But no matter how low-stress and functional I feel like I have things, with two children under six it can fall apart at any moment. And the “to-do” list, much like the laundry, is endless.

So the thing I look forward to the most when I go on vacation is a chance to clear my head of all that noise. It’s not that it’s all bad, but sometimes we all need a break from the everyday cycle. A chance to get a little much-needed perspective.

Now, vacationing in New Hampshire at my brother’s lake house was not without its own tensions. Any time you holiday with family (in this case, my brother and my mother), there will be some drama of one kind or another. And with the kids, especially my youngest, there is a degree of stress just looming under the surface with every temper tantrum. But all of that aside, I still got more out of this trip than I expected.

I thought I would have some time to write. I fantasized that I’d have time to sit on the dock at sunrise, surrounded by the mountains around Lake Winnipesaukee, and be silent with the loons. Nothing but me and God. Serenity.

Ha!

Not only did I not see a single sunrise, I barely caught a moment alone. The surprise to me, however, was that God found me anyway.

While I was there, I read an interesting little book called Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott. As certain tensions were arising with my mother, I turned the page and found a chapter entitled “Mom” – where the author voiced her frustration at her mother aging too soon, and how she had to learn some patience and forgiveness. In fact, there was a lot in there about forgiveness. Right on target for me. (Personally, I think forgiveness is the hardest thing for humans to do, but I digress…)

The rest of the book was about the 40-something author’s life, as a mom, as a struggling parent, as an artist, as a friend, and as someone trying to fit in the world, all while finding her faith. There was a lot I could identify with in there (aside from the fact that she was an alcholic, drug using, bulimic, unwed mother, that is…).

I’ve been going through what an old high school friend has called a “mommy-mid-life-crisis” – which I think may be a misnomer, really. At least the crisis part. It’s more like an identity issue – as I try to find a new career that works with my family’s lifestyle, and as I’m digging through a little bit of my past creativity to see if it still fits.

It’s like I  was working on something in this one room, and then I walked out to go do something, had a few babies, and now I’ve wandered back in and am trying to remember what it was I was doing before I left.

That night we had dinner with my sister-in-law’s family. The wife of her brother is this wonderful free spirit, and just refreshing to be around. She’s an artist and a bass player with three grown children. She has short spiky hair, with a small tuft of it in the front dyed a brilliant peacock blue, three tatoos, unshaven armpits, and a unique relationship with the universe. I’d love to be that comfortable in my world (but with my armpits shaved, thank you very much).

The rest of the week my family and I did some sailing, kayaking, biking, hiking to waterfalls (where the 3 year old partially fell in and got soaked on a 60 degree morning), playing cards, swimming, tubing, reading, going on boat rides, building sandcastles, playing cornhole, and making s’mores around the fire. Really, we couldn’t have asked for a better week. No wonder we’re all tired.

My long-winded point here is this: I thought I could just sit and think my way into this calming place, this place of vision and clarity, but that’s not where God met me. Instead it just took me being removed from the noise of my own life here at home, and being dropped into these little experiences I didn’t see coming- the right chapter of a book, chatting with the right person at dinner, watching my kids and husband laugh while surrounded by ridiculous natural beauty, feeling cool air against my skin (a welcome change from 100 degree temps) – gave me the room to grow and change. Once again, not according to my plan, but a wonderful mutation stemming from God’s plan.

Are you kidding me? I laughed out loud and said no thanks.

He kind of chuckled and said “well, it’s in case you get into an accident and get injured from the seatbelts…”

So now, suing seatbelt makers isn’t enough (I’m sure there are people who do this). We need protection from those nasty seatbelts too.

“Look,” I said, “I’ll take my chances. Seatbelts save lives, and if I get hurt in the accident from the seatbelt, well, so be it.” And then I hung up.

Really?  I understand health insurance, dental insurance, and car insurance. Mishaps in those areas are expensive and the odds that you’ll need it in your lifetime are pretty good. But why do we think we need insurance for everything? Why do we give in to the people who are trying to profit on our fears?

