It doesn’t take much to make me anxious — like a lot of mothers I know, actually! And one of my techniques for easing anxiety is to practice being thankful. This works because being thankful brings you back from the projected future (the anxiety) to the present, the here and now. It totally works. Anyway, checkit!
RASCAL: Evvybody luff me, Mama?
ME: Yes, Rascal! Everybody loves you!
Now, go on over to my latest post at Canada Moms Blog, and see what else I’m thankful for. Hint: it rhymes with “Shmeal Shmousewives.” But, first, DO TELL: what are you thankful for today?
The Monkey loves Mexican. It’s not so much the food, but the restaurant, and maybe the chips and salsa, and the fried ice cream (which we managed to skip tonight) and the lollipop at the end. Maybe also that fruity mango drink with the sugar granules (granules?) along the rim. SLURRRP!
Anyway, we just got back, and now I’m a little bored with the Golden Globe awards because my favourite movie, of, like, all time right now, AVATAR hasn’t won anything yet. Yet.
…WISH the Avatar music had won, wahh.
Ooo! And now my whole WEBSITE’s been DOWN for an hour and, YES!, James Cameron has just won Best Director for Avatar. Good. Good. WOOHOO! And GLEE has WON. All is right in the entertainment world.
So I went to a Naturopath for the first time yesterday. I think I’m too exhausted from waiting for them to fix my site, and, still, from the appointment itself, to write in any real detail about it. The 90-minute session involved a lot of emotional work, to my surprise. I went home with some herbal tinctures for my li’l (HUGE) OCD disorder, a binder full of gentle info, and lots of homework — both physical and emotional.
I’ll tell you some more about this seriously great experience later. Arnold Schwarzenegger is introducing Avatar, and I’m still processing the rest of my session. Why I, miss natural “granola” girl, have never been to a naturopathic doctor is a mystery even to me. But, I highly recommend it to everyone wanting to feel their best. And I recommend MY NATUROPATH (Dr. Jennifer Baer), in particular — she’s actually a VERY old friend, and a wise woman in the perfect profession for her. More later.
All I’ll say for now is that today was a good day. We went to the MUSEUM because I wanted to MAKE something of this day (instead of swimming, as I tend to do this time of year, in my head) — a GOOD SIGN. I went to Starbucks and drank a chai latte without guilt, while sitting by myself reading the newspaper book reviews instead of THE HEALTH SECTION — a very GOOD SIGN. I just let everything go.
Oh, and we went for Mexican because…, to cooking a perfect wholesome dinner, I said F*CK IT! And, of course, because the Monkey asked for it. And I may or may not have put the idea in her head.
Love!
xo Haley-O
For more ways to help the people of Haiti, check out Canada Helps. Wish we could do so much more. Apparently, the Government of Canada will match donations by individual Canadians. For more info on that, see here.
If you’ve been reading me for a while, you know how inconsistent I can be. You know how one day I can be all obsessive about my weight, and then the next day I’m all f*ck it. One day I’m all woo-woo with the spirituality and yoga and meditation and the next I’m hard-core working woman. One day I’m watching The Bachelor, and the next I’m blown away (over and over) by Rent….
…remembering that there’s this side of me that’s totally fascinated by La Vie Boheme (and Taye Diggs – OH YEEAAAH!), a side of me that CAN live for the day – what ever happened to that?
…remembering that there’s a side of me that’s wild and eccentric and free spirited. WINE AND BEER! A very hidden side — hidden under baby blankets, responsibility, destructive habits, anxiety and neuroses….
Right now I’m all hard-core working woman — I’ve been eating, breathing, and sleeping bTrendie — partly because I’m feeling more passionate than usual about it, and partly because I’m having a little trouble registering some unbloggable stuff right now, some major transitions. Right now I’m all obsessed with what I eat and what the kids eat and what the world eats — partly because I read too much, and partly because I’m having a little trouble registering that I’m not in control of every little thing in my world and the world around me….
I should tell you…, I should tell you….
I should tell you. I should tell I threw my books out just to get back in. I’d forgotten how to smile…. I should tell you I should tell you. Here goes. Here goes….
I gave them away. All my diet books. Some of my cook books. When I was pregnant and suffering from debilitating prenatal depression, the doctors came and took all my books away for this same reason.
