I don't know what's been going on with me lately. I've finally figured out where I want to be and what I want to be doing, but I feel like I'm totally missing the point. I'm being sidetracked by things that really are important, but seem to be taking away from my goals. It seems like I've somehow lost touch with the kind o person I want to be and somehow this stranger has intervened to take it's place.
This past week has been spent largely cleaning and organizing my house. I've got all the science and nature books put on one shelf. Another shelf is half history books, half coloring and craft books. That frees up more room in my daughter's book shelves to keep the books she actually wants. I'm hoping that will mean she can fit all of her chapter books and everything else. It's amazing how much space is freed up just by organizing the books. It helps to have all the books that relate to school in a place where they can all share them.
The living room book shelves started the journey. I've been cleaning them from top to bottom. The whole room looks so much nicer without all the crazy clutter, which means once I get all the books up off the floor and into the places they need to go, I can finally feel a bit better about having people over! It's also nice to be able to find the books I want to read when I want to read them. I've been doing a decent amount of reading lately. It's nice to feel like I'm expanding my mind.
The reading I've been doing lately is different too. I've been focusing on non-fiction reading. I'm trying to develop a focus on things that relate to my life, spirituality, diet, parenting, and those sorts of topics. It's been refreshing to sit back and read for a while without feeling guilty about it. After all, reading isn't a guilty pleasure. It's expanding my mind and helping to set a good example for my children. It's a great way to relax too.
Still, in all of this I'm starting to feel like maybe my life is starting to get off track again. I'm cleaning, reading, and taking care of my home, but what about my spirituality? What about changing the patterns in my life? What about becoming the person I want to be? Am I going to lose some of that in my quest to get my physical surroundings up to par so we can maintain the status quo? Or does that somehow relate into it all, that being a more "normal" family somehow will help me on my way to accepting my new life as Mommy above all else, putting aside any other labels?
It just feels like maybe I'm losing a part of myself in all of this, that somehow I'm missing something that's incredibly integral to who I am. I just wish I knew what it was so I could take a step forward and truly embrace that part of my life. I am who I am. I just hope I'm not starting to lose sense of that.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
New Morning Routine...and Tea
It's morning. I've been up for a while, which is a shock to most who know me well. The fact that I'm up before 9am is a minor miracle. The fact that I'm not cranky and crabby on top of it may make some people who know me who brainwashed me, because this isn't what I'm normally like. I'm the lazy mom that rolls out of bed last minute and does as little in the possible in the morning, generally because I stay up all night.
Over the past few days I've been experimenting with a new sleep routine. I don't sleep in anymore. I'm trying desperately not to let myself get out of bed after 7am. It's been working out great. I'm up when my kids get up, and I'm surprisingly not crabby. Next week I think I may try and bump it earlier by a half hour and then again the week after that so I'll be getting up at 6am. Then I'll have enough time to do yoga in the morning before the kids wake up.
Yoga is one of those things I used to do in the mornings way back when I still worked at the eyeglass company. I would have to get up at 5am in order to have time in the morning, and there was barely room. We were staying with a friend in his living room. We had an air mattress out and slept on that, but that took up so much room that it was hard to find space to do yoga. I would have to keep it really quiet because my daughter and her father were asleep. I would do an hour of yoga, eat a light breakfast, then walk to the station to catch the 7am train. Every morning I would show up almost two hours early for work or more, but waiting for a later train would leave me a half hour late, so there wasn't much in the way of option there. I'd spend my time waiting with a good book, eating a horrible breakfast from the fast-food joint in the food court or hanging out at the coffee shop with some tea or hot chocolate. It wasn't much of a fancy ritual or anything, but it was my ritual each morning, and I loved it.
There's just something about yoga in the morning. It's invigorating and wakes up the body, sure, but there's something more to it. It's not just gentle stretching and strengthening. It's also meditative. There's something about moving through the poses, focusing on the inner thoughts and the actual feelings and sensations in the body (and in all honesty here, I'm thinking, "My body is SO not flexible enough for that!") I feel more connected to myself when I do yoga, more present in my own physical form, more aware of everything going on in my own person. It's wonderful.
