Groanings

And possible weeping and gnashing of teeth. The black hole of my ADD brain is reaching its inky fingers into my heart and soul, chanting hopeless, hopeless, hopeless. Everywhere I turn there is some area of my life that needs work; that needs planning and execution of a plan. Everywhere I look there is something I want to improve about myself or my surroundings. I know I've read that it's important to focus on my strengths, but that is not easy to do when said strengths are not readily visible. And it's been this way so long, I'm not certain I remember what they were (are?).

Today's sermon was on the parable of the ten talents. I am beginning to hate that story. I don't know what I'm supposed to take from that. And since there is nothing I can point to and say, "here, God, is your return on your investment in me", I am left to conclude that I am the wicked and lazy servant who buried their talent. Just to state the obvious - how the heck does that help me live the life God wants me to live?

This ADD feels like a large vehicle parked on top of me. I can't see, at this moment, how I will ever accomplish anything beyond keeping my family from starving or freezing to death. I always thought I had so much to offer, could accomplish fantastic things. Now, it seems, I have to lower my expectations waaaaaaay down, look around me and say, "this is all I'm capable of." It doesn't feel right. My brain is yelling at me, "There's no reason you can't rock this life." But it seems I can't.

Feelings

I have them! It's amazing!

A little context: Diagnosed a couple years ago with Bipolar Disorder. Had a variety of medications to manage this. Have recently reduced a couple of these medications and am now finding myself feeling all kinds of things - like joy and inspiration, and mischievousness, and adventurousness, and hope! I am a little worried about the possibility of this being a prolonged manic state. And I am ticked that I can't just be happy without worrying that me being happy equals crazy. But I've decided to enjoy feeling things again and hope that the feelings are a good sign for me and the future. I have read that the drugs I was on can be very numbing, so I hope I am simply shedding this mantle of numbness and reconnecting with the emotional side of myself.

Love

"What if my greatest disappointments,
and the aching of this life,
are a revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy?"
Laura Story, Blessings

I want to be loved in that place where I feel unlovable. In that place where people in my life have failed to see past my sin and weakness and ugliness to the beauty God created uniquely within me.

Lord, let Your Love sink down and saturate every depth of my heart, so that I can say with all my intellect, will, and passion that You are what people need; You are the One we need to follow, to seek after with every piece of our broken hearts until we know we are created and loved, redeemable and redeemed.

Sunset

I now know what has been missing from my life - sunsets!! I stand on the deck every evening and look out over our property and the horizon and I think - that is the most beautiful part of the day. And Iève been missing it all these years!

Today the sun is breaking through the day-long cloud cover just in time to nestle behind the trees across the way. The neighbourès barn glows red through the Russian willows and the grass is an enticing springtime green.

Living in the Country

Watched a perfect Manitoba sunset as my children played beneath the branches of a huge old tree and my husband shimmied up said tree with a ladder carefully balanced in the bucket of a mini skid steer (like a miniature loader).

Emotional attachments

I am addicted to Starbucks blueberry scones. This isn't news to me, I am well aware. However, for the past 2 weeks I haven't been eating them, or much of anything else, due to a lot of gall bladder inflammation (read PAIN). But today I had one anyway, even though surgery is only a few days away. Surely I could say no to a scone for a few more days. But I could not say no, which led to the realization that I am emotionally attached to these scones. How does that even happen?

I think I've probably been forming these attachments most of my life. But as I think about it at this moment, when the simple fact is eating this thing could cause great pain, I am really confused as to how we get attached, emotionally, to food. I don't get attached to rocks or household objects. Why do I form these attachments to foods? How do I break them? What need are they meeting that I'm not aware of?

Waking Up

So, today my dilemna is how to wake up in the mornings. This used to come naturally at one point in my life, but now it is a 4 hour battle. First off, I know I should go to bed earlier. But let's just imagine that at this juncture in time, with my husband working till 11 pm every night and major painting and vinyl-ing and housecleaning projects ongoing as we face the crunch of trying to sell our house ASAP, going to bed early isn't plausible. Regardless of when sleep phase is entered - it needs to be exited at 7 am. Kids can't get themselves off to school yet. Now I have been known to go back to bed and sleep until 11 am. But this takes a big chunk out of my potential productivity for the day. The problem is, after the kids go to school, I am still half asleep.

