Work In Progress

February is here and the ground hog, at least the one I listen to, Wiarton Willie has said that spring will come early this year. I struggle to keep my optimism afloat as I look out the window today at the 2.5 feet of snow that fell overnight, cancelling school, busses and even closing my place of work! Still, I like this better than the dull grey skies suffocating the world and clogging up my brain.   The snow is fluffy and white, and while I cannot get Youngest out of bed most school day, I am in awe of how quickly the opportunity to enjoy a day off school that is NOT a weekend will launch him from his bed!  I predict backyard dog wrestling will be followed my me dog wrestling a snowball packed canine into a tub to de-snowballize her. Everyone is home, except oldest, and half of us have showered and are dressed. Once the snow slows down it is all hands on shovels and the snowblower. Seven o'clock found me on the back deck in my pj's and boots, frantically shovell...

Week 1 to 7 of Inner Mean Girl Reform School (IMGRS) focused a lot on identifying the inner critics whose running dialogue keep me small, quiet, angry, disconnected, anxious, depressed and exhausted.  My Inner Mean Girls include: a perfectionist: who constantly whispers --you're not good enough--at anything--ever--start over or don't even try it! a superwoman : who takes on too many things and berates me for all the things I didn't do and forgets all the things I did accomplish a comparison queen: who tells me I fall short of everyone's expectations or conversely, that I am better than everyone and they are idiots a doing addict: who runs from task to task--growing a list that can never be accomplished--and that keeps me distracted and frantic and exhausted and unavailable an achievement junkie (close cousin to the doing addict): who sets innumerable goals for me to reach and when I do, blasts past that one to the next...

I have been struggling to sit quietly and recognize what resonates within my heart...what makes it sing and dance and feel joy and light....I have recognized I practically glow in an environment of learning.   I've told this story before--but this is a quick summary for my IMG classmates. Returning to University at 34, a single mom, starting a Masters in Library and Information Science, (half way across the country from where I was living, but close to my family), I could not believe that my sole job for each three hour lecture was to sit, with coffee in hand, consuming, interpreting, assessing and questioning the words that filled the air with potential and purpose. Sometimes I would catch myself smiling for no reason, certainly not when deadlines piled up and papers were due, but in the stillness of the lecture hall, I felt it hard to contain the giddiness that bubbled in my heart. That was 13 years and one breakdown ago.  This feeling was rekindled when I tool my ...

This morning, I am remembering a day in March, when my oldest scheduled a tour of  a potential university to attend and The Spouse was unable to take him.  It was a formal orientation with presentations and a meet and greet with faculty so it would be important to his decision.   I was newly finished my 8 week adult day treatment program and instead of feeling refreshed and enlightened, I was battered and bruised, brutally raw and vulnerable.  Don't get me wrong, there was never a more supportive environment -- full of information, handouts and opportunities to share, be heard, and feel loved. But here I was, taking my first few wobbly steps on the high wire and I felt messy and uncoordinated; like I was struggling to hear my more enlightened voice over the ear piercing alarm going off in my head.   Days leading up to going, I carefully juggled every mind trap we had explored:  what if we get lost and never make it there? (catastrophizing) All ...

I am sure, in the last 100 or so posts, I wrote about how I was "awakening" to all the things around me in this life, and how I wondered if they had been there all the time but I never noticed them.   I thought when I started writing that I was the only one going through this mid-life awakening.  I thought I was the only one who was suddenly trying to look at the world through eyes that were learning to be compassionate and loving toward myself and others.   Wow was I wrong.  Like a flower, slowly opening to meet the sun, I strive to absorb the wisdom and guidance of some amazingly brave, warm, daring, bright-light women, who honor their true purpose in life by reaching out and saying: I see you. I know you. I have been you. You are enough. You are worth it. You matter. Be brave Be strong. Carry on. They inspire me every day; keep me steady; take me out of my comfort zone in loving arms, and bring me back to myself; to a more mean...