Construction-Zone Craziness

September 26, 2011 by ·

When we initially started talking about buying our first house, my husband thought it sounded dreamy to buy a fixer-upper we could work on ourselves.

I told him he was crazy.

This was almost 10 years ago, mind you. Before dog, before kid, before we were married, even. I think it’s safe to say life was simpler at the time, and yet I couldn’t imagine diving into a reno and trying to live in the house at the same time. Thanks but no thanks. No way, Jose. Not a chance.

In the end, somewhat ironically, we bought a house in a new development. We picked the colours, the countertops, the cabinets. We watched the walls go up and the windows go in. When it was done, we moved in knowing we didn’t have to do anything. We didn’t even have to change a lightbulb.

Fast forward 9 1/2 years and we’re living in what feels like a construction zone. We’re sprucing things up and fixing things that need to be fixed after inhabiting this space for this many years, more recently with a precocious child who likes to make holes in things and draw on walls. (Magic Erasers are my new best friend.) It’s not a massive undertaking, but it’s starting to feel like it.

We started some of this work in June and then promptly abandoned it (long story), so we’ve been living with spackle-filled holes above our shower and a few other things as part of the scenery ever since. But about three weeks ago we started again in earnest. More holes have been patched, sanded and painted. A wonky skylight no longer looks as though it might share the next heavy rainfall with us. Furniture has been pulled into the middle of the room so we can tackle walls and baseboards.

It’s no large-scale kitchen reno, but it still feels like a construction zone with paint brushes in the kitchen sink and a layer of dust on everything thanks to post-spackle sanding.

Today my husband boldly climbed up to the skylight in our ensuite and fixed the seal around it. Which, understandably, involved the creation of a really big mess. He cleaned it up fairly well, but it will have to be sanded and painted tomorrow so there’s no point getting picky about things tonight. Still, I had to do some sleuthing before bed to figure out where my toothbrush went.

As I brushed I noticed the debris around the sink – pieces of wall and putty and dust and goodness knows what else. Then getting into bed I saw that our duvet was covered in grit. Well, shake it off. Literally. I picked it up, gave it a shake and dumped the grit on the floor.

The mess is temporary, but it’s driving me batty.

I realize this is all a big whine about something insignificant. Something I should be (and am) grateful we’re able to do. In fact, I’m especially grateful for all the work my husband is doing right now – that he’s able to do it all himself and working hard to get it done quickly is not something I take for granted. So yes, this is what you might call a first world problem.

But here’s the thing: I don’t do well in this environment. I get squirrelly enough with clutter – I create my fair share of it, but it makes me crazy. So this is all a bit much.

Every night around 7:00 my husband and I start to get snippy. The cranky cues are subtle – a short fuse when it comes to noisy toys, less patience for repeated requests for a TV show we both hate, and the undercurrent of Oh-God-we’re-never-going-to-get-this-done-and-I-can’t-take-it-anymore in our conversations.

I know – am aware with every fibre of my being – that I could very quickly become a nightmare to live with right now. But I’m determined not to go back there. I am trusting this process to get us where we want to go and in doing so I’m focused on finding a way to live with it – a not insignificant effort that will involve more mood control than I’m usually able to muster.

This is important though and, yes, temporary. So until we’re done I will find a way to overcome the craziness and just be.

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Filed Under: Be enough me, Hard things · Tagged With: , ,

Genius, Power and Magic: Commitment and a Leap of Faith

September 16, 2011 by ·

I refuse to spend all my time doing something I’m not totally passionate about.

Bold statement, I know. One of those easier-said-than-done things. Ah, but there’s a gap in that expression. The continuum is not merely “say” or “do”. Not at all. It’s actually much simpler than that.

Let me explain.

You’ve probably heard this quote by Goethe:

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

I love this couplet – it is language dressed to the nines, glittering diamonds draping the dots and dashes of otherwise everyday words making them beautiful.

But these words, to me, are missing something. They’re the destination, not the journey. They suggest one must know the ultimate end as though it were a painting – visualized, sketched and shaped, then painstakingly created with deliberate brushstrokes until the last drop of paint is in place and the picture is revealed.

But life doesn’t work that way.

It can’t work that way.

We just can’t know.

Enter W.H. Murray.

Mr. Murray lived centuries after Goethe and spent three years as a prisoner of war, during which time he wrote the first draft of his first book – which was subsequently destroyed by the Gestapo – on toilet paper. His was a decidedly less poetic life, though not short on boldness.

One of Murray’s books contains the following passage, often written in the form of a poem and misattributed to Goethe:

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.

