A Cautionary Tale...

Lately, or always, I have been questioning some or most of things I face in my life.

It occurred to me on two separate occasions recently that no matter how hard I try to pursue a "normal" life as a twenty-something girl, the more that notion is ram shackled when I am rubbing elbows with said Norms.

I didn't see it before, just how hard I was pushing, wanting to prove to others that I wasn't behind and that I wouldn't be playing catch up for the rest of my life because of becoming a teen parent. My convictions and strive I think were generally fueled by this must-prove-them-wrong mentality. I kept going to school to finish and obtain at least one degree, my Associates. Just in time for my peers around me to be graduating with their Bachelors degrees and moving on to working 9 to 5 jobs and living with best friends turned roommates. I didn't buckle then. I fell in love and pursued building a family, a quick engagement and one elopement later, I was married with baby number two on the way. Congratulations people will say, you're so blessed others will say as they smile, all the while thinking, better you than me my dear!

Its a harsh reality, that, in becoming a parent so young I have a lot of setbacks in my life. I have a lot of dreams that I cannot commit to right now because my own youth is being shared with making lunches and potty trainings. Sometimes it feels like I'm window shopping for a life that would've been different. Does it hurt to admit this? Of course. Would I be lying if I said things were going as planned when I got pregnant at 19 and all was fine and dandy and I was just keeping on my cheery little way? Absolutely. What is getting me stuck though, like a quadruple knot you can't work out no matter how hard you tug and negotiate the string, is this pestering idea that I will someday "catch up" with life and be on a level plane with those that had their youth all to themselves, the hours and months they were allowed to explore, or be lazy, to drink or study all night, to travel for weeks at a time and to simply try out different lives until they get it right before the huge responsbility of parenthood is a part of it.

I was registering for classes at Lesley University for the upcoming spring semester when so many interesting classes caught my eye. I jotted them down excitedly planning my week nights and study hours I would need to complete them. I looked at my expected requirements for my degree plan and...I didn't need to take any of them. My classes that had transferred from BHCC filled in all the little spaces with numbers proving I wouldn't be expected to sit through those classes I was eager to be in. Now I know it sounds silly to not immediately be grateful to be a few thousand dollars richer for not having to take those classes but something in me registered in that moment, that no matter how hard I try or how well I do, I will never have that four year experience with the school I so earnestly sought out when I was still in high school. It's just one more thing on the list.

So before this gets too depressing let me interject something enlightened and gracious. My son is the light of my life. He is brilliant, he is funny and at five years old is the most popular kid in his school, and I'm not exaggerating. I found this out when we arrived to school slightly later than usual and he literally got a round-of-applause as he entered the classroom. He's such an old soul and so astoundingly kind that the only time I can remember him lashing out in a violent way was when he pushed a chair out of place, about a quarter of an inch.After which he promptly fixed it and stomped off to his room, upset I'm sure about something along the lines of not getting a third cookie. His little heart holds so much love for the people around him and his nightly prayers consist of asking God to never let any animals die and to help his classmates have happy lives. What he understands about life sometime is frightening, the matter of fact way he explains his living situation, one of the harder things about having two parents that aren't together would take the maturity of a well adjusted adult to grasp. He always forgives. His passion for basketball and learning is never deterred by anything. When I'm feeling down, I tell him he is amazing and good and loved and intelligent and what a wonderful life he will have when he is grown. Last night he told me he will grow up to be a scientist and basketball player. He said he will travel the world and he will learn all the math problems that ever existed, "Like 4+4!" he said happily as he grinned with his newly lost tooth adding to the precociousness of it all. He is worth every battle I face with my thoughts. And he is only one of my children! I would need an entire book to write all of the amazing things those two individuals bring to my life.

