We Are Not Alone

I've come to realise just what a unique position I was in.

My husband travelled for his job, leaving every week before the sun rose on Monday morning and returning usually after midnight on Friday. For nine years, I was 'home alone' for four days each week, and then on Fridays from 7am-7pm while he was in the office. I was alone on birthdays - but thankfully not on birth days. I was alone on holidays. I was alone on anniversaries. And, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary - including my own upbringing, for most of those nine years I thought everyone lived like this.

I thought everyone was vigilant and wakeful at night. Everyone with children, at least. I thought everyone was scheduled and structured and spent their time always on, always busy, unable to relax. I thought everyone kept calm and carried on.

And I knew lots of people had it worse than I did. So I didn't complain. Not overtly. Outgoing introverts seek other outlets.

I busied myself, as you do, with the goings-on of my children. With the forced friendships of 'Mommy-and-Me' classes at the pool. With the friends who hadn't abandoned us when we left the city for the suburbs. With overseeing the maintenance of a first house. With scheduling visits and roadtrips and long walks and meals. And in all of this scheduling, I lost myself. Literally. I lost the ability to see clearly the situation I lived in. The incessant busyness of cleaning and decluttering and surfing the web, and sourcing and researching and volunteering built a wall between my life and 'the rest of the world.'

And so I became a bystander. Where once I had carried giant balloons in festival parades for the World Cup, I was now carrying Red Robin balloons tethered to Vera Bradley bags. Where I once had hopped a plane to Seattle 'just because', I was now drinking 'Pete's Blend' on a bench surrounded by prairie grass. Gloriously, I had turned my life into a role I longed to play but with a script I couldn't read. And I seemed, like a voyeur, to be watching it all happen from the cheap seats.

I remember the day I first thought: "I did this to survive." It was five months after my younger son was born and I was planning the daily 'afternoon outing'. Recalling both the freedom of my own youth and the memories of long days spent in offices with windows that wouldn't open, I wanted my children to spend as much time outdoors as possible regardless the weather. As I was planning where to go on that bitterly cold day, my best friend phoned to cancel her plans to join us. Her oldest was sick the day before and it was travelling through the family at breakneck speed. I made plans with her to get food and drink on her table that night when she said something that threw me: "I keep thinking that I just have to make it until 6pm and then he'll be home and I can relax."

I have no idea how many times she'd uttered this phrase previously. A dozen times? Perhaps a hundred times. But it was like reading a verse or hearing a song that you've heard so many times before and only now really understanding what it means. She only had hours to wait until she could relax. She only had hours. I had days. It was just Tuesday, after all. I had days. Days before I felt like I might be able to relax. Days, actually just a precious 48 hours, that would be chewed up and spit out and then Monday would come again. And then I would have more days. And I realised that not everyone lived like this.

I went through the afternoon focused on getting the meal prepared for her. I piled the children in the station wagon and drove the 30 minutes to her house. After setting the table, getting the oven prepped, and cleaning up what messes I could, I made the reverse trip with both the rush hour traffic and the realization that I was in a new place emotionally closing in on me. Later that night, when the boys had been lovingly sanitized from our trip into that familiar but infected home, I sat on my sofa in front of 'Location, Location, Location' on the DVR and sobbed.

I didn't answer the phone when my husband called that night. I listened to the voice mail he'd left with a numbness spreading through me. I remember ringing him back, cognizant of the distance in both my heart and my voice. I remember thinking how unfair I was being. How removed. How cold. He told me I was. And I remember thinking "I did this to survive. I did it to survive being alone and what it feels like to be alone. I am alone and I don't want to be. You made me be alone."

We are made to be in relationships. We are not made to be alone. That we have to or that we believe that it's OK if we are is a lie. No one earns points for being alone in a world that is full of harmonies and dissonances and complements and contrasts.

Two years ago, I asked to not be alone anymore. He said, "I never meant for you to feel alone. Because you never seemed like you were."



Today's conundrum:
If we pay to have something installed 'within 48 hours', are weekends included in that 48-hour window?

Future conundrum:
Do fish really gotta swim and birds really gotta fly?

