Failure is always an option...

Failure is always an option

- The MythBusters

Oh yes, I went there.

A new year is upon us.  2015 is done and gone, the world is new and bright (and at the moment very wet with a much needed rainstorm).  My first writing day of the new year has already been half spent writing to my property manager about the 4 roof leaks we have so far discovered with the aforementioned rainstorm...and vacuuming my living room so if she stops by she will not think we are total animals.  I have a terrible headache and my coffee is almost gone.  In celebration I will post my grumbley day poem, since I wrote it so I can.

 Today is a grumble-y sort of a day

For crossing my arms in that sort of a way,

for stomping my feet and shouting and yelling

for glaring and smirking and outright rebelling

Today is a day that is good for hurumph-ing

for closing my eyes and slugging and lumping

for making a mess on the newly cleaned floor

then running as fast as I can out the door!

Today is a wrong sort of terrible day

but not in a tangible, regular way

It just feels like everything I do is wrong

its hard and its weird and it takes far too long

So though it may seem just a little cliche

childish, self-centered and rather passe

I'm staging a protest, I'm finished, I'm through

At this point there's nothing that I plan to do

I'm done being useful, I've come to the end

I'm too tired, even, to try to pretend

I'm done being grown-up, I'm going to quit

It's been slowly coming, I have to admit

So if you might need me I'm going to be

Up high at the top of a very tall tree

I'm making a fort, and that's where I”ll stay

All through this hurumphing-ly grumble-y day

So if your day's grumbly and sluggish and lumphy

Come join me, my tree-fort is really quite comfy

There.  I feel better now.  And since one of my "resolutions" last January was to write more things in rhyme, I am going to cross that one off my list as "completed" or "not-failed at."

Keeping with the idea of going back and looking over the last year, as we are apt to do at the beginning of new ones of them - I am curious how many of my "resolutions" I successfully didn't fail.  

Shall we see? 

#1 - Eat chocolate whenever I REALLY want it.  

Check and check.  Who in their right mind wouldn't succeed at this resolution after all.  Though this year I have decided to change things up a bit.  This year, I resolve to drink coffee every single morning that I feel like drinking coffee.  I expect a similar success level as I go into 2017.  I am just that good. 

#2 - Purchase a pair of nice high heeled shoes and learn to walk in them.

Crap. 

It was a stupid resolution anyway.  

#3 - Use my twitter and Instagram accounts,  

Well, I use my Instagram.  Twitter, not so much.  It just seems rather redundant.  But, this year it is my goal to establish my online presence so that potential agents and/or publishers can find information on me if they happen to be looking.  So I suppose that will be a continued resolution for this next year,  

#4 - brew a successful batch of Kombucha Tea.  

I did that!  Lots in fact.  I should pull out my scobys again.  They are all sleeping in the fridge at the moment.  I stopped last year as soon as the weather warmed up because I didn't have to time to keep up with it, and a few of my batches got VERY strong! Since I was going for tea, and not liqueur - I put them all away.  But I got very good at it if I do say so myself.  Quite enjoyable! 

#5 - Give away more essential oils

Oh I always do that.  And like last year, I always have them.  So if anyone ever wants info and/or samples to try then please just let me know!  I truly enjoy researching this stuff.  And with new FDA regulations on what words can and cannot be said, it is getting harder to find correct info online.  Most of us that are working to bide by the regulations have taken down our blogs and resource pages, and so what is left is fear mongering and those that are not informed and/or following correct language protocol.  So be very careful researching Essential Oils online! There is still good info out there, but it is getting harder to find.  

#6 - Learn to make good homemade soap.  

So yeah, that hasn't happened yet.  It is still on my list to be sure.  But I will admit that after researching it, the dangers involved (i.e. LYE) have made me wary.  Perhaps when all three children are in school full time I'll have the time to explore the process.  But as long as there is a chance of a small one running up and hugging my legs while I am dealing with potentially explosive material...yeah not so much! 

Last on my list for 2015 was simply writing.  I did not do that enough, but I have high hopes for this year.  Because come August I will have 3 kids in school!  That means that 5 days a week, I will have 5 hours every day to devote to writing!  I am excited beyond words.  Truly.  I cannot wait! 

HA!  I just submitted a 4 line poem that I wrote in under a minute to Cricket Media.  Therefore catapulting myself into my new "resolution" which is to submit at least one item for either publication or representation once a month.  Now, it wont usually be a tiny 4 line poem.  But I felt the need to start the year (and my first day of writing for 2016) right.  

I also checked on the statues of a longer, better poem that I submitted last August and it is still listed as "in-progess."  I hate the waiting game.  Guess I need to resolve to get better at waiting while I am at it...

