Training wheels please…

Being a mother is hard. There, I said it. I won’t even touch being a wife today…cause I’m still figuring that out too 😉

As an emotional over thinker, it’s even more difficult because I’m constantly second guessing myself (along with everyone else), taking everything to heart (and I mean personally), and always trying to foresee every possible consequence or outcome of every word, action, or situation…which is IMpossible.

From the moment my daughter was born, I felt the weight of it on my heart and conscience…the responsibility of her life, her happiness, her comfort and well being, as well as the expectations I have for myself to live up to: as the mother I always wanted for myself and that I saw myself being…and of course, the expectations I assume every one else has of me; the things I imagine they would want me to say or do, my daughter to say or do or be. It’s all very overwhelming and at times a bit too much for my sensitive self to take in. I am hard enough on myself as a person, let alone as a person responsible for another life 😉

This week has been a doozy, not just as a mommy but also with a lot of personal changes and adjustments. I started back on the 10 week program with Farrell’s. I am in the 5am class because it works best with my busy schedule, so I now get up at 4am rather than 5:30 or 6 as I’m used to. And since my husband now gets up later, I’ve been staying up later with him until 10 instead of going to bed at 9…so sleep has been less and I’m tired from the new workouts. I’m thinking I’m going to have to go back to 9pm bedtimes if I expect to stay awake and sane for the next few months 😉 I also started back at DMACC, taking 2 online classes and one night class, which is two days a week after work. I’ve been trying to read over all the syllabus’, class outlines, and assignments for the next week, post to the message boards, and just get used to being in a classroom environment again (totally weird since I’ve been used to online classes for a couple years now) while working around my normal work schedule and duties…it’s been stressful. I’m a little concerned about the workload since I’m taking both Literature and English, which are heavy in reading/essay writing but…I enjoy both so I’m hoping I will find a way to manage them well. We’re still settling into our new house; unpacking, fixing things, decorating, and just trying to get it to feeling more “normal” or like a home. Most nights and weekends are spent doing that. Then comes the everyday stuff like laundry, dishes, house work, etc. With the new house we want to be sure we stay on top of things so I’m getting gentle reminders about them and taking them not so gently. Doing laundry for two adults who workout (that’s two outfits and pajamas) AND a five year old can be tough to keep up with, especially on a super tight schedule. I’m tired, I’m a little stressed and overwhelmed, my nerves and emotions are bruised and sensitive, I feel overweight and icky and my clothes don’t fit…and it’s just kinda crazy. I’m just trying to stay focused, calm, and not freak out 😉

Then there is my 5 year old daughter, Cadence, who is in Kindergarten and had to start up at a new school herself. She’s my main concern this week. Much like her mommy she is a very emotional, sensitive little person..who takes everything to heart and is a people pleaser. Over the past month she had to deal with packing up all her things in her old bedroom and not having access to a lot of her favorite toys or activities until we moved, saying goodbye to all her new friends she made at her previous school, being bounced around between grandma and grandpas and mommy and daddy while we move, do repairs, etc. She’s had to entertain herself and hear a lot of “Not right now” or “Maybe later”. We celebrated Christmas and then after break she started back at the new school, seemingly excited but showing little signs here and there of being stressed by breaking down into tears over the silliest (in our eyes) of things. Our schedules are new, EVERYTHING is new…and we’re still all adjusting. Yesterday I got a call from her teacher…one of those calls any parent would hate to get: Cadence has been struggling to keep her hands to herself and was seen by a teacher going up and kneeing a girl in the back of the leg out of nowhere, and this wasn’t an isolated incident I guess. Her teacher just hadn’t wanted to say anything in hopes it was just a first week adjustment issue…but it’s now carrying over into her second week and she’s concerned. Cadence has told her she just wants to get their attention but she’s clearly doing it in the wrong way. I also found out she’s made several trips to the nurses office complaining of tummy aches, although she’s not running a fever or throwing up…what the nurse and I both agree sounds like nerves…and again, what daddy and I believe may be attention seeking.