Thanks for perusing the blog. Speak again soon.   tIO x

More Patience

I'm doing some remodelling of the blog right now. Seems like each week, a widget gets updated (or rewritten), pics and videos are lost, or I find a lovely new blog to add to the blogroll. However, I am nothing if not regularly striving to be organized. So this time, instead of plonking down with a book and silently fretting about it, I am doing something. It may take some time and might include using posterous. Or not. We'll see.

Regardless, like every thing else, this blog is a work in progress. I'm even thinking of posting some 'before-after' photos of our house, which has undergone (and continues to undergo) a transformation from its previous owners. During our house hunt, I described it to my husband as 'well-cared for' and having 'good bones', but in need of 'a decorating overhaul' as it's decor resembled a Marriott from the 1980s. The early 1980s. Alright for some (clearly); just not our style. And what a boring world this would be if we all liked the same things, eh?

Here's a tease:

the Master Bedroom 'before'

Meanwhile, please excuse the mess. And thanks for perusing; blog you again soon!  tIO x

Flip a Coin

Or don't. Use this:


Yes, no, maybe so. Thanks for perusing this blog; blog you again soon!   tIO x

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

So, how enamored am I of the holidays? Plenty! This morning, my husband brought me a gingerbread bagel (with low-fat hazelnut cream cheese) and a half-decaf-half-hot-chocolate. Divine. "City sidewalks, busy sidewalks, dressed in holiday style..."

Now I know that I talk/type a good game and tell you after each long drought of posts that I'm back, but truth is...I sometimes have no idea what to write.

And I have long arguments with my body about my health which also distracts me from writing.

I haven't posted about this because it is just not interesting to me. I live it every day. But I broke my ankle just over three years ago and the impact it has had on my life has been unfortunately dramatic.

I have 10 screws and a plate in my right ankle. They are daily nuisances, and yes - I can predict the weather. My rehab was suspect, or so my new physical therapist tells me, and I can no longer run or 'go to my left'. My rehab surgeon assured me that I would be doing windsprints within weeks; my reumatologist assured me that my tennis days were over. Oh - and I should count-out ever 'running to greet my grandchildren'.

First, I have no grandchildren. Second, that's a pretty harsh statement to make to a 30-something mother of two young boys, both of whom depend on their mother to be, well, mobile.

These three years have taught me a lot more than I think I learned in the previous three decades. And at the end of all of it, I have a wonderful family, and a loving God.

OK. That's the first installment. Possibly the last. Rehashing my ankle-drama feels trite to me. Again, I have been living with it. So maybe, if you read this and you have questions, I can respond to them through the comments.

Time to sit back and listen to 'Carmen, Ohio'. After I pull the boys up out-of the rumpus room where they are engaged in StarWars Legos battles and humming the theme from 'the Price is Right', my husband's new Wii game.

It's in your head now, too, isn't it?

Current conundrum: Is the turkey baster used for basting turkeys any longer? Or is it used more for syphoning gas from the mower to use in the snowblower?

Future conundrum: Will the real President-elect please stand up? I re-watched the speech from the 2004 DNC. He seems a different - totally different - person to me now. Why?

Thanks for perusing this blog; blog you again soon!

That's a good question

So my husband said: "What happened to the inveterate optimist?"

So I said: "You think I should still be blogging?"

So he said: "You think you shouldn't?"

Enough said.

I'm back - though not at this moment. I have ears to wash, jammies to put on, and little ones to tuck in. Bear with me while life joyously interrupts again. Tonight it's the end of Winter of the Ice Wizard!

The first "post-game analysis"

Blogging, blogging. blogging. It can be a full-time job (not that I would know).

Here we are in the full bloom of May. Anyone else out there under water? My older son stated very matter-of-factly: "God must have plans for all of this rain. But do you think He wants to rain-out ALL of my games?"

We are a Little League family. Given my adoration of the sport, you must imagine how I feel when it hits me every game day that I have a Little Leaguer. Jubilation! I worried about what kind of sports parent I would be. Would I be the one screaming from the sidelines, or pacing behind the bench, or throwing the first punch?

