I've been trying to meditate.
I guess I can drop the "trying", that's implicit isn't it? Meditation is not easy for anyone I know. Maybe once you've been doing it for many many years, maybe then you no longer "try" so much. So actually, leave "trying" in there, it's essential to explaining what it is I'm doing. If I'm doing anything by sitting still and listening to my breath and watching the cloud thoughts come in and out with startling frequency and intensity, it's "trying."
Sometimes I listen to recorded guided meditations but often they just piss me off. This morning's was about how with every breath, you are becoming a better and better version of yourself and you can do anything you put your mind to. I'm not sure why it annoyed me so much, but I guess, at the moment, acceptance is a more enticing concept to me than self-improvement. What I'm looking for when I meditate is that illusive quiet mind. One that doesn't ring with self-judgement. One that doesn't race and pace at times of stillness.
Can this life I'm leading, this moment I am in, this body that I have, this person that I am, be enough? Right now?
I've been trying to lose weight because I no longer comfortably fit in any of my shorts and most of my pants. I have upped my exercising, adjusted my diet, doing all the things that have worked in the past, and still the scale doesn't budge. I know that I can lose those inches, those pounds, but it's looking like it would take sacrifices I'm not willing to make. It would be like a part-time job, a major commitment of time and heart and brain space. Maybe I should accept that my aging body is just a little bigger and go buy myself some bigger pants already? Or is that a slippery slope with no end?
I have been trying to write fiction, for the first time since college. So far it has resulted only in a few terrible pages and a heaping pile of terror and self-recrimination. Maybe I should give up on the literary dreams I not-so-secretly harbor and find something else, something more reasonable, to focus on? Or am I being too easily defeated?
I've been trying to potty train my almost three year old. After a few initial successes, it's.... not happening. So now I'm trying to figure out where we can fit a cube fridge in the tiny downstairs bathroom where I spend at least half of my daylight hours.
I have been trying to figure out what I want to do with myself once the girls are in school next fall. I feel simultaneously like Everything is possible! And also I'm too old and too set in my ways and my mind is too mushy for me to ever do anything besides laundry and picking up Barbies for the rest of my life! I had a dream last night that one of my favorite mom bloggers and I were hanging out and she asked me if I "really wanted to stay home, like forever? Or did I want to work at some point doing something meaningful?" and I curled up into a fetal position and cried as she walked away from me.
Nice, dream mind. Thanks for that.
I feel like I'm at a crossroads. I am facing a summer with only scattered summer camps and activities for the girls. I need to put on my Julie McCoy, cruise director cap, my best SAHM self. I want to enjoy my girls and create joyful memories for us all. It is up to me to create the space and structures that will allow that. This is partly why I'm home with them, after all. I'm trying to rise to the challenge of an open, minimally-planned summer.
But then, after the summer is over, Z will be in First! Grade! and E will be in morning preschool five mornings a week. I will officially have more "free" time on my hands than I've had in many years.
Five bucks says I will squander that time like a pro.
I have conflicting goals when I imagine having more time on my hands. Part of me immediately focuses on our home, and all the organizing, gardening, decorating, crafting projects that I could devote myself to to make our lives, our little home, richer. The competing desire is to GET OUT. Get out of my house, get out of this little life. Get out into the world. I do have a building, conflicting, desire to work outside the home.
What I know: I want to find some part time employment eventually, once the girls are in school and need me less. I want to serve others. I want to earn some money, engage my brain, connect myself to my community.
I want to just know what the next step will be. I want something to fall into my lap and announce itself: Here I am! Your true calling! You are meant to serve love and goodness in the world by.... ! I fantasize about this because I bravely believe in things happening in their own time and can patiently wait, because I am lazy, because I am scared, because I am unsure where to start so how about I start by waiting and watching and wondering?
I am trying to accept where I am, while pushing myself, ever so gently, toward something more.
And, all the while, I am trying to meditate.
