katiemae_days

the 101st post, totally random and streaming live

Ahh February. Hello new month.

Well my girl and I head south to the Emerald City this past weekend to visit with some friends near and dear to our hearts. Girl time for the young ones and us bigger ones too. the little ones played dress-up and board games, peddled their selves down through the urban hood for a little ride while us Mamas strolled along in search of a might and rich cup of coffee. For us bigger girls there were lots of chats and catchings up till the wee hours of the night drinking a good red and munching on olives, bread and brie. Not a bad way to spend some girl time.

And today, oh Monday Monday. I for one am feeling the Monday blues and I'm not even going to work. Good thing as I need this inner space to just be blue and feel it. The blue? Well today I think its from feeling oh so tired, spent, tank-on-empty from a long night. My girl was up for a while and feeling a bit prickly--that's my way of saying she was crying and whining and well downright difficult. She is working on staying dry in the night on her own decision and well last night -- that didn't happen. No problem I say, let's just get cleaned up and go back to sleep but for her in whatever sleep state she was in she didn't agree and was up until about 3:30 am.  I wasn't feeling my most patient at this point but I managed to help her get back to sleep with some deep breathing for us both.

I find myself feeling glad to be home from any sort of outside work for awhile for one thing to have the opportunity to hang with my girl more. 5 1/2 is a wild ride. And I want to catch as much as I can even though its not necessarily such an easy ride some days. There are profound moments in what might come out of her mouth or the ease in which I see her carry herself at times; or the compassion she shines, or watching her passions come alive and then there are the challenges of working through a mighty pout or foot stomp or temper storm when something just doesn't go the way she may have wanted in that moment.

Oh I know she's trying on different parts of herself. I also know we all have our prickly moments. We cannot always be bright and shiny, kind and sweet. I know I'm not so how can I expect the same for my girl. What I also know is that moods come and go. The good, the bad they come and go. My job is to be here as the balancing board as best I can and provide boundaries so when the harder moments come she's not showering them all over someone else.  As a mama, I have to lower my expectations of myself ...from the bizarre realm of perfection I think I'm supposed to be and remember I''m not always going to say the right thing, do the right thing, be the most patient reflective parent. I'm just not. I can try and I can accept the different parts of myself and do the same for my girl.  What I can remember is how much I love my girl and how she knows this.

I am finding that I converse with myself often in the more challenging moments reminding myself to breathe, uh be the adult here and deal with the situation at hand and move one. I don't need to spend the next 24 hours trying to figure out why she is making the choices she is. I try and remind myself lighten up mama. When I remember to breathe to find patience, I'm a better parent in that moment. I understand her being as I remember myself as a young one too and my many moods. I am trying to help her find tools in the moment of a temper storm. Breathing deep, talking when she is ready, listening to some music...how I wished I'd had a go to bag of resources back then or how somebody would try and reach me to help me out of my mood. So as I try and help my girl, I'm helping myself. Slowly. We can both learn to embrace and love all parts of ourselves, the bright and shiny and the shadowy, prickly sides too.

Now I'm off to do some chores..Maybe getting up and moving will wake me up as well as making myself a good cup of coffee.

Happy Monday, Happy February!

still life with chai....and other streaming thoughts

I met up with a friend today who treated me to a warm chai.  She's been a big supporter of my new found freedom and today gifted me a new journal to document my brainstorms, flashes of light in ideas and the journey of my new adventure. 

A recycled book from long ago repurposed into a journal. Repurposing yeah, I think this idea. Repurposing my skills, dreams, ideas into new visions. Repurposing to simplify. Use less. Do more with what we already have.

Collectively on a much higher level I believe this is the time for repurposing, recreating, rebuilding because what was is no longer. Change happens. I wonder was their a collective consious uprising manifesting the great sea of change we are experiencing now?  Change is here. How we respond, react affects what happens next. Change is here. How I respond, react affects what happens next.

I know I have been given this time away to learn something, to see new light, to seize the day with new dreams, to be still with my girl ..more, to practice this spirituality of being more mindful, of letting go, of finding the moment and the stillness, to give of myself to my community.

I am consciously reminding myself to not react and leap but to slow down, be still. Listen.  Move with the grain, in the flow. Be in this space in time, sink into the still and see where it goes.

the river...

 

Feeling lighter this night after a rough week of sorts. Hard notes around family with the sudden passing of my sister-in-law's sister and separately and also sudden, a dear friend of my mama's ...and with each the recognition once again of how precious life is and the reminder that anything can change at any moment.