And I just lost the entire next paragraph due to finger malfunction. End of story - I'm so tired I ache and the need to sit (inevitably leading to sleep) is stronger than my conviction that I must work. So I'm looking for a way to trick myself into feeling more awake. Like I used to when I had to go to work. I just tripped and landed in the shower and instinct took over and by the time I was done - Voila! I was awake! But try convincing yourself to get up 15 minutes earlier to shower first thing when you don't have any time pressure in the morning. Maybe I should reward myself for waking up and showering before the girls are up. That actually sounds intriguing.

Frustration

Wall. Head. Pound.

Frustration. Trapped. Suffocated by walls of clutter. Drowning in a life of paper and ponytail holders. There is no simplicity to life anymore. Wherever we are, whatever we do, we are inundated by paper. We don't ask for it, we even do our best to stop the flow, but here we are in a sea of it.

I can't stop it. And it seems inevitable that it will one day reach the ceilings and the house will officially belong to the paper - possession is 9/10, so they say.

I'm wracking my brain and I got --- nothing. Maybe if I took my kids out of the public school system. That would help. My husband could quit his job and we could grow our own food. Maybe we could be the first completely wireless family - no paper whatsoever!

Except how would that impact my notebook fetish? I'm not ready to give that up. I love those notebooks.

Wall. Head. Pound.

Spent last week at CMU's School of Writing. One week of glorious focus. It was a bit stressful at times, when there was no clean laundry and nothing to eat, but still - I had a focus, people!! I miss it now. I look around me and the house slants and spins -  my life in a dryer. I sit and watch everything tumbling over itself and wonder what to do.

I suppose it isn't completely hopeless. There will be clean underwear tomorrow, which is a good thing. Husband is (once again, twice again?) out 3 nights out of 5 so we can get by on raw veggies and milk. But I have a dream. A dream where all family members can find socks and no one gets a concussion when they open the fridge door. A dream where I don't mistake my main floor for an episode of "Hoarders" and papers are not inexplicably eaten and digested never to be seen again.

Focus vs. organized house. Let's deconstruct this. Take away the focus, is the house organized? No. What happens when we add in the focus activity? House gets more disorganized. Is it wrong to move forward simply hoping this trend toward disorganization would eventually turn itself around? Or that maybe there could be a balance between focus and house? I need to decide this, because it means going back to university this fall or not.

Life

Boy, life just keeps going on, doesn't it? No matter how hard it gets, no matter how I respond to it - it just keeps moving on.

I think I am newly seeing my non-omnipotence. When I feel like stopping, quitting, picking up the pace, being someone else - whatever action I take on the basis of those feelings, life continues on its course in large part unaffected by me. I can change a lot of things in an attempt to control what I can't control, but ultimately I don't affect what comes my way - who comes into, or goes out of my life, or my kids' lives; what happens to my country's governance or economy; how the earth turns and groans under the burden of sin; or even the chemical and physical processes of my own body. The list of what I don't control is very, very long.

It makes me wonder what I could otherwise do with the energy I expend on attempts to control life. Especially if I put that energy toward changing something I could change - like me, or a situation near me that needs some working on.

I have often wondered about parts of the Bible that talk about helping the poor, caring for the needy, praying for everything, sharing the good news - who has time for all that? I feel I don't even have the energy to care for myself, let alone all these other needs around me. This could be because I am not aware of how much energy I'm spending fighting life, or trying to anticipate and affect what's going to come next in life.

I always thought I spent too much energy on myself - trying to understand myself, change myself, invent myself, love myself. I don't think I was trying to change me at all - I was trying to change life. Really working on changing me requires first accepting who I am, and I've never really done that.

Family

Wow - I've just had a defining moment.

I crept back to the old blog, head hung in shame because I've completely neglected it yet again, and re-read my last post. Following were two comments from my family - who love me, they really love me!

I hadn't been back to the blog and so hadn't seen these comments. I guess I never really expected to get something back from writing this blog.

But those comments really encouraged me to keep on being me, regardless of how frustrating it can be at times, and especially during those times when I feel I don't make much of a difference in this world.

