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Posts Tagged ‘family’

Really? I’m supposed to feel this tired?

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , on December 22, 2011| Leave a Comment »

A few years ago I was feeling tired and sore all the time.  Went to lots of appointments, found an unrelated growth in the left ovary (bye, bye left ovary) and was finally told I have fibromyalgia and may have had it for years.  I used to take one of the meds that can be used to treat it for another issue but went off that med as we were trying to get pregnant.  Then I was pregnant, nursing, pregnant, nursing and so attributed the physical pain to that.  Yet after finishing nursing with my youngest, I still felt pain all the time and really tired and all the other lovely symptoms that go with fibromyalgia.

I choose not to use the medicines because of the dreadful side effects.  With that choice, there is a lot of pain.  Usually it is tolerable.  Lately though it has been taking a lot of effort to get through the work day.  By the time I get home, I am completely wiped.  I make sure to use whatever energy I can summon up to have time with my sons and then I collapse.

My hands hurt.  My wrists, ankles, knees, hips, shoulders.  My appetite is inconsistent.  There are other issues but no one really wants to read about those particularly if you just ate, are about to eat, or ever want to enjoy eating again.

Please know that while this really does sound like a whiny series of complaints, it is not meant to be.  I am simply stating my daily existence.  It’s a blessed existence and I can handle it, but I’m behind right now in prepping for the holidays.  I am mostly writing about this to reaffirm for myself that it does not have to be perfect, family knows what one’s house truly looks like, and the boys will have an awesome Christmas making lovely new memories to cherish forever.

And I will have over a week to not have to go to work.  I love my job.  I’ve had a particularly lovely semester.  I just cannot believe how tired I am.  Remember, I’m not old, I’m cultured.  Yet I feel ancient.  The pain in my fingers when I type is almost unbearable.  Yes, I appreciate the irony that I’m typing right now.  My ability to write with a pen or pencil is failing miserably.  My signature is unrecognizable to me at this point.

But over a week without having to go through the almost 30 mile commute and all the miserable people who drive without regard for the other cars on the highway.  Over a week to be with my sons and husband.  Over a week to work on our home during the few hours each day when the pain is not as bad.  I can get adjustments from my hubby and maybe my right arm will stop being numb.

Okay, this is a whiny series of complaints.  Pity party is over.  I would love to write that I feel empowered and rejuvenated from getting this off my chest.  But I am still simply going to go to bed.  Good night.

 

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Simplicity and hoarders

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , on December 19, 2011| Leave a Comment »

The other day I attended a lovely holiday shindig.  The home was extremely clean and tastefully decorated.  Yet there were very few items that seemed to possess sentimental value.  The house had no clutter anywhere.  Even the storage spaces were tidy and organized.  I realized if the owner of this house came into my house she would think she had walked into an episode of Hoarders.  So I began to wonder if my “hoarding” is connected to something.

The things in my house are hard to get rid of because I feel an emotional connection to them.  Yet I know I don’t want to keep many of these things for a long time only to then throw them away.  But I don’t want my home to feel sterile.  When I was younger, some of my friends’ houses seemed that way, like nothing in it belonged to them or meant anything to them.  How do I figure out what is crap, if you’ll pardon the expression, and what truly has value, enough to keep?

Then my thoughts wandered to my quest for simplicity and how the clutter simply does not work with simplicity.  And really, do I need the “things” that remind me if the memories?  I stopped saving every movie ticket stub years ago, yet after seeing The Muppets with my sons I find it difficult to throw those stubs out.  It’s not like I won’t have the memory of the theater experience without the tickets and they don’t really help me remember anything except the day and time we went-but I don’t actually care about that-I care about the smiles, the laughs, and the conversations we had that day.  So no, I don’t need the stubs.  I don’t need the cards, the ribbons, the stuff.  I keep the memories in my heart.

Life would be so much simpler without the stuff.  I will be off from work next week for the holiday and will be the queen of purge.  The quest for simplicity without sterilization continues.