The other thing that happened that made me see- and it was like when your windshield is splattered suddenly with puddled water being pushed through by another car and your wiper clears it away, but just before you can see again, that moment of complete obscurity and instant scariness of what could happen in those seconds that you were blinded, was when when I sat with our family at a restaurant, my favorite, Border's cafe in Harvard Square. I sat down, excited to get started on those deliciously hot and perfectly salted chips, and looked around. I know I was in an area with mostly students. I know that most students will not have families to tend to at dinner. But the sudden apparentness of it all, the sheer contrast of my life next to theirs, literally a table away, they sat happily chatting, the ease of conversation when you are not distracted by crying two year olds and picky eating five year olds. I felt uncomfortable in my skin, embarrassed almost, as I had to peel away my two year old from interuppting two young guys trying to enjoy their fajitas in peace. I felt on display, like a Cautionary Tale. The perils of irresponsible adolescent choices and their consequences. I'm sure my husband felt it too. We joked about it and half heartedly said we just weren't cut out to be carefree young adults. Both of us I guess used our freedoms a bit too freely when we were just teenagers, and now look at life through different lenses, those that at times are tainted with harsh realizations of our mistakes but then again, rose colored with the blessing of being able to love our little family in the midst of hecticness that comes with piecing together your life and what's to come.

In those moments of clarity, when I have to face the could've beens and almost like a person who is insulted to their face by something they are already insecure about, I get this indignant fiery push to just go harder, earn more, get more, be more. And then when it fizzles I have to really face something, I have to admit to myself and others that it's not just hard sometimes it is just..different. I am different. My life is different than I always expected it would be. That's give or take 16 years of rememberable years of expectations. I am now only in my sixth year of living an altered life path. I don't know how long it will take to catch up with new dreams, new expectations and the letting go of the anticipated. I do know that so far, it has helped me to steam roll the limits of what I thought I could do. I can be grateful for that. I guess I am learning that being happy won't be about everything being perfect in all areas before I can be content.

I guess I am figuring out that there will always be something lacking, something pulling at my heart saying not yet, you're not there quite yet.

Looking On the Bright Side

In lieu of having my own grand awakening and discovering a way to simplify life, I have succumbed to using daily reflections ( and I do mean books titled Daily Reflections) and motivational quotes to guide me and keep me focused. I am missing a very important outlet in my life and even though I don't know how I will ever balance it into my lifestyle I do know that there's something lurking beneath my conscious level that has started to poke its ugly head through to my routine.

I started noticing that my wishful thinking has taken on a life of its own. I'm not just dreaming of travel anymore, I'm constantly seeking out cheap flights while I'm at work and creating lists of the places I need to step foot on before the age of 30 while I cut up the kids' chicken nuggets for dinner. I get emails sent directly to my phone from travel websites luring me with their seductive offers of far away lands for discount prices. With shaking hands I open the images to let my already corrupt brain take in more fuel for my hazardous thinking. I mentally calculate dates for travel and sometimes use the calender device on the site to let my fantasies become closer to reality by seeing a plausible date and time when I could make my journey to the enticing locales.

I am not being reasonable and I know this. I am doomed to live an unfulfilled life if I don't get the hang of being a full time parent and free spirit at the same time. My kids unfortunately would be doomed to never knowing a consistent parent which could very likely wreak all kinds of havoc on their own development and future relationships which frankly I just can't have hanging over my head.

I get that life is a struggle. I get that these things make you stronger, those that don't kill you, as it is. And that at the end of every storm comes a rainbow; so on and so forth. Notice the heavy influence of common wisdom often found on quote websites? For whatever reason, be it mood swings, PMS or being "in a rut" I can not in a sane sort of self controlled manner endorse these sayings and not only do I not agree with them, I would like to punch them if they were physical beings. I would enjoy seeing a cardboard cut out of these cheery expressions so that I could irrationally soothe my annoyance by demolishing them with my bare hands.

I don't want to be told all the things I already know. I want some sort of magical windfall of grace and acceptance for my role as a parent and wife. I want to want all the things I already have and not keep longing for this other life that coexists like a ghost limb making me feel off-kilter. Don't get me wrong, or do- I don't care, the fact that I love my family is not diminished by the fact that I need time to discover somethings about the myself and the world at the same time. I want to do both and because I was blessed with a child so early in my life the two tend to overlap. There are many things that I could say about how wonderful parenthood is but that isn't what I blog about. I want to write about all of the other stuff that gets pushed into the close with the rest of the mess in the chaotic life of being a mother. I'm speaking to the uneasy feeling of whether you are truly happy and if you will ever be okay with in the future being referred to as so-and-so's mother. It scares me into tears some days. It threatens to break me in half when I play the mental tennis of dreaming verses facing reality. I want to say that I have learned to look on the bright side of things but its not true, not yet anyway. From where I stand the argument that starts with "well, at least" doesn't sound so appealing to me. It reminds of a place, maybe like at the bottom of a pile of clearance merchandise at the Dollar Store. Not exactly the metaphor I'd like to gauge my life on.

