4/52

This weekend has been restful and fun, but our house is begging for me to set my lazy ways aside to tend to it. Dexter slept in until after 10am two days in a row. It's a bloomin' miracle! Andrew's sister came to stay with us for the weekend as well, which has been great for Oliver; she's 18 which means she is the fun, energetic aunt that never says 'no' to his pleas for piggy-back rides and stories. She slept in Oliver's twin-sized bed while he slept on a cot next to her. It was a dream-come-true for him, and she was a huge help. She was sweet and eager to do anything I threw at her, including trying Indian food at our favorite local spot! (She loved it, by the way).

This week has been better for me, stress-wise. The few things that had been eating away at me since my last post have been forfeited. I'm a clingy thing. I cling to loved ones, cling to my dreams of 'what should be', and rarely let loose slack, which is an issue I'm forced to deal with all the time. I'm very much a 'I can't accept this because it's not exactly as it should be!' type person, trying desperately to be the type of person who rolls with the punches and accepts things and people and circumstances for what they are.

For instance, I had envisioned my relationship with my dad being something so much more/different than it is. I wanted to be loved, to be cherished, to be a priority to him like he has been to me for so many years, but the reality is that he neither loves me nor chooses me as a priority in his life. It's taken years and fountains and rivers of tears to reach the point I'm at now: a point of acceptance. To be able to look at my father, accept that he is not who I need him to be and who I want him to be, that he will never change, and then to turn away and run like mad in the opposite direction. Not because I hate him or because I'm furious I can't control him, but because I know in my heart things will not change, he will not change. To protect my heart, and because I have, in fact, accepted this truth, I run.

It's true, however, in all of our relationships in life. We expect our spouses to sing our heart song, to read our minds, to do the unthinkable, to climb mountains, and to jump from atop them to make us happy, satisfied. We wish that our mothers-in-law were more accepting, less meddling, more like a friend than an enemy. We expect our friends to never falter, to never fail us, to be there for us through everything, even though we move in different currents, different storms...from which all of us need rescue and refuge, and sometimes our storms align with the storms of the ones we rely on and they cannot be there to throw us a life saver, to pull us from crashing waves.

We expect our kids to listen, to understand, to love us at all times, to grow in the direction from which we bring the sun, to transform into the people we desire for them to be. But they don't. Not always. We're all wild weeds, untamed by the hands of other men. Our struggles don't define us, but they push us and pull us. Our hearts sing different tunes...tunes even our loved ones can't hum off the top of their heads all the time. We can't change them, we can't change it.

So, we push on. We accept (the best we can), we fight and struggle, kissing and holding one another.

I'm choosing to paddle onward. Knowing full well I will reach rougher waters and knowing I can't always expect everyone to be there in a life boat, whisking me away to calmer seas. Sometimes, we fight on our own. Not because we don't have people who love us, but because sometimes we just have one paddle, and no one can fix those problems that are ours and ours alone.

It's been like that. If you catch my drift. I have to direct my sails so that I can sail on, not always relying on everyone and everything around me to do it for me.

Sometimes we have to be survivors.

(4/52)

P.S. For some reason, I cannot for the life of me figure out how to post portrait photos on my blog without them looking like grainy rubbish. Note to self: landscape photos next week so that I don't give myself a migraine trying to fix the look of my photos.