I've been busy, too busy to write or follow. I want to find a way back to balance for myself. Deep breathe. Take care my friends.

Gratitude

Things I'm grateful for today.

A night out with beautiful ladies.
Delicious food last night, Italian sausage ravioli, goat cheese spread with fig preserves.
Good books to read. "Bel Canto" by Anne Patchett and "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo".
Above average temperatures which make December bearable.
My Christmas tree and ornaments are safely packed away for next year.
A clean apartment.
A lovely little black cat by the name of Bagheera who is visiting.
Four days off.
Time to myself.
A job I enjoy and gives meaning to my life.
A lovely, complicated man.
A sense of balance in my life.
Friends, both in real life and here.

What are you thankful for today?

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing, and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there. –Rumi

As I drove to Katie's on Christmas day to pick her up I started thinking about quilts. I read once that quilters make intentional mistakes while constructing their quilts. Whether this is true or merely a myth, I don't know but I do like the idea of it.

None of us is perfect, nor can we ever be. To make an intentional mistake while making something is to remind us of that fact that we are imperfect. I'm wondering if we're all imperfect to remind us to have compassion and patience with each other.

I love this photo of Katie. It was taken just this past weekend. Katie is full on herself. There is no artifice with Katie, nothing hidden. What you see is what you get. She is wrapped around and through my heart. My love for her is pure. I know who I am when I am with her. I am her mom, her guardian, her voice.

Four years ago my ex husband and I took our last holiday together. We didn't know then that it was our last holiday but there were signs. My ex husband sulked for much of the trip, wouldn't speak to me, ignored me as much as he could. I refused to let his sulking affect me. I walked on the beaches of Maui, soaking up the sights and sounds of the ocean, storing away memories to last me for a good long time.

Near the end of our trip I wrote up a list. It was a list of all the things I wanted in a partner. Sadly, my husband didn't really have any of the traits I listed. I took my time making up this list. It included things like kindness, compassion, thoughtfulness, spirituality, a wonderful sense of humor, intelligence and smiling blue eyes. It was quite specific.

I took the list down to the beach at low tide and dug a hole. I offered up a prayer to the universe, a wish, a hope, for a partner who would truly be my partner. Then I buried my list and gave it up to the ocean.

Last month I met a lovely man who appears to be conjured from my list. I look into his smiling blue eyes and feel like I have always known him. He asked me once why we hadn't met thirty years ago and I told him because we had not yet grown up.

I love this man and this terrifies me. It scares me because I still struggle with feeling worthy of being loved. It scares me because I wonder if I am strong enough now to just be myself or if I will morph into an impossibly twisted caricature of myself. I know I'm not a bad person, but I am a complicated person. I want to be like Katie, purely myself and for that to be enough, for me and for my partner.

I'm superstitious. I like to believe that I'm not, but alas, I am. My mother's life was filled with portents (why am I writing like this, using words like portents?). I always pooh-poohed (help, I've fallen into a Jane Austen novel and I can't get out!) her superstitions but apparently I also embraced them deep down inside.

Last month I met a lovely man who brought me these tulips one day when I was sick. He cooks me supper, he wraps me in his arms, he makes me laugh. I am reluctant to write much because of course, I am superstitious. My mother did her job well apparently.

Suffice it to say (I swear I have not been reading Jane Austen) that I am content and well.

I had to go to a meeting for Katie this morning, a complex needs meeting which kind of says it all. Lovely Miss Katie has some severe behavioral issues. Last month there were 127 incidents of her banging her head and she pulled her own hair 143 times. Her behaviors are way up, almost triple of what they were in September and nobody knows why.

Katie goes to see her psychiatrist in two weeks and perhaps he can shed some light and prescribe something to reduce her anxiety. We did try that in September but it was highly unsuccessful, the dose of drug too high for her and then it took another three months to get into see the psychiatrist again. A long, slow process.

We also talked about what will happen with Katie in June as she will be twenty years old and too old to continue with school. A couple of agencies that deal with people like Katie, high needs, high behaviors, were mentioned and now I'll do the legwork and check out the agencies.

And so it goes. I left the meeting feeling guilty, guilty that I cannot care for my own daughter, but I can't. Guilty that she is the way she is, even though it is neither my fault nor hers. Guilty that I sometimes go a day without thinking about her, just thankful that there are others to care for her now.

I try not to think of the future too much because it is too scary to think about. My baby girl getting old, me even older, what will become of us? Today I bought a gingerbread house kit for Katie. Her sister will put it together when she comes home from Vancouver and Miss Katie will eat it on Christmas day while her family sits and eats and talks and laughs. I'll be happy to have my children around my table and Katie will be happy to have a gingerbread house to herself. It's all good.

Decorated tree down by the river.



"The irony of hiding the dark side of our humanness is that our secret is not really a secret at all. How can it be when we're all safeguarding the very same story? It's almost a joke--a laughable admission that each one of us has a shadow self, a bumbling, bad-tempered twin. Big surprise! Just like you, I can be a jerk sometimes. I do unkind, cowardly things, harbor unmerciful thoughts, and mope around when I should be doing something constructive. Just like you, I wonder if life has meaning; I worry and fret over things I can't control; and I often feel overcome with a longing for something that I cannot even name. For all of my strengths and gifts, I am also a vulnerable and insecure person, in need of connection and reassurance. This is the secret I try to keep from you, and you from me, and in doing so we do each other a grave disservice." Elizabeth Lesser (Broken Open)

I had read this book awhile ago and found this quote on a blog yesterday. It reminded me of how much we are all alike. We all carry our secrets, our fears, our wounds, wrapping our arms around them, trying to hide them from others, when all around us, others are doing the same. Everyone wants to be loved and accepted, just as they are. Everyone fears rejection. Nobody likes feeling vulnerable because vulnerable can lead to hurt. Deep down we are all children asking our mothers to love us, please just love me.

A short while ago I asked a man out, a first for me, although he doesn't believe me. I quite like this man. He makes me laugh and I find him endlessly interesting. He holds my hand when we walk to together and lays his arm across my hip when we lay in bed together. He hugs me often, which I love, and he talks to me, tells me what he's thinking about. He likes to believe he is a hard ass. In reality he is a teddy bear, looking for the same thing we all are, love and acceptance.

And what do I want? I want to let go of my old fears, my old insecurities and just be myself. Take me or leave me, this is me, although I guess technically, that would include my fears and my insecurities. Hmmmm. My fears are my problem though and I want to lay them down.

I am almost fifty years old. I have lived half a century which is something I have a hard time wrapping my head around because I still feel like a girl so much of the time. It's time. Time to let go of this not feeling like I am enough, that I am worthless and unacceptable, that I am lacking something. This burden was given to me as a child by people who were themselves wounded by their own families and the world. They never meant to hurt me, to make me feel less than. Time to lay it down. Time to just be me.