My Diagnosis

I've been afflicted by a condition. It is time to come clean about it.  I know I've been suffering from it for about 10 years.  I know that is has had a great affect on me.  Physically, it has caused wrinkles, stretching, scarring and graying.  

Emotionally, the mood swings are drastic.  Elation, irritation, sheer anger, pride, joy, and  amusement are just a few of them.  

And then there is the exhaustion. The brutal exhaustion.  Exhaustion is the hallmark of this condition. At times, it is the crushing kind of exhaustion where you find yourself in the middle of the cereal aisle staring at the Honey Nut Cheerios without any recollection of how you got there.  The sleep disturbances are devastating.  

Someday, maybe I'll figure out the affliction and its treatment.

Oh wait. I have children. Never mind. Carry on.

I'm not Brave, I'm a Mom.

Recently my son had a swim-a-thon as a fundraiser for his swim team.  It is his first year on the team, and he has progressed from looking like a floundering drowning victim to, well, a swimmer.  Pride hung thick as the humidity in the pool area when he popped up at the pool edge, out of breath and said, "Mom! I did a 200 free WITHOUT stopping!"  I was proud not only because he did swim the length without stopping, but he knew the distance and the name of the stroke! He has tried some other sports, but hadn't really found his groove yet.  He tried wrestling.  It was like watching Gandhi wrestle.  He did gymnastics for a couple years which did wonders for his lax-loosey goosey joints and core muscles, but he lacks that compact, small body form that excels in gymnastics.  He was ready to try something new and when I suggested swimming he was completely on board.  

Our swim club is non-for-profit, so they do fundraising to cover costs they incur.  In the last email regarding the swim-a-thon the coach mentioned she was looking for parents to swim too.  I hesitated for a nano-second and replied that I was willing to swim.  In my mind, I envisioned a pool full of kids and laid back parents, laughing, having races, and maybe some water games. It would be fun.

Swim-A-Thon day arrived, and when the coach sees me she says, "You are BRAVE!"  In a moment, I felt like I was buying a foreclosure home sight-unseen, or had volunteered to babysit triplets or accepted a double-dog-dare to eat a roller hotdog from the gas station.  I'm sure my expression was one of shock meets apprehension meets regret.  

Probably like this

When it was time for the kids vs. parents event, I looked around and saw a gazillion kids, and four parents suited up: two dads, a svelte, tall mom, and me.   My son gently looked at me, and with all sincerity said, "Take it easy on me, OK?" We jumped in the water to do a 50 free, and though it may have LOOKED like I let my son win, only God knows if I pulled a hamstring, or had a wardrobe malfunction, or got short of breath in those last 10 yards as he shot past me, and I came in last.  And that is all I'll say about that.  

As the day wrapped up the word "Brave" kept echoing in my mind, or maybe it was just water in my ears, but I kept thinking about this perception of wearing a suit, in front of God and everyone as brave.

Brave is choosing a profession that forces one to run into a burning building or possibly take a bullet, daily.  Brave standing up for someone when everyone else is beating them down.  It is finding the strength and courage to finally walk away from an abusive relationship.  Brave is accepting a diagnosis of cancer.  Brave is many things in many forms, but it is not donning a one piece swimsuit at 40 years old to swim with a child.  Frightening, comical, and disturbing maybe, but not brave.

The thing is this day was not about me, it was about the kids. It was about them succeeding, swimming and having fun. I am at the point in my life that any insecurity regarding my cellulite or squishiness can not trump what he will remember from that day. He will remember his mom swimming in a lane next to him, encouraging him when he was struggling, and beating her by an arm length. He will remember his mom was active, secure and supportive. He will remember he had fun. The reality is one of my jobs as his Mom is to model behaviors he will seek in eventual girlfriends, so I try to exemplify traits I respect and admire in women. Just as my daughter looks to her Dad as a prototype for men, my sons are viewing me as their primary example of a woman and a Mom. So I will continue to show them the real me: squishy, flawed, and supportive.  That won't make me brave.  It makes me their Mom.

Healing one stitch at a time.

