I am in the habit of an annual reminiscence about the year that passed as another begins. There were many things to celebrate, a few things to mourn, and some challenges to overcome...things that continue to need to be overcome.
As always, I am struck by the incredible awesomeness that is life and strive to be worthy of it all. Not to say that everything is a cakewalk even most of the time, but the things that make life wonderful are the things that gratefulness makes more abundant. There are things I have done well, and things I want to work toward doing better. I think on some level, I have become a little kinder to myself on the parenting front. I use to think if I wasn't constantly engaged with the girls, I was neglecting them. I know now that I shouldn't constantly be engaged with them, because that does a terrible disservice to their independence and self-reliance. Striking the balance is the trick.
The girls are so hard and so amazing at the same time. Sometimes they bicker and whine so much I want to carve my eyes out, and other times they are so lovely I walk around with a lump of teary grateful in my throat all day. They are prolific artists, promising musicians, funny, silly, smart, and generally kind (except sometimes to each other).
I have a network of women-mostly mothers and some not-who lift me up and support me and listen to me when I need an ear. I like to think I do the same for them, but truly, there are challenges in my life that required some serious listening on their parts. Work....dear Lord, work. Work has been a constant sore spot for me in the past 5 or 6 years. Difficult interpersonal dynamics in the workplace is not my forte as far as what I have been able to successfully overcome in life. I am trying, I am. I need to surrender and let it be whatever it will be. I really only ever wanted to go to work, work hard while having a day of pleasant exchanges with colleagues, and go home (not thinking about any of it again until the next day). I don't need buddies and best friends at work. I just need to NOT have work populated by people annoyed by the fact that I breathe-I haven’t determined there to be a better reason for our issues than that. Is that a lot to ask?
In a related subject, I am currently working on making myself stop trying to save people who don't really care about being saved (they just want to complain and spew about their difficulties all.day.long, not to actually do anything to make life better) and boundaries (I am the quintessential Can Do person, so not having success here is tremendously difficult for me). How I struggle with boundaries with these people.... so, this appears to be one of my greatest challenges: to stop making myself accountable for the feelings, opinions, and self worth of other people. I need to find immunity to those things, and immunity can be gained through meditation/prayer, and meditation/prayer only. Followed by not engaging and not reliving my stress at home and with friends by talking about it, and just "dropping the rope" as one of my dear friends says. Folks, my 40th year is the year of rope dropping. And becoming immune to and rejecting drama-mine and that of other people. Not that I can’t have compassion for their needless suffering…just that I don’t want it to seep into my spiritual fabric and bring me down.
But it’s hard-this is something outside my realm of control. I don’t like things outside my realm of control. Intellectually, I know none of this life stuff is really within my control, but I digress. I can make myself feel better by thinking so. So, I am completely open to changes this year. Something needs to change-doesn't matter if it's tangible or intangible. I love my work, a LOT, so I have a choice-find the center, and let the rest spin and twirl around me and sit with it (whatever it is) or make some major change while I work on the center some more. I am craving a different twist on what I do-maybe somewhere else or by morphing my own work some. Whatever it is, I want to telecommute. That is a better balance for my family than what I am doing now with these loooooong days and never ever being able to skip commute time (even though the vast majority of my work is writing-which can be done anywhere). I figured I would have 9 extra days a year with my kids if I could telecommute 1 day a week. These are moments that will be gone in no time...I need to fight for them now.
We had a stellar year in 2013..Some firsts: Addie began playing cello on her 4th birthday. We went camping for the first time (late May), and then went once more as a family (Sept) and Gillian and Papa camped again at Gillian's first music festival (August). We went bowling and promptly got stomped by a 4 and 7 year old (we make ourselves feel better by silently acknowledging that they had bumper guards and we didn't, but they did a fine job consoling us in case we were depressed about it). Gillian had her first gig as a violinist performing with her string class at the Christmas Bazaar breakfast at church. I started taking cello lessons from Addie's teacher. Addie added three foods to her short list of things she will allow to touch her lips: pizza, burritos, and tortellini. Don't judge me-we are thrilled. Our blessings: We continue to be surrounded by love and light on a regular basis. We have the good fortune of many friends in our community, and loving family that is further away than we would like. We enjoyed a million lazy days at the beach with our friends, swimming and making castles, and loving the fact that this place is 2 blocks away.
Living in the city we are able to enjoy the benefits of a tremendous amount of culture..we saw shows at Lifeline, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Joffrey Ballet, the Music Institute, the Book of Mormon for Papa's bday, and the Nutcracker at the Athenaeum Theater. We visited the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Chicago Art Institute, the Adler Planetarium, Shedd Aquarium, and the Field Museum. Collectively, the girls performed six times this year on their string instruments, and seven times in school musicals/holiday events. Needless to say, the end of stage fright as we know it will most assuredly be gone for these two at an early tender age.
This year we touched sting rays and rode horses, had tantrums and laughed until it hurt. We saw fairies and made them a house, and made angels in the snow. We wept from frustration and sadness and danced and kissed and snuggled endlessly...that's the good stuff. That is what I will daydream about when I'm old, sitting on a bench at the beach. Moments. Love. The rest of it will wash away until the vital stuff is all that remains. Why does it take so long for some of us to really internalize that? Everything that is the not the good stuff just clouds our vision and distracts us from loving. At the end of my life, will I care about the fact that someone at work gave me the silent treatment for 8 weeks straight for reasons unknown to me and unfriended me on Facebook, or will I remember that day at the park that I got the breath knocked out of me to look up at Addie's beautiful face against the azure sky? The suffering is needless. It's not up to us to ease the suffering for anyone but ourselves, and at the end of the day, to end our own suffering we simply have to let it go-drop the rope. All of it. Our soul's only job is to orbit around this circle of love-to give it and receive it...to eat it, drink it, and breathe it. To give it all of our time and attention. That's the big secret of the universe-which is God and the great mystery. Simple, but hard to wrap your overthinking head around. Namaste.
Greatfulness is key
Signs are everywhere!
Gillian's first love note-from Ian, snuck into her backpack
Winter Fun in January 2013 with friends
Classroom awesomeness-We had a French themed Valentines Day and Gillian's teacher told her they had a special visiting author-turns out it was the students themselves-reading their journal book to the class.
Members of our wonderful parent group blessing our formally adopted, freshly painted playground!
First sampling trip in late May
Group recital in late May
Saying good bye for the summer to our beloved teachers
Endless beach days in the summer-we can walk here in 5 minutes...
The bench a friend and I painted at the park...
Gillian and Papa went to a music festival in West Virginia
Addie found a baby rat on the way home from the playground...
Celebrating birthdays...
Celebrating my early promotion
Visiting with our wonderful family
First day of school for 2013-2014, realizing our oldest daughter is seriously Type A, and Addie's very first recital
Strawberry picking and apple picking getaway to Michigan with some of our dearest friends...
Random Acts of Kindness (AoK), a subset of parents from our parent group, held our first event-baking 250 little cookie love packages for random strangers at the train station (Addie decided to start throing in a hug, too, for good measure).
First bowling game, and they whooped us!
The holidays were magical and amazing with our friends and family
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