Why is being present so hard?

So occupied by debris I am polluted. Pure life drowned and diluted. I relive my moments, at least the conscious ones, over and over. I study them plotting similarities in the diagram. That is who I am. That person, in that moment there is a connectedness to another existence. The most tangible moments are thick with smells and sounds. They are the ones I am most bound to but they are so obliviously not memories from this l life. And yet they are the most real. Surreal.

This sounds crazy even to me. I am aware that even you can not see. There is something so haunting within the rouge sunset. It taunts me with the knowledge that another day has reset. So I learn the new lesson and count every blessing and work through the map of my own creation. Looking for the key to shut down my mind, if you don't  mind...but again I fall behind.

Does everyone think like this?

Most of the time it feels contrived and pessimistic. My life, that is and therefore my words. I don’t feel lost truly; lately I don’t feel much at all. It’s not a bad thing. There brews a disconcerted soul beneath my socially enforced facade. So easy to read are the strangers on the street, their depths a mystery to them are so clear to me. Yet here I stand puzzled at how my own pieces fall together. Knowing with such certainty that they are part of a greater picture I may never know. Breeding so much uneasiness. I read a valuable sentence that implies our strengths are not those things at which you are good at, but in fact they are the moments of pure happiness you experience throughout your life. So even if you are great at that 9-5 job and everyone tells you so, if it sickens you to do it day in and day out it is in effect weakening you. Which means the most effortless and minuscule instant of shear joy is your strength. But how do I pay the bills with that?

           

I mean its great. It clears up a lot for me. But then I search my mind for those heart filled moments and they are random and hard to interpret. I wonder how much damage those who tried so desperately to guide me have done. In turn how much am I doing to my children? So full is my life. With love and luck and happiness. And so quietly nagging is this internal voice. You need your voice and that is what I hope to leave my children with. You need to hear it. I have a degree in avoidance I think.

If all I know is I got this life. Yet it slowly sweeps by with a silence that is deafening. Then what I know is I let myself down. In the grand scheme it all seems superfluous. Gosh that word is pretentious. I hate that word. I am adding it to the rainbows and unicorns list. Stupid is a better word. Death scares me. Does it you? I guess regret scares me most and death kinda solidifies the moment at which may look back in regret.

Does everyone think like this? I feel like a pathetic self-absorbed artist. Minus the self-esteem to even call myself an artist.  Who would read this shit? I mean I am depressing myself. I don’t mean to be depressing. I guess I just need to be, somewhere. It’s out there. And I breathe. In my comfy chair with my healthy kids sleeping with full bellies as my wonderfully supportive husband works so I may live by the beach in Canada. I apologize. To come full circle in shame, I ask the universe to conspire towards those who really need it tonight. Those who really need it right now.

We're not in Canada anymore...

A family heads across the border in search of grocery deals and visual adventure, they are unaware of what they are about to encounter…

Being bona fide veterans at the border cross and having found gas as low as 93 cents a Litre…it is time to get down to brass tacks. First stop U.S. Wal-Mart. Rolling into the parking lot we assume our navigation will be seamless. However it is immediately evident that this is no mere doppelganger of that place everyone goes to and no one admits frequenting.

Sporty, we’re not in Canada anymore.

As we routinely pluck the children from their car seats we are jarred by the burly screams of obscenities the likes of which I have only witnessed in the movies. It seems as though one large boisterous gentlemen is not too keen on waiting for an equally large rather intimidating looking gentlemen to back away from the parking spot. The two share an animated one fingered wave, their monstrous arms swinging cartoon-like from their vehicles. At first I feel like I am watching Wall-e trumped quickly by the encroaching theme of twilight zone. As we enter the building, a term I choose carefully as this is clearly not a store, I resist the urge to grab the kids and run. We are reassured that the store is under renovations but it still feels like we may be punked at any moment.

As we quickly find some deals we think may be worth risking our lives for we patiently wait in line to pay. The boy behind me continually shoots a fake gun an inch from my head for what fells like an hour. Isn’t this a scene out of 28 days or Natural Born Killers or something. Am I making this up? Everything seems a bit off here. The people are different. It’s ummm like the Matrix and I am the only one who knows that this reality isn’t real. We leave with a more tarnished view of our neighbors and some damn good deals. But I can’t say I will return to the make shift Walmart …if it was ever really there. Du na du na du na du na…Fade to black. 

Drawing attention inconspicuously.

Pulling up to the border crossing I begin to fell anxious. Not really a surprise as in most situations I tend to exhibit a very Type A personality. I take this time to explain to the children that we are about to go through a very important crossway and that I will be turning off their movie so daddy can speak with the officer. I go on to explain that I will not tolerate any misbehavior from this point on.

It’s hot out. Last year the van decided it would let us know when and if it wanted to provide us we heat and now it would seem to be the same for air conditioning. The line up is not long and I am silently excited for my first official drive across the border but first I am anxious. We roll the windows down to get that ocean breeze going through the vehicle. The kids are quietly observing the scene as I have made it into a bigger deal than it is and they seem to note my fears. I have nothing to hide mind you, I just tend to act weird when I need to be cool.

All at once my husband turns to me and says “what is that” and he brushes the side of his leg two times. Half way through the second swipe it becomes terrifyingly obvious that “it” is a wasp. A short version of the back storey here is that my husband hates all stinging bugs and on most occasions would throw his grandmother in front of a bus to avoid one. I am not exaggerating. He literally jumped out of a moving truck to leave me buckled in the passenger seat with a bee. Instantaneous chaos in sues and milliseconds become minutes. Freeing the beast from his leg does not provide any relief and with a high pitch man squeal he continues to pummel the beast with his sneaker into the rubber floor mat.

