One year journal turns to two year blog

Now that Eve's one year journal is full -- I haven't really written a *review* yet -- I am trying to figure out the best way to keep track of her life & changes. I love to write about this stuff. Maybe it will be here! I can't seem to get myself to blog regularly about myself -- maybe that is because my other blog got erased -- or just because I haven't got a lot of time. But I've been collecting things about Eve.

Her birthday party, what she did and highlights. One great highlight was the fact that her great grandparents came -- Mildred and Louis -- that was really special. It's not very many one year olds that can say that their great grandparents were at their birthday party! She also got a push cart with alligators on it that move up and down as she pushes. It is an old fashioned toy, really well made, and she seemed to really enjoy pushing it around the community center. It was wonderful to have all of the supportive guests that came--my friends, John's friends, our families and people who have become a part of our lives because of Eve -- Janice, Steve, Shelley and Troy. She definitely enjoyed her cake, which was sweetened with agave (the frosting with fructose). It was delicious, indeed.

The fact that she has begun to eat tomatoes (and other citrus foods), egg whites and nut butters (cashew and peanut). She enjoys rice crackers with cashew butter on them. She licks the butter off and throws the cracker on the ground. She also seems to really enjoy spicy chili and food with tomato sauce and/or gomasio. Concurrently she has stopped eating green (and other) veggies. I don't think she likes the texture! Here she is enjoying my mum's chili and cornbread (with grandpa) and then some of her birthday cake.

She has also begun to have a love for a *wubby.* It's a handmade blanket by someone in Michigan (I don't even know who) that she reaches for now at night.  When it is next to her head she softens and kind of cuddles up with her thumb. Our routine is that I rock her for seven minutes or so while she nurses or sucks her thumb and then I put her in bed awake or asleep, cover her up with her cotton blankets and then put this handmade one on top. She knows it is coming and reaches for it as I go to pick it up. It's adorable. She's really growing up!

She is also having a blast pushing her various push carts around the neighborhood. I've taken one video so far that I will upload for this blog but it's not ready yet. What's hilarious is that she really has a mind of her own. You can't make her go in any particular direction and she will actively resist you if you turn the cart in the direction you want to go. She is exploring as she wants to--going down curbs, down hills, over the grass, stopping to pick up leaves or tasting a dirty rock. What's amazing is that she is very agile. I was afraid that going down hills would cause her to get out of control (she can run!) but I can actually see her body tensing to resist the pull of the downward slope. She's very strong, sensitive and intuitive. When she starts to go over the curb she knows it is dangerous and stops, pulling back. This is not to say that she hasn't had a few spills, she has! Over the top of the cart (when she tries to force it to go if it is stuck), or the cart falling over sideways with her or her just falling back on her bum. I was most worried about her cracking her head open on the cement, but nothing like that has even come close to happening.

Perfection: What would it look like?

If I accepted myself as the unique human being that I am? I suspect that would mean that I would accept you and the world the way you and the world are too. How much more happy I would be then!

"I can now admit that most of my troubles stem from one large and glaring defect: self-centeredness. For how can I wallow in self-pity, weep over resentments, be sick with righteous anger, ache with envy, and tense up with fears and anxieties unless all my thoughts are exclusively on poor me?" (Drop the Rock, 23).

Several years ago a sponsor had me go through the fourth step in the 12 & 12 in order to extract the plethora of character defects that one could have. However, in the Big Book it specifically points to just four defects -- resentment, dishonesty, self-seeking, selfishness and fear. What I am coming to believe is that all other defects stem from these four issues untreated. They are all permutations of the same basic problems. Keeping it simple works much better for me than does having ninety different character defects to think about. At the deepest core, however is this self-centeredness, which I think also comes from the even more central issue of fear.

Fear stems from the belief that I am God (extreme self-centeredness). Fear produces perfectionism, which is the idea that "I know best." It says that I know better than God. How else could I find so many things wrong in the world, with me and with others? The definition in the dictionary of perfection includes the word flawless. Looking even more closely at this definition I realize that the definition of perfection can actually be equated with my definition of God.

Perfect: being entirely without fault or defect: flawless. Satisfying all requirements: accurate. Lacking in no essential detail: complete. Sane. Absolute, inequivocal. Certain, sure. Contented, Satisfied.

Syn. Perfect, whole, entire, intact meaning not lacking or faulty in any particular. Perfect implies the soundness and the excellence of every part, element, or quality of a thing frequently as an unattainable or theoretical state. Whole suggests a completeness or perfection that can be sought, gained, or regained. Entire implies perfection deriving from integrity, soundness, or completeness of a thing. Intact implies retention of perfection of a thing in its natural or original state.

