Tending to my soul (& the garden)

It's an absolutely gorgeous day in Minnesota today. Breezy and sunny and not too hot. Gardening is a peaceful time for me to turn inside and listen. I reflect on life and where I am, where I want to be and how I might get there. 

I decided to take some pictures of the newly planted garden and the plants that are coming up. It's always fun to see new life growing and is a good reminder that a lot is happening to the plants below the surface of the earth before we see anything at all. A lot like people, a lot goes on inside us and behind the scenes to make changes for ourselves and growing in character, before others may notice.

I planted cilantro and a lettuce mix in these concrete blocks. We will see how they do in there!!

Chives are up, along with all of the herbs I grow like mint, oregano, thyme & sage among others. 

One of my favorite things is when the delphinium and tiger lilies bloom (bottom right). I like to encourage bees to visit to my garden by growing a variety of flowers and by co-planting flowers/herbs with veggies. 

unveiled

the first version of my blog was written while i was going through multiple separations from my ex-husband, multiple getting back togethers and finally, a divorce. i slowed down on my writing because it started to feel redundant and it wasn't helping me much. it was me trying to figure out what i was supposed to do and just sort of process everything because writing helps me.

 i don't seek clarity now, but i do feel like i haven't been a true version of myself for very long. i think the real me has surprised people who have known me and they aren't sure why. not being yourself is a slow and painful way to live; a way i wouldn't recommend to anyone. i was a version of me that i thought others would find more acceptable. i edited out certain parts of me, kept things to myself and pushed through life in a way that wasn't satisfying to me.

for too long, i've sat quiet. never wanting to offend anyone, but always having more to say. i wasn't sure i would be offensive, but i listened to the advice. don't say too much. people don't really want to know. some things don't need to be shared. i always wondered how "they" knew what i was going to say, how they were sure it would be offensive or be "too much."

this second edition of my blog is renamed and properly so. it's about ME. i think most moms end up being so and so's mom...I want to be known as more than just someone's mom, even though i know there is nothing greater than being a mom.

sometimes i'll write, sometimes i'll share the things i love or things that make me feel happy or good or places i want to go. sometimes it'll be a song i have come across that i love. i just want people to know the real me. the things i've been through and the things i'm going through now. hopefully it'll help someone somewhere.

i have a variety of interests and things i love that i'll probably share now and then, namely soft clothes, jeans, natural living, healthy food and gardening. i practice yoga. i like music, but couldn't tell you which bands/groups/artists (mostly because i'm terrible with details). i read, garden, love writing. i love my people. i struggle with anxiety, but i've started a medication and so far, so good. i think i could worry about things a little more sometimes, but what good does worrying even do? i'm terrible with time and dates and knowing for sure what day it is. (i'm working on it!)

the best thing i am doing right now in this very moment is loving myself. well, learning to. i've been told for too long i'm too much of everything. i'm learning to let go, move forward and be my best self. to do all of this, i have learned to have personal courage and to own all of the things that make me who i am.

it will get better

it's been seven months since the divorce was finalized. i used to call it "my divorce," but i've stopped saying that and am now calling it "the divorce" because it's not mine and it doesn't define me. for a while, it was the thing that consumed me almost as much as being a mom did. divorce sucks and with all of the draining legalities, comes a whole different set of things you go through.

while i was going through the process of the divorce, i googled often. i looked for blogs, real people who were willing to talk about divorce and how yes, this is quite possibly the worst thing in the world, but here are some tips to get through this alive, well and MAYBE, happy. divorce is like an earthquake. it shakes every part of your life up, some things shatter, some are slightly damaged and some things seem to be just fine. some things even come out stronger as you rebuild and you realize there might be a better way to do something as you re-build.

if you have kids, the divorce is never really over. you are connected to that person for the rest of your life. so even though i'm out of the darkness of the separation and the divorce, there are still things that come up and i think having a place to go to discuss that is important.

i've had it with lawyers, i'm not a lawyer and i have zero interest in discussing legal 'stuff' here. i'm not an expert so anything i write is from my own experience and my own heart. i am not a proponent of divorce necessarily, but i'm also not totally against it as it does serve a very good purpose for many wonderful people. i simply want to offer this as a place to come so you don't feel like you're alone in your journey and people are going through it all over the world, every single day. we don't have to feel alone or like no one understands.

