Happy Birthday Mom!

I recently fell in love with being a mother.  Yes, my child is 5... and yes, I said recently.  Yes, that does sort of make me a terrible person, but if more people would be honest about it then there would be more of us in this category.

Back on track.  I recently fell in love with being a mother and right around the same time my son stopped giving kisses and saying "I love you."  I ain't gonna lie--it stinks!  But with the help of GT/Becky and some soul searching I can see/know that there's some magic in that.  He's becoming his own person, and he's making his own choices (damn).  He's evolving, and as our relationship evolves the needs change.  Most important to me and my ego is the realization that he can sense that he doesn't have to try so hard anymore.  It has been painfully evident for his entire life that the kid can read my mind and as much as I've always sent love I haven't always loved doing it.  Cut to now, I love being a mother and he doesn't have to do anything to make that happen.  That must be such a relief for his tiny nervous system.

I've learned in therapy that our children are going to trigger all our stuff... forever. So my kid is 5 and it's bringing up my 5 year old stuff and next year it will be my 6 year old stuff. Lately I've been thinking about how if this is what it's like for me to parent a child and get triggered... What the hell did I put my poor mother through? What do I still out her through? Woah.

Really back on track.  Today is my mom's birthday.  And like happens when most of us become parents we develop a level of understanding and appreciation for our parents that we simply couldn't have had before.  And in honor of the fact that she's let it be all about me for the last 32 years I'm going to make it about her for today beginning now (even though I know she may not really like it).

Mom, thank you for teaching me that shut up, stupid, butt, fart, and sucks are words to avoid.  I ignored you for many years, but you were right.  They sound particularly awful coming out of the mouth of a small child.

Momma, thank you for giving me the space I needed to make up my own mind about things and thank you for being brave enough to give it me your point of view when I ask for it.

Mom, thank you for being the person who is most responsible for keeping this boy and I alive since the day he was born.  I am not sure how I would have done it or how I would do it if I had to do it without you.

Momma, thank you for seeing me, and knowing me, and loving me anyway or maybe even because of those things.

Mom, thank you for all the notes and phone calls getting me out of things I didn't want to do.

Momma, thank you for the late nights of sewing and all of the handmade costumes--every time I wore one, and every time I put one on my son I feel tremendously loved.

Mom, thank you for all the handmade easter baskets and for the store bought one when I asked for it... yours really were better.

Momma, thank you for teaching me "it's only money" and to "see all points of view."

Mom, thank you for letting me be right even when I was wrong.

Momma, thank you for trying to protect me from harm in all forms for so long.

Mom, thank you for giving me an opportunity to learn tact, grace, courage, eloquence, and love just by watching you be you.

I love you.

Thank you for letting the Universe assign me to you.

xo zo zi co

Zoomo!

I'm here!

I was just crying.

I was leaving the house in Long Beach after packing up my final carload of stuff and driving to visit with GT/Becky (whose couch I'm sitting on to write this because that's the kind of relationship we have. She's a muse honorer.) when I realized it was here. My new life was here. My new life IS here. And I cried... big, fat, hot, salty, alligator tears of relief.

Yes, the move is now done, spiderman is registered for kindergarten at our neighborhood school, filing fees have been paid and the signed divorce papers have been filed with the court, I'm out of the closet I was never really in, I'm comfortable enough at my new job to tell my team members embarrassing stories about my dating life... and I'm finally used to being blonde. All of the external processes have resolved and the mad, crashing waves around me have slowed to a rippling pool. This is all helpful, and important, and the still waters let the tears know to come out but what's really here isn't the new life. What's really here is me. The new me who lives this new life is here. I am here.

Maybe you remember when I wrote about letting go of limiting beliefs? It wasn't a very well read post which felt awkward at the time because I thought it was a gem... but what I think is best isn't what always gets the most attention. In general y'all seem to gravitate towards vulnerability (and juicy dirt) and it felt vulnerable at the time, but it seems to fall into the category of things I tell people I've realized about myself and they respond with "duh."

A few days ago at work I was in training all day. I am a trainer, so sticking me in a room for 8 hours as a participant can be hit or miss. I'm not a passive learner, if I'm not involved I suffer... and so does everyone else. This training was great and I was involved. I had just written about aversion to silliness the night before and all of a sudden I was über-gooberiffic (which the iPad wants to auto correct to "goo erotic")! Cracking jokes and being playful with the other training participants (all within the scope of a professional learning environment of course).