Flaw: a defect in physical structure or form. An imperfection or weakness and esp. one that detracts from the whole or hinders effectiveness. Fragment.

God is perfect and I am a part of his universe. The one he created. That means that I am flawless and perfect as well. I was made by God as I am with my assets and my defects -- my so-called flaws. I am the one who looks around and finds a flaw in everything because I think that I know what perfect looks like. But I don't know if I can't see that things are already perfect and flawless. Finding these flaws first is a sign of my self-centeredness, selfishness and self seeking, it then produces resentment in me. All of this blocks me off from the sunlight of the spirit meaning that I no longer experience my relationship with God, which then sets me spinning into a world of fear, which reproduces this cycle of resentment and self-centeredness ------> fear. Dishonesty is tied up in all of these in exactly the same way. My dishonesty is coupled with my resentment and self-centeredness and fear. The flip side of dishonesty is truth. When I say that I am God and that I am flawed, and you are flawed and the world is flawed I am claiming that my judgment of reality is correct. My judgment may not be correct, therefore it may not be true, so it is dishonest to claim that my judgment of reality is the only one or the correct one.

Drop the Rock

Have you heard the story about the man who was searching for his keys where the light was even though that was not where he had lost them? He said he couldn't look for his keys where he had lost them because it was dark there and he was scared of the dark.

I'm thinking about how this relates to my challenge of letting go of of two major "defects" of character: self-pity and micro-management of my marriage. What is interesting is that I can see that God is working through these character defects to change me. I'm only just beginning to see this though. Indeed, last week I got an email from an astrologer who said that saturn quincunx all of my Aquarian planets explained a lot, including the moon which meant that I would struggle with feeling heard. In both cases, with self-pity over not finding my career path and the power struggle in my marriage that often leaves me feeling terrible but self-righteous, I feel unheard. I feel like I cannot express myself in this life. I feel that very few people can "hear" me and what I mean by that is that I struggle with expressing the true me to people. There are only a few people and a few places where I feel like that is possible. So my struggle with career and with marriage brings this issue to the light. God is working through those struggles to bring them to light. However, if I quit, run away, stick my head in the mud, drink or drug it is much less likely that I will become aware of what God is trying to help me to see so that I can begin to let go.

This has been my experience in all of sobriety. I have not known what defects God is working on, I have just known about the struggle I am in the midst of and which I often don't like because it seems like it is getting in the way of me living my life the way I want to. But when the defect central to the struggle comes to the light -- becomes painfully obvious -- something shifts and things seem to get easier. The defect loosens its hold on me. I begin to see that God is working in my life (again).

Not feeling heard goes way back. Even when I was a little girl of three I remember having a longing for someone or something to pay attention to me. All my happy memories involve people who were attentive to me in particular. They involve people who seemed to value me for me. People who didn't judge me constantly or abuse me or ignore me. My Aunt Lynne, my grandma, people at the temple who took me out or bought me a nice dress or shoes, people who listened to me, people who made it clear they wanted to spend time with me (Edward, Robert, Alyson, Betsy, Heather). And then there was always this seeking energy. I thought it was about my dad since he was mostly gone or we struggled to get along. So this seeking was about either how to get him back or how to get along with him. With my mum the seeking was about how to get her to spend more time with me. And I would take up her time by talking to her either about books I'd read, or my righteous cause of the moment.

Today I seek to feel heard by my husband and by the world at large in the sense that I keep trying to find the perfect career for myself. Something that will draw on my key talents so that the world will recognize them i.e. "hear" them. If they hear me, then I will exist. I wonder what would happen if I dropped the rock?

What if I let go of the need to be heard? What if I began to listen to myself? What if I began to value myself and my talents? What if I focused on myself? What would it look like if I stopped trying to convince others that I exist?

Kaleidoscopic Me

I'm no longer a pregnant woman! I'm the mother of an almost one year old who has been sleeping for nearly two hours now. Go figure. Of course I get worried that she is dead, not sleeping...but then she awakens! The weather is starting to develop outside into a storm -- sprinkles, wind blowing, a chill in the air. I guess fall is really here. My mother is flying over the country as we speak ---> to visit my Aunt Noreen in Victoria, B.C., which I am awfully glad about. There's so much to report on, I don't know where to begin. Perhaps I will start with the challenges that I am facing career wise and my thoughts on faith.

