Really...really

I'm not in Kansas anymore. Sometimes. Actual quote from a recent date:

" Some people call relationships compromises, I call them sacrifices. Like if you wanted me to come over after work cause you were making dinner. Well, I'd have to drive home and take a shower then  drive to your house. I might not feel like doing that, so I would sacrifice doing what I want for doing what you want."

Um No, no you don't have to. You can go home alone and microwave your popcorn. I'm good. Really?

I'm not sure if he understood the concept of a date. I'm happy to report I am plugging along. 11 down 9 to go on the challenge.
I'm realizing a few things. I need a shtick...or a stick sometimes. I am quite comfortable talking with complete strangers about the intimate details of their lives, I get paid to do that. But talking with someone to discover if they are interesting enough to talk to again, a bit more of a challenge.

Red Tent mate Linda asked me, not so directly this week, to stop diagnosing my dates on the first date.
If only they made it harder! ( ode to Michael Scott) ( those of you who know are laughing). I really do leave my therapist hat at home, and have excused myself from dates where it seems the only logical step would be to ask for a copy of his insurance card. I'm sure it's not a calming thought when my profession is revealed. I've thought of trying to find  a way around it but I can't. But when it comes down to it. I'm just a girl looking for a guy...

To be fair, things have been looking up, a few intelligent, warm men who have opposite weekends with their kids from me, but we will work it out. I love being free to date a few different men at a time. I love freedom
on so many levels.

And I know, when the right guy comes along, it won't be a sacrifice, it will be a pleasure.

Launching

Imagine the amount of energy used to launch the Space Shuttle into orbit. Past the gravitational pull of the earth, free to fly it's mission. I would not want to be under that thing, see all the fire? and yet...

Imagine the amount of energy used to launch a child out into their lives. Past the gravitational pull of their family, free to fly their own course. A woman I truly see as one of the best mothers I know came to me when her oldest daughter was entering her senior year of high school, in tears. Her heart was heavy with the knowledge that it was the last real summer as a whole family, and except for fortunate times ahead, counting on being together, was over. When we spoke in May she had a very different attitude, more like, " Here's your hat, don't let the door hit you on the way out!" Mother Nature provides for us a shift so we can let them go, it gets harder to live together. They lunge for their freedom, we miss what has been lost. Conflicting needs, desires and viewpoints abound.

As the Aunt of 13 I am in a position to view this several times before living it fully. Although I am quite aware of the torturous process of the slow death of childhood in my own home, I have a 19 year old niece who is on the launching pad and the countdown has begun. There were some problems with the initial launch, which is why she is still on the pad a few months before her 20th birthday. And according to my brother, it is all very painful. Now we can choose to stay in the moment and argue about cleaning rooms and stealing clothes from siblings and curfews, or we can acknowledged what is really happening. She is leaving, as children are supposed to do, and it hurts. It is far easier and more distracting to stay focused on the daily irritations, but I think we all miss out on something if we do that. She is leaving, and it hurts. It hurts us both, the pushing off of and pulling away from the gravitational pull of the family. Neither side in unscathed. But we can make it easier on both sides if we take the time to acknowledge our children a gift that life has given us. We were only promised that gift for a time period, and then the gift has to take what we gave it and go, and become. And if we are lucky, they will want to return to visit from time to time.

It is our job to make sure the launching pad is in good shape, without chunks missing so as to delay launch.
We need to make sure we are capable to do our job and be a solid force for them to push off of, just as they leaned against us when that was required.

I know Alex is on the blocks being driven to the launch site. I am thankful to have the two short years in front of me to look for last minute tweaking double check all systems ready, and enjoy him. I know those years will be marked only by moments of togetherness just like the check lists for the final count down. I look forward to our vacations together as the time approached where Spring Break will take the place of April vacations. I hope and pray I have done all I can do to create a launch pad for him to push off of, knowing that push will be more painful than the first pushes that gave him life. Already the contractions are "You are too tight on me", he said. "What do you mean?", I  inquiry. He almost never hears no to any request because he does all I could ever ask of him. He sleeps out most weekends, both nights, goes to parties, has already kissed the garage with my car and basically runs his own life ( brilliantly I might add).      " It's just a feeling" he says. And to myself I say "And you are too far away...:-( " But that's what is supposed to happen.

In the meanwhile, I am going to invest in a fire retardant suit.  Oh wait, I already have one, my dreams,my plans for the future are what I am wrapped in while each child pushes off of me. Get your launch pad ready folks, like it or not, they are going.

Fair is fair

One of the corner stones of my parenting philosophy and therapy practice is, I do not expect more from those around me than I ask of myself. To that end, one of the rules in our house is the kids cannot swear if I'm not, and I usually don't ( in front of them anyway). But if I mess up, and I have been know to on occasion, then they can say whatever swear I said, the same amount of times I said it, without repercussions. This got me in trouble a bit when I would be singing along with some of the country songs. " Mom , you just sang " hell" now I get to say it.  " I would smile sweetly and say, " Yeah, you just did, we are even". They got wise and would just not mention it, and count them up and at times use them all at once.
It was a little cute. My oldest son often criticizes my parenting by complaining, "We are like the only kids I know who do not swear."  Still trying to see how that's a bad thing. We talk about verbal integrity and being clear with what you mean. When a study came out saying swearing when you hurt yourself, like stub your toe, actually reduces pain, they were granted permission to swear in those times. Another criticism from my first born, "You are always reciting studies, I don't care what the studies say". Ah the downside of being born to a mental health professional. Poor kid.

But now I have to take some responsibility for something. I do expect more of them than I myself give, and it needs to stop. I have been trying since January to loose the weight I have been carrying around for 5 years now. Some is gone, but I am still far from my goal. Did I say I had been trying? Well yes, whenever I am not eating chocolate, I am trying. I walk fast several times a week. I eat healthy 80% of the time, and then I get bored, or frustrated and I eat sugar. It occurred to me last night, after some pretty devastating sights in a dressing room mirror, that I cannot expect my children to avoid drugs if I am not willing to avoid the most common one.

being above the influence means different things to different people

Sugar. Studies ( there I said it again) show the addictive quality of it, and yet I ignore that and give into the temptation when times are a little tough. Isn't that what alcoholics & drug addicts do? Use their drug to cope with tough emotions? And, like an addict, I am incapable of moderation. It's not one piece. it's many. I may not even be hungry, and once I start, the sugar makes me crave more. Diabetes runs in my family. You'd think that also would motivate me. But I need to return to my philosophy, which to date has worked out really well. I am holding myself accountable now and going forward, to be a better mom, I need to walk the talk.   And now I have to go walk my walk. Happy Easter Everyone!

Mantras

I deal with them all the time. So many of us run our lives by unaware mantras softly whispered in the back of our minds. So softly that we often can't hear them until faced with the silence of a therapist's office.  I am an escavator of those mantras, introjects as we call them in my field. Thoughts so firmly and deeply planted in our minds they form how we approach life. " I am worthless", " I don't count", " I am unlovable". I am on my current soapbox after just hanging up with a woman friend of mine. Great woman, well educated, beautiful, funny as all get out, loving mom. And she forgot.

She forgot all that she is. A bump in a relationship left her shroud in self doubt and feeling ugly and worthless. A bump. In a relationship hardly out of it's embriotic phase. We women need a swift kick in the arse sometimes. So we talked, & I got tough, (who lil' o me?). She said she needed to know where the relationship was at, he hasn't been as attentive the past few days as he was before she revealed something a little vulnerable about herself. He also told her he was heading into a very busy time with work and finishing up his post secondary education this week. I told her she was being a " girl". Groan ! we tend to get off balance too easily, look too much for their response to us,( forget we are also in a position of choosing) , think we must have done something wrong ( illussion of control) and frequently look for the meta message as opposed to taking a man at his word. "he was heading into a very busy time with work and finishing up his post secondary education this week."
 " But I need to know" she cried. So I got really tough- " All you need to know, all that all of us need to know,  all we can know, is we can handle whatever comes our way." There are no assurances in life, anyone we love may/ will disappoint us, betray us, leave us. But we can handle it. We are enough.

Physician heal thyself. And I have come along way. Leaving an abusive relationship, ( took years) picking myself up off the ground after loosing a huge love (again took years), wrestled with self doubt. Good thing life is a marathon, and not a sprint. Plenty of time to learn the lessons put in front of us and reap the benefits of peace and contentment. Yep that's it Peace & Contenment. No awards, financial gains, or infamy. It's really rather undramatic.

I expect I will take another turn around the self -doubt bend again before my life is over. But for now, I am firmly planted, I am enough, and so are you.