The Passing of Angst

"Don't confuse genuine peace of mind with the passing of angst that follows the demise of a dream but precedes a mounting wave of regret."

*sigh*

Quote of the week off of facebook.  Dang it.  There were about fifty other quotes on the meme with this quote that my auntie posted this week, but this was the one sentence that caught my eye.

And it did catch my eye.

Just a minute ago I was on facebook again, and saw this beautiful portrait of a couple dancing at their daughter's wedding.  I thought "that is a beautiful picture" about five seconds before I realized it was a picture I had taken five years ago at a wedding.

I love to capture moments like that in photography.

So does everyone else on this planet of ours.

*sigh*

I'd given up on that achy, angsty part of myself that actually ever wanted to do something with it.  But a couple of weeks ago at an epic party I had the pleasure to be part of, I happened to take a lot of pictures.  I liked them.  A lot.

Reminded me that I used to really like to do this sort of thing.  And then I saw that picture I'd taken at that wedding all those years ago.

Then this feeling resettled in my bones.  Oh my friend, Angst!!  It's been awhile.  Come on in.

14 Years Together

"We were together.  I forget the rest".  Walt Whitman

This last weekend Derrick and I went out of town for our anniversary, as we try to do every year.  The last four years we have went to Whitefish for our anniversary, so this year we decided to shake it up and go to Spokane instead.

The one commonality of our anniversaries throughout the years have been the monochromatic way the December sky decides to present itself.  As we headed out of town on Friday, it looked as though we were heading into the usual grey but happy weekend, but somewhere around the middle of Saturday, the clouds opened up and gave us blue skies.  They stuck around for the rest of our time out of town, and even now it is blue skies and sunny.

This was one of my personal favorite anniversary trips.  Our motel was really close to downtown Spokane, so we pretty much walked to most of the places we wanted to go throughout the weekend.  There was the usual shopping that goes along with a trip to Spokane, but we spent a lot of time walking, hanging out in our room (which was very nice), and going to some of the fun restaurants and pubs in downtown Spokane.

I love anniversary weekends.  We always make the effort to have that weekend to ourselves, and without fail we have the best discussions together of our year.

We talked about getting older, and our fears we have attached to it.  My fear (as I'm sure it is for a lot of people), is that of being devalued as a person by society.  Derrick's is mostly just the fear of being sickly or not being able to do what he once did.  Other than that, he's looking forward to being a cranky old man with no pressure from society to follow rules.  He's preparing for a reign of obnoxiousness :)  Getting old wouldn't be so bad as long as I could do it with him, because I know he will always see me as I really am.  Hopefully, though, we will never have to get old.

Of course (!) we talked about the kids.  Like most parents, we talk about them a lot.  You know how when you love someone, all conversations have a way of leading to that person?  That principle must apply to parents with their children.  Our hopes and dreams for them equal and surpass the hopes and dreams for ourselves.  The sum of our kid conversations are mostly how to keep them safe and sound but also give the tools and freedom to create happiness and dreams for themselves.  As they get older, we are seeing what a tricky road this may be.  We will just have to try our best, like our parents did for us.

We talked about our longstanding dream too, and decided it's time to make our trip to Europe a reality.  We saved for a trip we are going to take later this winter, and realized that if we are careful, saving for travel doesn't have to be crazy hard (as long as nothing too extreme happens in the meantime).  It might not be an immediate trip, but just knowing we are in the process of making it happen is a happy thought.

Fourteen years is a long time to be married.  We've had plenty of growing pains, and lots of wonderful times too.  We've been through a scary pregnancy and birth where Derrick almost lost both Derrin and me.  We've parented babies, toddlers, little kids, big kids and now teenagers together, with all of the struggles and joys that entails.  We've been through cancer in our family and the loss of a parent together.  We've battled depression and health issues together.  We've had the opportunity to travel to far away places we'd never been before together.  We've build a house and home together.  We've decorated the inside of our marriage with love.

Dreams, Ponderings, and Happenings

I had a dream last night that I was in Paradise, and had just learned that an old building had collapsed there, killing many people. It was an old hotel that had always been there (in real life the hotel had burnt down (?) decades before I was even born- I'd only heard about it's existence from my mom and played on the rubble of it's old foundation). In my dream, Renae and I went to search through part of the hotel that still remained. I looked in a cupboard, and found a stack of journals. I opened one after another, and realized that they were my mom's. I started crying, because I had always known that there had to be something somewhere with all of her thoughts written down. It was such a vivid dream. It's funny how most of my most intense dreams always take place in Paradise.

