Living-Deliberately.com

I know the primary question I ask on this blog is, “what if you wanted to change your life?”. Very often, that question morphs into, “what would you do if your life changed?”. Or maybe still, “what do you do when you changed one thing and other changes rippled on down because of it?” That’s where I sit at the moment.

I took my children and left an abusive marriage. Ten moons later we are divorced and living a very different lifestyle. I changed my life; that part was deliberate. I do preface any struggle this new life presents with the honest reality that safety makes everything worth it. I can’t say it would be if leaving were a simple lifestyle option, or an emotional response to not “feeling in love”, or because I thought the grass would be greener. Often I hear people justify divorce in cases of adultery or abuse and I’m living the truth that those two reasons are two of the only ones that would make it worthwhile. The raw truth is that life outside is often filled with some of the most extreme struggling I’ve ever known but with one added blessing: the toxic danger is gone. It’s nice to be able to sleep in peace, make human mistakes in grace, be loved for who I am; one might even say this is a “right”. Children, most especially, deserve to dwell in safety.

So here we are. And I am a single mother now still not fully transitioned (financially speaking) and also self-employed. The most flexible work schedule in the world still requires one thing: Time To Work. That is not compatible with days full of homeschooling 3 grade levels and a preschooler. Our time spent at Story Hour, soccer practice, swim lessons, surf camp and beach days, hiking, books before bed, handwriting practice does not a full education make.

A little history may put this transition into a little more perspective. I first wanted to homeschool my future children when I was 13. I *hated* school and the restrictiveness of it: institutionalized education is hard for a creative spirit. I wanted hours spent outside for my children, lots of books, free exploration, un-stifled creativity, personalized pace, eclectic resources….not until my children were much older, approaching the middle school years, and we were so broke that my working became more of a necessity did I feel compelled to consider putting them in school. I wanted their childhoods to be as “intact” as possible and to instill the ability to think “outside the box” from their earliest moments on.

The fact is that mothers are Only One Person and though many in the movement try to wear all the hats at once, very few can adequately pull off a good homeschool, a second income, and a well-managed household. If it was hard then, it’s even harder now, as a nearly single breadwinner. There are just not enough hours in the day to do it all, all at once.

Coupled with this is their very real need for more structure. After a tumultuous year with more travel than some adults could take, they need the consistent, even rather monotonous, routine that school can provide. I always prayed that when the time was right, I’d know, and I do. Fortunately, we are in a small town with what are considered “excellent” schools. The kids are all excited about the change (their opinions matter). We are all viewing it as a new kind of adventure: a change that is happening because other change happened.

The dream of homeschooling them forever never existed for me. I didn’t imagine a home-style high school graduation and I’ve always talked to them about the virtues of going to college. Still, saying good bye to my little homeschool is a loss. Little moments come, like when I’m selling a curriculum I’d spent so many hours studying and planning with, or when I walked them through the halls of the school for the very first time in their lives.

I think it’s more than a small poverty of our society that schools, even “excellent” schools, look like jails with happy colors. I wonder how we all will all adapt to having so much of our time decided *for* us, rather than *by* us. I can’t imagine dreaming in a place like that. Today I was reading an article in Vanity Fair on the birth of the Internet. It’s the 50th anniversary of the Arpanet and the 15th anniversary of the first browser. I was struck by this quote,

…find a good scientist. Fund him. Leave him alone. Don’t over manage. Don’t tell him how to do something…. Tell him what you’re interested in: don’t tell him how to do it.

That kind of free learning and boundless creativity is the culture that gave us one of the most transformative and historic tools of humanity. The homeschooling movement today is more broad and far reaching than most would realize and I have more faith in it’s ability to continue to promote extraordinary thinking (and thinkers) than institutionalized education. I wanted that for my babies.

