The Turning of a Tide?

 Today was a glorious day.

The Autumn skies here are a kind of blue that make you feel like all the mundane tasks that may feel unendurable are fine. The brilliant scarlet of the blueberry bushes across the field are a beacon. The mountains look refreshed. The air is crisp in the mornings...... and today someone new came over to my house!!!

That may sound crazy. 

Here is the back story.

I am shy. 

I have homeschooled my children for many years. I do not make friends easily which as I have aged has come as a shock and also caused me grief. Growing up I thought that I DID make friends easily and I thought I was a good friend. As time has gone on I have realized this is not necessarily true and I have not known how to rectify it. It has caused a lot of insecurity for me and a lot of rejection. When my older children were younger my own friends, whom I had had since grade school or my late teens, had children they could be friends with. That worked out well and as time went on some of my children made friends of their own as well. However my friends all finished having babies or moved away, and my three youngest children have not been able to find friends they could see with any regularity. I have also been worn down with needy babies that change into needy toddlers and then needy children. I have become so boring and so simple and so isolated! 

I would assume most people could not relate to this? I am not sure. However, all that I have tried in meeting new people and making friends, has not worked.

My seven year old especially does not have a true friend that lives in our town. She has been so lonely and has cried so many tears as have I!! I just wanted her to be able to have a friend to call. I wanted her to be able to play with someone close to her age!

I enrolled her in a little school on Mondays put on by another homeschooling mom hoping that somehow she would find a friend and she did!!! AND today that friend and her mom was willing to come over to our house!!!!!! This is MONUMENTAL! Our house was chaotic as usual. There were two toddlers, a newborn, myself and my oldest daughter, plus my seven year old and twelve year old....however this mom and her two daughters managed it all with grace. It was a breakthrough and I am so thankful.

I hope that this friendship can continue and bring both girls joy. I hope it also breaks whatever this has been over me and my children and new friends can be made. 

Not Alone In the Dark

 Maybe right now you are sitting in the midst of a situation that has absolutely shattered you.

Maybe right now you are feeling deeply alone.

Maybe right now you are desperately sick.

Maybe right now you are in a relationship that has slowly and surely drained all the goodness from you.

Maybe right now you are in a desperate financial situation.

Maybe right now you are exhausted, empty, confused, abandoned.

The list of pain and hurt and woundedness in this world is endless. Each person's pain and grief, trauma and hardship, is their own and it is unique to them.

Is what I want to say to you

If you are feeling like this is just too much, to hard, to dark, to deep, to desperate,

Is that 

yes it is

and also 

it is what it is

You as a human being are stronger than you think you are, AND you are not alone. First of all there is Jesus who loves you unconditionally and who sees you where you are and who hears your cries.

Second of all we are all human and we all hold pain and suffering, you are not an island alone even though it may feel that way, you are not lost, others are out there and they are in pain and suffering as well. We collectively suffer and there is power in that. 

Your pain and suffering, your grief and despair they matter. Your pain is valid. It is important.

You right now in Mexico, in Russia, in Singapore, YOU out there in this vast, beautiful, heartbreaking world, you matter greatly.

I wish the world was not so broken, I wish things were so different. However, here we all are.

We have choices even if they are very limited, in how we think, how we respond, how we grieve, how we forgive, and how we moved forward.

May you go from strength to strength. Is what I mean by that is, even in extreme duress and weakness may you feel a strength rise in you that you know is not your own. When you are exhausted from crying, shaking from trauma, may something/someone bring you comfort, hope, some peace.

You are so valuable, so beautiful, so worthy, so strong.

Don't lose sight of that.

Let this pain, however it can, move through you, let it move you forward towards healing. Reach out to those around you. Comment to me. Know that you are important and your pain matters.

xoxoxoxoxo

Simple Wonders (part two)

  I have a nineteen year old son that has been going through some challenges. This has been a hard process for our family and for me. The anguish of heart and soul has been excruciating. The other day he asked me if we could spend some time together. I was hopeful that our time together could meaningful and that it would bring us both joy. I am in a season of needing to drive children all over the place at all times of day or night and so we were able to fit some time in together in the early evening. We decided to go for walk up on a mountain at a place I love to go. He wore a different type of outfit than he usually does which included his great grandfathers jean jacket. He is much taller than myself and as we drove up to the spot to start walking the sun was setting. The air had a chill in it and as we headed out an elderly gentleman was jogging up a steep hill and his wife was biking. They asked us if we were new neighbours and that was so kind. We walked past a field of sheep with long tails, trees blazed in glory all around us with crimson and yellow leaves, new owners had filled a large field with cows and a dog came and barked at the fence to tell us this territory was guarded. We chatted about little things and then he told me that this walk was a core childhood memory for him. That meant a lot to me because it was a place we would come as a family and walk and we were happy there. 

