Five Months Old

 Our baby is five months old already ~ actually she is five and a half months old. She is rolling over, saying mama, she recognizes those she loves and lights up with joy when she spots them across the room. She has had so many colds but managed to ward off the flue. She is a chubby, smiley, friendly, chatty soul that is such a bright addition to our family. When people tell me they are done having children at one or two I get it but in my mind I also think about what they may be missing. Each child is so unique, so full of energy and love and they add a dynamic to the family that is all their own. Each child holds such gifts in them that they give to the family as well. 

Pregnancy, childbirth and raising children is a mammoth accomplishment and deeply sacrifical. It is not for everyone. I often wonder what I might have been if I had not chose this path. I have found it so challenging, so incredibly hard. Yet it also has brought fullness to my life that I do not take forgranted. It has been the greatest gift for me.

In making this choice to have children all through my child bearing years ~ time tends to fly even as it may crawl. You stop to take a breath and realize that the baby who was just new born is now getting ready to crawl and has changed so dramatically in such a short amount of time. As you step even farther back for a moment you realize how full life is and how intense it is ~ you realize how quickly stages in life are gone ~ all these moments ~ so full of beauty or pain ~ that are gone but you were there ~ they are in your brain, in your memories, stored in your body. 

The type of person that I am ~ I just want to hold all these moments close, to savour them, to not waste them! I was thinking about my grandparents this week. A friend brought up the fact that my grandpa was a sasquatch expert and all these memories I had stored inside me flooded through. My sister mentioned my grandma's meatballs and once again so many memories ~ my grandparent's voices, their smell, all these memories in me ~ they came.

I have been worried that all these moments with my baby will be forgotten ~ her soft chubby kissable cheeks ~ that I wont remember how they feel. Her little voice, how her lips pout before she starts crying, how her arms lift up for me now, how she gently puts her hand on my cheek, how her eyes are light and adoration and beauty. I just adore her and my heart aches with it. I know all too well how the seasons change and I worry that I will never be able to remember these moments once this stage is done. 

My next season of life is menopause and that seems to have come really quickly you know? And so this week when I was flooded with memories of my grandparents I realized that it was okay. This season is one to continue to savour, treasure, hold close, but also I will remember ~ and it will be a gift.

I hope there are days when memories bring you deep joy and connection too. 

Love Tansy

A New Day

  Winters here where I live are dark and dreary and often this type of weather goes on for days. Seasonal depression is a real concern here. People purchase happy lights and try all sorts of different things to get through this season. I find it really hard for our family in terms of health. We are often unwell from January to March. Our house is lovely, amazing, but we are all in our living room together all the time and people start to get on each other's nerves. Pair that with sickness, dark weather and damp cold and it's not the most pleasant or cheerful environment. We are in the thick of this season right now. I am home for days on end only leaving to run a quick errand or drive someone to an activity. It wears me mentally thinner and thinner. 

  However, because of this I can't completely express to you the joy that a day full of sunshine brings! The sunshine feels like a benediction. People feel more energetic, more capable, happier, more ambitious and they realize that they are okay! That life is worth living, that it was just the weather! (cue a sigh of relief) It is not easy to go day after day wishing for sun but we do. When it comes it is such a blessing. 

  The other day the sun came out. The weather felt almost spring like. Everyone bundled up and headed outside. Snowdrops are blooming in our front yard under our Japanese Maple and Robins are back in town. The neighbor children were outside on roller blades and scooters and so everyone joined forces to expend energy. I chatted to my neighbor who I had not seen all winter. The life that I could feel pouring into me sustained me through the next few days of my baby getting quite sick and then all the rest of my children following suite. This was just weeks after everyone getting the flue one by one. 

  Life is like that. Suffering or going without has this opportunity to bring a renewed or heightened sense of gratitude.  As I journey through another winter trying to keep my head above water and trying to lead my family through the dark days I feel overwhelmed and hopeless ~ and then a sunny day comes and I am so filled with thankfulness. So onwards and upwards we go as we make it through another winter one day at a time. 