For now though, it’s time to play by different rules. It’s time to fit within a context. It’s time to explore what the flip side can offer. It’s change that is happening because change happened. I’m learning the mechanics: the physicals, the shot records, the placement tests. I’m buying the supplies: the lunchboxes, the backpacks, the shoes and socks. Truth be told I’m grieving a little when I hear homeschooling friends talk about field trip schedules or history programs. I think the kids are a little nervous about things like Waking Before Sunrise, Homework, and Having To Ask To Use The Bathroom. Just like I didn’t spend my childhood dreaming of one day being divorced, I didn’t dream about sitting them down in a crowded classroom and a day planner at age 7.

One thing remains true: life is full of changes, deliberate and not. It’s what we do with those changes that matters.

Wherever you are, however you’re celebrating, I hope it’s a great one!

My favorite memories for 4th of July always include the beach and fireworks at dusk. I like the small ones at home better than the big displays that require sitting through a traffic jam. Best yet is being able to do the small ones at home AND see the big ones from afar, ahead of the traffic! This year was a mingling of the usual (Mom’s potato salad and sparklers) and the not (no beach trip or parade).

I think my favorite memory of the 4th ever was one year on the “farm” I grew up on in Michigan (no animals and the garden was one full of roses). That year my dad went a little crazy with the fireworks and it’s really the first year I remember them. I was amazed and a little frightened and awestruck; I must have been 7. My sister and I had a summer habit of getting baths and nightgowns on and then heading back outside to run barefoot in the chilled grass, challenging one another to see who could run the farthest out of the circle of light, hoping to make it to the locust tree on the edge of the grove we called “the park”. I don’t think either of us ever made it that far, always turning chicken about half way across the yard. When I think of it, I remember the heavy smell of roses hanging in the dark air, the coolness of the grass just on the verge of dew, and laughing with a sister I was usually bickering with under the brighter light of day. And maybe all of that didn’t happen on that same 4th….or maybe it did. Childhood sometimes coagulates that way in the adult mind and that’s okay. What I know is that memory is one my sister and I both count as one of our mutual favorites and I think of it every time I sit barefoot at dusk, watch fireflies, or light a sparkler with a child on the 4th.

So here’s a toast to the Fourth, Families, Food, and Fantastic Memories! Blessings to all~

Great post from Beth on this subject today. Check it out!

Open question:

“When you need to change something in your life, what motivates you to move from knowledge to action?”

• When are peanuts miracles? When there millions of them growing on a day so hot that surely they must be roasting right there in the sun, and the dry wind blowing my hair into my face smells thicker than the butter they soon will become.
• When are peaches miracles? When you’re eating one within 10 miles of the lush tree it was plucked from, grown to full ripeness that bursts in your mouth when your teeth break the skin, and the juice runs in golden rivulets of goodness down your chin.
• When is an afternoon rain a miracle? When you’ve been driving for 400 miles in an old van without air conditioning, a heat index over 100, and children sick and tired of months of road trips. When little tears of discouragement find their way from the corners of your eyes and from under the rim of your sunglasses, drying faster than the next breath from that hot wind. When a friend calls to say they are praying for you and within moments the sky starts to swirl with blue gray clouds, embracing the road ahead as if the clouds themselves were angel’s arms, and the resulting drops of cool water fall at such an angle as to not require the windows be closed. When that rain is really wild grace refreshing your spirit, kissing your tears, and giving you enough hope to keep on.
• When is a song lyric a miracle? When it so perfectly sums up what drives the next step, “Just because I’m losing doesn’t mean I’m lost, doesn’t mean I’ll stop.”

Just a few funny moments that came across because that delicious 3rd year is so preciously unique: He woke up the other day and said, “Mommy, I need a vampire for my nose.” (he meant a humidifier!) A friend of his sister’s was teaching him to sword fight and said, “en garde”. He responded with, “I God”.

In 10th grade, Mrs. Kravitz taught me that a good research paper is double spaced, with 1 inch margins all the way around. So when the words crowd together and the lines are too close to see between and there’s no room for a little red-ink-editing, it’s time for reformatting. Today I raise my glass to the goal of having a little more room in the margins. Cheers!