This fall I had been asked by several different people if I had quit writing, because they missed seeing my work in the paper.  I stumbled with my answers because it was a question that I couldn't really  answer with a yes or no.  I think anyone who writes, or is of the creative nature, knows that creating can't be forced.  They are just these ideas, these words or visions that come to you and and you are called to get them out.  But trying to force words or come up with thoughts is like trying to feel amorous about someone you find appaling.  It just isn't going to work.  So, I would stutter and stammer and say "Uhm no" and give the old pathetic standby "Just been busy."

I am choosing to view my creativity as a gift and not as a ADD/Flight of ideas affliction.  In the past I have worried that maybe I am one of those "Jack of all Trades, Master of None" type people.  That maybe I was not really great at anyone thing, because I was so interested in many things.  Now I just embrace my creative spirit. I can't help it.  I love to create, in different mediums: glass, furniture, photography, words, and most recently fabric.  The reality is creating feeds something in my soul.  And I am called to do it, and feel they are God given gifts.

This fall I started throwing around the idea of repurposing clothing.  I am just hippie enough that the waste involving clothing and textiles boggles my mind.  I was also raised with zero concern for brand names and labels, but a great sense of a good deal.  More so I am blessed with an amazing, free-spirited daughter who never ceases to amaze me with her styling.  I hope to God she never loses her independent style to the pressures of conformity.  So, with my little muse inspiring me, I started playing with repurposing thrift buys into cute little girls clothing.  Appropriate styled, non-street-walker little girls clothing.  It has been soul quenching because it is sheer creation. No rules, no patterns, just creating.

What I didn't realize would happen is the healing that would take place during this time.  December would bring the eleventh anniversary of my Mom's death.  For eleven years, around mid-November I would fall into this paralytic darkness.  I WANTED to be excited about Christmas and decorate, I WANTED to gaze at a lit tree in the darkness of an evening. I WANTED to feel the magic that Christmas brings about. I.just.couldn't.  I completely realize that the darkness always fell in the exact same time frame as the last month of her life, the month I flew 3000 miles back to be with her.  And I sometimes wondered, "Am I making this up? Just wanting to be sad? Wanting to wallow in grief?" But as hard as I tried, it was like barely being able to breath, for a month. Just functioning, getting through a day.  Not able to feel sadness nor joy.  I was just existing.  

The morning of December 15th always seemed to bring, without fail, this feeling of being able to exhale.  Just as I did 11 years ago.  I believe the anticipation of the end can be so much harder than the actual end.  I mean you KNOW it is coming.  The person you love is on a one way trip and is already talking to angels.  You know how this story ends, but you hold your breath until they make that leap.  And then you can exhale.

In the years past this has always created a mad-dash scramble to complete all those Christmas tasks in 10 days, when most have been working on them for a month.  But me, I've been "gone" for a month and I felt the worst about what that has been like for the kids.  It probably felt something like this: "Can we decorate yet?" (Nope. Too overwhelming.) "Can we wrap presents?" (No. We haven't actually shopped yet.)  "Can we go buy a tree?" (Sigh. Ugh. Really???) To "Hurry up! We need to clean house so we can decorate and go buy a tree and we need to get some cookies made and let's get a fire going.  Someday I'll have to apologize for the all those years of bipolar-Christmas-Mommy.

But this year? This year was so incredibly different.  I started sewing, and cutting, and creating. I volunteered to make two costumes for our Sunday School Christmas program because PLEASE just don't ask me to bake.  I sewed my daughter's originally designed-by-her Halloween costume, complete with Elizabethan collar and pocketed cap (in case her bucket got too full, there were pockets for candy.)  I made skirts from jeans and jumpers from hideous Holiday shirts.  I made bags as gifts for friends.  Through all of this I realized I, for the first time in a very long time, FELT her.  I felt her guiding me what to do when I was stuck on a pleat. I felt her guiding my hands to create gathers and draping that fell just right.  My Mom was a fabulous seamstress, out of necessity.  A 4'9.5" frame in a time period where a size 7 is the smallest available left her with the need to be able to alter and create.  And she did it well.  I spent countless hours standing beside her at her machine, being lulled by the  rhythm of her machine.  Now I felt her laughing when my daughter annoyingly pestered me asking why her dress was not done and I was working on someone else's items.  Just as I remember annoyingly asking her why my quilt was not done and why she was working on someone else's item.  I felt her, her life and not her dying and death.  The rhythmic sound of the sewing machine released feelings and memories that had been long been buried under the thick blanket of the death process.  I would never trade that last month of being with her for anything, but somehow who she was in life had gotten lost to me in what we shared that last month.

