On Friendship

This post is specifically for all my friends out there.  You see, I have amazing friends.  I have friends from different walks of life, different ages, genders, with different views and religious beliefs.  I have friends who cry, friends who fight, friends who laugh, friends who pout and friends who will sing a merry tune with me while drunk (or sober for that matter).  Some I haven’t seen in years but still hold close to my heart.  I miss them so much I cry at the thought of how long it’s been and how much of their lives I’m missing out on.  Some of my friends I see every other day and value every second.  They help me keep my sanity in check.  Some friends I know I can call whenever I need to bitch and others when I need to cry.  My friends have shared in my greatest joys and in some of my greatest heartaches - to date.  I know full well life still has a few curveballs coming my way.

This is for all my friends.

I am sorry.

I am sorry I am not always the friend you deserve.  Sometimes I get so absorbed into my own life that I forget to ask you about yours.  And you never hold that against me.  You are quick to point out that I have my hands full.  And to a degree, you are right.  But it is not an excuse.  It’s not fair towards you, yet you’re always willing to let it slide.  We pick up where we left off and continue building memories together.  Building bridges across the open air between our hearts.

I am sorry that I am not always there when you need me.  Even when I know you need me I don’t always make it out to your house, or get together for coffee.  I don’t always manage to show you that I care.  And even though I can come up with a million different reasons for why I didn’t call or stop by, it’s not a valid excuse.  You deserve better.  You deserve the friend who makes the time and the effort.  And I am sorry I am not always that friend.

Thank you.

Thank you for being my friend.  Thank you for not judging me, or at least not judging me too harshly.  Thank you for still being there for me even after I wasn’t there for you.  Thank you for looking after me when I have trouble looking after myself and don’t deserve your effort.

You see, you understand what friendship is about.  It is about acceptance.  Not holding a grudge.  Forgiveness.  Love.  Friendship is about love.  Absolute love.  The kind where you give without expecting a return.  The kind where you don’t keep track of who owes who.  Endless, boundless love.

They say blood is thicker than water.  But what is in that blood that ties families together so tightly?  Shared experiences?  Shared beliefs?  Shared backgrounds?  It can’t all be genetics.  Science will want to prove me wrong on this, but sometimes water seems to be thicker than blood.  Friends are the family we choose for ourselves.  And sometimes, those family ties can be stronger than the ones we are born into.  

You, my friends, are my soul mates.  I am thankful for every one of you who takes up a space in my heart.  I pray with all my heart that this is exactly where you’ll stay, till the end of days and beyond.  You have my heart.  Keep it safe.

Lying Awake

As a kid, I used to lie awake at night listening to all the sounds of the dark.  Every sound had an origin and my job was to track it in my mind.  I listened intently for any sign that someone might be climbing over our fence.  I kept track of the dog outside my window, getting more anxious when he left my side of the house to go to the backyard.  

I knew it was only a matter of time until I wake with a strange and angry face above mine.  I pretended I was dead before going to sleep every night, hoping that if someone peeks through my window, they will pass me by.  I remember even hiding under my bed once, just in case.  I was too scared to fall asleep.  But then I opened my eyes, and it is morning.  Another night passed.  Another night uneventful, for us at least.  

Every day you hear about another murder, another break-in, hi-jacking.  It gets worse.  But you grow numb to the stories.  Eventually they stop giving you goosebumps and shivers down your spine.  Until the sun sets.  Once the sun sets, the game is on.  I still worry.  The call might come at any given moment.  The call that the unthinkable has happened to my mother, father, brother, sister, or any of the long list of family and friends I left behind.

But this is why we moved to Canada.  I want my children to lie awake at night, not listening for the sound of intruders, but with excitement.  I want them to have minds full of wonder and awe at what a wonderful day they had.  They need to lie awake because tomorrow is their birthday and they’ll be seeing all their friends and have cake and mommy finally learned how to make a Kung Fu Panda piñata.  If they listen for intruders, it has to be because it is Christmas Eve and Santa is on his way.

This is my wish.  I no longer lie awake at night listening for the sounds danger.  I can sleep in relative peace now.  Hoping that dreadful call will never come but knowing my kids will not have to experience that same anxiousness.

A Bittersweet Moment

Next week my husband and I will be going on our first trip alone in almost 6 years.  Every other vacation was spent with friends or family and the last couple with kids included.  So, I need to wean the baby.

With my first child, I hated breastfeeding.  It was the biggest fucking joke on the planet... 

“It’s the most natural thing in the world!” 

“If it hurts, you’re not doing it right.” 