Old Hotel in Paradise, winter of 1955- picture posted on facebook by my cousin in
2011-it was fun to see, as I had heard about it my whole life, but had never seen it.

Mom was on my mind this morning.  I go to a class called bodyflow every Friday, and on one of the "letting go" stretch exercises, the instructor plays a song called "Still Here" by Natasha Bedingfield.  I'm already pretty relaxed from all the the stretches and songs before that one, so that particular song hits me particularly hard.  But I do love it.

On a completely different note, I want to talk about my son.  This morning I was up early, sitting on the couch drinking a cup of coffee.  When 7:20 rolled around, I heard Derrin's alarm go off.  He got up, and crept over to Kloe's room, and in the sweetest voice whispered,"Kloe, it's time to get up, okay?"  The kindness in his voice moved me.  At meeting the other night, Kloe was freezing to death.  Derrin took off his suit jacket and gave it to her, which also completely moved me.  I know that my kids fight like little cats and dogs, as only siblings can, but there are moments when I get a glimpse of what their relationship might be like in the future, and it makes me so happy.  I want them to be close friends as they grow up, and always have each other's back.  That is one of my biggest hopes for my kiddos.

The kids have been having so many field trips for school that it's been hard to keep up.  This week Kloe went swimming with her class (which Derrick when to) and then a nature hike (which I went on).  Derrin went on a trip with his band class, and then he went to the school he will be attending next year for 6th grade.  He seems excited about his new school.  He said that he will be able to take a semester of Spanish, so he is jacked about that.

explaining what art she created with the materials she found in the woods. 

her "nature art" project

on our field trip

drawing the bug her team found

natural face paint

painted girl

We survived last weekends camping trip. It was as dire as I predicted, but I have to say I had a good time. Probably a better time than most of the other campers there, because I had not harbored any hopes that the weather would be other than it was:)

Our assembly is next weekend, so the kids will be getting out of school on Wednesday for the summer (two days early) so we can take off to Billings.  Summer has arrived for real!!

She Did It! A New Puppy for Kloe

It was two and a half months ago (April 15th to be exact) that Kloe and her Daddy struck a deal that if she could save two hundred dollars, she could get a puppy.  Since that day, she has scrimped and saved and squirrelled away every penny she could beg, find, or work for.  She has borrowed every book about dogs from the library that she could find.  She has made our family watch every dog movie known to mankind.  She has never lost focus even for a second.

Her dad has been very impressed, which is impressive, as he is not easily impressed.  The two hundred dollar requirement was not really about the money, it was just to show how committed she was to having a dog.  Having a dog is a bit like having another kid in our family, it's a big deal. 

She will have one hundred dollars by the end of this week, and he decided that between the money saved and all of the work she did to educated herself about having a dog, she is ready.

We found a puppy right down the road from my dad's house.  She is a beauty:)

She is a six week old boxer.  We paid for her today, but they are going to hold her for us for the next ten days so we can pick her up after our convention.

A Happy Girl

Gray

Didn't sleep very well last night.  Had dreams of standing outside our neighborhood, watching giant rolling pins and bombs get dropped out of even gianter planes.  Saw a lot of houses get squished like bread dough, and others get blown to smithereens.

Really shouldn't have watched all of that tornado footage right before bed.

Not a lot to report this morning.  I hear that there was a royal wedding earlier today?  I wasn't invited, and I don't watch a lot of television, because I resent having THAT kind of stuff shoved into my head.

Gonna be a quiet weekend.  It's gray outside, gray as far as the eye can see.  It was blizzarding last night, then the sun came out for about 3 minutes, then it was night.  I can NOT believe it is almost May.  It doesn't feel right to complain about our crappy weather though- at least we haven't been dealing with hundreds of tornadoes, tsunamis and nuclear plants going wrong, or any of the other craziness going on in the world.  It is depressing, and gray feels smothering, but it won't actually get you like those other things can.

K, time to throw on the running shoes and dive into the gray.

Dreamin

I had a dream about Mom the other night.  Derrick and I were at a movie theater, visiting before the movie (and we had snuck in two very cute and naughty ferrets under our coats... can't imagine what they represent...) when I looked up and saw Mom and Dad sitting a couple rows ahead of us.  In the way of dreams, it didn't even occur to me that she wouldn't (or couldn't, shouldn't?) be there. Derrick and I went up to sit by them, and I sat by Mom.  We didn't really talk very much, I just held her hand and snuggled into her while we watched the movie.  Good dream.

