letter to himself....

I have often enjoyed debates with friends about why it is that lesbian and gay relationships are typically short lived. We are surrounded by the straight married myth of ever-lasting love...and it is glaringly obvious that we, as a sexuality, fall far short of this fairy tale.  In vain do we quote divorce rates in the general population - the fact remains that most of us know very few gay or lesbian couples who have stood the test of time.  In fact, in my personal experience, this is doubly so for lesbians compared to gay men...then again, perhaps the boundaries of love are looser in many gay male long-lasting relationships.  My only fall back is that we lack both the binding rituals and the role models that inspire the "til death do us part" partnering.  Tonight in a fit of procrastination of the uni assignment I should be writing I came across Stephen Fry's letter to himself - "dearest absurd child"... it is a wonderful read, highly recommended.... and I include the following excerpt :

Stephen Fry's letter to himself

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/apr/30/stephen-fry-letter-gay-rights

I finally know now, as I easily knew then, that the most important thing is love. It doesn't matter in the slightest whether that love is for someone of your own sex or not. Gay issues are important and I shall come to them in a moment, but they shrivel like a salted snail when compared to the towering question of love. Gay people sometimes believe (to this very day, would you credit it, young Stephen?) that the preponderance of obstacles and terrors they encounter in their lives and relationships is intimately connected with the fact of their being gay. As it happens at least 90% of their problems are to do with love and love alone: the lack of it, the denial of it, the inequality of it, the missed reciprocity in it, the horrors and heartaches of it. Love cold, love hot, love fresh, love stale, love scorned, love missed, love denied, love betrayed ... the great joke of sexuality is that these problems bedevil straight people just as much as gay. The 10% of extra suffering and complexity that uniquely confronts the gay person is certainly not incidental or trifling, but it must be understood that love comes first. This is tough for straight people to work out.

Straight people are encouraged by culture and society to believe that their sexual impulses are the norm, and therefore when their affairs of the heart and loins go wrong (as they certainly will), when they are flummoxed, distraught and defeated by love, they are forced to believe that it must be their fault. We gay people at least have the advantage of being brought up to expect the world of love to be imponderably and unmanageably difficult, for we are perverted freaks and sick aberrations of nature.They - poor normal lambs - naturally find it harder to understand why, in Lysander's words, "the course of true love never did run smooth".

We relish news of our heroes, forgetting that we are extraordinary to someone too.
Helen Hayes

And today's quote echoes one of my little life principle frustrations - namely society's preoccupation with the innate antics of the semi-famous... I find the constant bombardment of media pre-occupation with the vacuous figure heads of fame both demoralising and frustrating. In the world there are so many inspirational people who are changing the future for us all with their dedication, courage and intelligence... yet we, as a culture, ignore the great achievers of our generations and choose instead to worship those who's only claim to grandeur may be the sculpting of new breasts, the wearing of designer frocks, or any range of methods of spending of immoral amounts of money on superficial vanity.  And the worst of it is that we idealise these empty vessels, and we consider them somehow better than us... and thus we both depreciate our own value and squash our own potential for greatness accordingly!   There is something very wrong with popular culture...

The future is in the hands of those who can give tomorrow's generations valid reasons to live and hope.
Teilhard de Chardin

poetic justice...

Ah a beautiful moment of poetic justice!... it happened once and I missed it with the camera...but to my satisfaction I did not have to wait long for it to happen again...I know as a mother I should not rejoice in my child's misfortune.  I know as a mother I am not supposed to indulge in tit-for-tat thinking... I know as a mother I should not enjoy my child's vomit face... but damn it was funny!
(see August 27..."the joy of parenthood")

No person was ever honored for what he received,  Honor has been the reward for what he gave.
Calvin Coolidge

first day in childcare....

