And lightning strikes me one more time...

I am ready with the book, I managed to make it last for  over two weeks, I'm so proud of myself! Nicklas use to say that buying books for me is a waste of money because I devour them in two or three days... Practical perspectives are not my thing. 

Here's one of the paragraphs that will have me thinking for a long time:

 "I know, now, without a doubt that the true source of happiness, self-worth, and authentic beauty doesn't come from the outside. Women are constantly being persuaded to want something unachievable, to look younger or thinner and above all to fit in because being different is too painful and embarrassing. I have accepted myself in a world that does not accept me, because I have learned- and more than any of the lessons of my accident, this is the one I wish I could teach everybody- that our hearts matter most. your heart matters most, so be gentler and more patient with yourself, and their hearts matter most, too, so be kinder and more compassionate to others." (Heaven Is Here, by Stepanie Nielson, p. 303-304)

Thank you for your story Stephanie Nielson!

Letting go...

It happens to all of us that we can no longer hold on... It's scary to let go. Somehow we all get so attached to things, people, feelings, thoughts, dreams...

It was surely scary to let go of mommy's hands as we made our first steps, and the glorious feeling of achievement did not occur to us. It is scary, as a mom, to let go of our babies hand to see them walk their first steps all alone, and the pride we'll feel does not come to our minds as the fear of seeing them fall and hurt themselves covers our thoughts.

Like holding a balloon and see it slip away into the clouds... sometimes we just have to let go, because it is the wise thing to do, because it is necessary, because our future success depends on it, because we love or because it is just the kind thing to do...

We are meant to learn to let go, and it is hard, it is supposed to be hard, it is supposed to hurt and sometimes even to tear up our hearts.

No title I'm afraid

I started work at 7:00 a.m. yesterday. I came and started the routine: preparing breakfast, bringing in the newspapers, setting the tables, going to some of the people who get up very early and helping them with the compression socks (they can be really hard to put on and almost all of them have to use them) and then waited until the rest of the staff came. 

A while after I went to give the medicine to one of the ladies, a 90-something years old little woman who is always so thankful for all we do. As I opened the door I heard her screaming "mamma, mamma!" She was having what seemed to be an awful nightmare. One of my co-workers rushed in and we started to calm her down. It took a while, and she was in panic  for a few seconds. It must have been a vivid dream, and a scary one. As soon as she understood where she was her expression changed from fear to deep, deep sadness in the blink of an eye... "For a moment I had clean forgotten that my mom has been gone for so long" she mumbled as tears filled her tired blue eyes.

On my break I rushed to the staff room and read as much as I could of Stephanie Nielsons "Heaven is Here". I read about her feelings of frustration and the deep unbearable sadness it gave her to realize that she could not be a mom for her kids, and that it was going to be painful and long until she could, if she ever reached the goal.

When I walked home at 4:30 p.m., after what had been a long and tiresome day, I started thinking about my little girls and the image of the fragile old 90 year old woman crying for her mom shook me up. I started to think about the influence a mother has in her children, how they will always go to her in times of fear, sadness or despair, no matter how old they have grown. Of course not every one of us has the tremendous blessing to seek for their mom (or the memory of her), some mother-child relationships are far more complicated than we could ever imagine... But I didn't think about those troubled relationships yesterday, I just thought about how much and how deeply I could touch my girls life, for better or for worse, and how they will seek me in years to come, and how much they might miss me when I'm gone. To realize how important I can be in the life of others came as an overwhelming feeling, but at the same time it filled my heart with warmth. 

Sometimes it gets busy, breakfast, doing their hair, taking them to daycare, stopping fights about who gets to keep the inside of toilet paper roll (and some other very "serious" stuff as well), planning dinner: it has to be balanced, healthy, varied, cheep, easy and fast to cook and everybody has to like it, and that can turn into a full time job, believe me! saying "no" so many times a day it sometimes get me in a bad mood... yes, it is a lot of work but I can do it, I can braid my girls hair, and give them baths, and take them to daycare holding hands... and i get to dry their tears with my lips and give them the last kiss of the day late at night and the first one in the morning. And I became so powerful since they came into my life that I can heal wounds by blowing on them. And as silly as it may sound, sometimes it takes a screaming old lady to get me to think about how blessed I really am. 

My little angels

Emily is often so serious, I love that about her. I love everything about her but it just melt my heart when she is such a tiny adult.

And Olivia... what can I say about her... when her lips smile, her eyes sparkle and she shines like a sunbeam

And so it goes when I have nothing to say...

I don't really have a lot to write about. I have basically been working and cleaning the house, and then cleaning the house and working after that... G my life is so exciting! I don't even have anecdotes or funny comments from the girls. 

It was a pretty good day at work last Sunday, though. You'll see, I get along well with all the people I have worked with so far, but as it usually is the case, I feel more comfortable with some of them. It has nothing to do with how nice they are or how friendly... they are all great I have to admit. But with this girl we are annoyingly efficient and fast. Yesterday morning, by 11:30 we hade the laundry done, the breakfast stuff dished and in it's place, 8 bathrooms cleaned and dessert ready, so there was nothing to do and the elder had all gone to their rooms to take a nap before lunch. We started making cute name tags for the table, with colour papers and small stickers that I took with me. They turned out really pretty and all of them loved it, they were so excited with such a silly detail, I almost felt a little gilty... The thing is that we made their day and then I started thinking about how I used to do those silly, apparently unimportant things all the time. 

 

 When I fist came I would make a little card or a decorated note for Nicklas every day, but for him it was an unnecesary waste of time and a very stupid thing to do. He never thanked for them, he didn't like it and I am thankfull he was honest about it... kind of brutally honest I would have said 8 years ago. As a result I stoped with that, not only I didn't make them for him but I figured he was right and I was one naive, silly, fairy-tale believer, childish, hopeless romantic, people pleaser moron to whom nobody deared to say the truth about her bothersome pretty notes and elaborated home made cards for not reason at all... so I killed the Hallmark girl and buried her 6 feet under ground. 

The stupid event from yesterday made me think that some people DO like those gestures and really appreciate them, and encouraged me to make my scrapbooks and start crafting again. 

Since we were so fast yesterday we had all and a little more done by 3 pm, which meant that we could take 1 hour break all at the same time and not split it in two 30 mins. So I went to the park across the street with my copy of Heaven Is Here and read for the whole hour. I had forgotten how I felt when I read (and I mean when I read for pleasure and not for school) The world desappeared and I felt so relaxed and in peace! I missed that feeling, I missed the Hallmark girl! Why did I change the things that made me feel good just because someone thought they were useless and a waste of time? 

My bad!