I blame it on the media, and though my husband is in advertising, I blame it on that industry too.  Fear equals drama, and boy, do some people love drama.  If you’ve ever watched a Baltimore newscast, you’d see that there are some talented folks out there who can turn a turtle crossing the road into a major “wildlife causes traffic delays” event worthy of the five o’clock news opener. (I honestly remember seeing this once…)

But it’s getting worse every day. Soon we’ll hear how turtles are somehow dangerous to drivers… and then they’ll be new companies forming to come rid your property of these horrible creatures that could cause accidents (even death!) on your very road…so you’ll need turtle insurance too…but where will it end?

Why do we (the royal “we”…as opposed to the “they” my mother always spoke of…) let ourselves get so easily frightened?   Why do we believe these people, who we know full well are just after our money? Are we that desperate to feel like we can protect ourselves from all bad things? 

Where is the trust that God will protect you? 

Trusting in God doesn’t mean that nothing bad will ever happen, it just means that when bad things do happen, that you trust that it’s part of His plan.  The things that are part of his plan are going to happen one way or another, despite how much money you spend.

Not to mention, that too often we let other people (media, advertisers, our mothers…) define “bad things” for us. Meaning, if you get into an accident, and the seatbelt cuts into your side as it saves your life, that it’s not only not a “bad thing” to be feared, it’s really okay. The seatbelt did it’s job, right?

We need to ask God for help, not to just protect us, but to guide us to make the choices paramount to our personal safety. To help us discern where there is real danger, and where there are just turtles and seatbelts. Any mother knows the sensation of watching her children, and seeing five seconds ahead to how something could go terribly wrong. That’s the kind of foresight that you pray for, but on a bigger scale.

For I’ve always had a feeling that Satan isn’t as obvious as all of this – meaning that the real dangers in this life are the ones that no one even sees coming until they’re gone.

I’m a little PMS, and a little cranky, so I said something today that I wish I didn’t say. It wasn’t horrible, or mean, just unneccessary. The words were still hanging in the air over my head when I thought “Just shut up. Now. Stop speaking, woman…”.

And it’s not like the  person I was talking to noticed much, or maybe she did, but that’s not the point. The point is just that I hate when that happens. When I say something out of insecurity, or because I’m uncomfortable, or bored, or simply because I forgot to put in that filter between my brain and my mouth. 

I’d like to think I have more self-control. Over my whole self – thoughts included. And I do believe it’s possible. Maybe it’s cliche, but I believe the Holy Spirit is the positive, creative voice in your head, and I believe Satan is the one whispering all of the negative crap in your ear when you’re not paying attention.

And therein lies the key. You have to be mindful, for lack of a better word. You have to be aware.  Sometimes,  if I’m feeling weak, I even have to manipulate my environment a little. But if I have a lot going on in my life, that effort can just seem exhausting. So I get lazy with it, and instead of marching to the strong beat of my own drum, which is often just a little different than the majority, I find myself adjusting a little to keep time with everyone else.  And it just feels all wrong.

To an outsider, all of this mis-matched beating in my head is not visible. It’s not like I’m running around with a lampshade on my head or anything. It just makes me angry with myself. (Though I guess the up-side is that it snaps me back into place. God’s little smack on the side of my head, if you will…)

Since I’ve started to practice this thought-control business, however, I do find that if I make a mistake I am at least faster to recognize the bottom line –  that it’s important to never let someone else’s drum beat drown out your own.

I guess it surprised me that I was a statistic to be studied. And what they found out is that it takes years for kids to get over these experiences, longer than adults even, and dramatically shapes who they are as adults (duh…).  Also that the methods used to treat adult grief (counseling, group therapy, etc) don’t work on children. Children do best when they engage in normal activity and are given frequent opportunities to express their grief. I’d have to agree.

But the other truth I’d throw in there is that everyone has something to get over from their childhood. Maybe not as tragic, but personality-shaping events just the same. Maybe your mom was late picking you up from school once, or your father drank, or you tripped and fell in front of your classmates, or you watched another kid get picked on repeatedly at the playground.  In Bird by Bird, writer Anne Lamont calls the neurosis that develop from these events your “personal mental illness”, a moniker that I really like. Call it whatever you want, but I think there’s something to that.

Now I’ve decided that this is the real pressure of parenthood. Yes, we want to teach our children to be good, independent, productive citizens, and yes, we want to protect them as best we can, and of course, we’d like to form them into healthy, creative adults.

