Love in a Wee Little Package

Meet Zac. This is my little man. He's not mine, but he has been a huge part of my life this year. I have been his nanny since March when he was 7 weeks old. I had my last shift with him tonight. His parents have been relocated back to Australia and are obviously taking him with them. I am sad, so very sad to see him go. I haven't been able to hold back the tears since I found out a couple of weeks ago that they are leaving.

If you have your own kids or have kids in your life who are close to you, I am sure you will get this...my heart has gotten bigger since he has been in my life. I keep picturing The Grinch and how his heart swelled 3 sizes larger at the end of the movie. Not saying I had a heart 2 sizes to small to begin with, but that the love I have felt (and still feel) for him is something I haven't experienced a huge amount of before. (I do have 2 beautiful nieces, and my love from them is HUGE, HUGE, HUGE as well!). For me, babies are a space for love and intimacy. That's it. They want nothing else from people and they call for that love and intimacy from others as well. At least that is what my experience is. I think that is true for many people though. Have you ever watched someone's mood shift in the presence of a baby?? They could appear to be in such a crabby mood and then they see a baby and their whole energy shifts. They smile, their eyes brighten, their voice changes, their body loosens and they are engaged fully with the baby. My whole being shifted when I saw him. I could have had the worst day, been so tired and feeling ill and just wanted to curl up in bed and never come out, but as soon as I saw him...oh man...all of that disappeared. I melted when I saw him. My heart expanded everytime I was with him. That is the magic of Zac. That is the magic of babies. That is who they are for me...pure magic, love, joy and innocence. And I have had the pleasure of being around a sweet baby boy for 3-4 nights a week for months. No wonder my heart has grown 3 sizes larger!

Thank you to my little man. Thank you for letting me take care of you and love you. Thank you for bringing out the best of me. Thank you for being the space of love in my life. My heart will never be the same again.

Going Down the Rabbit Hole...Not This Time!

If you know me, you know my dating history!  And I am sure you are smiling right now thinking about it!  If you don't, well you wouldn't believe the stories if I told you!  I have people begging me to tell them one of my dating stories at parties and get togethers all the time!  I love watching people's faces as I go into great detail about the trials and tribulations of my world of dating.  Mouths drop, eyes pop out, heads shake out of disbelief and so much laughter!  I laugh now too.  But at the time of each of these experiences, I wasn't laughing at all.  I was heartbroken, sad, angry, pissed off and a great big "F*@& YOU" to men and life in general.  I kept asking myself and whoever else was listening, "Why Me?!.  Do I have a huge sign on my forehead saying that I am looking for guys to break my heart and treat me like sh**??"  I would go down the rabbit hole of self destruction.  I would tell myself that I didn't matter to them, that I wasn't important, I was completely forgettable, that they just wanted to get laid and that they didn't care about me.....the thoughts were endless and ever furthering me deeper into the blackness.

Now, I have had a couple of wonderful men in my life that loved me, but I would still find something wrong and go down the rabbit hole.  I am realizing that it is a habit for my mind to go there, into the darkenss.  It is comfortable there, even though it is not comfortable. But it is what it knows.  I have however, seen something new for myself in the last couple of weeks.  I met a guy at a Thanksgiving party (thanks to a friend who set us up!) and I was noticing that I was going down the rabbit hole because of stuff he did do or stuff he didn't do.  It was all too familiar the feelings of  "I'm not important.  I'm not cared about.  I'm already forgotten....."  In a moment last week, I got that I had thought these thoughts before and felt these feelings before...in almost every experience I have had with men.  Hmmmm...interesting.  I looked at it, standing on the outside of my thoughts and feelings as if I was an observer. I saw something so great, so amazing!  I saw that was my story/thoughts about myself.  I had this story/thoughts that I was not important, not loved, easily forgotten and disposable.  Wow!  That was the story, the thoughts that have been underlying my life!  I saw that I attracted men into my life so as to keep this crazy story going!!  It wasn't them, it was me who doing this to myself!  Do you know how liberating it was to get to that place of realization!  I didn't have to be angry with any of these men!  I could let go of the sadness and darkenss about my experiences with them!!  I could be grateful for them!! They just played an Oscar winning performance in my Life Story called "I'm Not Important"!!!  I have decided to close that particular storybook.  I'm not even going to finish a chapter in it...I mean I am CLOSING THE BOOK!!  Forever!!  YAY!!  I did just that the other night.  I saw a picture in my mind of a really, really, really old leather bound book, covered in dust, thousands of pages thick, slam shut with such force it echoed for minutes!!! 

