I have / had what most people consider a complicated parental situation. A friend once asked me to draw a map to explain it all. For most of my life I have been the proud recipient of 6 parents, 3 sets of 'Adults' that care for me as parents should. They are, for the most part, proud of me when I achieve something and there for me when I fail. But this situation and its effect on me is felt everyday.
A while ago one of my aunts said to me that she and my grandmother used to (still do occasionally) discuss how they feel bad for me in this situation. She has said this to me before but I find myself thinking of this more lately. That it's okay to not be okay with some things. I know no different an upbringing but it was not great at times.
The things is that it is all I know and as a parent I have a profound understanding that you do the best you can with what you have. And my parents did the best they could with what they had.
The lesson is to accept how things were - what your parents did or did not do, deal with the issues that may have brought forth straight on, not blame them but realize they did what they could and move on.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Goals Update – 1st Week
But it makes me wonder –what is it going to take. My
digestive system is a mess, my face looks like that of a teenager, my back is
acting up again. I know what I need to do but that is not translating to what I am
doing. I have done it before, I know how fabulous it feels to be healthy, to eat clean and have a back free of issues.
So what is my problem with the commitment?
And how will I change this horrible mindset?
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Pity Party for 1
Right now I am grappling with some very difficult ‘what do I
want’ questions and its during these times that I really miss my mom and her
mom. My two people I could bounce thoughts off of, people to listen who have
life experience that shaped mine. It is nice to talk to Aunts and Mom’s friends
who are like Aunts but its not the same. Not the same at all.
Buyers Remorse
I am cheap. I will be the first to admit it. And I suffer
from a huge case of buyers remorse over most things I purchase. Well that isn't
exactly true – big purchases (condo’s, cars, anything over $10,000) I can
settle with no issue. I buy, love and move on. It’s the little things that get
me. The coffee’s, clothing, the craft supplies – these are where I hum and haw
until I drive everyone crazy.
After dinner Sunday my sister, brother in law, husband and
daughter were chatting about our spending habits. It was daughter’s 15th
birthday on the weekend and she was spending money like nothing. And it came up
that I would love another purse. To which my sister said ‘Sister’s Husband –
buy her a purse’ and without missing a beat Daughter said ‘no point, she would
only return it’. And there in lies the
complete summation of my cheapness. I return everything due to the buyers
remorse.
It is one of the things I am working on. I buy less, not
because I don’t want tons of stuff, but because I find it doesn’t elevate my
mood any more to buy everything I want. In fact most things bring more stress,
even things that I need. So in 2014 this will be a focus for me. Finding a way
to be ok with spending money on things I want (within reason).
Sunday, November 10, 2013
My Goals - November 2013
My goals – I have spent a bit of time thinking about what I need
to work. And the list is full of the usual suspects: lose weight, exercise
more, work on my back so it doesn't hurt, stress left, be more in the moment,
try not to take too much on, watch less TV. And the list continues.
So I have decided to just focus on 2 of my goals between now
and Christmas 2013 and then decide if it is working and if I want to expand my
list for the New Year. I plan to track my progress with a chart in my day timer
and it will either be a “ yes I stuck to my plan’ or ‘no, I didn't today’.
Every week in I will post my progress in a # of days / 7. Hopefully this will
keep me honest and motivated.
2 Goals from now until Christmas 2013:
- Get my back stronger.
- Get my digestion healthier.
In order to do this I am going to:
- Stretch daily for 2 sessions of 15 minutes each, at a minimum.
- Specifically stretch twice a day for a minimum of 15 minutes using.
- Eat Clean according to the many menu plans that can be found on the Clean Eating Magazine website.
- Work out 3 times a week. I already take Zumba twice a week so adding that extra workout for an hour shouldn't be hard.
Let
the Accountability Begin!
Saturday, November 9, 2013
60th Birthday - Written September 26, 2013
Today would have been my mother’s 60th Birthday.
Which means in a perfect world there would have been a shaker going on this
weekend. But instead of putting the final touches on that I made my stepdad cry
and hopefully made my sister smile.
