My own three-ring circus

Every year I evaluate myself, my life and my direction and every year I commit to becoming organized.  Every year I fail miserably.  My head and organization don’t work well.  Did I mention a large part of my job is project management, which is…. ORGANIZATION.  Yay!  I recently borrowed the book, Juggling Elephants from the library.  As far as books regarding organization and life go this was a nice, an easy to understand read.  I’m not a fan of notebooks, folders, tools to download off the internet type of organization.  I’m a fan of buying all those things, but implementing them leaves me overwhelmed and my house more messy with the all the notebooks and folders I have lying around.

The author of the book has you sit down and look at the areas of your life, your “rings” if you will.  They categorize the rings into, professional (job), relationships (family), self (health, alone time, etc.) and each day you look at your activities and place them into the appropriate ring.  From there you decipher will this activity get me where you need to go to complete the most important tasks you have.  It also will give you the opportunity to see what you’re doing in each ring to provide some balance in your life.  Say all you’re doing is working, but you’re working in the least organized way, you’re spending more time at work and neglecting your other rings.  Trust me the book goes into much more depth and describes how to apply such a method to your life with better clarity then I’m providing here, but I think you get the picture.

Here I am creating my “rings”.  But I look and realize I have four rings.  I have the professional, the self, relationship rings, but I also have an art ring.  I put this separate from my job ring well, because it’s not my job.  It’s different from my self ring because while it’s part of my soul and I do make art just for me, it’s more.  It needs its own attention and time.  So as I look at my rings and gather my mental information, I’m on a business trip at the time and have limited access to my email.  When I finally am able to look at my email, I see almost every message is personal, not business.  I’m eating dinner with a client going through the borage of questions and when asked about what I’m doing with my company I fumble my speech.  Hmmm, I’m seeing a trend. I have my relationship (as far as friends go down), my art is in odd place but receiving more attention than professional, self other than being sick at the time, could probably use more alone time, but overall I do okay.  My professional ring… needed some work, serious attention.  This is how I support my family.  This is how I pay my bills and I was not giving my best, my all, the greatest effort.  Because of my lack of effort other people’s success in the company were affected.  My lack of focus was affecting the success of the company and this bothered me. Greatly.

It was at this time that I thought really hard and came up with the solution, for now, to drop my art ring. I’d make art in my spare time, I wouldn’t devote so much attention to it and the socialization around it.  That was my idea, my decision. Most of the time I feel my art isn’t my strongest suit and my heart hurt, but overall it felt like the right thing to do.  I need priorities, I need to focus.

On my last full day on my business trip in San Francisco I had free time in the evening and decided to treat myself to a trip to SF MOMA. From the moment I stepped foot in the first gallery, I got chills.  My eyes welled up.   It was there I was able to absorb myself in the images of creativity, of ideas, of life.  I felt like I was in the presence of friends.  I had conversations with Frida, Diane, and  Alexander.  I remembered, was inspired, and moved to tears.  It was exactly what I needed.   Each floor provided me more food, eye candy, I physically felt uplifted.  Later that evening at dinner someone told me I looked taller, that my face was a little brighter than it had been the days before.

It’s easy to forget our true selves when we are faced with responsibility.  So instead of giving up the ring, I shall rise to the challenge and make all four of my life rings work.  What a great story it will be when I do it all.

Time well spent

I went to a lovely Bar Mitzvah yesterday and cried.  Cried as I was so honored to watch a family talk about what a wonderful child they have.  The speeches were heartfelt and moving   We hear this all the time, but when the Rabbi said it yesterday the phrase stuck in my head. Take your time. Of course it was in the space of young kids wanting to grow up so fast, but I need to make it apply to my life too.

Everything I do is rushed.  My work, my art, my thoughts, even the time spent with my child.  We have speed play dates together.  I full on admit after my almost two hour drive home everyday from work the first thing I do is check my email.  It’s sad, but it’s very very true.  Then I make dinner,  give the girl her bath, then stories, then bed.  Did you blink?  Because if you did, you missed the quality time each night that I spend with my child.  Don’t get me wrong, we eat dinner every night at the table, but some nights it’s met with brief email checking, or texting especially if work is busy at the moment.  I say that last line with shame.

To say I’m paranoid is putting things mildly, I’d say I’m more of an obsessor.  I obsess about the above behavior, what it will to do Maggie and will she one day stand at the top of a water tower with sawed off shot gun, screaming “If my mother only gave me more time!”  I have not made any steps to change our time together, other than saying over and over I really need to change this.  What’s worse (feel free to continue to judge my poor parenting) my daughter’s love language is time.  Giving her time is what feeds her soul, makes her thrive and really be her best.  Yeah I suck.  Not just a little but a lot.