T. Falls

Last night I had a dream about Mom.  She was showing me how to use her new washer and dryer, and it felt so real.  I could hear her, smell her, and feel her touching my shoulder.  It was so good to hear her voice.  I wish that I had saved all of the voice messages she ever left for me so I could at least have that.  I took so many pictures of her, especially in those four years that we knew she had cancer.  I know someday those pictures are going to be nice to look at, but right now they are a little too bitter for me.  I wish I would have taken videos and recorded her voice- something to capture who she really was.

This last weekend was great.  We stayed at Renae's and everyone came over for the day.  We played scrabble and hand n foot (not to brag, but I totally won*hehe*) and then Renae made some of her fabulous lasagna.  Dad came down to spend the day with us, and he also came down the next day for our super bowl party.  We went to meeting on Sunday and got to see our friends there (hi Amy!).  Love going to T.Falls- it's like a giant hug for me.

Super Bowlies

Our game of Hand n Foot was WAY more exciting.

Self Portrait of EmWha during a superbowl game
(I took some of the other card players, but I'm thinkin'
they might not appreciate them on the internet...)

I hear the Packers won.

Various Dreams

I want to learn how to make this:

I ordered a book about a week ago to learn how to do metal stamping.  I am EXCITED (YAYAYAY) to get it!!!  It comes with a DVD and everything!!!  My plan is to watch it, become instantly enlightened, buy all of the tools and materials to proceed, make a ton of them, have Stephanie become my selling agent, sell millions and then retire.  You gotta have a plan.
Something else I've been dreaming about is photography.  Tara (fellow aspirer and awesome photographer) sent a link to me the other day at http://www.weddingshow.com/.  Someday, we are going to do this.  Because you gotta have a dream too.

I need more hours in the day.

Tomorrow is the last day of eight hour-age at my job.  The plan is for Derrick to stay home tomorrow, get us packed **!** (A moment of silence here.....  and appreciation....  to go on a trip and not have to pack sounds even BETTER than a dream come true for me!!!) (One more moment of silence- this is just that good..............okay, now we proceed), then he will load up stuff and kids, pick me up at work at the end of my day, and onward to Seattle we shall go!  :)))  It will be so good to see David and Tara, spend time with them and also away from snow.  I plan on wearing a bikini while we are there.  I don't care if it's raining and cold- it'll be warmer there than it is here!!!

It is so gray outside today.  I'm tired- it was one of those dreaming nights last night- the kind that you wake up from feeling weepy and emotional.  It was weird though- instead of Mom, I was dreaming about Dad.  Actually, it was about a letter I had written about Dad (in my dream, because I've never actually written anything like that).  It was all crumpled up, and had some sad stuff scribbled all over it.  There were big x's crossing off all of the sad stuff, and the words "He cares more than you know" were written over and over in the side margins.  It doesn't surprise me that I dreamed about him.  I called him last night and we talked for about five minutes.  It's just so hard- our relationship always sorta hinged on Mom.  She was the one I talked to when I called.  If he ever answered the phone, it was always a quick "hi" for us and then he'd ask if I wanted to talk to Mom and I would say "Yep, love ya Dad" and then it was on to Mom.

I've been reading a book about goals and time management, and one of the goals the writer mentioned is building a closer relationship with one's dad.  That kind of caught me off guard.  Aren't parental relationships supposed to be one of those effortless bonds that just happen because of all of the shared DNA<--- Yeah, I know that last sentence doesn't even make sense, but a part of me resents that my little idealistic notion isn't reality.

The truth is, my dad worked really hard to support six children and a wife that he loved dearly, and a lot of the time I was growing up he was sleeping (he worked night-shifts).  He has a genius and a passion for anything mechanical, and one of his favorite pastimes is working on cars (or tinkering with anything with bolts and metal parts).  I inherited a large amount of introversion from him, and also the inclination to get obsessed with projects, although mine are more crafty/artsy where as his are mechanical.  I've typed him as ISTP where as I am INFP (those links go to a pretty brutal typing link, but it feels accurate- probably because each type is a composite description from many of that specific type) (As another complete side note, I find it hilarious that the INFP description is so much longer than the ISTP- it WOULD be!  INFPs are WAAAAY more concerned about this kind of stuff, as of course that personality type would be...  I could go on and on...).

