retreat

Summer 2014 Wrap Up

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Last summer, I dreaded every day. It was too hot. I had no energy. The kids were too noisy and watched too much television. I pretty much hated every moment of last summer. In 2013, from the first day off, I had a countdown going for when they would go back to school. Seventy-six days and counting was my familiar refrain. With the number of days changing, of course.

I was very worried that this year would go much in the same way, and I was quite surprised at how well it went; not just that it went well, but that the kids had fun, I had fun, and I spent more days happy and content (for the most part) than not.

When the kids would ask me at various times during this summer when school was starting up again, I had to look at a calendar; I did not have it memorized and I wasn’t counting down the hours. Even they were surprised by my lack of knowledge.

Here in our section of the US, the students in the elementary schools are let out the last week of June. Camps and Summer Recreation programs don’t typically start until after the 4th of July holiday and they are expected back at school on the Wednesday or Thursday after Labor Day. This is usually about seventy-seven days.

In 2014, summer vacation was seventy days. Perhaps it was knowing that summer was ending a full week earlier than usual, but it started pretty well, and kept going that way. I could feel the difference. Part of that, I know, was my medication doing its thing, my continuing to focus on my coping and walking away when something was too much. I also asked for help. The kids were also a year older, which seemed to make a tiny bit of difference also.

With no summer school for anyone this year, the 4th of July was our first item on our summer to do list.

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Summer’s Tail End

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This has been a very busy month.

My middle son missed out on the sign ups for a camp program, so since I didn’t want him spending another week glued to his tablet, we held Camp Mommy while his sister went to her week. We went to Chuck E. Cheese, the park, the comic store, out to a sushi place for lunch, McDonald’s for one of our breakfasts and he came with me to church for three days, which was nice especially since he’s not a big fan.

My oldest son got his driver’s license last week, and has volunteered to get the groceries and drive his brother to his friend’s house. He even got to work on time, which was a tremendous accomplishment!

My daughter went clothes shopping – if anyone lives near a Justice, they’re clearance is 60% and then they take off an additional 40% off! We buy everything too big so that it will still fit next summer! We couldn’t afford to shop their otherwise – they’re prices are way too high.

GISHWHES, information at this link, is over, and went very well. I’ll have a separate wrap up post on that later on.  Preview: Endure4Kindness is coming in mid October. This year, I’m going to be taking pledges. All of the money goes to Random Acts.

I’ve just returned from a spiritual retreat, and it really has energized me to get through the rest of the summer and has given me inspiration for the upcoming fall season. It was called Drawing Closer to G-d, and we learned how to make mandalas, and I was quite surprised at how nice my pictures came out. I have no artistic ability, but this was just the right balance of creativity and spirituality. I will have a separate wrap up on this also later on. Right now, I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed, but in a good way.

This piece was my proudest one during the retreat:

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This next one I just did this afternoon. It has great meaning to me, but again, that might require its own reflective post:

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I’m still in a deeply saddened place remembering Robin Williams. I’m trying to come to grips with the whole thing, and wondering how someone like him can’t hold on, and how someone like me managed to break through to the other side when I was in such a similar despairing place. I only hope that I can continue to do so, and continue to talk about my depression and depression in general, and be aware and there for people who need a shoulder to lean on.

Two requests:

The first is continue to pray and talk about Ferguson, MO and Michael Brown. This cannot continue.

The second is please send me your good thoughts and prayers. I am having some medical stuff going on beginning tomorrow. I’m trying not to think about the money it’s going to cost me, but for now, I have to focus on my health and deal with the monetary fallout when it eventually happens.

Thank you.

Kb

Day 1: Retreat

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Cool wind on my face as I step off the porch. Fall leaves swirl all around me. Deep breath. And a smile. What a difference one year makes. And so it begins.

This is what I tweeted/facebooked when I walked out of the door first thing this morning. It was a wonderful feeling. At the moment, I’m attempting to organize my six days of writing. Of retreat. It’s funny, that word: retreat. When the military use it, it’s a bad thing, but when an artist or a writer or just a vacationer uses it, it’s a special occasion, a special time to rejuvenate, to reinvent, to be reborn in something else, someone else. The English language is a funny thing.

So begins my retreat. Or whatever it is. I still can’t pinpoint what I’m doing. I just know that I miss my writer’s conferences. I miss the creativity that fills me from my friends. I miss the poking and the petting that I need, but am so afraid to ask for. I miss the feeling; a feeling. I miss Wales. Actually, that’s not true.

I long for Wales. In the Fall, the hiraeth is strong, so strong. I even enjoy when my friend E talks down about his hometown near Bangor because then I can extol its virtues and the top one hundred reasons why he should also love it too. I know deep down he does, but it’s his hometown and he knows all of its intrincasies, which are boring and sheep filled.

Last year, I went to Denver and got some of this. Plotting a trip for spring perhaps, but this year, I can barely afford to go to Starbucks, but I need something. Not want.

NEED.

I’ve decided to give it to myself. I still have appointments. I still have bills. I still have family obligations, but I’m spreading MY TIME out among the next two weeks and if I can manage my goals, you will be hearing about most of it (some of you more than others), and at the end of the two weeks, I’m hoping to have a foundation for the next year to carry me through with more goals and successes and growiing and journeying down this path; this seemingly new path that has always been a thread in my subconscious that I’ve followed haphazardly.

I’ve planned the family’s menu for this week and done the grocery shopping this morning after Mass. About fifty dollars. I may or may not be home for dinner, and my husband and teenage son will be in charge of cooking. I’ve packed the freezer with waffles for breakfast and I’ve promised not to leave before all the kids get on their buses.

I have also, believe it or not, labeled all the boxes and wrappings of the food with the day of the week that they’re supposed to be eaten on. I thought my husband would be insulted that I did that, but it thanked me. Hopefully, our daughter will stay away from the cheese until after grilled cheese night!

So meals are planned.

Shopping is done.

There will be a lot of introspection and reflection and the things I’ve lost and the ones I’ve found in the last year, but especially in the last ten months, and always harking back to the good and the lessons learned and who I am today rather than who I never was.

Today, I’m at the library in a quiet corner by the window. There is a waterfall, and a frog and trees of just the right color and height (that’s a joke – if you’re reading this in the future, Google: Romney, Election 2012, it might still be amusing).

Today, I organize and plan and prepare. There will be index cards and workshop homework and creating a new blog and a dedicated Facebook page.

I will get back on track for my self-imposed assignments and all the while, not so much finding myself as becoming myself.