These are the Moments

The idea for this post has been lazily rolling around in my head for a few weeks now. I’ve tried to write it more than once, but I can never seem to find the right words to say what I want to say. I hate when that happens because I can’t get the thoughts out of my brain, and I need to.

 

A couple of weeks ago, I was driving to work and feeling a little down. For some reason, my morning drive to work has become the time when I stew and fret and think about things that are weighing heavily on my heart and mind and soul. I’ve tried all sorts of tricks in an effort to make myself stop doing this--I have tried leaving home a few minutes earlier and driving the more scenic, relaxing way to work on the river road. I’ve armed myself with stacks of CD’s with upbeat songs. I have begun listening to a St. Louis radio station called Joy! that plays Christian pop music. I’ve even resorted to listening to the morning show on the station my kids listen in an attempt to get in a few laughs on my drive to work. For some reason, none of those things have worked, and I end up spending my drive to work feeling sad and out of sorts, and that is really not a fun way to begin my day. Thankfully, my commute to work is less than 30 minutes, and thankfully, I don’t go through this same process on my way home. I wish I knew what it is about that morning drive that makes me think the thoughts I think and feel the way I do.

 

Okay, back to the day I mentioned. I was driving to work, feeling down and wishing I had someone to call to distract me because I felt myself on the verge of tears. I had a meeting that morning, and I didn’t want to arrive at work looking like I’d been crying, and I was channel surfing the radio when I heard an old song that I used to love—“These are the Moments” by Edwin McCain. I have no idea why I left the radio on that station that morning but I did, and I remembered when the kids were little and it was one of my favorite songs. I loved it so much back then that I even made a scrapbook page with “These are the Moments” as the title. Back then, that sappy song that was meant to be a love song, always made me think how very lucky I was. It made me think that I really did have everything I’d always wanted, and I especially loved the line “and I could not ask for more.” My life was far from perfect and we had our stresses and worries just like everyone else, but I knew—knew without a doubt--that the good things we had far outnumbered and overshadowed the not so good things. I was happy and content and grateful—so incredibly grateful--for all that I had.

 

However, listening to it that morning depressed the hell out of me. I felt the tears threatening to let loose, and as I put my finger on a button intending to switch radio stations, this line from the song grabbed my attention:

 

Right here at this moment, is right where I’m meant to be

Now that gave my mind some food for over-thinking thought!

 
I am not going to write all of the thoughts I had the rest of my drive to work because it would take me forever, depress me even more, and all of the random thoughts that raced through my mind that morning aren’t really the point of any of this. The point is where those thoughts ended up. It ended up once again making me feel like I am a schmuck for being down and depressed about anything, that I should be happy with what I have instead of pining for what I don’t.

I have a framed card that sits on my desk at work. I bought it years ago, not because I wanted to send it to anyone, but because I like the saying on it. Above a bunch of colorful, handpainted flowers, it says “If you wait to be happy, you’ll be happy never. If you are happy NOW, you’ll be happy forever.” Hearing that old song on a morning when I was feeling very down for lots of different reasons reminded me in a way to try to be happy and embrace whatever moments I am given, no matter what those moments bring. Which of course reminded me of why I originally started writing this blog 2 years ago.

 Soooo…on that note, I’m going to write about a few “moments” I’ve had lately that I have tried to embrace and think about in a positive way. I’ve had many “moments” this past week alone:

Lightbulb moments.

Bittersweet moments.
Whack myself on the head because I’m an idiot moment
Feel good moments.
Feel like crap moments.
Eye-opening moments
Proud moments

For once, I am not going to write about the feeling like crap moments, or the whack myself on the head because I’m an idiot moment. I’m turning over a new leaf. At least for today anyway.

I’m only going to talk about the good moments because I am making myself let them overshadow the crappy ones.

 First, there is this one, definitely a bittersweet moment:

 Seeing my baby girl all dressed up for her first high school dance.

 

 

 

Rachel really surprised me. Before we went homecoming dress shopping, I just knew she was going to pick out some icky dress cut down to here and up to there that form fit her body. I just knew we were going to end up in a fight in the middle of Macy’s or Deb or wherever she found the awful dress that she just HAD to have. I just knew that our shopping expedition would involve tears. Not only from Rachel, but from me, too. Frankly, I was dreading it and wishing that Lauren would talk her out of going to homecoming by telling her it is lame or something.

