Just the three of us, building castles in the sky...

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Yesterday, I went to court to get full guardianship of my daughter's brother. My daughter, my lawyer, myself, the Guardian Ad Litem and my daughter's brother stood before the judge and said this is what we all wanted. My daughter spoke about how she felt like part of her life had been missing and how glad she was that her brother would have better opportunities now.

I would like to say that everything has gone as easily as that court date yesterday, but that wouldn't be true. Heck, even the court date was delayed a month because the docket in March was full.

Having a teenage boy here has been perhaps, one of the biggest challenges of my life. When the two were babies, my (at the time) goddaughter was colicky and almost everything made her sick. I remember holding her above my head and lifting her up and down under the ceiling fan to calm her so she could finally fall asleep. Her brother was an easy baby. Hardly cried. Cuddled a lot with Candace. Candace once told me that if she had had her son first, she would have thought she was a natural mom. That mothering was easy. She said that because she'd had her daughter first, she'd been humbled. That she understood how hard being a mom could really be. For me, I've had the exact opposite experience with those two. Having my (now) daughter come live here was a natural flow of our already close relationship. Not that it was all easy, but I patted myself on the back and told myself "You got this." I listened when people told me what a great mom I was.

That has not been my experience now. People always look at me and say, "Oh, you'll be fine, you're such a great mom, you got this." But I, most decidedly, have days where I do NOT got this.

Having my life shift so much has pushed me to limits I didn't know I had. Pushed me to the edge of patience, and frustratingly, sometimes beyond it. I've been tremendously hard on myself. Forced to create boundaries for a young person who has really not had many, I feel like often I am more of a drill sergeant than a parent. I've had to deal with anger and anxiety in someone that brings forth my own anger and anxiety. I've had to figure out how to move past my own shortcomings to try to be a better person... and often I feel I come up short of the mark.

If you've read my blog, you know I struggle with being kind to myself. I struggle with honoring my own needs, often putting others before myself. Perhaps that is part of being a parent, putting the needs of children above my own needs. But I think, when I put their needs above my own too often, I lose myself in the process.

At times, life here is sunshine and happiness. Two kids curled up on the sofa talking, me curled up with a cup of tea laughing, and all of us feeling like a well tuned family - working together for the best of all of us. I treasure those moments, and lately they come more often.


But just as often I feel like I am living in a tempest. I have to push through the outright denial of being a family. The denial of connection that comes from the fear of belonging somewhere. The push against being loved. I have had to face my own trauma and learn how to manage it when surrounded by someone else's. I've read and reread this article. I've found it both comforting and confronting, both at the same time.

Often my supportive and wonderful friends will say to me, "Oh, hey, typical teenage behavior! Welcome to parenthood!" And then I feel even worse.  I think to myself, omg, I can't even handle typical teenage behavior! But that isn't accurate. It isn't typical in my world and while I know every parent of a teenager has difficult moments, the uncertainty mixed with tremendous loss in my situation, makes this not some 'typical teenage behavior." I know friends are being supportive, I know they are trying to help and I am grateful for their love and support. I also know I'm the only one in my situation and I shouldn't diminish my experience or myself for feeling at times like I fail at parenting over typical teenage behavior.

There is therapy, there is assessment. There is no way I could do this on my own. I'm consistently and constantly amazed at how supportive the people around me have been. The people at work, the people that are my friends, the people in my family. I'm lucky to not be alone. I don't know how a single person could do it alone. For those single parents raising kids, my admiration knows no bounds.

But what I am realizing, is that it's okay for this to not be perfect. It's okay for this experience to bounce back and forth between delightful and difficult.

I know I am doing the best I know how to do. And I am learning to take my life one moment at a time to the best of my ability. I know no matter how this experience turns out, I am growing. I am becoming. And I am already not the same person that agreed to bring another child into my life. It's been humbling and I'm certainly learning how much I still have to learn.