I am not saying that I haven't started going down the rabbit hole again though.  I did start to go down the hole again this week when I didn't hear back from this guy I met at Thanksgiving.  When I met him, he told me he was moving from Vancouver back to Ontario in the middle of November.  I chose to still be with him for the few weeks he was in town and I did have fun!  However, over the past 2 weeks I have hardly heard from him at all, and I never saw him again. He moved yesterday.  Instead of going back into my old stories, I realized that everything I tell myself is a story.  It is all made up.  Who knows what he was thinking, what he wanted, how he felt about me?? I may never know.  But why tell myself something that will make me feel like shit?  Why tell myself something that will take me into the darkness of my rabbit hole??  So I have chosen to tell myself a new story about my experience with him, a far more empowering one!! Here it is...He liked me so much that he couldn't bear to talk to me again or see me before he moved as it would have been to heartbreaking for him to leave.  Simple, sweet and light!  I like this story much better then my old one.  That book is closed and locked! 

Time to starting writing a new book.  I think starting to write this blog is great way to do that!

Much love and gratitude.

Writing...A New Beginning

I've been wanting to write a blog for awhile now but haven't felt like I had anything to say.  "Who am I to think I have anything important to say and who cares what I do have to say??"  Actually, that is just part of the reason I hadn't started blogging.  The main reason is that I have been afraid that I don't know how to write what I've been wanting to say. 

I've had the idea that I couldn't write for years.  I actually have proof I can't.  I was diagnosed with a learning disability when I was in university.  I found it hard (and still do) to read the simplest things.  I had to keep rereading and rereading the same thing again and again.  It took me hours to get through a couple pages of a text book.  I couldn't get through 2 pages without crying because I didn't understand it and couldn't remember what I had read 2 minutes earlier. I would get welts all over my body from the stress of studying.  I couldn't write down what I wanted to say.  All my words formed perfect sentences in my mind but got all jumbled up when I went to write them out.  I couldn't sit in a lecture and listen and take notes at the same time.  I didn't understand what was wrong with me.  Everyone else seemed to be breezing through the courses with no problems!  They were taking notes, listening and smiling all at the same time!  I confessed my anguish to a counselor and they suggested I get tested.  The results came back.  LEARNING DISABLED.  I have to admit that what I felt was relief.  There was a condition responsible for my difficulties and it wasn't "me".  I thought it was me for years,  that I wasn't smart enough or good enough or something like that.

I got a lot of help from the university.  They had someone come to my lectures and take notes so I could just listen.  Someone taped themselves reading all my textbooks so I could listen and read at the same time.  My sister sat with me at the computer and she graciously typed what I was spitting out into the most beautiful sentences. I am so grateful for all the help that I received.  It did make life a little easier although it was still tough. Really tough.  And it still is.  I still experience these difficulties. 

I am so scared to write.  I still freak out and cry sometimes and my heart feels like it is jumping out of my chest.  It has taken me over 7 hours within a week to write this one blog entry.  I keep trying to get it right.  I keep reading it over and changing it.  I keep comparing my writing and wishing it was like other peoples' writing.  I want to be them.  I want the words to flow and be whimsical and impacting.  I have it that I should be able to sit down and whip off an entry in minutes.  I get that my words might not make a difference. I might not having flowing sentences and a whimsical sense of humour.  I will have spelling mistakes, grammar errors and disjointed ideas and I am afraid that people will judge me for all of this.  But I am writing.   The voice inside my head is yelling at me so loud right now saying "You can't do this!! You're not a writer!  You are making a fool of yourself!  People will judge you because of your spelling and grammar!  You have nothing to say!  You suck at this!!!"  Well....Screw the voice!  I have listened to that voice for too long.  I have kept myself small listening to that voice.  People are going to judge me no matter what I do!  So, here I am. Writing. I am way out of my comfort zone. I am sooooo uncomfortable.  That is how I know I am growing, expanding, creating myself anew. 

I am writing...a new beginning.  Welcome.