Growing Up

Geez, I had no idea that it had been so long since I'd last posted. So much had happened. And yet nothing much has happened. Which really is kinda what life is all about. Life must keep going forward or you become stagnant as a person and I never want to do that.
My munchkins are growing. In some ways way faster than I was expecting. I mean 10 is just too young to have a boyfriend. It is too young to be coming home and telling me she wants to break up with the boyfriend because he is getting 'eerr', he gets aggressive when I speak to other boys and stuff. It is way too young to be coming home to me and telling me he reacted bad when she split up with him, as he went to hit her. 10. Domestic violence at 10. There is no damn way you would ever have convinced me that I would be having discussions with my 10 year old about not letting a boy hit her for what ever reason, and him saying after that he's sorry and still loves her is simply no excuse, (not that he said that but the conversation had to go there).
My mother would be horrified I'm sure, except that she was rather a realist when it came to certain things.
Sure dating for these kids is more a concept and more about who you hang with at lunchtime but for them it has value, it has weight. I just wish it was more childlike than her experience has been.
In some ways she is still so very childish, and I find myself telling her that she has to stop doing things because she is getting older and kids her age don't do that. I'm sure if left to her own devices she'd have still believed in the Easter bunny and Santa.
For all the edge to her, for all her grown up moments there is still something so innocent about her. Yet she is thinking about things I'm sure I never did when I was her age. I mean I came home the other night and she told me she wanted two tattoos (a rose with thorns because life is sometimes hard and hurts, and a tiger because it is fierce and beautiful and she is fierce and beautiful, that is more thought than a lot of adults put into their tattoos), and her tongue pierced. She then went out and had her hair chopped off because she was sick of being treated as the girly girl.
At 10 I was more interested in my books than finding my identity, I suppose that was my identity. I was picked on in school for being smart, she is picked on for being pretty and having hearing aids. Me I retreated into myself, she sets out to make herself into the image of who she wants to be.
Growing up sucks for both parents and kids.

Friendship

Friends are really important. I don't have that many of them and that doesn't bother me because the ones I have are great.
I'm thinking on this at the moment because I wrote a poem for a friend this week. It is the first poem I have written in a very long time. This friend is only someone new in my life, she was going to be someone I was going to work with and I was really looking forward to it. This new career path is one where you form close friendships, you have to because it's not the sort of job you can share much of with others. Anyway the point is she has just been diagnosed with that terrible bitch of an illness cancer in this case stomach cancer. I know this one is one of the more nasty ones but still I had hoped they caught it early enough. She had surgery last week and goes in for chemo this week. the diagnosis obviously was worse than we hoped. Now though in respect to her wishes we are trying to give her the space she needs but I couldn't help myself. I sat in class unable to focus on anything much, so I did what comes naturally to me. I picked up my pen and I wrote.
Emotions effect us all differently and I know I am a very emotional person. It seems so unfair that this friend could be taken from me so soon and I feel so much for her family, partner and friends. It makes sense to me though that they have requested not to be contacted, I get how frustrating it can be dealing with the 'how are you today?' questions. I hope and pray I get more time with her she is a woman of value, she helped many of us in the course while she was with us and we miss her very much. Friendship is a funny thing. Some people seem to have many friends and I have at times in my life bemoaned my lack of socialising, however I am incredibly grateful for the friends I have. there are times we need to remember it's all about the quality not the quantity and the friends I have are quality ones.
For all the fear of this disease and possible loss of a friendship that never really had the chance to develop I wouldn't change the fact that I have gotten to know her a little, I can only hope and pray I get to know her for a bit longer.
Value those people in your life who know you for who you are and love you anyway, friends chose to be in your life and they are worth their weight in gold, or something else of more value than gold.

Gets My Goat

Okay yes it's a silly saying, especially seeing as I don't have one or want one but it's much more polite than the words I'd prefer to use.

You see this week a person I know admitted to suffering from a mental illness, at the same time they said their partner had been cheating on them for months. And that is all the details you will get for this isn't a gossip column, but the details are pertinent.

