blogland

sometimes i have so much in my head that i become paralyzed and i shut down. i felt that way last night. extremely. after the kids and husband went to bed i veg'd out in the dark, on the sofa, alone, and went to "happy blogland". a place where one can read about others lives and look at the blogs so much that at some point you actually think you know the person. pathetic! i usually just click on a very small number of blogs. i'm really not a stalker. and... i only go to these blogs to check out the photography. really. i don't have time to read about others lives and get sucked into this whole blogging obsession. yes i have my own blog. but i don't post on it daily. its something i have to force myself to do, but i still enjoy it. i feel its a place i can go to express myself when i feel like it. rarely do i have time these days. i am full to the brim with life. blogging is very last on my list. i don't like comments cuz i don't want to be checking in on who's keeping up and thinking about feedback. i just don't care. it's an open journal, so to speak. i haven't always thought this way. whatever. none-the-less i have one. i like it. and i like how its a forum for sharing creativity in the form of written expression, photograpy, recipe sharing, reaching out, and other crap.

so last night i wanted to escape life just for a little while. i started by going to this one photographers blog. she had a post that caught my attention. i clicked on the link she had for this gal she posted about. and i was humbled. i think i spent an hour reading it and i fell asleep on the couch doing so. her post was about this young mom of 2 little ones who's husband just died of cancer mid february. sometimes when we think we are overwhelmed and stressed, we can quickly be put in our place and face the obvious - that it can always be worse. i always tell myself this. for me it works. there is a time and place for "hard" and "trying times" and if we always think it could always be worse then we may miss out on the sinking truth that we need to face hard sometimes, absorb it, learn from it, and move forward. power thru. with that being said i also think its o.k. to break down, lose it, have an anxiety attack (or 2), and live in that moment of despair. taking it all in and letting it all out in a good cry. feeling pain is good. it makes you feel human. it reminds you that your heart is working and that you have one.

so i woke up this morning feeling way overwhelmed. way. february was a trying month, it was. i haven't hiked for 2 weeks. i literally haven't had time. i've been going in so many directions - all the while my head spins around and around like the gal on the exorcist! when i got up today and felt weighed down and unable to cope, i knew i needed to escape and hike. i dropped the gremlins off at school, took a deep breath, and drove to the foothills. i didn't care what a mess the house was. it's been a mess all week and will be waiting for me no matter what. yesterday i said to myself that 2 things are a given in life - dirty dishes and dirty laundry. forever.

i lathered my face with sunscreen and began my 3 mile hike up hill. as soon as i hit the pavement...i feel myself escape my life, the reality of repition, the noise of the city. i leave ALL of it behind - in the car - and i again take a deep breath and i smell the beautiful smell of nature and i feel soooo happy. it's a high for me. it's my therapy. today i really needed therapy. really.
i thrive on going alone. it's nice to have a partner every now and again but today i needed solace. i needed time to be with myself, center, gather peace, feel clarity (some of you may recognize these words!!!! they are from i song i LOVE by fergie!) anyway...i just needed to be alone. as i followed the trail i began to let go and think and think and think and think. so many questions. i had to be somewhere where i could declutter my head. going up this trail is hard. it's steep. and, i realized that as i hike up i also think about ALL the hard things going on in my life. maybe it's how i power thru the hard and steep turns and points cuz i get my adrenalin going and pumping and i don't stop. i go deeper and deeper into my head and i get out all my thoughts, frustrations, worries, concerns, stresses, confusion, doubt, pain, and ill feelings.

today i prayed as i went up. i told God certain things and i asked certain things. it was a lot of "i don't know what to do anymore". sometimes i feel i have nothing left to give. i run out of ideas and inspiration. i looked up and saw a bush. on it were blooming yellow blossoms. they were familiar to me. then i realized just what they were and i stopped and sighed and held my heart and began to cry. years ago when lauren was a baby and i was feeling overwhelmed, my mother in law came to visit me with my niece. on her road trip she made a pit stop on the side of the road and she and nicole picked a huge bouquet of these wild flowers for me and gave them to me when they got to our home. they have and unbelievable scent. i never forgot that kind act. so when i saw that flower i had to stop dead in my tracks and think of mom. and her compassion and that day she brought me flowers. and i cried. and cried. and cried. boy do i miss her. i had to ask God, one more time, why she had to go so early. why her. why then. and i said, "i really need her right now!" He knows why. i couldn't get over it. i thought about what she meant to me. i realized that this is march and in a couple of weeks it will be her 5 year death anniversary. i couldn't believe it. 5 yrs already. i miss her just as much as i did 5 yrs ago. i thought about how some women marry and inherit a "monster-in-law". but not me. i inherited a "mother-in-law" and boy was she something! i had to laugh at myself for being so funny - monster-in-law. i crack myself up. a man passed me as he was going down and said hi and i said hi back with my head down and in a weeping voice. he turned around and asked me if i was o.k. and i said ya, but i thought wow,what a nice guy. i held on to a stem that i had broken off of the bush and smelled it the whole way up. it was my therapy. i breathed it in so much that i thought that my breath's out had the same scent as the flower.

going up was hard, physically, mentally, and emotionally. but i reached the top and it felt good. coming down i was in a completely different place, in my head. i had let it all out. i was still in deep thought. my problems hadn't disappeard or gone away. i still had to face reality at the bottom of the mountain but at least i had let go of some of the emotion that was weighing me down.

it ended up being a good day. i actually wound up with a killer headache but nothing some good ol' excedrin couldn't fix. i did do those dishes and even folded all the 7 loads of laundry. i had 5 teenagers at the house and i made a bon fire in the back all by myself. i sang to taylor swift REALLY loud in the car, all alone, and took the boys for ice cream. i even had some!

life is never as bad as it seems. nothing a phone call from a good friend can't cure, or at least attempt to cure. i value my healthy husband and children and family. i embrace our chaos, craziness and i am trying to acquire better coping skills. i hope one day i can look back and just laugh. it may not be tomorrow but it just might be - if we catch a good one on netflix.

the end.