You know how the information age presses information into us at a faster rate than sometimes we can take in the information and actually 'feel' a response?
You know how there seems to be a kazillion and one expectations that are both internal and external coming at us at kazillion and one miles per hour?
You know how sometimes at the end of the day you remember what you were going to say to someone but then forgot because there was so much swirling around in the air and on the screen and everywhere and...
a quiet moment to face to face, eyeball to eyeball, talk. or not talk and just look. or not look and just be?
This is so very the way i feel sometimes.
Maybe i'm the only one who feels all this mush of stuff. But i've found a little something that helps ease a bit of the mush stuff feeling.
{Even if a day stays harried and i endeavor to chill afresh the next day.
or even if logistically we are running from one thing to the next and all 4 of us are doing homework late and we forget to look at each other in the face all day.
or even if we have an ever so wonderful day together and ahhhh, we sigh and our emotional tanks are filled up... but right before i go to bed I remember something I really wanted to tell N. or L. or H. but forgot too.
or any number of moments called life, especially life in twenty eleven, that can feel so very fast forward...}
I write Notes to the Boys. handwritten scribbly short-sometimes, long-sometimes, notes. in a cheap dollar store notebook. cheap cover decorated with wallpaper-y looking paper or not, just whatever i feel like for that notebook. It helps keep me AWAKE and AWARE as life zooms forward, or lectures are to be had more often than affirmations, or i simply forget to be present and aware of all the oh-my-goodness-so much-goodness.
I keep adding lines of snippets and blippets as they come, as the awareness compels the writing.
{what i feel about love and life, things i believe but forget sometimes, things i want to say but can't get a word in edgewise with life at times, funny anecdotes from the day, random memories that i don't want to fade, favorite songs and why, what i love about the boys, what i love about their dad, what mistakes i've made and what i've learned, what i'm grateful for (oh the abundance once list begins...)}
There's no same way on all the pages or lines. No right or wrong way to commence and end, just blips and snipets here and there.
I write because i know each day this 8 year old and this 9 year old grow more into their lives- this growing- however heartbreaking at times for their mama--is a gift, and a gift they will decide more on their own what to do with, and how to do it.
I write because sometimes i need to say less out loud, let them work things out,
the times come (more and more) where they naturally think and feel and deal more on their own, a sacred process they bravely must face each day and i want to be present when need be, but not in their way. Writing helps me resume my own growth and learning rather than hyper-focus on their learning or constant adherence to my growth and learning process. I write to work on or work out rather- this balance as they grow into little men.
I write because sometimes i'm tempted to think my voice doesn't matter in this boy world, but writing helps me remember my voice does matter and to please don't give in to the temptation of silence and frenetic thought (the great inhibitor of being awake and connected).
I write them these notes most of all to tell them how much I love them,
how much i love every day with them-- the brilliantly technicolor grand days and the grey-ish stormy cloudish days.
How much we learn together and grow together through all the seemingly 'small' frustrations or challenges.
How the sea of love that surrounds them is wide and huge and unending and therefore they have a sea of love to give away- to share this sea of love wherever they go- and this will bring them more joy and fulfillment than any dollar amount or upgrade or letter behind their name ever can. How the sea of love is theirs to swim in and be inspired in and then inspire others with, be givers not takers, possibility see-ers.
I write to them to make some sense of the seconds and minutes and days we have together, to take in life as it's happening and learn from the daily lessons, enjoy the daily treasures. TO slow down and smell the roses.
Sometimes days even weeks go by between writings.
It seems my reign as queen of inconsistent is still alive and well. But that aside, these scribbles are not about perfection or punctuation. It's about expressing, becoming more aware through releasing the deep well of who we really are, leaving the perfectionism, ism's in general aside- the rather irrational but occasionally understandable parent fears and fluctuations and frustrations caused by the shoulds and ought to's and they-better-listens...
The notebook represents pieces of an ongoing story. N and L will be writing more and more their own truth, telling their own tale. Scribbling helps me let them go, let the boys form their own notebooks, start their own scribbling.
a simple way to save a little sanity, slow harried life down, write the heart of hearts down on a page,
let go
and let live.
(addendum... they may or may not ever read what i put on the paper. that's not really the point i suppose. the scribbling nonetheless and mysteriously changes- me. i become more aware in the process, and less hindered by what's in my head, more motivated by what's in my heart. An organic way to grow the healthy mama heart, helps silence the control-y-helicopter-tendency-mama part.)
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