 Thankfully, I was wrong, and I liked nearly every dress she tried on, and we had so much fun shopping and trying on dresses and shoes and jewelry. She didn’t buy the dress that was my favorite, but I think she looked beautiful in the one she chose. She wanted high heels, I didn’t. She could barely stand in them, much less walk, and I envisioned her breaking an ankle. She wanted jewelry I didn’t really care for…but in the end, it all came together beautifully, she looked beautiful, and I was misty eyed when she was ready to leave for the dance. She noticed and said “Oh my GOD mom, why are you crying?” in that horrified/OMG you are so stupid way that teenagers can be pros at. I pretended it was an allergy attack along with a bug that flew into my eye. She bought it. I think.

We went to take pictures with her friends at a park, and it was so much fun. They climbed on the playground equipment and wanted to swing. They ran through wet grass in their bare feet, high heels tossed aside, to the soccer field.

 

 

All of us moms who spent too much money in the salon cringed and wondered what those expensive up dos were going to look like after they ran around the park and what their pedicures would look like after running around like barefoot little heathens,

 

 

 

but the girls didn’t care. One girl told her mom to “chill out! My hair will be fine!” So we embraced the moment and took pictures of them sliding down slides and swinging on swings and playing on the monkey bars.

 

 

When it was time to head to the dance, they all put their shoes back on and primped in front of car windows, checking hair they supposedly didn’t care about and applying fresh coats of lip gloss.

I drove home smiling through tears. It was definitely a bittersweet moment.  While I love that my little girl is growing up, I hate that my little girl is growing up. It seems like just yesterday I was walking into her first day of kindergarten (I cried then too! Shocking, I know!), and now, I’m taking photographs of her ready to go to her first high school dance.

The next morning, I snapped this picture, and I love it!

 

 

Just 12 hours before, she was trying to be a grown up in a sparkly dress and dangly earrings and high heels she could barely walk in, and she came home and fell asleep with her blanket that she has had since before she was born. When I saw her like that this morning, I cried again.

 I cry way too much, I know. I sometimes wonder how I will make it through my children’s weddings.

A lightbulb moment….

Rachel has a friend that I cannot stand. Let me say that again…I CANNOT stand this girl. Unfortunately, she lives across the street. And even more unfortunately, she is Rachel’s best friend. She spends a great deal of time at my house, and while she is always nice, she doesn’t treat Rachel very nicely, and I don’t understand why Rachel puts up with her. I’ve tried to talk to Rachel about how to treat friends, and how to expect to be treated by friends. She gets it, and she has other friends that I really do like. But this particular girl just gets under my skin, and there are times that when she is in my house that I can barely let myself look at her. Don’t get me wrong…I am nice to her. I bake cookies and make jewelry and play games with her and Rachel when she is here. I just don’t like her. Tony thinks I shouldn’t let her be here so much, but I like being able to keep my eye on them, so I suck it up and make the best of it. Rachel told me a few weeks ago that Lindsay really likes me, so I guess I must be a damn fine actress.

Of course, since Rachel and Lindsay are best friends, Rachel wanted her to get ready for homecoming at our house. I said that was fine, but wouldn’t Lindsay’s mom want to help her get ready, and she laughed and said Lindsay’s mom doesn’t care about stuff like that. Okay.

Lindsay came over early in the afternoon and wanted to go with us to the salon while Rachel had her hair done. I am not good with hair, so I decided as a treat, I would let her have her hair curled and pinned up. When we got home, the girls had about an hour to get ready before we needed to leave to go to their friend Katie’s house for pictures. The upstairs bathroom was a mess of makeup and shoes and jewelry. I told Rachel I’d help with her make up if she wanted me to, but otherwise, I was steering clear of the whole production. About 20 minutes before it was time to go, Rachel yelled that Lindsay needed my help because she was having a “hair emergency!” LOL And she was. Lindsay has a lot of hair that is naturally wavy. She had decided to just let it be wavy, put up the top, and then I was going to curl some tendrils around her face. Well, 20 minutes before departure time, Lindsay decided to straighten her hair, and she totally made a mess of it and was in tears, begging me to fix it. I tried, I really did. I plugged in my curling iron and used that and the flat iron to try to give her some soft waves. It took FOREVER because her hair is so thick, and as I worked, I tried to calm her down because by that point, she was saying she wasn’t going to go to homecoming. I kept telling her she looked really pretty, her hair would be fine by the time I was finished with it…all while thinking, “I suck at hair, that’s why I took Rachel to the salon, so that I wouldn’t have to deal with teenage tears over hair!”

