Words

Once upon a time
Those words
There upon the page
Set my heart flying
My soul
Happy and free
Dancing through the skies
Thinking your words
Were truth
Relics
From a simpler age
Feeling
The luckiest girl
I savored those words
Wrapped them around me
And let them fuel
A fire
Too dangerous
For even me
(So used to fire)
To allow to burn

Once upon a time
Your words
Were beautiful
Honest representations
Of an immaculate heart
So overtaken
By your words
I blinded myself
To your actions
And the actual
State
Of your heart

When your actions
Overcame
Your ability
To talk yourself
Out of the consequences
Still
Your words
Reached and pulled
Then
Eventually
In desperation
They struck out
Sometimes
In retaliation
Sometimes
In recrimination
Until I could not bear
To read
A
Single
Word

The strength
Of one's words
Equals
The strength
Of one's beliefs
PLUS
The belief
Which others
Carry
In one

When you are given
A gift
Of one
Who believes
Unquestioningly
In every word
And carries
Each word
In her heart
Day after day
Even when those words
Become heavy with pain
And confusion
And loss

When you are given
Such a gift
And you
Rather than cherish it
And hold it to your heart
Question it
And throw it away
But not before
You thoroughly destroy it
Not only for your own purposes
But for the purposes of those after you
For the foreseeable future

Do not ever
EVER
Ask
For that gift back

It is insulting

Your words
Mean less than nothing now
I trust not so much as a single letter
As if "I" ever meant "I"
Surely it never did
And that's just the one letter
Much less all the others
Written in sequence
Written in rhyme

I listen
With an ecstatic heart
For the tree
To finally
Fall

Message in a Portal

Dear Nexen,

A lot has changed this month. You seem to be adjusting well. I am not.

Tuesday, I yelled at you. You looked at me for a long moment, then your face bent, melted and you began to cry. The kind of crying that says, "I have no idea what just happened or where that came from." The kind of crying that says, "You hurt me Mama." I sighed. Deeply. I opened my arms and you snuggled in for a moment, and I whispered "I'm sorry", but then your sister opened her arms and you went to her and the two of you held each other until you both felt better.  I, on the other hand, did not get to feel better.

There is so much I need, which is not provided by my current life.  Enough money that my teeth unclench at night and my worries take a backseat to sleep.  Enough time that I don't feel every waking moment is a vortex which dumps me, unceremoniously, into my messy house at the end of the night with no energy to clean and no desire to fight the lack of energy.  Enough energy that instead of falling asleep when the sweet, deep breaths of sleeping children fill the air I can enjoy a few precious moments of silence, peace and yes, cleaning!  Enough peace that my emotional landscape changes from a fiery post apocalyptic nightmare to a beautiful, flowing river interrupted only by the sound of songbirds.

There is so much I have, which is not appreciated in my current state of mind.  Three amazingly beautiful children who have an incredible bond and truly enjoy each other...albeit sometimes the bond is hard to see for all the bickering and resentment passed around like a hot potato.  A job I enjoy which also serves our community and allows me the freedom and flexibility to enjoy being a mother too.  A place to live which is (literally) overflowing with generous gifts and donations from friends and family.  My (relative) physical health and that of my children.

I just, I get thrown off balance a lot.  It feels like every time I find my footing someone comes along and pushes me over, laughs in my face and says, "Ha, now try and stand back up."  Sometimes they even set-up swords and nails behind me so when I fall they know I will be so injured, I will not be able to get up without help.  And then they'll stand there with their hand out, calling me horrible names when I won't take their hand. But how can I grasp the hand of the person who set me up to fall?  How could I ever trust they wouldn't just let go and watch me fall...again?  Simply put, I can't.

Anyway.  I just want you to know that I love you.  Every moment I can't be with you, my heart is still filled with love for you.  Every moment I am physically with you, and my mind is a million miles away, my heart is still filled with love for you.  Every  moment I lose myself, I lose my connection to you and to the moment at hand, my heart. Is still. Filled. With Love.  For You.

And the more I write and get out what's in my head, the more I remember what's in my heart.  It's all that love I want to guide my life, none of that other stuff.  So when things are getting hard, I write about it.  Today I write to you.  Every day, EVERY. DAY. I love you.  And that's what I want to be bogged down with, not all of this other stuff.  And now, for this moment, I am.

Eternally,
Your loving Mama

Saturday

Another Sleepless Night...

Music Mood

Samurai's Poetry

I came across Samurai's 3rd grade writing notebook. I thought I'd share some of her poetry:

My Brother Nexen
My brother Nexen
is very cute and loving
and nice and sweet.
My brother Nexen,
eating all day
chomp, chomp, chomp
I love seeing Nexen every day
after school
He smiles at me
and I smile at him
It's like a rainbow
He is the BEST brother ever
he is AWESOME

My Alarm Clock
In the morning
     my alarm clock
     goes like
          Beep
                 Beep
                         Beep
It's trying to tell
me to get up
I don't want to snooze
for fifteen minutes
Beep
       Beep
              Beep
I hear it again and
it's even louder now it's
telling me get up you're
LATE
I say "Fine"
Can't wait to go to sleep

The Roller Coaster
The roller coaster
It's so fast  fast as a cheetah
upside down all around
     ahhhhhhhhhhhh!
I take my hands off the
bars of the roller coaster
my, my heart's beating
so fast I feel like
I'm going to fall.
I look back I see
so many rows It smells
gross I wish it smelled like a
rose

Water Ice
Water ice
All you can eat.
Flavors and flavors.
Cherry, raspberry and
so much more.
I like the blue,
when I see the blue,
it reminds me of the sea.
I bite
the water ice...
crunch, crunch,
yum, yum
wait...Brain Freeze!!
Once I'm done,
I get another one!

