Thanks, Mom.

0238 by Cia de Foto

My mother is better than yours. No, really. Let me count the ways! 

Granted, I don’t want to turn this into some sort of contest of My-Mom-Can-Beat-Up-Your-Mom. (That is how the playground game worked, right? I don’t remember. I was usually by the tree playing Narnia with my friends...) But today, I’d like to just list a few reasons as to why I believe know why my mom rocks harder than yours. 

• She has always (and still does) try to instill confidence in me. Let’s admit it - there’s a reason why we call Mom when we have a seriously bad day. “What? They said that? Well, honey, they’re just jealous.” (They might not really be jealous, but it still feels really good to hear that your Mom thinks so, am I right?) 

• She banished me from television when I needed grounding and swatted my behind when I deserved a swift kick in the pants. When people tell me how polite and nice I am, I don’t try fooling myself. There’s a scolding with a dose of love behind the way I put my napkin in my lap and chew with my mouth closed. (Most days...) 

• She always has a band-aid. Let’s face it - Mom is always there when you fall and scrape your knee. Or, in my case, she’s always there to hold me while I sob over the latest boy that broke my porcelain heart. My Mom has perfected the art of being the human tissue - and I can only hope that I’m half as good at being a tissue for her.

• My Mom reassures me that I won’t always be single. (And that even if I am, I will still rock her socks off.) ‘Nuff said there. 

• Even when she doesn’t really understand, she tries to. And even if that fails miserably, she loves me through it regardless.

• I was a teenage girl once. I was a nightmare, and there’s no denying it. Thank you, Mom. Just...thank you. Words can’t express the kind of terrors you had to live through to get me past that horrible phase of my life and into the calmer seas of young adulthood. (“I didn’t learn anything at school! Stop interrogating me!” )

• How many times did I wake my mother up in the middle of the night with a fever or an upset stomach? And how many times did she groggily take my temperature or hold my hair out of the toilet like a saint? All of them. Mom, you deserve a million bucks for that alone.

• My mom is fabulous. Her sense of style is worthy of a show on HGTV. And yet despite her amazing preferences for fashion and interior design, she allows me to indulge in my more questionable tastes. Like my phase of monochromatic black clothing in seventh grade. And that pair of boy’s gym shorts that she threatened to throw out...and yet still sits crammed in the back of my drawer for when I run out of clean pajama bottoms. 

• My mother is an amazing cook. A talented chef, really. Even when all we had was a can of green beans and a bag of shredded cheese, she still managed to whip up a masterpiece meal that had my whole family grunting appreciatively through our mouthfuls of food. A silent dinner table meant a successful meal. 

• She loves me no matter what. No matter what. No matter how many times I’ve snapped at her in the past and present. No matter how many questionable choices I’ve made. No matter how many times I switched my major and she wondered if I would ever graduate college.

So hats off to my Mom. Because she rocks. Like, hardcore. I’m sure there are a million and one reasons why you think that your mom is better than mine, and you would probably be justified in thinking so. That’s the beauty of a mother. She’s yours. And that makes her the best thing since sliced bread. 


So thanks, Mom. Thanks for being my Mom. Thank you for everything. 

The Nifty List: May 11, 2012.

Welcome to my nifty list. I like lists. I like nifty things. Thus, the nifty lists were born.

• 750words.com: I love the idea of Julia Cameron's morning pages, but I don't really like writing journal entries out long-hand. This website helps keep me on track with completing my morning pages everyday, but I don't have to get hand cramps in the process. Wheeeee! 

• DashingDish.com: I don't think there's a single recipe on this website that I don't want to recreate myself. Katie is amazing and uplifting - and her protein shake recipe has changed my life. (My life! MY LIFE! I'm not even exaggerating! Go now!) 

• I really loved this japanese moleskine project. SUPER rad! 

• This post from Writing Our Way Home talks about using our best china now, instead of saving it for good (as my grandmama likes to say). Sometimes there's nothing wrong with indulging now, and it feels really flippin' good too! 

• I love Cassandra Clare's books. And her new book City of Lost Souls just came out. Goodbye, free time! 

