Matters of the Heart

Do you know how fast life can go from normal to insanity? I'm not sure I really grasped that fully until this weekend. Friday was Gavin's birthday and after spending the morning with Mason, we hit the road to spend 5 or 6 days in Regina. I didn't get time off at Christmas to come home and see everyone and I really wanted to get to see my new nephew Noah again since he was just born Christmas Day. The drive was uneventful, and my sister texted me in the afternoon to make plans to visit. I knew she was taking little Noah to get an echocardiogram done because the had discovered kind of randomly that his heart looked a little enlarged, but as far as I knew it all seemed pretty minor and just in case. 

When Gavin and I showed up at my mom's door Friday evening, she was just on her way out, with my three year old nephew, explaining that my sister and baby Noah were being flown a province over where they have a children's hospital and that he needed heart surgery! Needless to say, the last couple days has seemed to go on forever and also kind of flown by. One day everything is normal and the next the family member you would least suspect to need life-saving surgery is getting just that. Fortunately, everything since they got there (besides the scary diagnosis) has been good news. Apparently tiny Noah is a fighter and he is so lucky to have his amazing parents and some amazing medical staff there with him. 

We've all been checking our email approximately every 7 minutes, just in case there are updates and there have been many phone calls to keep the information flowing to the rest of the family. Times like this truly remind you what you have and to be thankful for the things that we sometimes forget are such enormous gifts, like healthy babies, devoted parents, free healthcare, and even well-behaved five year olds that are very willing to share their mom with a three year old cousin who doesn't really understand the whole situation. There truly are no words for how lucky I feel for everything at this moment.

Summer and Learning About Us

It's funny to look back over the last 7 years of adulthood for me. As a teenager, I generally felt as though I knew exactly who I was and what I believed (even though that exact thing changed about as much as my hair colour), but as an adult, I've become much more aware of the fluid nature of these things. As a child and teen I definitely thought that growing up meant learning exactly who you are, which would be a stable and definable thing, and the right way to live, which would be singular and clear cut. Even though I've long since left those ideas behind, I still find myself surprised over and over and how people older than me are just trying to find their way through in what seems like the best way for themselves in their context at any given moment, just like people in any other stage of life. My 'all knowing elders' are just people like me, who also change and shift, with more life experience. 

With that said, I am learning that I have patterns that stay pretty consistent and have for most of my life. And instead of senselessly sticking with them, I do have the ability to consciously shift or to consciously stick with them. Knowing and being aware of myself is important though, and I'm on the road to learning that when I choose to live differently from how I was told I should it's not because I am doing something wrong, but instead that I weigh my beliefs and values differently than my parents. This might sound like common sense to you, but it's what I'm in the process of internalizing. And it's definitely helping me remember how young I still am.

I really realized that with one value this summer, and that was how I choose to manage my money. Growing up, I was never a saver. I heard about it a lot as my parents tried to teach me the importance of saving money for the future, for unknown expenses, and so on. I have done my fair share of saving for things that are important to me or when I was living off student loans. But this summer I definitely played out a familiar pattern for me, which is that I pay my bills and save enough money to get by and otherwise spend money pretty freely. I took a trip to Drumheller, two trips to Regina, two trips to Waterton National Park and one to Banff National Park. I took a few days off work here and there when I didn't need to. We ate out, took coffee and doughnuts to work for my coworkers, ate lots of ice cream, took in some live music, and went to movies, mini-golfing, the air show, and the fair. I could have skipped some of that stuff - we did already go to Hawaii earlier in the year as well. But I realized that being conservative with my money and saving for a future I'm totally unsure of is just not the point. Having an amazing summer when I have the freedom to is the point. Making memories with my family is the point. Learning that I believe with all my being that living life to the fullest is more important than the numbers in my bank (as long as my bases are covered!) is the point. And I would not trade that for a boring life and a big bank account.

I still rent an apartment that could definitely use some work, my home is full of cheap and/or hand-me-down furniture, and my car is in its teens. I'm pretty sure my wardrobe is smaller than my boyfriend's, and my student loan debt is bigger than any annual income I've ever had. But every time Gavin talks about our experiences and all the things he has seen and learned, I know we're on the right track.

Hello, September

Hello, September. Where did you come from? I know that September doesn't mean summer is over, as the majority still is summer, but I can't get over a lifetime of school years. September means school and school means fall. And as much as I love and look forward to fall, I've felt a little bummed out lately. This summer was just so fantastic that it's a little sad to see it ending. Especially, I suppose, because there isn't a new school year to replace it. And no job, just a big fat question mark. I like change, but uncertainty is always difficult. 

