The Desire to Speed Things Up

As most of you may know, I lost a child recently.  We were a few months before her birth, and the whole experience was the most horrific, physically- and emotionally-painful experience of my life.  I have experienced the loss of stuff (virtually everything I owned was lost in Hurricane Katrina), and and aged mother, and even endured divorce several years ago–all in the same year.  But nothing could prepare me for the devastation of losing a child.

Although I am still not speaking to God, I as a guilt-free person seek to find the lesson in every situation that involves me in some way.  This situation, although highly emotionally-charged, is no different.  Generally it doesn’t take me long to figure it out, and I generally get my lessons on the first try, thus avoiding repeat lessons and additional pain.  This time, however, it’s not coming quite so quickly.

I took two weeks off of work to sort things out;  there were lots of medical appointments, and tons of crying and a lot of screaming at the Universe.  There were angry scowls at young mothers bouncing babies on their knees.  There was envy in many of my thoughts. There was love thrown at me from the most unlikely sources, and I am thankful for that.  And after a while, there was some hope.

The hope was in the form of other options, for being 46, it’s assumed that my eggs are just too darn old to make a viable embryo.  My husband isn’t a spring chicken either, at 38, so the odds aren’t great that we will conceive again on our own.  That’s when TWO different doctors recommended the same fertility specialist, who didn’t seem fazed in the least by our age, or by our history.  He in fact warned that we are perfect candidates for twins, and were we ready for that?

YES!  I’m ready!

But, alas, my body is not.  After basically giving birth to a stillborn child, my body is in repair phase.  It will take up to two months for the next step to take place, as multiple tests can’t be done after my body returns to its normal, non-pregnant state.   This is a lesson in patience;  there is absolutely no way around it…all my wit, charm and planning will do no good in this case.  I am forced to wait, despite my inner desire and history of getting things done.

So I will take this time to reflect, and to make art and write about the lesson that the Universe has created for me, that so far eludes me.    And I will practice patience, and self-kindness, and strengthening my bond with my inner self.

I hope the time goes by quickly, all the same.

Don’t Doubt Your Plan

Yesterday, I had a second level ultrasound done to detect possible chromosomal abnormalities in my unborn child.  There were some indications of such in an earlier ultrasound, and any parent, hearing this would be at wit’s end on how to wrap their head around such information.  As for me, I was told 13 years earlier by a psychic that I would have a little girl.  I scoffed at her, as my first husband had already had a vasectomy, but life does it’s thing and throws you a fastball once in a while.  Thankfully so, because my new husband appears to be quite fertile; which leads us to fulfilling the crazy psychic’s prediction from a decade earlier.

Not that I have placed all of my faith in what one woman said over a deck of cards long ago, but my faith also includes the belief that we have already planned the major details of our lives, long before we entered a human body.  This includes pacts and agreements with others, who also take human form, to help us learn the lessons that we’ve chosen to learn in this particular life.  It’s kind of like picking out your courses for the next semester of college;  you know the general subject that you’re taking, but you’re not given the exact lessons until you are enrolled in the class.

Well apparently, one of my lessons is to learn to live in the later years of my life.  This is one of my most pertinent ones, for most people are able to look back at their twenties, smile, and remember the freedom they had when they thought that they would never die.  Yet learning to live at an older age is quite the different type of lesson, for mortality is lurking in the shadows, and every day our bodies age and challenge us to be our best in the present moment.

My plan to truly live my life at an older age includes the birth of a child; and with it the responsibility of caring for an innocent being that can benefit from my extra years on this earth.  I understand now that this is part of my life plan, so whatever the Universe throws at me at the Doctor’s office, I know deep down inside that I was the one who created it exactly as it is, in order to get yet another course under my belt.  I am not doubting my plan in the least.