Information — books, google, GOOGLE. It creates the illusion that you can control things. The more you know, the more empowered you are, right? WRONG. There’s such a thing as TOO MUCH INFORMATION. Knowledge isn’t power when there’s too much of it. Knowledge is power in moderation. There’s also life.
So, here goes. I’m going to live in the here and now…. Yes, little voice in my head from the other day (WOO-WOO), I’m figuring it out — I’m going to try to LIVE. Which means I MUST get off my arse right now. This life’s on loan, after all. Better make the best of it while I rent it!
Well here we go…. Here goes. Who knows. Who knows where. Who goes there. Who knows. Here goes….
If you haven’t seen the movie or play (I’ve seen both) RENT, you really must RENT IT! And you also really must know that I’ll be singing this soundtrack in the car, in the shower, as I cook, and maybe even on the streets and restaurant tables for the next few weeks, no doubt. And if you think this post is all kinds of cheesy, you gotta know, that’s okay. Because it’s all about me today….
REMEMBER THELOOOO-O-O-O-O-VE!
xo Haley-O
UPDATE: AND, OMG, I just learned on twitter that this — my favourite show (RENT) — is playing THIS WEEK at Toronto’s Canon Theatre : http://www.mirvish.com/OurShows/. How weird (WOO-WOO) is that?!
It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t voluntary. It was awesome. It was a Computer Fast that no one could have anticipated. It was the computer fast that changed. my. life.
HA! It wasn’t THAT exciting.
(By the way, I’m too tired to be blogging right now. Because this day was MADNESS, I tell you, MADNESS! I’m still getting used to Rascal not napping anymore. ALAS! But, it’s been, like, way too long since my last post, so here we are — trying to string coherent sentences together. Bear with!)
But, I AM sitting here today typing away on a brand SPANKING new 13″ Macbook — fumbling a little with the new key placement and too-long nails — all thanks to my generous husband.
Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Thank you, Josh. IT IS a wonderful Hanukkah gift. Something that was SO much needed. Gorgeouses, you couldn’t have known, my last macbook was giving me mini heart attacks all the time because it didn’t have enough memory or megs for me and kept freezing and took HOURS AND HOURS to load any little thing. I’ve got chills just THINKING about all the time and frustration this new computer is going to save me. No wonder I’ve been having anxiety lately.
Actually….
It was the COMPUTER FAST that taught me SO MUCH about a major TRIGGER of my seasonal anxiety. See, the colder the weather, the more one SITS on one’s ARSE surfing the internet.
While the Mac people feverishly worked to transfer the data from my old computer to the new one, I re-laaaaxed, I watched TV (like, ACTUALLY watched it), I read yoga books and my novel, I FELT NAKED — unable to reach over and grab the computer to answer my latest question. I have millions of questions every second, and, whom do I turn to for answers? THE INTERNET. Always THE INTERNET — all the people, information, connection. It’s addictive. Like a grande soy no-water tazo chai….
And, imagine — as the psychic at the bookstore told me the other day — I have ALL the answers already. Everything I need…. How true. And it took a COMPUTER FAST to really show me that.
A great Hanukkah gift, indeed.
Speaking of Hanukkah gifts, check my Canada Moms Blog Post “Beyond Gift-Giving: Hanukkah the Green.” I’ve been very contemplative lately. In a good way. Time actually slows when you close the computer and turn inside.
If you’ve been following me on twitter, you know I’ve been suffering from an OCD/Anxiety relapse. Yes, the INSANE kind I had in my pregnancies. Just ask the TDot Book Club Bloggers. I’m afraid of my blackberry right now — terrified. And I probably shouldn’t have gone to Book Club last night because I was all, “Hi, how are you? I have ANXIETY! I have OCD! I’m CRAZY! I’m CRAZY like when I was pregnant and was, like, calling the FARMERS who produced the cheese that was in the ravioli I’d eaten at a restaurant the week before to see if it was actually pasteurized [this was before I went vegan, of course], and if the farmer said ‘I don’t know,’ then I was convinced I destroyed my baby.” Remember that, Gorgeouses? The TDots were, of course, SO understanding and supportive. It was a good thing I went. LOVE.