As I worked with the fabric, the pins and scissors, memories started to sprinkle in. First like raindrops as they hit the ground, combining together to create little streams and finally joining together until the surface is completely covered and the air has that amazing rain smell.  This is what healing feels like.  It was gradual, over a couple months, but eventually my ability to remember her, her laughter, her humor, her ability to create her own words (or Darleneisms as we called them) her intense love and never ending support for her family replaced the darkness in my memory of her.  I know she would never have wanted to be defined by her journey towards death, and I struggled for years with guilt knowing that is exactly where my memories were stuck.  Never in a million years would I have imagined my healing would come stitch by stitch, needle stick by needle stick and yet now, looking back, it makes perfect sense.

Yeah. She was that Awesome.

Button Trouble

Recently I scored an awesome thrift store find. I found a vintage, early 70's era Irish wool coat.  Not just any wool coat but a "North Dakotan by Straus" Irish wool coat.  I had to purchase it because it was

A: only $10,

B: so heavy it would surely keep the bone-chilling, face-freezing-off North Dakota cold from my skin 

C: it had an amazing and immaculate faux fur collar 

D: My size, which apparently is the same as a 1970's man (?!?!)

It was all a sign that I needed this coat.  It is a double breasted style of coat and I realized after a week I had been buttoning the coat like a female does, right over left.  After realizing I could button it the proper way, left over right, it just felt so weird! Buttoning for me has always been right over left and this just felt akward and uncomfortable.  This feeling jarred a memory for me that happened a few years ago with my son.

My oldest has always fought me over wearing dress pants or jeans.  He would come out dressed for church in a shirt, a tie, and a pair of sweat pants. We would go round and round, tears ensuing from his hatred over "pants that button!"  Really I just assumed he was being lazy or that his sensory issues made him sense the jeans too tight and uncomfortable.  But mostly I just assumed he was being lazy and didn't want to go through the work of buttoning and zipping his jeans.

Then, one day I was helping him get dressed and was standing behind him tucking in his dress shirt. I went to button his dress pants and had a huge "AH HA!" moment.  As I buttoned his pants, I imagined being left handed as he is.  I then imagined being 6, and not having the greatest coordination and trying to button my pants.  I challenge you to try it sometime.  Buttons are made for right handed people.  The dominate right hand manipulates the button through the hole that is mearly held by the left hand.  If your dominate hand is left and your right hand lies there like a dead fish because you are 6 and frustrated, stranded in the boys bathroom because you don't want to be the "baby" who can't get your own pants buttoned, you would fight tooth and nail to wear sweat pants every day too!

This small experience was eye opening for me.  I think often times we attribute adult characteristics to our children; laziness, manipulation, carelessness etc.  While sometimes these are natural characteristics I guess, I think if we took a step behind our kids and saw things from their perspectives their behaviors may make much more sense.  Are they careless or are they exhausted from nightmare filled sleep they aren't able ot recall that is not allowing them to get quality rest?  Is their falling grades because they don't care or because they are consumed by angst from the kid that just won't leave them alone?  Is their behavior resembling a rabid weasel because they are are naughty or because the chicken nugget and fries from their 11am lunch is long gone and their blood sugar is 12 when they get in the car after school?  

For the most part, I don't think young children's behaviors are ulterior or manipulative but moreso reactionary to things happening around them and to them.  Sure there are those times where they may look right at you, and proceed to deliberatly dump their water on the carpet or grin devilishly at their sibling as they shove the last Oreo in their mouth.  But more than not if we can step to the side, or behind them and see situations from their perspective, their behaviors may make more sense. And really isn't that what all of us really want? To be heard and understood?  And to score vintage goods at the Thrift store.