Albeit, not my most lighthearted sentiment- here's to the search, here's to the struggle, and here's for those of us that are stronger for living through the struggle, and looking for that rainbow even if it's still raining and learning to pick our battles even if we're losing the war with ourselves. Tomorrow's a new day after all...look on the bright side.

A Paradox of Minor Proportions

Before I started thinking about how I would write this new entry I was fixated on finding the perfect title for it. This came to mind because no matter how perplexed I may be at the time of writing, in the great scheme of things it really is of minor proportions. I am now facing a new dilemma of sorts. faced with the prospect of actually catapulting my life in the direction of my dreams and in fact, almost all of my dreams, I have a newfound sense of guilt, and doubt.

I have been at the starting point up until now. All previous experiences; heart aches, losses, failures, pursuits, have been tied up in the place of my childhood. I'm moving on to a new plane in my life and I can feel it, in my bones, in my opinions, or lack of them I should say, that I am perpetually growing up. In becoming a parent, and in not having things pan out the way I imagined they would I was given an opportunity to reset my way of thinking. Previously so sure of everything, being thrown into a world where I was not the first priority while still trying to find my way made me see how little I understood anything at all. And now, six years into that journey I am finding out that every year I know a little less.

I have been chasing these dreams of travel, of study, of creating a life that is nothing short of extraordinary every moment of every day for as long as I can remember. I know trauma plays a huge role in that fierce desire to live and thrive where no one could imagine it possible. I think it's a trait found in most resilient souls. The deep need to avenge a bitter past with a bright, impossible future. But now I see that it lay just ahead of me, no longer a distant blurry vision of intangible things. I am counting down less than thirty days time until I return to my home country of Brazil. I am returning to school in the two months that follow that adventure to pursue the line of study I feel I was lead to complete.

And I have the strangest sense of guilt. I never imagined, being as close as I am that of the feelings that come to play when you are reaching your dreams, head soaring among the clouds, that such poisonous guilt and corrosive doubt would be along for the ride. Sometimes in the quiet of the night it strikes me in the deep cavity of my heart walls, a pounding pain that spreads and makes me lose my breath. Questions of what I am capable of. Wondering if all that lay ahead of me are years that keep changing my perspective and not for the better. Fear that I will lose the eternal optimism and instead have it be replaced by cold, hard realism. In Paulo Coelho's book The Alchemist,that genuinely affected my life in the utmost positive way, one character in particular always haunted me. It was a man who had Mecca in his line of vision but only in his mind's eye. He was busy doing life instead of living his dreams. He was every day adding to the clutter of his life with more and more work. He knew he would never see his Mecca. But it became enough for him to dream of it. To have it untainted unperturbed by what reality could to it; figuring, bad weather, family becoming ill while he was away, or worse, the loss of his security in his work and home life, he would simply never go. I felt kindred to this character. I felt like most people were this character in life. And I felt a strong need to prove to myself that I could in fact be a follower of dreams and push past the disparity of doubt that can really encumber you from doing it.

But like I said, every year I know less and less. Once brazen and sure, now I'm anxious and afraid. What if I am making the wrong decision here? Sure its only a few weeks away from my children, but what if in the wake of my absences their lives are changed as well? What if I invest in this education only to have it collapse around me some perilous decade to come? All the questions I busied myself not to have to answer suddenly came flooding in with all the joy that had first taken up my whole heart. Can I say with any certainty that I will push ahead and continue to be a dream chaser? Well, if I could be certain about that, I would need to be much, much younger. So maybe as a solution I will hold onto my youthful hope. I will press ahead even though the years ahead of me threaten to rob me of the very things I hold dear. I will go on blindly yet with eyes wide open and pray that God lead me by green pastures and beautiful things both in pain and in progress, so that I might let my soul be buoyant within me for always and God Willing, bring some joy or hope to the lives of others around me by doing so. Blaze the perpetual path if you would.