not even one year ago, i would never have guessed i would be where i am now. i cried often and my life was a scary disaster. there were so many unknowns. the divorce seemed to have no end in sight and all i could do was focus on my kids. i was very much in survival mode. stress was high and i did not have time to read a million blogs to find the one i could relate to. feel free to read my previous posts to get a little 'background' information on me.

divorce is a scary, upsetting time. the only guarantee i have is that it DOES GET BETTER. you cry less often and the crying doesn't last as long. every day you find yourself a little stronger and it's okay if one day is absolutely awful. we always have tomorrow to do better. when tomorrow seemed too far away, i tried to be better than i was earlier that day. i vowed to always do my best and sometimes my best was really, really amazing and other days, my best was minimally good and sometimes, i really did not do a very good job (AT ALL).

fear is a mighty thing

here i thought we were actually doing something. something different. something unconventional. who do you talk to when you are divorced and trying to figure things out? who do you go to, if you're going to see a counselor? certainly not a marriage counselor. definitely not the one who is "pro-marriage." i like the thought of that one, but honestly, can they help a pro-marriage couple who seriously sucked at marriage but want to get it right but are divorced now? maybe the wounds run too deep. maybe the years of being made last and verbalizing those things have finally sunk in until it hits my blood and it runs through my veins to my heart, where i learn being put last isn't right. not worth it. the question remains why did i accept that kind of relationship? the kind where i felt i was not only the last priority but the one he never considered?

those girls he called from past relationships in hopes of achieving some kind of answer. the ones who had been molested, raped, sexually abused. the ones he wanted answers to for understanding parts of their relationships from a decade ago. he understands those. but me? the one he loved and married and had kids with? no grace. mine is an excuse. one i can't use to protect myself. i was raped. but it makes no difference now. i'm different in his eyes. i don't know how one can have standards or expectations for one, but not another.

through tears i admit to mistakes. i was not open throughout the divorce to hear him. to really truly hear him. but is divorce the right time to really and truly hear them? why not before? i want to know why i had to divorce him to get him to realize he could lose me. forever. i made mistakes. they are mine. i can live with them. i have forgiven myself for them. one thing i have learned is i am not my mistakes nor do they define me. the grace i gave all those days-weeks-months-years meant nothing. not one little thing. i finally say something to slow us down and it is over before it began. again. he left before it could get good. or bad. maybe it would get bad again. maybe it would be out of this world good. i have no idea. i took the risk. i took the chance. i don't believe that being broken is the way we were meant to be. i believe accepting brokenness as a way of being together is an excuse made out of fear. fear to drive away those that might just hurt you, but you don't really know. every day it is something you have to decide. to not let fear drive you. fear is debilitating. fear is mean, cold, devoid of reality.

fear is a mighty thing. i know. so is love. but, i lived in fear and it kept me from the thing i wanted more than anything. it kept me from seeing the change, the good, the love, the struggle to do right. i was afraid it would come back and repeat itself. rear its ugly, good for nothing head. so i loved. it didn't matter. because even with love and living in love and making that daily decision to trust that he would be different and do different and actually do the thing he promised...still fear prevailed. because of fear, i will never know what could be.

the thing you put energy into. the thing you feed...it grows. you give life to lifeless things. those things flourish. i refuse to feed the thing that doesn't even exist unless i let it.. he put his energy into his fear of it being just the same way as it was a few months before.

divorce isn't something any one really wants. it admits failure. without words, it admits pain, sadness, weakness, tears and anger, loss, grief, death of dreams. lost love. how does love just go by the wayside? isn't that something people should see and value and want to never go without? anxiety takes over and the future is unknown.

i am worth every second, every minute, every month that you put into me.

i am worth every dollar you choose to spend, but not only worth the amount you spent on me.

there is no unit of value when it comes to a person's worth. until you realize that, the $60 bouquet of flowers will always be only $60 that you spent on someone. until you realize that, the time it takes to plan a well-thought out, meaningful evening, will have little monetary value, but could be worth a million dollars.

