The Long Road Home

Summer is coming to a close. We waited so long for the warmer weather to get here and it seems it didn’t stay very long. During writing group today, we had a prompt that took me back through many summers of my life. I thought that on the First of September, it would be a nice to take a trip in our minds to the back of Prineville Reservoir.

 The Long Road Home

As the truck sped along the back roads at a perilous rate, the tension of the city melted away. The smell of hay began to blow through the windows. The sun beat down on the road ahead, making s’s in the distance. 

As she passed the last farmhouse, she saw the Alfalfa store come into sight. Slowing her speed, she sighed, eager to be at the reservoir already. Hesitant to spend too much time enjoying the view, she bristled at the sight of the forty five mile an hour sign.

Just as she slowed past the store, she was able to pick up her previous pace. It didn’t stop her from gazing out at the wheel lines, sprinkling the next crop. With the whir of the water being pushed through the massive machinery, it took her to that place she wasn't prepared to go. 

Was it home? Or was it just a series of photographic memories of events in her past? For whatever reason, those large circles made up of metal took her back.  Like a country song playing on a radio, it highlighted different places in her memory, bringing her full circle to where she was now. 

The road up to the Reservoir had taken her further than she realized. Memories fresh in her head, she relaxed, pulling her foot off of the throttle.The drive there was almost more enjoyable than actually arriving.

The One Who Knows It All: An Excerpt from My Book

The words “You’re an idiot” are rarely spoken in conjunction with healthy relationships. But sometimes I think it could be an effective communication tool. If I had a dollar for how many times I looked at someone, their Facebook status or their “mission” and shake my head and think “you’re an idiot”, I would be richer than Donald Trump.  Everyone loves an idiot because idiots make the rest of us feel incredibly smart.

Unfortunately, this isn’t exactly the advice that you necessarily receive accolades for. People don’t want to hear the word “no”, “that’s pry not the greatest idea", or "Perhaps you should think a little more about this."  Instead, people like to listen to those who tell them that they are so smart, deserve more and yes, you need to move on.  I need to find more supporters like this! I’d be so much further in life. 

Being an idiot requires some specific behavior. Usually it includes thumping people over the head as many times as you can with a Bible, or whacking them with truths that only you are privy to. It starts as something that says “I am smarter than them and how the hell can they get away with this?”  It is usually accompanied by several people telling them how incredibly smart and perceptive they are, who point out what you aren’t seeing.

While I would like to condone this activity for my personal uses, I feel like it is a sticky place to be in. You can’t just go around telling people that they are idiots. You can’t tell them that their entitlement issues don't make them qualified for things that they didn’t earn no matter how great their vision is. It’s tricky business telling people that they are idiots. It would really be unfortunate if, when it was all over, we were actually the idiot of which we were speaking.

Judging people’s intentions is what we do, we look for opportunities while reading the news: Facebook updates, People.com, even our local news. We read the news to be a judge. We read things people write to see if they are right or wrong. We test out different groups to see if we will fit. Then we make our decisions based on our judgments. What if there isn’t a line? What if they aren’t what we expected them to be? What if in their crazy way, they are who they were supposed to be? Who’s the idiot, now?

Why Did You Write That?

I was wrapped up in a book the other day, enjoying it immensely when the ending totally surprised me. Being a stay at home mom myself, I enjoy reading about other stay at home parents. It doesn’t matter if it is fiction or non-fiction.  In this particular novel the stay at home mom enjoyed her job, but was feeling run down and put off. She was a college graduate who had great potential before settling down in a happy marriage and becoming a mom. During the course of having children, she does revisit writing but being a mother takes priority. The whole time she’s doing this her friend is single, successful and feeling lonely, especially after admiring the happiness and fulfillment her BFF receives in being a wife and mother. 

Just when they are coming around together to a decent end, making some peace with the paths they have chosen, the mom finds out she has cancer and dies while her kids are still young. Seriously?!  At first, after I finished the book, I was just shocked. Why would you write that? The end was horrible! Then I was sad and upset. And by the time my husband came home, I hugged him as tight as I could, then immediately started planning the rest of our lives. 

