I am here.
Here I am.
Today…
Imperfectly
Learning
Practicing
Choosing
Working
Loving
Present & Worthy
here I am
mental health
A Funny Thing Happened…
A funny thing happened yesterday during the enactment of my plan. Not funny as in “Ha Ha”, but funny in the curious “who knew” kind of way.
I started in the dining room which is the first room that you see as you step into our house. It is also the most used and the most difficult to keep tidy. We eat at the table and play games there (when it’s not too cluttered with stuff). Things tend to get dumped there when folks come in. Groceries land there along with keys, lunch bags, and clean laundry to be folded.
Anyway, I started there. Armed with three plastic storage boxes leftover from a previous de-clutter, I jumped in.
I packed away almost all of the blankets from the cabinet we keep them in for the winter months into a large trunk that serves as a table in the living room. I left out enough for my sister who is always cold and the occasional sleep-over guest, but I moved them to the cabinet in the dining room.
I sorted through the games that had been in that cabinet (now housing the blankets) and moved the games to the cabinet that had been home to the blankets. I’m sure there is a better way to explain that, but let’s continue on and not worry about perfection.
As I worked through the room, I dusted and sorted and got rid of…
Here’s the funny part.
As it turns out, once I made the decision to store stuff away, I went ahead and got rid of most of it. I didn’t feel the need to think about it.
In getting rid of things, I had more than enough room to store stuff that we don’t use very often in the cabinet with the blankets…mostly dishes that have a purpose, but not every day.
I was also able to tuck all the photos that we are working on getting into albums neatly into the cabinet so we can get to them, but they aren’t hanging out everywhere.
A box and a bag are on the way to the thrift store.
A bag ready for the trash man and a bag for recycling.
The table and counter are cleared.
Seven spiders are no longer living with us. The arachnaphobe living with me is much happier.
And the three plastic storage boxes are still empty.
Today will be the living room and hallway desk area that serves as our office and classroom.
Peace
P.S. The dining room table has attracted more stuff, but that’s real life. As soon as I’m done here I’m going to go deal with it.
Progress, not perfection.
A “What If-er”
Mood swings, irritability, frustration, guilt and self-recrimination. That seems to be my constant lately.
Some days I wonder if it’s worth the effort of maintaining any sense of optimism.
Some days, hope is hard to come by.
And then, something happens that turns things around and lightens the load…
On Mondays, I teach a class of Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd graders at a small private, Christian school.
I pretty much teach a process over product class and place the emphasis on the “what if” idea. What if you try this…what will happen? I emphasize creative thinking. When the class project is done, the kids get to work (play) in their journals and work with all of the scraps that we have collected in what they have dubbed the “what if” box.
Yesterday, as we were working on a owl drawing and painting project, I shared a story from my own early elementary days.
A long, long time ago when I was about your age, I was working on painting a plaster owl in art class. We didn’t have an art teacher or classroom at the school I was attending at the time. It was my regular classroom teacher and she wasn’t an artist. We had red, yellow and blue paint. I remember that I wanted my owl to look like an owl with lots of colors and texture. I was young and didn’t know how to achieve that so I kept layering on paint…lots and lots of layers. The paint began to muddy and crack. My teacher told me that I was doing it wrong and took my owl and washed all of the paint off. She returned it to me and told me to start over and do it the correct way. I didn’t want to finish the owl because I was afraid that I wouldn’t do it right. It’s important to follow instructions, but it’s also important to try new things and not be afraid to make mistakes because sometimes that’s how we find the answers we are looking for.
After I told the story, my little artists finished up their project for the day and moved on to their journal time.
As they were working, one of the boys in my class who I often suspect doesn’t listen very much because he is always talking, stopped drawing in his journal and said to me…
Miss Kelly, what if God gave you that teacher who messed up your owl so that you would become a “what if-er? What if you were supposed to become a “what if-er so you could help me be one to? ‘Cause I think I’m a what if-er like you are and we’re supposed to figure stuff out. Is that even a word? What if-er? I think it is and I think that’s what we are.
Well.
What if I’m supposed to be a what if-er and I have just forgotten what that means?
What if it took a child to point out to me that there is a purpose and a meaning to my life that I have lost touch with?
What if I just keep trying things out and remember that life is a process and not a product? And that I’m going to make mistakes and that’s okay.
What if I quit striving to reach the destination and spend more energy on seeing the joy in the journey?
The destination is a mirage that you never actually arrive at. The journey is the reality and there are magical moments to be found…often when and where you least expect them.
Here’s to what ifs and the what if-ers who explore them…and to the joy to be found in the exploration…
And here’s to the purported wisdom of owls and some art teachers (including myself) and the actual wisdom of small children…
– and to following the instructions (mostly) and then celebrating the beautiful, varied and sometimes messy results of our “what if ” life.
I Once Was Lost
Hello.
It’s been a while.
I haven’t wanted to write very often and when I did, I couldn’t.
This has probably been the worst I’ve ever been.
It hasn’t all been bad, of course. It’s honestly been a roller coaster ride. Bad and good. Highs and lows. Fun times and disasters (literally). We’ve had hurricanes, a Carnival cruise, new health issues for my sister, unimproved health issues of my own, a worsening financial situation, unemployment and job searches, and car troubles. Some of it was our life, some of it our children’s. All of it managed to bring forth a serious depression that I am just now dragging myself out of.
There are, of course, a lot of stories to be found in the past several weeks (or is it months?), but it is late and I need to sleep.
Suffice it to say that I have been very lost. So lost that I was not sure that I would find myself again. I couldn’t write. In fact, there were days I couldn’t think my way through the most basic of activities.
There were even days when I didn’t care if I made it through the day. I didn’t care about anything. I especially didn’t care about myself.
I felt nothing and everything.
As with most challenging times, lessons can be learned. Experience is the best teacher or so I’ve heard.
Over the last couple of days, I seem to be in an upswing. During the times that I did feel a sense of hope, I’ve continued to research my current health issues that I am coming to believe are all related. I think stress is a common denominator and still believe that diet is key to resolving a lot of what is going on.
I’ve started a journal of sorts that chronicles what I’m eating, exercise, stress, and mood swings. It will be interested to see if a pattern emerges.
I have been lost and not for the first time.
But today, for the first time in a long while, I believe that I can find the answers I am looking for.
And so the journey continues…and so does this blog.
FaithAcre Studio | Kelly Barrow 