Today I plan to:

• make lunch
• plan 3 simple sewing projects that need to get posted ASAP
• buy apples
• buy another 3-pack of padded envelopes at the £-shop
• cook supper
• do 3 loads of laundry
• not lose my shit (so far, so good)
• go out later with my girlfriend T.
• draft (v. simple) x-stitch pattern
• complete 1/4 of those projects

Looking it over – I think I have given myself a bit much to get done, so I am going to give myself a break if the last two do not happen until tomorrow, my self-imposed deadline for getting them in the post is Friday – which will still make them “better late than never”.

There are many opportunities every day to make mistakes.

Life, as it does, got much too far ahead of me. Funny, thing, though – as I think back, I have trouble remembering what went on that had me so busy.

Raising, playing with, making a home for and loving my kids has been the most time-consuming and draining-yet-gratifying thing I have been doing lately. Rigby, my smart and charming daughter, is now THREE and Sebastian, my clever and curious son, is FIVE (and a half!). No longer tiny and incoherent, my children are now incredibly engaging and self-sufficient.

I suppose the other thing that kept me busy was preparing to move from Vancouver, BC to London, England. Kind-of a big deal. The process was all kids of difficult and uncertain – Andrew (aka, my husband), had been working on the Vancouver 2010 Olympic games and was offered a short-term position here in London, in essence to see if he and his team would come over semi-permanently or be replaced by locals. The decision was not made until very late – so I spent a lot of time packing, unpacking, repacking, wondering, wishing, hoping and missing Andrew. We also moved to the basement suite of our rental house to save some money.

When we finally got here, our expectations were a wee bit overblown. Andrew had not been parenting for nearly six months and I had gotten into some unfortunate habits being alone with the kids (like screaming at the top of my lungs). So, we adults had/have some serious learning and re-learning to do. The kids were also so excited to move here, and the reality of living in a  flat (no yard), in a new city (no friends), during the winter (no sun) has taken a toll. One month and a bit in, however, and some of our original excitement is returning.

We are incredibly lucky to know another home-learning family nearby and to have other wonderful adult friends a short walk away.

On the subject of home-learning, I am still on the fence a little – I have not sent either child to preschool and we have subscribed to to idea of unstructured, child-led learning. If you look at my children and their various interests and skills, this is obviously something that works for us. BUT – here’s where I sit on the fence, school could be a great place to make friends AND would give me some child-free time.

We will see.

Now I’m at what seems to be the only late night coffee establishment in south Calgary, listening to http://player.slipstreamradio.com/player/slipstream/futureperfectradio/659/

After writing this I am going to read one chapter of The Artist’s Way one chapter of Raising Your Spirited Child and writing a bit in my pretty new journal.

Then I am going to go to bed and hug my children.

This trip has been a rollercoaster more because of my current troubles with my children than because of my past troubles with my parents*.

I’ve been really terrible with consistency with my kids, even before this trip, but especially here. I KNOW and I UNDERSTAND why kids need strong, reliable parents, but I have been having a hell of a time filling that role. I feel overwhelmed by their personalities: strong, independent, mischievous and innovative – all admirable qualities that I have absolutely no desire to rid them of, but they are also SO. VERY. MUCH. WORK.

And I am so. very. lazy.

(If you scoff, understand that my standards *may* be high, but I am also a woman who will contentedly lay around for hours watching TV and dropping cookie crumbs in the bed.)

It occurs to me (often) that my penchant for laziness and procrastination sends terrible messages to my kids – that a) sloth is a-ok and b) they are less important than moving pictures/sleep/rest/ME. Not cool. Not cool at all.

Here I want to qualify that as a woman who has long dealt with depression, I know I am in an icky place – it lends itself well to sloth – I am working on ways to get through these blues that feel like they’ve been going on for ever. What I want now is to get past the place where it is constantly reinforcing itself by making daily life more difficult.

I think what’s brought this up for me is the amount of TV we are all being exposed to this trip. Morning to night the tube is on. And I mind, but, not that much. Which is what bothers me.

Because I can see how close we already are to that at home.

*I will forever refer to my mother and step-father as My Parents, my dad is simply My Dad.

I’m feeling raw, tired and totally high-strung. The kids and I are sharing a room, my old room, that was to always be kept tidy and pristine, that is now cluttered with my kid sister’s kitch (old wound). I left it about a dozen years ago, she took it over right after I left, scrubbing every last personal touch (not hard, I lived in it like a guest for a decade), so now it feels uncomfortably, undefinably, familiar.