 In the end, her hair looked pretty, she put on her makeup, and we were finally ready to race out the door, only 15 minutes later than we should have been. Lindsay quickly ran across the street so her mom could see her and take pictures, and she was back less than 2 minutes later saying her mom was asleep, woke up, told her she looked good, then went  back to sleep. That’s when my attitude toward Lindsay softened a bit, and I felt sorry for her. Lindsay is her mom’s only daughter, it was her first high school dance, and while I was frantically helping her get ready, she was sleeping and didn’t even care if she took pictures. Lindsay spent the night after the dance and was here all day on Sunday until dinner, and when she left, she gave me a hug and thanked me. I felt like a terrible person, kind of like the Grinch when his heart grew three sizes in one day. I decided right then and there that I am going to try harder to be nice to her for real and not just fake it.

A feel-good moment…

Two weeks ago, I had a brief and lovely glimpse of sisterly love between my girls when they decided it would be fun to go to school dressed as twins. I thought maybe it was twin day, part of spirit week, and they said no, they just wanted to do it for fun. AND, it was Lauren’s idea! Of course, I had to snap a photo.

 

I had warm fuzzy feelings about it all day. The next day, they spent the 45 minutes before they left for school yelling and calling each other names like idiot and quitter and loser. So much for sisterly love, but I am so glad I captured the moment the day before.

A proud moment…maybe 2…

Six years ago, I was dragged kicking and screaming and protesting into teaching a workshop on a very difficult, heavy topic at the training workshop we hold twice each year. I have never ever EVER enjoyed public speaking. Shocking I know since often, I start talking and can’t shut up. But the thought of standing up in front of people and talking, trying to actually TEACH them something…well, the thought of it made me want to throw up. As time has gone on, I have gotten better, and even a bit comfortable (notice I said a BIT!), but I still had butterflies for a couple of days before, especially after someone gave me a scathing evaluation 3 years ago.

 That training workshop was this past weekend, at the end of a crazy busy work week for me, and by Thursday night, I was so exhausted that I didn’t even pull out my notes to go over them, even though I had to teach Friday afternoon. I haven’t looked at the evaluations yet, and I was a tiny bit nervous, but I think I did better than I have ever done. Saturday afternoon, I teach a different workshop, on a more fun topic (if there can be any

“fun” topic in a conference that is teaching people how to best care for those who experience the death of a baby). Again, I was on a roll. When I was finished, my co-worker Jenn said to me “Wow! That’s the 3^rd time I’ve heard you give that talk, and you were AWESOME!” Later, at the end of the day, Jenn and another co-worker and I went to the hotel bar for a glass of wine, and as we clinked wine glasses, she said, “To Rose who I think has found her niche!”

I would not go quite that far, but I did feel really, really good about both of my workshops, for probably the first time ever. And the good feelings didn’t end there. Yesterday, my boss was there all day for the first time all weekend. She was there for about 2 hours Friday morning and about 3 hours Saturday morning, and that was it. Yesterday, I was almost embarrassed a few times by how much she was bragging about me to the participants. I am not sure what brought that all on since so often I feel like she is disappointed with what I do. While I was sort of uncomfortable being put on the spot like that, it was sort of nice, too.

Another strange thing happened over the weekend, more than once. My boss recently announced her retirement, so everyone is all abuzz about it. Two different people who teach workshops at training, who I haven’t seen since March, had all kinds of questions for me of course, and they both asked me if I would be taking over for her. I said no way, I have no desire to do so, and I told them both what kind of person our board wants to hire. They both seemed surprised and said that they just assumed that when she retired, I would take over, which surprised ME that they thought that.