I am looking forward to what comes next. I'm also scared and nervous. It's unknown, and I'm not always good with the unknown. But I know I will emerge from this story with many new stories of my own to tell. And I believe all of us in this story will do some healing, some learning, and some loving together to emerge from this story even better than when we stepped into it.

peace my friends,

MaryKate

Lip-sync for your Life!

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Let me just admit right now that I am a fan of RuPaul's Drag Race. My daughter and I binge watch it. At the very end of each show, two of the contestants are forced to lip-sync to a dance club song (you know ala Donna Summer crooning MacArthur Park is melllllting in the sun...) and the winner gets to stay and the loser must gather her makeup and 'sashay away'.

I started running three weeks ago. Running is a ridiculous word and not even remotely accurate. I don't even think I can fairly call it shuffling. It is a slow process. My body has a long way to go before it is ready to 'run' anywhere. I pray the zombie apocalypse can wait at least a year to give me some time before I have to worry about running to save my life. It'd be better if the zombies were drag queens and I had to lip sync to save my life. Now that I could really manage. Heck, I could rule that future world of zombies lulled into submission by my lip syncing.

I digress to a better place - a world where life depends on one's ability to lip sync to be healthier and stronger. Too bad life isn't like that and being healthier isn't that easy.  For some, with a lifetime pattern of self care, perhaps it is easy; for me, is it a true shift in mind-set. It is making myself get physical. It is pushing myself to compete in a 5M run in November (that I only agreed to because I thought it was 5K. Lori totally suckered me into that...) that looms ahead of me on the horizon taunting me.

I have been walking all summer and increasing my distance each week. Until I started to focus less on distance and more on intensity, I was up to three or four miles of pulling, I mean walking, the dog. When I made the shift to prepare for the event in November, I started using an iPhone app for the couch to 5K (C25K) method of training. The first two times weren't really hard, but then my body realized what I was doing and went into revolt. I didn't give up, but decided that instead of pushing myself too hard, I needed to focus on just one week at a time. I did week one for two weeks until I was comfortable, now I am working on week two. I don't really care how long it takes me to get to week three. I will walk the 5M if I have to. The goal for me isn't perfection, it is finishing. However, I find that even as I choose to push myself to do this, old patterns fight in my head to re-establish themselves.

Do you remember my blog post about when I went into the store to buy bento boxes and freaked out that they were too small and I couldn't fit enough FOOD in there? Well, clearly there was enough food in there, and using those boxes for a while helped me eat smaller, healthier lunches, and overall portions. However, the there isn't enough mindset took me a while to get past. Two weeks ago, I had a similar experience that made me realize that old programming can be tremendously strong.

My friend Lori invited me to go cliff diving at a park in Anacortes. Neither one of us had gone to the lake before, but we were meeting her daughter who was going to show us the way. Lori, my daughter, and I, packed into her car and off we went. I wore my bathing suit, my hippy tye-dye dress, and flip flops. I was ready for swimming!

When we arrived at the park, we got out of the car and gathered our water gear.  I was ready! Until Lori's daughter told us it was about a two mile walk to the water.

TWO MILES???? WTH. No one told me I was going to have to walk two miles to get to the water!

I started to feel that familiar panic. The script in my head started to play the familiar tape of  I can't do it. It's too far. Everyone will make fun of me or worse pity me. I've been with partners in my life that ridiculed me for not 'keeping up' and partners that would walk faster than me when we'd go out, even when I asked them to slow down and walk beside me. All those thoughts played in my head.

All the jogging/running I have done over the summer meant nothing. All I could think about was that I had to walk two miles!!! The idea of walking that far truly terrified me. But my kid was there. And I was being a tantrum-throwing two year old. Lori even offered me better shoes, but I was all NO! and I'M NOT GOING (insert stompy foot here). Lori just looked at me, did her best to let me get it all out and then said, "Ready?" She was not putting up with my childishness.

Damn her.

