Meaning of Life
No I don’t know the answers to Life the Universe and Everything, other than the fact that it’s sum total is 42. (Ref. Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy). And maybe it’s only because I actually had a full night sleep in my own bed for the first time in a very long time, last night, but this morning it seemed like a good day to wake up and ask myself those searching questions like:
Where did I think I’d be about now, when I was in grade school, and where do I think I’ll be 5yrs. from now? 10yrs from now? Etc.
When I was in grade school, and high school for that matter, I was really just marking time. I had dreams but not a lot of hope of their coming true.
It was only at the end of my college career that I began to know the meaning of the word determination. Until then, I just didn’t have the gumption to feel anything that resembled determination.
I was determined when I called home from a prestigious but anti-social all girls college dorm and to my mother’s polite “Hello”? gave: I’M NOT STAYING.
I was determined when I then moved out of their house and in with a wonderful woman who liberated me and was a whole 2nd family to me. Of course I had to move out while my parents were away for the week-end, because they kept having a million very sensible reasons why I probably shouldn’t or couldn’t move out right now.
I was very determined after that when I used my own money to get myself thru all but the last half of the last massage class that would get me my CMT.
And after going through one boyfriend experience, I was determined to marry a real man and when I found one that qualified, I was very determined that I’d marry him or be a spinster all my life. I even told him exactly that, before I’d known him more than a couple months.
Of course we’re married now, and have a 7yr. old son, soon to start first grade here in Petaluma CA.
As to 5 or 10 yrs. from now, I’m pretty determined about that too. It’s important to me to own our own home, and to be at least leasing if not owning a beautiful work space for giving massage.
It’s also important to me that our son stay in school until college. I say only “until” college, because more and more, we can study on-line, or go to vocational schools to learn what we need to be able to get work that we love. I also realize that there were some things that might have benefitted me more than my 3rd yr. of college.
Travel or a bit of work might have given me the time to come to grips with what I really wanted from life, and in what niche I really belonged. I did join the workforce rather sooner than I expected, and it took me longer than I expected to figure out that I was an alternative health carer at heart.
Oh well, figure it out I did, and it taught me to stick to being determined, and may have even made me a bit arrogant. Now I’m doing a bit of arrogance damage control, and some of that is coming to the realization that I was arrogantly forcing a bed-timing issue with my son that didn’t work for us.
I had arbitrarily decided, that the bed-time routine should really be finished by 8p. This was quite a while ago, and I really haven’t slept in the Master Bedroom since then.
I gave up in desperation, a few days ago, because the routine had me stressed out and my son had been feeling it. I decided that I was going to take a break that evening, and if my son didn’t get to sleep until after my husband got home from his dance class to say good-night, maybe that was okay.
I let my son watch the end of his movie, and then turned it off, and we played a few computer games, and snuggled a bit and he was asleep in minutes.
Wow!! That was the first time that had happened in a long while, and I wasn’t even stressed out from all the last minute requests for snacks and drinks, and teeth brushing, and more snuggles after all that. For once I hadn’t been stern about the requirement that he stay in bed the rest of the night. For the first time in many months, he had gone to sleep happy and peaceful. Even giggling a bit.
I had done that.
I went downstairs to rest on my laurels and to wait for the other shoe to drop. It didn’t. My more sensible half came home to enjoy the fruits of my not laborious labors with me, and soon we went to sleep again in our usual way: The hubby in the bed, and my son and I on the couch, because he’d made me promise to consumate that ritual again.
Baby steps.
I had stuck to the old bed-time routine for far too long, hoping that my son would eventually get it right. I was doing this, because I had been deluded by all the parenting books and experts into thinking that children my son’s age are supposed to go to bed early, and that it will work if you stick to your guns, and lay down the law for your kids.
That didn’t work for us for several months, so I’m back to believing (maybe arrogantly) in my own methods of mothering again over those of the “experts” and credentialed authors of all the “best” books on child rearing.
Now I’m rested enough to make sensible decisions, so that I have time to dream up ways to realize my hopes, so that I’ll be where I want to be in 5yrs/10yrs, and on down the line.
I make for you, Dear Reader, the happiest wish for your longevity, joy, and success that I can, in saying: Sweet Dreams.