Somewhere deep inside me lies an artist. She is still searching for the medium and the tools, but she is getting close. I see pictures in my head all of the time, I feel the urge to make things, but I don’t always know how.

While life has been heavy, the urge has been stronger than ever to express myself. The primary way I do it now is with words and occasional photography. However, I feel that my words are clumsy and get in the way of my thoughts. My pictures capture what I see, but they don’t always communicate the feeling nor what is conjured up in my mind’s eye in reaction to the scene in front of me.

I have my eye on some art classes at Laguna Gloria. I want to learn to work with acrylic paint, mixed media techniques, collage, and book binding. Oftentimes, I will use the desire to make something for someone else as a reason to create.

But I want to let go of my practicality and give myself permission to create just for the sake of doing so. Or as a friend relayed recently, “for the experience of doing so”. For the release I will experience in taking all that is inside me and arranging into a piece of art.

And wouldn’t it be funny if a big part of this journey right now was to lead me this place where I realize that the missing piece in the way I process and experience life is what I create. And maybe that is some of the void.

And perhaps I am totally off-base. But I need to take a leap to find out. So some classes or mentoring are in order. I like the idea of creating just for me. I watched this beautiful video the other day and this quote stood out to me:

‎”Art is a way to set free whatever it is I can’t explain in words.” ~ Misty Mawn

Yes. I see all around me how when life gets hard, what gets dropped first are the things that bring us joy, that keep us grounded, that remind us who we are. Fun is free and is something we have control over. Even with some crayons, paper and glue – amazing collages can be made.

The trick is to really grasp at what we have control over and how to keep balance. We don’t have to be tossing water out of the boat every single second. Which leads into my next post…..how to let go of control (which we don’t have anyway..). But first, I think some painting is in order….

I thought I was fine. And I suppose I was for a while. It is amazing what can happen to a person on a dark journey. I thought I was simply a partner, a witness, a supporter. At some point, though, it became my journey too.

I thought I was fine, but it turns out I was simply coping incredibly well. And now I look back and I see how these things had always been churning. It is funny how well we can dance around our demons when life is going well. Or we get bogged down by them from time to time, but are able to shake them loose. But put together a perfect storm, and they will finally pull our asses under.

And so we are now mired in more therapy I care to admit. Can I just say that sanity is expensive? Don’t get me started on income inequality and how more people need access to mental health care….

And so I feel like I am on an elevator going up all the floors of a tall building. The basement was December/January and that sucked. Floor one was hard. Next stop: floor two. And so it goes and I dissect these things that drag me down and find a way to cope with what is.

This process of poke wound, hurt, figure out what is it all about, try to heal it. This process of feeling better until the next wound is hard. This cycle of being at 30,000 feet above my life and then right back in my life. This repeat of clarity to confusion and back.

And now I am way sleep deprived. I get so deep in these places I can’t remember when it was fine. People say it will get better and this is a hard time for us. And I find that so profound, because I think I came to believe that life would always feel like this. That this is being an adult and I just need to learn how to deal with it.

I know there are so many important lessons to be learned right now. And I am trying so hard to glean every bit of knowledge I can from this time. But it also brings me comfort to know that life won’t always be this heavy. That joy will be easier. It won’t be something we will we have to fight so hard for.

I so wonder how my kids will remember this time. Will is be the time we were always stressed? We were always angry? We were sad? We weren’t really present with them? Or will it be a blip? It is so strange to be figuring out my life and the same time that theirs is being shaped.

It blows my mind now to think of what my parents were holding during my childhood. We carry these burdens that our children are in no way capable of comprehending. And we do our best to contain our suffering so that our children do not have to bear any of it. And if we don’t have the people in our lives to help and support us, to love us – we risk imploding because of all that we have stuffed inside us.

This crazy, hard, beautiful life. There is really no conclusion here. It is all a journey. Right now, I am trying to find more ways to bring comfort and joy into my life..and sleep. I am looking forward to the light at the end of the tunnel. And I hope to stay out of tunnels for a while. I am pooped.

I wish I could articulate what the last two months have been like. Surreal. I look out the window for answers and there is a giant full moon staring back at me. It is all so completely surreal.

I have been the supporting cast member in a tale of struggle ignoring the goings on in my own world…the changes taking place, the mounting stress, the plate finally out of room for one more thing.

Then there was this moment. A single moment on a sunny, calm day by the lake when the truth that had been all around me finally sunk in. It was like a slow motion free fall from that point forward.

And after so long of facing someone else’s demons, I was now facing my own. December will go down as one of the darkest months for me on record. I walled out the world, sat in my dark pit, cried and mourned and just felt it all. Every thing that I had been stuffing down while I was holding it together and being strong, every little bit passed through me. Fears and anxiety kept my shoulders and stomach in knots. I have been down before, but never like this. This was different. This hurt so much. This was hopeless. This was dark.

It felt like my entire world crumbled and then a tornado picked me up dumped me somewhere else.

I have been battling to shake off the depression as it tries to take a stronger hold of me. The new year was looking good, but in a vulnerable place, too much was required of me and I backslid. Thus far I have avoided medications and hope I can continue to do so.

Since this,
I’ve grown up some
Different kinda figther
And when the darkness come, let it inside you
Your darkness is shining
My darkness is shining
Have faith in myself
Truth.

From: Alexander Ebert, “truth”

At this moment, I feel like I am shaking it loose again. I am thankful to be in the care of a therapist who has worked with me previously and is very good. And so here I am trying to work it all out. And that isn’t easy, but it is necessary. I am too tired to try and tell the story. It is similar to anyone else who has done battle with their demons.

I know me though. No matter how far down I am or how long I am down, I seem to always find a way back. And I have to hold onto that. I hold the determination.

There remains a good bit of stress in my life. I am doing what I can to keep myself above water and energized. These days, I am not feeling as down as I am tired. One step at a time. This year is going to be another difficult one in many ways, but I am hoping near the end that life overall will look brighter. Or at least I will be in a better place to handle the bumps that might be coming this year.

I feel the need to state here that homeschooling is not part of what has me down. The changes, the stress would not have been avoided if Tyler was in school. If anything, my kids have been been front and center in keeping me grounded and focused.

And with that – you have my truth. This humble reminder that I too have more growing to do.

from October 16, 2010

It didn’t hit me until about a week before our renewal that my Dad would not be there. I was responding to an email and reminiscing about my wedding day. I was in a minor car accident the day before on the way to San Antonio. I was okay, but there was some damage done to my car. I remember how my Dad took care of everything while I was on my honeymoon so when I got home my car was as good as new.

And there he was…..my Dad. I spend so much time in the NOW with my Dad, more often Pop these days than Dad or Daddy. And I cried. And I was glad there were tears. Sometimes I spend so much time detached. Maybe that is coping. Those tears felt good. Missing him. Remembering him.

And now, I want to feel that more. I had a hard visit at my Dad’s a few weeks ago when I was putting him to bed. The kids being there and a bit crazy did not help. It is strange to tell my kid angrily, “You need to be quiet and calm down because I need get Pop to bed” while tears are streaming down my face. His Depends are wet more often than not. It is harder to brush his teeth than it is my 4 year-old. I put lotion on his feet and body.

My brother does this once a week for my Mom. I want to as well. I think my Mom tries to limit my caregiving where my Dad is concerned because I have kids (my brother does not). But I need to do that. I need to have those moments, to feel this journey. I am learning that stuffing it all down doesn’t work because at some point all that emotion comes back up.

I was nearly obliterated this December because everything that I have been holding and stuffing down came up. I haven’t felt that much pain or cried that much in a long time.

Below are a series of pictures that were taken the day of our renewal. Mom brought my Dad over in the afternoon and we looked through our wedding album with him. He seemed to get excited about some of the pictures. He liked one with Bryan and Chris and was laughing at the garter picture.

That is not my Dad is these pictures though. I kind of wish blogging was done back when I was kid. I want more stories, more pictures, more memories. It is like my head is so full of my kids and this life that feels so very full that there is no room for his story. That scares me…that sometimes I feel like I can’t remember him, I can’t feel him.

I don’t really know what to do about that right now, but to see him more, to feel him more, to help care for him.

We started the day of our renewal with a photo shoot by our friend and photographer Meredith Winn. We have never had pictures taken of us. Though I had wanted to do something like this, I never understood why. That isn’t real anyway, I would say. But a week before our renewal this same friend had her own experience being on the other side of the lens and blogged it. She articulated what I was feeling and I new in an instant that I wanted us to be seen.

The shoot is a strange thing I must admit. Even with a good friend shooting us. I was very happy with the pictures we got back. Meredith has a way of seeing the soul of her subjects; she sees you.

My favorite shot of the whole bunch is below. The kids are not in this one – it is just Chris and I. It is my favorite because we both looked straight into the lens. That is the shot I wanted more than anything: us. We allowed the camera to look beyond our eyes and peer in.

We are together in this life. Right now life feels heavy. We are both open and vulnerable. All walls are down. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced in our 14 years of being together. Rarely do we feel safe enough to be emotionally naked in front of another person – even those with which we are incredibly close. No defenses and nothing hidden. Life is so odd that such beauty comes from hard times. I feel so incredibly blessed to have his arm to squeeze. Though we feel lost, we are lost together.

Love it will not betray you
Dismay or enslave you, it will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be
There is a design, an alignment, a cry
Of my heart to see,
The beauty of love as it was made to be

And these pictures. Now I have them. And for a month they have been on a CD sitting on our desk waiting to be given to family and printed for our walls. But they are more than that. In times like this where everything is a question – when I feel so distanced from my kids, when we feel lost, when we don’t know who we are…..I look at these photos.

And there we are. We are found. Sure the kids were a bit nuts that day and sure Chris and I weren’t quite sure what to do, but I had someone there who knew how to find us. It didn’t matter what was happening on the surface. Meredith wouldn’t lose us. It is so beautiful to be seen….and also to be found.

Hi there.

We just returned from a really shitty vacation. It was shitty for a whole host of reasons. And not that things have to go well to make a vacation good – one of our best vacations included a cabin that got flooded, a tent that blew over at midnight and required us to pack up and take the kids to a hotel, and a car accident.

Maybe we were hoping to find something this time. Maybe we wanted to feel something that has been missing. But really, we are both lost inside ourselves. And our kids picking up on that seemed so very lost themselves. They were forces to be reckoned with on this trip.

The upsides of such experiences is that Chris and I talk. We are stopped at a park in the middle of the journey home and as the kids play, we try to figure it out. We talk calmly and honestly. We know this place sucks. I think deep down we are both blindsided by just how heavy life has become.

We are both depressed. We came to the end of our plan and never really made a new one. I think that we were on the get married, get house, get dog, have kids, have career. I quit to stay home after Quinn was born and we knew I would be home until they were school age.

Now I am homeschooling, but for how long and what is next. What does Chris want? What the hell do we want to do with our lives anyway? What are we saving for? We ran into a man who lives pretty cheaply traveling around to all the national parks – Chris eyes lit up!

Here we are – we created this family and we don’t know what to do with it. Having it requires a lot from us and we are serious-types. So much so that we put all of ourselves into the responsibility and we lose ourselves. We are always dealing with the hard stuff that we don’t even know how to have fun anymore. We are both trying to keep life under control….and we have young children. Needing to feel control + young children = impossible, total hell and utter chaos.

I told Chris today that if we hadn’t had kids, I wouldn’t feel so concerned about the future. I could just live my life and die. And to some degree I envy that. The truth is I am tired of all the responsibility. It is sometimes hard to detach. Chris can’t detach, so even if I try to bring the levity, he is steeped in work stress.

Ultimately we need to embrace the chaos that is life and not worry about the lack of answers. We need to take risks and get back to enjoying the surprises that life has to offer. It is just the journey.

But for right now, I just want to feel in control for a little while. And I don’t need cheering up. I just need some time to myself. I need to keep my energy and my ideas for me, for us. I need to put some creativity into our lives. We need to move beyond simply coping or getting by.

The holidays are a good time for us – we have lots of lovely family traditions that will help carry us through. I told Chris we need to have as much fun as we can the next couple of weeks and when the New Year rolls around, we need to set some serious intentions. We need to commit to living our lives more fully.

I miss us. I want to regret this turn in our life, but that is ridiculous. There is a lot of good and wisdom that have come from it. If anything, we are just growing up.

I am sure one day I will regret posting all this shit. But my kids will know me – warts and all. If my brain turns to mush or god forbid I am taken prematurely, they will see their mother and their childhood wholly. There were amazing days and some days completely sucked. And maybe if they ever find themselves in this position or feeling this way, they will know that it is normal. Memories get fonder as time goes by and so I like recording this stuff when it is raw and I am in the moment. Because this right here is just as real and the amazing times. It is all part of the roller coaster.

Everyone has a different way that they pull themselves out of the muck, and this is mine. I feel it and I ruminate… a lot. And I make sense of it for myself so I can then make a plan to dig myself out. I like plans. And I like thinking out loud.

And with that, I have a long to do list and the day is getting away from me. Enough ruminating for now.

“I’m better than this.”

I wrote that on a piece of paper earlier today. Because I am. Right now I am in denial, I am hiding, and I am scared. I am distracting myself from living my life. If you look from the outside, it looks like we are doing great and for the most part we are. But I know that I am not fully engaged in our days like I should be.

The biggest complaint I hear from parents of kids in school is how little time they get to spend with them or how they wish they could take them out more often to do things around town. I have all that and we have not been taking advantage of it. I know myself well-enough and I can tell you that I am just getting by as opposed to really living my days. There is so much more I could be doing with my kids.

And if I needed any reaffirmation of that, Tyler went on today about wanting more friends. He is a social creature just like me; we could see people every day and not get enough. And yet, he and I share the same dilemma right now. Our entire circle of friends went to school this year. And we are not going to get to see them as much as we want to. We are lonely. We have one wonderful family we do lots with, but ya know, they have days where they may want to do something on their own or with others.

Tyler and I have to make new friends. People who know me may be puzzled because I am so outgoing. Meeting people IS easy; making friends is a whole other ballgame. Of course, meeting people is a good way to get started down that road. I need to attend park days and other events. I just need to put more energy into it. There are some friends doing part-time school as well and I haven’t followed up with them. And really, I may not need to find life-long pals here, just other families that are searching for peers for their kids. It will probably prove to be a lot easier than I am making it out to be. Which is very typical for me – always making things more complicated than they have to be.

So I need to get going. I need to put my energy into this. I am always full of ideas, but I need to work on follow-through. And I really need to take better care of myself – set myself up for the best sleep possible, exercise, take that dance class. That may sound like the wrong place to start, but I have to give energy to get energy. If I am going through the daily motions and not living my life to its fullest, I will not have the spunk, spark and energy to guide my kids in living theirs to its fullest.

I can’t allow life to drain me. I can do better than the bare minimum. I have to work harder to keep my spark going. I AM better than this. I WILL be brave. I WILL jump in.