When she was a baby, I had to give her time.  I had to hold her, feed her, everything and if I didn’t she would cry.   She was rightfully demanding and her needs were easily met.  Now she can go into the pantry and get crackers, work the TV, and entertain herself.  To want my time she verbally has to ask for it.

“Wanna play with me?”

“I’m sorry sweetheart I have to make dinner” and sometimes “I’m sorry sweetheart, in a just a minute I have to finish this last email”.

That just a minute doesn’t happen because I’ll get lost in my own head and start doing something else , like laundry and then realize it’s time to go to bed.

Then I saw this

Then I cried

Life is fast.  Time flies and before too long she’ll be grown up.  We’re always vowing to be better parents, to be more patient and understanding.  I’m no different, I promise this to myself at least once a week.  I know I’ll never be perfect and I’ll make mistakes, I just hope they’re aren’t the kind that leave her damaged.

I’m slowing down, give me roses and I’ll smell them.  I’m making the change, not just for her, but for me too.  I started by apologizing.

Photo Friday: Distant

Right now Spring seems so distant.

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First thing this morning

I was changing as my daughter watched, which she tends to do a lot.  She’s becoming curious about bodies and differences between boy and girl bodies.  She is especially fasciated with boobs and nursing.

Maggie: Mommy, girls have boobs.  But boys don’t have boobs, they only have knuckles

Me: Knuckles?   Like on their hands?

Maggie: Noo (she starts to pull down her shirt) Knuckles

Me: OOOH!  Nipples!

Maggie: Yes, Nickles

Me: NIPPLES

Maggie NIIIckles

Me: NI

Maggie: NI

Me: PP

Maggie: PP

Me: ULS

Maggie: ULS

Me: Nipples

Maggie: Nipples

All of this before 6 AM.

Not sure where I’m going with this….

We are greeted with times in our life where we are forced to look outside of ourselves.  Outside of what our needs, wants and desires and be immersed in what’s around us.  When we take that extra step to see outside of what’s in our heads we become humbled.

I’m fortunate to have been humbled a lot lately.   I don’t mean in the careless sense of I have it so good compared to others, but the simple fact I’ve been able to witness strength in ways I can’t possibly imagine.  I’ve seen women, mothers come to grips with grief but push on and persevere making their lives as normal as possible.  I wish I could write it all out and tell their stories, but I don’t have the permission (yet).   I am humbled by having a long hard look at myself and seeing what is fear & how to slowly let go and trust.  Trust that what needs to be done will make the best life for someone else.

I find these instances calming.  Brings me back to “be” and as I reread this post and see all the selfish sounding “I” and “me”, it is clear that without opening our eyes & hearts to others we would be in a black dark hole of ourselves.

Not sure where I’m going with this or if it makes sense, but felt the need to write it out.

Photo Friday: Damaged

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The ideal

As a woman, I’ve had men in my life that have shaped my view, expectation and possibility of what a good man is.  Some of these men have shaped it in a way of what I DON’T want in a man, but one man in particular has given me an ideal from a very young age.

Yesterday would’ve been my Pop Pop’s 92nd  birthday.  He died when I was 8 years old.  It’s quite silly to imagine that someone who was in my life for such a short period of time has had such a profound influence.  A lot is from the man I knew as a child and the rest is from the stories.  One thing Irish people are good at is living in the past, especially with their stories of loved ones gone before.  My dad and I spent an hour and half the other talking about my grandfather.  He was a gentle man, whose life started so hard and ended bitter sweet.

His mother died at an early age & he spent most of his younger years in a home for boys, similar to an orphanage, until his aunt took him in.  From there he played the trumpet in the Salvation Army & eventually joined the army to get out, to get a life, to get something for himself.  Shortly before he joined the service, he met my grandmother.  A short feisty woman with a really big mouth.  They met fell in love and then Pop left for the South Pacific in WWII.  It was there he rose through the ranks and became a Drill Sergeant, training young men to become soldiers.  He had a booming voice, I’m told.  By the time I was born he had a few vocal cords removed from cancer.   It was during his time in the service my grandmother wrote him a “Dear John” letter because she had met someone else.  She married this someone else, had my dad & then divorced.

Years later after he returned from the war, he heard my grandmother was no longer married.  He went around and they spent time together and eventually got married.  Almost like he waited, for about 10 years he waited for her.  It’s sad because I’ve never heard his side of the story regarding this.  I wish I knew what those years apart were like for him.

