Knowing.

We are all experts at something.  Lately I am really good at being tired.  In general I am good at pretending that I am fine.  Fake it till you make it.  Sometimes this works. 

Our fish died yesterday and my children, Nicolas, who is eight and Lucas, who is seven, had a funeral for it with daddy.  I was not at home when she died and did what we do when someone dies; got some food.  I brought three different flavours of ice cream home to distract them.  Both kids had cried for Baby, yes our little goldfish was named Baby.  Chris, my husband, put a lot of effort into trying to save this tiny little life but she didn't make it.  My son hugged me today and said, "I love you so much I hope you never die."   My boys now know a little about death. One minute you're here and the next you're flushed down the toilet having taken your last breath.

My friend knows a little about MS, she was diagnosed a few weeks ago.

I know about cancer.  I was diagnosed with Ewing's Sarcoma fifteen years ago.  I sit here now, married with two children and can't believe how lucky I am. I am not immune however to worrying too much or caring more than I should about too many things.  I have always been like that, never quite fitting in because I said the wrong thing at the wrong time and always worrying about it, alone.

I know about love.  When Chris and I got together the pieces of a puzzle that were not quite right snapped together.  It has sometimes been hard, especially when the kids were very little, but we have been married for nine years and he is everything to me.  I am everything to him.  We know how to be together.

I don't know why I still keep waking up in the middle of the night though.  I have trained myself to stay in bed and do my very best to get some rest.  I have two children to look after and a job to go to.  I can't sleep all day.  But some days that is all I want to do.  Curl up in a ball and make the world go away for just a little while as I gather some more strength to do the things I know how to do.  Live.

We all hunger to know what makes us feel alive, some of us just 'know' like when they meet their soul mate and some of us stumble upon our purpose like blind mice with a whiff of cheddar under our nostrils, it's this way, no that way, and somehow eventually we get there and realize that we could see all along and are not quite sure why it took us so long.

I know how to have friends now and am not quite the misfit I once was.  I have learned how to fit in, most of the time.  Now all I want to do is know how it feels to be an author.  Finally.

We have so much time.

One of my most recent favourite quotes I heard is this: Patience is a parent who has witnesses.  How much more patient are we when we know someone is watching? A lot.  I am much more likely to yell a little louder when my front door is closed as opposed to when it is open.  I don't think I am alone.

My son asked me: "Is having kids hard?" I said: "Yes" He said: "Oh because you have to look after them and take them to school and stuff." And yes, I guess all the stuff we do is hard, but the hardest thing is thinking about the stuff I haven't done.  Like not signing them up in time for swim classes for another year in a row, losing the field trip form and not feeding them enough healthy foods.  I think about all of these things while I am not taking my break at work because I have too much work to finish and then when I talk to my therapist we talk about all the things I am not doing for myself.

One of my most favourite shows is Enlightenment with Laura Dern.  There is one line in particular that sticks with me from that show, and I am not sure if I am quoting it directly, but it goes something like this: "We have so much time." She says this as she is paddling down a river with her ex-husband thinking about their past.

We do have time.  But, we don't have enough time for everything. Period.  There sure are a lot of shows and a lot of magazines (of which I love a lot of!) that make us think we really should have it together enough to feed our kids organic free range apples along with waking up with long silky fuzz free hair as we get ready for the day in a perfect wrinkle free pants outfit whilst sipping on our very own green kale organically sourced coffee Frappuccino as we get to our fabulous jobs that we love so much.  In this world we never raise our voices and our children are angels that we never have to call more than twice because we have the control in the family.

Most days my kids drive the bus in our family and we just let them think that we think we are in control.  Most days my hair is a mess and my outfits mismatch terribly.  I try to make my own coffee in the morning so as to save a few bucks for anything.  Just saving the bucks is a miracle. My job is good.  Do I want to be doing something else?  I think a lot of us, and I am just guessing here, would say yes.

The beauty of life is that we can keep trying.  At some point in the day, every day, I say thank you for my kids.  They are beautiful and in so many ways they have saved my life.  I say thank you for my husband. I am living a blessed life.  I try not to forget that when, like this morning, I was on call number six to get my eldest to brush his teeth so that we could get to school on time. 

Time is a bit like wine.  You love to have it (some of us do).  If you have too much you might get too loose and if you have too little you never loosen up enough.

How many different people are we in one day?

Today I am a mother, a wife, an employee, a friend, a pedestrian, a consumer, and right now a writer.  We flit through some of these tags more easily than others.  Have I really been a friend today?  I was supposed to phone my friend who had a pretty serious procedure at the hospital today, but I haven't yet and it is too late.  I am guilty of not being perfect.

I will phone her tomorrow and she will understand because she is my best friend.  She will know that I probably had less than two hours of sleep, again, after so many weeks of sleeplessness, one would think that the body would somehow adapt.  Like the stick bug that looks like a tree.  But no I have not adapted, I am, more than exhausted.  I still managed to work a full day, and I think, be relatively coherent and productive.  I managed to get my son to soccer and make a fairly healthy dinner.  I even managed to sit down to eat my own dinner. 

In the past, the fact that I haven't swept the floor, finished the dishes or cleaned the bathroom would have kept me from writing this.  But now, I really want to focus on the writer in me.  Next to being a wife and mom it is who I was meant to be.

Social Media Newbie

Sleepless nights are not a turn on.  Sleepless in Seattle, no I'm Sleepless in Vancouver and instead of finding a wife, although I could really use one, insert my husband's smirk here, and instead of setting up a meal plan or re-reading War and Peace (notice how I got that in there, yup read it once and have to be honest did not understand all of it).  Yes instead of doing anything somewhat useful like folding that basket of laundry that is still staring at me one wrinkle at a time, instead of doing any of these potential useful things, I joined Twitter, tumblr and Instagram (was already on Facebook and Pinterest and had fleeting moments of excitement with both of them but soon life got in the way).

But not this time, this time I kept at it and discovered TheBloggess and am reading her book, it is lol funny (yup I even getting used to using the lingo).  Kelly Oxford, your book is next, the hardcover was a little pricey for me.  But damn you are funny, I might shell out for it, I mean if I can buy a coffee a day I can save...

This is how things go on the Internet, you surf from one idea, blog, tweet to twit and back.  I've joined the madness.  I feel like a kid who has tasted their first piece of candy ever, "this is freakin amazing, I want more." And so you put your kid on a diet (kind of - just the trying to be healthy kind of diet unless you actually put your kid on a diet, no one here is judging).  You pat their head and say, "I know I like candy too, but I can't have it all the time."

I stopped looking at Twitter for one day.  Diet.  I finally tweeted and I have seven whole followers and am quite excited about them, thank you seven followers.  And of course, now I might have to go look up Group of Seven because I can.  And that is what this is all about. 

I've also lost sleep over the rules, who can you reply to?  Anyone?  Will they read it? If they do will they think I'm stupid?  Who do I think I am, no one is going to read it.  And so the words wrap their way around my brain until I still can't sleep and am no closer to finding sheep. Unless I look them up on the Internet.  Pretty sure I saw a cool Twitter feed about it. And since no first post would be complete without a photo - my awesome family.