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A bad penny

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , on December 14, 2011| 1 Comment »

You remember that expression?  Keeps coming back like a bad penny?  Whatever the expression, I was on a board until this past October.  Here it is December and board members are still regularly contacting me.  I no longer have the information.  I have nothing to offer anymore, I am burned out beyond believe to the point of feeling bitter toward something I used to really love.  I know over time I will enjoy it again, but please stop asking me if I am coming to the next meeting.  If I were to go to the next meeting, wouldn’t that somewhat defeat the point of going off the board?  If I weren’t burnt out, perhaps I would want to go, but the other problem is that I work that weekend which is why I wasn’t at the last January meeting.

I feel like I am being mean in trying to cut myself away but they keep writing and calling.  I feel like I have been backed into a corner.  The position is in my (recent) past, in my present I do not want it right now, and in my future I hope to be able to embrace it again.  I also hope my sons continue to embrace it, but at the moment I am so frustrated I don’t want them to see that.  Part of the reason I announced I would not have a second term over a year before the first term was over.

Let me explain, no it will take too long, let me sum up.  Family can be a tricky thing.

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You’ve got a friend

Posted in Musings and Epiphanies, tagged , , , , , , , on August 21, 2011| Leave a Comment »

My oldest is worried about how many friends he has.  He wants more friends this year at school.  We talked about why he thinks some of his classmates aren’t “friends”.  He thinks it’s because he goofs off a lot.  When I asked him what he could do about that, he said, “I know, I know, don’t goof off so much.”  Smart kid.

How many friends you have doesn’t really matter, of course.  What matters is how good of a friend you are to others.  Yep,sounds a bit like the wizard.  I have had some really great friends over the years.  Apparently though, I’m not good at keeping the friendship going, the sustaining part of friendship.  I wish I could say I don’t know why, but truly I think I do.  I tend to be rather annoying, clingy, and possessive.  It’s something that I hope I do not teach my sons and yet not teach them to be aloof in the process.  I see bits of me in both of them, obviously since I’m their mom, but one has to contemplate nature versus nurture.  Will my style of nurturing override their natural state of being?  Or do I need to nurture to to try to shape their natural state of being?

My big mistake over the years has usually been to misinterpret the friendship.  The level of importance was not as balanced as I wanted to think.  I thought of myself as more important in the other person’s life than what I was.  My perception and perspective was skewed.  It took me many years to figure this out, but once I did it freed up some space in my brain.  I am a worst-case scenario-ist and so I go over all the possibilities and usually focus on the worst ones.  This creates a higher level of wondering…what did I do, not do, say, or not say that ruined the friendship?  In reality, many of the times it came down to friends being more important to me than I was to them.  This was not their problem, it was mine.  The other big error I would make involved how much I really had in common with the person.  Not necessarily the little things (books, movies, music, interests) but the important stuff-values, priorities, goals.

How do I keep my sons from creating a similar imbalance in their friendships?  All I could say tonight to my son was to be thoughtful, considerate, and remember the other person’s point of view.  I told him he is a wonderful boy, with a lot of neat energy.  I pointed out that he has done a lot of growing up this summer and to begin the school year with a positive attitude.  I also told him that he should be friendly to everyone (and hopefully everyone is friendly back) but that not everyone will be his friend.  And that is okay.

We did a study of a book in Sunday school and during it  we examined friendship.  There were exercises to graph your friends to see where they place within your life, your inner circle out through the acquaintances you have.  I didn’t reach the maximum on any of the circles.  I wonder if that is good or bad or simply me.  I suppose if I didn’t have a strong enough group of friends I would feel “lonely” but I don’t mind being alone.  Does that impact the way I am with friends?

Another thing that I realized over the years is that everyone’s perspective of what is important is so different.  I want to teach that to my sons, help them understand it.  I haven’t figured out how to do that yet without it sounding judgmental or cynical.  Perhaps combining it with a healthy dose of how everyone is usually just doing the best they can, and if they seem grumpy, maybe they are just having a bad day.

Friends are very important in life.  Family is more important still.  Surround my sons with a loving family and the friends will come along.

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