• Looks like I'm not the only one learning major lessons about letting things go! Check this amazing post over at Roots of She about getting rid of thoughts and feelings that don't serve you. It's so nice to know I'm not the only person in the history of humanity who's learning this lesson!

Have a GREAT weekend. <3

Changes: A cautious firstborn's perspective.

 Macy's by vonSchnauzer

The furniture felt too big.

I am not a creature who adores change. I would much rather wallow in my habits - which are serving me just fine, thank you - than submit to something unexpected and outside of my control. I am a classic firstborn who would very much like to be careful, measured, and precise. (What I would like to be, of course, is a great deal different than how I actually am. It’s not my fault that your unplanned plans are throwing me out of balance!) I find great solace and comfort in planning my road trip stops ahead of time, instead of simply going with the flow and letting the car roam wherever it pleases. It took me years to learn how to ride a bicycle, because I didn’t like the out-of-control feeling it gave me. Roller coasters are a big no-no.

Being unpredictable is just not my thingy-thang, if you get what I mean.

Which is why furniture that felt a little too big for my room was kind of...overwhelming, shall we say? It crowded most of my older belongings out, pushing in where it wasn’t wanted and sending me into a mini spiral of panic.

New furniture was a good idea, of course. (My mom’s idea. She’s brilliant, that one.) I’m a big girl now. I need big girl things. But that didn’t mean adapting to the new scenery was going to be easy for someone like me, who needs plenty of time to plan and visualize before I can slowly and surely adapt my life to a new big thing.

Which left me standing in the middle (very small), empty space of my room, gazing at my new furniture as it crowded everything else out. My mother, who knows me so well, reassured me that this was for the best. That this would make the space feel like mine, instead of merely feeling as if I’m usurping someone else’s territory.

She was right, of course. (Yes, Mom, you’re always right. I realized in college how brilliant you are.) After a few days, I began to realize that this new, big furniture had helped me get rid of the things that I really didn’t need anymore. I’m starting to realize that peeling back bits and pieces of my life that I don’t need can be wildly refreshing. Enlightening. Uplifting, even.

I’m getting rid of the “fun time” activities that are no longer fun. TV shows I no longer care about. Books I no longer read. (Oh yes, I spent a whole Sunday afternoon cleaning my bookshelves of books that just don’t sing to me anymore - which is a big deal if you know my extended love affair with books. I gave them to someone special, who I know will treat them right.)

Slowly but surely, I’m giving up old passions to make room for new obsessions that will no doubt come flooding in when there’s an empty space to fill. And I have absolutely no doubt that they will be too big. That they’ll make me cringe and chew my nails and wring my hands, because that’s what I do when something new and big and scary rushes into my life.

But they will gradually start to crowd out the less important things. And I will stare and tilt my head and say, Huh. I guess I had room after all.

-----

Keep your eyes peeled for some changes on the site if you’re keen. We’re going to get all wild up in this joint. We’re going to (gasp) change some things. We’re going to make some space and shave off the excess and create some room for magic to occur.

And it’s going to be absolutely rad.

Huh. I guess I had room after all.

Joy or Peace: One without the other.

Day 80 / Rainy day in Copenhagen by velvettears

Over the weekend, someone asked me a question:  What makes you really really glowingly vibratingly joyful?

A simple question. An easy question. And yet I stared at it - at its pixelated enormity across the glow of my laptop screen. I stared at it...and drew a numbing blank.

A queer kind of horror was quick on its heels. My mind scrambled. Something heavy in my chest sank down to the pit of my stomach. That all-too-familiar voice was eager to begin its taunting dance, swirling around in bodiless cruelty to the tune of my growing despair. Why aren't you happy? What's wrong with you? Why can't you just be happy?

A moment more to linger in my uncertainty, and then I pressed my fingers to my keyboard regardless. I came up with the best answer that I could think of. The only answer that felt true in that moment. (I grew tired of pretending to be happy a long time ago. Masks are more exhausting than simply allowing my emotions to be as they are. Eventually, you just succumb to the tide and hope it doesn't rip you from the shore entirely.)