So I started walking. In the hot sun. Through the woods. In my dress. And guess what? I was fine. I saw the lake in the distance and I thought woohoo! I'm there! Except I wasn't. It was another mile to where we were headed. But I kept going. In my stupid flip flops (and boys and girls, that is what pouting gets you - crappy shoes), I kept going. All the while, Lori kept my pace and let me blather on about my exes and about love and about life and whatever came into my mind. She just listened, pointed out some very insightful things, and let me distract myself. I kept going while everyone else went a bit faster and Lori, because she loves me, stayed at my side. Next thing I knew, we had arrived. It happened that fast. *poof* we were there.

And wow. It was glorious. The water was so flat and still. There wasn't anyone else there. The cliffs were high, but not so high you couldn't jump off them. I was hot, but not breathing hard. Not only had I made it, it wasn't even that big of a deal! All that panic for nothing. I took off my dress and flipflops and dove into the crisp, clear water. And it was cold. And it was stunning. And I remembered all those times as a kid that I had walked forever and swam for hours. And I wondered why I had forgotten all those moments in my past of being athletic and strong despite being a big girl.  I loved walking when I was a kid and I would take walks for miles and miles and hours and hours - by myself! Just because I could.

I realized, again, how difficult it is to shift a lifetime's worth of perspective. The perspective of I can't to the perspective of, I can.

And when the zombie apocalypse comes? I am going to sing, at the top of my lungs, ALL THAT SWEET GREEN ICING FLOOOOOWING DOWN..." as I do not sashay way, but instead outrun them. Because seriously. I should be able to outrun zombies.

I think that is a realistic goal.

Peace,

MaryKate

Finding peace with uncomfortable
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I spent two hours last night, after my daughter went to sleep, sitting outside. I bundled up in my favorite robe, in my favorite lawn chair, with my toes tucked under me, and looked at the stars. I found myself pondering something uncomfortable - being 46 and single again. I had no self-recriminations or anger. Just sat with my thoughts. For much of the time, I honored my past and the relationships I have had. I thought about kissing my first love in the rain by a river in Ohio, and wishing the moment would never end. I thought about the person that offered me an intense love I knew I could never return. I remembered the handsome,  6'7" Cowboy that bundled up with me in a blue velour blanket on the roof when I lived in that crazy shack on the Puget Sound. How, on a night in August all those years ago, he held my hand under the stars, taught me the difference between satellites and airplanes and listened when I said shooting stars were magical. I thought about the one I married and how pretty I felt on my wedding day and how wonderful it felt to have the people I loved smiling and happy around me. I thought about the one I slow danced with in my living room as I sang a Celine Dion song to handsome, healing eyes. I thought about that time in Mexico when I laughed over winning at cribbage, drank Dirty Monkeys, and felt such joy in another's smile while listening to ocean waves crash onto the beach.  I didn't hold tightly onto any of the people or memories, just let them pass through and followed them as each led to the next and warmed my heart.

It was nice to look at the more pleasant moments of those relationships. I also looked at the not-so-wonderful moments in those relationships. The uncomfortable moments of anger, betrayal, unmet expectations, rejection, dismissal, and abandonment. I thought about belongings left in boxes and bags and loose ends that will never be tied nicely into bows. It was difficult, but I welcomed those painful feelings and acknowledged them, then let them move through me. While those feelings and experiences are honest reflections of my heart and my path, holding on to them would keep me stuck in the past.

This time of reflection in my life has been important. Ending relationships can be messy and complicated and uncomfortable. The untangling of hopes and dreams and re-establishing identity takes time and patience. Especially now that it isn't just my heart I am concerned with - having a child adds a whole new dimension to who I am as a person and my responsibilities as a role model and parent. It's changed how I see the world and my place in it.

Right now, my world certainly feels uncomfortable. Taking the time to sit in my uncomfortableness is part of growing up. Too often, I have rushed through events that are uncomfortable because... well... they're uncomfortable damn it! Things feel unresolved and unstable. I don't like sitting in the unknowing and I really want to understand it all right now! Learning to sit in the space of unsettled is hard, but I am determined not to push it away.