This novel left me with some serious questions and thoughts. My first stop was evaluating myself. What am I qualified to do? I have some ideas that I would love to pursue and some that I am already working on. But how do I know when I am qualified? Do I need to visit the thought of school? What is the value of an education vs the value of experience? Does self-confidence grow when you feel you are qualified? What, if anything changes? Does it bring more personal satisfaction in succeeding? In the book, the mother of the mom strongly encouraged her daughter to go to college because she regretted that she wasn’t able to attend. 

I asked my mom about it, because she has her doctorate. She went to school after she turned thirty. She also had three kids in the same age range that I do. (Weird, I know!) Although my parents supported our education, they also didn’t place a heavy moral obligation to go to college. When I asked my mom about it, her response was “You can’t make an 18 year old do much of anything.” To which I laughed, remembered being 18 and agreed. I always felt like college was a place for overgrown children to play before they grew up and went into the real world. I also didn’t have a specific thing I wanted to go to school for.  My parents definitely raised us with healthy self-esteems and some good solid confidence in ourselves.  As I began thinking about the things that I want to do, I began to wonder if my confidence and my experience are going to be enough. Is this self-doubt just enough to keep me humble or is my lack of formal education going to be a detriment to my success? 

My other issue with college was just the thought of going away made me homesick. Seriously homesick. It still makes me homesick. When we grew up, we lived three hours away from family. I always wanted to live somewhere and put down deep roots. My mom grew up in a family that didn’t do much family stuff. That changed when she married my dad. The Borovec side of our family did tons of stuff, some of the relationships are still fuzzy because there were so many cousins and more cousins that we knew from year to year events. It has helped shape Wayne and I’s desire to be close to our families. We enjoy being a couple of minutes away and seeing my parents every week. Somewhere in there, there was an adventurer gene, though, because my sister has gone away twice now! 

This fear or dislike of travel needs to change, though. I want to be able to go places and promote my work. That is a big part of my dream. I have been trying to get out of my comfort zone in places that I already interact. I always feel bad because when I mentally prep for this stuff because I tell myself to be like my second daughter, Tristen and less like myself or my first daughter, Anthem. Tristen is a social butterfly. She adores crowds and people. Especially people who pay attention to her! My poor sweet Anthem is like I was as a kid. It’s so amazing to see the window into my life through my child. She is fairly shy and usually always concerned with what other people are going to think or say about her. When she did her first program at Vacation Bible School at the age of four, she literally broke out in a sweat and looked miserable on stage. My mom and I laughed and felt her pain at the same time. My mom conquers the same feelings every week at church. It is amazing, because you would never tell now that she feels this way. In fact, it is her courage every week that has made me want to try even harder to get past this uncomfortable stage. 

The book also made me revisit the purpose of my blog. I started this blog to be something of my own outside of just being mom and wife. It has been such a joy to see the comments and that people read it. I want to encourage others while remembering my enthusiasm for writing.  I remember how hard it was to build a network of support when I first started staying at home.  I was lonely with three babies. I just wanted a place to tell me that I was normal. My mom told me, but I thought she might be a bit partial. It’s my delight to have a place where people can go to read that they are normal or laugh at the thought processes of someone trying to convince themselves they are.  

After the book provided me with a good reminder of my own mortality, I am not sure I want to sit around and wait to do something great. I want to pursue the skills I’m lacking, write more, and not be locked in my own shell of desire to do things. I’m still trying to figure out a few more pieces of who I am and how to present myself well. But when I look at myself in the eyes of my husband, my parents, my family and my friends I believe that I can do this stuff. It’s amazing. It intimidates me on some levels but they give me the courage to try. One of the hardest parts about a journey is taking the first steps. I think I’d rather be uncomfortable and challenged, knowing that I am going somewhere than wonder why I never tried. 

....................................................................

The book I am referring to is called Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah. It really was a good read in spite of the end.  The writer really did an amazing job taking the reader through three decades, highlighting many historical events while outlining a beautiful friendship. It also written with the setting of Washington state, which made it cool, because I grew up there. 