Today my stepdad told me that my mom was proud of my sister
and I. My sister, I believe, she is a freaking pillar of amazing strength. And
at the end of my mom’s life she adored my sister. Me – well I had my moment but
the last year of my mom’s life was not it. I am certain she was proud of me but
she hadn’t told me in a long while. Hadn’t even told me she liked me in a long
while.
When you lose a parent the pain is unbelievable. I am not
certain how it is when you lose a parent that you weren’t close with, say an
estranged parent, but the parent that raised you – well that is horrible. And
although I try to not have it be an ‘excuse’ to eat, not work out, be bitchy,
be unkind sometimes it just is. Some days it is a freaking miracle I am able to
get up, brush my teeth and get to work. Those days I don’t shower because that
is the effort that I know would push me over. And other days it is easy to
manage with. But you never know what those bad days will bring and when they
will come. All you can do, all I can do, is hope that they become less as time
goes on.
My Little Sister - Written September 24, 2013
My little sister is an amazing person who has been through
so much already in her life. And although she is a) not little and b) has been
married for 5 years I still think she is amazing. And life is too hard
sometimes but she trucks through with grace and laughter. This is my shout out
to her.
Celebrity Gossip - Written September 6, 2013
I have a love of celebrity gossip. It is my calling, or at
least it should have been had I a)lived in a city with lots of access to what’s
going on and b) jumped on that bandwagon back in 2000. I can tell you very
little about the specifics of my University education but I can probably
explain all the intricacies of Jennifer Lopez’s relationship with Puff Daddy
from that same time period.
My love of celebrity gossip is so well known that people I
used to work with will call and ask me questions. I knew it was bad when my
fiancé started reading TMZ and People.com so that we could have something to
talk about when we were together. Some couples talk about books they have read,
real news – we talk about the Kardashians.
If there is a limited amount of brain space in each
individuals brain then mine is taken up with useless celebrity gossip.
High School is Here - Written September 5, 2013
School is here. I appreciate fully the Staples commercial
where the parents are skipping down the aisle with the shopping cart, excited
to send their kids off to school. I’m excited not because she is going but
because of what this year will hold. We are officially parents of a grade 10
student. And so far, at day 2, she doesn’t hate it. Not that hating it will
provide her any other option than going to school but still – a good start.
The Point - Sept 4, 2013
September 4, 2013
In my on-going battles with my health I have reached ‘The
Point’. I call it this because last Friday while at my doctor’s he actually
looked at me with a bit of pity. Not because I am sick, we are working through
that, but because he looked at me and I could see how I look.
A stressed-out woman in her mid 30’s. And I thought – this
is it, Something Has To Change. He said that until our next appointment he
wants me doing at least 1 hour of exercise a day. A day! I think I did one hour
of exercise in all of August. And he suggested yoga weekly. And something to
manage the stress.
After I had stopped crying (while in the parking lot at the
doctor’s office and not at home where my husband can see me) I thought to
myself “This is my unstressful year, how must I have been before now”. And that
was the moment. I decided to stop agonizing over decisions, just go for it,
start spending more time with friends and of course – working out. And five
days into it, it seems to be working.
Pantry Organization - Written August 27, 2013
Pantry Organization – this is my new hated word. And I mean
Pantry, the place we store our food and not panty the place we store our
undergarments. The contents of one do affect the contents of the other but
that’s another story.
I have made an attempt to organize our pantry this past
week. The task been broken it into a multiple day process. I like to think it
is because it was so overwhelming but the truth is it is because my sister told
me how to get Netflicks USA
on our Wii and I wanted to watch Gossip Girl.
Anyway – how to organize our pantry is my biggest challenge.
It started with tossing all of the food that had expired. And once that was
done the job was very small. Lesson Learned – we are not a bulk buying, new
food trying family. Oh and we don’t bake either.
But finally, after what has been days, our pantry is
organized. And now I will tackle the dreaded kitchen organization. Yay Me????