To some people, I do. That makes me happy, and content to be me. Thanks, guys!

I'm thinking of starting a campaign to revert to the old name for ADD - Minimal Brain Dysfunction. Or, similarly, Minimal Brain Damage. I'm just not totally sold on the "Minimal" part yet.

This is day 2 of barely keeping it together. I seem to be experiencing almost total loss of brain function. Or at least the kind of functions that we've come to assume we can rely on in day-to-day life. I've been childless for 3 hours now. And all I've done, before starting this post, is sit and watch my mind jump here and there like I don't know what because I've lost the analogy I was going to use.

It's like my brain is moving so fast that it seems as if I'm standing still, but then suddenly I am somewhere else (thoughtwise) with no idea how I got there, and there's no time to try to rewind because, whoa, now I'm somewhere entirely different.

I've wasted yesterday and I cannot decide for the life of me what to do today. I have many things I could do - I just can't pick one.

So I think I'll do what I often do when I can't get anything done at home - go to the mall and spend some money. To give an example of how far I've come in managing my brain damage, I will point out that I am not going on a spree of indiscriminate spending. I am only spending money that has already been allotted on items I've already decided to purchase.

I can't stop my brain from going wherever it likes, but I can anticipate the destination and plan an intervention.

Hope

I am having this strange sensation, and I only just recognized what it is - it's hope! I don't know where it came from exactly, but that's what it is. It isn't like I've had some dramatic spiritual awakening. I've just started being more honest, and I guess along with that I've become more accepting - of the frailty of human beings, and of the sinful state of the world we live in, and, it follows, accepting of God's faithful love and grace. I was always kinda repulsed by my own sinfulness. I assume others would be repulsed as well. But somehow God is not repulsed. How did Christ draw near to the most unclean and degraded people around him? He honestly saw beyond their sinfulness to something more important. I don't end with my sinful nature; there's more to me than that. I think that's what God sees and I'm seeking to see that as well. And to see beyond others' sin and really be able to love them.

Starbucks, my Starbucks

While I maintain that Starbucks is my friend - their non-fat lattes will keep my bones intact til I'm 100 - I was, until tonight, blissfully unaware of the evil lurking behind the steamed milk and espresso.I was returning from dance class (for the children, not me) with plans to hit the drive-thru for a latte and 6 points burning a hole in my tracker and thought mayhaps I would have a cookie. Yes they're fairly big cookies, but I had 6 points. 6 points is a whole lunch entree - methinks it should cover a cookie.After consuming said cookie, I went online to track down its nutritional details. Why estimate when I can get the exact figures? This is where my rare pocket of food naivete meets cold, hard reality. This delicious cookie is ------460 calories-------, -------22 grams of fat-------, -------11 points------. It's a cookie, people!In shock, I stare at my computer monitor with sure and final knowledge, woefully laced with disbelief, that I will never enjoy this cookie again. Not the way I did pre-9/17. In the post-9/17 culture of my mind I will never again assume that an item's capacity to hold fat or sugar is limited by it's size or by ages old baking truths wherein flour + butter + sugar + eggs = cookies that wouldn't reach 460 calories if they were the size of your head.And the worst part? I immediately crave more. Not only is it the most calorie dense cookie known to man but it makes you crave more of whatever is in it that adds up to 460 calories.

Dimensional Displacement Study

Though I am not actually part of such a study, I feel I should be. I, in fact, feel I should be the focus of such a study. I seem to be shipwrecked in a concurrent dimension of reality, somehow straddling two realities. I am physically present in this one, but part of me is most definitely not here. I think some day this will become an important phenomena for someone to look at and so I've decided (at least for now) to chronicle this parallel existance. (Or maybe I am really, really stretched for something that will lend a sense of purpose to my days.)

Today I had 5 hours without children. I sat and stared (a lot, don't underestimate this), I wrestled with several schemes involving pop-tarts and chocolate, I read a 200 page magazine cover to cover, I napped, I put a couple of things away, I turned on my computer and read my email. Then I woke up. I had been trapped all day in this fog of boredom that I absolutely could not penetrate. I read an email that broke the boredom barrier and suddenly mind and body reunited and I became fully present in one dimension again. I don't now how long this unity will last or, more importantly, how to make this connection stable (kinda liking the Star Trek-wormhole analogy here). I wonder if I'm bored because my mind drifts off into another dimension or if it is the boredom itself that creates the schism.

