"So forget the map, roll down the windows, and whenever you can pull over and have a picnic"

I think it's a beautiful thing - leaving behind all the baggage and looking for the simple things in life. The small triumphs, simple pleasures, and the joy to be found in such moments. If i can do that, then all the big crap wont matter so much. I guess its about appreciating not just what you have, but what you dont. Great things are out there to be accomplished and had - and im not saying not to try to be your best you. But maybe, there's a place to be found that leaves all the worry out of the when's and maybe's and if's...I've found things will happen in their time if you let them, and in the meantime - there is so much to revel in day to day.
This is not easily done - appreciating the space youre in - But i do believe it is possible. I remember a time when what i had was enough..."All i need is song in my heart, food in my belly and love in my family..." Family is a funny word...family can be the people you share each day with, it can be a true friend, or the people you love from afar - sometimes it was literally me, myself and I - It can be All those things really...i think i need to remember this most of all. Loneliness might be the shadow that walks in my footsteps, but i am never alone.
Anyway, I leave this bit of self reflection with a quote or two...

"Open up your plans and, Damn, you're free." J. Mraz

"Simple is Good"
"Please watch out for each other and love and forgive everybody.
It's a good life, enjoy it." J. Henson

Routine.

According to one PaleoArchaeologist i recently met (yes, that's right) there have been at least five major extinction events (a.k.a. mass extinctions) in the history of the Earth.  (Ok. nerds, i know that arguably there are upward of twenty mass extinctions based on periods when the rate of extinction increases with respect to the rate of speciation...but she was of a more conservative mind and was on the team that believed a more stringent criteria needed to be met before the term "mass extinction"  could be trotted out; and since she was holding the big ass  Euoplocephalus femur and i wasn't, i decided i'd take her word for it.)

Today my children were all sitting around the den like many other Sundays past, watching their father and their uncle engage in a grueling game of golf (on the Wii) while their jovial brotherly banter, discussion of proper putting techniques, and general philosophies and pontifications on life carried through to the kitchen - where i stood laughing to myself, as usual, as i brewed another pot of coffee and pulled some meat and vegetables out to thaw for Sunday dinner.  I was chuckling to myself and enjoying this brief moment of pleasure (my poor babies have been sick all week and all together miserable) when i reflected on my own Sunday's growing up.

My father's parents lived five minutes away, and though they were over every Mon. thru Fri. to see my brother and i off to school, then walk us home from the bus stop, most Sunday's they would be over for whatever my mother was cooking up special in the kitchen.  While my brother and i did homework - my mother toiled over the most wonderful comfort foods (pot roasts, spaghetti and meatballs, lasagna, fried chicken cutlets, pork chops, etc. etc.)  that made my house smell cozy and inviting and down right homey - in the summer, my Dad would grill, the smell of booze, charcoal and cigarettes in the air.  Though fraught with daily anxieties (im sure), i recall these habitual Sunday dinners fondly - as warm family times - full of noise and laughter, good food, and love.  Though they seemed to take up most of my childhood, year after year if you asked me then, they ended all too soon when both my grandparents passed in the time of a month, over a cold, lonely winter before i was 13.  I guess you could say in the short history of our lives, we've suffered "extinctions."  Each marked, quite clearly, the end of one time period in my family's life, and the beginning of another.  I look back at my life and i can see the pattern - the rise of good times, good people; a routine - and then the slow, but all too sudden, fall that finally ends with us scratching our heads, looking down at our empty hands, and those wobbly steps toward the beginning of a new day.

Will my children remember these days? - brief certainly in the grand scheme of things - but the hallmark of their childhood "Sunday's" - a memory of better days, and happy times that, like all things, will one day become extinct.

Rough Day

Dont want to know anyone today!  Um, so, who wants to come over and help me?

Full to Bursting

I feel like I'm about to explode!  I've got so many emotions jumbled up and rumbling around inside that I just know it means something wonderful is changing within me.

Every negative day has a positive outcome, something I learn or take away from it.

And, more importantly, I am having fantastic days!  Day in which I feel good - like myself again.  Confident, clever, pretty, and full of win.  I am no longer second-guessing myself every minute of every day.  I'm worrying less, and laughing more.  I'm listening to music and bopping.  My smiles are becoming contagious.