At one point we were given a group assignment to build a freestanding structure as tall as we could with a pack of index cards and a role of masking tape. I quickly asked what "freestanding" meant to determine if my idea could be pulled off. The instructor said it meant it couldn't be held up by people or leaning against walls or furniture, but we could use the table or floor as a base... but she didn't say anything about the ceiling (and I didn't ask). So in our one minute group consult session I convinced our team to take the risk of being called cheaters by "building" our structure out of one long piece of tape that stretched from ceiling to floor that we would stick index cards to. At one point I heard myself say/ask "what's the worst thing that could happen, we get in trouble?" and they went for it!

innovation or cheating?

Our "structure" was definitely the tallest, most attractive, and leant itself to the most metaphors about risk taking and innovation throughout the rest of the training.

Steve Jobs would be proud... if he were alive... and knew me... And cared.

The other groups insisted that we cheated... and that was okay, it didn't hurt, not even sting. At one point after I'd inadvertently (ha ha ha) become the center of attention I found myself explaining that this was very unlike me. That I was normally a rule follower who prioritized being "good" over anything else... and that got more laughs than anything else I had said all day. A chorus of "yeah right, Kate!" vibrated through the room.

over lunch, eating the tomatoes I hadn't asked the restaurant to leave out of my salad (I can't tell you how big a deal this is. I have been avoiding tomatoes my entire life. I used to have nightmares as a child about ice cream sundaes with cherry tomatoes on top instead of cherries! As an adult I've tried them once a year or so only to confirm that I despised them) I was thinking about what I'd just witnessed in myself: I was being silly and playful, I was willing to take a risk and break the rules, I was eating tomatoes and enjoying them! ...it was pretty clear: I was changed. I was not becoming my new or best self... I am my new, best self.

The reframing of the limiting beliefs was a spell... and like good spells it was specific and quiet and didn't get a lot of attention giving it time to work it's magic. The belief exercise was just that at the time--an exercise. And now it's become reality.

I am here. And I am so grateful to be. And you are here to. Thank you for that. Woot!

flying by the seat of my pants

do you ever stop to visualize the ridiculousness of common phrases?
i do.  this person did too, and this is what it looks like to her.
very similar to my mental image.

Tonight I'm going to be flying by the seat of my pants... but I'm wearing a skirt, so maybe not flying at all?

For the first time in a few weeks I don't have anything written for tonight's scheduled blog post.  All of these posts are always impromptu--I write them--I edit minimally--and sometimes I just post them a few days or weeks later, but today is REALLY impromptu.  I'm going to write, edit (yeah right), and post all within the next 30 minutes because I have somewhere to be and something to immerse myself in.

This style of writing is how I started this, it shouldn't be that significantly different, but we'll see how it goes.  It feels a little scarier than I'm used to feeling here lately.

If I'm being completely honest, which I usually am, I can see a typical pattern coming up in these "months."  I'm nearing the end and becoming all too aware of how far off I am from where I want to be.  I haven't, in this case, done nearly as much playing as I wanted to and I feel... well, honestly I feel fine about it.  That's the thing about this radical self love business.  I am very generous with the acceptance and forgiveness.  So, I haven't played as much as I wanted to... so what?  I'm still here, I'm still growing, I'm still learning.  That's plenty.

(somewhere inside the critical voice chimes back in to ask whether we should be more concerned about how I'm ever going to get anything done if I forgive myself for not doing things so readily... but I'm not going to go there right now.  My 30 minutes is now 25.)

I ruminated about play and whether I should feel bad about not doing it all day and I realized a couple of things.

1. I have this belief that play has to be silly (goofy, loud, and big) to be play--I'm wrong.
2. Just like with anything else, play exists in every day and taking the time to see it is just as powerful as intentionally practicing it.

With that silliness belief fully engrained I began this play focused month intending to practice some act of silliness each day... and many days I did, but as life started to get more complicated and weighed down by things like packing, moving, and unpacking I recognized that, while it probably would have helped lift my mood, I was far too stubborn to act silly.  It's something I still intend to work on.  I know it will work, so why don't I do it?!  I am confident, like all resistance, that my resistance to silly is blocking the way to some joyous business and I want to witness that joy, but I guess I'm not there yet.  Maybe next year.