I needn't have been concerned. I was raised by two people who love sports, and who, more importantly, are sportsmen. (PLEASE NOTE: Gender neutrality is observed in all TIO blogs.) My father was a coach - who also instilled a love of the game in his players. Do your best. Have fun. Run it out. Hustle on and off the field. Cut your hair and wipe the dirt off your lip. My mother was the consumate fan - who also kept those around her both informed of the count and the best stain removers and hand sanitizers. Cheer for your team. Never boo anyone. Bring snacks. Don't leave before it's over. They both believed in writing on home-run balls, hot showers for sore muscles, and rewarding effort with kindness and a pat-on-the-back - but rarely ice cream.

So where do I fall? I surprised myself. During the first game, I video-taped my older son's first Little League at-bat, which resulted in a run. I set-up chairs for my younger son and myself, and sat - cheering for each player on both teams - until the game was called for darkness. Then, as it was our turn to bring them, I got up and handed out the snacks to the team. More accurately, I opened the boxes of rice-crispy-treats and CapriSun Sport drinks and stood back to avoid being trampled. The surprise for me was this: I wasn't nervous for him. I didn't think that he was succeeding or failing - regardless of what I did. It's not about me. Further, I don't want to go out there and do it for him. I thought I might. This is his sport to learn - and love - now.

Post-game, my son was giddy, and his younger brother asked him repeatedly how baseball was (to play). "Is it good, John? Is it fun? Is baseball good?" His reply made me misty: "It's the best fun ever, Teddy."

Today's conundrum: Have we become a "my way or the highway" society? Parenting is rough when you're fighting against this societal phenomenon. We all struggle with pride. We all want to feel/be important. But when your child is astute enough to question the difference between obedience and a need to control, where do you go for back-up? I don't want every moment, every decision to be a battle. That's just silly. But, I do want a balance between their "coming to heel" and becoming responsible people. I think back on my life and wonder how I made it this far. Stupidity is sometimes masked by youth and inexperience, you know. But still, how do you govern your home without vascilating between being a Shrek and a pollyanna? The "Golden Rule" still rules as a better way to live, I think.

Future conundrum: Is it possible to have a meal entirely comprised of food with the word "pop" in the names, e.g. popcorn, Poptarts, popovers, soda pop? Is this responsible? Is this healthy? Comment to your heart's content.

Thanks for perusing this blog. Blog you again soon!

An adventure on the soapbox

Globalness. My husband, in his business, actually distinguishes between "being international" and "globalness". There you go. Sit back; have a laugh. No, it's not a word. But some concepts are just bigger than any word in the known English language. Globalness sounds pretty big to me. To his credit, my husband is working to eliminate the rampant use of "leveraging" in the documents his firm produces. ("Leveraging" - pervasive in the colloquial, but also not a word.) Truly mesmerizing, isn't it? Especially when you hear something frequently. It matters not how incorrectly words are used. (That was a VERY correct sentence, wasn't it?) What matters - and does so conclusively to the detriment of our lovely language - is the frequency with which you are exposed to the misuse. Please know that I am not immune; and when I realize my errors, I stand corrected. (By the way, how did that phrase - "I stand corrected" - come to be?) Therefore, I admonish you to consider your communications - verbal or otherwise. Little (and big) ears are listening.

Today's conundrum: Why are there boys in the Girl Scouts? Conversely, why are there girls in the Boy Scouts? Hey, everybody!...(imagine Grover hollering at...well, everybody)...girls and boys are different! We are interested in different things. We learn and experience life differently. We react to life differently. God made us wonderfully unique as genders. What is going on? - big leap - Will history bear out just how horribly the "I-know-better-than-you" baby-boom generation, who gave us the glorious 60's revulsions, destroyed the better fabric of our republic? I certainly hope that posterity will see what I see. Long live John Adams! Huzzah!

Future conundrum: When will "black" be the "new black"? I go through phases where I see no need to wear color as anything other than an understated accessory. Of course, I call them phases because there are times when black plays that same understated role.

Thanks for perusing this blog. Blog you again soon!