But summer. What a summer we had. And that makes me smile. It was full of friends and family and camping and exploring. I have a computer full of photos I've barely looked through, many just of the great times, and a bunch of things I meant to blog about but didn't ever get to. I'm so completely ok with the things I didn't get to because the things I did get to were so wonderful.

In honour of it still officially being summer, here's a summer song that I'm loving right now. :)

The View From The Top

This summer has been so full. I'm working, although it hasn't really been "full time" and we've been doing so much. It seems like every weekend since the beginning of summer has been busy with something. Visiting family in Regina, camping, farmers markets, an air show, having family and friends visiting us here, and so on. And it's been delightful. My coworkers are fantastic, and make a pretty crappy job feel pretty fun, and family is always awesome, my sister is expecting. Things are just pretty great.

It's easy to just cruise through it all, but every now and  then I like to look back. I struggled with depression as a teen, picked bad relationships, made some bad choices, and now life just seems like a breeze. So it's good to remember how truly lucky I am. :)

Checking In

So it turns out that school wasn't the only thing that got in the way of me blogging this year. As you can tell, school ended, but the quiet over here didn't. When I started this blog, I had an idea of what I wanted it to be, but it wasn't my idea. I knew what I liked in the blogs I was reading and I wanted to do what they were doing. As the years have gone by, what I posted about shifted and I didn't ever have a really clear direction. 

And I'm not sure I ever will, because clear direction isn't really my thing. 

But the point is that many things that I have done are because I "should" according to the imaginary "they" of blogging "rights" and "wrongs", and it's been fun, I just can't keep that up anymore. To be honest, I haven't thought much about blogging lately, it has just fallen to the wayside. With that said, I don't want to call it quits I just want to stop with the "shoulds". This is my space and it can be totally random and directionless if I want it to be. And I'm not saying that to you, I'm saying it to myself. ;)

Thanks for reading, expect more to read soon, ok?

Convocation

It's official, today is the day of my convocation. And also, the fifth anniversary of the day I took that fateful pregnancy test that came back positive. It might sound funny to remember that date with such accuracy, but the place I'm in today can be traced back to that moment. 

If you had asked me where I expected to be in five years on the morning of May 30th, 2008 (before I took the test), I don't think I would have said, "Celebrating the completion of an honour's degree in Lethbridge, Alberta, with my mom, dad, Mason, and four year old son." I don't think I could have imagined it if I had tried. It's hard not to look back to that day when celebrating any achievements in my life now because I just can't imagine life without Gavin and all the change he brought. There are so many decisions I probably wouldn't have made, relationships that would have looked so different or never existed at all. 

So it's a big day, it's a good reminder that no matter what this moment looks like, we have no idea what the next one holds. And in five years, your life could change in the most amazing ways, because mine did.  :)

A Break

Hello, stranger,

I'm sure if you visit this site with any regularity you know I've been MIA recently. It's that time of year at school. You know, the "I have to write 40 pages worth of papers in 2 weeks and will avoid it by finding completely unproductive things to do with myself instead of writing papers or even blogging" time of year. :) 

No, I'm not that bad about it, but I haven't been taking time during my breaks to blog. So I've decided to take the rest of the year off. I may pop in once or twice later in the month, but I'd rather just take that pressure off and focus on other things. 

I've decided to continue on with my thesis, taking a new approach, so I need to dedicate time to that. And in a couple weeks I'll be back in Regina with my family and I want to spend that time with them. If you're looking for some crafty inspiration, feel free to browse my past Christmas posts or just search "Christmas" on my sidebar search.

And have a wonderful December!






PS - the photos are of Gavin's first gingerbread house!

When It All Falls Apart

It was eleven months ago now that I excitedly wrote up a slightly vague post about a big research project I was going to be tackling at school. Since that time I think I’ve only mentioned it once or twice here. There have been a couple times when I excitedly drafted up a post about it, but got caught up in the details: how much can I say? how much do I want to say? how does this topic fit in here? And those posts have mostly vanished and none have been posted.

Now I’m finally writing about it. Now that it all fell apart.