I really don't tolerate boredom well. I wonder how many of my meds are made necessary by this extreme boredom. I know I sound like a pill popper, so there aren't that many, but for someone who didn't like to take tylenol, it feels like a lot. I did forget to take my ADD meds today, and that always leads to a lot of drifting in space.

So, tomorrow I will attempt to chronicle the experiences of an apparently-not-yet-middle-aged but hormonally challenged, attention deficit, artistically tempered, bi-polar semi-genius.

Jenea's exciting revelation

Making supper today my 3 1/2 year old suddenly yells from the bathroom - Moooooooom!!!!! My breasts are growing!!!

stay-at-home mom mistaken for homeless person

Seriously, has this ever happened to any of you? Have you ever run out of deodorant and actually just not bothered to buy any more? Today as I'm reaching up to put away the dishes I realize - I smell. I can actually smell myself. Gross! How did I get to this place where running out of deodorant is no longer condidered a state of personal emergency?

Next time you're talking to a young SAHM, compassionately listening, and she says (hypothetically) "why do we need to wear makeup everyday? who sees us anyway? maybe it's no big deal."; you need to immediately take her by the arm (forcefully), sit her down and tell her this story.

This is a path you do not want to go down. Listen to me!! First you're looking a bit pale, and the next thing you know people are moving to the back of the bus when you take your seat! Just say no, women (and possibly men as well). It sounds good - no putting your make-up on while driving, no poking mascara wands in your eye as your 2 year old repeatedly tries to jump on your back, no going to Safeway with a 4 year hootchie who's more made-up than you are! But it leads to ruin. Next go the daily showers. You think - how dirty can I get in a day? My kids only bathe a couple times a week and they seem clean enough. Then you're taking the kids to school (and yes, actually entering the building) with 2 day old bedhead because you convince yourself that you are going to the gym after you drop them off so why shower twice? And, ultimately, you no longer bother to make an extra trip to the grocery store for personal hygiene products. For milk you leave the house before dawn if there's not enough to cover 3 bowls of porridge, but if you are haggard, unwashed, and ultimately - bra-less.... - pardon? me? no, I don't need anything. I'm fine. Really.

Oh, the horror. The horror.

men

does the ego ever die down? with age, does the 2year-old mentality of being the actual centre of the universe get grown past? and, at the heart of today's tirade, will they ever notice a slight double-standard in the my-life-should-be-whatever-I-feel-called-to-and- find-fulfilling-and-asserting-to-my-god-given-place-as-a-man; and your-life-should-be-exactly-what-it-is? Cause, really, what more would you want in life than to clean my underwear and my house and my kids and the million other tasks that consume the best of your time and energy.

Okay, so I'm stuffing laundry (about 3 loads worth) into a basket. Laundry and me, we aren't really on speaking terms anymore. I ignore it whenever possible and shove it into whatever machine is available when it becomes absolutely necessary. I then proceed to dump it into whatever laundry receptacle (aka,chair) is available. When necessary I go downstairs and retrieve a desperately needed article. This is what laundry has degenerated to for me. I've tried the one day a week and found you can't actually do 12 loads of laundry in one day, unless you're at a laundromat. I've tried one load a day and come to the conclusion we must have somewhat more than 7 loads of laundry in a week. Don't even think of asking me why we have so much - I swear I will kill you. So as I'm stuffing this basket vowing I will not return for anything that doesn't fit in, my husband; who, incidentally, was left home for 2 hours, while I took the kiddies out, to paint the damn room in the basement that has been in renovations for almost an entire year (oh how I wish I could e-scream), returns from Cdn Tire and this and that, talking about something to do with a really good visit yada, yada, yada (truthfully, I'm not paying much attention, or maybe my rage has simply fogged out the memory of it)and he asks me "is something wrong?" Now, keep in mind, I am not mad at him at all at this point. But I am frustrated because the necessary chores of this life never end, and I say "yeah, I'm tired and my head hurts, and I haven't stopped sweating all day, and sometimes I wonder what's the point of decorating the house and planting gardens or any of the finer things of life when all there seems to be is laundry and putting away, and picking up, and feeding, and cleaning - all amidst the almost continual demands for attention from the other house inhabitants. Since when is this life? So what does my husband say as I'm trudging downstairs with my triple load of laundry? He says, and I am quoting, "I don't see what else there should be." It seems like such a small statement, but it fills my heart with rage. You don't see what else there should be.... for whom? For you? Because it doesn't seem to me that your life resembles this picture very much. So, logically, you must mean (or else are foundationally insensitive) that you don't see what else life should be... for me. yeah. this is where the screaming is happening in my head and the keys are crying out from the beating of my acrylic nails ( i got them done, I really like them, too).