All of that ended the first time when I broke my elbow. After three months of not being able to do much of anything followed by almost a year of being unable to do yoga because I didn't have the strength, I got out of the habit. It's so easy to get lazy about things, even when it's something enjoyable. I tried on a couple of occasions to get back into it, but I never really did. I've heard that it takes 21 days to make a new habit, good or bad, and I've never been able to last out that three week period before. After a couple of days I'm making excuses about not having enough time for yoga, which is largely true when I get up to a house full of bustling activities, everyone already doing their own things for the day. There's no peaceful, quiet time for me to focus on yoga. Even if I shut myself in my room, the kids come in demanding this or that. They don't exactly make it easy. Besides, once the day is rolling, it's often easy to drop things off the schedule when things get hectic, and it's all too easy to make excuses of being too busy or tired.
Of course, getting up before the kids is a ritual in the making. It's going to involve cleaning my living room so I can have a space to do yoga. It will mean getting my yoga mat out of the closet. I'll have to start waking up consistently about an hour earlier each day. It's going to take some time to get there, but I have a goal. From there it's keeping up with it for 21 days so it becomes habit, and hopefully after that it will be so much easier to get up to in the morning. That's going to be my first goal, last out 21 days of daily yoga.
On another note, nothing says morning like tea. Tea and yoga kind of go hand-in-hand. Most of the people I know who do yoga are also big tea drinkers. It's probably got to do with yoga and tea both being healthy for you, so one would imagine that would be a good combination. It's a great way to wake up in the morning, and truth be told, I like it better than coffee. I've never been much of a coffee drinker anyway. That's what I'm doing this morning. Sitting at my computer, drinking some tea. My cabinet is full of tea. I've got so much tea it's almost shocking, considering most of it's never even been touched. It's time I made tea a part of my morning ritual too. It's probably a lot healthier for me than most of my other morning routines! At least I can say it's good for me!
All in all, I think I'm taking a positive step forward in my life. Most mornings I've woken up crabby, just wanting to be left alone only to be ambushed by children that want my attention, and haven't been getting it since I've been sleeping. Even having someone else get up with the kids in the morning doesn't seem to stop the madness when I finally get up. Now I'm less cranky in the morning, more focused, and much happier. I don't know if it's the quality of sleep I've been getting or if it's got to do with the much quieter pace in the morning, but I'm feeling so much more approachable. It leaves me with a couple of hours to get myself collected in the morning too. I can spend some time on the computer, reading a book, or even just sitting to meditate by myself for a while before my day needs to get rolling. It leaves me to feel less rushed when I finally do have to get up and go do something. I guess, in a way, I feel so much more balanced, and I'm continuing to follow that path.
Over the past few days I've been experimenting with a new sleep routine. I don't sleep in anymore. I'm trying desperately not to let myself get out of bed after 7am. It's been working out great. I'm up when my kids get up, and I'm surprisingly not crabby. Next week I think I may try and bump it earlier by a half hour and then again the week after that so I'll be getting up at 6am. Then I'll have enough time to do yoga in the morning before the kids wake up.
Yoga is one of those things I used to do in the mornings way back when I still worked at the eyeglass company. I would have to get up at 5am in order to have time in the morning, and there was barely room. We were staying with a friend in his living room. We had an air mattress out and slept on that, but that took up so much room that it was hard to find space to do yoga. I would have to keep it really quiet because my daughter and her father were asleep. I would do an hour of yoga, eat a light breakfast, then walk to the station to catch the 7am train. Every morning I would show up almost two hours early for work or more, but waiting for a later train would leave me a half hour late, so there wasn't much in the way of option there. I'd spend my time waiting with a good book, eating a horrible breakfast from the fast-food joint in the food court or hanging out at the coffee shop with some tea or hot chocolate. It wasn't much of a fancy ritual or anything, but it was my ritual each morning, and I loved it.
There's just something about yoga in the morning. It's invigorating and wakes up the body, sure, but there's something more to it. It's not just gentle stretching and strengthening. It's also meditative. There's something about moving through the poses, focusing on the inner thoughts and the actual feelings and sensations in the body (and in all honesty here, I'm thinking, "My body is SO not flexible enough for that!") I feel more connected to myself when I do yoga, more present in my own physical form, more aware of everything going on in my own person. It's wonderful.
