You said the "Word of the Day!"

So glad I have a friend to share a bit of "ham" and Pee-wee with!

More from the Coburg Antique Fair shortly!

JMB

Thinking about this...a note to the future me.

I am thinking that I just need to get something down on pretend paper, something that I can read again next year or next month, because I know that this is all going to happen again.

The creep of depression.

It has been washing over me, slowly for the last month. Every few days I would check in with myself and say "Yeah, I feel kind of bad today. Why are the kids driving me so nuts? Why is every answer murky and hard to figure? and why can't I remember anything?"

To Future JMB: This time it is both a seasonal light trigger and lots of change, good change, but your brain has a hard time dealing with change, in all of its forms.

To Present JMB: You are the mom of a school age boy now, he is moving out in to the world in larger and larger circles and that feels scary. He is making wonderful new friends and learning about the world in new ways. People like him and also want to include him in their lives and this feels scary too. He still needs to have his place at home, to be grounded and know that there is a safe and quiet place in his growing world.

You are moving outside in to the world too. Learning new things, trying things that you might actually really enjoy, this is scary too. What if you discover what you "want to be when you grow-up?" What if you had to choose to pursue a dream in ADDITION to being a mom? How is it all going to balance? What is going to have to give? Sometimes, the status quo is too warm and comfortable. Staying the same doesn't allow room for new things to come in, for growth.

I think that this last bit is what I am really having a hard time with. I like routine, I like to know what is going to happen...I can't help but think of the wake-up call of having a baby. Boy, did that really throw a wrench in to my desire for order-- because just when I thought that I had something figured out, he went changed on me. A baby learns to sit, to move, to speak, to run away, incrementally.....and I was just trying to anticipate the dangers and how I could protect against whatever COULD hurt my child. I had a hard time with that, but eventually I could see the other part... the beautiful part, where I saw the first smile and heard the first laugh. The part where I picked my son up after he had fallen from standing and he just tried again and again until he found success and stood alone.

I can see the balance here when I think of being a mom and helping my kids grow. Trying to translate it to myself is quite another story. I deny my fear and it buries itself inside of me and forms this nasty boil, eventually it makes me depressed. It festers and makes me uncomfortable....but I am unwilling to look at it and call it by name. I know it is there logically, but emotionally I keep it covered and hidden, because then it isn't "real".

My logical self has been doing things to grow, I am only seeing this now, because I feel right in the middle of it. Over the past few months I have, before I thought of how scary it was to that emotional self, entered a quilt in a juried show, entered 4 quilts in my guild's show, and signed myself up for a Pattern making class. Written out like this my logical self scoffs and makes light of the four years that I have been "dreaming" of taking this class. Showing my quilts is public??? who cares? Right?! Apparently the little queasy emotional self does....these are all scary things to her.

Right now, I am trying to look at this, to really SEE it, and make peace with myself.

I want to "High-5" my logical self for being so brave and also to hug my emotional self who is feeling so anxious about changing. I am trying to catch "us" up, to make my logical self and emotional self "get- along" better. The whole of us, of me, doesn't like to be depressed. I would like to embrace my fear in order to get on to the other "good stuff" that is out there for me.

I know that I am not the only person struggling with depression, or even the only person struggling with "what I am going to be when I grow up?"-- I know that I will be here again, because I haven't yet decided and the world is going to keep on changing.

So, here it is Future self, proof that you have been here before and you have made it through again...

with hope.

JMB

Keeping it real...

I have been sad this week because my elbow and lower arm hurt...MY MOUSE ARM. I have been trying to be good--resting it, by not blogging, sewing, web surfing, picking up my kids, all the things that I really love to do. It feels marginally better... I might have to bite the bullet and visit a doctor....HORROR! I just feel like they will tell me to take some drugs and get on with it...I like a solution, being proactive etc., I guess we will see. (I put a picture in, because although it isn't my fav...you should be on your own blog and look at the greyness and the fleece...it is cold here in June??!!!)
Do you like how I angled the shot, so that it looked like I got more out of the garden than I really did?? It was all so tasty, but really meager. I ate the artichoke today for a snack...Yum, yum, YUM! I also am totally sold on homegrown broccoli, it is so sweet and tender. I am only disappointed that the weather has been so awful, I think that a bit more sun would have increased my yield....there is always the fall.
Just to show everyone that we are doing our best to be organic and the like...Here is a wee spittle bug house. It came in with the artichoke, but a nice and drug-free way that I normally deal with them is just hose them off. I just thought...we get a lot of these on our rosemary bushes (I call them this because they are just HUGE!) and I could give the boys little spray bottles and have them go at it with the stream spray. I think that I will try that next time we go out back and it is above 60 degrees (It has been cold here folks.)
I hope to be up and sewing soon...I have 2 swap quilts (here and here) to do AND that chicken quilt is not going to make itself.
JMB