I forget, in all that is going on in my own day to day, that she too has feelings, she too is impacted by all this crazy, and probably struggles much more with it all being 5 and little and confused. I cried when I got off the phone with her teacher. In part because I was disappointed, didn’t understand why my sweet little monkey would be wanting to hurt others, and worry others won’t understand or know how wonderful she is and not want to be her friend…but also, mostly, because I feel like it’s my fault; like I could have prevented this, like I haven’t been attentive enough during this transition…I completely overlooked her feelings in it all. I can’t imagine how she must be feeling, sigh.

We sat down and talked last night. I tried to make sure she knew how important it is that she is honest and open with what she is feeling, what she is going through, what is happening in her day; that mommy and daddy are here, that we care and want to help her, but can’t if she doesn’t talk to us, which she wasn’t comfortable doing because she was afraid we would be mad. Sometimes we will get mad, but we will work through it…and we will always love her. We role played some situations: wanting to get someones attention by using our words (not our hands), what we should do if the person doesn’t seem interested or doesn’t want to talk/play (because they won’t always want to, and that is okay), what to say/do if we start to feel mad or sad or scared and who to go to (because it’s okay to take time to ourself to be alone or to ask a teacher to talk it out). I wanted her to know how completely unacceptable hitting or hurting others is…but also wanted her to know how much we love her, how smart and kind we know she is, and that regardless of “getting in trouble” or making mistakes…we will always love her, no matter what. She lost her iPad privileges and access to some of her things. She has a play date scheduled for this weekend, it will only happen if we hear a good report for the rest of the week. Tough but also unconditional love…that’s what we’re trying here.

I am new at this. I have never been a mother. I am learning as I go..and most of the time there is a whole bunch of other shit going on that I’m having to juggle and wrangle and figure out…but what I’m realizing is: she is most important. She comes first.

I have looked forward to being a mommy my whole life. From the moment I found out Caleb and I had made magic and I had a little bean in my belly, I was filled with a glow and love and excitement I have never experienced. I used to waddle through the skywalks on my lunches, big old baby belly guiding the way, smiling to myself because I was just so stinkin giddy and happy. *tears tears tears typing it. But I’ve also taken it incredibly seriously, lots of times too seriously (because I do that with everything damnit) and that’s been a tremendous struggle because I know it not only effects my own sanity and heart but that of my girl and family.

So (deep breath)…with a little bit of a heavy heart, sparky-fritzy brain and really sore butt and arms from my workouts this week hahaha…I’m moving forward, a little cautiously. I’m going to try to take the gentle reminders about laundry and vacuuming and not leaving things on the kitchen table…gently (without breaking into tears or freaking out by yelling things like “I ONLY HAVE TWO HANDS DAMNIT”). I’ve already thrown and cleaned up after a pitty party by expressing how I “can’t do anything right” etc…waste of time and energy, suck it up buttercup 😉 Caleb’s favorite term is HTFU. I’m trying honey…thanks for hanging in there. I’m going to try to manage my time better. I’m going to try to keep up on all the day to day. I’m going to try to be positive and organized. I say try because that is the best promise I can give right now. Take it or leave it. But mostly, I’m just going to consciously not say things like “Not now” or “Maybe later” and be more patient, more attentive, and more present with my little monkey…because she deserves it, she needs it…and I know with all I’m feeling, it’s what I would want or need from someone, especially my mommy.

Still learning. Figuring it all out one second at a time. Raw. Always forward ❤

Our own monsters…

A friend shared this blog post this morning:

The Bully Too Close to Home

I cried at my desk at work and had to blame it on my cold.

Since I found out I was pregnant I was filled with this sense of purpose, not only to be the best mother I could be (ie: better than mine was for me) but also to raise the most healthy and perfect little person I possibly could (better than I was and am). That is a lot of pressure, on myself and my little girl.