My Self Image Isn’t Fitting Into My Jeans

Hey, it happens. I have been hitting it out of the park this last couple of weeks. Well, to me, anyways. I have been working out faithfully. My house has actually looked really darned clean. The husband has been coming home in a good mood. My kids have behaved relatively well. My yard looks incredible and my garden is actually producing in spite of a wonky growing season. So why the heck don’t my pants fit?

Every day when I work out in the heat to Jillian’s voice telling me cruel things, I feel like I have lost five pounds by the time I get through the shower. On my way out of the bathroom, I do the usual scope in the mirror and think, “Dang! You don’t look that bad for having three kids!” Then I get to the closet and the cubbies full of clothes. It’s true, I do have seasonal favorites. But no one wants to feel like a sausage in the middle of a delayed summer. I pass on most of the selection.

What did I eat all last winter? As I sigh and pick up a good ol standby pair of capri’s, I remember the biscuits and gravy binge I went on last November. Then I think about all the nights we busted out the secret family recipe cookies. Or the pizza that just sounded too good to live without.  Silently I give myself the ol pep talk of “You do realize you are going to be 31 in a month or so, right? How many years have you said you would work out all winter long, so when summer hit you could hit the beach like you were 21? How’s that self-discipline coming along?”

As I hear the kids fighting in the other room my evil little mind replies, “You know, it wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t feel like I deserved a treat. All it takes is a quick trip to Walmart or a fast food joint and you’ll start feeling like you ARE in those pants that you so longingly look at. You’re average, what are you worried about?” Dang. That’s some tough competition there.

Now, I have to say as a mom, it is just flat out TOUGH to take the time to accomplish everything and still take care of you. There are some times in an already breathless state, I just about choke to find the air to tell my kids to stop fighting while I am working out. Or I have the one who likes to give me their personal agenda while I am on the floor doing my ab workout. Talk about a captive audience! Not to mention, the nights when I feel like I would kill for a brownie or two after the kids go to bed. Oh yeah, I’ve been talked into a few bowls of ice cream at that eight o’clock p.m. hour too…

The other part of it is that I don’t think I want to retrain my mind into the thought pattern of “You really need to lose some weight”. I keep seeing all these advocates for natural beauty and regular size models. I am all for that and not feeling like we need to be a size 2 to be our best. I don’t want to feel like I am starving to get by. I DO however, want to feel and look like I am physically fit. I want to know where the girl went who was back down to a 0 just a few months after giving birth to their first baby! HA! I kid, but I would take a healthy size 6 again. It’s been a rough year. And after seeing some of the pictures posted of myself, I wanted to cry. I thought that haircut was sexy, that outfit was slimming, and it just had to be the angle.

I’ve worked really hard on the daily affirmations: you are pretty, you are smart. You are more than just a mom; you have skills and a brain. You can be inspired and do something while you are at home with your children. Then I started carving out time to start working on it. I felt witty again. I felt engaging. I had conversations that sounded more intelligent than what I made for dinner the other night or the fight the kids had. Albeit, some of the conversations may have been with myself; they still count. I don’t want to tell myself that I am unattractive and overweight right after all of that!

Granted, I am starting to notice that for all the grunting and pushing through the pain  mid-workout, things are fitting better. I put out an ad for an exercise bike and went on a walk before I grabbed a brownie from the fridge last night. I’m still trying to decide whether or not to wrap my giant head around the fact that the pants don’t fit yet or celebrate my persistence and confidence.

Who Am I?

It's a good day for one from the archive! I woke up excited today because I was going to attend a writing group meeting. It felt odd to get a sitter in the middle of the day for something that I enjoy doing. While it may have felt indulgent, I also felt that I was taking a new step towards something that I value and who I would like to be in my life.  This year, I'll have two kids in school and one at home. It's amazing how something that seemed so far off is now imminent. I am soon going to be re-learning who I am without my kids always determining my agenda. It's exciting and it's scary. I am also sad to be closing a door to that stage of our lives. I really have enjoyed my kids and they have taught me some amazing things about myself. Here's one from the days when I thought that this time would never come:

 Who Is Mom?

Driving through traffic, I felt unattractive, melted from the heat, mentally exhausted from a screaming toddler cutting teeth, a bit haggard from my day. When I looked to the car on my right, I saw a beautiful early twenties girl puffing on a cigar to light it. She looked shocked and surprised that she got caught. It was as though she was trying to be inconspicuous and didn’t wish to be discovered. 

