Tag: mothering

Just Sat Me Down

Me, earlier this week, texting my friends, chirping away about all the worries we carry around with us, with our kids, even as they are mostly grown:

“I wish someone had sat me down and really spelled it out to me that this mom/worry thing is a lifetime appointment.“

Twenty-seven years ago, when I was deep in slumber:

Guardian Angel – Hi dear, I hear you bringing up the whole “starting up a family thing” a lot with your husband lately.

Me – Yep, I’m ready. If not now, then when? It’s baby time!

Guardian Angel – Okay, I’m sitting you down right now (even though you are sleeping) and I am making this really, really clear: A baby is a lifetime appointment.

Me – You mean like being a Supreme Court Justice?

Guardian Angel – No, because even Supreme Court Justices can retire. You will never ever, ever, ever, retire from being a mom, and thus, you will always be, at the very least, a slightly worried person, at all times.

Me – That’s fine! I’ve got this. I want a BIG family.

Guardian Angel – BIG families are full of BIG joy. But they are also full of BIG responsibilities and BIG worries. The worry part will be with you from the moment you put your precious little bundle into the car seat to go home from the hospital until the very moment it is time for you to leave this Earthly plane. It will never fully go away. Try to live in Faith, dear, but also understand that with just one baby “Worry” becomes your middle name for the rest of your life. It just comes with the package of being a mother of other human beings on this Earth. Am I making myself perfectly clear? Look at your mother, look at your mother’s mother, your father’s mother, your friends’ mothers, that woman at the grocery store with all of those kids hanging off of the cart? What do you see? Worriers! Frazzled worriers!!

Me – I got it. I got it. Okay! Don’t worry, GA. I’ll be a warrior, not a worrier. Isn’t that how the saying goes? I’ve got this. I’m easy going. Plus, I know you’ll be with me through the whole gig.

Guardian Angel – Okay, if I help you, with getting a little soul in place for you to mother, I’m going to need you to sign right here, stating that you fully understand that with each child, you will feel an incredible love like you have never felt, and it will be eternal, but the price of that love will be a little dollop of worry that will be on perma-drip in your brain for the rest of your life. Sign under the part that says, “I, in good sound mind and body, fully understand that the minute I become a mother, I will be worried for the rest of my life, to my last dying breath. I cannot have a child and not be worried. It’s a package deal. Sign here.”

Me, signs quickly, with perhaps not the amount of reflection that would have been prudent, but hey, I was young and my hormones were raging and my maternal urges were on fire. And each of the four times that I signed on that dotted line, were (besides marrying my husband) the best decisions that I have ever made in my entire life. (even with the constant flow of worry perma-dripping in the canals of my mind, even as I write this silly post.)

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Not-So-Funday Monday

Yesterday morning, right after I published my blog, I took my dogs outside. My phone rang and I saw that it was our middle son calling. I knew what he was going to say before I even said “hello.” He and my youngest son had gone to a local park to play in a pick-up soccer game. My youngest son had an epileptic seizure on the field, in the middle of the game. I am grateful that my middle son was with my youngest son during this time. My middle son is a student in medical school and he, like the rest of our family, has witnessed many of his little brother’s seizures. In fact, my middle son witnessed my youngest son having his first major seizure, when my middle son was driving them both to their high school, many years ago. He attributes that experience as one of the major reasons why he decided to go into medicine. My middle son knows what to do when a seizure happens. He took good care of his brother, as always. The local EMT crew came. They know us by name now. They took good care of my son, as always. Luckily, since they were on the grass, and his brother was with him, my youngest son wasn’t greatly hurt, just some sore muscles and a scratched up face from some pebbles in the grass. He came home to recover from his seizure. He came home to my waiting arms.

My regular readers know that we have been going through hell this fall with my son’s epilepsy. His seizures are currently not being well-controlled by medicine. In September and October, my son suffered at least one major seizure a week, landing him in the hospital three times. He is currently taking five different anti-seizure medications, as doctors scour for a medication combo and a dosage, that works to keep the seizures controlled. We were cautiously optimistic that we had finally found that holy grail of medications, because this November, our son was almost one-month seizure free. Yesterday ended that streak.