My children and I had a talk in which I tried to explain why I’d lost all semblance of patience and what we would do to balance our responsabilities as guests with our needs to be ourselves. Sebastian seems to get that a plethora of actions will leave Gramps “cross and upset” and that I am trying to help him navigate this little minefeild. I also came to understand that a lot of my anxieties here are self-protective and are putting my kids in an unfortunate position. So I am going to accept that I can handle being doubted, accused and harassed if it means my kids get to be themselves.

Though overcoming my natural instinct to protect my soft underbelly takes some serious effort. Effort and energy that a night of wakeful kids has left me almost too tired to bear.

But the trip was magical, we witnessed the changing of the seasons in a twelve-hour stretch. In Vancouver it is still harvest time, the rains have begun, and the leaves are just starting to fall in earnest. As I watched the hills leap-frog along the highway I could sense the change in climate. It is hinting winter in the mountains, small gatherings of snow along the well-travelled (and dry) road. Back here in the foothills it is brisk, the formidable wind has a distinct bite to it. One I will always associate with late October in Calgary, not cold like winter here will get, but chilled with a thin veil of the tundra that will come.

Every rare visit home I try to prepare myself for the alien environment I know I am entering. This time, for the first time, alone – my kid sister, my life-vest, is off at university on the other side of the country (which is directly responsible for my visit, but I’ll get to that). My husband is also absent, his reliable employ providing the means for this wild ride. So for the first time in a long time it is up to me alone to navigate the potential minefield of my FOO.

I am not prepared.

I feel a need to prove myself and my worthiness, while also helping my parents and children form a meaningful relationship. The first goal is impossible and trivial, my parents will either be okay with me or they won’t, and from past experience I know that my actions will in fact, hold very little sway. The second, I believe, is difficult and essential. The trouble is that my kids are not the type of kids my family valued. They are smart, which is a big plus, and cute (yes, it matters), but they are also dramatic, assertive, curious and very, very, very persistent. These are not traits my FOO values, they value obedience, reverence and quiet.

I am all for respecting people’s rules and space and I actually welcome the challenge of balancing everyone’s needs… I also dread it and find myself annoyed that I must. What I really want to do is slowly step back and let them figure it out on their own.

Tomorrow is a new day, we’ll see how I do.

A few weeks after moving in, during which it was necessary to de-skeeve the home formerly occupied by drug-users and sellers, as well as stare at the piles of belongings ad trash that were very, very slowly making their way off the property, the couple parted ways. She found a new place to live and he found a new sense of freedom. Soon, we were not only listening to his obnoxiously loud music, but our yard was regularly overrun with his equally obnoxious and loud friends.

We were good sports, we also were clear about our expectations and boundaries – we know from experience that living underneath an active young family can be a unique and not always pleasant experience. We did our very best to open the lines of communication and picked our issues mindfully. Things got better – briefly.

Then the ‘others’ moved in – people who would couch-surf, or simply crash at the neighbour’s place. People whose names and faces we did not know, people who often appeared intoxicated and spoke with a vulgar and sometimes violent flair. People who smoked inside the house then lied about it. People who threatened us with physical violence. People who not only knew where I lived, but had easy access to my home and intimate knowledge of my comings and goings.

I felt trapped and frightened.

Calling the cops was an option, but what would happen when the police left? What about my kids? Was it really as bad as I imagined, the nights I lay awake listening to them party? Was it just me being paranoid?

We complained to our landlord, as did a neighbour. Another neighbour called the cops. The landlord, who is forever trying to help people out of difficult situations, finally evicted basement-dude. It was only then that I realised how frightened I’d become.

Now that he (and company) were at the end of their time here, what was going to happen? Would there be a last act of retaliation? Were we safe?

The month of July was difficult and largely sleepless – I feared every night that something terrible might happen to us. When I left the house I wondered what I might come home to. When we went away for a week, I lost my head with worry.

They moved away over two weeks ago, but have left a pile of stuff and have therefore been back a dozen times. Every time, I get the same tightening in my chest, the same anxiety, the same sad fear. Sadness for the man whose life temporarily ruined mine – he’s a sweet guy, but his judgement stinks. We hope that his new life will be a good one and we are happy to wash our hands of him and his friends (mainly his friends).

And now that my life is mine again, no more fear, I am taking stock. How did I get so wrapped up in these remote possibilities? How far does my mama-bear protectionism go? Did I do enough? (I believe I did, WE did – I can not ever discount my husband’s role in looking out for our family). How would we handle the situation differently? What did we learn?

And how do we get balanced when we’re so mired in our inability to control anything?

Some of us have an easier time of mistake making than others, I am one of the others. Small mistakes linger in my head, taunting me with their un-do-able-ness, I worry long after the repercussions are past. This is a part of the mental illness that I take medication for (OCD), but it doesn’t need to be as powerful as I allow it to be.