Craving Schedules - Written June 20, 2013
One of the things I loved about the years of continual
stress is that normal every day things didn’t really seem to bother me. And now
that I live with little stress and am taking steps to try and regulate my
hormones due to stress overload – well the tiniest thing sends me into a total
freak out now. I feel very bad for my
husband all the time.
I continually make fun of my family for their ‘rigid’ schedules.
Certain activities take place on certain days, step daughter has to sit on a
certain side of the car or she is thrown off – small things and I have realized
that I too am a lover of schedules. I grew up in a tidy home where life was
predictable. Dinner was served at a certain time. 10-15 meals were rotated, we
cleaned on Thursday nights before E.R. and there was a rhythm. And without that
in my adult life, I am completely thrown for a loop. This week as we prepare
for the big trip without the scheduled things I crave I realize how much I need
it. Oh and a tidy home. Schedule, tidy home and a feeling of everything in its
place and I am good.
Bonus Mom - Written June 14, 2013
I am the bonus mom to a 14, going on 15, year old girl. And
I have found myself being extremely hard on her lately. Not because she is bad,
not because she isn’t as perfect as can be and not because I don’t think she is
am amazing little person – but because I want her to realize that life and all
its glories are hers for the taking.
Raising a child is hard and my husband has done most of the
work himself. He is responsible (in my opinion) for the solid foundation that
she is. . I have only been on the scene since her 10 birthday.
But raising a teenage daughter, one who is self confident, trying her best to achieve
her best and at the same time retain her sassy attitude, sunny smile and
curious sense of humor is difficult. She is coming to an age where boys, other
girls and society are trying to change her. And here I am pushing her everyday
to achieve more than she did the day before.
I tell myself that she will appreciate it when she is older.
When she is successful in her way, when she doesn’t have to depend on anyone
for financial freedom, when she will have a child of her own and do the same I
am doing to her – but what if I am wrong?
Pity Party for Me - Written June 12, 2013
Today is a pretty painful day for me physically. On a scale
of 1-10 (10 being my last birthday which I spent in the hospital wishing back
pain would leave) I would say it is a 5. I have lived with back pain for most
of my adult life. Sure I see a chiropractor and a massage therapist. I have
dabbled in physiotherapy and acupuncture. I had a trainer, got fit, lost a ton
of weight and all only offer me a small amount of relief.
This bout of back pain is my third in 6 months. The second
to last more than 2 weeks in discomfort and what have I learned from that –
apparently nothing. May 23 was 20 days ago and I have done no exercise, little
‘core’ building and no stretching and today I am paying for it.
The goal is to be accountable to me (and by extension you in
this blog) – why am I not working harder to improve my life physically? It is
only going to get worse, as I age and become less bendable. . England in 3
weeks is going to be somewhat painful for me. And still I have no immediate
plans beyond ‘eugh maybe I will get a massage’.
So I am having a pity party but like a hangover after a
night of drinking – there is no one to blame but myself.
First Blog Post Written - Feb 5, 2013
At the beginning of 2012 I had decided to follow Gretchen
Rubin’s Happiness Project. I read the book twice in 2011 and felt that it spoke
to me in a way that was hard to explain. She touched on all of the things that
I felt I should be doing with my life. The point that stood out mostly was her
statement that she should enjoy the now, appreciate it because you never know
when the bad is going to come. I am paraphrasing, but this stuck with me. So at
the end of 2011 I decided that 2012 would be the year. I made my own ‘Happiness
Project’, bought a diary and plastered my house and office space with the ideas
that I would follow in 2012. I had always loved the lyrics to Baz Lurhmann’s
Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen) so I considered ordering a poster of them
for my office as well. I was going to start truly appreciating what I had in
life because it is true – you never know what the future holds.
The rest of this post may be viewed as depressing – it is to
give a background of how I got to February 05, 2013 and my reason for this
blog. Bear with me for it may be worth it, or at least you will know the reason
why I want to do this blog.