Eleven months ago, my favourite professor suggested to me that I do this research and write an undergraduate thesis on it. She proposed that I help her with a big project she was working on and it just so happened that it overlapped in a bunch of areas I’m interested in: anthropology, native studies, and parenting. I was excited and I got onboard. The work I had to do just to get going was huge. I applied for a grant, but didn’t get it. I applied for ethics approval and went back and forth, back and forth - first with my professor and then with the ethics officer. I was so excited when I finally got ethics approval, I wanted to do it all right that day. So I started trying to schedule my interviews. Three people eventually replied out of the ten to fifteen we wanted. I got in one interview before the whole thing went down the drain. 

And so here I am now, with not much to show. While my feelings of disappointment and frustration were initially directed at my professor, a meeting with her made it clear that this was even more of a surprise to her than me. She invested years and grant money into the project that was now in pieces. 

For me, it was frustrating, for her, devastating. 

Now I’m stuck with a dilemma - do I stay or do I go? Do I use this failure as a research problem and look at what can go wrong in research with first nations people in a postcolonial setting? Or do I cut my losses and walk away?

I still don’t have an answer, but this has helped to remind me that there are no right answers.

BFF

You guys, this month has been ca-razy. Seriously, I think I have more going on this month than the previous six combined. Yesterday was probably the most special day of the month though because I went to my BFF's baby shower.

Let me just say that I'm not the "BFF" type - it seems a little grade 8 to me, but I can get away with it here because this girl has been my BFF since grade 8. 

So we have been friends for over a decade, we have matching tattoos (and so does the other super amazing lady in the photo above), and her baby boy is due on Gavin's fourth birthday. Go figure.

This weekend, I got to see these two girls together for the first time in two years. When we saw each other, it felt like no time at all. Everything is different now: we're all living with boyfriends, one a mom, one soon to be a mom, one who knows how to use birth control properly (lol), each living in a different city. But it never crosses my mind that things might be different, or that I have a thing in the world to feel insecure about, and that's amazing.








PS- tomorrow I'll show you the gift I made her!

Grateful

You guys, I had such a great weekend. There was probably just as much going on this weekend as the last four put together, but I am feeling so grateful after it all. This year has been a fantastic one for me. While I can't really put a finger on one single thing that made it amazing, I know deep down what it is. Something in me shifted. I let go of things that I needed to let go of, I opened up parts of myself in ways I had been resisting, and it's been so awesome. For the first time in years, maybe a decade or more, I truly feel good about being me. 

This weekend Mason's parents came to visit, he and I went to Hawksley Workman's concert and a relatively new (but really wonderful) friend got married and I got to be there for her special day. I drove home from the wedding on Saturday night feeling so full of love and appreciation for my life. 

So much so that I just had to write it down. 

We all get caught up on the details sometimes, things get complicated or we're just downright picky, but at the end of the day we are all so lucky to be here for the brief moment that we are. I feel so fortunate just to be here for however long I am. :)

Home

Since moving away from my hometown three years ago, I've often contemplated what "home" really means. 

At first, home was most certainly Regina and Lethbridge was temporary - a sojourn. But three years in, both places are home and Lethbridge has become the primary. 

Regina is where we're from, but Lethbridge is the home of my family. It's where we built our life together. 

Mason and I were only together for one year in Regina, living together for just over half of that and Gavin was only with us for seven months there. At 45 months old, the vast majority of Gavin's life has been in Lethbridge. The rhythm of our family was composed in Lethbridge, and we can feel the dissonance when we go "home" to Regina. 

We long for Regina, or at least the people who are there, but we cling to the steady rhythm of Lethbridge. Sometimes I worry about leaving - I selfishly fear how much we'll have to share each other when we move back. Other times I miss it so much - the cousin that Gavin should get to play with weekly, the friends and family that should know our family much better than they do now.

My sister emailed me the other day with a bit of a conversation she had with my two year old nephew. It reminded me that the joy of being close to family will far outweigh any slight loss of "us three" time when we go back to Regina.


Ben: Gavin's far away.
Tara: Yes, Gavin lives far away.
Ben: Miss Gavin.
Tara: You miss Gavin?
Ben: Yeah.

thoughts on twenty-four

24. So young, but old in a way. Not old, but kind of a surprisingly high number, you know?

I have a funny relationship with my age these days. 
Twenty-four in so young - so young to be settled, to have a three and a half year old child. 
So young to feel as old as I do at times because twenty-four is older than I thought I would be for some of the things I am doing right now  and to still be so far from knowing who I am and what I want my life to be.