  Our time together was so lovely. The sunset was magnificent and soul nourishing. We both felt at peace, and also winded from the hill climbing. We talked about safe and neutral, happy, topics. It was such a gift to me. I don't know how this season will end for my son. Will he come out more mature and well rounded with empathy and understanding for those suffering? I hope that he will. I hope he will give himself that chance. For now, these moments I get with him, that remind me of a different time, my sweet son, who loved to run and laugh on that road, but now walked beside me, in his great grandfather's coat looking so much like him, and so grown and changed, these moments mean so much. I am thankful. 

 So just a simple walk in nature with my son but such a precious moment to treasure.

My you create such a moment for yourself xo

Simple Wonders

 The other day I bought my children a milkshake and saw that this particular place I like to buy milkshakes from had a new pumpkin flavour. I have not had anything pumpkin this year because we didn't have a Thanksgiving meal and because I have celiac disease and so I can't eat a regular pumpkin pie anyway. I couldn't stop thinking about that milkshake. It was gluten free and I love milkshakes and I really like pumpkin. The other day my sister ended up buying one for me! It was everything, EVERYTHING, I had hoped for in a milkshake. The pumpkin was real, the spice combination perfect, and it was so delicious and so satisfying it made me deeply happy.

So happy!!

I felt giddy actually. When you have limitation like celiac disease, you have an opportunity to take less forgranted. For years I could savour massive slices of pumpkin pie with whip cream or ice cream and oh I did. Now even if I bought a pumpkin pie it would not taste the same as the crust would not be quite what I remember. 

I actually felt a bit embarrassed at how happy a milkshake made me. My life is pretty simple and that gift from my sister, and the amazing flavour and deliciousness, and my reaction, made me realize how simple it really is. Often that can feel monotonous or lame but it has gifts like milkshakes too.

I thought maybe if you read this, even if your life is full and varied, you might take the opportunity to be on the lookout for something that might absolutely thrill you to the core. Something simple, sweet, and normal ~ something like a milkshake, but something that fills you with so much joy you can savour it for a long time.

Today I took my son to buy one so he could try it. Most of my family does not like pumpkin flavour but he does. And he loved it too. Once again, my heart was so happy :)

So thanks to this fast food restaurant for making a milkshake that has added a lot of joy to these mid October weeks.

Thanks so much :)

Happiness is Not the Goal?

 I had a counselling session the other day and it was one that really struck me.

I have been in counselling very regularly for eight years. This past summer I have not been able to afford both my son's and my counselling sessions, and so I have not had any, and I have missed it more than I thought I would.

Counselling for me is a bit like a light house. Every time I have counselling I feel like I have been lost at sea and counselling is that light that guides me back home to myself. 

This session happened because my son ended up not being able to take the session at the last possible minute. 

I had expressed the wish that I have to feel happier. I asked this very immature feeling question about when it would happen. I felt like a little child asking it. Like, when would I have worked hard enough that I am just going to feel happier? Her response hit deeeeeply. 

She said that the goal in life is not to feel happy all the time. 

Now, being a church goer has really caused a lot of confusion for me in regards to joy and feeling happy all the time. There tends to be a lot of toxic positivity present in church. It is preached that if I just follow x,y, and z ~ some magic protocol ~ then I will be happier. If it doesn't work, well, there is something wrong with me.

Toxic positivity

It felt amazing naming that and starting to shed a bit of that burden off my shoulders.

No, this is the goal for someone who is healthy, emotionally mature, and aware of who they are, and their strengths and weaknesses. The goal is to be able to sit with pain and big negative emotions. 

See, joy and happiness, wonder and creativity are always present. Well, so is pain and trauma etc. If we have a way to sit with the pain and to process it, that is the key to unlocking many other doors.

People like myself who have a very hard time facing the deep reality of how bad the pain is, how chronic it is, how toxic it is, they form addictions. For me it is a screen and sugar. For others it is smoking or vaping or drinking, for others it is porn or something totally different. 

If we don't learn how to adapt, tolerate and learn from pain we build a way to AVOID it. This is where addictions come in. Sadly, addiction becomes both a jailor and a saviour. Addiction causes this even bigger void that we are frantically trying to fill. 

If we can honour and accept that we are flawed, that we are broken, and face the futility of what we can't do; we can ALSO in the same breath hold faith for what we can do.

Maybe this will hit you like it hit me.

It is okay to feel bad, sad, grieved, etc.

It is okay

And you can find tools to sit in those emotions because they do not last forever. They will not stay. You can be crying about something and then laugh through your tears at something else.

See joy is also present, peace is also present, love is also present. They all co exist together right alongside the pain. Trying to shove pain out of the pictures often means that joy will also be shoved out.

I am guilty of this. 

If the focus could be on connection, on my worthiness and others worthiness ~ If my focus could be on regulating my fear and walking with a looser stride. Fear tends to bring about the need to control. I am the queen of control, oh please let me become the queen of capacity to hold my pain in tender hands. 

In the last little while I have cradled my new born granddaughter with the most tender gentle hands. May I somehow, someway, be able to cradle my pain in this way. 

May this capacity create pathways to powerful change in my life. 