I feel horrible today. I felt horrible yesterday. I feel deflated, dejected and scared out of my mind. But, honestly, I felt wonderful throughout our Thanksgiving break with our family. I felt pretty good the week before Thanksgiving break. I even felt pretty good the week before the week before Thanksgiving break. I sometimes cautioned myself that “I was setting myself up for a big fall,” with all of my hopeful optimism, but I didn’t care. It felt so good to feel good again.

During Thanksgiving break, our family, all six of us, had a great time together. We cooked, we shopped, we went to the movies, we even went boating. My youngest son went to the gym with his brothers, and golfing with his buddies who were home for Thanksgiving break. I won’t pretend that I didn’t have nervous moments. I won’t pretend that I stopped being hyper-aware of any strange noises in the house. I won’t pretend that I didn’t keep my son on a strict medication schedule. But I relaxed, I laughed, I savored. I had so much fun. I felt so much joy.

And today I feel so, so sad, but during the rest of November, I mostly felt ease and comfort and relief, because I let myself feel those better feelings. If I had stayed miserable and fearful and depressed and angry, all of November, yesterday’s seizure would have still happened. Despite what we erroneously believe, worry doesn’t stop any negative experiences from happening. Worry doesn’t help anything at all, and we all know this, but I got a very clear example of this fact, taught to me with this lucid life experience. I am thankful that I let myself enjoy a nice, and hopeful month, because I would have still felt so, so sad today, even if I had fretted and worried and been miserable for the whole month of November.

I say to you this: if you are in a budding new relationship that you are enjoying, savor it. Experience this relationship fully and excitedly, without fretting if and when it is going to end. If you have lost a lot of weight, be proud of yourself. Delight in your triumph. Don’t spend time worrying if you are going to gain all of the weight back. If things are going well in your job, with your family, with your friends, with your health, with your bank account, with your life, soak it all in. Enjoy the good! Facts are, upsetting, negative things happen in life sometimes. That’s just the way of life. No one is immune. Save feeling lousy for those times. Save it up, and rightfully feel miserable when you are in the middle of a rough patch. But don’t let those awful feelings seep into your good times. Let your bad times, make your good times feel that much more amazing and glorious and precious. You are strong enough to handle adversity, and wise enough to know that by feeling happiness in the good times, you are giving yourself something to look forward to, when you are in the middle of experiencing your hard times. Give yourself the gift of savoring life in the moment.

In the bad times choose to grow stronger In the good times choose to enjoy fully

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Rest Your Wings

Today my eldest son is flying in, to be with us for the week. I’m so excited. He is a successful 25 year-old, living in a big city, doing work that he loves. (I have to stop right here, to state that I accidently typed “doing love that he works”. Freudian slip, perhaps? It got me to thinking that when you are living your passions, that is what you are doing. You are doing love. You are working love.)

Anyway, I have this giddy excitement about seeing my son and I thought about how funny it is, that roles often reverse, in our lives. When our children are little, they are so excited about Mommy and Daddy coming home. Whether coming home from work, or an evening out, or to pick them up at preschool, they are so excited to have Mommy and Daddy home with them. And now, that’s how I now feel about my grown kids. I am so excited to have everyone home for this holiday.

I don’t have too much in common with the real housewife, Kathy Hilton (mother of Paris Hilton and three other adult children), but what we do have in common is that we are both mothers of four children, and we both love the amazing, comforting feeling when all of our children are sleeping under one roof with us. I recently read an interview with Kathy Hilton, and she stated this shared experience, that most of us mothers feel. No matter what our circumstances, living styles, home sizes, etc., we mothers feel our calmest and best when all of our babies are in our nest. Simple nests, gilded nests, every kind of nest feels best when it is filled and feathered with all of our babies.

Inspiration CAN be found EVERYWHERE! | Empty nest quotes, College quotes, Empty nest syndrome

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Not ok

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credit: @3dLooks, Twitter

I’m sorry, readers, but my son’s epileptic seizures keep on happening, despite the fact that he is now taking five different anti-seizure medications at once. I have no words today. My family and I are worn thin right now. I lose a piece of myself every time that I witness my son lose a piece of himself. Epilepsy sucks. So, I’m just gonna sit here and be a little blue. Thank you for coming by, and sitting with me a little bit.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Callings

Our middle son is a first year medical student and on our Family Facetime last night, he told us that he was shadowing the orthopedic doctors in the emergency room on Friday night. He described a man who had lost the tip of his finger and then he told us about another poor man whose hand was completely disconnected from the rest of his wrist and was describing how he had to help hold the arm of the man (who was in agonizing pain), as the orthopedists worked to get the man’s hand back into proper position before it would be too late for the hand to have any hope of any sort of recovery. My son was so enthusiastically describing all of these maladies and remedies, that it got to the point that my younger son said, “Okay, Hannibal Lecter, pipe down.”

