Walking With Sorrow

As I journey with friends and their pain this week I am reminded of the song, 'God is watching us from a distance'. If you've got a minute watch it on youtube - 'Bette Medler'.

My Father died very suddenly when I was a seventeen year old girl. After the fresh fall of grief there were other winters of it too. I was chosen to give the graduate speech at my nursing graduation in 1981. The day of the graduation I spent many hours crying. As I practiced my speech to be delivered that night in the Auckland Town Hall to an audience of over a thousand parents and students, the mayor of Auckland and nursing officials, my Father was constantly in my thoughts.

It had only been 2 years and I thought forward to the many other special events in my life that he would be absent from. I thought my face would never dry. But later that night, hair rolled in a french roll and crisp white uniform and red cape on, I nervously strolled behind the back stage area of the town hall stage.

At that moment I felt that all of heaven was open and my Heavenly Father and my own Dad were watching from a distance. Somehow nothing stood between us. My 3 minute speech was delivered succinctly and quickly and as I stepped down the stage steps to my amazement every person in that auditorium stepped to their feet in applause. Something had happened beyond all of our understanding, God had come down to touch every heart through my pain.

That night I knew that God sees our pain and is never distant.

Double-Digit Delights

This morning was a day with my pre-teen that surprised me with its wonderfulness. She won her soccer match and is a real play maker in various positions. We chose her birthday present, she has a budget to keep to for her choice of present and celebration. She calculated everything, making cheaper choices to achieve what she wanted to do with her friends. She created her own e-invitation and sent it. She enters double-digits in 7 days and delights me with her growing sense of what is reasonable.

I thought it would never come but shouldn't be surprised, we all get there in the end. Her challenging ways emerge into a girl who knows very clearly what she is passionate about and will pursue these things eagerly. Again I am surprised by a new stage of parenting where as a daughter she needs so much of my assurance about 'girlhood'. I get to walk alongside this and observe her and cheer her on. There's nothing like a sports sideline to make you realise how much your child relishes your cheers of support and grows in confidence from every success.

I feel warm and fuzzy about seeing my children grow up. Especially as they cross the line from Year 6 to Year 7. I've always hated people saying to me, it get's easier because as a Mother of twins and a 2 year old, it took so very long to do so.

What I realise today is how much parenting is an invitation by an older child to a parent. When they let you in to coach them, its such a joy.

Squeezing Life In

Yesterday I went for a job interview, I thought it might fill the lonely corners of life and help meet the budget. Only to find out the job was way too exciting and perfect but wouldn't fit into the small shape I had for it in my life.

All the energy and adrenaline for the interview dissipated a few hours later into cold reality. This midlife Mum had to face the facts, the jigsaw pieces were too many like 2 bags of pieces mixed up, life would get too confusing and lots of pieces would always be left over, with no place to go.

I have to say no today. No to working with a CEO 3 weeks into a project who wants to setup offices and launch something fantastic that would make a real difference with me at his side.

But as a woman I can't leave out the human quotient. My elderly Mother who depends on my company. My children who need my management and nursing on a sick day and the sum total of all the weekly activities and chores of a busy family life.

If you are choosing the right pieces for the puzzle all the time and letting little dreams slip away to do so, well done.

Welcome to my 3 new followers, you've inspired me today.

Resonating

Being new to writing a blog I don't want to prescribe answers, after all I'm a mid-lifer and one thing dawns in this stage of life, answers are too easy to give and don't fit every ones life size. I hope my words resonate with my readers because it comes from where they are.

To know you are not alone in your head space is a comforting thing, like a hot chocolate on a sunny day.

Have you been for one lately, when you most need it, drop into your local garden centre cafe, get a luxurious hot chocolate with bouncing marshmallows and sip it outdoors with the birdsong bouncing off your soundscape. You deserve it. Melt away the winter blues with some moments to yourself. Breathe again, forget the loads of washing or afternoon work schedule for 30 minutes.

You are more than the sum total of your skills and task list, you have a soul that needs to slow down and be nourished too.

Defining Oneself

We reach moments in life when we are arrested with a need to find or measure ourself again. As women we get lost in our roles, wife, mother, daughter, housekeeper, sandwich maker, taxi driver. And we feel empty when these roles melt away like ice on a summer's day.

Staying home with young children strips us of a sense of being the intellectual, the sophisticate in a work role, the rush of the urgent takes on new meaning! Its no longer about getting work across a deadline but rather rushing to rescue a toddler who is about to bang their skull as they stand-up under a shopping trolley.

Reaching decade milestones has a similar effect. We wonder who would be counted as a friend to celebrate our life at that midway point? What has our life added up to? Where have we left fingerprints of consequence? Who are we really? Where has the fun gone?

Ever wondered such things? Join me on my journey of being an older midlife Mum. Join me on my journey of 'being woman'. Share insightful stories with other women who visit this site.

I'm Carolyn...