Honestly, this year I don't feel very "resolute." So while I do have several goals, as I have mentioned - I feel like in many ways, this will be a year to give up some things.  Perhaps it has to do with getting older and re-defining what is and is not important in my life. I think I tend to hang onto ideas that have always been...for no other reason than that I have never considered doing it otherwise.  I want to break that.  

So - here is my list of things I am Giving Up in 2016:

1. Mommy-groups.

I...I think I've out-grown them.  Not that they are a bad thing, at all.  They fit a very real need in my life for many years.  But my kids are older now.  I am not home with a baby that cannot talk or exhausted by multiple toddlers and needing a moment to just exchange war stories with other moms. I get a full 8 hours a of sleep a night (assuming I go to bed in time).  It is time to bow out gracefully. I realized this as I attended a MOPS (Mothers of Pre-schoolers) meeting last fall.  I looked around and realized that this was no longer for me.  The stories, the encouragement - it is all for moms with babies and toddlers.  I don't have that anymore.  So while I am so very thankful I had it when I needed it...I am now giving up my spot at the table for those that need it more than I do.  No more MOPS, no more mommy and me classes, no more hosting group play-dates.  My kids don't need them anymore...and weirdly enough, neither do I. 

2. Doing ALL of the housework.

Yes, along with not having small kids anymore.  I am giving up some chores around this house.  This means, I will be giving up un-loading the dishwasher, putting away kids laundry, sweeping and wiping down bathrooms.  From this day, henceforth - my minions will take care of these things.  

Prepare yourself, there will be great wailing and gnashing of teeth...and I will ignore it to the best of my abilities while I sit, relax and drink a glass of whatever the hell I doth please! 

3. I am giving up trying to achieve total control over my health.  

I know, it sounds weird.  But I am coming to grips with the idea that I have a chronic illness that is not going to just go away if I make the right diet changes or take the right supplements.  For 4 years now I have actively battled Hashimotos. And I mean battled!  I have put in countless hours of research, I have experimented, I have "advocated for myself" a.k.a, bullied doctors into giving me the tests I need; I have been bullied by doctors that told me there was nothing that can be done, changed doctors until I have found ones that would work with me...you name it. 

I'm tired. And I am tired because I have a thyroid that is trying to kill me. And not in a small way. My antibodies are off the charts and nothing I have tried (and trust me, I have tried just about everything) has changed that. So I am taking a much needed break. I will continue to educate myself, I just bought a new research book yesterday...but I will stop feeling like a failure because no matter what I try, nothing truly changes - in fact, sometimes it gets worse and I have to raise my medication again, which feels like another failure.  But you know what?  I may never get the "old me" back. And I need to be ok with that. Because the new me is VERY important.  And constantly denying that by trying to get back to where I was, just makes the new me feel like a failure.  And that is not ok. So I am giving up my old ideas of what is "healthy" and creating some new, more attainable ones. 

Oh goodness my time is up.  I don't feel like this list is complete.  Perhaps I'll write more later...perhaps not.  But for now - Happy new year! 

May your 2016 be all you hope it will be.  And just as a general warning to you all...I will only say this once: 

"Sara who never cried.”

“Perhaps I have not really a good temper at all, but if you have everything you want and everyone is kind to you, how can you help but be good-tempered? Perhaps I'm a HIDEOUS child, and no one will ever know, just because I never have any trials. (Sara Crewe, A Little Princess)” 

― Frances Hodgson Burnett

We require different things at different times in our lives. Funny, how such a simple concept can be so mind blowing. When I first started writing 2 years ago, I craved the bustle of a well lit coffee shop. I loved the people, the smells, the sounds. In that environment I thrived.  In that environment, I was creative. 3 weeks ago, when I started writing again, I went back to the same coffee shop enviroment. I wanted the same smells, the same lighting, the same sounds and even the same tasting coffee. I found I could barely work. Even the writing I was able to do, I later discovered it to be riddled with extra words, typos and at times, complete nonsense.

So I went home. The silence when I first walked into my empty house was so lovely I got tears in my eyes.  I have changed in the last couple of years, I no longer needed the bustle, What I needed to be creative, was the silence.

The last two years have taken their toll on me.  Most days I am old, so very old. I fear my posts are more stoic than they used to be. The humor no longer bubbles out effortlessly, I second guess myself far more than I used to. I am more awkward, angrier, far more confused, not nearly so confidant and most days more than a little depressed. But there is purpose in it all, there is beauty, I KNOW there is. My job as a writer, is to find it, against the odds - without dismissing the pain.  Because pain has purpose. Pain has it's own kind of deep beauty, a deeply creative beauty that is not to be dismissed because it is not as entertaining.  But this frustrates me, because feelings are not tangible, they are un-reliable, they change, they can be caused by hormones and environment.  They do not speak truth. What I can touch, what I can see, what I can explain.  That is what I cling to, that is what I base my perception of reality on, otherwise I may go completely insane!