I’ve gone over and over and over in my head all the things my mother and father have ever done and the impact those things have had on me as a person. I’ve compared them to the upbringing of my husband, his stories and the impact they’ve had on him. I judge, critique, and analyze other parents to the point of driving myself crazy…because I don’t want to get it wrong, I want to get it all “just right”…perfect. That is a lot of pressure to put on not only myself but everyone else. In the end, we all suffer.

I can’t really even begin to describe my childhood or upbringing. It’s such a fucked up combination of love and anger and imbalance I wouldn’t know where to start. I even have a hard time computing it all myself most of the time. One moment I recall a loving, fun, bubbly mother letting me do her hair and makeup, letting me crawl into bed with her because it’s “just us, best buddies” against the world…and the next I remember a drunk, drugged up crazed woman dragging me out of bed by my hair screaming about cigarettes or hitting me in the face calling me a “snotty bitch” and asking who I think I am. With my father it’s either bike rides to the park, falling asleep on his chest on the couch or visiting him in prison, waiting for him to never show up for birthdays or catching him doing drugs in a friends bedroom. I’m not sharing this for pity or sympathy or using it as an excuse. I know I have a choice on how I deal with that. I know I’m an adult now and am responsible for how I use that. But I also can’t deny that it doesn’t effect me, that it isn’t hard, and that I do allow it to mess with my head and my heart. I am weak. I’m not perfect. There are times this shit comes crashing through my sunshiny positivity bubble and I’m left a wreck. I let it do that, me. And that again feeds the beast that is my confidence, my motivation, my happiness…the love I have for myself…the love I have left for everyone else.

I have alllllways been a people pleaser. Always. I want everyone to like me, everyone to be happy with me, everyone to approve of me, etc etc etc. I set these impossible standards for myself that just can’t be met. I have such great expectations of how I or others or things should be that when they don’t measure up…I’m crushed. And this compulsion to be perfect causes me to in turn want to raise a perfect little girl. If my daughter isn’t polite or behaving well, what will others think of ME? If my daughter isn’t smart, healthy and kind what kind of parent am I?! Everything is a reflection on me as a mother or as a person. Everything. How my husband or daughters treat me or see me. How my friends treat me or see me. It feels like it’s all a measure of me, of my worth, of my character. Sigh. And my daughter…that poor girl hasn’t stood a chance from the moment she was born…the shoes she is trying to fill continue to grow at an impossible rate that she can’t keep up with. The same goes for me…and probably everyone else I know.

Reading that blog post this morning felt like someone stripped me down, shoved me out in the middle of the world and shined a big bright spotlight on me. I’ve been there. Right there in that situation where my daughter is needing compassion and love and attention and I’m too busy or distracted to give it so she is left defeated and confused and hurt. Isn’t that so sadly ironic?! That in my constant battle to achieve perfection and create the perfect little person, I’m being the exact opposite of what I want and would expect me to be?!

Last night my daughter, husband and I all piled into her bed to read the last assigned chapter of “The Borrower’s” for her schools reading program. It had been a long day. I was stressed about a laundry list of things and frustrated with others not going my way or how I wanted them to so was already cranky. My daughter, being 5 and having just had a few pieces of candy as a reward for something or other was understandably antsy and distracted and not paying attention to what I was reading. We had gone through this the night before, where mid chapter she couldn’t tell me what had happened in the story or answer any questions I had asked. So tonight I got upset, closed the book and said we weren’t going to read if she wasn’t going to be respectful and listen. She begged me to keep going and I said no, kissed her goodnight, and left her crying. She opened her door a few minutes later all teary eyed, poked her little head out, and sheepishly said “I’m sorry”. I snapped “Go to bed Cadence” and this led to the door being shut as she sobbed uncontrollably. My husband got upset and told me that was uncalled for, that she was trying to say she was sorry; he went to console her. I immediately knew I had made a mistake but instead of saying that I got angry at him for “making me feel like a terrible mother”, cursed, and spent the rest of the night alone with a glass of wine. There are so many things wrong with what I did, I can’t even begin to start to pick it apart. I’m ashamed of it. Tears fill my eyes just typing this. But the bully in me snaps “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You’re the one who did this. Cadence is who you should be feeling sorry for.” And I do. I feel sorry that my little girl, who has inherited my people pleasing and sensitive little heart, felt like she wasn’t good enough, like she had disappointed me, or like she had done a terrible thing simply because she is 5 and wasn’t paying attention. What broke my heart even more was the big puffy red eyes that greeted me when I finally went in to comfort her and make sure she knew it wasn’t that big of a deal, that I loved her, that I understood…that I was sorry…