And I know that whatever happens, however things turn out, I am a worthwhile person.

~Dorkopotamus (aka Katy)

Untitled

Like grasping at water, I could not close
My fists tight enough amidst the onslaught
To compress a reflection. Here, I froze,
Trapped within the very confines I sought.

Every pinprick was a bell toll sounding
The minute come hour coming undone.
I crumpled, over nothing, surrounding
Myself with echoes of my frustration.

What is come undone resolves and unblurs
The carousel - each animal now free
To wander. But freedom can be a curse;
More walls cultivate the sanctuary.

Therein lies the calm, but too calms the lies.
Muffled by echoes, I’m deaf to my cries.

~Dorkopotamus (aka Katy)

Learninating the Peasants

So for the past month I've done a lot of thinking, educating, learning, and self-affirming.  And I feel like I'm at once becoming a whole new person, and rediscovering a person inside that I'd forgotten all about.

Yeah, it's kinda confusing.

But awesome.  And I've got wonderful support all around me that's helping me through it.

I know the outcome of all this change will be good, and that's really exciting.

I'm beginning to realize that I'm actually pretty darn amazing. 

Why didn't I allow myself to know this sooner?

~Dorkopotamus (aka Katy)

Indigestion of the Soul

I has it.

~Dorkopotamus (aka Katy)

Jack Handey Would Be Proud

I think I'm having an existential crisis.  Interesting.

~Dorkopotamus (aka Katy)

Ch-ch-ch-changes

So it seems I spoke too soon - not quite out of the woods of depression yet.  But I'm working on it.

In somewhat related news, the depression, combined with some good talks with friends, has sparked a contemplative fire within me.  I can't stop thinking about Big Things and the Big Picture.  There are changes I'd like to make, but changes are scary and require effort and work to affect.  I'm not always so great at getting over my anxiety and lack of motivation to cause said changes, but I feel like it's time once again to move forward.  I know I'm being vague, but I'm not quite ready to commit to these changes, or admit to them for that matter.  Some of them are deeply personal.  While others, like reboarding the diet and exercise wagon, are more surface matter.

Last year was all about accepting who I am, this is the year that's supposed to be about moving forward.  It's already May and I feel like I've let myself down a bit.  But the year isn't over yet.  I don't want to put too much pressure on myself, but I'm tired of saying "I wish I was more this" and/or "I want to be more like that."  I can't change everything in my life, but there are certain things I definitely can if only I can stretch my boundaries just a little bit more.  One of my best friends told me how much better I am now as opposed to this time last year - I want him to be able to say the same thing about me next year.  Even better, I'd like him to be able to say it about me next week.

I want to be the person I want to become.

~Dorkopotamus (aka Katy)

Tortoise Shell

So im looking for modern tortoise shell eyeglass frames....round, cats eyes, even horn rim - i've always wanted to splurge on a pair, and while i dont have an actual dime to splurge with...and though my children have broken EVERY pair of glasses ive owned for the last five years (true story) i really want to just say F-it.  I mean, after all, how often do i spend $ on myself?  Next to never (maybe because i dont have any $ to spend in general)!  Ok, i know, its probably an irresponsible purchase, but i figure (as my hubby would say) "its an investment."  In what you ask?  Well how about my self esteem, which is dangerously low these days.  Im tired of being fat (yet i never work out; when i do have time, im so tired id rather sit and eat. LOL).  Im tired of my pony tail!  Im tired of my wardrobe from 5 years ago (although they have really hung in there.  Gap jeans are indestructible, right?)  And while most days i figure, as a stay at home mom, why do i need anything other than my boot cuts, a ratty t-shirt for little sticky fingers covered in maple syrup and paint, and my hair pulled back out of my eyes alla pony tail - there are days now and again, especially when said jeans are getting a bit tight (yikes) when i catch my reflection in the mirror and i cringe, or cry, or just shriek. 
To sum up, though my car may need tires, my chimney sweeping, a BBQ would be nice and helpful, so would an inspection on the car - i think new glasses is the way to go, dont you?