Running Bare

Today I feel like I did something very scary, but it seems almost insignificant to say so.  I thrust myself into the art world and attempted a watercolour painting as a gift for some dear friends and their soon to be born baby girl.  The only downside was that it was something I had never painted before, I had no idea how to do it, and I’m not a very confident painter.  All I had was an image in my mind and somehow had to transfer it to paper which I’m normally terrible at doing, ON THE MORNING OF THE SHOWER!  First thought, “Who does this?”  Second thought, “What can I find on Pinterest?”  After some rapid Pinterest research while my own bubby was napping I drew a quick very basic outline (FAR more scary than painting!) and put brush to paper.

At this point I’m sure you’re wondering when the scary part is coming.  So what if I’m not that great at art, it’s the thought that counts right?  WRONG!  It was difficult to put myself out there, even in the privacy of my own home, hoping that each new brush stroke would not destroy all the previous ones.  I have to admit that once I completed the main feature of the image, I almost didn’t complete the rest of the painting.  I was so scared to mess it up, too scared to fail.  Each step of the way I was wanting to check with all my arty friends and make sure that it was still okay.  I finally finished the painting an hour or two later after an intermission when Arya decided to wake up and wanted to play.  After fiddling for a while, I was actually really happy with it, but it’s so intimidating when you have to make yourself vulnerable in front of others and reveal a part of yourself.  This wasn’t just a pretty picture.  It really meant something that I was trying to share and I was laying myself bare in front the people I care most about.  The funniest part, is that it was only yesterday that I was listening to someone speak about being vulnerable with those precious to you, your chosen family.  I’m not that sort of person. I like to be strong, independent, and rely only (mostly) on big old me.  I’m pretty much invincible.  You can see how I struggled a little with this!

I’m really proud of myself for sitting down and attempting to create something from nothing, and I’m proud of the fact that I was willing to lay it out in front of others.  Even if it was totally awful, I still did it.  Just don’t ask me to paint it again, because I’m really not sure that I could!  It’s s step toward who I want to be and opening up to the people I have chosen to be my family (and my own family too of course!).

The image I had in my mind was of a purple bird rising up and emerging out of water, all of it purple, and all of it alive.  It is supposed to represent royalty, and new life bursting forth.  Apologies for the photo quality!

PS. A pajama singlet was sacrificed in the creative process.  I didn’t even know I had paint everywhere until Mum pointed it out.  Oh well, at least it’s water soluble, right?

Painting for Eva Faith

Clouds Do Pass

I left my last post at a fairly low point, but this is not a place where I have stayed emotionally.  I don’t want to give the impression that I am unhappy.  It has been hard, and I have had my moments of stress and insecurity and pain, but they are moments, and they pass.  I haven’t written in order to gauge sympathy, but to simply and honestly share my story.  I don’t feel that life has dealt me a hard card.  In cfact, I’m highly aware that my choices have influenced where I am now.  I’m also aware that I am not responsible for other people’s actions.  Some of the last few months have been the result of my actions and others’ that affect me, and some of it has just  been the reality of life and death.

My biggest question has been, “Where to now?”.  What to do?  How to plan?  What to feel?  My tactic has been to feel what I need to feel in the moment.  I deal with my emotions in the moment, sometimes well, sometimes not.  I am finally at the point where I can breathe and sleep freely and I feel that I can think with a clear head (although I’m sure there will be many pregnant moments where I *think* I’m being clear headed)

My greatest plan has been to make the decisions now, that I need to make now, and leave for later the choices that I don’t yet need to answer.  For example, I don’t need to decide now what school I want Meebs to go to, but I do need to get a financial plan so I can begin to save for the future (including those very expensive school costs).  I don’t need to have a birthing plan just yet, but I do need to decide what hospital I’m going to, and how I’m going to progress with doctors and midwives etc.  Trust me, after the instability of the past year I desperately want all my ducks in a row, but I’m learning not to stress about what I haven’t got sorted, and as much as I want my duckies all neat and tidy, I’m slowly learning to let go.

Very, very, slowly.

I’m still learning to lean on God for the big things as well as the little ones.  I still have no idea how I’m going to cope financially and even if full time work is a viable option once Amoeba is born, but it’s one of those ‘trusting in God for the answer LATER’ questions that tomorrow can answer.  I’d still rather trust myself.  It’s a hard habit to kick, but I take things one day at a time.

Even today as I tried to save the 2 thousand odd dollars that I would otherwise lose after cancelling a month long snowboarding trip (at 3-4 months pregnant, snowboarding in another country was ill-advised) I found myself having to stop and breathe and say, ‘Daddy God, I need to open the right doors, and close the wrong ones’.  Of course, this was after freaking out, getting all shaky, and then calling my mum.  Like I said, I’m not perfect.  I still have a LONG way to go.

The hardest lesson is learning to forgive.  I have found it so hard to even entertain the idea, but as the sharpness of the hurt lessens, I’m realising that I have to forgive, or I’ll be stuck at this hurting, bitter point for the foreseeable future.  I don’t know how, but it is the next thing I have to work through.  Again, I’m asking each day, ‘Father I don’t know how to do this, but I choose to forgive.’  It’s going to take a lot of grace that is not in me yet.  It’s hard to forgive when someone hasn’t apologised and doesn’t want forgiveness.  It’s going to take a lot more than all that is Bek.