I got about 4 days into the New Year (2012) when my mother
got sick and spent 18 days in the hospital. She was sick, I spent lots of
nights at the hospital and January’s happiness project went out the window. I
had decided to pick things up again in February and I managed to stick with
February and into March. Then the really BAD came. My mother passed away and
suddenly my stepfather, sister, uncle, fiancé and brother-in-law were trying to
survive the day to day. My work days were filled with stressful work things and
in the evening I had to deal with very real adult issues that most people my
age do not have to deal with. And all I could think was a saying from Baz
Lurhmann’s Lyrics to Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen) – “Don’t worry about
the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve
an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are
apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside
you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.” It’s
funny because I had worried about this exact situation but when I found myself
in it I realized that all that worrying had not prepared me at all. The events
surrounding her death are confusing but it took 24 hours for our Aunt to find
my sister and I to let us know what had happened. At the exact moment my
stepfather was dealing with the issues surrounding my mothers death in Arizona I was smiling
for photos at my Nieces 1st birthday party. I look really happy in
the photos from that day.
March turned into April, April to
May and so on. July hit and there was another death in our family, my fiance’s
grandfather and two of my uncles ended up in the hospital with life threatening
illnesses. July dragged into August with daily trips to the hospital to see the
Uncle C. My fiancé was supportive and we did what we could. Watching over a
grown adult, one that is senior to you but has issues, is tiring. There were
days that I had wondered how my mother had done it, watching over my Uncle C.
And I often wondered if this is what my life was going to be like forever.
In between all of this I had to
plan my wedding. Well the plans were made; I just had to organize them. The
date was set for October 27 and I was looking forward to it. When Uncle C. got
better after the 3rd hospital stay in September I actually began to
think that 2012 would end on a happy note.
The wedding went off without a
hitch and was the happiest day of my life. I was sad that my mom wasn’t there
but I found that I didn’t dwell as much as I thought I would. I was thankful
for the people there and selfishly viewed the day as my own.
But 2012 was not to end on a happy
note for me. November 25 came and I found Uncle C. passed away in his bed. It’s
funny because around July 10 I new this would be how it would end up but it was
still the saddest thing I had been through, and trust me – I don’t live the
most upbeat life. Maybe because I felt I had failed my mom, failed my Uncle C,
or just because I was done.
This brings us to 2013. Nothing
else bad happened in 2012 but I was starting towards depression in January of
2013 and I was worried that I would miss my newlywed life if things didn’t
improve. Every year my husbands (no longer fiancé) family goes to Mexico and this
year we were all going so we could scatter his grandfather’s ashes into the
ocean. When I was standing there watching my husband family say good bye I was struck by how at peace they were. Although they were
all sad most of them were not bawling as I was trying to quietly not to do and
I realized – I need to start changing my life for the better so that I can
appreciate it when the bad things come.
And so (after this long history of
me) the reason for my blog – a public (although likely only read by my friends
and family) way to be held accountable for living MY best life. To be the best
wife, sister, mother, friend, daughter and person. Hopefully a way for a vent,
a way to be truly appreciative and focused on what I have and not what I don’t
have and also a nice little chronicle of my life and daily struggles.
Why Blog? - November 11, 2013
I started blogging very intermittent in March 2013. I felt
that I needed to be accountable for what I was doing in my life because I have
the potential for so much happiness but I seem to not be able to enjoy it and
let it happen. But then I started to get scared of exposing myself out there,
while at the same time finding great comfort in people whose blog’s I read
daily. So I put it off, still writing in word format, but never posting. I
called them my ‘blogs’ until a very
good friend of mine pointed out they weren’t blogs, in fact they were just
electronic diary entries. And it made me realize, I need to post. Even if it is
for a short while, even if no one ever reads it – I must post.
So here is everything I have written in the last year, all
in individual posts – starting with the first one. Each will be dated the day I
wrote it, not the date I posted it.
My personal goal is to post once a week, at a minimum, with
my stats on how I am doing. I will be tracking, every week, ‘My Goals’ for the
time between now and Christmas. I will outline my goals in another post, along
with the reason for having them. Progress here I come.
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