The thing that confused me most about my relationship with my own mother was how she could fly off the handle one minute in a fit of rage and hit me, call me names, etc then come in crying 5 minutes later, sobbing through apologizes and begging me to forgive her. She always apologized but by the time I was 15 those apologies didn’t mean anything because I knew within the hour or the day or the week she would do it all over again and we would replay the horrible cycle of lashing out, feeling guilty, and taking it back. It broke my spirit, it drained my faith and trust in others, and I have a feeling it altered my own perception and ability to understand the true meaning of an apology, of learning from my mistakes and owning up to them, of what a normal healthy relationship is like. Now, looking back on that, I realize how I am falling into that pattern with my own daughter (as well as others)…the very thing I’ve always fought so hard to NOT do…and it hurts. I know it’s not as extreme as my mother, but my mother didn’t start out that way either…it gradually got worse over time…and I want to catch it, and stop it before it reaches that point. Again, I don’t want to raise another “me”…I don’t want Cadence looking back and fighting those same demons. And I want my apologies to mean something.

So within the last 24 hours my little bubble has been burst. I’m re-reading that blog post, going over all this in my little head, and feeling pretty heavy and deflated. It’s easy to see the negative in it all, to look back and dwell on the hurt and the faults and the “shoulda coulda woulda”s. What’s hard is using all that to learn, to improve, and to move forward without putting so much pressure on myself that I crumble beneath it. As my husband said “No one is perfect. We can’t expect it from ourselves or each other or Cadence.” Sigh.

So I guess my mission is to work on loving and accepting myself, cutting myself a little slack, and finding a healthy balance between self-evaluation and self-deprecation, analyzing my past and using it to grow or allowing it to prevent me from growing, and also understanding the difference between pillars of character to build from and impossible expectations to come crashing down from trying to reach. I am always always open to learning…I need to do so more graciously, gracefully, and peacefully…for myself and those I love.

I am not perfect. I never will be. No one is. No one should be. I shouldn’t strive to be better than someone else or my past, I should strive to be the best I can be…the happiest, the most loving, the healthiest inside and out…for me and for my family. I need to fill my own love cup before I can try to pour into that of others.

I want my daughter to feel good about herself, to love herself, to be happy…I shouldn’t care what others think of how we achieve that or how we get there. This whole mentality of “keeping up with the Jones'” isn’t just monetary anymore…it’s about an image, and that’s ridiculous and impossible…and it goes against everything I believe, everything I preach, everything raw and real and true…

Humbly bare. Always forward ❤

A kick in the teeth…

10 years ago in the Spring/Summer of 2003, after four years together my (then) fiance and I went through a terrible breakup…at my hands. In retrospect, I would now summarize the cause as my having let outside forces interfere in our happiness…that’s not me blaming others; I allowed it, participated in it, and ultimately pulled the plug so to speak. For four months I went through a process of complete and total self destruction, making bad decision after bad decision after bad decision: I traded all my good and healthy relationships for toxic ones, threw away a good job, spent all my savings and inheritance, lived off of mountain dew, cigarettes, and chicken nuggets, drank until I blacked out, and even dabbled in binging and purging getting down to 105lbs of what felt like sludge. It was during this time that I got to see myself hit absolute rock bottom…at my worst, at my most insecure, insensitive, selfish, inconsiderate, cruel, irresponsible, weak, destructive, self-loathing, pitiful…it was truly truly a terrible time. And I don’t say this because I want anyone to feel sorry for me; you shouldn’t, I brought it on myself…I did it to myself…I had no consideration for anyone around me or for any consequences my actions might have brought to myself or others. I did what felt good to ME in that moment without any regard for anything else. For years I blamed it on my mothers death, my only being 20, my relationship with my father, blah blah blah. But now, at 30 I realize it was just me breaking down…ME.