Murray’s original work is clear: “I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets,” he wrote at the end of that paragraph, and then quoted the more well-known genius/power/magic couplet, forever linking them and causing his words to be credited to another.

In any case, I think what he’s basically saying is this:

Sometimes you just have to take the leap and build your wings on the way down

That’s what I believe, too. Sometimes we just have to place our faith in the universe (or God or Allah or whatever you believe in) and take that leap, knowing that each of us has within us what it takes to get where we want to be. It doesn’t even really matter if we don’t know exactly where that is.

Sometimes you just have to take the leap and build your wings on the way down.

I have leaped before, into the unknown, knowing nothing except where I wanted not to be. And I’ve found what Murray suggests to be true: Upon committing to something, things start to happen. Sometimes the path goes sideways for a bit, or even backwards, but if you stick with it you will end up where you’re supposed to be. It might not be where you wanted to end up, mind you, but it is where you’re supposed to be. I believe that to be true.

That’s why I have, again, taken the leap. I have decided to be bold and have committed to something big – something that will ultimately require change, not only for me but for my family. I did it in my usual, dramatic way (which is another post entirely) but in doing so I have allowed providence to move, and I’m already seeing the results of that in ways I never could have predicted.

I did it because I don’t want to be stuck in a life I know isn’t right.

I don’t know what the end state is, what the dream looks like, but I have begun it anyway. I have invited genius, power, and magic into my life by taking a leap.

I am building my wings as I go, and once they start to take shape I will share with you the journey they will carry me on. I don’t know what that journey is right now.

I just know what it isn’t.

 ***
writers' week

Prompt: “I refuse to spend all of my time…”

Filed Under: Happy things, Hello, Inspiration · Tagged With: , , ,

Walking the TEDx Talk

September 11, 2011 by ·

Yesterday I presented at a TEDx event – the locally-organized versions of the well-known TED conferences. I’d like to share that experience with you and have been trying to figure out how best to do that. I was inclined towards a humble description of how it went, as in:

It went really well. 

It was a great experience. 

It was fun, and I’m really glad to have done it. 

You know what? Screw it.

Instead I will tell you this: I got up in front of a theatre full of people I don’t know – people from my local community who I might very well see on the street tomorrow – and told my story about postpartum depression and how blogging, with brutal honesty, about my breakdown not only helped me but helps others. I shared some excerpts from my posts here. I cried – not a little, a lot.

Here’s how it went: I got a standing ovation. And I am really damn proud of that.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the event and I certainly wasn’t sure about my place in it. I was honoured and totally excited to be asked to speak, and I was less nervous than you’d think about telling my story. What I did worry about was whether people would connect with it and whether I would be able to offer something for them to take away.

The organizers were supposed to give me time cues and they chose not to, so I went, er, slightly beyond my allotted six minutes. Judging by the response, the people – including men – in the audience who were crying, and the incredibly generous comments I got afterwards, I think I can safely say I managed to get my message across.

That’s not the only reason I’m proud of how it went. I’m proud because I did it in a way that was true to who I am. I knew I was going to cry – I couldn’t figure out any way around it. And I actually didn’t worry about it. My story, and my message that it’s okay to be a little bit vulnerable, it’s okay to remove our masks and be honest about our struggles, and that, in doing so, we might actually make the world a better place – that’s an intense sort of topic. You want people to be emotionally invested in what you’re asking them to do? Make them cry.

Making people cry wasn’t my goal, obviously. Making it okay for me to cry was my goal. Because that’s what happens when we open ourselves up to people and share the stories about the hard stuff and reveal that maybe – just maybe – we’re better off for having dealt with something difficult. We allow ourselves to be vulnerable. I was never okay with that before. I am SO okay with it now.

Those of us who put our words to these pages – who tell those hard stories and reveal our tears – know there’s beauty in the breakdown. We know we’re not alone. We know we will get support and that those who don’t support us perhaps just don’t understand.

I’ve seen this countless times on other blogs. My friends’ blogs. Your blogs. I’ve seen you share stories about hard things I never would have suspected had you not written about them. I’ve seen you be bravely, beautifully honest and then, just when I think all your cards are on the table, you lay down your hand and say, “This is what life dealt me. It’s not the hand I’d have chosen, but there’s no point hiding it so I’m going to play. I’m going to stay in the game and play, and if you care to read along with me I’ll share my strategy and you’ll see that you can win even when you get dealt a bad hand.”

