What Lies Beneath

My library has a piano that patrons can use. It's very popular, with people often signing up for an hour each day to use the private space for practice. It's a lovely service in an area with a lot of people who can't have an instrument of their own, let alone one so large and expensive - but that's not what I love most about having the piano here.

The most beautiful music  flows gently from around the solid door, which locks firmly behind the occupant, leaving them tucked into a little world of their own. The room, the music, is an escape for some of our patrons whose lives contain some hardships. It's a place where they can shut all of that out of the snug little room and lose themselves in creating something beautiful, wrapping themselves in the joy or sadness of the music.

But for me, the very best part is when I need to let someone know the next person is here to use the room. I approach the door, and am treated, for a moment or two, to the loveliest music. We have some really skilled players, and it's a delight to hear their song drifting through that door. Then I knock, and when the door opens, I see someone sitting there. They are always graciously getting ready to leave, appreciative of the time they've had in there, and very often, someone you might not have guessed would have that skill and beauty in them. I love this.

I love that this reminds me that you never know what's in someone, and makes me look twice at everyone, ready to see clues to who they are under a rough exterior, past a smell of smoke or alcohol or slept-in clothes. I love to have it demonstrated so perfectly clearly that there is beauty in unexpected places, in people who don't get the chance to exhibit it in most areas of their life.

The man in shabby clothes, hair unkempt and skin roughened by elements and years and hard living, colours muted to grey with wear, who spins melodies from keys and notes floating in his memory. The nearly toothless man who has just begun to read for pleasure who wants something that makes him thinks about bigger things. The man who lives in a hostel and can only borrow one or two items at a time, but comes each morning after his graveyard shift to read, trading in his book pretty much every day or other day. There is a soul of curiosity, a longing for some beauty in the world, a love for learning or losing themselves in a good story, to which I can fully relate.

It's these things that make me so very happy to do what I do, and be able to give these people the things that make life a little better for them, or give them an escape that won't drag them down. In turn, I get the gift of seeing them more clearly, a reminder to look deeper.

Drain

I was reading a blog post from a link a friend posted, a post about the idea of an "energy bus." This visual of the bus is not really how I imagine things, and in her case, she was talking about having people in her life that drain her energy, and that is not what has been making me crazy, so the bus metaphor doesn't carry, but what I did really relate to was when she talked about reaching a point where she had no energy left. She reacted badly, snapped at people, and left a setting she otherwise might have enjoyed because she just didn't have it in her. I've kind of reached that point a couple of month ago, where I was just tired from this year.

I've been trying to figure out how to even talk about stuff without sounding like I was cataloguing my woes, because I don't need consoling for things, they are all done. It's that I've been tired, and it's the voice of exhaustion talking and wanting to push some things out of my head so my brain can stop running over them. Most of the stresses of the year haven't even been major in and of themselves, it's more the relentlessness, one thing after another, that has been grinding me down, as it does anyone.

I've had a hard time talking to people about things, too, as pretty much everyone I know has been having a hard year.  People have had relationship troubles, financial issues, health worries in themselves or their kids or their parents. One friend and I have been essentially trading troubles back and forth since spring, but otherwise, the things that are grating on my brain are no worse than theirs. I have cocooned a lot, too, avoiding talking about things I didn't know how to talk about, and not feeling like other stuff was important enough.

But sometime this summer, I started feeling like my head was so full, it might explode, and I was not dealing well. I realized that part of that was that I was, irrationally, worrying about losing it like my mom did. Writing that out really, really helped, and is pretty much why I came back to my blog to start working on getting this stuff out. But that certainly didn't explain why I was feeling out of control, getting snappish and frustrated and ready to blow. I've realized that I get that way when at the end of my rope, and I needed to do something to fix it, so I came here to try to spill some of it. I wrote it all down at the time - it's a couple of months old now, but still something I think I'd like to try to get out coherently.

I started out the year finding a golf-ball-sized lump in my vagina. It was kind of getting in the way, and was uncomfortable. It turned out to be a cyst, and I was told it was likely I'd need a surgery, but went to see a gyn a month or so later, who said that she could open it up and insert a device that would hold it open, and avoid surgery. Good plan - but that wasn't too comfy either, and came with a 6-week ban on sex. Oof. Not great, but not so bad, in the overall, just a little stressful and uncomfy.