Having said all of this, I’m excited for the future.  I check each week to see what fruit matches Meebs size and eagerly counting down the weeks until I can find out if I have a little boy  or little girl coming.  I’m saving (which does not come naturally) and making plans to live fully and invest in myself and in Meebs future.    I have never been more encouraged and uplifted by the people around me.  I feel more secure knowing that I’m not in this alone.  I don’t have all the answers yet, and I probably won’t ever, much to my dismay.  The one thing I do have is hope, for now that is enough.

The Eye of the Storm

Unfortunately, the tough year did not end with my last post. A few weeks after my cousin passed away, my partner told me that a girl from university liked him. It seems silly to be worried about a teenager chasing after the man who is planning to marry you, especially when we were beyond the stage of ‘boyfriend and girlfriend’, but it is still annoying. I wasn’t too worried, but as I learned more over the weeks about how he was relying on her to deal with his own struggles and was talking to her constantly when we were supposed to be spending time together, it lead to more arguments. As things do, the arguments about the symptom lead to further arguments about the real issues. There is nothing noble or wise about trashing someone on the internet, so I won’t, but things eventually led to the point where he broke up with me. This was incredibly gut wrenching, because he was the man whom I had loved for 8 years. The man that I had planned a life with and my best friend. Breakups are hard, but I really felt like he had gone back on everything he had ever told me. I felt like I had been hit by a truck. I wanted to be hit by a truck.

However, the next day made things so much worse between us. I found out I was pregnant. This was a huge shock, and certainly not a situation that I thought I would find myself in. Our breakup seemed to shrink in comparison when I thought about the new life I was carrying. It was not a ‘zen’ moment by any means. I spent the afternoon hyperventilating and crying, not really sure how I was going to handle the situation. My emotional struggle became harder though, when my ex-partner started pushing very strongly for me to have an abortion.

I could not judge anyone else who has been faced with the decision to keep their child or not, but as daunting as it was to face the idea of being a single mum, I know I made the right decision. There was little more than 100 cells bursting with life the day I found out I was pregnant, but they seemed like the most important 100 cells that have ever been a part of me. This child was already alive and developing a brain (neural tube) and was just a week away from a detectable heartbeat. Every part of me knew that I had to protect this precious baby. For me, the choice to get an abortion would have destroyed me. To believe that there was a life that I had chosen to take away would have led me to a point in depression where life wouldn’t be worth living. On one hand, it was a hard choice to be a single mum, to not know how I was going to cope financially, how I was going to work and afford child care, or what to do with my studies. It was huge. On the other hand, it hardly took a moment, I had to care for and love and protect the baby. There was suddenly a whole new purpose to life.

I’m now 11 weeks pregnant, nearly at the 12 week sweet point where I might stop throwing up and feeling nauseous. I desperately wish that I was walking this journey as a family.  I don’t even know what a family is called when it’s just a mum and bub.  Still a family, but it seems somehow different.  In my case I am incredibly blessed to have a family who already love my little Amoeba and who are supporting me through everything and I trust that they will be the family we need.

My ex-boyfriend has also said he would be supportive and love and care for the baby when the time comes that he is able to. However, I still struggle with how to handle that relationship. Two days after we found out I was pregnant, he was in bed with the same girl we had fought about in the first place and is now in a relationship with her. I don’t know if it’s just normal heartbreak, or if it is hormones making things fun, but it has certainly brought me to the point of brokenness. I have lost a lot of trust and a lot of respect, but I still want this little Amoeba to have a dad and to look up to and love him. I know my dad is amazing. I’m 25 years old and he is still my hero, but I don’t know how to cultivate that in a broken home. I don’t even know what it looks like to have parents who aren’t together.

I have been incredibly lucky to have parents that love each other and love us unconditionally, no matter what the circumstances are at the time. I feel like I’m ill equipped for single parenthood. I have spent years helping out with my younger siblings, and I was a live-in nanny for three years, so I’m not scared to take care of a child. But being a parent is a completely different thing. I won’t have someone else to help and wake in the middle of the night when Meebs is crying. I won’t have that person to hold bub after I’ve been thrown up on so I can change into a clean shirt. I won’t have that person that I love and can rely on when I’m so tired I can’t do anything but sleep and feed Meebs. I DO have an amazing and supportive family who are going to help be that other person, and who will love and care for bub almost as much as I ever could. But when I face the journey ahead, I have never understood more clearly why it takes two people to make a child.

When You Feel Like a Tornado Has Torn Through Life

This has been an incredibly hard year. Probably the hardest of my life to date, and I don’t say that lightly. It has felt like each trial, however great or small, has only been in preparation for the following ordeal with only a few short weeks in between. I don’t want to list all of the horrible things in my life, that would be pointless, make for awful reading material, and it’s honestly not my perspective on the situation, but as I have not written for months, I will share some of the things that have been happening. Even if the only point is to say that I am alive and healthy and I don’t *think* I’ve gone crazy.

