Romance is my mortal enemy

Discussion around the dinner table with young children always gives us an opportunity to look at things differently. Take BOY for example. We were discussing a new TV show that he gets to stay up and watch on Wednesday nights, if he's having a good week. It's called, LEGO Ninjago.

JCK: It really is pretty cute, E.K., you should check it out sometime.

E.K.: So, you said.

BOY- looking at his parents askance after the word "cute" was launched into the discussion of "his TV show."

BOY: It's a really great show...............except for the ROMANCE.

E.K.: Not too much into the romance, are you? That will change.

BOY: Dad! Mom! Don't you KNOW this?! Romance is my MORTAL ENEMY!

*************

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her own deshabille of horrific unkempt display

JCK would like to say here and now, in THIS moment, that going back to work full-time has kicked her ass. There is no "proverbial ass" here, people, - as in going back to work has kicked JCK's proverbial ass. No, the ass kicking is real and stands alone. Going. back. to. work. has. kicked. JCK's. ass. Having kids less than 10 months apart, a husband, school committees, work responsibilities, family work, and such and such has left JCK hyperventilating on the side of the road.

A friend asked her recently if it is getting any easier to manage the work/family/life balance. JCK was so ready to shout YES!!! But, that word refused to leave her lips and linger in the twilight air. NO, JCK said. Not yet... (JCK believes that the use of the word "yet" is hopeful.)

JCK is 6 months in, and she is still stretching and reaching for that..."OK, I think I've got this down now. We've got a pretty good rhythm here."

There have been some BUMPY patches in the family work responsibilities, and JCK and her husband have struggled. To be fair, JCK's husband was hit with a lot of CHANGE. JCK is grateful that E.K. is giving JCK that bit of sanity that she clings to, and they are in it together. Methinks, JCK should grasp that little golden nugget drop of honeysuckle, and mark it as PROGRESS.

However, there are things happening in the Motherscribe household and outside the home that JCK is ashamed to admit. Things that would never happen "normally." JCK is still struggling to find that "normal."

What kinds of things you may ask? JCK knows that you are wanting her to fess up. Let's take just one example.... On school mornings, JCK is so focused on getting her children dressed, fed and out the door, that some mornings she has been just throwing on her clothes, a hat and sunglasses and driving them to school, with little thought for her own deshabille of horrific unkempt display.

JCK wonders at the scariness! of this on multiple levels:

1. That she doesn't care enough
2. That if anyone recognizes her, she will have to suck it up or pretend she doesn't know them
3. Worse - that everyone DOES recognize her
   
4. If she gets in a horrible car accident and her pants have to be peeled off her body...oh the shame of full pastures...
   

And, that's not all! JCK's dreams wont even leave her alone. Her unconscious is having a field day! Amazingly neurotic dreams abound! :

1. JCK drives to the store and picks up laundry detergent - there's one! Except that later that day she really thinks she DID pick up laundry detergent...but it was only a dream.
   
   
2. And, she doesn't show up for her daughter's activity - forgetting about her daughter! So, JCK wakes up and can't get back to sleep for fear that she WILL do that. Even when her common sense is saying she will NOT.
   

Isn't this GROOVY to be in the messed-up mind of JCK?! She is so glad that she can make you feel better about your own life. heh.

JCK is now going to repair to another room, where she's going to try something new. Breathing...

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and I yearn for the elusive creamy center

I had a dream the other night that I was on stage again. Everything was fluid and lovely and there was a bow and applause and...a sense of self-satisfaction. As if balancing the yin with that yang, the dream continued and I went on stage the next night, stumbling with body and all lines of the script were gone to some distant land. A raucous success and a wild failure, somehow that seems apropos to life my husband said, when I shared the dream with him. Yes, it's true, but... wouldn't it be nice to have a creamy center once in a while?

When I was younger I was drawn to the drama - in men and friends. Life's moments were enhanced by complications. If something could be elevated or escalated, I would find it. I bemoaned the fact that I HAD SO MUCH DRAMA!! in my life to anyone who would listen. Smirk. What I couldn't live out on stage, was lived fully and at times dangerously close to the sharp edge of real life. Today, I see it sometimes in others, and I don't wish for that life anymore. Yet, my life seems full of highs and lows, and I yearn for the elusive creamy center.

So, I pull my children close to me. I tuck them in, rub sweet backs, and listen to their stories. Sometimes our life seems to swing up and ever down, but those little beats between the drama are my creamy center. I just need to remember that...

Participating with some amazing writers and the brainchild herself... Heather of the EO and her Just Write project.

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if we don't have someone to lean on - listen to, hug, and to love, we are empty vessels

We like to say that life's challenges are relative -what weighs in the worrisome column as opposed to the tragedy column is all how it relates to "you." I find myself questioning the Universe as I struggle to find balance in my life. While I am on that journey it seems that I'm surrounded by loved ones dealing with much larger struggles - breast cancer, a brain stent fail and multiple operations, a stroke, marriage struggles, and losing a home due to job loss. All of these are separate, yet the overwhelming feeling is the same. We all experience hardship of varying degrees and we need each other. If we don't have someone to lean on - listen to, hug, and to love, we are empty vessels.

The word "Perspective" has been coming into my consciousness over and over again. Like a new mantra. I've been sideswiped by my loved ones' challenges. No one's life goes unscathed, yet I feel at odds. It's not guilt per se, yet there is discomfort knowing that I have in this moment in time... a smoothness to my life - in comparison. Yet, my anxiety level is going into overkill. Why is that?

So, I try to focus on what really matters. Those small moments - a glimpse of a sunrise with my children, two of the best weeks my son has ever had in school, my daughter's need to hear my voice read her a story, the inescapable giggles of bouncing on the trampoline with my GIRL & BOY, and seeing my husband walk in the door. It is life and living and I need to acknowledge that I have the privilege of still breathing on this place we call earth...

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The familiar is heady

As I drove in tonight late...the street quiet, most houses with their lights out, I was listening to NPR -hearing someone speaking from Paris and Berlin. Places that have hijacked spots in my wanderlust soul. Yet, I was struck with how much comfort I derive from the same daily path. I drive up my quiet street, lights off, cars parked neatly in driveways. The familiar is heady, when the lure of different is just that... a glimpse into another life. I'd love it for an hour or a day or maybe a week. But, then I'd stare wistfully at my street of warm habit and know that here is where I belong...

I am not a child anymore. I control where I live and how I conduct my life. I hope that this life of understated perception and wild imaginings is a world in which my children will blossom. That small thing...which is truly large, is what I wish for this night...

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