I never saw my grandparents argue.  Not really argue, play around perhaps.  Make fun of each other.  When my grandmother would go on her ever long lectures, he would turn both his hearing aides off.  He loved her though.  That was my first experience in witnessing unconditional love for a partner.

My Pop was so comforting and made all of us in the family feel safe.  I remember when he died, how hollow I felt.  Was the first time in my life I felt that horrible, missing someone feel.  Not a day goes by where I don’t think of him and how wonderful he helped make my childhood.

Ever have one of those days…

Where you’re stuck in your head and all the thoughts & emotions are bumping and hitting each other.  They spit out what’s wrong, what should be right or what could be all at the same time. Shouting loud so loud that you barely hear anything else besides what’s going on in your head.  Your emotions range from sad to anger, to raging anger back down to slow, sad, and finally tired.  You’ve completely mentally exhausted yourself.

I have so many people in my life who are going through more, my problems are petty and small. And as I read everyone’s adages from MLK, I felt guilty. Instead of thinking of others, otherness, how to be a better citizen, I was being selfish & thinking about myself, my life and how I so desperately want to feel the same way I did a week ago, when everything felt like it was in it’s place.

The truth is everything is in its place. I guess I just forgot where I put it.

Saying so much without saying a word

Maggie was in charge of the camera remote for each shot.

Permanent Chills

Every so often we have experiences that shake us literally to our core.  Experiences that leave us stoned as we walk through the day with just barely keeping it together.  I was able to have one of those, today, the first day of the new year.

Grocery shopping with my mother and Maggie, I do what I always do.  I push around a poorly navigable cart, talk with my daughter & send the occasional text message.  What I never do is pay attention to my surroundings.  I am an extremely paranoid and cynical person in theory, but in actual day to day, I feel people are okay and pretty harmless.  Until today.

As I mentioned my cart was horrible to maneuver and getting the last item before checking out, I park my cart a few feet from the item, run over and run back.  I was gone MAYBE 3 minutes.  I come back and I struggle to get my cart to the checkout.  As the lady begins to check out, I reach in to grab my wallet & it’s gone.  I starting thinking shit… I left my wallet at home.  Then I remembered just 30 min before I had been to the bank & looked down into my purse after leaving the ATM, so I did indeed have my wallet before entering the grocery store.  I called my mom who was at my car to look inside in case I left it or if it fell out in the car, which is unlikely because my purse is like a satchel, which stands upright.  For my wallet to fall out on the floor, my purse would had to have been turned upside down completely for the wallet to fall out.  Unlikely.  Then it hit me.  My wallet was stolen.

When?

I asked Maggie if anyone came up to the cart while I was gone and she said yes.  I asked her if they took something out of my purse, she said yes.  Any other questions we asked were met with “I don’t remembers”.  As the woman from security was talking to me, she said  & it hit my heart in no other way, “that person came up and stole from you while your child was in the cart.  Your lucky she didn’t take your child”.  I know this sounds naive or stupid or whatever, but honestly hadn’t occurred to me.  While all this was going on the one thing that could’ve been stolen was my child.  I guess I thought she would know to scream or shout.  But apparently someone walking over and taking my wallet didn’t kick start anything in her brain to react.  It crushed me to know I had really put her in such danger.  It still pains me & probably will for a very long time.

Went through the motions with the store, the police and card companies, etc.  We managed to catch everything in time & it seems the store could have a photograph of the person because they used my credit card at the same store & they can coordinate the transaction with the surveillance cameras to get a picture.

As my mom took us out to eat after, I slowly started asking more questions.  I asked if the lady (Maggie clarified early on it was a woman) said anything to her.  Maggie told me yes & the woman smiled at her.  I asked what she said and Maggie replied “we talked about lots of things”, “like what?” I said and very matter of fact Maggie said “well mommy I can’t quite remember”.   If you’ve ever had the feeling of someone running over your brain with a truck, that’s pretty much how I felt, as my head spun in all directions, thinking of all the scenarios, stories, and if this story ended the wrong way.. a Lifetime movie. I’ve never felt like I fucked up so bad as I did to walk those 10 feet away.  I’m still crying hours later. In the car my beautiful little girl said to me, “mommy if anyone ever took me your heart would be broken into lots of pieces”.  I thought to myself, that’s the biggest understatement.

As I look back, I realize when leaving the store today I had all the things I need to survive.  My daughter, my mom and food.