But even if you do all of those things right (and you won’t, not completely), we all spend our adult lives drawing from our childhood – the good, the bad, and the ugly. Even if we don’t all feel compelled to talk about it, or write about it, events in our childhood have changed who we are and how we relate to the world.

The problem is that it’s not the events that you expect that turn out to be monumental and meaningful. It would be great if we could be there when the impact happens, both good and bad, but we might not be. Even if we are, we might not recognize it. For example, I remember celebrating a birthday at a little restuarant at the beach in the winter, when my whole family was laughing and happy and it started to snow. Even as a teenager, I was struck by how magical that moment was. How grown-up I felt that night, how the snow on the beach made it look absolutely dream-like. That night stuck with me forever, especially since my father died a year later. But at that time, I’m certain it was just a nice night out in the minds of my parents.

So the best we can do, the way I see it, is to give our children some really good stuff to draw from to overshadow any bad stuff. Lots of playing in the park, family vacations, religion, music, celebrations, relaxing, traditions, holidays, museums, gardening, time together creating (essentially anything NOT in front of a television or computer). And perhaps because this is what worked for me, I think giving kids and young adults lots of ways to express themselves may be the most helpful thing of all.  The adults around me that I see struggling for happiness are the ones I now believe never developed a way to manage their childhood baggage.

Such pressure! But we as parents just can’t think about it too hard or we’ll go crazy trying to analyze both ourselves and our kids (and then that will be the thing they remember when they grow up…) It’s a little nuts, I know. But it does make me rethink family traditions a little, and makes me put a little more effort into creating positive (what I think are) memorable moments. It also makes me give my parents a little more slack and forgiveness, because no matter how much effort you put into parenthood, there is only so much you can control. This isn’t news to parents, but just something I never thought of before – that we can’t control what it is our children will remember about their childhood, no matter how hard we try.

Okay, so I suppose it’s been my turn here to post. I’ve been a little busy. I know, I know, we’re all busy, but I’ve been trying to fix a few things that haven’t been working properly for some time. Not around the house. Not on the car. On me.

This is what happens to a lot of moms, I think. We get so caught up with the early years of raising children that we neglect our own bodies, and I’m not talking putting off a hair cut or two.

For example…I spent eight weeks with a physical therapist this spring working out an IT band/bursitis injury in my hip that I’d had since August.  This led me to join a gym to continue the recuperation, and to begin efforts to lose the 25 pounds I’d packed on since college.  Then, after over 15 years of watching a mass in my left armpit grow (I knew it was benign), I’ve finally decided to see a surgeon two weeks ago.  Which led to an ultrasound and mammogram on Wednesday (which I needed anyway). The same afternoon I hit the dermatologist to get a rash on my face finally looked at that’s been bugging me for two months. And yesterday I went to the dentist to get two cavities examined that I had been ignoring.  

If that wasn’t enough (at least enough co-payments anyway), four days ago my jaw started a dull ache which has progressed into me not being able to bite down completely without a great deal of pain. The dentist thinks it’s probably TMJ, but I’m holding onto hope that it’s part of a sinus infection from a cold I’ve had all week, since TMJ sounds like just one more thing that will take months to fix.

(Pardon my complaining for a moment, but I do have a point. I promise.)

I do appreciate that none of these things are serious, so I don’t mean to make them sound dramatic. It’s not that at all.

Aside from joking with my husband that it may be time to trade me in for a younger model since I’m starting to fall apart, I’ve been thinking a lot about how things all mushroomed on me.  Some things just happen (like the jaw) and who knows why.  And others (like the lump) probably couldn’t have been dealt with before this time.  But everything else, well?  It’s not just that I’m getting older. It’s years of bad choices or personal neglect- not on a grand scale, of course, but apparently enough of ignoring the little things each day that I knew were right has led to some discomfort.

One of my New Year’s resolutions this year was to “be more mindful” – across the board. What I ate, what I said, what I watched on television, what I thought, how I prayed, who I spent time with, etc.  I adopted this philosophy as a way to manage my spiritual life better, as a way to keep me on the right path.  WWJD, right? (Jesus might go for the chocolate cake, I would argue…)

What I’ve become aware of (and here’s the point I promised…), is that if those years of not eating right, not exercising, and not flossing my teeth have come back to haunt me in the form of physical pain, what about those even longer years of making bad spiritual choices?