Some of you might have read that my cousin who had Cystic Fibrosis was really struggling. After a successful double lung transplant, an amazing recovery, and even a return to her studies, she took a turn for the worse. The infection that had destroyed her lungs returned and was rapidly taking her new lungs down. Despite hoping and praying and against all the efforts of the leading doctors in the field, there was nothing that could be done. On the 22^nd of December, 2014 Kari-Lee Birrell said her last goodbyes. It was sudden, we thought we would have a few days to say goodbye, but the day she made a final post on Facebook was the day she left us.

“Just so everyone knows I’m being sent home today as there’s nothing else the doctors can do. I didn’t think it would come to this but I’ve just got a few days left. So I just want to say love all people, respect others and be grateful for the little things in life. Peace Out.”

I wish I could have been there to give her one last hug, one last precious squeeze and tell her that I love her, that I would always miss my twin cousin. I got a phone call in the middle of work that day, and my heart dropped. I ran for the phone and saw Mum’s name. I didn’t have to call her back. I already knew. I went to the hospital and saw her. She wasn’t struggling to breathe any more. It sounds crazy, but as I saw her lying there, it was as if she was finally free to breathe.

Kari has left a space in the world that is incredibly difficult to fill. As hard as it is to say goodbye, it is even harder to carry on. It is only her strength, adventurous spirit, and her faith that lead as an example. She had such strength in the face of pain and adversity. She was carried by her sense of humour. She lived her life as full as she could with travel, study, and friends and family. At the end of the day it is her faith that stands out to me. She knew where she was going. She knew an Ultimate Love. It seems like a lovely Christian saying, but I really do take comfort in the fact that I will see her again, and that she is breathing fully and deeply. As I pray for her husband and family, I hope that they take hold of the fact that the same Father who comforted her, can comfort them. It’s still hard without Kari. Even as I write this sitting in an open coffee shop in a busy shopping centre, I am fighting tears.

The greatest and hardest lesson I have learned is that it’s not that He will take you out of the situation, but that He knows and meets you right in the midst of it.

That’s Enough of That Darl

This week I had the pleasure of training some new casuals at work, which I normally enjoy, but one of the girls really bugged me.  She is about 23, although she looks a little more mature, and is lovely, energetic, and engaging, perfect for the job, but she called me DARL.

I *hate* being called darl.  No matter who it is or how old they are, if a person calls me darl it gets me riled up.  This particular girl is younger than me, but was still using the word-that-should-not-be-spoken. I find the term to be so demeaning, and even if someone uses it as a term of affection I still don’t think it’s appropriate when I have only just met someone.

I can look past it in a workmate, especially when they have no idea how annoying it is, but when a customer uses it… by golly I’m not happy!  Occasionally I also hear, “luv” and “hun”, or even “babe”, which is especially annoying, because I work in the men’s department of our store.  There is nothing more demeaning than a grown man calling me “luv”.  When I hear it my (generally) genuine smile freezes on my face and I have to growl through my teeth, “Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

I have some bizarre and eccentric habits and pet hates, but in this one I think I’m justified.  What do you think?  Does this get your goat too?  Or is it only those of us in retail who have to deal with the onslaught of insulting pet names? Let me know what you think, because surely I’m not the only one that’s driven crazy by this!

No Green Gables Here

I’m a huge reader. I have been all my life, which has caused me a little trouble in the past. I was home schooled for many years, and when Mum wasn’t checking up on me, I’d pull out my latest novel and be whisked away to another world. Unfortunately, I didn’t get too much school work done…
One of my favourite series growing up, was the Anne of Green Gables stories. She reminded me a little of myself, too romantic, with an idealistic view of the world and a love of stories. Anne had a particular musing though, that has really resonated with me through the years, especially now when I find myself between a rock and a hard place and I don’t really know where I’m going.  She used to talk about bends in the road, where there are changes in life and you can’t really see what’s up ahead.  She found them exciting and intriguing, and she loved the mystery that life brings.  I, on the other hand, find the concept terrifying.  I love the idea, but in practice, I’d like to know what’s happening, what the 5 year plan is, what the 10 year plan is, and have my future strongly in hand.  It never works!  No surprises there!

I’m facing my next bend in the road now, but this time I’m trying to take a hands off approach.  I’m just starting to see glimpses of what’s around the corner, but I really have no idea.  I’m still impatient, but for the first time in my life, I think I’m okay with not knowing.  I’ll get there soon enough.

Oh, the Irony

I wrote a great blog post yesterday about how I was rejected again and my day was altogether deflating. However, a dear friend had encouraged me to not only look at the situations blocking my path at the moment, but also the positive achievements and great things that are also happening. It really helped, and I began to adjust my focus.

I’m not going to lie. I was impressed with my post. I thought it was written well, it was heartfelt, and it was funny, so I decided to save and post.

Then in a split second as I clicked ‘Save Draft’ WordPress failed me and it was all deleted.
I was *NOT* left in a very positive mood!

A day later I find this so ironic and very amusing, but I definitely tried the old ‘CTRL C’ before I hit publish, just in case!