Category Archives: my reflection in my blog

truthfully

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Truthfully…

I know the expectation in polite society is that when someone asks, “How are you?” the reply should always be “I’m fine, thank you.” even if that isn’t the truth. You might be feeling sick to your stomach or like your sinuses are ready to explode. Perhaps you have a pounding headache that is jack-hammering your brain or you might have a a blister on the heel of your foot thanks to those cruel shoes you insist on wearing because they make your legs look hot. Or maybe you are so overwhelmed with the worries of your life that you feel there will be no relief…ever. Still when someone asks how you are doing you are expected to smile and tell them that you are fine. Oh, and don’t forget to ask them how they are doing too. Don’t worry, they won’t dump even more burdens, pains and woes upon you. They will smile back and tell you that, yes, they are fine as well.

It is all so pleasant.

Except when it isn’t really.

Don’t worry. I am doing okay…mostly. I don’t believe in wearing shoes that hurt so my feet are just fine. I’m just not okay. Thank goodness for my circus act who adores me…even when I am a naggy, raging, tearful bitch. And thank you that I can easily run 3-5 miles because some days that is truly what keeps me going. Still the reality is I am overwhelmed more than usual with the burdens and worries that is this life of mine. It comes and goes; but lately it has been coming more than going. So right now if you were to ask me I would have to say that actually I am not okay or fine because it is lately so hard to pretend that I am.

No, you can’t fix any of it. I don’t expect you to. Just sit with me, hug me and please, dear god don’t tell me that you know exactly how I feel because truthfully you don’t.

Thank you for letting me be truthful right now.

who I see

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I am turning 50 this year…in March…March 8 to be exact. So start planning and shopping now. But yes, I am turning 50 and, well, I’m kind of surprised and amazed by that truth and because of that I can’t help but think about it quite a bit. Here is where I warn you that I might be writing about it a lot this year because it is kind of a big thing…at least I think so.

I’ve never been one to shy away from my age. The gene pool I come from seems to be filled with the type of folk who live long, active lives. Age is really but a number I have come to decide when I look at where I have come from. So I have never been one to hide my age, mourn my age, lie about my age or even act my age. Frankly I still feel like a big, goofy kid…until I think about all those grown up responsibilities and worries that I juggle. But for the most part, I don’t see what I perceive that number “50″ is supposed to be….even when my darling daughter Abigael reminds me earlier this week that being 50 makes me “hecka old”. I remind her that it is a good thing that I am because being 18 now it would follow that I am, erm, older…older than her.

Then along comes this week’s prompt for the Focus 52 project I signed on for this year.

Share something that essentially defines who you are (or attempts to!). It could be a hobby, your job, your place in your family, a goal, a collage of a few different images … hey! this could also a perfect time for a self-portrait! *winkwink*nudgenudge*

Oh goody! A self portrait!

I hate pictures of me. I really do. Perhaps that is why I am the one behind the lens here under the Big Top. It’s not that I don’t like what I see. It’s that I don’t see me the way the lens sees me.

A few years ago I had a conversation with a friend who has lost an incredible amount of weight and has kept it off. He shared that it remains a battle for him always because he doesn’t see the slimmer, fitter man that he is. It was then that he pulled out a picture from his wallet of his former self, a much larger, obese man. I still saw that familiar smile and devilish twinkle of his but the picture looked nothing like the man before me. Yet that was who he saw every time he looked at himself in a mirror. Lately when I see a picture of me I see me, the me that I don’t see in the mirror. Yes the lines are definitely there and I see them but I guess I don’t acknowledge them…I just don’t feel them.

But looking at a photograph, or two, or more I see it all…the lines, the imperfections, the years filled with joy, pain, sorrow, music and laughter. They’re all there for me to see.

I am most definitely NOT the kid I feel like inside. I’m not “hecka old” either. But I am a woman who very soon will be fifty years old. To my Dad I say I’m sorry but that makes you “hecka old”. But you still can very easily ride your bicycle across the state of Iowa which is something I can’t do and that makes you phenomenal. Like I said, I come from a pretty awesome gene pool.

But ultimately I know, more than anything, no matter what I look like…no matter what I see when I see my reflection or see a photo of me I more. I am so much freaking more than what I look like.

© 2011 The I Am Project. All rights reserved

remembering a decade later

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For what it’s worth, here are my own thoughts a decade later.