 I could write more about this weekend, but I will save that for another time. So many little things happened that gave me much to ponder and think about, but I am done now!

So there it is. Or there they are…some dancing in the rain moments.

I have done a great deal of thinking the past few weeks, since the morning I was so depressed and heard “These are the Moments” on the radio. I have thought back on a few times when my life was in turmoil and I felt like it was never going to be the same again. Looking back on those times, I was right in my prediction, and my life wasn’t ever the same. However, after most all of those times, my life eventually became better. Much better. I only wish I had a crystal ball that I could gaze into so that I could know that better, brighter days are ahead. Since that is not possible, for now, I am going to keep trying my best to live in the moment, pay attention to the good moments while trying to ignore and downplay the bad ones, and most of all, try to have  faith that the good, touching, life-is-sweet moments are greater in number than the wow, things-really-suck moments.

Life

It’s only 7 am, and I have an entire glorious, totally alone day stretched out before me. I’ve already thrown a load of laundry in the washer, I made myself a veggie and cheese omelet, I’m working on my third cup of coffee, the house is clean.

 

And did I mention I have this entire day to myself?

 

I don’t plan on turning on the tv, or the radio, or anything that makes noise. Well, the washer and dryer make noise, but those are down in the basement, so I won’t hear them. Today, I plan on knitting, reading, painting my toenails, making myself a yummy salad for lunch, doing some more reading. Oh, and writing of course! I am working on a blog post for the Share blog about the importance of celebrating joyful simplicities when you are grieving, and I have several ideas of things I want to write about for this blog swimming around in my head, so I may get started on some of those as well. I may even take a nap and make a batch of homemade ice cream. I am also planning on getting out some of my fall decorations. I don’t usually do that until the end of September, but I am more than ready to leave this summer in the dust. Bring on pumpkins and mums and apple spice scented candles (which by the way, is already burning on my kitchen counter). I’m tired of droopy petunias and shriveled up hostas and crispy brown grass.

 

When I woke up early this morning, before the sun was even beginning to lighten the sky, I had a few moments of feeling depressed, or maybe sad is a better word, that I was looking so forward to a quiet day by myself. I felt sad that my life has come to this point, where I look forward to a quiet holiday spent alone. There was a time when Labor Day meant barbeques and swimming with neighbors and friends and kids everywhere. Then, we began to spend Labor Day weekend in Virginia Beach. We did briefly toy with the idea of going to Virginia Beach this weekend, but Tony and the kids have some other running trips planned for this fall, so that was one reason we decided not to go. It would have been nice to have one last family vacation before the boys leave for the Navy, but Justin couldn’t have gotten off work anyway.

 

I decided that rather than feeling sad at the way life has changed and is changing, I’d dust of my seldom-worn Miss Susie Sunshine hat and think instead of the good things about having a day all to myself. I came up with the list above of things that I wouldn’t be able to do if everyone was here.

 

So, here I am, crossing one thing off of my bucket list for the day.

 

This has the potential to be yet another Gloomy Gertrude post, but I will try my very best to spin it into something good before I am finished.

 

As I was planning my day early this morning, I decided that I am not going to spend it on the computer other than for writing. I’m going to pretend that I have no internet service after I get this posted and not waste my day away checking email and playing games on facebook. However, I did want to catch up on some blog reading, so I went to my favorite blog where I read something that gave me the idea for this post. I didn’t actually need an idea because I thought I already knew what I was going to write about. However, this is perfect for the way I have been feeling lately. I just didn’t put my thoughts into words like this.

 The author of the blog has written the past week about her daughter’s struggles with starting kindergarten. She has written about her own struggles with this, too.  On Saturday, she wrote about how she has learned these four principles about life:

 

1.    Life is hard.

2.    You have to go through it.

3.    You learn.

4.    And then, you grow.

 

Amen to all of that.

