There is lots to ponder this time of year. The beginning of summer, seasons changing, summer so evocative. Hot summer days, sultry nights, music, bare skin, scents of trees and water, the lakes and rivers. Sunscreen, fruit and veggies, so many things all roll together. I digress from where I meant to go. Its easy to do that in summer.
I'm sleepy from a second day on the ball field with The Boy. Not that I was playing but, holding down and bench and cheering is hard work. Eating cookies is too! Probably the real reason why I am sleepy!
Again, digressing.
Lots to think about. Clever Girl has just graduated and looking at her and the changes she is about to make. She may be moving and I am very sad about that. Happy too, but sad, she is one of my best friends.
Wow, with the digressing.
Changes. Clever Girl graduating, The Boy Graduating from Grade 7. We have been doing a ton of work around that. Its going to be beautiful. Eldest is moving into her first house. Its a tiny converted coal house from the late Victorian era. Its a bachelor house.
All three of my children are having last days of something on the 29th. Last exams, last hour, last day in an old home. With that is the new too. After Grade 12 exams what happens, after the last day of elementary school off to high school. Moving into a new bachelor house what happens.
It made me wonder about what else happens that day, the 29th of June 2011. I no longer am an elementary school parent. After 16 years of my children being in elementary school I am done. Wow. Where did the time go? What happened? It was yesterday Eldest was going to kindergarten, and then Clever Girl, and The Boy really was like yesterday. What shall I do when my children are no longer in elementary school? Who shall I be? My identity is around that, but, I have begun in the last year to allow that to shed and slough too.
I have a child in university. I have a child post high school, unsure of her next steps and traveling on her journey. I have a child about to enter high school. I am no longer responsible for any one in elementary school. It will be very different.
I have some recent events that have happened and comments made that helped me reflect on some achievements. The comments I could have taken one way or another, and when it came I was tired so I took then another way yet. It was good because I began to justify myself a bit, and that in its self is not always good. Anyways, it was good (when I got my intent straight) to look at what I have accomplished in the past 16 years, and longer
I have raised from birth to 20 1/2 years Eldest
I have raised from birth to 17 1/2 years Clever Girl
I have raised from birth to 12 3/4 years The Boy
I have celebrated 25 years of marriage and 30 years of togetherness
I have organized and done approximately 14 years of Brown Bag Lunch. That's 126 lunches give or take for approximately 50 per lunch
I have organized and worked 2 parent dances (that's bands, food, alcohol, decorations (often by myself), several pan cake breakfasts, fun day lunches, teachers lunches, welcoming parents by making a nice tea and such for them year after year.
Walking school bus for 2 years.
Pizza day - this is a biggie - for the past 10 years or so - Pizza day 9 month a year. That's ordering and picking up around 140 chocolate milk and about 12 dozen cookies and slogging that all into the school. Remember The Boy was 2 at the time. I did it in snow storms, pouring rains, heat, whatever. Never missed one. That's around 12,000 cookies, 14,000 chocolate milk. Did I include the yogurt and juice? Nope.
I have helped to serve my community in many facets, distributing and sorting lost and found at school (brutal job) but someone had to. Driving all the left overs to charity with Walt helping me.
I have been on how many field trips, volunteered how many hours in classrooms, swept and washed how many floors and desks, counters and stoves.
Held families in their times of loss and tragedy just like they did us in our time of loss and fear
I have prayed for our childrens schools for 15 years. 10 months a year each week. I have either held or attended in another's home for prayer. That's 40 x 15 - 600 hours plus of prayer. Just at that time. Never mind when I wasn't there praying but everywhere else.
I have helped my family through the accident Eldest had, I have healed my own sexual abuse and addictions, I have held my friends when they lost their husbands, or took meals for people who were dieing.
I have organized how many teas for how many hundreds of people who were grieving their losses, just like I was.
I have helped my in-laws to have my father in law die at home. The list is so long I can't even begin on that one. Just to say that that was one of the toughest things I have ever done in my life.
I have re-educated myself taking several courses and facing several fears (big ones!) all at the same time, while my father in law was dieing and I was repainting the main floor of the house.