Our middle son swore that the only reason why he was smiling, while telling us about his latest medical experiences, was because the mortified and horrified expressions on the rest of our faces, were absolutely hilarious to watch. Every time that he describes one of his medical school experiences, such as holding a cadaver’s heart in the palm of his hand, I softly and weakly say, “So, honey, are you sure that this is still your calling?” And our son is always so enthusiastic in his response, “Yes, Mom, YES!”

Medical professionals, I am in awe of you. I am so grateful for you, and for what you do, and for what you are able to handle. I have trouble digesting our son’s stories, much less witnessing them, or having to be a vital part of these stories. There is no doubt in my mind, that like so many professions, medicine is a special calling. I think that if we would all listen to our deepest selves, and follow our own callings, we would see a world like no other. At the very least, it would be a happier, more passionate world. Thank you to all of you who are living what you are called to do, and made to do. It makes all of the difference in our shared world and experience. We all have our part to play. We are all a thread of The Tapestry. We are all a single cell of The Body.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Little Sister

My youngest son has been home from college for a little while, in order for us to be with him, while he lets his new adjunct epilepsy medicine start settling into his system. (Thank you for your continued prayers.) While the circumstances that brought him home have not been ideal, having our youngest son/big brother back home for a little while, has been a joy for all of us. My husband has his ” armchair quarterback/football buddy” back, I’ve had great company at home during the day (my son is a wonderful conversationalist), and my daughter has had her adoring big brother back home to pal around with. All three of my daughter’s big brothers have always been amazingly loving and supportive and protective of their little sister, but my daughter has always been particularly close with my youngest son because they are the closest in age to each other. When they were little, they would often casually hold hands as we were walking along anywhere, and they went through a period of being avid WWE wrestling devotees, being sure to watch the events together, every single Friday night. Never having a brother myself, I have always delighted in watching my sons with their sister. It makes me insanely happy, and yet also, insanely jealous for at least one brother, all at the same time.

I have always told my husband and my sons, that my daughter will choose the men in her life, and accept their behaviors, based on how they treat her. They have always being kind, and loving, and respectful to her. Thankfully, so far, my daughter has always dated nice, respectful young men, and has a lot of healthy guy friends in her life. She’s one of those girls who manages to have a lot of friends of both sexes. I think girls with brothers are the best at that, but that’s just my opinion.

I would love to give my guys all of the credit for my daughter’s choices in friends and boyfriends, but truthfully, she goes into her relationships with a “good offense.” My daughter likes herself. She is proud of her achievements. She is not afraid to say “no” to someone or something that doesn’t feel right for her. She doesn’t look for her self esteem to be fulfilled by people outside of herself. I pray that this never changes. Part of this has always just seemed to be her own common-sense filled, “innate way”, but another big part of this, I think, is the fact that she has always been well-treated by those who love her. (especially by the men who have influenced her life the most – her father and her brothers)

In engrossing myself in the Gabby Petito story, I’ve been thinking about how important it is for my daughter to have this good “offense” in her life (and for that matter, for my sons, too. Toxic, unhealthy, disordered individuals aren’t just from one gender.) I think that it is extremely important to work on creating a healthy relationship with oneself, in order to ward off being attractive to the controlling, manipulative, treacherous types. As we see in the Gabby Petito tragedy, and in so many other cases, it is extraordinarily difficult and dangerous to try to defensively pry oneself away from a damaged individual, all the while trying to keep one’s own self esteem and healthy perspectives intact. It’s vitally important for us to trust ourselves, and our deepest instincts, and yet we all know how hard that can be sometimes. When teaching our children to be “nice and polite” we must remember to teach them to be the nicest and the most polite to their very own selves. And most importantly, we must all model that self-assured behavior, in order for the world to become the safer, better place that we want it to be, for our children and for our grandchildren going forward.