I think I'm starting to understand why, in her mid-forties, my mom would say, "I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up". I suspect that people generally don't feel like the person they thought they would be at their current age. 

Twenty-four feels old because I remember being eighteen, nineteen & twenty, looking at people the age I am now and seeing them as much older, wiser and worldly. But who am I kidding, I don't feel at all like they seemed to me then.

I took a look in the mirror the other day and I saw wrinkles... ok not wrinkles, but lines. 
Lines that mark the faces I have made so many times that they are becoming a permanent part of me. 
Lines that are the same as my mother's, the same as my father's. 

And after a milla-second of vain anxiety, I felt proud.

Getting older truly is a privilege.




[yep, I'm 24 today  :)  thanks for reading]

Inspiration

Some words that have inspired me lately...

Source: google.com via Erica on Pinterest

Source: moneysavingmom.com via Erica on Pinterest

Source: tabletonic.blogspot.com via Erica on Pinterest

A Shift

I don't know if anyone has noticed, but I've been doing things a little different around here lately. I thought it was worth leaving a note about. I redid the design of the blog, which you definitely will have noticed if you are a regular here. I also simplified the way I tag posts. While having a million, quite specific tags is an easier way for you to find exactly what you're looking for, I just wasn't into it. So the labels down on the sidebar have changed a lot. 


I've also just been posting about whatever. This blog is not a big-time, money-making blog where I'm expected to have a certain caliber of content on a daily basis. So I've been having more fun with it, putting down things I want to in the moment, and just blogging in a way I want to, not how I think I "should". I hope you'll stick around as things keep evolving. 


Thanks for reading. :)

The Funny Guys Have It All Figured Out

Lately I have been watching videos of comedians of youtube. Not just whichever comedians turn up, but a couple specific ones: George Carlin, Bill Hicks, Bill Maher. I think my absolute favourite right now is George Carlin. You know, Mr. Conductor from Shining Time Station? That's him!


I remember in 2006, just after I graduated high school, my mom flew my sister and I out to Vancouver Island to hang out with our great aunt and uncle for a few days. My Uncle Funny and Auntie Daphne to be exact. I remember my uncle left us some reading material in the rooms we stayed in. In my room he left a couple George Carlin books. I flipped through, laughed a little, and that was that. And now I finally appreciate his humour, his grumpy-old-man attitude, and his incessant mocking of humanity. 


When I say that the funny guys have it all figured out, I mean that they are the brilliant people who have realized that humans take themselves way too seriously and choose to make fun of it. Watching them joke, mock, and rant is helping me remember how seriously insignificant we all are and that is incredibly freeing.

A Quiet Medicine Cabinet

One evening while I was brushing my teeth, I was staring into the open medicine cabinet and I caught my eyes unconsciously reading over the labels on the bottles. Instead of being in the moment, relaxing my mind before bed, or thinking of something useful, my mind was absently eating up all the words on the labels. 

Everything looked chaotic & busy, with flashy colours and letters. 

So I picked up the bottle of contact solution and peeled off the label. It came off easily and left no sticky residue behind. Then I did it to every other container with a label that would peel off. 

I already know how to apply deoderant and I'll never have any clue what any of those strange ingredients are anyways, so the labels are of no use to me anyways. Now when I open my medicine cabinet, I'm not mindlessly consuming clever brand names, slogans, logos, and warnings. I just see what I need to see, quiet shelves of different coloured and shaped bottles. 

Alone

I wrote this post on Thursday, the day Mason & Gavin left town for a few days. Being that I was alone in Lethbridge, I decided to put off publishing it until they were back, just for my own security!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Today my boys left me for a long weekend. Four days without them! Today is only day one, and it hasn’t been 12 hours since they left, but it feels very strange.

Before I was a mom, I definitely didn’t realize how central my boys would be to my life. Before I was a mom, I spent time living alone and I loved it; I really cherished that time by myself, but when Gavin came into my life I barely looked back to reflect on what that felt like.

Ever since then, I have had one of my guys with me almost every single day! The longest time I was away from Gavin was for 3 or 4 days, but Mason was with me and when I was away from Mason, Gavin was there. The only other time I was away from them both, I was with my mom & sister.

Today I am alone.
And it feels very strange.