Before the 6 weeks was up, though, came a grouping of events. One episode that I still don't know how to talk about that caused a quake in my marriage and the loss of a friend. I've told bits and pieces to a couple of people, but it's not all mine to tell, so it took a while to try and stop stressing about that. Meanwhile, I was sent back to my old location to work with that friend - awkward, but it sucked even more that it was because the job I was in got pulled after some cutting measures, which feels pretty crap. And then we went on strike. That turned out much shorter than we feared, thankfully, but that was a few more stress-filled weeks.

Misterpie was taking a course at this point, too, making for tighter scheduling. We usually approach these things as group projects, but this time, I was so tired, I wasn't able to help as much as usual.  I really wanted to be there for him in that, especially immediately on the heels of the stuff above, and I just couldn't. I felt really, really guilty about it, and that I just wasn't being the wife I wanted to be. It was frustrating.

I had had a little time in between where nothing was going wrong, and it was glorious, but then there was health stuff. My little Bun got more rounds of croup this winter, including one bad enough to go to the ER with in the midst of the marriage and work stuff. This summer, he had another round, during which he coughed for a month, through three doctor visits before anitbiotics for an ear infection cleared it. If he's coughing, he can't sleep, so I was dog tired, too, and hey, got sick as well, for good measure. I was passing out at 9 every night for a good few weeks, and I am a night owl by nature.

Then  the busy-ness of summer and some additional frustrations at work kept me running, but didn't explain why I was so ill at ease and worried - that I finally nailed down as my worries about following my mother's path to the psych ward, which I wrote about here in August, which was a relief. By this time, my head was full. Too many stupid stresses and worries and not enough sleep had me at the end of my rope, and I wasn't being my best self at all. I reacted badly to things, snapped when I normally wouldn't, pushed away from things and people because I was just unable to deal with stuff properly, couldn't seem to see things clearly with all the pressure in my head.

It was little of it big stuff, it was just lots of things colliding and running into the back of each other so that time to decompress was impossible to find. It was all these things and others, the daily things that drive all mothers nuts that were compounding. The case of the threes so bad that I had to go meet with the daycare about Bun's defiance. The fact that the end of naptime was meaning that my sweet boy was melting down in a spectacular fashion every night, howling and thrashing until I physically felt like I'd been hit over the head. The squabbling of siblings that makes me want to scream. All those little things on top, all just meant that the ability to let go of things and relax was hard to find.

I needed to go forward, to figure out how to let things go the way I usually do. I am usually a ridiculous optimist, and find the silver lining in everything. I was having a harder time with that, and I needed to figure out how to focus on the positive again. Having written all that stuff above down? I'm starting here, now.

I love my job. It's one of the few places in all of this that I have found energy and fun and the comfort of feeling like I know what I'm doing. I like the people I work with, I love the kids and the literature and the puppets and the routine and having space to be creative in what I do. It's had its frustrations this year, but it's still something that I love deeply.

Right now, I'm actually not at my usual job, I've moved to a different location to do a different job. I don't love it, it's not my passion, but I went for it for experience and for learning new stuff. It's a steep learning curve, but I also find that sometimes this sort of thing energizes me. I'm torn here,  because I really, really miss my friends at my home branch, and really miss the kids work, but I'm determined to suck everything I can out of this opportunity, and it's certainly helping shake me out of everything else that's gone on.

Things at home have settled, and though my house frustrates me and all those tantrums and shouts and arguments from the kids give me a headache and drain me, I love them and Misterpie in a way that recharges me when I am able to spend time with them in ways that bring us together rather than just getting through the day. I want to make a point of doing more of this, even when I am tired. I am tired of feeling my blood pressure ratchet up when it's crazy at home, so I also want to look for some calming mechanism, to help keep the stressful times from pushing me so much. Misterpie and I are also planning to start finding time for small outings together, time for reconnecting, which we need right now, after all of this.

We went away for a weekend together this past month, in fact, and it was GLORIOUS. Last time we did that, Pumpkinpie went for the ride in my belly - 9 years ago. We saw really cool stuff, spent all our time just the two of us, really got away from the usual stuff that hangs over you when you're at home. There are no to-do lists on vacation and man, did we ever need that.

Between some more time and distance, a new job to focus on, time with Misterpie, a few fun outings as a family, and kids seeming to settle into a routine, I'm feeling like I have gotten past this stuff and am back out into the light. And now? I'm looking forward. I want to write stuff here that interests me now. Not just use it to spill over onto, but to get back to writing and musing the way I used to, to make it the creative outlet that I'm not getting as much at work now. I even have a first post brewing... and it feels good.

Tangletongue

I read a post I wrote. A post about thinking through things and finding a conclusion that made no sense to me, about how it seemed to me that other people were seeing things, and about loss and hurt. I read the post again today - and took it down because somehow, it didn't sound at all like it sounded in my head when I wrote it.

