I am swimming in a sea of unattainable ideas.  I float like a mermaid in the deep blue.  My hair, long and dark, surrounds me swaying slowly to the rhythm of the water.  There are rainbow reflecting bubbles surrounding me.  Each filled with scrolls with detailed calligraphy.  Lists.  Outlined impeccable lists.  Each a labor of love and mindfulness and desire.  But I simply float.  Still.  As if dead in the water but my eyes are alive and focused.  Set fiercely on the shore.   

I plan out my dream studio.  I schedule out how to volunteer at Lucy's kindergarten class that is over a year away.  I list out every piece of photographic equipment I could possibly ever need with price and priority marked on the sidelines.  I have a literal notebook of compiled Better Homes and Gardens tear outs and Crate and Barrel catalog pictures for my house.  I spend hours with my to~do list everyday, terrified I might forget something urgent, but mostly paralyzed by the list of things I "should" get done.  My planner is always with me, trumped only when my camera is in hand.  I waste so much time this way, lost in my own head.  Swimming in dreamland, planning, thinking, painting perfection with my mind's paintbrush.  It is the reason I am not DOING more. 

Last week I wrote a short to~do list on the same paper as my grocery list. 
I lost it at Kroger and went back into the store with my kids to go aisle by aisle to find it.  The relief I felt when the soft, thinned, wrinkly, lined paper pressed firmly in my fingertips was palpable.  What was so important you ask?   Here it is:

Laundry
Sallie Mae Bill
Call Discover Card for lower rate
Deliver Girl Scout cookies
Take vitamin
clean out basement

That's it.  So what if I lost it right?  It seems a simple list of any kind makes a direct correlation to my level of anxiety.  

If I can't buy a new dress, write down "new dress" 

 I'll feel better about it.  That at least I will remember someday that I wanted one.  Right? 

This is CRAZY. 

So to further relieve my new anxiety that I am CRAZY, I ponder other women's strategies to reduce anxiety. 
One friend just does it all.  She never says no, she never stops moving.  She feels less anxiety when she is disappointing no one, so she simply never rests. 
Another asks for help often without guilt (this is a complete mystery to me) and manages her anxiety with a helpful community of neighbors friends and husband (this is remarkably healthy and yet somewhat bizarre to me)
Others exercise.  Food for thought. 
I know someone who will surely read this who shops.  OFTEN.  
Some women eat. 

 We've all got something, right?

                 What do you do? 

I once had a supervisor make this statement in my annual employment review, "I know anxiety is just part of your personality, but..." I have no idea what else she said i was so struck by her accusation (that's how I heard it then).  I had never considered myself to be anxious.  I was downright insulted.  Funny what we can learn about ourselves with age. 

So other than listing, I find pulling out my silver penny brings me out of my task focused head and into my spiritual heart.  Spending time in fairy land with you and photographing the magic of the first years of life, the bubble years. 

Here's a moment in time for you to forget your worries, stresses, or menial chore lists.  I hope your dreams stay big and your worries stay small.  Enjoy.

 

I had such an amazing morning playing with Mallory and her Mommy & Daddy.  I can just see her beautiful face in my mind's eye as she grows. 

Mallory is already crawling!  Mom and I talked about how she'll be walking soon.  It all goes too fast. 

Insomniac

Bare feet padding

down a carpeted hallway

she calls me

her tiny voice

comes to stand in the doorway

plump fingers

pull on fat pig tails

rub widening eyes

round belly pokes out of cotton nightie

toes on cold linoleum,

she considers thirst

uncloseted monsters

or watery nightmares

the best excuse

for being up this late

lips pout

she could always make me smile

so I,

hold out my arms

& she comes tumbling in.

~Esperanza Cintron from a Mother's Treasury

My neighbor said something terrifying yesterday. 


Her son started shaving.

I stood there, watching my 2 year old son dig in the winter dirt of our summer garden, as she continued.  She said without moving,

"He has hairy legs." 

I tried to imagine Finley this way.
"I sit next to him on the couch", she said, "and I feel like I'm sitting next to a man." 

This has seriously disturbed me. 

Cut to 4:15 am and my baby boy has woken up wanting to snuggle and I can't get back to sleep.  So here we sit.  With his perfect smooth cheek pressed against my shoulder.  His drooling lips glisten in the light of my laptop. 

And I am terrified. 

How is it possible that this soft, big eyed, chubby~legged, mama~loving angel could become a MAN?  A hairy, stinky, deodorant wearing man? 

I must find a spell or magic elixir to stop this madness.  Who's with me? 

I can't stop staring at him.  His eyelashes, his toes, his little bottom when he takes his diaper off.  (Okay the last part is kinda annoying as he has been a little messy with the diaper taking off business lately~see previous post).

It is so easy to get caught up in the getting thru the day parts of the day or the phases to address...potty training, getting him to sleep all night in his own bed, eating vegetables.  I am stunned by the realization that I am training a MAN.  I know, how did I not see this coming?  Isn't this kinda logical?  I can't answer that...it just never hit me until now. 

With my neighbor's voice in my head and my silent house with my little snuggler in my lap.  I hope desperately that I'm doing it right.  I hope he's a good man like his daddy.  I hope he has love and humor, integrity and loyalty.  All the best parts of me and my KISA without our flaws. 

And selfishly, I hope he will still snuggle me forever. 

I'm not gonna give up on that magic though.  I do have a silver penny...