Life does change moving sometimes fast, like a river, fluid in the current. Rolling over rocks and falls, treacherous at times. And then calming to smooth and gentle flow. Reminding myself to ride the river, this current in its natural flow. Scary for not knowing what's ahead and yet if I focus so much on what's ahead I miss where I am right now. Aloud and in my mind, I say "Be here now."

This has been a rocky week in my heart for what has gone on with my family afar and for transitions here. Feeling so heavily for my five year old girl who has entered a phase of some fairly big, at least it feels big, separation anxiety. Mostly this has been happening when I drop her off at her school. She tells me each day  she likes her school, the kids, what she is learning but she tells me too she misses her old school, her friends from her old school, her teachers.   And she cries some mornings because she doesn't want to leave me her mama. "I just miss you Mama," she says.

"I miss you I tell her and we can hold each other in our hearts and let the sadness go as we feel ready"  And be here now.   I am able to validate her feelings, give her one more hug and kiss and say "see you later my sweet". And she rocks on through.  After a few minutes she tells me, she wipes her tears away  gets busy and begins to feel better. This sadness of the missing mama kind has just sprung up recently in her kindergarten days more so than at the start of school. I wondered why...as friends with older children have shared..ah yes the honeymoon phase of going to a new school may be over. There is more. She is missing her Papa who is working a  lot all hours, all days learning to navigate a brand-new job and wanting to do his best. He has a commute and leaves early and then is home in time for dinner, bed and stories. She just misses him. She can even logically reason that he's busy but still she misses him.

While I validate her feelings "I know you miss him, I know that feels hard", I recognize just how out of balance I have felt deep down. Feeling and there is no whine as I say this how much I've felt on my own at home of late. I support what the Papa has to do right now and am entirely grateful he was hired in this position but to be true here it is hard not having him around a lot. We have experienced this on and off for the past several years while he was in school and in a long-term temporary assignment last year. My vessel has just felt off kilter--out of balance-late nights early mornings and no time to talk and check in and when there is time I am spewing volumes in five minutes. Yeah just a tad bit overwhelming for all involved. Swimming against the current trying to find calm waters.

By Friday,  I was tired, drained and sad and had myself in a near tailspin of concern about my girl, swirling in an eddy of worry and over-thinking. Certainly working against the current of natural flow. Trying to stay afloat though as I say aloud, "this too shall pass".

As I drove away from her school this past Friday morning, sadness from the week flooded me and parked itself in the back of my throat. As I opened my mouth, tears rained down.  And down. As I headed off to work, I sobbed floating fast down the rocky river. In deep, dark pools. I reached out and called a friend. a dear dear friend who also has a five year old and who without a doubt is my soul sister. She listened and reminded me of who I am of who my girl is. She listened. As we do for each other. She was the boulder in the river that I could rest on and stop to breathe and remember where I am.  And later in the day a friend happened to call who has one girl one year older and reminded me in her best "wake up woman!" voice--that yep separation anxieties are totally age appropriate...yes her girls went through the same and still do on occasion and "be easy , you know you like things laid back and easy...be that way! Do not over think anything!"  I came home from work early and my girl and I nestled in under a blanket and watched "Mary Poppins". We sang and smiled and for the first time that day I felt lighter.

And with the fortuitous invitation of a lovely dinner and hot tub soak over at a friends, I began slowly to let myself relax and let sink in the words of my dear friends. As I tried to remind myself to breathe and relax, I slowly, over the course if this weekend, popped up from the swirling eddy. 

I begin to remember this transition is big; and while she is easing in beautifully in so many ways her journey can feel hard too. She is transitioning not only schools but in herself. Leaping and letting go a little bit.  She is feeling her independence perhaps thrilled for it in some ways and anxious of it in others. I am here.

She is riding it because that's all she knows how to do. Emotions can run high at points like the rise of the river and so calm and gentle when she feels herself at home in herself. And I am transition right along with her learning this new phase. Trying to be the boulder for her to latch on to and yet let her go little by little reminding her of herself, her strength, her energy, her joy, reminding her in her own journey to be here now.

I know waters can get rough. I know there are far more difficult journeys that others experience right now. But here I am now. I mark it. I also know what is best for me is quiet down, lay back and be. Here. Now. Sometime just being feels harder than doing. My job is to just be for me, for my girl, for my family. These are phases and we all have them  so eloquently shared here. Learn from them. Breathe in. Listen to the waters rocky and still.  Look ahead. Ride the river.