Egads.

I’ve become so much more focused in the last few years on my faith and now on my health, I just don’t understand what the heck I was doing before this?  I didn’t have children, so I feel like even if I was working 50 hour weeks, I know I had some time on my hands. I just chose not to walk the right path. - not to pray, not to learn about God, not to seek the people who would help me live a better life and be a better Christian.  I wasn’t making awful choices, but definately not the best choices.

But we have a God who knows how to balance our lives for us, even when we don’t know it. For in the old age that is causing my body to require a little maintenance, comes the wisdom of hindsight. I can see a few places where I’ve behaved poorly out of lack of confidence, lack of knowledge, and lack of faith in the Lord. But no more.  Thank goodness we have a God who forgives, and allows us to start anew each day.

So, to follow up on Kel’s last post (this is somewhat of a substitute for she and I grabbing coffee since we can’t seem to do that often enough…)…I had a thought about seeking God.

I’ve recently been reading a book entitled “The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything” which has been prompting a lot of new discoveries for me. Specifically, I’ve really latched onto the Jesuit twice-daily practice of prayer called the Daily Examen.

From www.ignatianspirituality.com: The Daily Examen is a technique of prayerful reflection on the events of the day in order to detect God’s presence and discern his direction for us.  The Examen is an ancient practice in the Church that can help us see God’s hand at work in our whole experience.

In essence, you review your day as if on video to more easily see where God was (and wasn’t). This practice is helpful to not only know how best to give thanks, but where to look for God in the next day.

I love this. If I start to see God in my day when I’m doing an activity with my children, or when I’m cooking dinner, or when I’m having a moment alone to read, then I’m that much more apt to not only repeat those activities, but to cherish them a little more as well.

It’s not exactly perfect, however (what is?). I have a problem with Sundays. In particular, and I’m embarassed to admit this, but I sometimes have a problem with church.

I attend sporatically (which I know is wrong), but the most I get out of it is a sense of community, maybe a little peace and quiet, and every once in a while Father Paul will have a little nugget in his homily that I can relate to my life. And yes, I recognize that God is there in all of those things.

But I feel like God I should be finding more God there. It is His house after all. Shouldn’t I be overflowing with feeling-God-ness?

I don’t have an answer to my this question yet, except to keep trying. I’m seeing that God is often in places where I don’t expect Him, and perhaps my expectations are too high for where I think He should be. But anywhere He is at all is probably a good place to start looking.

It’s not that I like getting older (who does?). But unlike when I turned 20 or 30, when I took the time to reflect, I could finally see some progress in the “life lessons” catagory. Don’t get me wrong, I’m far from smug about this. If anything, I’ve become much more humble about what I don’t know. The difference is now, at 40, I feel like an adult.  (Egads!)

Part of this is due to becoming a parent. Which, of course, makes me wonder that if I had children sooner, would I have been in the same place? I’ll never know, but I don’t think so. Being slightly older parents means that my husband and I had more years of other experiences – working, travelling, creating – and time to figure out who we were. And since parenthood essentially strips you of yourself (at least most people, for a short period of time), I think it’s easier for us to come out of the baby stages and reclaim bits and pieces of our life BC (before children) and put things back in perspective.

So before Alzheimer’s sets in and I forget all of this, here’s my top ten list of things I’ve learned:

10.  We can learn a lot from dogs about love, loyalty, listening, and forgiveness.

9.  Always give people the benefit of the doubt, as most unpleasant behavior is the result of low self-esteem or poor judgement.

8. We only get one shot at this life, so create as many memorable moments as possible.

7. When God sends you signs, pay attention.

6. Don’t waste your time with bad ice cream, bad TV, bad activities, or bad friends. 

5.  Trust in God always and try not to worry.

4. A good marriage takes effort and attention, and not all years will be filled with wine and roses.

3.  Money and status don’t mean jack – because the people who are impressed by it aren’t that important after all.

2. Realize that there is not one person here on earth whose responsibility it is to make you happy.

1. Strive to always do what is right in life, and don’t worry about what people think.

So there you have it.  Not novel ideas, but things that I didn’t really understand in my 20′s and learned (sometimes painfully) in my 30′s. Can’t wait to see what God brings me during the next ten years!