May it do the same for yours

xo

Tansy

Fall Fair Fail

 We tried to go to the fall fair this year. We go every year. We have only missed very few years as a family. Everyone was excited to go and the weather looked promising. We did go. It honestly was one of the worst years ever. It sort of broke everyone's hearts in different ways. We all just wanted to feel together and happy and to enjoy it and it was the opposite. 

It is hard when things like this happen. We don't do a lot of 'special' family things together. There are not a lot of planned family things except birthdays. We don't go camping or on holidays together. I wish this wasn't the case but my husband is just not that kind of person and I have not prioritized it either. 

I have these wishes of what our family culture would be. I have been thinking more about it lately. I observe healthier families out there. There are celebrations with good food and extended family. There are family trips. There are individualized times with parents for each child. There are so many things that are done in healthy families that I so wish happened in my family. Sadly I have not been able to implement them. It seems ridiculous that I am still so incapable as I have been a parent for over twenty years. 

I know it was just the fall fair. However the way it went felt a bit symbolic for how this year has gone.

I think about myself as a grandparent and as a mother and my shoulders sink. I want to be intentional and creative and fun and sweet. I want to be a safe space and for my house to be one that people WANT to come to. This is so far from reality in some respects.

My grandma had juice and homemade scones and cookies ready every time we went there. She had frozen yogurt and a hill to roll down. She had homemade preserves, a flower garden and a vegetable garden. She had fall leaves to scuff through and a clean house. She had a sewing room and lipstick to try on. She had dolls to sew and fall leaf crafts to wonder over. She had delicious dinners and live music concerts to take us to. She had so much she gave me. I want to be capable to giving these gifts to my grandchildren. 

Sometimes who I actually am just slaps me across the face and I fall over from the shock and grief of how far away I am from who I want to be. 

The fall fair has often been a triumph and it is something I have so deeply treasured. 

I am thankful for that. Next year I hope we can try again with more positive results. 

As always I know truth. 

The truth is I can work harder to create the family culture I wish for. I can be the grandmother I desire to be. I have each day to start afresh.

However the other truth is that I often struggle and am often exhausted from the weight of what I carry. I am thankful that I have tools to acknowledge the weight and choose to put some of aside. I can also acknowledge that I have young children and don't sleep much. 

I am so thankful for all the fall fairs our family has attended and loved. I am so thankful for all the memories of rapt faces, the joy of winning prizes for crafts and baking, of seeing my grandparents there for the last time, for the times my own mother came or when my sister and her family come, the shrieks of glee on the rides and the sweetness of all the animals being shown by the 4H kids. 

There have been such great times there and it has meant something. 

Onwards we go

xo

Tansy

Your Value and Purpose

 I don't know what would draw you to this blog but lately there has been a lot of people all over the world that have been coming here. I wanted to write out something that has impacted my life more than anything ever. 

Every human being  (you) has value and purpose. Through my life time I have felt very small, insignificant, unworthy, unloved, forgotten and I have wished that somehow my life could feel grand, or important or that I could somehow make a difference.

In writing this blog I have a chance for the words I write to be read by people all over the world and for the pictures I take also to be shared.

Something that has been a constant in my life from my earliest memories is this belief that there is a creator that brought me here. I have felt like I have these gifting and longings in life for a reason. I am a highly sensitive person who feels everything beyond deeply. As a child I wished to able to move to a country that had orphanages (my country does not have these), and to be able to work in an orphanage, and love on children who had no parents. Instead I adopted a child out of the foster care system as my first child and have spent the rest of my twenties, thirties and now forties having children and serving them.

I am at home most of the time cleaning up after them teaching them and cooking for them.

I lead such an insignificant life.

However because I believe that I was created for a purpose and that I have a creator that loves me, this has helped me during the darkest hardest times. It has been a steadfast constant for me. I grew up with extended family that scorned the concept of a creator and a God. I had many conversations with my grandpa about the ridiculousness of this concept and how inconceivable it all is.

However, I have to say that as my life has gone forward, and as there have been many heartaches and hard roads to walk down, I have prayed for signs from God and have received them. I have received fulfilled promises from God, and I have been overwhelmed and comforted by the beauty of this world that shows such mastery and artistry. 

I wanted to say to those reading this

That this is the essence, the core, of me.

I believe it with all my soul, my heart, my being.

There are certain aspects to being a Christian that has made my life extremely hard and complicated, but that has had nothing to do with God, but with controlling men, hungry for power and the messages they have shared that other men hungry for the same have embraced. That has been hard to separate, God and man, and the truth. However more and more I feel a sense of freedom in throwing away the stupidity of some of these taught messages that I heard all my life. 

I just wanted to write that out 

I believe you are a beautiful, unique, precious, soul

A being that has been filled with your own gifts and abilities that you can use to bless the world.

I also believe you are loved by God and that Heaven would be a great place to choose to spend eternity. I also believe that you can't lose by letting God know you would like a sign that He loves you and has purpose for you. You can't lose by being open to His love. Maybe it is worth a try :) It has been for me.

xo