Somehow, I wasn't being clear and the words had found different intonations overnight and I wondered who even wrote this, or whether my fingers had gone awol on me, but I could see the echos of what I was trying to say peeking around the edges of the words, and have to wonder, instead, how what I was trying to puzzle out got lost in the translation from my own brain to my own fingers on the keyboard I was sitting at.

I've been finding this a lot lately, in fact. I'd like to blame it on being out of practice with writing because I really haven't used this space, and now, when I needed to write some stuff out, it didn't happen the way it used to, where words lined up in tidy rows to do my bidding and describe my experiences, express my feelings. I'd like to think it's that, but honestly, I've been feeling that way with talking lately, too, like I'm speaking a different language than the people I'm talking to.

Sometimes, I think it's just that we are bringing different expectations and assumptions to the table. When I was arguing for a higher appraisal and pointed out how much extra work I do at home, for example, and the result is a meeting being called about how we can cut down on that? I can guess that while what I want is recognition of those efforts, and what they are hearing is a complaint to be addressed.

Other times, I'm talking to Misterpie and it seems like we are arguing, but I'm pretty sure we have the same opinion, and it takes a little while to sort through the differences in language to find that yes, we are saying the same thing, just saying it differently, and somehow, not hearing that. I don't know what happens in those cases. I don't know if it's the same thing, just different assumptions or background schema in our heads, or what it is that makes it so that listening and speaking just aren't effectively communicating what we really mean.

It's been adding to my frustration over this year that seems like it will not end - but that's a post for another time. 

It was like that with this post that I removed. I know one person read it - and to that person, who commented, I would have to say that the post really didn't sound like a fair representation when I read it back to myself, and you are part of the reason that I'm writing about this at all. I was getting tangled up in details that didn't matter and made it sound like a pity party that was not what I was trying to express. Fortunately, since I  never write here, I can safely  guess that not  many people saw it, and that the same ones will see this.  So. Because I'm feeling like that sounded all off? Let me try that again, a little bit. Let me try and just put down what I really needed to get out, stripped down.

I just discovered that one person involved in an incident has fully blocked me in all of our previous online connections, a few weeks after the fact. I don't know what prompted the change at this point, and it hurts that it looks pretty clear that the person is not interested in any future friendship. It was the finality of it, I think, that stung, or maybe slightly reopened something I thought had been starting to heal over.

A second person hasn't returned an email explaining that I would like to try to retain our connection, so I can only go on the assumption that they, too, aren't interested in a future where we will be okay with each other. That also sucks, because it's someone I've cared about deeply, and I had hoped that that olive branch would be accepted.

This all stems from an incident that, as far as I can tell from my end, not having had the chance to talk with anyone on the other end in person, came down to a series of miscommunications and part of that, I'm guessing from a small comment made, was that I didn't respond to a message communicating a concern, a message that I didn't get until later. It seems to me that the only way people could have felt hurt by the path of decision that I followed on the day in question is if they made an assumption about my attitude that was, in fact, not at all where I was at. And that? From friends? That also hurts, because I'd expect them to know me better than that.

I am still being vague, yes, but I also hope that was more clear. Why am I even writing this? I guess I'm partly feeling that I need to set that straight, because it read all wrong, and I don't want to paint people unfairly, myself included. I've also been feeling like I need to start writing through stuff again, and I obviously need the practice in stripping things down to the kernel better, and not getting muddled if I'm going to write in this space more.

The other option, I suppose, is to take this private, where it might matter less, but I don't think that improves my clarity the way I feel like I need to. In the meantime, I hope those two or three of you who stop by after all this time will bear with me getting back on track.

Thanks,
kp.

Looming

The minute I turned 39, I was fixated on 40. I talked about it. Referred to myself as turning 40 when it was still nearly a year away. Found other people that I knew were turning that corner, as well.

I knew I was mentally preparing myself for the number.
I knew I was doing what I often do to absorb something unpleasant, poking at the bruise until it stops hurting. That's how I coped when my grandma, one of my favourite people, died suddenly.
These things made sense to me. But I didn't understand why I kept focusing on it so much, why I felt like I was waiting anxiously for it.

This summer, too, I have felt a profound sense of unease. Not just from having a year of stupid, crappy things happen, but something unsettled, waiting, a little tension in my gut.

I just realized a couple of weeks ago, at last, what has been looming over my head and making me duck nervously under it: my mother had her first psychotic break the summer before she turned 40.