The bright, cloudless sky that woke me early that Tuesday morning did not reveal the horror, fear and pain of that day ten years ago. What should have been a typical September day that would commence with my getting my kids up, dressed and off to school with as little as drama as possible was not to be. I knew this as I turned on the morning news to see a shot of the Empire State Building in the foreground and the World Trade Center with black smoke billowing from the North Tower. As I tried to comprehend the sketchy details the reporter was providing I found myself screaming in horror as a plane suddenly appeared and crashed into the South Tower.

It couldn’t become even more horrible.

But it could.

While my girls were getting dressed for school, I learned from catching bits of the news that the Pentagon was hit and then a plane had crashed somewhere in Pennsylvania. Perhaps this wasn’t Armageddon but it was clear that the world that I knew was coming to an end.

From my home in San Jose, California, New York, Washington and Pennsylvania were far removed from me. But they really weren’t. Later I would discover my personal 9/11 connections: a cousin who had just recently returned from maternity leave and worked in the North Tower, an acquaintance from my gym who was returning home from a trip to New York City, the son of a couple from the church we attended, the husband of a lady I supported through Sidelines while she was on bedrest for a complicated pregnancy. All were brutally murdered that day. Parents lost their children. Babies will grow up never knowing their mothers and fathers. While the pain of that day for us all is palpable, nothing can compare to the pain of those who have lost friends and family among the 2996+ that day.

Why?

If we are to believe Al Qaida, this is all for the glory of Allah. Respectfully I disagree. The God of Father Abraham was not glorified over the huge loss of those created in His image that bright September morning. No, I believe that the God of Abraham we both follow has been pierced through the heart. His own creation was torturing and murdering itself.

Our lives have been forever changed. We are no longer complacent when we travel. We find ourselves dealing with the controversy and loss of what is clearly becoming the Vietnam of our children’s generation. We have become a nation that is even more divisive beyond Republicans and Democrats. One can no longer sit on the fence. We have discovered that we are either for the “right” side or against it regardless of which side that may be.

There is no more gray. No more varying shades. Our world is now stark and full of contrasts.

Regardless of our response to that day of terror, we will never forget the victims, the heroes, the family, friends and acquaintances who touched our lives. As this sad anniversary is here let it be all about them and nothing more.

core story

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What central story is at the core of you, and how do you share it with the world? (Bonus: Consider your reflections from this month. Look through them to discover a thread you may not have noticed until today.)
prompt by Molly O’Neill

The last couple of days I have been considering my reflections with this #reverb10 exercise as well as the previous 30 days of truth...that has been a lot of self-reflection and navel gazing going on here…how in the world did you stand me, much less last this long? Well, I must thank you all for your morbid curiosity of my delving into my mad mind and the digging out of all of the lint and hubris that is in there.  I can’t promise you that there will no longer be self-absorbed musings, after all this is MY blog. But I can promise you that at least for now there will not be any 30 day exercises of reflective pondering.

After all this, I am exhausted as I imagine are you.

I didn’t really see the core thread in  this month-long exercise or even in myself until in the wee small hours of the other night in the NICU. During my downtime I have been enjoying my latest read, Alexa Stevenson’s Half Baked.

sidebar: OMG, read this book! No, I’m not just saying that because as a mommy of a 24 weeker with an equally dramatic NICU course as Alexa’s gorgeous Simone, I get the worry, the fear, the anger, the dark (but much needed) humor. No, I am recommending this book because this writer’s voice captivates you, draws you in and entertains the hell out of you while making you appreciate the hell and heaven that is the rabbit hole of parenting a micro-preemie.

I came across this passage during my downtime of caring for and chasing after two wildly apneic two pound babies on opposite ends of the room in the NICU and suddenly I got it.

“Progress in the NICU isn’t linear.” Wendy said to me once.
“Simone will get better, and then she’ll get worse, or have a setback. But then she’ll get better again. And that will repeat, over and over, but she’ll start covering more ground going uphill than she loses slipping back.”…”She will make progress, but slowly.”
This may be the Zen of Neonatology. At the time, I was very focused on the logistics:how many steps back, exactly, would there be? When would we start to gain momentum? Was there some sort of benchmark I could use? I expected the back and forth to end, but now it seems obvious that this shuffling, dance-like process is everywhere, even outside the NICU, though generally it occurs over longer periods of time. You stumble, recover, and hopefully, keep moving forward. Really, what more can you ask?

And suddenly, for me, there it was!

What?

You don’t see it?