So today my baby and I shared another milestone.  Today was my angel's first day at childcare.  Today I left my baby with strangers.  Today I walked away, drove away... Today I trusted. 
Today I experienced, not for the first time, the irrational hormonal evolutionary emotional reactions that come with being a mother.  Today I walked away from the child care centre rationally believing that it would all be fine and that I was doing the right thing for everyone... but feeling, as countless other mothers have, that I am a bad mother, that I am abandoning my fragile little baby, that I am derelict in my duties as a mother...imagining her left alone, defenceless, calling for her mother in vain....Today I knew that I was being irrational and I stood back and watched the emotions unfold... wash over me.  Today I remembered to keep breathing.
Today my angel grew up that little bit more... Today was another first, and another end.
(PS She was, of course, happy and fine.... and I am recovering... as is my credit card after I used the time to buy pretty things for her!)

Being Held

This has to be one of the most lovely images I have seen in a long time....

The sense of being held is a powerful one.  I look at this image and I think about the idea of my angel and I joining hands with a third person....Sometimes I think that this is the dream that underlies my daily life... And other times I feel balanced and harmonious being just the two of us. This image evokes the sense of being held, of togetherness, of sharing that provokes the dream beneath...

I am happy - in this new life... I am happy spending time with my angel, watching her grow, caring for her, enjoying her newness and the constant change that is her becoming process.  I am happy surrounded by loving friends and family.  I am happy to plan my time as I choose, to share and give and receive widely with the people that I choose.  I am happy. 

At the same time, I can touch the sense of what it is to share the special moments with the other person who cares most in the world.  I can taste what it feels like to have someone who is there - who is just there - with all the myriad of implications of being there... Opening this life that is two and sharing it with a third will, when it happens, be a huge thing... it will be risk, it will be courage, it will be celebration, and it will only be when it feels just right.

Helen Keller 2

So when I opened today's little card lo! it was my very favourite quote of all time...

I am only one, but I am still one. I cannot do everything but still I can do something.  I will not refuse to do the something I can do.
Helen Keller

It is this quote that inspires me to remember that the grandest of goals are no more valuable than the smallest step made towards them... It reminds me that I mustn't crush the flowers of daily kindness under my feet as I reach for the stars of grand gestures.... It reminds me that the smallest good deed is better than the greatest good intention... It reminds me to do today the things I can do...and to let tomorrow's everything take care of itself... just as the saying goes about saving your pennies and the pounds take care of themselves, so too is the big picture of changing the world made up of thousands of smaller good actions.

People who matter are most aware that everyone else does, too.

Oh I really love today's "because of you - celebrating the difference you make" quote...

People who matter are most aware that everyone else does, too.
Malcolm Forbes

The only gift is a portion of thyself
Ralph Waldo Emerson

So from now on everyone is getting a lock of my hair for birthdays, christmas etc...
:-)

When it comes to doing good things for others, some people will stop at nothing.
Dale Turner

I wish that I could say this about myself... :-)  It is an aspiration...

Changing one small thing for the better is worth more than proving a thousand people wrong...
Anthony Pivec

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best to make you like everyone else is to fight the hardest battle you can fight - but never stop fighting!
E E Cummings

We are not here merely to make a living, but to enable the world to live with a finer spirit of hope and achievement.  We impoverish ourselves if we forget the errand.
Woodrow Wilson

a message in the stars...

My Stars Today....

Every choice you've made in the past has helped create the wonderful person you are, so be proud of the lessons you've learned. Show that pride by sticking to your guns and living up to the reputation you've created. People always rely on you to do the right thing, and that's an incredibly valuable (and flattering) position to be in. Don't dilute your point of view to appease other, more powerful people. They'll respect you all the more for being true to yourself -- and that's the goal.

This could be a life lesson for everyone...

The kindness of receiving

So this week I reconnected with a friend... it is a friendship which has seen its ups and its downs, its peaks of joy and celebration and its valleys of fog and gloom... it has not been an easy road, but in many ways I think I appreciate it more richly for the knowledge that it is hard won and worth the trek. If we flew to the top of a mountain would we admire the view as much as if we earned it by sweating up the path? In any case... rekindling the warmth of this friendship has reminded me of a valuable lesson that I am being taught at this time in my life.