I learned more about myself in those short (but seemingly looooong) four months than I have in my entire 30 years of life. I saw a glimpse of how truly ugly and desperate I could be, and I also saw just how powerful you can allow the attitude and morals of others around you to be on your world. If you surround yourself with people who make poor choices, who exude negative behavior and attitudes…you will more than likely become more and more like them. But if you surround yourself with people who make good choices and who are positive and light and happy….you in turn become those things as well. Let me clarify a bit by saying: others don’t MAKE us like them or FORCE us to do things, we actively CHOOSE to allow them to INFLUENCE us…whether it be for our better good or our worst.

After four months of self-discovery, reassessment, and completely breaking down (I think on both our parts), my honey and I got back together…a little bitter, a lot broken, and with a lot of work ahead of us. But we had been through high school, college, death…we had faced so much and realized we had done it TOGETHER. It was only when we were apart that we seemed to drown and struggle to come back up. Now, 10 years, 15 anniversaries, a home, a daughter, several more losses and many many gains later…we are stronger, better, wiser and the happiest I think we have ever been…

We don’t talk about this time much, in part because it was a dark time, in part because no one likes to share their faults or “dirty laundry”, but also because I think that although it was one of our worst periods…it was just that, 4 months out of over 15 years…

I was standing in the squat rack today, spacing off between sets when someone walked by with a band t-shirt on that reminded me of a song…and BAM…all these memories punched me in the face. I looked at myself in the mirror, I remembered myself from those times and I couldn’t believe who I was looking at…and then I realized this Spring/Summer marks 10 years.

I saw a quote last week, it read “You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.” Of all people, it was said by Walt Disney. A kick in the teeth…that four months, along with several other life changing events, was the “kick in the teeth” Walt spoke of and now I realize it really was one of the best things I’ve been through…because at my worst, I became capable of wanting to fight with everything in me to become my best; my husband, my best friend, helps me do that; his family helps me do that; our daughter, our friends, our life….all these things bring out the best in me and make me want to be my best…for myself, for them, for the world around me.

Whether the kick in the teeth is from another person, a force beyond our control (like my mothers death or drug abuse), or brought on by ourselves…we can either see them as tragedies against us, as excuses to give up or give in to darkness and deterioration of our spirit and values, or…we can see them as obstacles to overcome, building blocks of character and strength, motivation to fight for something…

I fight every day to be healthy so I can live a long life and break the cycle of heart disease in the women of my family. I fight every day to be happy so I can be a positive energy and influence in the lives of those around me. I fight every day to provide for my family and my home and our future. Most importantly I fight to leave a lasting legacy of love, knowledge, compassion, and acceptance to my daughter and my husband and the generations that will come after me. When I die I don’t want to leave THINGS, I want to leave a lasting impression….and these struggles, mistakes, lessons, and heartbreaks empower me to heal, improve, seek, and grow.

“You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.” – Walt Disney

Today, I am grateful for every damn kick in the teeth I’ve received…and for every magical moment that has overshadowed and come from them in return. Thank you to my honey for continuing to be a part of my life, a part of my journey of self-discovery, and a part of my future adventure…

“From the hot to cold, spring to the fall
You and I was meant to be together in love
Something ‘bout a wound down in my soul
Something on my mind easy be told

3 steps, 3 steps behind these 2 hands
These 2 hands of mine
You’ve got that 1 thing that can make a man blind
And grow in my past fame”