Of course, then the question must be asked...what is insanity? Insanity cannot be measured by any scale I have ever seen, so how do we know when we get there?  How do we know if we have avoided it? How do we know we want to avoid it...

I used to be a better parent than I am now, though I feel it falls somewhere in the category of how everyone is an excellent parent...until they have kids.  I just took it a step further.

I am stubborn to a fault.  That means I am a very good parent to toddlers/pre-schoolers.  Ages 1-5?  I got this. Want me to teach your three-nager to behave?  Bring it on. I never met a toddler I could not handle, and I have met lots and lots of toddlers. Trust me. Yours is not special...well, they are special. But not in that way.

Toddlers I get. Toddlers, even preschoolers and into early elementary I can handle - not always gracefully, but when it comes down to it, after 9 years of trial and error, I know what I am doing.

And then without warning and without my permission, my responsibility has suddenly gotten wider: Tween-dom. Pre-teen hormones, emotional breakdowns and elementary school drama. Tween-dom has scary things I am not emotionally prepared to deal with!

I have absolutely no idea what I am doing.

I have one major character flaw, (ok, maybe I have a few more than that...but one that stands out in this particular situation)  I am not naturally empathetic. So that makes navigating the world of pre-teen emotions feel close to impossible.

Do I smile wisely and tell her "everything will be ok."  Do I offer advice? Do I intervene? Do I give her space? Do I make a cup of tea and sit us both down to go over every detail and talk about what it all could mean? Do I tell her that "this too shall pass" and dismiss it all? Do I tell her to "toughen up!" and show her picture of children in Africa that have no clothes and no smart phones?

Perhaps the best strategy would simply be to throw chocolate at her and run away...because I can do that!

I am genuinely asking for advice here. I feel so entirely clueless as to how to parent a pre-teen girl. I don't remember being 9.  What happened when I was 9? My baby brother was born...no, I was 8 1/2 when he was born.  What happened when I was 9? No clue. No memories....that is either a really good sign, or a really bad one.

How on earth do I handle a highly emotional, extremely creative, high-strung, very inventive, beautifully imaginative but insanely disorganized, intuitive, artistic 9 1/2 year old girl? Anyone? Because I am at a loss, and prayer and chocolate are coming up short.

We had a very challenging afternoon yesterday, we have had a lot of those lately. The task was simple, clean the front yard of all the bits and pieces of items you have brought out there with you, only to abandon instead of taking them back inside where they belong.

Simple yes? She had a break after school to  rest, she had a snack - she got to work.

First, there were tears because she thought I had asked her to only clean the grass, not the pavement...or brick wall...or bench...or dirt. The world fell apart when she learned that "cleaning the front yard" requires more than just clearing the grass. And when her world falls apart, everything falls apart...she gets a headache, she feels like she is going to throw up and she is sure she has a fever. Her friends have not been playing with her, so she is crying because of that...not because of the work. She suddenly remembers that she forgot some homework and her teacher is going to be mad. She remembers her pet mouse that passed away, and that starts everything all over again and she really wants to go hold her hamster so she can feel better and then she stubs her toes trying to get up off of the ground and everything is really really hard today!

When my tween falls apart the result is she CAN'T do it. She is sad, she is lonely, she is not strong enough, she is hurt, She becomes awkward, angry, confused, not nearly so confidant and more than a little depressed...and I start to get this nagging feeling like I have seen this before.

For my emotional tween, her world fell apart when the surface area she was responsible for suddenly grew wider without her permission. She felt she could handle the grass, she knew what she was doing. And then without warning, she also had to deal with the dirt. The dirt has spiders, and cat pee. The dirt has scary things she was not emotionally prepared to deal with.

I have one major character flaw.  I am not naturally an empathetic person. Because you see, feelings are not tangible, they are un-reliable, they change, they can be caused by hormones and environment. They do not speak truth. What I can touch, what I can see, what I can explain...That is what I trust.

“She looked into the staring glass eyes and complacent face, and suddenly a sort of heartbroken rage seized her. She lifted her little savage hand and knocked Emily off the chair, bursting into a passion of sobbing- Sara who never cried.” 

― Frances Hodgson Burnett, A Little Princess

But this isn't working...I have no idea how to deal with this.  And I have this sinking feeling that it is only going to get scarier, dirtier.