Bullshit.  

It hurt like hell.  I tried different latches, nipple shields of different sizes.  Everything I could come up with.  But the torture continued.  We started supplementing early with formula and just before he turned six months, we stopped completely.  I felt great.  Free.

Unfortunately about a month later I was sorry I quit.  I wanted that close bond with my boy back.  It just wasn’t the same and I wasn’t ready to let go.  But it was done and there was no turning back.

When baby boy v2.0 came around, I knew I had to go about it differently.  I held out through blisters and blood.  Eventually (about 6 weeks in) things took a turn for the better.  Unfortunately, he then started refusing to take a bottle.  For months now I’ve been trying to get him to drink from anything other than me but to no avail.  Finally, this last week... there has been a breakthrough!

But it is bittersweet.  I was so looking forward to this moment when he will be almost a year old and I will have my body back.  My boobs will be mine again.  I can wear real bras and not the shitty nursing crap they make you pay one kidney and half a liver for.  A real bra.  And a dress.  A dress that doesn’t open in the front or is elastic and by now so stretchy from use it looks like a rag.  An actual grown up lady dress.  Wouldn’t that be nice?

And in my pretty dress and new bra I will sit and I will cry.  Because he is my last baby.  This morning I lay in bed, breastfeeding my boy for the very last time.  I will never again share that bond with a child.  I will never go through the pain and insecurities of learning to breastfeed a newborn to discovering the joy and comfort it brings in the end.  That wonderful feeling of nursing a baby to sleep.  It is over.

This is a chapter in our lives that are closing today.  And I am sad.  I looked forward to this day for so long, but I guess I didn’t think about what I was really hoping for.  I was hoping for time to pass and him to grow up.  Not realizing that I am losing valuable time with my baby worrying about the future and not treasuring every second we snuggled.

Heights and Trust

It is no secret that I am deathly afraid of heights.  I am the one who will get to the very top of a structure and freeze.  Not being able to move, I will hold onto something solid and cry.  It often ends with me on my ass, scooting all the way down to the very bottom.  It’s happened at monuments, towers and bridges.  Solid ground is my friend.  

The problem is trust.  Trust is a hard thing.  It seems that I don’t trust those I cannot see very well.  I don’t trust that the engineer who signed off on the structure wasn’t sleep deprived and overworked.  Or that the builder wasn’t a greedy thief and went for cheaper instead of quality so he can pocket the difference.  Has it been build to withstand earthquakes?  Who tested it?  How old is it?  We haven’t had a serious earthquakes in these parts for as long as many of these structures have been in place... who is to say they will still withstand a strong earthquake?  

I worry about heights but the problem isn’t heights, it is trust.  It isn’t easy to trust someone you don’t know.  You grow up hearing stories of people who have cost others’ their lives because of their own greed or negligence.  It scares me.  With the age of Internet, stories such as these are easier and easier to come by.  They might not have grown in frequency, but information is so accessible that it’s had a stronger effect on me than all the self-help books and positive messages we are bombarded with (you know, by the profitable industry that’s teaching us we can’t love ourselves without their help).  

I don’t naturally distrust others.  It’s something that has been learned through spending 30 years on this earth with open ears and eyes.  And I know I am not alone.  

What a very sad reality it is we have to live in.  I surely hope we can change that someday.  Preferably without the use of money making self help programs.  

All I Want is a Fence

I am so frustrated.  It’s a beautiful day.  All the parks with water features are open now and it will be heaven for the boys.  The only problem is that most parks are not enclosed.  How difficult can it be to put a fence around a playground?

The problem is that my little Whirlwind is almost three but the size of most five year olds.  With that comes the speed factor.  He’s fast.  And he’s a runner.  It has always been tricky with him in the park.  Quite the workout.  The day where he will be able to outrun me is getting scarily close though.  A bigger problem is the baby.  The baby is almost not a baby anymore and will be walking unassisted within weeks, if not days.  He can also enjoy some of the facilities the playground has to offer.  It’s a problem that he can’t because I can’t take my eyes off of his brother for more than a second.  

In the late summer last year, I stood next to the playground, feeding the baby.  Keeping an eye on The Whirlwind.  I looked down for a total of three seconds to put the baby back in his stroller, glanced up halfway through the process and noticed with a sinking feeling that The Whirlwind is missing.  We eventually found him and I am eternally thankful for the lady who stopped him before running into the street.  She apologized for scaring him.  Lady, my child is alive thanks to you... please don’t apologize!