Many thanks to the phone calls and emails and comments I got encouraging me on my swim!

Today I swam again but this time I didn’t run or do strength training first. I was fresh and I had a good carb/protein breakfast. I completed all 16 laps across the pool! Some of them with a kickboard, some side stroke, 1 back, 1 breast…but the point was, I made it across, my breaks were shorter, and I didn’t feel like dying :-).

I probably can’t run AND ride after yet but I think I could one or the other. That’s what I’ll try next.

Onward!

Oh, and I guess we can still say, “It’s the ECONOMY, stupid”. Not going to wax verbose today on politics. But I would just like to say:

• I don’t care that Obama is black.
• I don’t care that Hillary is a woman.
• I don’t care that McCain is old.

I didn’t formulate my choice on anything but issues and the need for change. I resent the constant suggestion that an election has to be driven by race or gender or age issues. In fact, I consider those who keep proclaiming that it does to be further evidence of an “out of touch” mentality that I increasingly have little time for. Get a clue. When our backs are breaking from a system THAT DOESN’T WORK we can see past superficial, skin deep, facades and are quite intelligent enough to vote. Boxes are old-fashioned. That’s all the news from Lake Woebegone today folks…

Some random thoughts:

• Since my feet are planted in two cities, Knoxville and Jacksonville, I’ve decided to start writing reviews of my favorite places in each. They are two very similar cities that both feel like “home” to me so dual living just might end up being a pretty good fit. First up will be cupcake bakery reviews!
• I’m test driving a new social playground, Plurk.com! It’s FUN!! Some very smart people decided to take the micro-blogging format and add threaded conversations and a timeline, so that it’s more like a fleshy, rounded, romanesque version of Twitter. Come find me there and play along: I’m Sixredheads (of course!)
• I’m officially jealous of people with an office. I started my business in my closet and love the portability of laptop-working; in fact, that same ability to be mobile is what makes work life possible right now. But I do crave a quiet place to write actual content and think two thoughts in a row without an interruption!
• I only saw one entry for the Goal Progress Update. If you wrote one, make sure I have your link and I’ll choose the bag winner on Wednesday of this week!
• Two new blogs I found via Plurk: Mark’s Fitness site and Desi’s taste of Italy. Enjoy!

Awhile back, maybe 6 weeks or so ago, I started feeling aware of a need to dream some new dreams for myself. The purest fact is, my life has radically changed over the past year. Congruent to all this change, I’m also accomplishing several of my older dreams and goals. I see myself in a new light, a new context. Some of this is due to the therapy I’ve been going through while I coped with the divorce and the reasons for it… my inner voice has changed how I speak to myself, in every aspect from how I look to what I think I can do. Or, more honestly, it’s changing, present tense, because it’s a helluva thing to change about oneself and HARD.

Oprah used to say (maybe she still does) that, “God has bigger dreams for you than you can dream for yourself”. I love that spin on the scripture that talks about the “plans He has made”.  And I guess if God doesn’t keep us in static little boxes, neither should we do so to ourselves.

Ever since I was a little girl I’ve had the ability to “decide what to dream” as I fall asleep at night. I start by describing to myself a setting and imagining myself in it…then as I fall asleep my mind continues on, usually in full color and usually with a plot. Now and then I’ll dream little seemingly mundane moment in my subconscious mind and then years later actually find I’m living that moment, leading to a punch of deja vu that has taught me to pay close attention to the “setting” of those “mundane” moments in my dream hours. They can provide powerful contextual clues as to how my life is going to change in the future.

So when the thought came over me a few weeks ago that I needed some new dreams I had a choice: deliberately plan some or wait for new ones to arrive without my determination at work. I decided to wait. Something felt wrong, and very small, about list making and controlling it. I wanted to be surprised, to open my mind, to let something in that might be very different from anything I can presently conceive of. To decide on my own what to dream felt too restrictive and confined.