First I listened, I tried my very best to understand. I took a deep breath and told her:

"I KNOW you can do it. I will not do it for you. Use the tools you have around you to get the job done. Think logically, don't let Scared be boss - use the feelings as motivation to get it done quickly, channel them. Breath...and do the task in front of you. Because if you do not, the benefits you receive for being responsible will be taken away. But in the end, it is your choice. What is more important? Your fear and anger, or your freedoms."

It took an hour. One measly hour, in the grand scheme of things, that is a very short time.  It took one hour of talking, crying, being angry, sad, scared, confused. It took her an hour. But she did it! She did it all by herself!  And the joy, oh the joy on that little girls face when she beat her fear?  When she got dirty, when she used her fear and her anger not as a roadblock, but as motivation to complete the task in front of her was contagious and lasting.  The rest of her day was rimmed with gold, she was giddy, she was empowered.

I fear I am not so entertaining an author as I used to be. The humor no longer bubbles out effortlessly, I second guess myself far more than I used to. This becomes a problem as I write to seek representation and ultimately, publication.  But you know what?  This is a season, and this season has purpose. One lovely thing about living with consistently hard days?  The beautiful moments are brighter, you don't take them for granted. Perhaps that is the beauty I am supposed to find.

In the end, even when there is no motivation, when it all feels too big. When I am not sure I can do this, when all I can see is the anger because I am tired, because I hurt, because I feel so very old.  I have a choice. I KNOW I can do this. No one is going to do it for me. I must find tools to get the job done. I must think logically and not let Scared be boss.

Me, just me - I alone get to choose what is more important. I have to remember to breath...and do the task in front of me. Today, right now, I get to choose,  My fear and anger? Or the freedom to follow my dreams. I can channel all of those scary thoughts into motivation and watch my world change to gold before my very eyes,  

“You see, now that trials have come, they have shown that I am NOT a nice child. I was afraid they would. Perhaps... that is what they were sent for... I suppose there MIGHT be good in things, even if we don't see it.” 

― Frances Hodgson Burnett, A Little Princess

Words

“Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic. Capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it.”

― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Words.  Words carry a magic that cannot be defined.  Many have tried, and given a valiant effort no doubt.  But it cannot be done, should not be done.  

I feel so very fortunate that I get to play with words.  

Two years ago, almost to the day, I started on a journey to become a "Real Author."  I grabbed about 2.7 hours, twice a week and felt something wake up in me.  Something that had been sleeping.  It was glorious, the greatest form of therapy I have ever experienced.  A wild excitement would take hold - often I did not entirely feel like I was in control. I could write for hours in a row, never get tired and then - at the end of it all I could go back and truly not remember writing everything that was written in the page in front of me.  

For the first time in my life I knew, that this was what I had been created to do - and even if no one ever read my ramblings. Even if I never ever make any money at this, THIS is what I would do for the rest of my life.   

And then 8 months later I got to stop.  Life took over, good life.  Wonderful life.  I like life, life is GOOD.  But life, does not allow for writing.  Not the writing I was doing anyhow.  Life is full of little girls and laundry.  Life is not friendly to hours of un-interrupted writing time...because it does have to be un-interrupted - or I get angry and that is not good for anyone.  

So I put that away, again.  But this time, instead of putting away several ideas and one partially started story - I was putting away 5 completed stories, 3 partial stories, a few short poems, 4 rejection letters from agents and a half dozen more ideas.  It was sad, but I knew that was what was needed for the time being - and I was so very proud of the progress I had managed to make in 5 short hours per week for 8 months! 

Today - today marks another achievement,  Today my littlest started preschool.  Today I woke up again! Today I blew the dust off of my lost manuscripts.  Today I renewed my contacts and started making some new ones in my new city.  Today I start being me again! Not that I wasn't me before, but there was a part of me that was sleeping.  It needed to sleep - to protect the rest of me.  But oh it gets to wake up again! And this time I get almost 8 whole hours per week!


Real life is good.  Really good, but I need to write. 

I get to write! I feel like singing...not that that is unusual, ask my girls.  I sing a lot...I may actually need to work on that one.  I get stares from strangers quite regularly.  

But that is beside the point...   

Of course now, I need some help.  I will be putting together another "feedback team" to read my work and give me your thoughts.  I need people willing to be honest about content - while at the same time ignoring my spelling and grammar mistakes (I have others to help with that, but it rarely happens until the manuscript is in a "finished" mode, because before that really, what is the point?  And it can take a very long time to get to "finished" content-wise.  

So if you want to be a part of my "team" then send me an email at TheBottomRail  (that would be @gmail.com) and I'll add you to my list.   

My adventure is re-awakening.  I am so very excited! And who knows where this adventure will lead...

“There are no safe paths in this part of the world. Remember you are over the Edge of the Wild now, and in for all sorts of fun wherever you go.” 

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit