Silly Me

I’m sittin’ here writing a new post as if there were lots of people reading, and I’ve only let one person know I have this blog. So much for publicity!

It’s Sunday; it’s raining outside, Benjamin spent the night with a friend last night so I have some lovely quiet moments…

CHILDREN.

Now that Benjamin is nine and I’ve moved into a big house, the kids all want to be here. Most of the time. I’m the taxi, the pizza maker (that or chicken nuggets), and my pantry is raided every ten minutes. The 24 Kool-Aid jammers I got not long ago are gone…

Though I kinda love it, I also find it a bit hard to adjust to after years of being On My Own.

When kids decide they can get into my fridge and cupboards…h-m-m. Time for a conversation or two.

When kids TP my entire house (indoors) one night…and use up at least 6 rolls of toilet paper…I told them it was funny once, but now, they could go TP someone else’s house, and then they start up with it again a weekend or two later…but I catch them in the act and put a stop to it right then and there…

When they want to videotape a YouTube event with my video camera, and they’ve been using it as if it were theirs, so I insist on doing it myself (and it is fun), I run out of tape; then I get another tape and later discover I recorded over some stuff I’d video taped a while back. Oh-oh. Oh, well.

Yeah. It’s an adventure.

I would never trade it for anything.

I remember being a kid. I think of the things I wish I could have done, or wanted when I was his age, and I get permissive. Within reason. I know many friends and relatives think I’m a pushover. They’re right. I am. But I know my limits and I know when I’ve had enough.

A lot of the adjustment is done within me. I know that when I resist things, they feel worse. If I go with the flow, things feel better. And it is SO MUCH EASIER.

Some will say that easy just isn’t the way to make it in life. But then I say, and where has DIFFICULT gotten you? Are you any happier doing DIFFICULT than you might have been had you decided EASY was the road?

I know that many equate EASY with LAZY.

This isn’t about LAZY. If you would enter my house, you would rarely see me lying around on my couch (not that doing that necessarily has to mean one is lazy, either. I don’t like the word “lazy” anyway — more on that some other day). It means that I am really wanting to react less, push against things less, and allow myself to enjoy more. And gee, hard work can yield a lot of satisfaction…but the hardest work I’ve done IN THE FLOW, without resistance, is the kind that is so satisfying. That’s the kind of hard work I want to do.

Pushing all the time against kids and plain old randomness in life so that I can have an orderly life and feel somewhat in control doesn’t always result in happiness. It just results in me having to push hard to keep it that way. Why not stop pushing, and get happy with things as they are?

I’m still playing with it. I’m not an expert. I say “playing with it,” because if I say, “work at it,” I contradict the very thing I’m setting out to do.

I look back at my life and see that I’m sure a lot more comfy with the chaos than I used to be.

There is a difference, I’ve found, between what I think I am supposed to be (and still would like to be sometimes) and what I am, or let’s say what my life is like.

But I’m learning that as I get happy and OK and even find things to appreciate in WHAT IS, the “what I’m supposed to be” or, better yet, what I’d like to be (or do or have) is a lot more possible.

I’m not well-practiced at it. But that’s what practice is — doing it so that one gets better and better and better and better…

Life is just practice every day, and I can choose what I want to practice. I’ve had enough of practicing resistance and frustration with everything that happens (almost) and trying to get everything around me to be what I want so that I can finally be happy. Now, I’m going to be happy first.

Why does it have to seem so hard sometimes? DUH! OK. So let’s go play!!!!!