Right now I'm in the phase of suddenly realizing "that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves." God is doing for me what I can't do for myself. And there is A LOT that I can't do for myself. I used to think this was a weakness. And, indeed, it is a *weakness* for it is that which makes me human aka *not* God. But these days, I see that acknowledging that actually gives me strength. It is powerful to acknowledge ones actual relationship with God rather than continuing to live in the fantasy of super-human power and strength. It allows me to get right sized in the universe. I can't see the whole picture. I don't know what the *plan* is. So to have faith today means to continue doing the next right thing even when I think everything has gone wrong because reality is not conforming to my expectations. More so this means that reality is not providing me with the confirmation that I am *okay* or even better than okay, in fact reality is triggering feelings of insecurity and fear in me. In the past this mean that something had gone wrong. That I needed to work harder to alter my experience of said reality so that I wouldn't feel that way. These days I'm coming to accept that I can live with such feelings without having to alter them OR assume that something has gone wrong. In fact, something *good* might be the outcome of walking through said discomfort. God might be working on me -- kind of like a cat scan -- even when I feel super claustrophobic and scared. When my view has been made so small by my feelings. God is working on me. Today my sponsor said that she doesn't believe in the concept of people *working on themselves.* She says God is working on us, that's not our job. Our job is to figure out how to be present, how to suit up and show up, how to do the next right thing. How to work with our resentments.

The book says "all men of faith have courage" and I have really been trying to live this and by that I mean that if I have faith then I will know because I am taking actions. Actions require courage, especially when taking them means that I may fuck up. Say the *wrong* thing. However, in reality, if God made me, then what I do and say is not fucked up. It's the right thing, at the right time, in the right place even if I feel uncomfortable about it. Even if at another occasion I say something different and do something differently based on what I learned from my prior uncomfortable feeling. We call this learning. But just because I learned to do something differently does not mean that I did it *wrong* the last time. This is ultimate faith. It's the willingness to be who I am--the kaleidoscope--at every moment. When I reject me or you, I reject God because God made each of us perfectly.

Nine weeks and one day

The dreams that I have been having are out of this world -- incredibly detailed and disturbing. I dream them like they are really happening or like they are a movie and if I wake up in the middle, I want to go back to sleep to "see what happens." I wish this was fun, but I think it actually detracts from the quality of sleep that I am getting. 

My nausea has been down this week, which is lovely but it has made room for new symptoms. Besides the continued feeling of claustrophobia in my own skin, I am also feeling incredibly irritated with people and dogs. The dogs have been the worst though. Bark Lee rolled in something over at the baseball diamond and I have been able to smell him ever since. John insists that he doesn't smell, but my olfactory sensors are firing. Poop remains. Moreover, he has so much energy and is in constant need of attention (with annoying behaviors to try to get it if you aren't giving it to him), I just find him beyond aggravating. Besides this, I have been missing the days when I could get my house spic and span and it would stay that way. Dogs make this kind of cleaning impossible. The minute you remove the barrier, they are off and running into that freshly swept and murphy's oil-soaped floor, dropping their hairs as they go. We have finally gotten them off the couch, which is a wonderful blessing. I hated sitting down and getting thoroughly covered in hairs. But it is spring, and they track in dirt and they love to tear everything and anything apart with their teeth. Woe to the person who leaves the bathroom door open, for he will find that Bark Lee has over-turned and dismembered the contents of the trash can.  Worse yet, the recycling is kept in that bathroom and if Bark Lee gets a hold of a plastic container, in this case a cream cheese container, he will shred the thing to pieces underneath the living room table with little help from Tipper. In fact, at this moment, Tipper is simply enjoying laying in the mess.  

Talking to other *mothers* has been a bad idea from the start. I have yet to hear another mother tell me about how they, at least at moments, hated their pregnancy and thought to themselves, gee if I'm not able to bear this pregnancy and do the rest of my life, how am I going to be able to raise a child??? I almost always hear cheery stories about how they got through the first trimester by going to sleep at six every night but by otherwise keeping busy with work or school, or were out getting their hair done and having an early mid-life crisis, or they were constantly doing mother and baby yoga and sipping on vegetable juices, or they didn't realize they were pregnant until the first trimester was over, etc., etc. No one ever tells me about how miserable they were and if they mention illness--morning sickness--it's with that little laugh, like, oh well, it's that thing that everyone goes through. No big deal. My version of that is: I've lost myself, where have I gone? I feel crappy (and crabby or even neurotic) nearly everyday. Getting up in the morning is a pain in the butt and I feel incredibly overwhelmed because I don't know how I am going to get everything done that I need to get done. Food makes me tired, but I'm told not to lie down for two hours after eating because I'll get indigestion (which I've discovered is true), yet once two hours pass I'm hungry again and then I still can't lie down. I wish I could eat vegetables (gross!) because everything I read tells me this is the most important time to be eating well, yet if I want to keep things down, I have to follow my body's directive and it has told me clearly "eat eggs and toast for breakfast, don't drink milk or orange juice, bagels go down well, so do pickles and ice cream, only eat pasta, ramen noodles, lentil soup, chicken soup and whatever else I crave once, because after that I will find that food to be gross (so don't buy in bulk)."  However, I was able to get down two apples and a carrot two days ago.   My whole body just feels sore, and the only place I feel soothed is in the bathtub, which dries my skin out terribly.  