Halfway through his triad when I am assured that he is out of harms way I look up in horror to see the Suburban ahead of us backing up! Milliseconds later I realize my husbands weapon of choice is his pedal foot and we are actually rolling forward. I say “stop”…”stop”…then yell ”stop, stop, stop” and I have a remarkable amount of time to assess that he is not grasping the immediate danger and I Scream “Break, hit the BREAK”. AND he does, just 2 centimeters before running into our second unsuspecting victim. When all is done we laugh, looking to our side I notice the man in the red truck laughing too. We carefully see if we have peaked the curiosity of any of the guards with our event. And everything is back to normal.

My son begins to cry in the back seat. Saying “ your yelling hurt my heart”. And “ be quiet or daddy will be arrested.” He is seriously confused and upset and the more I laugh the angrier he gets with me.  It is our turn. I shut off the videos and we serve our passports with shit eating grins. Having just commited a murder (albeit of a bug) we look guilty as sin. My son who is totally traumatized continues to weep as my three year old mimicks his gasps. Just another day in the life. Who knew when they said "join the circus" that they just mean have kids. 

Define working mom?

Apparently "working mom" translates as "woman who no longer has the right to wash her hair" and comes from the Latin phrase "guilt ridden absentee mother.” Actually ALL MOMS WORK. Technically when you "work" on top of parenting it's more like having a second job but the first job does not have a flexible schedule and your bosses walk in every second for a water refill or an intervention. There may be less guilt if I was actually making some money but in true martyr form I have found another way to do someone else a favor at my own expense. But the buck stops here…or shall I say starts here. No more deals. After September first I am charging what I am worth and there is a good chance you can not afford me. I have stuff to do, like sleep and not wash my hair…but blog, hold tight I will be back to share more cross border adventures.  And by cross border I mean driving across the border to get cheaper gas. 

Sign for the Gypsy.

Squeezing in a quick trip to the mountains we began to feel comfortable with our position. At least enough to plan for the future..to dream. How long will we stay here? What's our next move? When will make it?We are beginning to feel as though we have our footing and again we are talking about our heading. The stress has dissipated and I think finally we are stable enough to enjoy this for a while. There is no better situation right now and although I dread another grey winter I want to enjoy it this year. And as we discuss our options I quietly wonder, "where will we end up." And as I wonder I snap pictures of our venture. When we arrive home I closely inspect of my photos and stumble on this. I get it. . . I saw the "sign" universe. You opened up my eyes and I saw the sign. Very funny but thank you for confirming my desires. 

Design Technology growth can be measured like dog years

I am working on learning about the new CSS stuff. Just getting an expanding image in the background of my blog is a challange at this point. Catching up 5 years of no web is like missing 35 years in the design world.

My passport leads to heaven.

So I finally got organized enough to pursue passports for the entire clan. They arrived at the start of our camping vacation and were quickly forgotten amongst the smored and smoky nights. Upon our return we noticed them moving around the house for days between the laundry and mayhem. Today on a whim we decided to dip across the border and see if there was anything on the other side.

Now we had been told about the gas prices so we knew immediately there would be some benefit to our venture. I was not overly taken aback with discounts in the mall but our server at “Red Robin” suggested we take the extra five minutes to discover Bellingham City Centre. And let’s just say the extra tip we left him was worth the advice. Bellingham is this amazing little city just a bunny hop from our doorstep. It has culture and character galore with trendy little shops, restored industrial buildings and amazing little homes with wicked views of my town!

It was the surprise of the summer and we were so excited to know we were only another 40 mins to Seattle.

I have to apologize to B.C. The move here was against our will and I blamed much of my situation on the province. In all actuality I am in debt to this place for giving us an opportunity when others were taking them away. I have been bitter because if I was going to uproot and disturb my life one last time I wanted to be heading in the opposite direction. But here I am 24 mons in and only just seeing all the benefits of life here. I am not going to sing all the praises of this place. We are not completely simpatico but in all fairness what two things are these days.

Despite all the sunshine I am swigging today I must admit I have relapsed a bit in the taking care of me department. I guess when I adopted the vacation state of mind I also vacated my eating and exercise regime. Not that you care but I figure if I write it and pretend to have a captive audience I will reverse psychology myself into being accountable. Anyway, going to eat some crap, feel bad about it and ‘rance’ my ass off tomorrow.

So I guess since I got my passport it’s been all about the vacation. From routine, monotony, diet and exercise. So it now symbolizes my fresh state of mind from here on and who knows where it could lead. Today it lead me to a secret little heaven. Tomorrow maybe in the other direction? Goodnight gremlins.

What does it mean?

So I am trying to decipher what this all means. Why do I come here to write and who cares? Why would you care? It’s a weird thing to think out your life in cyber space. I feel wildly uninhibited due mainly to my self-assurance that you are not there... the reader. Then I wonder what purpose this serves if it is not, as I assume, entertaining anyone. Is this strictly my personal therapy? If it is should I feel better after I write in it? I don’t know. And then it occurs to me that it may be too personal, at least for me to attach a business name to it. I find myself judging because I am not bringing anything of interest to you. There is pressure to teach you something or at least give you something to ponder or marvel upon. Surely projecting a positive attitude to help lift your mood is in order. But truth be told I am done doing things for you, or anyone else for that matter (no offence). This little tidbit of unburdened obligation is for me. I do it because I want to, like dancing as if no one is watching. With reckless abandon I reflect on nothing but the mood of this moment for me. I am sorry, I will not apologize, oh wait I just did...how totally Canadian.