All of that ended the first time when I broke my elbow. After three months of not being able to do much of anything followed by almost a year of being unable to do yoga because I didn't have the strength, I got out of the habit. It's so easy to get lazy about things, even when it's something enjoyable. I tried on a couple of occasions to get back into it, but I never really did. I've heard that it takes 21 days to make a new habit, good or bad, and I've never been able to last out that three week period before. After a couple of days I'm making excuses about not having enough time for yoga, which is largely true when I get up to a house full of bustling activities, everyone already doing their own things for the day. There's no peaceful, quiet time for me to focus on yoga. Even if I shut myself in my room, the kids come in demanding this or that. They don't exactly make it easy. Besides, once the day is rolling, it's often easy to drop things off the schedule when things get hectic, and it's all too easy to make excuses of being too busy or tired.
Of course, getting up before the kids is a ritual in the making. It's going to involve cleaning my living room so I can have a space to do yoga. It will mean getting my yoga mat out of the closet. I'll have to start waking up consistently about an hour earlier each day. It's going to take some time to get there, but I have a goal. From there it's keeping up with it for 21 days so it becomes habit, and hopefully after that it will be so much easier to get up to in the morning. That's going to be my first goal, last out 21 days of daily yoga.
On another note, nothing says morning like tea. Tea and yoga kind of go hand-in-hand. Most of the people I know who do yoga are also big tea drinkers. It's probably got to do with yoga and tea both being healthy for you, so one would imagine that would be a good combination. It's a great way to wake up in the morning, and truth be told, I like it better than coffee. I've never been much of a coffee drinker anyway. That's what I'm doing this morning. Sitting at my computer, drinking some tea. My cabinet is full of tea. I've got so much tea it's almost shocking, considering most of it's never even been touched. It's time I made tea a part of my morning ritual too. It's probably a lot healthier for me than most of my other morning routines! At least I can say it's good for me!
All in all, I think I'm taking a positive step forward in my life. Most mornings I've woken up crabby, just wanting to be left alone only to be ambushed by children that want my attention, and haven't been getting it since I've been sleeping. Even having someone else get up with the kids in the morning doesn't seem to stop the madness when I finally get up. Now I'm less cranky in the morning, more focused, and much happier. I don't know if it's the quality of sleep I've been getting or if it's got to do with the much quieter pace in the morning, but I'm feeling so much more approachable. It leaves me with a couple of hours to get myself collected in the morning too. I can spend some time on the computer, reading a book, or even just sitting to meditate by myself for a while before my day needs to get rolling. It leaves me to feel less rushed when I finally do have to get up and go do something. I guess, in a way, I feel so much more balanced, and I'm continuing to follow that path.
Monday, September 12, 2011
What I Want
Today I was given a glimpse of what I want in my life. I feel like I've finally found a place I might start to feel like I fit in. My family and I were at the homeschool co-op today, and I finally felt like I was surrounded with my kind of people. One of them even wants dreads (which reminds me, I'm way behind on keeping everyone updated on how those are going...)! It was good to feel like I was in a place where I didn't feel like a freak. For once I felt like I belonged. I didn't even realize that was so much what I wanted until I was surrounded by it. I guess this is what I get for not spending any time with my good friend, Krystal. I miss her, but she's always so busy. She goes through phases like that. I guess I do too.
For the longest time I thought what I wanted to be was a dancer. It was a dream my mother told me was impossible. I was too old for ballet by the time I was getting into dance, so I'd pretty much given up on all dance. Dance wasn't an option for me. It could never be a career. That door was closed. When I found out belly dance was still an option, I threw myself into it. I should have been honest with myself. I would have loved it as a hobby, but as a professional? That's just not where I'm at. I love to dance, but I think the dream of being a dancer is something I should have let die a long time ago. Perhaps knowing I could never do it made me fight that much harder for it when I found a way. Yes, I'll always love dance, but the truth is I'm just tired of it. It's been wearing me down slowly for years, but I don't think it's what I want anymore. I've got other goals in mind. I think doing it as a hobby, or maybe taking a certification course to teach prenatal dance would be something that suits me, but I'm definitely not the kind of person to be a professional dancer. It's just not who I am anymore.