As the light changed to green, I laughed and revisited an old friend of mine. That person that used to be beautiful, thin, fun, reckless, worried about what I was doing, how everyone else saw me. I used to wear bikinis, be adventurous, always going out to the lake on those classic sunny days after work. 

Now, I feel more “wreck-less”. My definition of that would be going out looking like a tired housewife, enjoying the adult noise at a local hangout, nursing my drink and sitting at my table alone. I sit, scribbling notes on an actual notepad, not a laptop, but on paper with a pen. In total peace, I sit alone. 

The scene is foreign. In the middle of the loud happy hour, I relax without someone crying, holding onto my legs, and screaming “Mooooooooom!!!!” Often, I complain of being alone all of the time at home with toddlers. I have few friends who are around to stave off the absolute insanity that makes up the life of the “stay-at-home-mom-without-a-vehicle”. While I would still feel completely lonely at the park surrounded by toddlers and other moms who have lives outside of their home, I feel more secure, by myself, in the restaurant. 

I often envy the time that my husband gets to be out of the house by his self in the middle of adult chatter. I love his company; but when you are “abandoned at sea” on your own little “island” called home without a way to connect to the real world, idle adult chatter seems so valuable in comparison to singing along, mentally, to the tunes of your children’s shows or gardening while trying to shut out the sound of your beautiful child that is screaming outside of the garden fence. 

When trying to present this constant state of solitary to my significant other, I am often confronted with the idyll that I am at home, doing nothing. I am informed that it is like having a continual day off. That, in and of itself, is a gross misrepresentation of a stay at home parent. Who writes this book of “What Husbands Know Moms Do When They Are Home?” Is this what they remember of their parent that stayed home with them?

After my first child, I did go back to work, because it is what I had to do. I had two fantastic people who took care of my precious baby the way that I knew that I would do it. After we had two children, the daycare costs outweighed the benefits of going to work. 

The romanticized view of the spouse that is at home is deranged. Yes, it is wonderful to be able to raise your own child or children. However, has anyone asked the people that provide daycare, or the teachers, that devote their lives to raising other peoples’ children, how it is? Even teachers get breaks without children.  They receive camaraderie from other teachers. Where are the other stay-at-home moms, those who are not activity-driven?  The ones who scrub their walls frequently and clean their carpets, because they cannot function without a clean home? Do they go back to work? Because, I know, before my surprise child, that I would have loved to have gone back to work, if it wasn’t for that never-ending quarry: “If I don’t do my job, is someone else going to do it as well as I would?”. 

As I became a stay at home mom, I began to miss being someone. My opinion used to matter. Who I was, used to be important. My kids do not realize that I was not mom, before I was a mom. I didn’t know that my mom was someone until her job required more of her than her adult children. It was her time to be someone once again; not just when we kids wanted her to be mom. Parents, when their children grow and fly the coop, start to remember who they were, realize who they are and what their experiences have shaped them into. 

One day, I will be disappointed that my children do not need me as much as they used to. I will have to, once more, find out who I am, outside of the ones that I created, with the husband that I love. When I get to that point, there will be every other mom whose kids grew up with mine, trying to figure out how to live their lives again as well. 

Some will have an education; the other few, will still be that mom, who everyone loved. She was and probably still is, there for everything. She will be the one that arrived with cupcakes for all those special occasions. She had her kids in soccer, t-ball and swim lessons. Then, there will be the other one, the lone soul that always forged her path alone. She was always trying to figure out who she was the whole time through, always searching for her destiny, and comparing herself to everyone else. Never realizing that the whole time she was doing it, she was living it, by sharing her example. 

 

Dreams: May Require Some Assembly

Have you ever noticed that some dreams are kind of vague? You see an overall outcome that you would like to achieve, but the journey getting there is oftentimes a bit faded.  It’s not just the sleeping dreams, but the day dreams as well. I like to categorize them: the ones that you can do (have a natural propensity for), the ones that you would have needed to groom for most of your life (a President doesn’t just become president) and the ones that just have no relativity at all except for the movie you watched last night before bed. 