The Heated Pool
I get my bathing suit
on I dip my toe in
Hot Hot Hot!
I got my goggles and dove in
I feel like I'm in an aquarium
I take my head out of
the water now it's cold
I start playing with my brother
He's trying to splash me
Ha ha ha
missed me.  I got
out I wish I can
go back in I'm freezing.

Flowers (A Haiku)
I sit on the ground,
while a flower is blooming.
It is so pretty!

...

Morning Music

Dear World,

I am imperfect.  And terribly, tragically human.  As such, I make terribly, tragically human messes.  But I am still learning, and I am still growing.  And I can finally see the beauty in all the mess.

Anyway, I started all this to ask you, World, to just accept me as I am.  To love me, just as I am.  For my entire life I believed I had to be different, to act different, to change just a little bit more to deserve love.  But finally, I realized (was taught), we ALL deserve love, even me, even in our imperfect states.  

So today, I make my proclamation of emancipation.  My declaration of interdependence.  All these years I worked to fix myself and blame myself for others not being able to see my good qualities.  Today, I'm done with all that.  I am a good person.  Yes, I have made many, many, many, many mistakes.  I still make mistakes, every day.  Some of them, I am embarrassed to say, I even repeat.  But my heart is beautiful, and that makes me beautiful.  Even in its fragile, broken state, my heart beats bright and true and loud and shines and sings through the darkest of days.

And I am not alone.  And I need you, my friends, my acquaintances, my future loves, to remind me from time to time.  I need to depend on you, in a way I have never allowed myself to do.  Just as I need to depend on myself, and open, and trust, and trust, and trust.

I will make this world a better place.  I will be a better person every day.  And I will remember, I am good enough now.

Love,
Mee

Inspired Family

So I went to a parenting conference at Temple yesterday, the Inspired Family conference.  

Here's the thing.  My family and I have been through a lot recently.  I mean, honestly, we always seem to have big things happening.  I guess anything you're going through seems big when you're not putting it in perspective, and we're always going through something.  But I digress...

My point is, I LOVE my family.  I think we are perfect in our imperfections.  We are a perfect fit.  I am learning and growing so much by having grown and birthed my littles and knowing and loving them and they are doing the same in learning and loving and giving and taking.  I keep devouring parenting books and taking classes and and going to therapy and conferences, trying to find exactly what it is that I'm doing wrong to make us imperfect and finally I realized that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with us.  

Yes, I have a list of personal issues longer than my arm but the biggest and worst issue on that list is self-judgment/self-criticism.  For a moment, tonight/today, I have let go of that and really taken a good look at myself and how far I've come and everything I'm juggling and I have to say...if I were anyone else but me, I'd be in awe of the person I see.  I'd respect her and love her and embrace her and be inspired by her.  So where's the disconnect?

The disconnect is where everything is lost.  It's where we all feel lost.  It's where I lose reception.  And I cannot give if I never receive.  So my lesson, my golden key to the "perfect" family that I've been seeking, is one that I've read about for days and weeks and months and years but failed to internalize because I couldn't FEEL it by reading books and taking classes and being all up in my brain about this parenting thing.  I couldn't feel it until that moment when I connected to my self, my true self, not the self I criticize and judge and scold and hurt, but the self that is brave and beautiful and smart and loved.  The self that knows she has always been and will always do everything she possibly can for her family.  

Perhaps I sound simple.  Ignorant.  Downright stupid.  But I forget, over and over and over again I forget.  I forget to love myself and trust myself and close that feedback loop of love.  I give and give and give to my children and then feel resentment that I'm getting nothing back but THEY are not responsible for the fact that I've disconnected from myself and tell myself that I'm failing to the point where they feel (and begin to act) accordingly.  I looked everywhere else for the answer and I got great tips and techniques and ideas for better managing things and connecting with my children but if I stay/become/live disconnected with myself I'm being counterproductive.

So there it is.  Now I've got the answer.  Now I just have to keep asking the question so the answer stays present in my mind.  Am I connected?  Right now I am.  And I will practice staying here.  Although more likely, three months from now, I will blog about another moment of realization wherein which I say pretty much the same thing.  But that's okay.  It's a lesson worth learning over and over. 

Another day...

)

In Trust

Here we all are

Or were

With our hearts in your hands

Trusting

You would handle them

With wisdom

And love

With compassion

And kindness

How many of us

Have snatched them back

Before they were crushed

Completely

With thoughtlessness

And cruelty

With selfishness

And disregard

How many of us

Were left

With next to nothing

To rebuild

On our own

So we could trust again

So we could love again

So we could smile again

How many?

Just feels right now

Music Moment