In the aftermath of these disclosures things have been said, yes there were plenty of encouraging and supportive things but the thing I am going to focus on is this, 'oh well I'm sure God will bring restoration to your marriage'.

WHAT! Hello?

Seriously of all the things that could be said. If I was in that situation and someone said that to me I may plant my fist in their face, and yes I know that response isn't very christian, but I'm not at all convinced what they said to this person was all that christian either.

Someone going through something like that doesn't want to hear that. Or at least I can't imagine they do.

This made me remember the time I called my dying mother up on the phone, she sounded very unhappy. I asked her what was wrong and it came out that people from her church had been saying to her that she needed to 'look deep within for she must have sin she refused to admit to or God would have healed her', or words to that effect. I was irate. Now I may not be a picture perfect christian but my mum was a lot closer to that than I was. I wanted to go down there and smack them out.

So this brings me to my thing for today, what makes christians feel the need to spout such utter rubbish sometimes? Do they simply not think before they open their mouths? Or are they so drowning in the rhetoric that they can't come up with something genuine to say?

And let me make it clear that these people are certainly in the minority but that it happens at all really bugs me. (And yes I know that sometimes God does bring about restoration though I'm sure if you ask those people it's not without some hard work and miraculous forgiveness first) Sometimes it seems to me that those that don't go around professing their goodness and relationship with God get it more right, you wouldn't hear one of my non-church going friends suggesting you hope for restoration of marriage, nor blaming some hidden sin for sickness. In fact they would probably help kick the cheating so and so out and be the first to ask 'hey sucks you're so sick is there anything we can do?'

Masterchef@home

An interesting thought popped into my head this week and that was there were probably people who thought my hubby was lazy and took advantage of me. The reason I’m bringing this up is two fold: 1) I never really considered this; 2) I’ve never understood women who let themselves be walked over and their dreams ignored, in favour of their partner.

Strangely this all spring-boarded from cooking. I know that’s strange but none-the-less…

Last weekend I hit a really low point. It was closing week of the show I was doing, work was being a pain and I haven’t been sleeping well. It all culminated with me having a mini break apart something along the lines of ‘You need to step up because I can’t keep doing all this anymore. When you were working I did everything around the house, now I’m working I’m still doing it all. From now on you need to cook two meals a week.’

This may not seem like much but it was a big thing for me to ask. I don’t like to admit I’m not coping and I don’t like to ask for help. Also hubby has often said he’s not good at cooking anything except spaghetti bolognaise.

To tie this into my two points, not long ago a friend said she thought he wasn’t carrying his share of the weight. I just excused it as a creative low. Yes he has been in one of those but it’s no excuse. Some of our problem (because when it involves family it becomes our) was him but in some ways the bigger part of the problem was me. I didn’t ask or let him know I was struggling. Cooking is something I mostly don’t mind doing and I didn’t want to live on spaghetti every night so I only asked him to cook on occasion. Guess what though? It turns out with a little practice cooking is something he is going to be fairly good at and I think he actually enjoys it.

So he has stepped up, in fact he did nearly all the cooking this last week. And our eldest is interested in learning so they will get the chance to do some of that together. Another bonus as far as I can see.

Moving on to point two. It may seem that the two points aren’t connected but just bear with me. There are women who do everything for their partner’s and it often seems as though they do little for themselves. I have wondered, I admit, why they let their partner dictate their whole life. I didn’t see that from the outside my life probably looked a bit like that because I have a tendency to do everything and let hubby do whatever he wants. Part of the reason I didn’t see it was because I still get to write and play at the theatre. He has never asked me nor expected me to give up those things. Yes a lot more money has gone on his pursuits than mine but mine don’t require much equipment and he is always encouraging me to spend more money on myself. So I’ve never really thought of it as being taken advantage of.