whether you are the one who started the divorce or the one who got the notice, divorce really, really sucks.

holding myself back--my messy beautiful

i was always told i was too much, too intense, too talkative. my nickname was 'bug' because i wanted to talk to my parents instead of let them read their newspaper. i was reading and discussing the newspaper at age 3, asking questions about the Holocaust; reading chapter books at age 4. i was independent, feisty. i would wake up at the crack of dawn and then wake them up soon after coloring a picture to relay my ENTIRE dream from the night before, IN DETAIL. i was good at everything i tried, but never felt like i was. i got good grades and got into every college i applied to. it felt like my parents wanted super humongous things for me; lawyer, doctor or somehow doing big things to help the world, and i just wanted to write and learn about the world. sometimes i feel like i've totally let everyone down because now i'm "just" a stay at home mom. there is no way to tell my whole story about what makes it messy beautiful in one blog post. probably not even ten. i would probably be able to write a book about it and i'd still be cutting parts out. 

my little family

i have started writing this post a hundred times. what story would be the best one to write to represent why my life is messy beautiful? how can i make whatever story i choose the right length without leaving out too much? how do i isolate one part of my story without telling the rest? my life has been filled with beauty. it's been filled with sorrow and ugly. i've listened to myself and i've ignored myself. i've loved and i've lost. i've tried to be the person i think others want me to be. one thing remains true: all of it is okay, except being anyone but myself. 

i learned too late that when we deny what we know to be true, our lives becomes confusing. i spent years trying to be the person i thought i was expected to be. i spent years trying to figure out why the person i felt i was didn't match with what others saw me as. i closed myself up and felt completely lost in my life. i stumbled through my days. while my life felt like it was literally crumbling around me, people on the outside had no idea. when my husband and i split up for the first time or the fifth time, people were puzzled because i was able to put on such a good act about us being so happy. this is not something that you learn over night. this is something perfected over time. when the thing that we know we are doesn't match with what others see us as, we get confused and feel like we are wandering the desert unsure of which direction to walk in. it became easier to just go along with it and i had became a shell of myself. 

i am all of the experiences i have had in my life. there is no way to be one without the other. some stories may weigh more heavily than others in defining who i am. many years ago, i decided i was going to go to therapy. in my first session we went through a bunch of background questions and she took PAGES of notes. my next session she asked me, as she flipped through the PAGES of notes, "so, okay. where do YOU think we need to start?" and i said to her, "isn't that your job? that's why i'm here. but, if i had to answer, i'd say the beginning. because one led to the other." she looked at me blankly and let's just say i never went back. 

(i love this james baldwin)

my story is beautiful because of who i've become because of it. my children are a huge part of my life, but they are not where i have struggle. it's been messy because i have let others define for me who i am and therefore i have gotten in my own way. none of what has happened or i have done makes me any less unlovable. it can feel so lonely to feel like you're not lovable. the truth is i am and if someone is truly uncomfortable with my story and they don't know how to handle it all, they aren't worth my love. and to be loved unconditionally is the only thing i've ever really wanted. i've been searching externally and i've finally turned inward. 

i am a sister and a daughter. i am a mother, aunt and friend. 

i was a victim of rape. my messy beautiful is becoming a mom at age 18. 

my messy beautiful is marriage, divorce. two more babies, post-partem depression and another marriage. now another divorce. it is parenting four children, one with autism. it is fighting for what is right for your kids. it is confusion. it is learning that by removing what confuses, it opens up to clarity. it is finding my strength when all seems lost. it is knowing and loving and adoring each and every one of my four unique kids. it is making the choice to accept responsibility, even when i want to blame. it is coming out of darkness in search of light. it is pure devastation and crawling under my covers. it is coming out of those covers because of hope and possibility and light. it is speaking my truth, as uncomfortable and painful as it may be for me and others. it is friends and family who are there at all moments, beautiful and ugly. it is losing everything yet coming out with far more valuable things with no monetary value. it is being left and not feeling good enough most of my life, yet learning i am lovable and wanted and beautiful, even though. EVEN THOUGH i have not lived a perfect life as it aligns with society. (i am still working on this one!) it is admitting i am taking on too much. it is not needing to be perfect anymore.  it is learning to trust myself. it is saying i am worth it and believing it. it is finding my own worth when everything else is gone and i am stripped down to my naked real me. it is loving myself (and even my curly hair, which i hated for years). 

