Saturday, December 26, 2015

An Open Letter to my Friends

An open letter to friends is not always an easy letter to write. The ramblings of a wandering mind can be a dangerous thing; and yet the best thing for the person with the wandering mind is to let them go.

I want to first start out by apologizing for not always being intentional in my friendships. I have a habit of talking - a lot. My mouth at times gets ahead of me in many ways.  It also doesn't allow the ears to work so well when it comes time to listening to my friends speak.  So it seems there is a lot of give and not much take; but in reality there is such a deep-seated open heart within me, that all it wants to do is listen to you.
Please tell me about the crappy day you have had, and how you screamed at the kids 10 times for the same stupid thing! Guess what? I have too!  Please tell me how you are struggling to find something that fills your heart with a sense of purpose, because I do too. Please tell me how you feel like the world is against you at this moment, because I have felt it before too.  I don't ask you to share just because it would validate my self in some way, I ask you to share because sharing helps.  I don't always know what to say or when the right timing would be to say something I might want to share; but I always want to listen.

I want to apologize for not always having my shit together. Life happens, and honestly, when you struggle with depression - which by the way, yeah I still struggle; life can happen when you don't want it to. Or it will happen when you already felt overwhelmed and now is not the time to lose my cool over the stupidest, smallest thing. Yet I did; again. So friend, I am sorry if I have lost it with you. I am sorry if you have thought that I had my life together, in a nice, neat, orderly box with a pretty little bow on it. I do not.

Please know that if I say my day is fine, or good - there is probably something hidden that I may or may not want to share. But go back up to the beginning where my mouth runs more than my ears. Sometimes, I just say it is good because for once I want to be truly there for YOU and not think of me. I don't want to mention my bad day, or my fears, or my struggle with whatever it is that day. Because for once I truly want to be there for YOU.  So, sometimes I say things are good just so that I can hear you. :)

Also, friends please know that I do indeed need each and every one of you in my life.  Friends come and go in our lives for many reasons, and the friends I have surrounding me right now seem to be the best friends I have had in YEARS.  These friends, have filled my life with smiles, with jokes, with love, with spiritual love, with purpose, with meaning.  Thank you to each and every one of you.  Please know that you all mean so much to me.  I look forward to spending so much more time growing our friendships in the year 2016.

Saturday, December 19, 2015

Ups and Downs

I hate days where emotionally I am all over the map, and not only does my family have to walk on egg shells; but I feel like I have to with myself as well! Seriously, how many people out there have to make sure that any thought, decision or idea made that day works well with one's own emotional state?  Today we celebrated Willow's birthday. 5 years old next week, I can hardly believe it. I am so happy that she is doing so well, and has overcome so much adversity, made it through 12 brain surgeries and one look and you would never know.

This week she had an eye appointment. I love her doctor there, and she is always so honest with us; which for me is a great trait for a doctor to have, because while she doesn't give doom and gloom speeches, she does indeed tell us what can/will happen. Well, this week was no different. We were told she needed new glasses, only Willow loves her frames so will keep those. We are getting a much stronger prescription for her weak, right eye. It jumped a lot! To the point that in March, if both eyes are not better, she will be getting bifocals! I was shocked and said bifocals at 5? I was half in shock, half questioning it as a joke. She took me aside to say that we are trying to save her sight at this point. Her weak eye took such a turn for the worse, that even she was shocked. There is a much greater risk that we are looking at her going blind in that one eye a lot sooner than originally talked about (roughly a year ago).  So that was a hit to the ol' heart and soul in my book.

But that alone doesn't make up the emotional toll of the day today. I had a blast with friends and was so happy to see Willow beaming with joy at her friends being here, opening her gifts, eating her cake, playing with said gifts. But even she will tell you she had a good day/bad day. There was a lot of good, as I just said. But the bad in her day, has to do with me - either telling her to put something away so we can move on to something else, blowing up at the end of the night (not at her, and really I haven't put a pin on why I did), and she has a few other things I did to 'ruin her day', but hey it was parental. LOL

Either way, my ups and downs affected her day, and that makes it hurt more. No one likes to talk about mental health, and the stigma that is attached to it grows daily. But I suffered such anxiety surrounding today, and it had built through the week with the help of other events that I had not properly dealt completely with at the moment and then a lack of sleep added to that. I just wish for a redo. Thankfully, despite the ups and downs I know I am surrounded by family that love me and we can wake up tomorrow and try again.  For now, I feel like crying into my pillow.

Thursday, December 10, 2015

Proud mama

Some days as a mom are better than others. I think we can all agree on that. Today was a day filled with ups and downs, but not necessarily of the kid variety; no, it was more life variety.

Jonathan has a heart for the homeless, something he doesn't share openly much, or with others at all. In fact this is really a new idea/love/passion for him within the last month or so.  He has set goals once again in his life for his future and has a potential career in mind. With this lofty career goal, is how he began to share with me his passion for helping the homeless. He would love to house the homeless, provide clothing, food, job training, makeovers, etc. He wants to help them get their life back.  So we have had many talks about what this may look like, what others are doing, etc.

Well, today in my life; I was bagging up the Christmas goodies I had been making over the last few days to give to friends and neighbors as I do every year.  I had a good bit going already when I hear this little voice ask me why the neighbors and not the homeless? They do not get to enjoy the goodies like this that we all do this time of year.  They may be able to find a place to receive a hot meal for Christmas if the city is doing something; but home baked goods.... can't think of anyone passing those out. So I bagged up all I could before having to leave to get him. Almost stopped at a friends house to give a bag to her, when I heard no, talk to Jonathan first.

I pick him up, he see's the bag and says "oh, friend delivery?" That was when I told him that I had this strange thought, and wanted to know what he thought of it.  Well, he loved it!! So we deliver two bags right away, only then our car begins to sputter bad on the road. I have no choice but to take it in somewhere. So we drop it off - walk to Wendy's for lunch, only to find no cash.  I ask them to cancel our order as I can't pay for it and the manager walks up and says, it is on us, don't worry about it. I about cried!! I get to the table and tell Jonathan about that, and we both sit in shock for a moment. I look at him and said we blessed two homeless with Christmas goodies, and he says to me, "God provided our lunch for us. We have to find a way to finish giving these bags out!"  Well, the repair shop had a loaner car, and we did indeed finish passing out the holiday goodie bags. 9 of them went out today, and he kept thanking me each time he was able to give one out.

The thing is, some days we struggle with attitude, back talk, tantrums and want to know what we did to deserve this, why are we such bad moms. Then there are days like today; where I still sit hours later crying over his heart of gold for the homeless.  He has inspired some friends of mine to do the same. Tomorrow is date night, and well, we will be spending it handing out roughly 30 (or more) bags of Christmas goodies to the homeless downtown.  :)   Thank you Jonathan for having such a huge heart for the homeless among us.