The dance…the NICU two-step that I have known for over the last twenty years of my nursing career and as the mommy of a former 1lb 6 oz micropreemie is life…it is life in general. In the NICU it is closely watched over, weighed and measured down to the last gram and milliliter and every single breath taken. But outside the NICU, we are just living it, just dancing. Sometimes we dance well and celebrate the lightness of our step and the giddiness and joy of it all. Other times we shuffle and trip, and stumble a little, and a lot. But, hopefully, we do keep moving forward. And might I suggest that, hopefully, we still can laugh…even just a little.

This last year there has been much shuffling and stumbling, two steps forward and one step back, and sometimes just swaying side to side. There has been much stress and worry, anger and frustration, tears and fears. But there has been moments of laughter, of joy, of exhilarating triumph and of blissful peace. But moving forward we seem to have managed…even if it is only a few steps. That is my core story, my central theme for 2010…as it has been for the years past and, I imagine, the years to come.

Thank god I still can laugh.

Really, what more can I ask?

it’s about that blog

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I just came home from a weekend-long dance competition for my dancing darling daughter #4. Of course Jodie rocked it bringing home more golden trophies. But I’m not thinking about her dancing awesome-ness as I write this. I am thinking about this blog, this blog of  mine. Yet I can’t help but find myself humming along to Prince’s “It’s About That Walk” because it would seem that there is an unspoken code that at least  four or more dance studios will have a dance choreographed to that song at any given dance competition. This weekend I lost count after the sixth dance done to that song…so it’s about that blog.

You’re welcome for the ear worm!

A friend of mine this weekend made a comment to me that perhaps I could show her how to make six figures blogging.

Um, sure.

Actually I can’t. For the record, I. Do. Not. Make. Money. Blogging. I don’t. I never have. In the five years of blogging I have received a few books, tickets to the circus (once) and tickets to an ice show (once). There are no ads on my blog the generate revenue for me. There is no corporation underwriting my blogging about life with teenagers, an adult child planning a wedding on a shoestring, an incredibly gorgeous grandchild, an amazing son who manages to steal everyone’s heart with just a wink and a smile or any other thing going on in my life here under the Big Top. A local newspaper occasionally picks up my writing from here and a local moms’ forum but there is no money making from that. I am very fortunate to now be writing for SV Moms Group‘s 50-Something Moms Blog too…again, not making any money. Sorry, but no, I am not making my riches writing about my perceived rich life. I write here for the sake of writing and I write what I want to write here. It’s a love I had as a child that I re-discovered through blogging. I’m just fortunate, VERY fortunate that so many find what I have to write about so interesting…or perhaps not-so-interesting but rather something to mock. Nevertheless, I write Adventures In Juggling first and foremost for me.

An article appeared in Friday’s New York Times Fashion and Style that seems to perpetuate many of the misconceptions people have about women who happen to be mothers who happen to blog. On the surface it would seem that “mommy bloggers”  are in it in order to rake in the six figures and all the perks that come with creating their own brand which is why they would attend something like Bloggy Boot Camp. It’s all about the monetizing baby…at least that is what Jennifer Mendelsohn, herself a “mommy blogger” would suggest because we all seek to have the kind of blog that will generate 28,549 page views of our tutu-making prowess that you too can learn. Ms Mendelsohn did make some good, rare points but I’m afraid much of her article was cloaked in her own self-loathing as a mommy blogger and gross assumptions that were off the mark. Having had the good fortune to meet Tiffany Romero at another blogging event, SITScation, that was also her “brainchild”, I would have to say that there is so much more to events like these; and, sorry, but part of it is the enthusiasm, excitement and warmth that Tiffany brings.

The mommy bloggers who do make the six figures are a rare breed. The mommy bloggers who do monetize their blogs mostly make enough to feed their latte habit, pay for their domain or cover the groceries. Given that there are a helluva lot more families barely living paycheck to paycheck these days what is so wrong with a resourceful mom adding to the family income? How is that any different than the moms who sold Tupperware when I was a kid? Oh wait, Mendelsohn put them down too.

Moms are so much more than the sum of their parts whether they blog or don’t blog, work outside of the home or not, get their whites whiter or just toss them and buy some more gym socks and underwear at Target.  It’s long overdue that we recognize this rather than look for any angle to put down and poke fun at those who are mothers. Mothers are bright, articulate, creative, resourceful, industrious, talented and much, much, much more. We are all unique, amazing individuals just like our amazing children are.