I went to work this morning and when I finished, there was nobody to pick up from daycare. No excited “Mommy!” called as soon as he saw me, like he hadn’t seen me in a week (when it’s only ever 8 hours). Nobody to cook supper for. No play time, or 7:30 bed time to prepare for. There was no listening for keys in the door when Mason finished work. The apartment was quiet. As a firetruck drove past the apartment, sirens blaring, there was nobody to run to the window and watch excitedly as it drove by.

And in that moment, as the fire truck sped past my window it hit me: being alone just isn’t the same anymore.

Sure, I’ll still probably find the time to turn on some loud music and dance around because nobody is watching, maybe rent some movies nobody else in my house would appreciate, or whatever, but it’s not the same. Something is missing.

Motherhood is the end of independence because even when you are enjoying a quiet moment alone, there is still an acute awareness that you’re missing a little piece of your heart.

Wisdom Wednesday: Inequality

There are a lot of things in this world that really make me tick. Many of them I just don't mention here. In fact, I really haven't gone out of my way to articulate them for years... but that's another thing altogether. 


I guess it boils down to two things:


1. I didn't create this blog as a political place. This is a creative place, not a place to get all opinionated on everyone.


2. I don't believe in right or wrong, but I know a lot of other people do. As soon as I start talking about things I think/believe (or even hinting at it slightly, see this for an example) people start to make distinctions about "rightness" and "wrongness" which leads to nasty comments and so forth. I'm just not ready for all that business.


But sometimes I come upon things that I find very interesting that I think most people will be able to handle. This is one.


Have you ever heard of TED talks? Basically, people with really awesome ideas give a short talk on their really great idea and it goes up on youtube for the world to hear. I was lucky enough to watch this one in one of my anthropology classes and I thought it was worth sharing. I think that most of us (except maybe those at the top of the food chain) can agree that inequality isn't wonderful, but this video takes that basic idea and tests it out. The results are fascinating.






PS - Wisdom Wednesday? I couldn't help myself!

Wisdom Wednesday: Uncle Funny

I try not to be one to dwell on the past. I used to try to hold onto everything, but all it left me with was tons of stuff and emotional baggage to boot. These days, I try my best to regularly clear my life of the old. Memories are wonderful, but clutter is not. Every now and then, though I indulge in those very special things that I'll always keep around. 


Some of my favourites are old emails from my uncle funny. His name was Fernie, but we called him Funny. I wish he had written an autobiography because I would read and reread it, I'm sure. He passed away in September 2008, but I think about him all the time. The other day while cleaning up my emails, I reread some old ones from him. This quote from the end of the email stuck out at me... it's the greatest piece of advice you could give and completely captures who he was.

Live good, love lots and enjoy your lives to the fullest, as we only go around once. 

lots of love from uncle Funny

Walking

The other day, I walked to school. I know it seems pretty small and insignificant, but it got me thinking. The night before, I had a coffee in the evening. At 9:00 I decided a walk in the cool air might help get some of the energy out. Since I was going alone, I wanted to walk somewhere busy and visible, for my safety. I walked down the road towards the university. I went about halfway, then turned around and came back. When I was almost back home I looked at my cell phone, it had taken 15 minutes. {15 minutes?! Why don't I ever walk to school?!} 


So the next day I felt like walking and I did. It gave me time to think, helped me wake up, meant I wasn't worrying about paying for parking, and helped me sleep better that night. 

I got thinking about habits. While it's easy to think of our habits just as things like biting your nails or playing with your hair, most of the things we do in a day are habits. For me, driving is one of those habits. I got my first car at 16 and have had one ever since. Anytime my car needed work, it was done immediately and I had a car to drive in the meantime, or someone to drive me around. So for the last 7 years, I have made driving a habit. Last week my car stopped working while I was downtown. It had done this before and I knew if I just left it alone for a while, it would work again. So I walked a few blocks to the bookstore. 


And it was so refreshing!


It made me realize how automatic life can be. I go for walks when there is a definite reason or place for it (taking Gavin to the park, etc.), but when do I ever just walk for the sake of walking? When do I walk for me? When Mason drives to walmart and parks way out in the boonies, I just kind of roll my eyes as if it's inconvenient. Why? It's just because I'm used to cars, driving, getting from right where I am to right where I want to be with minimal effort. 

So I've decided to pay a little more attention to my habits. To experiment a little with going against them and seeing how it feels. I don't want to live my life on autopilot. Even if I'm repeating the same routines, I should still be holding the wheel, keeping my eyes open and my awareness on what is happening now.

Are there any areas you would like to be more in touch with in your own day to day routines?