Emotion

Reimagining the Immediate Future

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So I want to live in the Northern Rivers. I do not want to live at the farm. I do not want to be stretched so thin trying to make everything work because it doesn’t work. I want to have some land so I can have a garden and grow fresh vegetables for my family. I want to teach Abraham about the beauty of nature this way. I want to have a small orchard of fruit trees that produce different fruits in different seasons so we always have fresh fruit available for us to eat and share with others. I want to have space so that we can have enough room to entertain people, so that our house is the house the everyone comes to. I would love it if we had a swimming pool, and a large covered outdoor area. I would love it we had a really nice spacious kitchen and a spacious lounge and entertaining area. I would love to incorporate indoor outdoor living with wide glass panelled doors that open up letting all the fresh air in. I would love a house where everything works and is well kept. I would love to have my own studio at this place so i could retreat when I wanted or needed to create in my own energy, in my own space. I would love it if I created a lot of something that other people found value in and gave me money for, allowing me to stay at home and be around for bub, while bringing in money. I would love it if my husband also had the flexibility to stay at home to work and not have to be away 5 days a week, only seeing our child a couple of hours a day at most. I would love it if we had a little granny flat with a couple of rooms, one for a woofer to maintain the gardens and house, and the other room for an au pair to help look after bub. I would love this kind of arrangement. I would love to have the feeling and know that we had enough money to afford this lifestyle. I would love to have to have the flexility to live a life where I get to choose how and when and where I live it. I would love the feeling of a resort lifestyle at my own home, here in Australia with my family. This is what I want. This is what I want in the immediate future.

The contrast of living in Western Sydney has been enough for me to unequivocally understand that it is not the place for me to be. It is not the place where I belong, and consequentially, not the place where my family belongs. It is clear to me that I do not want my child who is now walking, to grow up there. It is clear to me that I want his earliest memories to be in a rural location with fresh air and a connection to nature. It is clear to me that safety is so highly important to me. It is clear to me that being in nature and being surrounded more more nature than people certainly brings joy and peace to my soul. It is certain to me that I flourish in places where I feel more joy and peace than I do in places where I don’t feel safe, where the air is bad, and there are people everywhere around.

Yes and thank you.

Pre-Motherhood Judgey Bitch

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Whoa. I used to be the biggest judgey bitch about how other people were handling, or not handling their children in public. It was not beyond me at all to roll my eyes, give dirty looks, and sigh heavily when I would be around a child melting down or wild children running about reeking havoc in the grocery store. I used to always ask to myself and sometimes loud enough to where they probably could hear… “why can’t they control their children?!”. I am certain that I was not the only single person in the history of single people to have said something like that or have behaved so appalling. I was just as bad and I certainly did not make the situation any better.

Fast forward to now, where I have a baby and know very intimately what it is like to to a child into the grocery store, or any shop for that matter. There are times when my child is just so over being in his pram, or in the grocery cart and he lets everyone around know. My baby has an incredibly strong voice, his projection is something that amateur theatre actors would love to have, and for him it just comes naturally. Oh so naturally.

Now when my baby has a melt down and demands that i give him a squeezy yogurt in the shop, you know what? I do! I give him the damn thing. I let my child eat the food in the grocery store before we even pay for it. Yes, I am that person. I am also that person who is trying her best to concentrate on what has the least amount of sugar so I can give it to him all the while he is yelling and sometimes producing real tears. It’s crazy. It’s so crazy that I know I am putting off a vibe for everyone around to move out of my way while I try my best to stay calm, take deep breaths and carry on. I do my best to stay composed and I do, I really do. Underneath though… oh lord. However, I know that I need to not give him the attention, or whatever in that moment, I just need to make sure he is taken care of. I don’t want a tantrum thrower, please, not one of those!

The interesting thing is that when I see other people with kiddos, especially while this is happening, I can see the compassion, they totally understand. Then I see the oldies and they may have forgotten and seem kind of shocked. Then I see all the singletons who are quietly judging just like I did. Just wait singletons… just wait until it’s your turn.

 

Sharing Love

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I like to send cards to people. I used to hand paint and hand write them myself. I even used to hand cut them. All of this has been uber duber simplified since I have become a mother. For many reasons, mostly because of lack of “personal time” to fully be present in the making and creating of these gifts when bub is around. Currently my prime “me” time is when he naps, which is now down to one nap a day, which I am not overly happy about for the record, a second nap would make for a much happier baby and mama in my opinion, but I will happily take the early bed time if the other nap is skipped.

Thankfully the world and technology keeps on moving along so I don’t have to spend the time that i don’t really have and still be able to send cards, and I even have an app on my phone for it. How nice it is. How nice it is to be able to quickly and easily send someone a card when I am thinking of them. In a matter of a few minutes I can customise a card with a photo on it, and I can then send it out to them and rest assured that it will be printed, stamped and mailed for me. I love conveniences that make life easier without having to sacrifice on my own personal values.

Since I have opened up a bit about the very traumatic birthing process I had with my baby, many other women have since also opened up privately with me sharing their story of trauma regarding their birthing experience. It’s big. I wonder how many women actually experience something that is so hard and challenging but never get to fully express it because the societal pressure is to then move on and just be happy that the baby is healthy and here. It’s strange. and I’ve gone through it myself.

This easy card sending app then helps me to reach out to women, and this morning I reached out and sent a card to a woman I know in the US who I know will love it when she opens it. There really is something special about not only sharing the love, but doing so in a physical manner, in a way that allows for a keepsake so that the other person is reminded again and again of that love. It’s so easy to also send a text or an email, or post on someones page, but the physical letter or card really goes to the distance.