Anyhoo, I'm searching for a welding class for us to have a common bond with- something I could use with jewelry and projects, and he could use on his metal stuff- he just got a plasma cutter to play with.  Haven't found anything yet, but I bet the Adult Education at the Emily Dickenson School will eventually have one.  Put that one in the goal category too, I guess.

So... those are my rambling and disjointed thoughts today:)

Brain Malfunction

I wrote a blog in my dream last night. I remember thinking “Wow. I should ALWAYS write in my dreams. This is pretty interesting stuff- it’s all the stuff I want to write down but never remember to!” And then it struck me, “Hey. Wait a minute- I’m DREAMING. How in the world am I going to remember this stuff so I can write it down tomorrow?!?”

So, my subconscious decided that it needed to save the blog in a file. It reached down into my internal memory, made a folder, and drug my newly formed blog into it. Then my brain told me that it would be no problem to just copy and paste into my computer when I woke up.

What really bothers me this morning is that I remember all of the technicalities of saving what I wrote, but I can NOT remember one thing that was in that file. If I can figure out how to retrieve it, there may be a part two to this…

It will get better

I should not be allowed to be around people today.   My short-term memory is non-existent, my verbal filter is letting "facts" be released that don't quite make it very high on the accuracy scale.  My ability to retain anything today without inserting my own weirdness into it is just not there.

Darn you office stapler that I am unable to fix today.  Next week when my brain works again, you will submit to me!!!

This has been a weird week.  I posted in here on Wednesday about being sad that day, but then I deleted it.  I hate being a Debbie-downer.  I fight sadness pretty hard through trying to control what I think about, running (which hasn't been enough), and what I eat (which was a ton Nutella). With all that being said,  I was a WRECK on Wednesday.  I stayed home from service, work, and meeting that day.  My day was spent divided between crying (the first session which Derrick was there to hug me through.  Love that man so much), laundry, crying, trying to work through some health insurance stuff I'm working on for the kids, crying, going through my kids baby books... eating Nutella, popcorn and drinking tea, crying, and finally crashing on the couch with a book for the rest of the day.  It all started the night before, I had so many dreams of my mom that night.  I woke up eventually around three and then the ever dreaded thinking started, the regrets, the being mad at both of us for not being the perfect daughter or the perfect mother, missing her and then just my general frustration with myself.  Wednesday sorta helped purge all of that.  Renae and I were texting through the day- that always helps:)

Thursday was back to work time.  One of my favorite quotes from a movie is  "You gotta be rich to be insane. Losing your mind is not a luxury for the middle class."  Sooo true (although I have to say, the people at my work have been awesome- the pressure is from myself, not the job).  So I went to work (although I looked*and still look*crapalicous), arrived late, stumbled through the day without any major mishaps, left late, and went home.  Real life just doesn't stop.  I talked to Tara on the phone for a couple hours last night- such an awesome phone call.  Friends (and sisters) are the best pick-me-up of all.

Just need to finish getting through this day.  So far my biggest hang-up has been that rotten stapler.  This weekend includes a going away party and a funeral.  Maybe after the funeral, some of the stress will let up.  I'm ready to feel good again, okay?

Remembering

I dreamt about her last night.  She was with dad, and I was meeting them somewhere before going to the hospital for another surgery.  She was fragile, but she was also young- very young, like a teenager.  I was worried because she was going to have another colon resection, and I didn't think she was strong enough to go through with it.  She was defiant, in her own special way, but also like a teenager would be defiant.  She didn't say a lot, she just kept snuggling into Dad's side, and eventually he walked away with her, his arm around her shoulder.  The rest of the dream I was just looking for them and telling everyone that she was too weak to have the surgery.

She hasn't died yet.  I hate that I'm already grieving as if she has.  Dreaming about her all night, crying in the shower, every thought seems to associate itself with her.  I looked through what I have written about her in here this summer, and so much of it is sad.  I want all my good memories to be washing over me too, not just this fear and sadness.  When I think of my mom, these are the images that come to mind:

-How soft her neck is when I hug her.  She has always had the softest skin of anyone I know.

-How she smells- she is the only person I have ever met who smells really great in patchouli oil, or any other sent she chooses to wear that day.  It doesn't matter, she always smells like Mom to me. 

-The feeling of love and safety that has always surrounded her.  No matter what else is wrong in my world, my Mom has always given that to me.

There is more to remember, so much more.  I'm going to make a real effort to write it down.  I want my kids to know her.  If they won't have an opportunity to grow up with her in their lives, the knowing is going to have to come from me.