The dynamic of our relationship is a natural state of unbalance, he’s a phleg personality and I ‘m a choleric; that is he’s laid back (yes sometimes lazy) and I’m ‘let’s do it now and the right way which is my way’. He is not inclined to volunteer to do something I seem okay doing and I’m not inclined to ask him to help. Somewhat of an impasse really.

So what have I learnt? Sometimes things aren’t what they seem if you are on the outside looking in. And sometimes when you are inside looking out you can’t see what’s really there. Also sometimes the problem isn’t always the other person (it’s often hard to see the problems with ourselves).

Thankyou God for eyes to see, courage to ask for help, a husband who hears and does and the wisdom of friends.

Relationships and Ultimatums

So I’ve been married for 12 years and have some very definite ideas about what makes a relationship work. I’ve also been thinking about some of the relationships around me, in light I suppose of the whole Tiger thing. I don’t know nor care how many women have stepped forward now but I keep coming back to this one thing, if he’s been with this many women how could he not think that one day it would come back and bite him on the butt. Seriously.

For me truth in a relationship is key. When my hubby struggles with certain things he tells me. When I nearly kissed a guy at work, I told him, when he kissed a girl after a gig he told me. Some things thrive in darkness and being honest about them sheds light in which they cannot prosper. Of course I can’t say what would have happened if Tiger had been honest the first time but it does make me wonder. I feel for his wife and little one.

Honesty isn’t the only think I’ve been thinking about as far as relationships go. I’ve also been considering the concept of choices. Not just the choice to cheat or not but the many choices we make that effect the dynamic of the partnership, because that is what a marriage or love relationship is.

What about the guy who asks his wife if she is okay to move from one side of a country to another for a promotion, she says no, he says too bad we’re going. Or the fiancée who believes her partner’s interest in music is merely a hobby not a passion he wants to pursue, so he stops, years pass and he hasn’t been able to get back into it and regrets it. Then there’s the wife who tells her hubby that once they have kids he has to stop playing in a band. How is it we say we love someone and often seem to lack the capacity to support their interests, passions or opinions?

Okay so for me moving from one side of a country to another or even moving country isn’t a terrible idea. I’ve already lived in another country and some of the things we’d like to pursue make me wonder if we would be better off elsewhere. So to be honest the fear that has some people clinging to that kind of familiar isn’t one I understand. Having said that I can’t imagine my hubby saying too bad we’re doing it, if I’ve said I really didn’t want to do it. It just wouldn’t be something either of us would consider.

The other two examples I admit make me want to scream. I simply couldn’t understand not supporting my husband’s passion. I can understand people not wanting to go out on the limb that we have because it can be a particularly treacherous place to be. It can be tough having people constantly say grow up and get a real job. It’s tough having to live week to week and very carefully balance your budget and give certain things up. Thing is when he’s in the zone it’s a great place to be, even though it hasn’t made us financially stable yet.

I wonder though if I have a better grasp of the creative because I am one. I see the drive and passion in others and don’t understand how their loved ones cannot support it. The flip side is that I need to be supported and believe me I’ve have been know to hit some crushing lows. I can cope with these because in my relationship I am free to be me and I know I’m not alone, I know my passion and interests are supported even though my writing has bought in less money than hubby’s music.

There is a second thing with the last. I don’t know how someone can make the leap that cutting someone off from the stress relief and ‘me time’ then also adding a child to the mix, is a good idea in anyone’s book. Heaven knows enough other stuff changes when you add kids and I know plenty of people actively involved in music and theatre that have kids. An ultimatum like that concerns me because I can see so many bad things it can lead to.

Maybe I’m just a pessimist and I don’t understand how these things can work in a relationship because it wouldn’t work for me. I believe in choices, looking at the big picture and finding a compromise that works for both parties. Have I ever used an ultimatum? Yes – it was ‘sort some stuff out now because I can’t keep doing it this way, or I’m taking the girls away for a while and you can sort it out with out us around.’ Needless to say I didn’t go anywhere, not because stuff got better immediately but because he finally realised just how hard a time I was having. That’s the thing about ultimatums, sometimes they need to have a little flex in them.