Surprise at 45 – Middle Aged Motherhood

It’s really strange how some people can live their lives according to the book, and others just wing it.  I have never been one to consistently write down my goals in some journal that I carry around.  Rather, they’re scratched out on the backs of already used index cards, or the back of this year’s address book, which I’m likely to lose before the year’s end.  But my goals, they get accomplished, somehow.  My goals don’t seem to be like those of others’, though.  They are more esoteric, more abstract, than saving for a BMW or paying off my house.

My goals are to live my life outside of the standard order of things.  As I said in my post, Guilt Free Non-Conformity, I really haven’t followed society’s timeline of events for a normal life.  My life really started later than most, at the birth of my first son when I was 32.  That’s when my beauty started to bloom, and I realized that I was a unique human being that didn’t think like others did.  That’s when I started recognizing the people that chose to be sheep rather than leaders, and that’s when I chose to be a leader by example.

So now, at 46, I find myself living totally outside of the box yet again.  My second child is due, completely unexpected and most certainly welcome nonetheless, in May 2012.  My plans for retirement are coming along fine, but it’s not the type of retirement that most people are planning, when they are too old to enjoy themselves.  Of course, on a humorous note, much of my retirement will be spent at Little League games, cheering on my son/daughter as he or she runs the bases.  Graduation for this little angel will be in 2030 (OMG!!!) and hopefully there will be great strides in the field of plastic surgery by that time so that I don’t look so much like Grandma while I sit in the audience of proud parents.  And of course, with a younger husband, I will still be called a cougar until the day I die, even when he’s 80 and I’m 89.  (If you would like to read about my pregnancy, you can visit my sister blog at Surprise at 45)

There are days that I feel the guilt of being non-conformist–mixed in with morning sickness it’s not an easy cocktail.  I know that there are friends who judge me for it, and have backed off because they just can’t relate.  To them, I say that I can think of no other way for me to live.  As I believe in multiple lives, I can say that this one, because of my choices to take the path less taken in many instances, is the best life yet.

Is Teaching History a Waste of Time?

While on the Boston Express bus last month, I was, as usual, reading over someone’s shoulder.  The newspaper article said that our schools’ failure to teach history is a problem that needs to be solved.

Of course I didn’t get to keep reading, because she flipped the page on me, but it started me thinking about history in general.  I’m not talking about the years that Napoleon lived, or whether Shakespeare really wrote his sonnets or if Sir Francis Bacon really did.  No doubt that was what the teachers in the article were fighting for, with a firm resolve that learning about Napoleon’s successes and failures really helps shape our childrens’ malleable minds into well-rounded citizens.

The kind of history I’m referring to is our personal history.  As any parent of a teenager knows, the minute we go into the “When I was a kid” mode, the eyes begin rolling and they don’t stop until you shut up.

Here’s an example:  when I was in school, I was one of those weirdos that came home from school and did my homework immediately.  That way, it was done and I could relax for the rest of the night doing what I really wanted to do, which was art.  My son, on the other hand, waits until 10pm to start his homework, and no amount of force, removal of privileges, or even hobbling (ok, I really didn’t consider it for long) will get him to do his homework the second he enters the house.  He finishes it, albeit with drool all over his name for falling asleep on it the night before.

So I could sit him down, and tell him how it was when I was a kid…or I could let him fail a few times and come to his own conclusion that perhaps starting his homework earlier might benefit him in many ways.

So I ask you, do you think our lectures get through, even if LONG after the fact?  I mean, we all have “momisms” that we repeat (usually at family gatherings for maximum comic camaraderie. Does hearing about one’s past help shape the actions of another, or does doing really seal the learning deal?

Accepting Where You Are

I am certainly one to want to get ahead.  I have a plethora of ideas for making money, creating financial independence, and helping the world, one product at a time.  Yet I also have a job that pays the bills.

Gurus like Larry Winget and Gary Vaynerchuk inspire us to break free of the corporate mold, and start making changes in order to live the lives that we want.  After reading nearly a hundred of these self-help books, I am left with the nagging feeling that these people believe that there are no employers that can provide you with a satisfying job.  In their eyes, you must work for yourself in order to find happiness in what you do.

