Late night musings

So here's the deal.  I am tired.  Nothing new there, I know I am always saying I am tired.  Yet I really think I am a high energy person.  I run and talk to do all the time it seems like.  Not really.  I have plenty of time to sit and watch TV, especially in the evening with Nick.

The last time I wrote, I wrote about trying to see the good and look past what "needs" to be done.   I have been really trying, and am succeeding.  But doing something new like this is hard.

On the weekend I planted most of the plants I have bought for the front of the house and for my window boxes and containers.  I am really happy about that.  It's funny how they were just limp little flower, in need of water when I put them into the ground.  After planting and watering them you could almost see them straighten up and say "ahh, that's more like it".   They look happier with their roots in the ground.  The rain today has helped too.

I spent a part of my day doing things for my family members.   Going to appointments and learning, or at least getting some ideas on how to facilitate change.

I cancelled some appointments and made some new ones.

I pulled some weeds when I was outside in the rain with the dog.  Weeds are much easier to pull when the ground is wet.

By evening I was worn out.  Emotionally I was drained.  All of the appointments I made were of an emotional nature in one way or another.  How to help one person to launch from the nest and helping another launch, temporarily to somewhere dangerous.  Feelings of undertoad are lurking.

Love and attachment are everything.  But, they are frightening.  The more you have, the more you have to lose.   But, if you have nothing to lose, you have nothing at all.

I am at a point in my life where my contemporaries and myself are saying we don't want to get old.  That aging sucks.  Well, I guess the reason we/ I feel like this is that physical restrictions are becoming a reality.  And they can only get more profound with time and greater age.   I'll be 59 in less than a week.  I am fat and my knees hurt.   I sweat too much.   I am getting pimples- what's that all about.   I go to the gym, and I know that contributes greatly to my well being.  I do have greater stamina and mobility than I did before starting to work out.  I am not taking diet seriously enough, hence I have a huge belly that gets in my way when I do Pilates.

My family loves me as I am (though I know they want me to lose weight and be healthier).  The moms and babies I help have only know the "current" me.  They seem to love me too.  Or if not love, at least appreciate me.   I make a difference most of the time.

I know, I should write a book!  I am always being told that.  I have so many stories.  But everyone does.   And right now, this is my bedtime story as I head off to the land of nod....... 

We are the "us" of the neighborhood

We have always had the most, shall we say, informal yard in the neighborhood.  We do keep the grass cut and have beautiful azaleas and stuff.  But we have never been successful at having a perfect, weed-free lawn and sculpted flower beds.  I am not sure if it is because we don't care, or don't try, or are not capable.    I really don't know.

I know that when Nick and I are out driving, if we  are driving through a "perfect yard" neighborhood, there is inevitably a yard that is not as well kept up.  We always say that they are the "us" of their neighborhood.

So where am I going with this?   Well, it's kind of like this;  I always want things to be better.  I want the house to be cleaner, I want my closets to be more organized , I want the yard to look good.  When I look around, I see the things that "need" to get done.  I get sad sometimes because I feel that I will never have the elusive whatever it is I imagine I want.  I want my house to look like a magazine- both inside and out.  Just like I want my body to- but that's another story.

I am outside in the back yard several times a day with the dog.   Every time I go out I see the mess of it all.   It overwhelms me.  I have spend many long hot hours working in the yard and getting poison ivy to show for it.  I haven't have a strong enough desire to make it nice, to actually do the work.  I think about hiring someone just about every day.  I have hired people in the past and had beautiful work done.    Then a part of me feels guilty spending our money on that.

This last week, Austin did a lot of cleaning up in the back yard.   Yet, every time I have gone out there, instead of noticing all the work that has been done, I focus on what still needs to get done.

Something has changed and I am finding myself, sometime not easily, trying to see the positive.   When I was outside yesterday doing my usual critique in my head, I noticed some really nice things.  The azaleas in the back are getting ready to bloom.  The rose bushes that Carol and Nick gave me last summer are looking good and healthy.   The climbing hydrangea on the back fence is really "climbing" all over the fence and looking great.