In the meantime, here's what I have learned about play and how it manifests in my life: 

• When I am delighting in something, I am being playful.  Hearing a sound (the dishwasher--swoon!), smelling a smell (mmmm... jasmine), savoring a taste (hello dark chocolate almonds with sea salt) I am tapping into my playful self; connected to my senses and my core self... and that's play.
• When I "play" with my son, I am being playful.  I don't always look like I'm playing.  Sometimes I look like I'm watching and others like I'm just following along, but letting him lead the play defers to the true expert and (hopefully) builds his leadership skills too.
• Laughter is play.  This blog is play.  Organizing my desk is play.  Honestly.  The first is obvious, maybe even the second, but the third... yes.  Organizing my desk is play.  As a child, I played library (by writing codes in each of my books and filing them accordingly) and I got joy from it!  Just because my play isn't silly, doesn't mean it isn't play.  When I am experiencing joy and satisfaction--I am being playful.
• My relationships are play.  When I say what many of the other people in the room are thinking, make a joke, tell a story, listen and reflect, hug-kiss-snuggle someone I love, pay a compliment, give feedback I am playing.  I've never been described as subtle or quiet, but maybe my play is.

Without having read any of those books on play that my PhD candidate friend recommended, I've made my mind up about play; all on my own.  Silliness may still be a goal, but play... I've got that one down.  

It's in everything I do when I choose to delight in and discover the joy in my every day.

Time to go.  Have playing to do.

it's happening again!

I've been wanting to write a lot.  It's usually not enough for a whole blog post, but is too much for a Facebook status... and no matter what it is, I'm excited about it.

I want to tell people things like how much I love watching "Inside the Actor's Studio" and when I finally caught up on the ensemble cast episodes I had recorded months ago and saw the one with the cast of Glee I was reminded, even though I am so over actually watching Glee, that I love those people.  Squee!  I just want to squeeze them!  and them... and James Lipton in the same room!  Squee!

*let's add audit a class at whatever school James Lipton teaches at so I can attend a taping of that show to the bucket list.  THAT, and attend the World Domination Summit

I can't think of any of the others right this second, but there all pretty much along the same lines:

• Earth-shatteringly important
• and I'm just oozing with delight about them and how happy all of those things make me

and then I realize... I'm back to this feeling that I've been longing for!  Most of my thoughts about my experiences begin with "I love..." and even more exciting is the realization that I'm not "made happy" by these external things, I am happy and therefore I find delight in them!

woot!

In a few conversations with GT/Becky lately we've remarked on a mutual funk we've been feeling.  Blame the month of June, if you'd like... I did.  We've talked about what it feels like to be making slow progress on what feels like a long, straight path... and we've both had experiences that feel like we must have backtracked or turned around or somehow gone in reverse because we're seeing things on our paths that we've seen before and that we aren't particularly excited about seeing again.

i am here.

And then one of us, probably her because she's brilliant, points out that the path is not, in fact, straight... it is quite possibly a spiral.

This made a heck of a whole lot of sense to us because when we thought about what it would be like to walk on a spiral path we noticed that there would be a lot of repeated scenery, and depending on where on the spiral we were, the perspective could seem almost identical to one we may have had another loop around.

I've spent a lot of the last few weeks walking a path that looks like the tight, inner loops of the spiral.  I keep seeing the same things over and over and they mostly look the same because the angle doesn't change that much from one loop to the next.

What does this look like in real life?  I am having experiences that trigger me, or disturb my peace, or result in me just feeling "off" and I'm processing through them and I'm doing powerful work and getting the peace back by choosing a loving perspective and then it feels like I'm right back where I started within a day or two...  same or similar trigger, same or similar response.  And I've had to focus intently to walk the path without judging myself for the repetitive reactions and instead slow myself down and really look at the experiences and make choices that reflect what I want my existence of imperfection with grace to look like.

Because I know that on the other side of resistance is something pretty damn delightful, I've had this idea that when I reach the inside of this spiral I will suddenly *POP!* out the other side and onto a new path... and I think it just happened (yay!).  

The beginning of a new path is a beautiful place to be.  Brand new scenery, a whole host of tools and resources from the last path in a backpack I get to carry with me... and now I know enough to know that soon enough I'll be approaching the end of that path where the spiral tightens again and I keep seeing the same rock and the same tree, and I wonder if I'm going in circles, and it may feel a lot like this last one did.  And that's okay, because just like last time... there's a new one just on the other side.

*POP!*