I don't know what else to say, or do for that matter. As the anger ebbs I feel hurt down to my core. Why does it seem that we (I'm thinking the women, here, but maybe it's a gender-neutral thing) keep allowing ourselves to trust this person, let ourselves begin to believe that they do know us and appreciate the whole package of who we are (this feeling of being known is so fundamental to a woman - it's the basis of intimacy) only to have it all smacked down with one careless slap of presumption.

Okay, okay, okay! Goodness. What's all the fuss people? Actually I went back and read my previous entries and quite enjoyed them. I can see why you are all whining all the time for me to get blogging. (tee heee, I crack me up) Okay, so does everyone know - i have ADD. That isn't an award for basic math achievement, that is, indeed, Attention Deficit Disorder. K? All on the same page? Good. Really I don't see how anybody could understand a word I write without knowing that. But besides that, it is and has been the thorn in my flesh digging deeper, and deeper, through layer after layer of emotional flesh until I am ready to rip open my chest cavity to be free of it. But don't worry - I'm still fightin' the good fight and all that ... whatever.

I have talked about this A LOT with friends, hubby, shrinky - but it occurred to me that I sometimes feel I can't blog because I can't possibly explain it to everyone else. But I guess I don't have to. You all can research ADD if it so interests you, this is just so you know what the heck I'm talking about if I mention something relating in passing. I am quite good at math, so it isn't so far fetched to think of possibly being misinterpreted in that way... FOCUS! Just got slap myself out of it at times.

Anyway, I am inching my way through the excruciating process of building my own external structure. It is killing me. I am dying here. I am losing my mind, falling off the razor's edge, all out of metaphors, but - heehhh? Ya know? Sometimes all I can think is - aaaaaaaaaaaarghhhh! AAARRRRRHGHGH!!!!!! Aargh. I gotta go. My computer is being really stupid and slow. My husband is calling me from downstairs though he knows I can in no way hear or interpret his words. Why does he keep talking? My littlest is trying to make the expensive four lb. highly breakable music box work. i gotta go.

Luke....I am your father

So I'm in the kitchen, scraping the porridge out of the pot, and I can hear this heavy disembodied breathing, like Darth Vader. I can hear it, this is not my imagination. I actually stop scraping and listen - still there. I look over my shoulder with that "I know Darth Vader is not in my kitchen but I can still hear him" kind of look. (I know you know what that feels like - creepy) For about 2 eternal seconds I ponder the incongruity of the situation and it comes to me that the loud oxygen-mask breathing is mine. My head is so stuffed up it feels like I am under water. My ears are buffered by an inch or two of fluid, I haven't taken breath through my nostrils for so many hours that I've adapted to a Darth Vader style of breathing for the sake of survival.

My girls are playing pirates. As I finish styling my hair (wow!) and decide to apply makeup (unbelievable!!) I listen to their pirate-y type talk. Batten the hatches! Hoist the midsail! Ahoy, me hearties! I'm the flower pirate! And I'm the minty pirate! And I realize that yes, there are definite gender differences. These pirates have beaded necklaces and sequined shoes. And right now, on their pirate ship, in between commands of "Steer! Steer - away from the whales!" they are having detailed discussions of the finer nuances of color - pink, not red, green like a forest not like a frog, etc. If only I could find my camera I'd have a great scrapbook page out of this. In fact, I shall go seek it momentarily.