So, what I am doing is making myself look past the undone and see the done- the beauty, the good.   So we have some debris in the yard- hey, we have a yard.  How lucky is that?   We have a house.   Is is not perfect and never will be.   But we do have a home.

I get so caught up on the fingerprints on the door frames and the dishes sitting in the counter waiting to be loaded into the dishwasher.  But, hey, we have walls.  We have appliances.  We have clean (enough) water and more shelter space than we need.

We have cars so we can get to places.   And we have places to go.

Yea, our materiel needs are met.  But somehow I feel a lack anyway.  I need to look beyond the torn upholstery and realize how lucky we are to even have furniture.

I am trying.  I have to constantly catch myself and look beyond the things that need fixing and fix my expectations.

This week in Boston has been a real upsetting and tense time for the whole country.   There were two devices blown up during the Boston Marathon.  There were three deaths then and two more later- the later being an MIT police man, and the other was one of the bad guys on the run. The second and probably last of these men was arrested and is critical care unit at the hospital.

The youngest of the two men was finally captured last night.   I am glad he was captured.   I know that he is responsible for death and mutilation.  I have no idea what would make a brain think that this is okay.  Or, of not okay, how would you even think of doing these things.

And yet I feel sad for the younger guy.  He is only 19.  His life is ruined.  He was, according to teachers and friends, a nice and very smart guy and a good student.  I have seen pictures of him, and I cannot vilify him.  I just wish he had remained an anonymous person in my little corner of the world.  Maybe he could have become a doctor and saved people's life instead of destroying them .  He's just a kid, and I am sad.

And I am falling asleep at the keyboard now.

Nite nite

now back to your regularly scheduled program

AuntNancyKnitsBaby Hats

Friday night at almost midnight

I have been thinking and thinking about writing here for the last few days, or nights whatever.  Usually, when I am trying to get to sleep I start to think about what I have to say.   How is it that I am so clever and profound when I am not at the keyboard.  And when I sit here I struggle?   I guess that's normal.

I spend [way too much] time on Facebook, and see mentions and pictures of places we have lived.  I get wistful.  There was a picture of snow falling in a street light in Tromso, Norway the other day.   I commented on how I remembered not being able to see the house across the street when it snowed hard when we were living there.

There was a short video of Thailand I saw and I thought back to how much time we spent there.  First, two years in Bangkok, where Courtney was born.  Then, three years later, in Chiang Mai.

And of course there's Perth, Western Australia.   I see pictures of WA (Western Australia) and I feel a little bit homesick.

I never really thought much about having a "bucket list", but I guess I really do have one.  I want to go back to every place we have lived overseas.   The place we lived in Bangkok had been knocked down, but I still have friends in the city who I would love to see and possibly stay with.  I am pretty sure our old house in Chiang Mai is still there.  So many of my "old" friends are too.

And on and on.  There are more places that we lived too.  I'd like to visit them as well.   But the places I mentioned just now have a special place in my heart.

Thailand because my first child was born there.  And when went back three years later, I lead my first La Leche League group there and made some friends for life.

Norway is special because my roots are there.  I feel that my soul is in the air and the soil of Norway.   My grandfather and those before him are buried there.  And of course, my third child was born there.

Perth, well, when we went there, all of the kids were in school and I got to be a "grown up" diplomat's wife for the first time.  I got to dress up and wear high heals and feel beautiful.  I got to undress and go to the nude beach and feel wonderful.   we had some rough times there as a couple, Nick and I.  But the place was so beautiful.  The people so real.   I was connected with the breastfeeding community as a lactation consultant and as a LLL Leader.  I got to play many roles and loved it.

I didn't mention Hong Kong and China,  I have friends (again through LLL) in Hong Kong.  They were there when I visited before my last baby was born.  And they were there for me when my last baby was born unexpectedly 8 weeks premature in Hong Kong.  Some of them who still live there have done wonderful things to promote and change the breastfeeding culture for the better.

And now, I need to get to bed.   I have loads more to write, but it will have to wait.