Instead I'm finding I'm really happy with being a mother. It's not what I imagined I'd be. It wasn't until not long before I was pregnant with my oldest that I even decided I might want kids some day, and at that point it was only one. A little over nine years later and I'm hitting the sadness of all my friends having babies and I want another one. I've already got three and people keep cursing me with four already (they keep telling me I've already got four!) so I guess it's fitting. Even so, I never thought I'd be here. I thought I'd long ago been done with having children, yet I still want more. Sometimes I think I must be crazy.
It's not just having babies to have babies. I want to see the wonderful people they grow up to be. It's more than the first steps and the first words, I want the experience of the first time they read, the first time they discover something they really love, the moment they see what they want to do in life. I want the experience of turning a helpless little infant into whatever they want to become some day, once they figure it out for themselves, of course.
Then there's everything else I envision. I see moms wearing their babies. I see breastfeeding at the co-op. I see women who are cloth diapering or using elimination communication. The kids are learning about all sorts of things. They're developing new interests. It's an amazing thing. I'm seeing moms who are gluten-free and they're using holistic remedies. It's everything I hoped I'd some day be doing. I feel like I've found a home with these other women. It feels like the right place to be. This is where I want to raise my kids, not just for them, but because I feel fulfilled by it too. I feel like they've welcomed me into the fold, in a way, like I've found a place that I finally feel satisfied by.
Add this to everything else I want in life, to be sustainable and all of that, and I think that's the direction I should be looking. I really love dance, but dance doesn't give me the feeling of making an impact on the world. Dance is a beautiful art and it makes people feel or think, but it's not at all like changing the world by teaching the next generation another way. I think this is it. I've finally found what I need to be doing with my life. I've finally found where I belong.
For the longest time I thought what I wanted to be was a dancer. It was a dream my mother told me was impossible. I was too old for ballet by the time I was getting into dance, so I'd pretty much given up on all dance. Dance wasn't an option for me. It could never be a career. That door was closed. When I found out belly dance was still an option, I threw myself into it. I should have been honest with myself. I would have loved it as a hobby, but as a professional? That's just not where I'm at. I love to dance, but I think the dream of being a dancer is something I should have let die a long time ago. Perhaps knowing I could never do it made me fight that much harder for it when I found a way. Yes, I'll always love dance, but the truth is I'm just tired of it. It's been wearing me down slowly for years, but I don't think it's what I want anymore. I've got other goals in mind. I think doing it as a hobby, or maybe taking a certification course to teach prenatal dance would be something that suits me, but I'm definitely not the kind of person to be a professional dancer. It's just not who I am anymore.
Instead I'm finding I'm really happy with being a mother. It's not what I imagined I'd be. It wasn't until not long before I was pregnant with my oldest that I even decided I might want kids some day, and at that point it was only one. A little over nine years later and I'm hitting the sadness of all my friends having babies and I want another one. I've already got three and people keep cursing me with four already (they keep telling me I've already got four!) so I guess it's fitting. Even so, I never thought I'd be here. I thought I'd long ago been done with having children, yet I still want more. Sometimes I think I must be crazy.
It's not just having babies to have babies. I want to see the wonderful people they grow up to be. It's more than the first steps and the first words, I want the experience of the first time they read, the first time they discover something they really love, the moment they see what they want to do in life. I want the experience of turning a helpless little infant into whatever they want to become some day, once they figure it out for themselves, of course.
Then there's everything else I envision. I see moms wearing their babies. I see breastfeeding at the co-op. I see women who are cloth diapering or using elimination communication. The kids are learning about all sorts of things. They're developing new interests. It's an amazing thing. I'm seeing moms who are gluten-free and they're using holistic remedies. It's everything I hoped I'd some day be doing. I feel like I've found a home with these other women. It feels like the right place to be. This is where I want to raise my kids, not just for them, but because I feel fulfilled by it too. I feel like they've welcomed me into the fold, in a way, like I've found a place that I finally feel satisfied by.
Add this to everything else I want in life, to be sustainable and all of that, and I think that's the direction I should be looking. I really love dance, but dance doesn't give me the feeling of making an impact on the world. Dance is a beautiful art and it makes people feel or think, but it's not at all like changing the world by teaching the next generation another way. I think this is it. I've finally found what I need to be doing with my life. I've finally found where I belong.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)