Oh, I have painted, repaired, or redone every room in our house. Including insulation, drywall, vapor barrier, etc.
I have cooked meals for how many people day in and day out for how long. Probably around 5000 meals plus, and thats just dinners.
I have planned parties, wrapped gifts, made gifts, bought trees to decorate.
I have planted and had re-plant (when strata dug it up) how man gardens?
I have striven to become the best person I could be. I have read books, self evaluated, received counsel and guidance and persevered to become the person God created me to be.
I have read for 13 years how many story books at bed time, how many trips to the library, grocery store, dept store, sporting good store.
I have lived on baseball fields, rugby fields for the past 8 years.
I have logged more miles driving my children to sports, cheer leading or whatever else was going on.
I have cried more tears, and quelled more fears (my own, my children and others)
I have counseled my own friends in their times of need, be it their children driving them insane, or their husbands beating them.
I have lived and loved and prayed for my husband and each of my children, my in laws, my mother, my father, and each of my sisters, their partners, their children and their children's children. My friends and my enemies. For total strangers.
I have thanked God for each day and all that has happened in it.
I have had to learn about my ego, and how it gets me into trouble.
I have learned to belly dance, and mountain bike, I have learned to weight train, teach aerobics and step and deal with seniors, and teach all these things.
I have held my children in their sad moments, or balanced lego box lids of vomit when they were too little to make it to the bathroom.
I have sat in how many hospitals, for how many awful experiences, either with my own children or my friends, or my in-laws while they were told there was nothing left for the dr.s to do. My father in law was given a death sentence.
I have washed and dressed my father in law while he was dieing and had the privilege to do so after he passed.
I have helped my husband through 2 shoulder surgeries and get ready to support him through ankle surgery and 6 weeks on crutches and 6 months of rehab. It's his right foot so he can't even drive. SIGH
I have taken how many trips to: the bank, the video store, and the yarn shop.
I have knit 3 sweaters and 1 vest in the past 3 years. I have knit clothes, scarves, and now I am learning to knit socks.
I have administered baseball teams, PACS, oh ya, I chaired, vice chaired and past chaired the PAC for how many years?
I have sat through (I mean enjoyed) how many band concerts, recitals, plays, or whatever else there was.
The list could could go on.
I have lived to this point and done so very much. I am so grateful that I could write this all down. Because its important for someone like me to look at my achievements and really see and claim them. I look at myself often and see someone who is fat lazy and ugly. A good for nothing. Old tapes that were put there by another persons insanity.
I am writing this list and what I see is someone who has lived each day to the fullest that she could. I have rested lots and lived lots and loved lots. I have been sad lots and had much loss.
I would not trade one day for another. Except for Eldest's accident, and the day Dad died. Each day has been there and created me to be the person I am.
I had the most amazing walk this morning. Early when the forest was fresh and cool and oh so green. No one else but me. I had a secret delight being in the forest by myself. I had to allow myself to be there with the potential outcome of bears and cougars, I hooted every so often, either so they would know I was there and run away, or they would know where I was and have breakfast.
The delight of the morning climbing through the ravine, moving my body, and allowing my mind to just be.
Absolute delight and happiness. Sitting on a boulder with the water rushing around me and filling my head and soul with the sound or the running water. Washing away the silt in me.
I came out of the bush a changed person from who went in. Just in an hour I became new.
I love my body, I love my mind, I love who I am. I am beginning to learn who I am and who I am not. What I stand for and what I will not allow around me.
For all that I have listed above of the things I have done, I am happiest when I am sitting knitting, being in my home with my family, maybe watching a movie, reading or blogging, having a nibble, or being in the garden.
I love my family and our time together.
This time is so transient and I shall miss them as they move into their own journeys. I am blessed beyond and above and I thank God for each blessing he has bestowed upon me.
What shall Eldest do now, as she goes into her new coal house at the end of the garden and 4th year university? What shall Clever Girl do now that she has completed Grade 12 and goes into the world. What shall The Boy do as he goes into Grade 8 and his new life as a teenager (OMG) in the fall. What shall Husband do with surgery in less than a month. What shall I do with my life? What shall I do with my husband our life together?
To be continued . . . .
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