That’s why I believe bringing together writing and technology is more than “blogging” and think those who dismiss what we do here underestimate the power of this art. This art has the power to break down barriers and borders. It has the power to make life better. It has the power to make lives better.

You know it, and I know it.

And I think it’s an idea worth spreading.

[Update: The video of my talk is now available.]


This is our very last week to make an impact for Be Enough Me 4 Cancer. Last week we had 45 people link up an enough-themed post in our Be Enough Me for Cancer campaign and I’d love it if you’d help us boost that number again. For every 20 linked up posts, Bellflower Books will provide a memory book to a woman fighting breast cancer through Crickett’s Answer for Cancer, and help bring a smile to courageous women giving it their all, every single day. The link-up remains open for three days. No blog? No worries. You can also comment on the post or on the Just.Be.Enough. Facebook page with your own story and be counted.

 

Filed Under: Be enough me, Better world, Happy things, Hello, Inspiration, Postpartum depression, Writing · Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Syndicated on BlogHer

September 6, 2011 by ·

A few months ago I wrote a post about becoming a mother and losing part of my identity. Today it’s syndicated on BlogHer!

When I wrote that piece I didn’t even really know how changed I would be as a result of my journey into motherhood. I do now, and the gist of that piece is even more true now.

I’m beyond excited to have this on BlogHer Moms, a new channel devoted to the journey of motherhood.

Sparkles and comments gratefully accepted.

Syndicated on BlogHer.com

 

Filed Under: Happy things, Motherhood · Tagged With: , , ,

Badges and Black Holes: The Gifts of PPD

September 5, 2011 by ·

PPD badgeA couple of weeks ago I quietly changed the badge in my sidebar. If you scroll down you’ll see my warrior mom badge on the right, which used to say, “I’m surviving postpartum depression. You can too.”

No more. Now it says, “I survived.”

I waited a while to make that change, even though I wanted to swap my badge out as soon as I felt remotely normal. But I’ve previously thought I’d kicked PPD to the curb and it turned out that (really) wasn’t the case. Call it prudence, call it superstition – whatever it was, I wasn’t prepared to jinx things by updating that badge too soon.

I’m now ready to declare this battle won. Not that I don’t still have tough times; thanks to my fellow warrior moms I know it’s not that simple. I know sometimes I’ll get smacked down and have to get myself back up again, and that’s okay. The beauty in all this is that I know it now, so I’m prepared for it. And I consider that knowledge a gift. Jackson Pollock | Composition

I didn’t understand the value of being able to identify my emotions until quite recently. I’ve always been an emotional person but looking back I see my emotions as Pollock-esque splatters of paint thrown on the canvas of life, an expression of something perhaps not everyone understood.

Now I’m creating my art – my life – in a different way. The outcome is less a splatter and more a rainbow, with different lines of the arc of my life representing different pursuits that come together in a much more brilliant – and recognizable – whole. (Make no mistake, though. I will never be the sort of person who colours inside the lines.)

I know there will be some dark and cloudy days but now I can identify them and, as with a weather forecast, know they will be temporary.

The one bit of darkness that stubbornly refuses to disappear is what I call black holes. My experience with postpartum depression has left me with gaps in my memory. As previously noted, when my husband said, “I was in an abusive relationship for a year” I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about. Even still, I have absolutely no recollection of how I treated him during that time.

C’est la vie. I can – will have to – deal with it. He has. We have, together. It is what it is and remembering wouldn’t change it.

What I do find disconcerting is these black holes popping up in my day-to-day. In the Before, I was organized and could keep everything in my head – my appointments, my to-do list, my grocery list. Now I have a calendar AND a task list AND reminders set for everything I’m supposed to do. If I don’t create those reminders – and, sadly, sometimes I forget to do that too – I don’t remember. Even with a list I go to the grocery store and often come home without toilet paper.

And don’t even get me started on my sense of direction. I never had much of one to start with, and now I’m easily getting lost twice a week. In my own city. Thank goodness I’m able to laugh at myself.

All I can say is I sincerely hope these black holes are temporary. If not, I suppose I can always become an emotionally unstable painter and hope some people will consider me a genius.

***

Speaking of postpartum depression and remembering things (or not remembering them, as the case may be), I’ve got a guest post up at The Koala Bear Writer today. I met Bonnie at a local writers’ workshop and she kindly asked me to share some information about PPD on her site. I’m happy to be over there today sharing what I think people should know about PPD (based on my experience, anyway). I’d love it if you’d come and visit, and while you’re there please say hi!

Filed Under: Postpartum depression · Tagged With: , ,
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