Take time to share the love. There are no downsides to this. It is good for everyone involved, absolutely everyone.

One Million Dollars

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Truth is we really do need one million dollars. Well, specifically Nine Hundred and Ninety-Five Thousand dollars plus fees for buying the land. It’s my husband’s family’s farm, the bulk of the acreage. The family does need the money, his parents are in their 80s and they need to look after this next stage of life, which includes building a specific place to grower in, and having a carer. The other part of the farm, the smaller acreage is still theirs, but it only has about 3 usable acres, with the rest on a slope with trees they planted years ago, which apparently now they can’t cut down due to the possibility of koalas going through there. As much as I understand the koala situation, I also have never once seen a koala there and haven’t heard of seeing one ever.

We need to be the ones to buy that portion of the farm. It needs to be us because we will continue to treat the land fairly, we won’t infringe on his parents, we will allow the poultry processing plant which is on the smaller acreage to continue, and we will be great neighbours. We want to build a house on the farmland so that we can raise our son, and possibly other children if we have them, there too, just like my husband was raised there.

I ought to not go into too many details but I can say that the family farm and land is all under a trust and because of that the members have to vote on what happens, and not everyone wants the land to be kept. Not everyone has the attachment, and not everyone has the keen desire to see it kept in the family either. I’m not going to judge, but it certainly affects us and we have to deal with it.

After calling council and realising that they have a rule in place where a farm zoned area cannot be broken into smaller acreages other than by two, apparently, then the 110 acres must be sold in two lots as they are. They do this in order to stop people from whittling down the land to keep it farmland. Honestly there is no way in hell that a property that is one million dollars would ever recoup that running cattle, or chickens or any other animal that is suitable for that hilly land. So farmers are cut out of the option. Next would be someone who wants to buy the land and build a house on the “million dollar view” land, but surely they wouldn’t use it for farm land, unless it was a hobby farm and they didn’t need to generate money from it.

Since we are in the start up phase of our family life, we are not in the position to have that kind of money laying around, especially because I chose for me to stay at home with the baby to be the primary carer and to ensure that he is well looked after. I do not regret this one bit, AND I’d like to have the money to do this anyway.

So in essence I felt very sad, frustrated, dismayed and physically in pain when I saw the farm posted up on the real estate web page. There it was, with my mother-in-law’s Simmental cows grazing in the paddocks. It’s been talked about for a while and I’ve know this was coming, but something made it all too real seeing it posted along with every other property that is out there. It’s just so sad to me and I want to change this. We want it for all the right reasons, and I know life isn’t always fair, but I really want it to go in our favour, very soon and now, please.

Holding My Little Person

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I’ve just put my little person, our baby, Baby A to bed. He’s nearly 5 months corrected age and he’s been alive for nearly 7 months now. Alive… that’s actually not true, he’s been alive for a lot longer, he was alive within me before his first gasp of air nearly 7 months ago.

I rocked him to sleep and as I held him close I could feel my heart in the centre of my chest beating, expanding, deepening. My love for him has blossomed and continues to grow as the days pass. I held him in my arms and I just listened to him breathing, his sweet little breaths in and out. I felt his body with complete trust being held in my arms. I gazed upon his sweet innocent face looking so peaceful. I felt so much love. I still feel so much love.

Still I feel so tender from the NICU experience, about having him so early, about all of the complications in my pregnancy and with his birth. I am hoping that time will help heal this wounded heart of mine.

I am grateful that we made it out alive. I am grateful that we are healthy. I am grateful that we are a family. I am grateful that I continue to know love in ways that I never knew before.

 

New Memories

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Recently I’ve come to specifically replace a newer better image in my mind’s eye with something not so pleasant that I have seen recently. With the bombardment with the media flashing sensationalised images, scenes and stories at us all the time, there are moments where despite my avoidance of the news, that somehow it comes into my peripheral reality.

For instance, I saw an image of a child that had not been treated well when I was reading another news related article on parenting. I did not come to that site for the bad image, nor was that the topic of what I was reading, but it was in the sidebar of suggested articles to read. It was disturbing enough that I thought about that image constantly over the next few days.

Then came a moment where I said to myself that enough is enough and I need to do something to change this. So, I started to imagine a healthy, happy and smiling child as a replacement. The image of a bright and beautiful child who has been well taken care of and obviously loved. This image of love and health is now becoming the dominate image in my mind when it is pulled up in my memory.

It is taking conscious effort to create this change in my mind. At first there was a delay and it felt hard to superimpose this image onto. However, after doing it again and again, it now is almost automatic. Eventually in my minds eye, the loving image will prevail.

I know that I can do this with stories, but this is the first time I’ve consciously done it with an image. I know the power of it and I know there is room for deep healing in this process. It isn’t about sweeping a bad image under the rug, but it is about being aware that in my world, I get to choose what stays in it and how it stays. I am responsible for my subconscious and I am responsible for how I operate in this world. I know that I am sensitive, so if I employ these tactics, it will indeed help me to acknowledge that the other exists, but to still walk in the light.

Emotional Ride

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Dealing with all that I manifest

an emotional ride

high highs

sudden drops

full upside down loops

super fast

then over…

get in line

let’s go again

perhaps there’ll even be a photo-

a bit of evidence of the fear

the rush… the excitement

hold on tight

do I dare raise my hands in the air?

or just hold tight

and SCREAM!!