I think my favourite “obsessive thought” EVER was The Weevil Incident. I was about 20 weeks pregnant with the Monkey. I was at work, eating a pack of almonds, and I suddenly realized there was a hole in one of the almonds I’d eaten. It was a perfect hole. Too perfect. So, I went up to my colleague at work and told him about the hole in my almond. It’s a “weevil and a mouse,” he said (we’d been working on a book about weevils and flees and such other GREAT subject matter for me and my morning sickness). “A weevil and a mouse did that,” he snickered, “those almond factories are infested.” Of course, in my MESSED UP, clinically prenatally depressed preggers mind, this was a real possibility. SO I called the assistant director at Motherisk (I had her direct phone number, of course), and I called my family doctor: “Hello!” I gasped, “I just ate an almond and I think there was a hole in it that was made by a weevil and/or a mouse, IS MY BABY OKAY!?” Yes, this is TRUE. TRUE TRUE.
And here we are again. At this time EACH year, it seems, the doom and gloom and freakish obsessions that characterized my pregnancies RETURN. And here I am crazy.
Last night, I was so crazy I couldn’t blog. And, then there was this morning…. I had to go to the office. They have no idea what EXACTLY it took for me to make an appearance there this morning. It’s bad, Gorgeouses. It’s bad. But, I’m getting some help. My doctors are helping me, and CAROLINE DUPONT.
Yes, it seems my ego gets MAD and VENGEFUL whenever I make positive changes in my life. Pregnancy, meditation, yoga, green smoothies…. Ego is NOT happy because Ego is not the centre of attention. Ego is being silenced and Ego doesn’t like it. So, Ego is trying to TAKE OVER and MAKE IT STOP. It likes it when I’m stuck. It hates change. It likes repetition, addiction, certainty. But, screw it. I’m on to you, Ego. Moving on.
And I can tell you THIS BOOK did not help my anxiety. In fact, it may have triggered an episode or two….
I should not be reading books like this month’s TDOT Blogger Book Club Book of the month. Books about a TRUE murder of a 3-year-old “flaxen”-haired boy — OMG, the Rascal’s hair could not be more FLAXEN and his features more CHERUBIC…I SHOULD NOT BE READING THIS. I am NOT A CANDIDATE for books like this. And I should have KNOWN when I picked this book up in the TRUE CRIME section of the bookstore that I am NOT A CANDIDATE for this book. And, indeed, I flinched visibly when the computer directed me to the TRUE CRIME section of the bookstore.
Yes, so this was one of the most disturbing books I’ve ever read. Sure, it was brilliantly written in a very detached, exquisitely researched, resourceful, investigative way that self-consciously focused more on detective JONATHAN JACK WHICHER — the inspiration for some of the best 19th-century fiction from Charles Dickens to Wilkie Collins (LOVE) — than on the poor FLAXEN-HAIRED boy who lost his life in the most violently disturbing way. And, see I can’t and couldn’t escape the FLAXEN-HAIRED boy because my mind is incapable of registering such a heinous, gruesome event in a detached way. MY MIND goes straight to FEAR.
Fear. The bane of my existence. My life’s challenge has to be to manage it, understand it, overcome it, teach my kids to overcome it. And so, Kate Summerscale’s The Suspicions of Mr. Whicherremains in my basement until I can find a better home for it. Far far away. In fact, I may drive it out to some remote forest FAR FAR AWAY. I’ll put a blindfold over it so IT CAN’T SEE where I’m taking it and, THUS, can’t find its way back to my house ever! And I’ll find an environmentally-friendly way of disposing it forever. So it can’t haunt me like the GHOSTS of poor little SAVILLE KENT and his killers are said to haunt the house at ROAD HILL….
Ahh, good times. And OY! I had so much else to blog about. It’ll have to wait ’til next time. Very good sign that I’m writing tonight. Yay. Baby steps….
Sadly, a lot of that is VERY FAMILIAR…. Damn “What Ifs”!….
Baby steps!
Next month’s book? It’s MY PICK: Annabel Lyon’s highly acclaimed The Golden Mean — so definitely not HORRIFIC, and apparently very SEXAY! Sweeeet.
Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