Needless to say, every time we go somewhere, I go with this terrible feeling that he will just pull away and start running.  It has happened so many times, I've lost count.  Every other day you read in the news how another child wandered away and was found drowned nearby.  That is my fear.  I live with that fear every day.  As I sit here, my frustration in finding safe playgrounds is making me want to cry for the dangers this child unknowingly puts himself in every day. 

And I don’t know if it will ever get any better.  Right now, it’s just getting worse.  Seriously, I pay taxes... just put a damn fence around the playground!

Growing Older

Growing older doesn’t bother me a lot.  But it bothers others.  And after talking to my husband last night, I can’t stop to wonder why?

Why do we grow old?  Why do we have to reach a certain peak and then spend decades more declining?  We start declining before we’re even half way with our life expectancy.  That is a little sad, isn’t it?  Now, to be fair.  I don’t actually care that it is that way.  There are more important things out there to occupy my mind with.  But I am still wondering if there is a reason for aging?  Or is it just another one of those jokes mother nature plays on us, you know... getting us back for polluting or something similarly sinister?

I joke about the tons of grey hair I have.  My husband doesn’t seem to think it is a laughing matter.  I am out of shape and know I can get back in shape.  It isn’t too late.  He seems to think that our age is going to make it so difficult it is worth getting depressed over.  I know it’s difficult, but why is it such a big deal?

The way I see it is that we seem to become wiser and more stable with age.  People are generally becoming more pleasant human beings.  Have you been around teenagers lately?  Not my idea of the kind of person I want to be for the rest of my 50 or so years on this planet.  

Give me a failing body and ever increasing depth of personality any day.

Then again, I'm only 30.  We'll talk again in 10 years or so.

Tough Love

I’ve always considered myself to be the tough-love type of parent.  That’s how I saw myself before I had kids.  Discipline, discipline, discipline!  

As a teacher, I was pretty sure I had this discipline thing down.  My kids knew exactly how far they could push me and that there was no negotiating when they strayed.  I was strict, but they loved me regardless.  As long as we stayed within the boundaries, we had a lot of fun together.  They were also 12 year old kids.  They understood boundaries.  

My kids don’t.  They still need to learn boundaries.  And there is the added bonus of not being able to send them home at 3:15 every day so I can recharge my willpower.  But I am strict.  I can do this!  I am the disciplinarian... right?

Nope.  That illusion was shattered so spectacularly that I’m still a little stunned at what a wuss I turned out to be.  A few nights ago my little whirlwind child came running into my bedroom.  It was almost midnight and he refused to go to sleep.  Nothing new.  But this time his delay tactic involved climbing into our bed.  Which mother can say no to toddler snuggles?  O, I can!  I enforced strict discipline by holding him tighter and snuggling in deeper.  Giving lots of Mommy-kisses and enjoying every second of our midnight bonding moment.  Who needs a steady bedtime anyway?  

And that was the moment I realized, I’m a softy.  Parenting turned out to be much harder than teaching, by a landslide. 

Tides of Faith

Faith isn’t constant.  We often think that it should be, but it’s not.  Our faith fluctuates like the tides of the ocean.  It comes and goes.  Stronger and weaker.  There are times when our faith is exceptionally strong and times when it is hard to find so much as a single drop.  Few people (if any at all) can go through life and honestly say they have never had a fluctuation in faith.  Whatever your faith might be. 

But here’s the thing.  Is having perfect faith really all it is cracked up to be?  What if our fluctuations are in fact what makes us better understand those around us?  I can’t help but think that maybe times of doubt and uncertainty are not only there to teach us more about our faith, but it will assist us in our dealings with others.  How can you help someone and truly understand their crises of faith when you have always had perfect faith yourself?  Maybe that is why... I don’t really know.

I do believe there are a few individuals who can help in a meaningful manner those whose tide has gone out without ever having experienced it themselves.  But I don’t know if I’ve ever met one of those individuals.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  I don’t know.

What I do know is that the times when our faith gets restored are some of the most magical times in our lives.  I imagine this is what winning the Lotto must feel like.  This winning-at-life feeling.  Unfortunately it doesn’t always make up for the dark that accompanies losing faith.  Maybe someday it will.  Maybe for some it does.  Who knows?  

Maybe one day the moon will always be full and the tide in.

A New Dream

From a young age we all envision our futures.  We have plans and dreams.  Some of us imagine ourselves living picture perfect lives.  Some of us see fears being realized in our futures.  I am not one of them.  I have always imagined the best.  The “eternal optimist” is what my husband calls me when he gets irritated with my lack of comprehending reality.