Quotes about Offense (373 quotes)

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Tent Pole

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Sometimes people ask me how I hold it all together. I’ve watched and witnessed other strong mothers, and I’ve often thought the same thing about them. Facts are, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I fall apart. Sometimes I cry until I think that my eyes will fall out, and sometimes I scream so loud that it hurts my chest. Sometimes I act so crazily sad and angry all at once, that I am a witness of my own craziness, in the bewildered eyes of my own family. And it scares me.

My husband made the dire mistake of saying that I wasn’t being “helpful” in a family conversation which we were having at dinner last night. For a woman, hanging on by a thread, and who has devoted her entire life to her family, that was not good wording to use at that moment (even if it was the truth). After the aftermath of the scourge of my outrage, I am sure that he wished that he could have eaten those words the minute they carelessly fell out of his mouth. Have I mentioned that I am a fire sign (through and through)?

This morning, I read a tweet today by the Wise Connector. He put this out to his followers:

What do you tell yourself when you’re having a bad day? This could be helpful to someone today.

I looked at the hundreds of vast responses. A lot of them answered that they tell themselves that “things could be worse.” Of course, things could be worse. Death is the worst case scenario, and if we are still here to complain about our bad days, than things could be worse. We could be dead. Sometimes I, too, make myself feel better with the “things could be worse” thought, but sometimes that thought just pisses me off. It sets me right off. “Things could be worse” discounts my hurt and my anger and my frustration and my fears. It makes me feel bad for feeling bad.

One person answered the tweet with, “Still I Rise” and I liked that. I envision myself rising mightily from the ashes of my anger and pain. Anger is not necessarily a bad emotion. It has a lot of energy to it. My dogs and I got an extremely brisk walk out of my rage, yesterday evening. It was a “heart healthy” walk. That walk was a good outcome of my anger. Screaming at my family was not a good outcome of my angry feelings. Anger can often be a hard guy to manage.

I vented to some friends last night on our text chat. Only other mothers can truly validate moments like these. My one friend said that she realizes that she is the family’s “tent pole”, always holding everything up, for everyone else. I got the reminders, from my friends, to take care of myself, and to do things for myself. My one friend loves to kayak. My other friend raises beautiful butterflies. The truth is, I like to write. I can’t tell you how cathartic it is for me, to be writing this blog post right now. My cousin read my blog yesterday, and she told me that she couldn’t believe that I could have that kind of clarity while I am hurting like this. I told her that writing is my therapy. Writing is my clarity. Writing is what I do for me. If it resonates with others, then that is a blessing. But writing is what I do for me.

These are the answers to the “bad day” tweet, that resonated the most with me today:

“You’re doing your best. And that is enough. And remember, your ‘best’ will look different every day” – Brianna

“Today I’m not okay, but that’s okay bc I know I’ll be okay.” – Jojo

“If you’re going through hell, keep going” – Winston Churchill

“It’s life, chances are tomorrow will be better. Keep moving forward.” – Linzee In Heels

And this was my all time favorite:

“I want to see what happens if I never give up.” – SweMikeMedia

Soul Sunday

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Good morning, my treasured readers. I hope that you are having the kind of Sunday morning that I am having. Relaxing, peaceful, sun-filled, hopeful . . . . this morning indicates a day filled with promise.

Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Sometimes I write a poem, and sometimes I share a poem that another writer has shared with the world. At the very least today, write a poem and share it with yourself. Poetry is perhaps the most intimate form of language which we have in this world.

“Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power. Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words.” — Paul Engle

Here is my poem for today:

Calm Waters

I am sitting here dwelling in my relief

Isn’t that how it always goes with grief?

It comes in waves, it crescendos and crashes,

Until it levels out, and the tears dry in my lashes.

The largest waves end up as the harmless shallows on the shore,

Only to be sucked back out into the massive ocean of steady core.

The raging storms and waves will be stirred up again, I know.

But today, I will rest in the steady waters that only lightly flow.

Epilepsy Awareness

49 Seizures ideas | epilepsy awareness, seizures, epilepsy

Unfortunately, my youngest son suffered another major seizure last night. He is okay. We are okay. But today is a day for me to be quiet with myself, and with my son, and with my family. We’ll take your prayers and loving thoughts, in buckets. Thank you for your support. xo

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.