I...don't know honestly. I think being at peace is something I prefer over joy. But maybe that's just me speaking from my life and how I function right now.

I stared at the answer. I pressed enter. I let it be. Because even in knowing my own dissatisfaction, there was some sense of relief that you always feel when you're honest with yourself. But I couldn't shake the disquiet. The sense that I had to be doing something wrong. Peace over joy? What's wrong with you?

The words stayed with me. In my bed. At work. While I exercised. During my favorite television show. In the midst of my writing. Brushing my teeth. What makes you really really glowingly vibratingly joyful?  

I didn't know. And the longer that I allowed myself to dwell on it, the more distressed I became. Not being able to predict or control my own emotions is a fear built up from life experience and history. And knowing that I didn't feel joyful - under the presumption that everyone else did at some point or another - seemed like just another terrifying sign that I was sledding down the slushy slope. Careening, out of control, doomed to crash sooner or later.

But then a lunch break came. Errand breaks, as I call them now, since lunch is something done at my desk. (Another control issue. Another day.) The weather was warm - a teasing hint of spring and Vitamin D to make me uncurl like a flower about to be bitten by a frost. I let my car windows stay open, one hand dragging the breeze as I drove down the familiar path back to work. The air tasted good, and my sunglasses tinted the world into a seventies polaroid, too much cyan and yellow to look real.

I measured the pulse of how I felt in that moment - something I'd learned to do in high school when I couldn't trust the rampant mood swings anymore.

Peace. And with it? Happiness. I breathed in deep, memorizing the feeling, because this was where I felt best. Without trying. Without pushing myself. Without making Joy some sort of capitalized goal I had to reach or a hurdle to jump. It didn't vibrate. But it glowed, a gentle diffusion that made my limbs warm and my chest feel light. So maybe peace is the joy, I thought, still obsessed in some ways. And then, quietly, It's okay to simply want peace.

Later, in the new-old-amazing double bed I've inherited from my grandmama, where I'm learning to sleep in the middle of a space I've never had before, I felt a gentle pull to mull over words that I'm meant to be reading lately. Psalm 33, that voice whispered, and I found my Bible on the shelf by the shine of gold-edged pages.

Sing joyfully to the LORD, you righteous;

  it is fitting for the upright to praise him.

Praise the LORD with the harp;

  make music to him on the ten-stringed lyre.

Sing to him a new song;

play skillfully, and shout for joy.

  play skillfully, and shout for joy.

More joy, I thought wryly. It's a hymn about God's plans. A praise to His goodness and the absolute certainty that His will prevails. And then, at the end:

We wait in hope for the LORD;

  he is our help and our shield.

In him our hearts rejoice,

  for we trust in his holy name.

More peace, I realized. Because that's how I feel when I know I'm cradled carefully in His hands, His touch so tenderly unfolding His plans for my life. So maybe my joy can come from my peace. And my peace comes from ultimately knowing that it's all going to be okay. He's there. I survive. I thrive. I drink coffee. I write stories. I meditate. I pray. I work. I sleep. I do it all again.

Joy can't come for me from something that I do or something that I own. Maybe joy isn't something that I can control at all, but something He has to create in me. Something that just needs a little time and patient reverence.  

Perhaps when I finally stop pushing it so hard, it will blossom. Until then, I'm content with peace.

More joy. More peace.

Art Every Day Month 2011: Day 12

 

I had a long Saturday with not much going on, so I took the opportunity that I was presented with to create some art. I haven't dabbled with photomanipulation for a long while, and I thought I would give it another go. Altogether, I'm pretty pleased with it considering I haven't done anything like this for a while. 

The idea for the scene came to me on my way home from work. I was driving one of the long stretches of road and there were these huge, dark thunderclouds rolling in toward me as I drove closer to home. It felt like a challenge, almost. 

Here's to being a wild, warrior woman. 

Credits for stock go to the following: 

Model: night-fate-stock @ DA 
Beach: eastop @ stock.xchng
Clouds: dimitri_c @ stock.xchng 
Grass: faestock @ DA
Lightning brushes: redheadstock @ DA