Waiting on a dream is a little tense. Or, at least, it can be. Without a future vision I’m not really sure what I’m working for and I’m the kind of person that needs to have a goal in sight in order to maintain endurance. Open ended work is discouraging to me and trials become monotonous and purposeless. Tracking back across the past month or so, I can see days that reflect that.

Revelations don’t happen in a big BANG in my experience….rather, there is a build up and repetition, though it may be subtle, in the days just before, that make the revelation, when it finally comes, ring more true. It feels right because even on a quiet, subconscious level, there has been some level of preparation going on. And so it goes: a friend will mention something here, an observation is made there, mental files are constructed, feelings are recorded into the body’s memory.

Yesterday I took my children to the beach. Our beach days sit within my Mother Remembrances as some of the most special, most fun, most jubilant days we’ve ever had together. The wide open space, the continuity of the ocean, the relaxation that comes from interacting with such a massive force…we are at once at peace and happy to be together. There has never been a sibling fight at the beach and “Mom always plays too”. Anytime I need that kind of healing reminder that there is something bigger than our lives and our problems, we head to the ocean. Even better is being there with loving friends, and such was our day yesterday.

Despite three applications of high level sunblock though, we all came away a bit burned. And with a heat index of 104, it only took a few hours to wear us out. We came home smiling but exhausted and as a result, had a pretty quiet day. By evening my mind felt clear and blank….I couldn’t concentrate but didn’t feel troubled by anything either. Just really, really light and spacious. I’ve felt that before while praying and meditating, but to my memory, not ever from the elements. It was a profound feeling of peace.

And a more ideal way to drift into sleep must not have ever been! I think I smiled as I fell, hearing loving words run through my thoughts as softly as my head rested on the pillow. A cologne sample nearby my bed permeated the air and crickets scratched at the stars. The dreams came vividly and strongly and when I woke up to white sunlight this morning, my thoughts became conscience extensions of the dreams. The contrast of how I typically do it, that is, deciding consciously what to think before sleep, hoping that it continues in dream land, occurred to me.  I was glad I had not attempted to control the gift of their coming. These dreams were full, “5 senses” dreams and I could fully remember them in the morning.

Today I’m wondering which of them will come true. Or perhaps what portion of all of them will become reality.  In a few places, I can trace them to memories. In every case they possessed content that in conservative smallness, I’d be tempted to doubt their possibility. But dreams aren’t really about being conservative or small or cautious. Dreams, by their nature, provide a way to envision a life or experience that is outside our realm and tightly drawn lines. They are not a pre-determined coloring book of artwork and that is why I’m glad I made the choice to wait for these. The result is amazement and curiosity and dare I say it?…. hope.

So I thought a little update might be called for…

I did indeed have a weepy, overwhelmed day in which I had little energy to carry my own load. And, after removing the job of “hoping” from the pile, I got several notes from loved ones who carried that job for me for a little while. And along the way….

• some nice stranger on the roadside cut the smoking belt from my van, ending the jet-noise and meaning we got home quite nicely.
• I  FOUND MY CAMERA…oh joy! It was in a bag I never put things in so had forgotten that one time I had, and in hours of music-less driving, remembered. So the car thief didn’t get it after all; just my  music and buds.
• the cats didn’t die. They panted the whole way but we had no Feline Fatalities and they are happily hiding under my dad’s spray booth at the moment. Mama Cat, nursing fine.
• If getting nasty, controlling email was a problem, it has been temporarily alleviated via a server fire that took out email and many sites for  a bit. Inconvenient to be sure but it’s not without it’s silver lining. I needed a spam-free day anyway!
• I made all my appointments and worked in a visit with an old friend besides.

Thank you to my blessings, both seen and unseen. I’m moving “onward” today and I know it’s because of such loving support. I’m thinking one can’t live very deliberately in a bubble.

