You Read This?

I've been startled lately by different people telling me that they read my posts each day, surprised because I didn't know they knew I wrote, it jarred me a little bit, now maybe considering my words even more circumspectly as I write to process what we've experienced, and to hopefully offer some kind of support to others on this trauma mama path, because the support I've received has been crucial to me.

I'd talked with a lady at church yesterday, one in a regular family, traditional, not even a blended family, as she told me how badly she felt she'd coped over the last two years after trauma hit her.

But badly?  No, not at all, there's no handbook for coping, no set in stones rules and regulations.  We do what we do to keep our heads above water.

Likely it's the greyness that surrounds me right now, the browns and greys of winter where I deeply miss our lush swamp-like greenery, so ready for dreariness to be over.  Late winter turns my muscles to mush, saps my endurance, drains my vitality so much so that I just didn't feel like writing yesterday.  I was just so blah, maybe even with a bleh throw in.

Everyone was behaving thankfully, but as lethargic as I.  The youth pastor had taken four of my older sons out for donuts after the church service, Tabby and Nando had movie afternoon with their children's church group,  and they all worked on various homework projects while I sat like a slug in the living room.

In the new issue of The Mother Earth News, a periodical I've read for nigh on 40 years since it immediately captured my heart with its purpose so long ago, that of being producers of that which we need, not just idle consumers dillydallying in the mall, an article said it best, "In today's world, most of us pay other people to provide the things we need, which means we need a job or two outside of the home to bring in cash.  But if you learn to be more self-reliant, you'll also learn how to save money, live on less income, and also enjoy greater personal freedom and satisfaction from your daily labor."

I so agree, and, we, as a society have come so far the wrong way, worshiping at the altar of excess, greed,  sloth and envy. The consumer culture is unsustainable and unsatisfying, and we don't even know it, thus sparking a cycle of self-medication that probably not many really need in the first place.

"I'd be thin too if I worked as hard as you," I've often been told by folks, "I just don't want to do all that you do."

I never know what to say because I truly do enjoy the challenges I face...usually.

I'm not thin anymore, I'm just regular, but at my age, most women are much heavier due to all their labor-saving devices that have robbed them of expending normal energy.

I've always been the happiest when I've been able to pursue my specific value-based, value-driven way of life which is basically self-reliance.

I'm not creative nor artistic at all, not one ounce of my being, but I can happily work like a dog.

I wish I were more knowledgeable, that's why I admire that Rehab Addict lady, I so wish I could do what she can do, but I know I'm still young enough to learn so much more.  And I'm gonna do so too, lemme tell ya.

As my children grow more and more independent, I'll do the same, adding to my meager repertoire of what i think I know, learning new skills is a major goal.  I won't just be obsessed with Braves baseball when I have more free time.

I was such a slug yesterday, watching an older season of Justified on my computer.  I told myself I deserved a day of rest, but when it was bedtime I was so very antsy, very restless from not having expended any energy at all.  My legs were twitching and I couldn't fall asleep.  I don't particularly want to live like that, I'd rather bust my brass ones about doing something each day.

Indulgence isn't any fun.

I wanna be about being about.  Bad grammar and all, but it's how we talk around here.

Tony used some apps to make the above photos.  The pictures are blurred and my winter-induced apathy makes me not give a good cahoot about it.  One is of Sabrina appearing to be talking to Sabrina as she's made, re-made, changed and chosen differently all week about college.  I'd told her to give it a 72 hour prayer and consideration moratorium, and she's only more muddled in her thoughts.  I'm not gonna make this call for her, we've had endless discussions, I'm not pushing her either way on it.  Both choices, well there are more'n two, are great.  Not a bad dilemma to have certainly.

She takes her intelligence for granted, I'm just happy that she has these mental and emotional faculties, I've been so heartbroken by children who couldn't have cared less about their futures.

An older daughter calling me, taking more college classes, and wanting me to know, knowing I'd be verbose in my pride to her.  She's had very challenging mental health issues, to put it mildly, but her path of forward progression, often littered with major stumbling blocks due to some poor choices, well overall she gives me hope for another daughter of mine who's struggling.

Every single dadgum thing I'd pushed upon them as children and as teens, all of my stick-in-the-mud, old school values has helped them, at some point nearly everyone calls to tell me that they've used what they learned and that which they'd violently rebelled against for so many years.

I pat them all proverbially on the back, withholding my, "I told you so!" remarks, emotionally supporting their progression, glad to have discovered they were listening just a little bit.

Like a hopeful puppy sniffing the hair curiously this morning, I stood on my front porch facing the meadow inhaling a very moist, not too cold air flow, watching a female robin scampering in the grass, knowing we'll now have very teasing weather for the next month or so, extremely warm days giving me Springtime hope, dashed by the odd cold fronts that bounce back in to remind me it's still winter.