That's all :)

Tansy

Celebrations

 To be honest the weight of celebrations weigh heavy on me. I wish they didn't the way that they do. It comes from longing in me to see the person celebrated feeling so deeply loved and fulfilled ~ yet I can't make that happen in them :)

Also I know that celebrations can bring people together and help them feel connected ~ another longing in me. Yet when it is my job to create a celebration and bring it together I want to feel peace and like there is no big burden I am placing on myself. 

This celebration was really special. I felt peace about it. I also felt like I could surrender what needed to be surrendered and there was much joy for me in that. I hope there was joy for the friend being celebrated as well :)

Creativity

 We were created to create :)

It brings us life and helps bring us to our true selves. I don't often craft or do creative things with my hands but when I am given the opportunity it is such a gift! These are photos of a night created by a dear friend to make wreaths for the Christmas Season.

It was a wonderful night. I felt so blessed to be there.

Family

 You don't get to choose the family you are born into. You don't get to choose your genetics or how your parents raise you. You don't have a choice about the things you go through and how you experience them until one day things change. 

This magical day is the day you start to emotionally mature and the day you realize that you do indeed have a choice. You start to open your eyes to the world as an adult instead of a child. 

Your family is always going to be your family, and for many what a gift their family has been to them and continues to be. For others, their family has caused them so much hurt and damage it will take a life time of choosing a different path to heal. 

As I go forward into this new year my family of origin and the family I have created is on my mind.

I have six children. Six. This is a miracle if you know my life story. 

 My children are such gifts. They are now what makes up my husband's and I's family. These children are so unique, so intricate, so deeply beautiful and special. I fail them daily. It kills me. I feel sick. I just want to see them, wings spread, soaring above the filth and depravity this world tries to shroud them with, I want to see them so confident, feeling capable, with so many tools to live life well. Yet I am in such a battle to just get myself out of the mire of trauma and the lack I experienced growing up, that I can't give them all I hoped to. I realize this more and more as time goes on.

 I can't heal quickly enough. 

Our life is a constant journey. 

There is no arrival at perfection.

I hope and pray that when their eyes are open to the world as adults, and they look back on all my mistakes, that there is still hope for the future of our family. It is my heart's largest cry. It is my heart-felt prayer. 

As I go into 2024 it will be my continued focus and hope ~ to attempt to build our family unit and to attempt to continue my own healing journey. 

As you go into 2024 and have chances to explore emotional maturity, your family unit, and your gift of being here

I hope that you feel hope

I hope that you feel joy

I hope that you can choose a path full of beauty and light ~ it will always be worth it and it might never be easy.

xo

New Years Eve 2023

  Can you believe a year has gone by? On Christmas day last year I found I was expecting another baby, and this year I had an almost four month old baby by my side. It felt like I had just taken the test, and yet so much of the year had already faded from memory in a sense. 

That's just it ~ the things you are experiencing right now, at this moment, will fade, they won't always feel like they do now. This can be a comfort or a sting. 

In my life right now I am in new baby land. For me, this is fraught with deep exhaustion and an output of myself that leaves me feeling hollow, like a shadow. Add that to what I already give to the rest of my children and the way the world's issues occupy my mind and I wonder how I can keep going on like this. 

I walk into 2024 feeling empty. I also walk into 2024 feeling determined.

And so much of my life has felt that way because of my actions, my perspective, my motives ~ just me.

So what do I constantly need to be pivoting to? What truth do I need to be telling myself? What truth do you need to be telling yourself? 

Truth will set you free. There are universal truths and there truths unique to your situation I think.

Freedom is a hearts cry of so many people, of everyone?

Freedom from war, addiction, depression, abuse, anxiety, pain, sickness, trauma, the list is endless. We all need freedom and it starts with truth.

We all also need mirrors of kindness and love reflecting to us who we are and how valuable we are.

This brings life and an upwelling of full rather than empty.

So today ~ this last day of the year ~ please know

YOU are valuable, you are unique, what you offer the world is perfect and important. Your world may be very small, or it might not be ~ but no matter what you have what it takes and you are amazing. THIS is truth. Wrap your arms around yourself and let you know that this year is going to be what you make it. 

How do you want to experience yourself in 2024?

Happy New Year :)

Love Tansy