Now, there is no saying for sure whether or not this can be passed on, but the psychiatrist she saw ever-so-briefly all those years ago made sure I was aware that there was that chance, that heridity may certainly play a role. The threat of that has always bothered me, scared me for myself and my family, that the me we all know could be taken away one day. I just didn't realize how deeply seated that fear was.

I mentioned this to misterpie, who assured me that summer was almost over. But but but, said my fearful brain, but her birthday is sooner in the year than mine! It was a month before her birthday, and mine is not until late November! I'm not safe until later!

I mentioned this to a friend, who told me I seemed far too stable to be worried about cracking up. But you would have said that about my mother, had you known her beforehand.

Thinking on this brings me to the edge of tears, and makes my stomach clench even more, so I think that all I can do is keep my eyes on 40 and wait it out, hoping that the timer in my head ends with a flag that says, jokily, "Bang!" rather than the shattering of myself and my family. It's only a few months, but I won't feel safe until then, when I will feel like I've passed some sort of gate and can breathe a sigh of relief, however false the sense of security might be. I will be nice to breathe again.

Crossing my fingers, closing my eyes, and beginning a countdown...

100% Mindblown

I was having a conversation the other day with my girl about a French word, and decided to look it up because, as I told her, I wasn't totally sure I had the right word. I was, I said, about 90 % sure, but I wanted to check.

She replied that she was about 51% sure.

"Not very sure," I said. "That's only about halfway sure."

"I know." she responded. "One more than half."

She's seven. I stopped. I had figured she was pulling a random number out of the air that sounded good. "Um, how did you know that was halfway?" I had to ask.

She explained, very logically, that 50 was half of 100, and 51 was one more, so one more than half. Whaaaa?

I'm totally gobsmacked. I'm certain she has not been introduced to the concept of percentage yet in grade 1, nor does she speak Latin to know that it means for each hundred, so... I kept puzzling about where she got that piece of knowledge and couldn't come up with anything other than leaps of logic that I would not expect in a kid who is smart and math-savvy, but not any kind of mind-blowing savant.

This morning I asked her how she knew that percent meant out of a hundred. She told me that she just knew, and then added that she read cereal boxes. Again, what? I pulled one out of the cupboard so she could show me what she was talking about. She showed me the column of percentages of recommended daily allowances for various vitamins and nutrients. She pointed out the % symbol.

I've always believed you can learn nearly anything by reading, but I had to scrape my jaw off the floor after that one.

Kids. You never know what their going to pull out of their sleeve next, do you?!

Ever Think You Chose the Wrong Name?

Naming is a big ordeal around our house. It is months of lists, vetoes, crossing off, arguing, and occasional pouting. With Pumpkinpie, we settled on something well before she was born. With The Bun, we crossed everything (and I mean everything) off each other's lists but our two last-resort safety names, the ones I liked, but thought were maybe a little too common to go with the oh-so-boring last name our children bear.

I really wanted to name him Calder, like the artist. Misterpie thought that wasn't a name. He's a traditionalist, Misterpie is, of the sort that would have been happy with one of those sturdy old standards, while I really wanted something unusual, but not out there. Misterpie quite liked Duncan, but I couldn't get past the nickname Dunkin' Donuts. What if he was a chunky kid? We would have set him up but good with that one. (And he was, for a while, one fat baby.)

We were down to Benjamin or Max, even as he was on his way into the world, but weren't entirely happy with either one. We switched gears and went back to a discarded name in the middle of the night after he was born as we sat awake with him, talking. It sat fine. I like it, I don't regret the change of heart or the name - but the kid would make such a good Max.



He's got all the mischief and perseverance of Ruby's little brother. Stubborn? Heck, yes. Exuberant, too, like this guy, and fond of his toys. He can sit and play with his own things for quite a while. This bunny makes me laugh more now than ever before for the resemblance.



And then - just the other night, we were driving along, talking about something he didn't want to do. He informed us of his resistance to the idea in these terms: "I'd be so mad, I'd eat you up!"


I don't think he has even read Where The Wild Things Are yet, but again, so very, perfectly Max that I can't help wonder if we missed the boat on the perfectly suited name, there.

But then, I think ours is better for the long years of being a grownup, when hopefully he will be over the urge to eat up those he disagrees with.

Wanted: One Copywriter

At least, I'm guessing they might want a new one, if anyone at the company has noticed what they put on their packaging:

You see it? Okay, I can't convince Blogger to insert that picture the right way round, but you see it, right?

They have a lewd come-on printed right on their box! Er, their package?

Oh dear. Apparently my mind is not in the kitchen, here. (surprise!)
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