when i told my grandparents that i was pregnant at 18, it took me FOUR HOURS on a hot July day. my grandma was scared because she'd heard the kkk was making a comeback and my child was going to be half black. my grandpa cal looked around the room and he said, "She's going to be fine. THEY are going to be fine." since then, i've had a number of dreams where i'm climbing a ladder or a bridge. i can't see where it is going and when i look back behind me, there's my grandpa cal. and every time he tells me, "keep going. you can do it. you're going to be fine." 

:my messy beautiful is ME:

 http://momastery.com/carry-on-warrior

This essay and I are part of the Messy, Beautiful Warrior Project — To learn more and join us, CLICK HERE! 
And to learn about the New York Times Bestselling Memoir
Carry On Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life, just released in paperback, CLICK HERE

 

falling apart or falling into place?

i can't even pretend anymore that i'm not having a hard time. it seems the kids are falling apart at the seams. if i didn't hear another whine in my life i would be forever grateful. that goes for fighting too. i try really hard to have patience with them, yet lately it is all i can do to keep from shutting myself in my room until tomorrow.

the imminent divorce that i hoped would never happen is happening. tuesday we go to (hopefully) finalize the whole thing and then i can really start to move forward and heal more and just be semi-normal with everything else. there's just so much on my mind right now that has yet to be dealt with that i'm trying really hard to not have anxiety over the whole thing. this is just about the hardest thing i have ever had to do. after months and months of trying and praying and hoping, i finally had to file for divorce in october. even then, there was some 'maybe this can still work out' times. as much as i know he doesn't want the divorce, i couldn't see a way that we could make it work. i feel like we are too broken, like a vase that is smashed into millions of shards of glass. it could happen, but would take years and years and YEARS of tedious work. i just couldn't anymore. my heart broke; i know i have to just look ahead to what is coming. i'm due for something great, really. it's only logical that after so many hard years and so much hardship, that greatness comes next.

but these kids. what do i even DO about them? it has been a tremendously long winter here in minnesota and it feels like we have been on top of each other all winter long. as i write, we are getting even more snow. really though i think it's the stress and the hardship this divorce has caused all of us. it makes me feel so bad, realizing the divorce that i filed for, could be causing so much pain in my sweet babies. i have to be honest with myself and not forget the pain i endured within my marriage and remember that they suffered from that, too. i keep telling myself that these kids just need to know they are safe, they are loved, they have what they need: warm house, good food, each other, their mom and other family and they still have their dad. they don't have to pick. sometimes they say, "i'm on mommy's side" and then the other will say, "i'm on daddy's side." and i just tell them, "you don't have to pick a side. you can love us both, we will always be your mommy and your daddy. and we both love you guys." SO HARD. they just don't need to feel so insecure about life. they are too little and precious. i don't know where they pick this stuff up from, but i sure know it's not me. the other day, my five year old told me he wanted to go into Johnny Test and go back to the future and make a new mommy who will buy them as many toys as they wanted and then replace me with his new mommy. (okay this was pretty funny actually).

it doesn't feel good though, to be so stressed that you can't even decide what shirt to put on. or to not realize what day it is five times in the same day that two minutes before you knew it was saturday. i don't want to feel like i've given up on things. it hurts like crazy to not have a whole family like it's been...the funny thing is we weren't even really complete. we were always apart. someone always seemed to be missing for one reason or another. and no family should function only when one person is not there. although i miss the whole family being together thing, i missed that before since it was never all of us all together. i only have four years until my oldest is off to college. i need to make the most of his last four years at home. i need to figure out what i'm going to do to sustain us. looking for a job in the midst of a divorce after being a stay at home mom for 5 years is a lot harder than i thought it would be. somehow my degree and experience just doesn't account for much after that long.

what i'm looking forward to is peace. calm. order. togetherness. planting my garden and watching it grow and harvesting it. at the same time, figuring out how to help my kids have peace and love during this whole thing. i want to paint and write and just be. while my patience is running short and i feel stretched beyond all possibility, i know i can do this. i know i will be okay and they will be, too. now if only to figure out how to start waking up before everyone else to have my coffee and sit in silence for a few moments each morning. . .