Sometimes our dreams change.  Sometimes life changes.  We have to adapt.  In order to survive, not only do we need to adapt, but we need to change our dreams and most certainly our visions for the future.  And it would be foolish to think this will happen only once in your lifetime.

The first time my vision for the future changed dramatically was almost exactly ten years ago.  This June, one decade ago I went with my new boyfriend and his family on vacation.  Camping in Mozambique.  How exciting of a trip is that?  I was already deeply in love with him, but that holiday something else happened.  I fell in love with his family.  And not just his immediate family, but also the extended family and family friends that came along.  I knew this was the kind of family I can see myself living with.  It might have something to do with the fact that his mother fed me shots of tequila while we were watching a gigantic full moon over the Indian Ocean.

That holiday I knew I had found my new forever family.  The only problem was in a small little detail; they were planning on moving.  Not down the road, to another part of town, or even just the next town over.  No... they were moving to the other side of the world.  Canada.  We are talking not only continents and oceans, but hemispheres as well!  Big change.

My dad almost immediately looked me in the eye upon return and asked, “Now what?”

“I’m moving to Canada.”  

Ten years later and here I am with my summons to write my citizenship test.  Ten years.  So much has changed.  I have changed.  My dreams have changed over and over again.  My vision for my future is a little muddled right now, but in the last week or so it started taking shape again.  One thing I do know, is that my new vision includes four Canadian passports, one for each of us.  That in itself is a wonderful dream.  A dream and a vision I can not only live with, but be happy about.

Praying for Luck

depression

With a small d.  It doesn’t deserve a capital.  It’s this deep dark place where apathy lives.  That is where The Hub resides on a regular basis.  Days he can’t get out of bed.  Days where he doesn’t want to see his kids.  Days where I am being told what a failure of a wife I am.  Those days are depression days.  Those are the days the little asshole gives the meds the finger and the world collapses.  Not around him, but on top of him.  The world buries him in a blanket of black from which escape always seems impossible.

But those days go away again.  We are lucky.  They don’t last.  Sometimes we go through months of depression and sometimes only a day or two at a time.  We are lucky that it always ends.  For so many it doesn’t. For many it only ends when they end it themselves in the worst possible way imaginable.  I pray for our luck to keep.

It seems an odd thing to pray for luck.  The two terms are almost mutually exclusive.  But in a household where one is religious and the other not, it seems fitting somehow.  

Dear God, please let our luck keep.

Amen  

And a Glass of Wine

It is hard. And it is not hard at all. 

Don’t feel sorry for me.  I don’t want your sympathy.  Don’t give advice unless I ask you for it.  I know you just want to help and don’t always know what to say, but please just don’t. 

I know I complain a lot.  It’s my super power.  It’s my way of coping with life.  It seems odd, I know.  But if you know me well enough, you should know that once I quit complaining, shit’s about to get real.  If I have the time and energy to complain, I’m still good and not in need of any sympathy.  Only an ear.  Just listen.  Drink a glass of wine with me and bitch about something that bothers you.  All will be just fine.

Right now, I have so many words in my head and feelings in my chest.  I knew he was special.  “Just like his dad” is what we kept saying.  But he’s not.  He's his own person.  His own problems.  His own diagnosis.  An official diagnosis.  And it is true... we expected this.  But I guess I didn’t think of it as being this severe.  A small part of me was always hoping they would say something like: “He’ll be fine, just give him time.  Don’t worry!”  Instead they emphasized how there is no doubt about his diagnosis and how much therapy he needs.  “But you knew this, right?”  Yes, I did.  But I didn’t want to.

There is no hiding now.  I am now a “Special Needs Mom” and there is no more thinking and hoping that maybe in a year he will talk and I can go back to work.  I loved my job.  I still have dreams about my job and I come up with ideas I want to implement even though it’s been more than a year since I’ve worked.  I get excited about these awesome things I think up but can’t implement.  It’s like finding this great chocolate cookie recipe that looks too awesome not to try but you don’t have access to a kitchen.  It sucks.

But here’s the thing.  It isn’t always that hard.  My kid is happy.  When my kid is happy, so am I.  Sometimes life sucks, but it really doesn’t matter as long as I can hear him laugh.  I don’t actually care if he ever talks (and I know he will when he is good and ready) but if he can laugh, then what’s the big deal? 

And sometime tonight, I know he will put his arms around my neck, give me a kiss and put his head on my shoulder.  It will only last a few moments, but those moments are precious.  Those moments are why I don’t need sympathy.  He is happy, loving and healthy.  It is all a mother can ask for. 

And a glass of wine.