I have so enjoyed the generous support of my dear ones this week (see previous post) and this is a precious part of my reminding myself of the importance of balancing giving and receiving. I recognise in myself a propensity to give and give and an avoidance of sitting back and having the stillness to allow others to give to me. I can, at times, bombard people with kindness - in a "doing for you" way that does not allow space for them to do for me. This is, of course, rooted in a fear that they will not want to do for me... and when they do - then I often react in stress, and with the need to prove that I do not need them to do for me.... Since having a child I have been learning over and over again that allowing someone to help me/us does not necessarily mean that I am incapable, or that anyone views me that way. I am learning that it is ok to accept support even when I could/would be able to do it myself.... I am learning that accepting support does not need to threaten me or make me seem like a needy person. I am realising again that closeness is about balance, and that warmth from others does not necessarily need to be earned by doing, it can be earned by appreciatively receiving. I am reminded that friendship is about equality and mutuality. I am learning, again, the lesson of the kindness of receiving.

And so in reconnecting with my friend I am finding my feet in a friendship where previously I worked so hard to make a place for myself by giving and "doing for"... and where now, in a space of not being needed anymore... there might be the space to feel wanted.

Regardless of what has come before or what will come in the future... its a good feeling to be growing myself in this way.

tired

So I am still tired... I have emerged from the fog of the first couple of months of being a mum... when days and nights blurred together and my sense of self went into suspended animation...and I have come out of the other side feeling confidently capable, collected, calm...about this new life as a parent. its all so different and yet the same, but I feel radically different as a person...and so I forge forward with life, as this new familiar yet radically different me...and every day is busy, full of things I have to do to sustain life, as well as things I want to do (what more can you ask for in life really)...but I find I am more and more tired...my reserves are running low. I start to feel that there is a limited amount of time left before I will need to replenish my stocks of energy... I am still yet to regularly sleep more than 3-4 hours at a time...and after 5 months of this and many more months of broken pregnancy sleep.... and I am tired....
bed calls...

The world knows very little about its heroes. The courageous acts that take the most out of you are usually the ones that other people will never know about.
Anne Tyler

I have a journal and recently I have let it slip a bit - I guess I have some good reasons - but it is still important to me. In my journal I write, each night, the things I am grateful for in the day, and my acts of kindness for the day. Its a wonderful opportunity to not only appreciate how wonderfully fortunate I am, but also to nurture and appreciate my own kindness and generosity. Sometimes I have to scratch my head to find some examples of ways that I have been kind...and then I am extra motivated the next day...but mostly I can think of at least a few things each day that I have done from my heart for others... it might be a simple text to let someone know I am thinking of them, it might be surprising someone with a treat, it might be doing a favour for someone - even a tiny one.
And so - as today's inspirational "because of you" quote says - often my kindness will not be particularly noticed by others - but by noticing it myself I encourage it to grow and blossom in the warmth of the feelings it brings.

surrounded by kindness

So this week two things connected to bring about a noticing of something lovely.
The first was that the first uni paper for this semester was due in (today - and complete thankfully!).
The second was that I was chatting with a woman who is contemplating becoming pregnant on her own. And in talking to her about my decision to go it alone, I realised how wonderfully NOT alone I am.
When I needed time to write my uni paper and my angel was being less than angelic, my wonderful friends rallied around - coming to visit and look after her to give me time to focus on my essay, offering to babysit while I needed to go out, checking in with me about how I was going, coming and babysitting and cooking me a wonderful breakfast to boot... And many others offered to help... and there are others I knew I could have called on if I needed to... Usually my family would have been there for me, but since they are taking some time out to have a well earned holiday I had the chance to realise the incredible support that is there in the background when I need it.
And I was able to pay it forward too - being there on the phone for advice, taking over food and much needed nipple cream to another friend who had her baby this week.

And I said to the woman that even though she is not in a relationship she need not feel that she will be alone...

I am so incredibly grateful, and I feel so privileged to know that my angel and I are surrounded by such kindness.
THANK YOU!

"The measure of life is not its duration but its donation"
Peter Marshall