Today is a bad day. Yesterday was a bad day too but it took a few more hours for the last straw to be drawn. I know it used to be my habit to try to find the “bright side” of bad days, like some kind of Emotional Spin Doctor. Then, it grew into a cynicism tinged with a survival instinct: tuck your head and press on, “it is what it is”.

I think life has room for both. I also think I’m finding some comfort in what Thomas More calls, “Dark Nights of the Soul” in his book of the same title. That is…when one is suffering, it’s okay to not work like a banshee to try to find the good in it. It’s okay to not numb it away. And it’s okay to feel tired and not like fighting on sometimes.

He uses the word, “Incubate”, and when I read it, it was like a warm blanket on a cold day (which, by the way would also be one way to incubate one’s hurting soul). He means to rest. To just feel what it is. To not aggressively wish it away or manipulate it. Take care and nurture yourself instead.

My counselor says something similar. She says, “Well you’ll need to be gentle with yourself right now. Be kind to yourself.”

Physically, of course, life does not always provide an actual niche to crawl into and sleep something off. There is no beach retreat or quiet hours sans responsibility in which to heal. So it’s those times when the emotional space needs to be found, even if the outer self is going about business as much as usual.

It’s why I say out loud now, “this is a bad day”. Honest acknowledgment is necessary for incubation, and ultimately, healing.

Yesterday my car was robbed; the petty thief stole my MP3 player with ear buds, my camera, and strung the contents of my daughter’s purse across the seat. I had to “herd cats”, making me very late leaving town. The same cats got deathly ill, puking and pooping simultaneously in the car (they were in a rabbit cage thank God). We missed our turn off and swung 2 hours out of our way, got stuck in paralyzing traffic. Then, the car AC broke; the smell of burning rubber from some belt stinging our noses. It took $82 dollars to fill my little van tank (oh the criminality of gas prices!!!). There was NO MUSIC the whole way and I was tired. Some nasty man in a truck made a loud comment to me through my window while I ate my burger. And then, my car started sounding like a loud jet.

I got where I was going, even in enough time to meet my goal. I got nasty, controlling email, reminding me that some problems will never go away. Then I got some sleep on a very comfy couch. And then I woke up this morning and looked at my most-beautiful red-headed nephew and sweetly-mischievous niece; oh baby days sweep past so quickly. I don’t know if the car will run well enough to make it to the next stop, the day of appointments waiting for me. The server, which hosts all my business sites in addition to another few thousand, had a transformer fire and is currently down. Life is uncertain.

But that final straw came over coffee, with sun just a little too bright and my eyes just a bit too heavy from sleep: Every time I travel, which is almost weekly and has been for months, I am leaving someone I love. It is one long, seemingly endless, chain of “good byes”, “I love you”, “be safe”. There are no arbitrary places I visit, no places I’m anxious to leave.

In order to meet responsibilities, I have to masochistically work *towards* more “good bye” moments. I have to press on, keep moving, taking care of this and that, going here and there. I have to bide my time and hope some things will still be there in a future that may have more permanence. I have to hope that everyone else on the road is sober, that the trucks have secured their loads, that they are paying attention when the rubber flies off their tires. I have to hope that 215,000 miles can add another 50,000 to it, and confidently at that. And on and on.

Bottom line: I have to hope.

Always Goodbye-ing eats away at the energy to hope. Maybe that’s where an Incubator is called for most: a safe quiet-yet-honest place to lick wounds and have some of that energy renewed, when there have been too many small losses to bear. Today I don’t have any answers or platitudes. Today I just want to rest and let someone else do the hard work of hoping. And on the inside, that’s what I’ll be doing.

I think it’s important to note that this doesn’t mean there is “hopelessness”. I’m not without it; rather, I’m too tired to strive for it at the moment and thankfully, have others around me who I trust. Having security with them makes them a vital part of an incubator because it’s SAFE to not always be strong and happy-clappy.