 

1.    Yes, life is hard. I accept that. I don’t like it, but I accept it.

 

2.    Yes, you have to go through it. You have no choice. I accept that too. I don’t like THAT either. I wish I could be like a caterpillar and go curl up in a cocoon somewhere with a quilt and emerge as a beautiful butterfly ready to bravely face my new world. But, I guess maybe that isn’t so easy, either. I have no idea what a caterpillar goes through in its cocoon…how much pain and turmoil it experiences before it becomes a beautiful butterfly. I guess a caterpillar probably does a huge amount of work inside that insulating cocoon. Maybe that’s what I want…to be able to do my work inside an insulating cocoon, where I don’t have to deal with outside stresses and problems.

3.    You learn. Well, hopefully, you do. The blog author has this to say about learning:

 

And the fear of learning itself? Well, aren't we all afraid of that? As exciting as the world of knowledge and experience is, the magnitude of information--what we don't know and have yet to learn--can make us feel so small and fragile.

 

Those words sum it up perfectly for me. Yes, I am learning. I have learned so much in the past few months about life, about myself, about people I care about. And, yes, I am afraid of some of these new things I have learned. Very much afraid. Some days, I think it’s too much, and yes, much of it has made me feel small and fragile. And alone. Very fragile, and very alone. Those are not very good feelings to have when I am almost 50 years old and wishing and thinking that things in my life could be more settled and secure than they are. Wishing that everything I have worked  for and valued and treasured didn’t feel as if it was slowly slipping through my fingers no matter  how tightly I  clench my fingers together to prevent it. I am even more afraid of what I still have to learn in the future. Will those things bring me to my knees, or will they empower me? I wish I knew.

I will take the blog author’s thoughts about the fear of learning one step further and say that learning can be the hardest part of the whole process. I can accept that life is hard. I can deal with going through it. I am armed with a few “tools” that help me get through each day—I can bake, I can read, I can knit, I can go for a run, I can clean out a closet or a drawer. I can scrub my kitchen floor until it shines. I can do any number of things to get through each moment. It’s much harder and scarier though to think about what I have learned/what I am learning.

 

Which brings me to:

4.    And then, you grow. I don’t think I’m to that part of the process yet. I don’t feel like I am growing. I feel like I am withering like my pots of sun-scorched summer flowers.

 

Wow.

That came out so depressing. Definitely not a “dancing in the rain” post.

 

 I wrote a few weeks ago about how I am feeling guilty for not writing posts full of happy dancing in the rain moments since that was the reason I began writing here. I have come to a sort of peace with that though. I write to help me sort out things in my mind, and the things I’ve written lately have helped me do just that. So I guess in a way, this silly blog is serving its intended purpose. And even though I have often written in a more melancholy way lately, I haven’t forgotten to focus on simple little joyful things, even though it may seem as if I have.

 

In fact, I will end this with a list. J

 

*I have been knitting up a storm.

 In the past month, I have knitted 5 dishcloths and started working on my first ever shawl. There are times when I am ready to toss the thing in the trash because I have ripped out more rows than I actually have on the needle right now, but I am determined to finish it one of these days before it gets chilly. My aunt Saundra gave me the pattern and said she would knit it along with me. Her shawl is finished, and she even dyed her own yarn that she knitted it from.

 

*I have been cooking up a storm.

My kids are loving it. I’ve baked homemade bread and cinnamon rolls and new cookie recipes and new enchilada recipes. My coworkers are loving it, too. I’ve brought lunch for all of us on several occasions when I wanted to try a new salad or soup recipe that I knew no one in my family would eat.

 

*I have been reading up a storm.

I’ve read 5 books this summer. I’ve read 2 Jane Austen books. That doesn’t sound like much of an accomplishment, especially because at the beginning of the summer, I downloaded every Jane Austen book onto my Kindle (they were free!) and told myself I was going to read every one of them by the end of the summer. Yeah, that didn’t happen. I hadn’t read Jane Austen since college, and I quickly remembered they take a very long time to read. But, hey! I read two of them! I think I will save the rest for winter reading.

 

*I have been running up a storm.

Okay, so that is a little white lie. I just wanted to keep up the storm theme I had going on. I have been running and walking though, on a pretty regular basis. My dog is loving me for it, and I am starting to enjoy our early morning jaunts. I try to get out by 6, and it does help me feel a little bit more energized for the day ahead.

 

It’s now time for me to get off my computer and go enjoy the day as much as I can.