Multifaceted Mama

I have barely blogged at all this month, but it certainly isn’t for lack of trying.  Every time I sit down and open up my admin panel to write, my mind either goes blank or I can’t think of anything to write that is fit for public consumption.  I miss writing because my blog is my best “therapeutic” outlet, but I just can’t seem to get the words from my mind to the keyboard.  There is just so much going on in my head and in my life right now and sometimes I feel so lost that it’s hard to remember which way is up.  Sorting it all out has become almost an obsession, a necessary one if I am going to remain even remotely sane.  It seems like every time I make two steps forward, something happens to make me take four steps back.  All I want is to get out of this hole I feel like I am in, and it just doesn’t help to constantly feel like I am being pushed back.  I don’t even know what to do about it anymore and I am so emotionally exhausted that it is ridiculous.  I have never been a sad person in general, but I can’t count the number of times a day when I just want to curl up and bawl.  That is just not me, and I hate it.  Something has to change, if not with the situation then with me.  Somehow I have to find a little peace and happiness or I am going to lose my mind.  It is like a vicious circle, though.  I know I need to get in touch with my spirituality again, and really feel it again.  I feel like I have lost any connection I once had to my spirituality and I know that doesn’t help that lost feeling I carry with me.  But I am so blah and disheartened by everything else going on in my life that I can’t find the energy or the desire to put the work necessary into it.  Sometimes I really hate being solitary in my beliefs, because it makes finding my way that much harder.

Happy New Year!  It is 2010, and I can only hope that this year is better than last!  Having Soldier Daddy home is definately a good start, however!!  ♥  We rang it in with good friends and adult beverages at midnight, after a night of laughter, so much that I was pretty sure that at some point I was going to have a very embarrassing accident!  But, fortunately for my ego, I did NOT pee myself!!

I never make resolutions for the new year, because they always tend to be grandiose and impossible to meet.  So, instead I make goals, big and small.  I believe in learning from the past, but shedding the negativity and starting afresh each year and that is exactly what I had in mind when I made my goals for the year.

1. Lose weight and take better care of myself, at whatever weight I might be.  (I kind of think this is a standard issue goal for 90% of the women out there, but hey!)
2. Find a way to get in better touch with my spirituality.  This one has been a goal for a while and I have been failing miserably, mainly because I haven’t paid it the attention it deserves.  But I feel like I need to get grounded in it again.
3. Let some things go that are serving no purpose other than overwhelming me with negativity.  I have actually made a huge step on this one in one area, and it makes me feel so good!

Sometimes it amazes me just how divisive religion and faith can be.  I hate the assumptions that people sometimes make based on superficial, often incorrect, ideas of what another’s belief system is all about.  I have always believed that most religions share the same core values and are, in essence, just different paths seeking the same thing.  The beauty of living in this country is that we each have the freedom to worship in any manner we choose, and that choice should be free of judgement.  But it rarely ever is.  Too many times I have been on the recieving end of someone’s wrath, simply because I don’t believe or worship as they do.  I can’t stand to see religion or faith wielded as a weapon against someone and I don’t believe that following my spiritual beliefs in my own way makes me a lesser human being. 

It seems like the holidays can either bring out the best or the worst in people, when it comes to faith and religious beliefs.  I am certainly not one of those who believes that “Merry Christmas” wishes should be replaced with the generic “Happy Holidays”, and I also think that keeping Christ in Christmas is a beautiful thing for those who believe.  But there are other religions that celebrate their own holidays during this time of year that are just as legitimate and just as spiritually important to those celebrating them.  I truly hate the overwhelming attitude that I have seen this year that dismisses anything other than the mainstream Christmas as important, too.  I have seen some truly derisive and rude things written or said that completely insult the spirituality of those who believe differently.

I have friends of a lot of different faiths and we all want the same basic things for ourselves and for those we love.  We are Catholics, and Buddhists, and Mormons, and Pagans, and Christians, and Jewish.  That just proves to me that no matter how different our paths may be, they don’t make any one of us any lesser a person than anyone else.

The last ER
 I watched the series finale of ER last night, threatening children into silence for the entire time.  I have watched ER since it started and it has always been one of my favorite all-time shows, so it is sad to see it go!  What am I going to do with my Thursday nights now?!  There was a subplot with an older couple that have had a recurring plot line this season, and it tore me up.  She had MS and after her last bout in the hospital had decided on a DNR (do not resuscitate).  She came back to the hospital with difficult and irregular breathing, common occurences as you near death.  The whole thing just reminded me of my grandmother, who passed away a year ago next Friday.  Seeing the woman on TV lying in her hospital bed just brought back the memories of how sick she was toward the end.  And when the woman on the show died, it kind of pushed me over the edge.  All I could see in my head was my grandmother when I got to her house that morning, gone but still in her bed.  And that led to memories of the funeral home and how little she looked like the grandmother I knew and loved.  Her illnesses had ravaged her to the point that there was only so much that could be done to prepare her for the viewing.  It is something that still gives me nightmares nearly a year later.  As the anniversary of her death approaches, I realize just how not over it I am.

Finding my way
I have been on a bit of a spiritual quest lately, trying to refind my path after several years of almost non-stop bad things, one right after another.  In my quest, I have realized that certain things have to happen in order for me to find my way again.  One of those is brutal honesty with myself.  And, if I am being honest, part of my problem in getting past her death is guilt .  The guilt comes from my occasional lack of patience with her.  I suppose some of that comes from generational differences and I will accept that.  But the rest of it comes from her last year with us.  She was frequently rather disagreeable and I took a lot of heat from her because of it.  I tried to be patient and understanding, but I wasn’t always, and I probably could have been better.  But there were times when the barbs hurt, and I was not always the nicest about it.  I guess the thought that I could have been more understanding kind of eats at me, although Corey tells me that I am being WAY too hard on myself. 

I have also realized that there are some things that I just have to let go of.  People say that you have to learn to forgive those who wronged you in order to get past it.  I don’t believe that.  I think there are some things that you just can’t forgive.  But carrying it with you forever punishes you not the person who wronged you.  So, while there are things that I just can’t forgive, I do have to find a way to accept them and live with them and move on.  I think I have finally done just that and it is like a weight off of me.

The countdown begins
Well, Week 1 of the deployment is now over.  He is in Afghanistan, but not at his final destination yet.    I am going to assume that no news is good news since I haven’t heard from him since right after he got there, which is totally normal.  Since he was sick when he left, I can only hope that he is feeling marginally human again.  But I think that is probably just wishful thinking! 

The year of Kiki
I don’t do resolutions at New Year’s, mainly because I find them somewhat of a recipe for failure.  It is a proven fact that most people break their resolutions within the first month, and that just totally kills the motivation for me.  So I make goals instead.  My goals for the year,…

• Lose about 50lbs, more or less.  I’m not too picky because I have had 4 kids and I am  pushing 40.
• Find some inner peace again.  2008 was a really rough year for me and I really lost faith in a lot of things.
• Get in touch with my spirituality again.  Like I said, I lost a lot of faith and my spirituality was one of them.
• Get my house organized and reduce my material goods by at least 25%.
• Make myself a priority, as well as my family.