In the past, I have eaten to escape feeling uncomfortable. I have had a drink to avoid feeling uncomfortable. I have rushed to find someone new to bypass feeling uncomfortable. I have tried to fill the space of uncomfortable with distraction - be it in whatever form that may have taken. Not this time. This time, as much as it is possible, I am staying present with this anxious, edgy space. In the past, I have struggled with discomfort, and it is nice to see that I am making progress in how I manage it for myself.

I am using this time to explore the beautiful and the not so beautiful parts of me. I am embracing my strength, power, beauty, joy, sorrow, selfishness, curiosity, compassion and grace to move to the next step on my journey. Not eating to find an escape for my anxiety is hard, but moving through this process forges a deeper and truer connection with my Self - it is affirming and empowering. Being centered in uncomfortable is sacred.

I grew up in a family of enablers and I learned that role exceptionally well. I learned early how to give myself up in a relationship. What I am learning now, is how to honor myself no matter my relationship status. It means finding some peace with people and events from my past that I can't change. Richard Bach, in his book Illusions, says:

You are led through your lifetime by the inner learning creature, the playful spiritual being that is your real self. Don't turn away from possible futures before you're certain you don't have anything to learn from them. You're always free to change your mind and choose a different future, or a different past.

I'm not sure I can choose a different past, but I do believe I can change how I perceive my past and heal the parts that have left me seeking someone else to fill some imagined lacking in my life.

Knowing who I am and working on filling my own emotional needs means I can walk away from co-dependent, enabling relationships where I seek someone else to make me feel good enough, smart enough, and worthwhile enough to finally earn love and approval - I'll already have my own! I read recently that you enter relationships with someone who likes you just a little more than you like yourself. And while it isn't that I don't like myself, I'm taking the time to truly feel this space of being uncomfortable in order to reacquaint myself with the parts of me I have avoided. And it isn't just the parts of myself I don't like that I have avoided, I have avoided the parts of myself I do like. No one forced me do that - to give up the parts of me I liked. It is a pattern of behavior I learned. And it worked for me - until it didn't. It is time for me to learn a new way of being in relationship with myself and making choices that honor the relationship I am building with who I am, just as I am. I am not perfect, nor do I want to be, but the more I like who I am, the more I will attract people into my life that like who they are as well.

I learned the term radical acceptance last week. From the article:

Radical acceptance is about accepting of life on life’s terms and not resisting what you cannot or choose not to change. Radical Acceptance is about saying yes to life, just as it is.

I appreciate those of you that have listened to me, talked with me, read my words, walked with me, learned with me, shared with me, laughed and cried with me recently. I also appreciate those who have left my life to walk their own path in a different direction - I am grateful for the time shared and the experiences that have brought me to where I am today.

Right now, learning to be in the space of uncomfortable isn't easy. But by staying present with the struggle and not running to food or some other distraction means I am honoring my goals of living a healthier, more present life. It means instead of pursuing the false 'comfort' I once found in food, I am free to pursue things in my life that bring me true happiness.

And that is worth the struggle.



Peace,

MaryKate

Come and Gone and Come...
98/100

It was good to be home for the three days I was there. My cat got over her stoney hello and purred happily, (until I left again), I got to connect with my support network there and I went to work to finish up a few things before I left for Ohio. I love my home. It is airy, and quiet. I get centered there. I am lucky to live where I do.

Mexico was amazing. My batteries were recharged and I regained my sense of delight and joy.

Ohio? Has been an adventure so far. The first day I arrived, C had just returned from the hospital. She was sick, unable to keep down food, everyone was in a state of chaos and I... quickly lost the centered feeling I had when I left to arrive here. I don't know why I didn't make the connection that C has been in the hospital for almost 2 months. She is weak, tired and on a lot of medication. Her personality is still as strong as ever, and as she gets better and better we have more and more conversations, but she is exhausted. And she is struggling to manage just the simple things. And I? Had no idea of the situation I was walking in to. I had no idea what it meant that she had two pulmonary embollisms in her lungs (two blood clots in her lungs). She's been in pain, she's recovering from hip surgery and the radiation is knocking her out. The main thing I find myself doing, is just loving her. Everything is secondary.

