walking out the door, towards something that might be challenging and I'd remind myself "Do the mirror thing."  And I'd walk out the door just a little bit lighter in my heart.

And now when I walk past a mirror, I don't avert my eyes so that I don't see some hitherto unnoticed failing.

The mirror has become friendly, and the world a friendlier place.  Today I walked into the bathroom and before I even got to the mirror, I felt a tiny surge of appreciation, because I knew what was coming.

So try it!  Lean forward, make eye contact, be kind to yourself.

There's a metaphor in here somewhere

I've been thinking about childhood toys lately and just a few days ago, I remembered a rag doll I had that I loved and loved and loved.  Anyone out there remember Holly Hobbie? She came to boarding school with me when I left home at 15 ...and the last I'd seen of her, she was dirty and almost hairless.

I started looking for her, and after begging TechnoGuy to unearth the big black trunk that had followed me to school and back forever, and jimmying the lock, there she was.

She was just as dirty and hairless as I'd remembered.  I stripped her clothes off and threw her in the washer on "delicates" - and opened the washer to find that she was still pretty dirty, and a hole in her side had opened up and there was foam all over the washer.

I took her out and looked at her, and decided I had an office, that has a bed on it, that she is welcome to sit on for the rest of my life.  I sprayed Shout on her face and tried to scrub it ...old fabric.  Oops.

 

(you can see just how much hair she had left in this picture ...)

 

I slept on it, decided to either glue gun a felt heart on her face or ...do something.  She was drying out on the edge of the bathtub, and the Shout had actually lightened the stains on her face considerably. 

 

After church today, we had a rare Sunday when we all went our separate ways, and I came upstairs and started rooting around for felt.  I found iron on tape, and made her a bandage.

 

 

Then I played around with yarn, trying to give her hair.  (there's a little bit of yarn in our house)

 

 

 

Ironed her clothes and took her downstairs for some glue gun action, and a little braiding, and ...

 





 

 

 

She's not what she was when she was brand-new, but I'm pretty jazzed by how far a little TLC can go.

Every so often ...

... I read a poem that makes me catch my breath, and then feel like the light is a bit stronger, for no reason that I can identify.

This is today's:

To a Poor Old Woman
by William Carlos Williams
munching a plum on the street a paper bag of them in her hand They taste good to her They taste good to her. They taste good to her You can see it by the way she gives herself to the one half sucked out in her hand Comforted a solace of ripe plums seeming to fill the air They taste good to her

For the WIN

Here's how to get tomorrow's supper ready today (unless you are the kind who Plans Ahead.  If you are that kind of person you don't need my advice.  This is for people who look at the clock every day at four and think "Really?  time to cook AGAIN?  Didn't I just DO that?"  For thirty years, supper has come as a surprise to me.  You'd think the surprise would have worn off by now.)

1. Sleep in.

2.  Have a really nice low-key day.

3.  Do math thusly:

"okay if A has be at Point Z by 7 and B has to be at Point Y by 7, nobody has to leave here until 6:30, so I should start supper at 4:30."

4.  Start supper at 4:30. 

5.  At five o'clock, have one of your children come dashing into the room saying "ACK!  I have to be there at six!!!" 

6.  Do math thusly.  "Some of us have to leave here at 5:30 then."

7.  Heat up leftover lasagna for your spouse, and cook frozen perogies for your children.  Wait to eat till everyone's done and have some lasagna AND a few perogies yourself.

8.  Calmly finish assembling the casserole you were assembling before  Step 5.

9. Smile the whole time you are doing dishes because DUDE!  tomorrow's supper is DONE.