Emotionally I have been feeling, like I said, like I've lost myself. I can't find a comfortable space to be in (besides the bath).  I just feel off all the time.  I never know if I'm going to be goofy or overwhelmed. I never know if I'm going to have patience or be rattled by every little thing that happens. I don't know if I'm going to end up starving or exhausted. These are really unpredictable events. All of this unpredictability makes me feel lonely. I'm not sure what for, I suspect it is security I am wishing that I had. The security of knowing what is likely to happen next. The security of my routine. It's hard for me to relax when everyday is completely different from the last. One thing I've found that is very soothing is cleaning the house and organizing, even though this is NOT what I should be spending my time doing. I should be reading, working and preparing to write my two major papers due in just over a month.  

I'm trying to focus on acceptance. God and faith. The solution. Letting God's will and not mine be done. I am also trying to be gentle with myself.  

Eight weeks and one day

The fourth meal of the day is on the stove boiling and I'm listening to the sound of my lunatic dogs running in the yard. After a conversation with my mother and my sister, where I unleashed all the *crazy* thoughts I have been having about my experience of pregnancy I decided it was time to write them down. First of all, I don't want to hear another person tell me that I ONLY have to wait another seven months to feel better and that I should keep my eyes on the PRIZE -- the baby -- because trust me, this does NOT help. Imagine being told that you are only going to have that cold for, say, at a minimum four to six more weeks and at a maximum, seven more months. Would you find this comforting? [This is a question for all those not yet pregnant and the men out there who never will be].  I have the particular problem of being nauseated ninety percent of the time (I've only thrown up three times, in a row since the first day of my nausea -- about twenty days ago). Since then I've just felt low grade nausea as a constant, with indigestion and constipation. And I'm talking, burping and farting regularly for relief. My poor dear husband, he doesn't know what has happened to his normally more presentable wife! As for fatigue, this I have heard others talk a lot about -- for a none, napping person though, three hour naps in the afternoon are really a shock. Pleasant at first, they have since become rather scary. Am I going to sleep away my productivity over the next nine months? Will I accomplish anything? Are all my career plans shot to hell? Will we be able to pay the bills? How obese am I going to get if all I want to do is sleep? Suddenly the baby seems like more of a problem--a crisis--then a pleasure or, just that, a baby. Just a baby. A sweet little innocent baby. This is not of course the best time to be reading about the fatigue one will surely feel in the early months after the baby emerges, it only makes the current experience feel more overwhelming, but of course I learned this the hard way, picturing myself with post-partum depression, healing from a forced c-section and episiotomy while holding a colicky, screaming baby.  Yeah, not a good series of thoughts to help me get through the day in front of me. Let's get onto the next topic. Dreaming. I've also discovered that every night I dream vividly. So vividly, that I wish I would not wake up (to experience nausea and having to eat saltine crackers on the side of the bed first thing) and could continue on in the dream world, visiting friends new and old. Experiencing things not as a pregnant woman. 

Husbands--mine is fantabuloso except for the part where he is NOT pregnant and as such can only comfort me by proxy and it is EMBARRASSING complaining, burping and farting all day long. And sleeping. Especially for someone who is a major go getter who hates resting. This is to say, I honestly hate naps. I'd rather just sleep at night. Suddenly I'm a whole new person. He finds me more attractive at the same moment that I am finding myself the least attractive, trying to hide in my over-sized overalls. This is when I want to hide away from the world and come out some other day. And smells, his are the most pressing as he is the nearest to me. I have found that I cannot stand intense smells in general (they were not kidding about this issue) but his are especially bothering. Or maybe I am most irritated with his smells because I normally like them so much and I can't imagine why they are turning my stomach. It all started when he opened a tin of peanuts in bed one evening for a snack. As soon as his teeth cut through several of the peanuts, the smell became so strong I actually had to comment and ask him to hurry up and finish because the smell was making me feel like throwing up. But the worst is that I can't bear to kiss him right now. Any smell on his breath puts me over the edge! This from a man whose breath normally drives me up the wall because it is so sweet. The irritation is not only around smells but it is also around touch. I am finding touch to be really irritating. Touch creates the kind of frustration in me that I get when someone is scratching an itchy spot too lightly. I know anyone not pregnant out there is probably thinking -- that poor husband. But I swear, for once I am not looking for things to be irritated about (that's my usual modus operandi). I really don't have the energy to do that. These are just spontaneous, visceral responses ... anyway, this is all for now. Now that I have somewhere to share these thoughts and fears, I'll be doing it a lot more often.