Original article, http://lifestyle.msn.com/your-life/just-dreaming/articlerb.aspx?cp-documentid=22782071
1. How do I spend my alone time?
Alone time comes very seldom, so I cherish it and use it very selfishly on things that please me and make my soul smile. You can nearly always find me in one of a few places: on the laptop, writing, painting, or just drabbling. Reading a book (preferably in the bathtub, or in my comfy chair, weenie curled up beside me, with a hot cup of great coffee). Or catching up on one of the many little projects that I always have going (painting a room is one of my favorite occupations!).
2. Do I pay attention to what my body needs?
I like to think so, but I know it's not always true. Sometimes it's more like "Yeah, body - I hear you, but I need to finish this right now." I eat convenient, mostly, and not always well, and I will forgo sleep in the interest of completing something that I've started. However, my body always tells me about it, usually in the form of a migraine, which stops me in my tracks and forces me to do the things I should have done all along.
An odd note on this one is my love/hate relationship with my partial hysterectomy ten years ago. Yes, it's wonderful nice (and convenient!) not to have a period anymore. No more week filled with inconveniences and migraines, no more messy and expensive supplies to buy. But I find that being period-free is somehow lacking. I don't have that week anymore - that week that my body whispers to me "Slow down. Rest up. Draw inward, and care for me". I miss the heaviness of my body during that week, that softness and fullness. The physical reminder that my small cycle was part of some larger, more important cycle. During that week I typically stayed in more, moved less, became introspective and moodier - a big old round gravid moon, silent and beneficent. Even the cramping seemed to have purpose, as if in rehearsal for a grander event. My period was the monthly test of the Emergency Broadcast System - "This is a test. This is only a test. If this had been an actual pregnancy, this test would have been followed by a baby."
It was a week built not for the outside world, but only for me. That week does not exist anymore. I have no excuse. It almost makes you long for a cold, just to take that sick day, to stay wrapped in comfort and warmth and feed your body the very best things and listen to the slow tick of the clock rather than the frenetic motion of the outside world. I miss it.
3. To whom am I grateful?
I am grateful for B, for replacing the funhouse mirror that I have used all my life with the one he sees me in, where I am OK after all.
I am grateful to my kids for making me live rather than just exist. For challenging my viewpoints rather than just swallowing them. They make me THINK, and clarify my worldview and all that I hold important. Every important thing in the world that I have ever done I have done for them.
I am grateful to work for giving me the chance to prove that I could do what no woman before me here had done: succeed in the mens' arena, and shine.
I am grateful, more than any other thing in the world, to God, for this life and all that is in it. Thanks for never giving up on me, ever, even when I was giving up on myself. May I be worthy.
4. Do I compare my life to other people's?
Ugh. Yeah. (Who doesn't?) Too much, I think. I want to be like my friends, who have church families and scads of close friends, who seem to be gadding about everywhere all the time doing fun things together. I want to go off on all the vacations I hear about all over my Facebook page, just once.
I want to be like the "Safeway ladies", the ones always in front of me in the checkout lines, four inches taller, perfectly coiffed, looking like they stepped from the pages of Vogue or Town and Country as they do their shopping. I wonder how they look so perfect all the time: perfect hair, perfect skin, perfect clothes, perfect smiles. I get my hair done and for a shining hour or two after the salon I look great. The next day, the perfect haircut looks just like my own, with a few pieces standing every which way and the cowlick behind that flips out. *sigh* I wish I were comfortable in my own skin. Of all the deadly sins, envy is my worst.
Mostly I spend money on bills and necessities, but occasionally I buy something that speaks to my soul. There were two chairs at the furniture store recently, mismatched but beautiful, deeply discounted because they were onesies. Both were in that deep rich wood that I love so much, with gorgeous fabric seats and deeply tooled details (one with wrought metal accents). I bought them and took them home, where they please me every time I look at them. No, I didn't need them (although I needed a place for B to lay his clothes at night, there were other cheaper options), but they tie the room together and make me feel rich in spirit. That alone was worth their price.I painted a wall - one wall - yesterday that had the same effect. Paint is not a necessity. Paint is love. I could not live in a world bereft of beauty, and I have a need to create it wherever I go. I don't always have the money I'd like to do what I want, but I usually make it happen by finding a cheaper way.
6. What do I see when I look in the mirror each morning?
Just plain old me. I actually have grown fond of this old face. It's taken years and years, but I think I'm okay. I love my eyes, even though they (and my nose) are my father's. I see the high cheekbones and strong jawline of my mother, and the 'i-want' frown lines between my brows and the smile brackets that are my own. I see that I'm twenty pounds too heavy and that the cellulite is aggravating, but the curves are still curvy and they light B's eyes. I'm trying my best to see what he sees. Slowly, it's working.
7. Have I figured out a way to handle the less-than-perfect relationships in my life?
I think so, but this is a very recent development. I have decided to say "no" to the things that are toxic, and to set some boundaries. More on that later. It is an ongoing struggle, made easier because what is at home is so wonderful and so fulfilling that I no longer need the approval and opinions of these toxic people in order to survive. Slowly, I am working to build those healthy walls so that what we have created is not threatened.
8. Do I have faith in something bigger than I am, whether it's God or some other spiritual form
Yes. My only sorrow is that I can't seem to pull my spiritual life and my home life together as well as I would like. And I wish I'd worked harder on bringing my kids up in a spiritual way.
9. What positive things do I bring to relationships with my husband, my kids, my friends?
I'm an organizer. I always have the things everyone else forgets. I think ahead. And I never forget to say "I love you".
I don't know what else. It's hard to think of good things to say about yourself. I always feel like "I just do what needs to be done." Nothing seems out of the ordinary.
10. Is there a space in my home to do the things I love (paint, practice yoga, play cards with friends)?
I usually just find a space. B has carved me out a corner of the office now where we can sit side by side as I work on the puter, where he can play Bejeweled and I can paint. It's great.
11. How many hours a week do I spend on my computer, my TV, my BlackBerry?
Ouch. A LOT. But a lot of my 'me-time' is on the puter as well, as is my work. Does that count??
I text a lot, but that's the best way I have of keeping touch with my kids as they're off and running about. I think it makes our relationship stronger.
12. Do I feel older or younger than my years? How often do I feel good about being exactly the age I am?
The morning after we got the Wii I felt WAAAAAY older than my years! LOL But truly in many ways I feel much younger than my years. I'll always be 20 in my head: somewhat naive, wondering, awestruck by life. Somewhat off balance next to those supremely confident people like B, always a half step off. I'm the stumbler, the fumbler, the bumbling bubbly redheaded bimbo. B and I laugh at my misadventures all the time, and he calls me fondly "Lucy". But I'm okay with that, because he loves me. And more importantly, as I have come to understand very slowly and with no small degree of struggle, I love myself.
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