one day at a time

                    Grace is the face love wears when it sees imperfection. ~Joseph R. Cooke

soon after husband moved back home, i was given some news. i won't get into the 'news'
as it's not mine to share. i will say that it was unexpected and devastating for me and i came very close to a breaking point. we had been doing so, so well. my heart was overflowing, i felt that it might burst just from the pure ease of our life. i'd been longing for EASE in my life for so long. then, bam. The News. it crippled me and i barely pulled through my days. i couldn't eat. i couldn't sleep. i couldn't look at him. i wanted to hole up in my room and not come out. but my babies needed me and so i did. thank god for them. some days were alright, some were awful. the nights were the worst and i cried in ways i have never cried before. angry, hurt, resentment, sadness, fear, love. all of it at once. talk about intense.

then i just started giving it up to God. it's all i could do. now and then i'd have questions i thought i wanted answered, but i learned soon enough that the answers, or even verbalizing my questions out loud, were so painful that i just stopped asking. i might have those thoughts, but as i was taught in meditation, acknowledge the thought and don't dwell on it. he's fighting for me, for us. i could see that and i decided i had to deal with things differently. that's when i decided i had to give more grace, for him and for me. i had to look for and find the good. somewhere, in all the bad, is always good. i felt like the message i was getting from God was to just love, as hard as it might be sometimes, and keep looking for the good and that everything would work out the way it was supposed to. so i did. i'm not a Bible verse memorizer so i'm not going to spout out some Bible verse that somehow justifies my decision or what verse is giving me strength. my Bible is about messages, whole messages, not chopped up for me to use verses here and there. the days since then have been a mixture of things. i've been timid and unsure...waiting for it to fall apart completely again. i've been strong and awesome, ready to kick the day's ass, confident that all will be well. and i've had regular days where things just ARE.

mostly, even on the timid, unsure, meek elsa days, i end up only finding love. it's so hard to boil it down to that one thing, but everything else is done within LOVE. appreciating what the other does and being able to put that into words and share them with the other person. seeing him do things i know he doesn't necessarily enjoy, but somehow finding joy within those menial things. cleaning gutters in the rain? not anyone's idea of a fun time, but he saw the silver lining when it started to rain super hard...he didn't have to drag the hose around to wash them out. (and he didn't complain about having to do the gutters, which i definitely would have!) taking my 7 year old out for an early 6 am breakfast and then to get on her bus to go to her summer program so i could sleep a little longer. hearing sweet voicemails that tell me how i compliment his life in so many ways and make things so much better for him (compared to when we were apart). there are even days when i feel nothing at all and i know i just have to get through and tomorrow will be a new day. that's okay, too.

i feel heard and understood. words of appreciation go SO.FAR. when i have a hard day now and then, i just tell him. he doesn't try to change how i feel, he just accepts it and apologizes and asks what he can do to help. we talk more. A LOT more. we spend more quality time together, sometimes it isn't the long conversations we have other times, but even taking ten minutes shows we care. everything he says feels like there is more truth, more meaning, more love behind the words. many times the truth in my words might sting or hurt a little more than other times, but i'm done with keeping things in. it hasn't gotten me anywhere good. last weekend there were a couple of regular old moments where i was watching him with the kids and in the house. my heart swelled and i teared up. it just felt good and right. later i told him about that and he thought i was being sarcastic. UGH. obviously i am not that great with expressing myself in spoken words. i have some work to do, too! when i told him i was serious, he was so relieved it wasn't a joke. i'm not quite sure how one would joke about that kind of stuff, but i suppose there are those that might do that, and i know there are those (me) that just don't say those super important things.

reunited and on a date

we haven't always been in this place. we won't always be in this exact place. i just sort of feel like we are building a new foundation...a new level of understanding, giving up control, giving up the anger, giving up the negative shit. because that's really what all the bad stuff is, shit...it's just icky, nasty stuff that poisons a relationship. we are focusing on appreciation, love, goal setting and working together on everything, one moment, one day at a time.