Although I believe entrepreneurship provides benefits that many traditional jobs do not, such as freedom to make all of the decisions and self-appointed vacations, it can also increase stress levels, tear apart families and create health problems that affect our level of happiness.  I am an entrepreneur myself, and along with the day job, I see both sides of this issue.

Please excuse my oversimplification of the benefits of entrepreneurship vs employee life.  The arguments for both sides are valid yet lengthy, and I am sure that there are plenty of sources that will assist you in choosing what’s best for you.  My subject here is accepting, no matter which path you choose, where you are right now.

Many of us, including myself in the recent past,  spend a lot of time bitching about where we are.  We hate getting up early and leaving our family at 6am. We miss our childrens’ functions due to late meetings, we are too tired to cook dinner after a long day’s work.  After my pity party was over, I decided to make the best of where I was at any particular time and view my world from the perspective of my being exactly where I was supposed to be.

This means doing what you can do, when.  And not feeling guilty about what you didn’t do, unless what you chose to do instead of what you should have done was stupid.

What’s stupid?  Five straight hours of South Park.  Drinking an entire bottle of wine by yourself, leaving a stream of clothes on the floor and dragging yourself to bed.  Hanging out on Facebook and refreshing until you see a comment made on one of your posts.  Those things are stupid, and those places are not where you should be.

This is time wasted, and as we get older, time is exactly the thing we value the most.  So why waste this time?  Even needing to unwind can be productive, if you just want to doodle on a pad and let your mind wander.  That, to me, while perhaps not overtly productive, gives your mind time to stew, to make sense of your crazy life, and, hopefully, turn it into something that will satisfy your temporary need to be–elsewhere.

Sometimes those doodles on the pad are just stick people, and sometimes they turn into ideas that can be useful whether you work inside the home or out–for yourself or for someone else.  And you can see that where you are is exactly where you are supposed to be.

Are You TOO Guilt Free?

Yesterday, my son called me a bitch.

Now, other people have done that in my younger years, but back then I had earned that label.  Nowadays, however, I think I may be on the lenient side of things, and let a lot of inappropriate actions and words by others just roll off my back.

Well, folks, that doesn’t work with kids, apparently.  Because they are watching you, and modeling you, and their behavior is learned from yours in a really big way.

I guess it started when I was working nights, and as I lay comatose in bed after being on my feet all night, my little tyke would crawl out of bed and switch on a DVD.  One morning, he tapped my shoulder as I slept, and said, “MOM!  The Matrix is everywhere.”  I should have taken this as a sign that perhaps I should be more careful about what he had access to, and to be fair to myself, there was no porn or other REALLY inappropriate materials in the house.

And after all, they are going to learn it soon, anyway, right?  Right.  They are going to learn it.  And they are going to look to you for your judgment on that material.  If you glaze right over the violence and the trench coat-wearing virtual mercenaries, then your kids are going to think that these types of movies are the norm, when indeed they should not be–at least for kids.

So being called a bitch was simply a symptom of the bigger problem–that I was too lax in my household, and that my quest to bring up an individual rather than a little carbon copy of myself went too far to the other extreme.  And I created an individual to which nothing was sacred.

According to Elaine Sihera on the Helium.com blog:

Children in homes where the parents do not treat each other with any respect, and where language is abusive, critical or inappropriate, tend to use those examples as their guidelines and behave accordingly. Parents teach their children not only through what they say, but most importantly, through what they DO. Children will pick up inappropriate and ambiguous behaviour when they have been set the wrong examples. The parents might not want that to happen but that is the only outcome where there is no other model to copy.

So, yes, it is possible to be TOO guilt free.  Remember that you are a model for your children, and being too lax is just as detrimental to their growth as being too strict.  Let them grow by feeding them the good stuff in the right portions.