I can’t believe that January is already almost over.  I haven’t yet mastered the art of writing 2010 on my checks and here the month is almost over.  I am so grateful for the feeling of rebirth that the new year has brought.  I am still riding the wave of hope and optimism that comes when bajillions of people make affirmations and promises to make their lives better.  The energy is almost palpable.

Although it was definitely intimidating at first, I have somewhat mastered the art of doing all of the housework, managing the kids and animals and logging in tons of hours with my job.  That translates out into mastering the art of getting everything done, just not done particularly well.  By intentionally cutting back on the quality of most of what I do, I have been able to not only get done the majority of what I need to do, but also to work in a little bit of time to do the things I want to do.  I’ve shaved off some of my work hours.  I don’t do all of the “under” cleaning and keep it to the surface stuff.  I don’t fold clothes any more, I just wash and dry them and put them into baskets for the kids to put away.  I don’t ever mop the floors now that the front and back yards are nothing but slush.  Why bother when they are going to be clean for about 45 seconds before an animal or human tracks in the crap again?

My mother was an absolutely terrible housekeeper.  There was house, but there was no keeping.  One result of that is that my eyes are not particularly trained to see the messes.  I tend to tune them out, a skill I learned when I was very young.  Another result is that I live in fear of being like her in that respect.  I was a really, really bad housekeeper for most of my life and finally, for the most part, got that bested.  It’s not perfect, but it’s much better.  I still worry that the house looks like total shit and I just can’t see it because I’m lost up in my own head – a frequent misplacement of me.

I have learned to get by on very, very little sleep.  I turn in around 11pm (my last work shift is over at 10:30pm), get up around 5:30am and try to catch up on the weekends.  I drink a lot of caffeinated drinks and take B-12.  I am at my best with 8-9 hours of sleep a night, but there isn’t a whole lot of danger of that happening.  I feel great and that’s what matters to me.

Eric is settled into his school and work routine.  He has Wednesdays off and has enjoyed the down time.  He did manage to fix a problem that has been plaguing our Jeep Liberty and has had quite a victory party as a result.  Yayyyy Eric.

Nathan told me a couple of days ago, “It seems like you were so much nicer a few months ago.”  It makes me wonder if maybe I was.  I feel the same, just less depressed and more together than I have been in a long while.  Maybe I was more amicable when I was depressed and indifferent, at least from a 10-year-old’s perspective.

He’s having a hard time, that little one.  Things come so easy for Dylan (my 12-year-old).  He is very happy-go-lucky, happy, unaffected and light-hearted.  His homework is always done before he gets home from school and since he was first born, he has been a really, really easy child.

Nathan is very intense and always has been.  When he was only a couple of months old, a little girl who lived near us asked, “Why is your baby always mad?”

Here is how he spent his first several years:

The child seems like he’s been angry since he first popped out and still hasn’t gotten over it.

Not sure where he gets it:

What I don’t get is that all that rage has rarely availed him anything.  He’s my sixth child and the first four put me through pretty much any kid thing that can happen.  I don’t cave to tantrums.  Surliness does not impress me.  These two apply to both children and adults, for the record.

I feel bad for him, I really do and I am just at an absolute loss for how to help him.  I’ve done the validating his feelings thing, I’ve talked to him a lot about the energies with which we surround ourselves.  I’ve talked to him about how to relax, meditate, change his perception of the world around him.  I’ve tried to teach what ways to treat and talk to people are OK and what ones aren’t.  Still, he simmers and fumes over all crimes real and imagined.

If ever there was motivation to move into a larger house, it’s the completely opposite personalities of my two youngest sons.  Two boys never needed more to be separated.  Dylan snores and talks in his sleep, which drives Nathan crazy.  He recently started sleeping with ear plugs.  Nathan hates school and being around people.  Dylan loves both.  Nathan loves to play outside and do active things.  Dylan is a couch potato.  Dylan is a dreamer, a reader, a conceptualist and Nathan is a plotter, a schemer and a rationalizer.

If I can get Nathan safely through adolescence and into adulthood, he is going to be a force to be reckoned with when it comes to success.  I can see him being an amazing businessman, much like his step-grandfather, Sherman.  I can see him being an absolute dynamo when he finds where all of that intense energy should be invested.  As soon as he finds his true passion in life, he is going to be unstoppable.  Until then, he’s frustrated and angry.

Like Eric, he tends to feel that the world has let him down and that what he needs and wants so desperately is being denied to him.  I’m not convinced that either of them are completely sure what that is, they just know they don’t have it and they’re more than slightly miffed about it.

One thing I have learned is that I cannot create happiness for another person and while I will try not to directly contribute to their UNhappiness, they both have to be able to find it inside.  I can’t put it there for them.

All I can do is work on my own outlook and be as positive and joyful an influence as I can.

I don’t do well being around people with a negative outlook and I often find it to be contagious.  I’m working on strengthening up my resistance to that sort of thing.  I have let it get me down, a little too down in the past, and I’m going to work really hard to keep that from happening again.  I can’t take on the disappointments and sadness of other, but I can empathize without collapsing into what they are feeling.  That’s the plan for now.

Eric is doing very well with school and work.  With the responsibilities of home and family removed from his shoulders, he has been able to focus on getting adapted into this whole new way of life.  All he has to do here is get the trash down on Wednesday, make sure we have plenty of usable wood for the woodstove and make sure the cars move.  Beyond that, it’s all on me.  He seems to really enjoy his classes so far and is very vibrant, animated and vocal about his experiences.  He seems to thrive in just this balance.

I have enjoyed the time alone and finding my footing with the recovered responsibilities.  I can’t believe there used to be a time where taking care of the house was the extent of my obligations.  What did I do with my hours?  (I cleaned closets, washed walls and windows and mopped floors a few times a week, that’s what I did)

For now, as the subject line indicates, my mission is to find myself, just like we used to in the 70′s.  There is a whole lot of me that has been lost along the way and now that finally, after a couple of years, I have something akin to a “routine” I can follow, an actual somewhat predictable life, I feel more capable of looking inside and seeing who I am now.  I am a creature of routine and any time there isn’t one, I feel chaotic and off kilter.  Having  a rhythm to life, a flow and ebb that I can chart, soothes me and gives me strength.  I am so very excited to have that again.  Living with Eric nonstop is a lesson in spontaneity.  He never, ever, ever has anything close to the day he planned the prior night or even earlier that morning or an hour before.  Things turn on a dime and I had to be in flight or flight every minute because the wind was about to change at any given moment.  Now there is peace and predictability and calm at least part of the time.  Again, I thrive.

In that thriving, there will be me again and I have really missed me.  Now I can rest, even with all the work there is to be done.  My spirit is at peace for the first time in a very, very long time.

PS:  Mom died 7 years ago today.  I miss her.