My Mother, My Friend.

I keep reading these articles and blogs and books and such that say "You are not your child's friend. You are their parent. You can love them unconditionally, you can support and encourage them, you can laugh and play with them, but you are not their friend." and I think... wow. My Mom sure did it wrong.

Now, obviously I'm being a bit sarcastic here. My mother has always been my mother... and while I certainly wasn't your typical teenager (I left the screaming and such to my younger sisters) I certainly had my teenage moments... but having lived at home throughout school, and even university, and now I'm grown and have kiddos of my own, I can honestly say that I am proud to call her both my Mom and my friend.

We do a lot together. We dance together in our church's liturgical dance group, we chat regularly, drop by each other's houses, drink tea, email practically daily... she is definitely my Mom. There are times in all of our lives when we just need to talk to our mothers... but she is also definitely my friend.

She taught me to be strong, and she supports me when I'm not. She taught me to be confident, and she built me up so that I could be. She taught me to laugh at myself, by never being afraid to show her silly, goofy side. She taught me to try new things, because you never know what your next passion might be. She taught me the value of good food, good friends, family and that time is the most precious gift you can give anyone.

She has also helped me through this dark time this past year, by not being afraid to share her own journey through the darkness of depression and loss. She is a powerfully vulnerable, beautifully confident, and an amazingly wonderful woman. My mother, my friend.

Happy Mother's Day Mama. Thank you for being the mother I'm striving to be.

Emotional rollercoaster

So, when I was young, we did a youth musical at our church (actually, we did a bunch of them, but this one sticks out right now) and one had a song that went like this "This rollercoaster ride of life, lifts you up and lets you down. This rollercoaster ride of life, spins you round and round and round. Heaven knows, wherever you go, He will be there by your side. On this rollercoaster ride, of life."

Now, obviously, as teens,  we all totally related to this. I mean, when in your life are your more on an emotional rollercoaster than when you're a teenager. But this past year has been as much of an emotional rollercoaster as any time in my life.

Right now, I'm in the process of switching to a new medication. Fun, wow - right? ugh.

Let's Talk, Shall we?

For Canadians - today is one day a year that we all know what the phrase "Let's Talk" is about. Bell, the phone company, has decided that on February 12 they will be donating money towards mental health awareness, research and care for every text or long distance call sent on their network, as well as every tweet with the hashtag #BellLetsTalk. It's the one day of the year that I'm sorry I'm not with Bell as my cell provider because I'd be texting the HE-double hockey sticks out of their network today.

I've heard over and over again that the #1 lie everyone tells is this: "I'm fine." and I honestly believe that's true. So often we smile, lie and move on because we either don't believe that anyone else wants to know our issues or problems, or that they don't really care. Maybe that's true in some cases, but let's stop lying to each other and especially to ourselves.

...And I'm blessed

It's the 10th. 

That was the first thing in my mind this morning when I woke up. My internal clock seems to have an alarm set on the 10th of the month these days. 3 months ago on the 10th of June I had a fairly great day; a special worship service at the church, a bridal shower... and then - as you well know - my whole life fell apart right before my eyes. At least - that's how it felt.

And the 6 weeks of physical healing that followed were hard. There's no other word. They were hard. And the many many more weeks/months/years(?) I'm looking at for emotional healing... well, I don't expect them to be easy either.

But I'm trying. I'm trying to heal and grow at the same time. And you know what? It's hard.

Now - I've never been one to shy away from the hard stuff. In fact - some people (perhaps people who don't like me very much) would even go so far as to call me 'hard'. I think I'm okay with that. I think of it as tough, confident, strong. All good words. But they're defensive words. They're hard words.

So lately I've been trying to also remind myself that while there are things that are hard, that I don't like, that I haven't got a choice whether or not they happen... that while those things are happening - and are hard - that at the same time I'm blessed.

I woke up this morning and I was in the mood to be sad. "It's the 10th" I said to myself. I sat up on the side of the bed, shoulders slumped, feeling dejected - "it's the 10th." Then I stood up and I saw my husband asleep and I thought "it's the 10th... and I'm blessed." I'm blessed because that man has stayed here beside me, held me when I cried, given me reason to smile and laugh and laughed with me. ... And I'm blessed.

Grieving and Moving forward.

It may sound silly, but I feel like writing this post is necessary for my current grieving process. Sometimes, the best thing about a blog is that you get a chance to get everything out at once. It's not a conversation with someone (though those are often awesome as well), you can cry and keep on typing, you can edit how you say things (without your readers ever knowing that you aren't so clever the first go-round all. the. time.) and you can blog about difficult things, and move that little bit forward in a tough situation without having to sound calm, and collected, and any other manner of emotions that you're not.

Dear readers, some of you may know, many will not, that I have had a "tough go of it" (as my Grandmother would say) lately. And I know that there will be parts of this story that get left out, there will be parts that aren't chronological, and to be perfectly honest, no matter who ends up reading this, the reality is, it may not be for you. The reality is that this blog post is for me.

As I sit here to write this, I am almost 2 weeks post-op for an emergency surgery for a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. Layman's terms: I had surgery because I had a pregnancy that implanted in the tube instead of in the womb, and it burst, and bled. A lot. It was dangerous. It was potentially fatal. It was scary.

Whoa whoa, back up the truck, you might be saying. Or perhaps you're just staring at the screen. Don't worry, I'm not going to use a lot of medical terms, and I'll try not to give out too many "gory details", because I don't actually want to talk about the physical surgery here much. Believe it or not, that's not the hard part.