To have a bad day is normal and it is human. It can exist without martyrdom or depression or despair or accusation. I’m letting it BE, knowing it will pass, knowing it is here for today.

One week ago today the divorce was declared…a settlement having been reached two weeks before it was headed for a full trial. I’d gone into the courthouse under a very different set of expectations and came out before lunch with the whole thing rather done. There are still myriad of details of course, but essentially, the worst of it is over.

The true relief is that the trial, with it’s necessary accusations and contests, was avoided. And the reality of that relief will no doubt have a long ripple effect, at least the breadth of the dread I had of facing it. On my children’s faces, there is still that innocence protected, where so much other has been stripped away. Whether he realizes it or not, he did the right thing.

I took the week to absorb the news. There are scads of lists to be made, choices to discern. In the scope of “life altering events”, this one is a biggie and it seemed a “Divorce Moon” of sorts was called for. It didn’t involve anything tremendous…some quiet time to think, lots of work hours with worry set on the back burner, a trip to the ocean with children to swim and gather sea glass, conversations with friends, the therapist, a cupcake, and a margarita.

Since October I’ve lived out of a suitcase, a gypsie life not really a better fit than the too-snug shoes I’d left behind. We’ve seen new places and traveled and made memories that did their best to surpass their motivator. There’s been much love along the way…blueberry pancakes after living room slumber parties, snowy inns and goat farms, gas money slipped into my pockets when I was stone broke; friends who’ve let my cat have kittens on their porch, let my baby play on their trampoline, and family that built my children a new bedroom so they could put the travel bags away for awhile. Miraculously I didn’t miss the birth of my nephew and when I lost my beloved parish family due to logistics, it was a loss cushioned by love of others who understood that particular pain and sought to soothe.

For all the good and all the loss, I’m still just overwhelmingly grateful it’s a season that is done. Not unlike birth transition, it’s the hardest part and The Only Way Out is Through. And just like holding the wet and slippery infant that miraculously made its passage, this a beginning, not the destination. Categories of Life that had their “pause” buttons pushed will begin to play again and new ones will be uncovered in a maze of discovery once locked away. I have only felt the merest dawning of that moonrise; a week is, after all, not long enough.

And little children once socially hesitant, emotionally bruised, who started this season more battle-weary than we could find words for, show the most healing. Laughter and friendships and adventurous-spirits return, showing me once again that children make the most reliable barometers of environmental climate that there ever was. That I will protect this new daring trust on their part like a Mother Bear should go without saying and yet I want to utter the words. One does not go through the fire without knowing what they are fighting for.

There have been long hours, awake in the quiet of starry Florida nights, wondering how to live deliberately in a time such as this. It’s indeed difficult to do so when lying in a realm of limbo, no real closure available and decisions prohibited by ongoing litigation. I never felt free to exhale completely, to take a step forward without testing it with my weight several times before really relying on the integrity of the support. Last Monday I let out a huge breath and stepped off the curb to my car with confidence that had been building up, ready for the day it’s number would be called. I will not go forward with perfection but with determination, forgiveness, and curiosity. I suppose the point being, “I will go forward”.

found on Mimi’s blog today:

Outside My Window …it is urban, with sidewalks and trees planted with square grates surrounding their bases.

I am thinking … about cupcakes.

I am thankful for …the help of my parents.

From the kitchen … I haven’t been in one today.  Strange but true.

I am wearing … Flirt jeans from Old Navy, a blue t-shirt, and sandals.

I am creating …blogs for a living.  Strange but true.

I am going … to meet new people today.

I am reading … Dark Nights of the Soul…quite possibly one of the best “self-help” books I’ve ever read.

I am hoping … and that in and of itself is a miracle.

I am hearing … the voices of friends, talking in the next room.

Around the house …my family is visiting with rarely seen relatives and catching up.

One of my favorite things … Rainex for windshields.

A Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week: Cupcakes. Meetings. Driving. Phone calls. Hoping.