Arb post

>I woke up on Thursday with a bit of a scratchy throat and promptly ignored it.  On Friday morning it was worse and I sounded like I had a frog in my throat and today well today I’m feeling miserable.  I’m not sick but my eyes are scratchy and my throat is sore and I have a little cough and sneezing.  Bleh.  Poor me.  I need soup and love.

Despite my feeling a bit yuck, the kids and I had a lovely picnic at Delta Park yesterday and we went and fed the ducks at Emmerentia all the leftover bread.  Lila found one of her school mates there and voila instant playdate!  We had fun.  Now I’m lying in bed, feeling sorry for myself, butternut soup cooking on the stove.  I am sure I will feel better in the morning.

You feel sorry for me too m’kay!

Relationships

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OK OK I know I’m harping on about the topic.  It’s just that while I was married, I completely closed myself off to making new friends.  Especially guys.  Part of the reason was that I knew I couldn’t be the kind of friend that I wanted to be and friendship is pretty much a 2 way street.

I am having so much fun at the moment opening myself up and allowing myself to make new friends.  Having said that, making new friends are pretty much the same as way back when in high school.  Not that the people are childish it’s just that it can be hard “breaking in” to an existing group of friends.  It can be a bit daunting and scary – good scary though.

Most of my friends are all married with kids, they are all awesome and I love doing stuff with them.  But for me right now, when the kids are with their father I need to step away from my role as Mom and just be me.  No kid stuff.  It’s so important for me right now to take the time I get and be Nicci, the woman, a person in my own right.  Not someone’s partner or Mom.  Just me.  Look I love my kids and they are always my priority but at the same time my life can’t be all about them all of the time.  To me a happy Mommy = happy kids.  

So I’m having fun being open, getting to know the new people in my life and seeing where it will all take me.  Going with the flow…

I want to know

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I am a firm believer that people are sent along our path for a specific reason.  Some people stay a lifetime, others a short time.  Each one brings certain gifts and lessons.  If we are aware of this and are willing to receive these gifts (and I’m not talking about physical gifts) and learn the lessons our lives become richer.  I have always loved this piece by Oriah Mountain Dreamer from her book The Invitation, it holds a special place in my heart and expresses what I feel so clearly.

Sometimes just by being we are helping.

The Invitation by Oriah

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.  I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love
for your dream for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon…I want to know if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain mine or your own without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy mine or your own if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful to be realistic to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true.  I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself.  If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.

If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.  I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day.  And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure yours and mine and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.  I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here.  I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.  I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.  I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

By Oriah © Mountain Dreaming,
from the book The Invitation
published by HarperONE, San Francisco,
1999 All rights reserved

Oh! How I love todays!

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My life at the moment is that time of day when the sun is starting to rise and the sky turns from black to midnight blue on the horizon and you can slowly see the colours in the sky changing as the rays of the sun starts to touch everything.  Full of hope and wonder and excitement about what the day might  bring.

I am just being reminded everyday of how blessed I am.  Each day is really a day filled with hope and wonder and a “what will today bring” kind of feeling and I’m loving it!!!  Places to go, things to do, people to see (and meet).  Just to throw in a cliché- when one door closes another does indeed open!  Like the Dalai Lama said:  ”Sometimes not getting what you want, is a wonderful stroke of luck”.

I am so lucky that I am surrounded by so many awesome people, I have at least chosen my friends wisely.  I am careful who I call “friend” as for me a friend is someone I consider to be like family.  These people who I chose and who chose me, have stuck by me and have carried (and sometimes nudged, shoved, pushed or dragged) me through good times and bad.  They are the people who don’t have to stay but choose to stick around, play so many different roles in my life and I love each one of them dearly!  I don’t know what I would’ve done without them.

At the moment I am enjoying standing with open arms, inviting life in, living each day the way I want and seizing the day!

Flying

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‎”Sometimes the push that sent you over the edge is exactly what you needed for you to learn how to fly.” ~ Unknown

Life can be hard sometimes.  Emotional stuff, feelings and thoughts become sticky sludge that weigh us down and make us unable to move forward.  When in the midst of it, it’s difficult to see the way out.  I have been holding on, I have been given a shove and I’m the person on the edge of cliff, wildly flailing my arms to keep from falling.  Any minute now I’m going to loose my balance and go over the edge.

I believe I will fly.

It’s in the silence

>Yesterday I didn’t have a great day, I just felt emotionally yuck and I let my thoughts run away with me.  I try not to do that and just take every day, every moment as it comes, but yesterday my thoughts played runaway train.  This morning however I woke up and felt loads better.

I’m trying to find things to occupy myself with and thankfully this weekend we have loads to do.  It’s in the quiet moments, the moments when you want to reach out and touch someone, or the times you just want a hug and inhale the smell of someone that gets me though.  Takes some getting used to.  But for now I only worry about the next moment and I keep myself occupied.

I’ve haven’t been to gym once this week – shame on me!!!!  I will make a concerted effort next week, I miss my endorphin rush!!  And coupled with my recent stress diet which did my waistline wonders, I will soon be well on the way to my washboard stomach.  I have just been so tired and decided to rather listen to my body, go home and I go to bed at the same time as the kids.  Some exercise will do me the world of good though!  So next week.