Momma Therapy

What a lovely whirlwind afternoon with my two youngest daughters :-) How can it be to feel such contentment for those hours, moving in lovely, variable synchrony between the three of us. And there we were, three in a row on the bench in Nordstrom's shoe department, all blissfully content.

Sitting between my two girls. Feeling so happy to be the mom.

Nice to know that's still in there.

Slogging Through

What a long long weekend. I am so tired of cooking. And shopping and planning... And tomorrow my favorite step-daughter K comes to visit. Time to pull out some kind of "mom" energy, since mh will be at work most of those days, and I'm on duty.

It might actually be fun, a nice break from the recent explosive antagonism on the daughter-stepdad front.

Meantime there's big grad-school application paperwork to get done.

And all the little closing-up tasks to put this business year to rest. Lots of internal turmoil about all that.

Christmas Eve, for the first time ever, I used my dad's holy water bottle for the blessing. Now I know a tiny bit about the power of sitting at the head of the table and wacking each one of us with corrective (holy) intentions.j

Christmas letters arrived today. From way up north. The babies that I worked on so long ago are growing up. To feel such joy and coherence of these different families is overwhelming. Maybe that's our next step, out beyond the pain and chaos and alienation might be some kind of coherence. Sure will be interesting to feel it live and in person next month at E's wedding. With the whole entire step-family present.

Until then, back to work.

What Day? What Dream?

What just happened?

MH and I talked ourselves into getting the Christmas tree. TODAY. The good news is, all the bound little tree-bodies in the tent were actually fresh and juicy. We were perfectly late - perfect for the discounts. But still not convinced that we needed to do this. Anyway, it is hosed down and bug-sprayed and safely indoors now.

I tell my daughter, the price of the miracle tree is that you must be an angelic being of happiness and light for as long as it is up this year. Ha.ha.ha.ha.

BAM! She has just switched retail jobs, and seems oddly lighter about being out of Bloomies. Must let go, must let go, just let go.

And now for the nightmare of it all: our new best friends, the roofers, have informed us that the cost of replacing our storm-ravaged roof is $36,000. But, this guy likes us. He's a former special-ed teacher and totally into the therapy I do. Anyway, he's best friends with public adjustors and so he feels convinced we shall prevail. PLUS he mortared up the worst of the leaks, so maybe for Christmas we can put the drip-buckets away.

But here's the amazing news. For the first time in 27 years of working, and the first time in 3 marriages, I have a husband whose job is providing ME benefits. ME! First time ever! Good-bye, Blue Cross Blue Shield FL at $1600/month directly out of my pocket. Hello..... kept woman. A husband who is capable of providing for me. I've got nothing left to prove - I've been providing for my daughter and me all these 19 years... Wow. Time to hand over the reins. I'm going to grad school and he can drive the bus!

Tomorrow, back to work on the grad school stuff and planning out the weekend festivities (and cooking plan). I don't have 26 kinds of cookies. But I do have home-made baked stuffed lobster on tap for Christmas Eve. Latkes for Christmas Day, after the movies, and we've got both sides covered.

Meantime, my daughter is up at her boyfriend's tonight and we have the house blissfully to ourselves! Doors open and all the noise we want to make! Woo hoo!

Me and My Shadows

It's not the darkness, this time of year, because it's our beautiful weather time, so we stay connected to outdoors. But it is the Darkness, of withdrawal. Not the healthy productive Solitude, but the "left behind" kind.

There is too much upheaval and pain in this small house right now, a big splatter-mess of projection and misery.

Not how you want to go into Christmas. Although, makes you yearn even harder to end this messy, fateful year. And project hopes for fresh energy, new directions, a calming of the waters for the next.

I think I'll go walk the beach, and hand my shadows over to that great ocean that accepts our sorrows and transforms them, one wave at a time.

Done.... and not Done

and in a heart-stopping rush to meet the midnight deadline... I submitted my final project on the last day of class. That was Done.

Not quite Done was the next day, reviewing classmates' projects and writing one more critique worksheet.

Now to wait for final grades.

Feels like the elephant crawled off my brain. There's some breathing room, but I also feel a little lost. But grateful for the space. But it's confusing!

Guess I could take a few days off to reorganize... and then back to business.

And did someone say it's December?

Implosion

The next three days are crunch days. It's my last week of class, and there is much work to do - work that involves organizing Very.Important.Teaching.Lingo in my brain and then out online. Ow.ow.ow.ow.ow.

The next three days also involve getting ready for the class I have to teach here at home, Thursday - Sunday. It is the class that most deeply requires my brain. And I haven't taught it in 10 months. And I don't even know what the workbook looks like. And I'm all out of neurons!

Ow ow ow ow ow. On top of which I've got a nasty sinus/ear thing happening, so, ain't no room for these mental gymnastics right now.

Sigh.

See you on the other side, I guess.