Small Mirrors

It’s midSeptember again. I’m learning to know a new group of children very different from the last class I had. They are young and readable and impressionable, so impressionable. And I’m learning, always learning; maybe even more than they are. I always feel this way in September, like I know so little of the world and of myself. 

Super Innocent eyes equates to guilty consciences. Reprimands are mostly met with an excuse, always beginning with “but: But he made me do it,” or “but you never told me..” And when I demand a dollar because a little child talks out loud, the child inevitably turns angry. That’s what I’ve learned. I’m not trained to read people, but I learn on the job. And what I see kinda scares me. I see me. 

Identify Theft

Life is one big thief, always scheming about how to steal my identity. I turn around for a minute, and, when I look back, Can’t find the person I was yesterday. I breathe a deep breath. When the carbon dioxide explodes out of me, Who I Am goes along with it. 3 words in as many seconds change me irrevocably. Today everything I touch falls apart beneath my fingers; yesterday I felt like a master at fixing what other people broke. The Past stole my ability to comfort. Now is making me the one who needs comfort. Thinking I’m happy and secure and have a lot of faith leaves me susceptible to the hailstorm of paranoia that appears out of nowhere. 

I don’t like not knowing who I am. I don’t like being unable to predict how the things that happen to me will change me. My Identity needs to remain molten, fluid becoz, When I let it solidify, like lava turning to rock when the volcano finally stops erupting, it’s hard to let go of or hold on to anything. I’m just me. And I’m not in any position to change and grow. I don’t like accepting things, especially things like change, like growing, like needing to be an extension cord. A malleable, moveable, user friendly extension cord. 

Maybe this is all a tug of war between me and reality. Life happens. And it’s meant to change me. I might have to give in and let it. 

At least the sunset is the same every day, even if I’m not. 

What Does You Good?

What does me good?

Uninterrupted hours with my husband

Outside Air

Children to love

Tears, sometimes 

The often daily Post school-day shouted “Mrs. T****!” running to meet me, hi-5s and short chats from 2 precious small neighbour girlies who remind me of a different duo of small girlies I used to know ❤️💔

Cooking 

Letting go of thoughts and fears and ideas that try to control me 

10 minutes alone to relax and regroup after a busy school day 

Cleaning my house. meh who knew turning chaos into pristine was therapeutic

A quick prayer before diving into my day, a conversation, a worry

Not having the answer

Taking a moment to watch the sun set or say hello to the moon at night 

Silence 

What does you good? This slightly sarcastic question, hurled back in my face after I posed it to a friend, inspired a meandering thot pattern. What does me good? These are  things that do me good. I don’t have or do all of them every day but mostly they’re all within my reach every day. And when I do, they do me good. Maybe I should do them more. Maybe I’d be a happier, better person. What does you good? Do that. (SW)

Sunsets, Snowdrifts, Memories

So many things remind me of the Tiny Girls I’m no longer allowed to know. Yesterday it was the sunset. It reminded me of a time several years ago when I became obsessed with the span of vivid gorgeousness across the sky every night and made it my mission to take one moment every evening to appreciate it. S would often join me in my quiet moment of reverie on the front porch where the view was best and sometimes she’d even remind me to stop and peek at the sunset when I had forgotten. So when I looked at the sunset last night S came to my mind and sudden tears I didn’t know existed fell from my eyes. 

Today it’s a range of snow drift hills that make me think of her again. Two winters ago, while I was home for a few days in the middle of winter, I spent some time outside with her. Walking, climbing  tirelessly along hard packed snow drifts ranges, we pretended we were mountain climbers scaling sheer, difficult cliffs, giving each other a hand when we needed it, shouting encouragements, and pulling ourselves onto precarious ledges. That hour spent with her, imagining and playing like the child she was and I had once been  is one of my happy happy memories, and, perhaps, created one final lingering moment of my own childhood.

It’s the moments I think are gone forever that are really still happening. Only this time they’re not reality. They’re memory. But one thing I’ve learned from losing my precious sisters is that a memory, though not a current reality, is alive in the every day things that trigger it.