I have been accused of not liking it when things are unsettled. I've written a journal about it here, and my issues haven't really changed a whole lot. However, I am realizing that feeling uncomfortable also has to do with feeling like I have little or no control in my life. That is a big part of what is going on with me right now.

I feel so out of control. Each day I feel like I get my footing more solid, but it's solidly on beach sand. A wave comes, washes away the footprint and I start over again fresh. I am learning what she needs and what she doesn't need. I know better how to navigate her family. I know how to navigate her mom. I see how to connect with the kids and we have all been enjoying our time together. Her husband and I have had some time to reconnect as well.  I have all these plans in place. I have plans for my plans in case they don't work out. I have plans for my plans for my plans. I am a planning machine.

Yesterday, I was talking to my sister. I told her, I'd like to get a Yurt. I have wanted one for about 15 years; I think it would be a sanctuary in my life. I have been studying them, reading about them for ages. Anyhow, when I told my sister, she immediately started asking me about cost and practicality. I had to tell her to stop (which I don't do very often). One of the things that makes me who I am, is my need to dream. And when I dream? I tend to dream big. I need right now to dream about things that I feel are in my control. I want to be able to dream about having a yurt. I want to contemplate it. I want to design it. I want to think about how it will fit in the yard of my house and what it will take to build one. I want to have all kinds of dreams about it. For some, dreaming impractically must seem pointless. For me it is the best mental health exercise I know.

Sadly, for many of the people I love and have loved, my dreaming has ended up being a source of frustration. When I start to dream, I dream with passion. I dream with conviction. Even though it is just a dream and I know it might very well not happen, I have to have the space to explore it. I want to think I'll be able to do it. Like my big plans to go to India and Africa as a treat for myself when I turn 45. I plot and plan it all the time. Will I do it? Who knows, but I want to sit and dream about it and plan it.

And what I need when I am in that mode? Is for someone to dream with me, not tell me why I can't do it. And I think that is hard for the people I love. Because the devotion I exhibit is hard to deny. My enthusiasm is infectious. But then, when I change my mind, or move on to my next dream people get left behind. They get upset and angry. And I feel terrible. I don't know how to fix it when I move on to my next 'dream' and they are still left behind in my last dream. I often make my dreams happen, but I am generally not attached to how to make them happen. And sometimes I realize it is going to take some time for those dreams to happen. And I send them off to work while I move on in my mind to something else. But the people who are invested in my dreaming... they don't move on. And they get upset that I am not still on the bandwagon. Or worse they think THEY have to do something about my dream. They think THEY have to find the money to buy property on Orcas Island. Or a small summer home by the water or or or. My ex especially freaked out. To the point where he told me not to share that sort of thing with him anymore. I was absolutely crushed. If I can't share my dreams? What is the point? The person I love I want to be able to laugh and dream with.

I suppose it must make people think I am flakey and unreliable. I'm not. I'm at my bff's house helping her and her family. I am reliable. I can be counted on. But when I am in dream mode? I just want to be in dream mode... and what good is a dream if I can't share it? I try to take a certain responsibility for my dreams... But I know sometimes, they get away from me and become something else entirely.

This RV trip? Might be one of my dreams. It might not happen. C is really sick right now. I know if we had planned it for July? It for sure wouldn't happen. However, I am still enjoying dreaming about it. We keep talking about it. Madalyn has informed me she wants to go to the Wizard of Oz museum in Kansas. *grin* That made me smile. I have an alternate plan. If C can't go, I'm taking Madalyn and her brother with me and we're going to drive to Seattle on a different route. There will be some sort of a trip this summer. I have no idea what it will look like. But it will happen.

Maybe that is why I dream. Because dreaming brings things into life. Will my trip go the way I think it is going to go? Who knows. Do I particularly care? No. Because I know it will happen and we'll have a good time together, no matter how things emerge from our collective dreaming. We are all fluid right now, and as difficult is that generally is for me? I am learning to make peace with the uncomfortable feeling of dreaming on shifting sand.

Peace,

MaryKate