Our house has been incredibly quiet this week because our kids are visiting their grandparents. While enjoying the quiet, I have been reflecting on the time when staying at home with my child(ren) was just a daydream. I remember the rushed mornings, the crying when I dropped Anthem off at daycare, wishing that I wasn’t missing out on her firsts. I remember rushing home after work eager to spend as much time with my husband and kid as I could possibly fit in. Dinners were hastily put together after the general greetings after getting home. It wasn’t until our oldest was two years old and our second child that I was able to stay home.

I was really excited and proud of the fact that we were able to make that happen. What I didn’t realize, were the faded areas of the dream: What makes it work? There are things they don’t tell you about being the stay at home parent. Like how long the hours 6:30 am to 6:30 pm really can be. Or how many times you will clean up one area before your spouse walks in and asks, “What did you do all day?” Or the fact that NO would become the Uh or um in your life: you don’t realize you are saying it so often until you hear yourself on record. When you are being interrupted during your tasks, it’s easy to forget to appreciate the loves and hugs randomly throughout the day. The art of being mom becomes mechanical as you try to make things run smoothly all week long.  I think when we get so involved in the routine we forget the overall outcome we were shooting for: we are living the dream. 

There are so many wonderful things about staying at home. The kids are funny, super funny now. I love being able to prepare a meal that we all get to sit down and enjoy. We have a beautiful yard and garden that shows our love for our home. There is a dramatic difference between surviving, making things work and enjoying living your dream. It can definitely seem overwhelming at times but it is outweighed by the cherished moments we share as a family.  It’s pulling up into the driveway and appreciating the house that with us in it, makes it a home. 

Although we’ve enjoyed our break, the job, the home and the free time we always wish we have more of, appeared more accurately as an empty shell of who we always hoped we would be. At one point, all of this was just a dream as we struggled through our twenties defining ourselves. Now that we are living it, it is easy to get bogged down in the day to day operations and forget the magic that it used to hold. I think every good thing comes from the effort we put into it. Our dreams come with some assembly required.

It’s All Alright

Parenting is full of crazy days, ups, downs and arounds. I was sitting here thinking about all the cool things about the ages my kids are right now. I remember wishing away hours when they were three under three, waiting for them to be more mobile and a bit more self-sufficient so I could begin the time when I got to grow up with them again. While I was having these warm fuzzy thoughts, I realized that my seven year old was throwing a fit and howling in the other room. 

One of the finest moments the other day was explaining to my oldest daughter why her name is Anthem. After a couple of months at the end of school, she came home a bit upset and told dad that kids were calling her the National Anthem. The other night, we listed to the Good Charlotte song that she is named after and had a really awesome discussion about the song. It talks about not being like everyone else and being free to be yourself. Her eyes lit up and it was like seeing my ‘dream’ when I knew that was what I would name her, in real motion. 

It was a rough day in parenting and when we dropped our kids off at my parents to go to listen to a band, I was still mentally kicking myself for it. While doing so, I realized that out of anyone that observes, I am my own toughest critic. I find myself playing and replaying events and criticizing all of my thoughts, motives, intents and actions. I nitpick MYSELF. As we walked into the venue, we ran into some friends. One of which immediately commended me for a strategic consequence given to my son after a series of offenses. Their praise for creative correction made me realize that I was being way too hard on myself. 

As I sat there, I thought about my decision to use different consequences to suit the crime, because traditional consequences didn’t seem to be getting the message across. I was still kind of in a funk when they started singing about love. Love. I love my kids. I love them enough to try harder and to try differently when things aren’t working. I love my kids enough to have consequences now so that later we don’t have to work so hard to re-establish respect that wasn’t taught early. It’s my everyday work that makes them a pleasure at other peoples’ houses or at events when I am so surprised that they behave so well. 

And guess what? They love me too. They were excited to see us when we went to pick them up. My parents were happy to report that they were really good while they were there. When we are embroiled in the circumstances, it’s hard to see the outcome clearly. Tomorrow is another day and I bet that we won’t have half the battle and we will have a better respect for each other as well. And in the end, I think we will all be alright.