I am slowly (and deliberately) learning how to make mistakes with grace, but it feels so counter-intuitive. Somehow I’ve got it in my head that if I am going to do something, I must do it flawlessly. This backwards thinking paralyzes creativity, because it leads me to believe that there is one “right” answer and many “wrong” ones. It is nearly impossible in creative ventures to know if I’ve got something “right” until it is completed, so if I consider that the chances of getting it “wrong” far outweigh getting it right and I won’t do it unless I know I’ll do it flawlessly, you end up here – where I barely do anything.

And when you further consider that I am a very creative person, you can better understand why I’ve spent so much time unhappy.

That voice of wrong is the main reason I have so many UFOs in my studio, it is also the main reason I have had an empty Etsy shop for as long as Etsy’s been in existance (I shit you not), it is also why I feel ineffective as a parent. I fear doing things wrong.

Last night I made a small something for my son, a felt and fleece eye-patch for his wandering eye. I was down to three sticky patches and was tired of the battle to get them on, tired of the daily layers of waxy paper trash they create, and tired just thinking about sourcing the neat-o printed ones he likes in our new city. I did a little research and found a lot of uggo patch styles before finding the style I went with, it was easy, so I styled it up with an embroidered rocket ship and blanket-stich border.

It wasn’t perfect, but I remided myself of its purpose (to cover the eye) and that it would be the first of many and decided I’d done well enough. It took me an hour to get to that point of acceptance, but I did!

Today, I sewed my son a skirt from old curtains, at his request. It had been so long I had forgotten how to use my sewing maching (thank Maude for manuals) – and even though I could list every little imperfection, I am doing a decent job of letting them go. He loves it and wore it all day, even to the park!

And tonight I am writing this, it could be full of errors (I have decided not to proofread it because my battery is almost dead) but I am posting it anyways.

Take that, perfectionist mentality!!

That was 10 years ago, since then I have quieted my anger with compassion and perspective. I still get riled up over things, but now they tend to be the things a person should get angry about – world hunger, the systematic poisoning of our planet, green-washing – as opposed to the occasional tomato on my sandwich when I am 100% positive that I requested none.

My life is better. It is nicer, calmer, happier when I stop keeping score and make the sometimes difficult decision to drop the rope and let people worry about themselves. I still prefer to be right, but as my wise old man put it, the trick is to realise that being right doesn’t make everyone else wrong.

This isn’t how I grew up. My parents were angry for most of my childhood. They’ll deny it, but I remember the tantrums, the snide remarks and most of all the feeling that there was no way I could ever be right enough or do well enough. I spent my twenties working through that and will likely spend a lot more time convincing myself that I am capable of more than I feel I am.

I went to the mall the other day to renew my license. I took the opportunity to window-shop, checking out trends in both fashion and marketing, because evil or not, it is a huge part of who I am. Something I also checked out, though somewhat involuntarily, were current trend in public parenting. Basically, I witnessed a whole lot of grown-ups treating a whole lot of kids like shit. I didn’t witness any overt abuse, instead I saw parents treating their kids like disobeying puppies. Kicking them with words and looks and loud sighs. As I broadened my scope I saw people all over doing this to others, to partners, to staff, to strangers. And I went one step further and though of my own recent behaviour, came up with a few examples of my being cunty to my kids, to Drew and to the world at large – where did it stem from?

Believe it or not, I am not judging any of the parents I saw – I am a firm believer that it is rare that we can get the whole picture from witnessing an isolated interaction – I reserve judgment for myself. Do I generally treat people well and where could I stand to improve?

Generally, yes, I am a nice person. A little narcissistic and impatient, for sure, but I am a benefit-of-the-doubt type and a see-a-need-fill-a-need type. So where can I improve? It almost always comes down to compassion. Compassion for the person who makes an ignorant remark, compassion for the person shooting me an angry glare, and compassion for myself, a woman who is trying very hard to do right by her kids and who is mothering without a map.

With that compassion I can cut everyone else slack and truly let things go. This gives me the mind-space to look at what I am feeling that is manifesting itself as this bitchiness and what I can I change? Often, reflecting is hard. So hard that I have done as little of it as possible this past year. I do the easy stuff, like ensuring I get enough sleep, eat well, de-clutter, get a little exercise and drink my water – and then I stop. It has been a band-aid solution, but it worked while it worked.

And here I am today. Full of compassion and optimism like I haven’t felt in ages. It will take some work and time to train my brain away from negative thinking, but I am ready for the challenge.