Here’s a true thing: I am very, very thankful I have a son because the thought of trying to raise a daughter in this world makes me both terrified and angry.

I am a 35-year-old woman. I am educated. I am many good things: generous, curious, kind, loving, enthusiastic, supportive, funny, nurturing, strong-willed, tough.

And yet not a day goes by when I don’t worry about my body.

I hate this.

When I wake up in the morning, whether I get on the scale or not, I wonder about my weight. I make subtle choices throughout my whole day that reflect this constant, pervasive goal of making my body socially acceptable. I choose certain clothes. I don’t have second helpings or put cream in my coffee because I don’t “need” it. Hell, I even put on make-up even though I resent every second it takes because I could be doing something else in those precious naptime minutes.

I would love to know what it feels like to wake up and not think about any of this. My husband does not think about this; he literally only thinks about his weight as worthy of attention when his pants don’t fit. And even then, he considers buying new pants as a valid option.

That must be nice.

I waste so much energy, so much time, so much of myself participating in this machine of female beauty and it infuriates me; but how does one get out? It surrounds me on all sides; you can’t escape it.

So, here I am. Glad of my son because I don’t know how I could teach a daughter of her true value in a world that tells her every day she isn’t good enough, and will only be acceptable if she remembers that fact and never stops trying to achieve the unattainable. After all, I can’t even get that message across to myself.

Do-over.

So, the other day I posted all about my Grand Plan for 2012, how I was going to tackle various kinds of self-improvement over the next 12 months.

And then I took the post down. ‘Cause I kind of don’t want to do any of that.

Truth is, I need to make some changes. I need to develop consistent self-care and I need to figure out a way to nourish my intellect and creativity, because those parts of me have been a bit neglected.

But I don’t want to make it some Big Project. Basically, because I’m pretty over the idea of treating myself as some flawed thing in need of overhaul. I’ve done that; it wasn’t pretty. I’m not doing that anymore, not approaching my life with a big checklist of Things I Should Do Better.

Also, I’d just end up casting about for random things that I’d like to improve and then would ultimately just get frustrated at the lack of cohesion; the (second) truth is, I need a little help in moving toward the life I envision myself having.

So, instead of my abandoned Grand Plan, I’m going to spend the next twelve months opening myself up to external guidance and see what I can learn. I’m starting a course in a couple of weeks that focuses on whole-self wellness, and I’m very excited to see what can happen if I admit I may in fact not know everything and accept wisdom wherever it appears.

That seems like a good way to start a new year. Here’s hoping you’ve found something exciting for the next year as well!

A Room of My Own.

I’ve had this recurring fantasy lately. When I’m doing dishes and staring out the window, when I’m falling asleep at night, when I’m riding in the car and things get quiet, it comes to me.

It is this: A sun-drenched room. There’s an open window, where long white curtains barely stir in a grass-scented breeze. In front of the window, a simple desk sits, topped with a stack of plain white paper and a Mason jar filled with pens. The floors are worn wood, there is a small chair in one corner, in the other corner is a single bed with white sheets and a folded quilt across its foot. It is quiet. The door is closed.

Yeah. I’m fantasizing about having my own room. I am a cliche.

I don’t know if I could have ever prepared for the complete and shattering loss of identity that motherhood has visited upon me. All my boundaries seem to have disappeared sometimes; there isn’t anything that seems wholly mine anymore, no separate space that isn’t gently, but insistently, overrun by the toddler and, lately, the toddler’s father.

I no longer even get to do things like changing my clothes without every member of my household wandering in.

I miss privacy. I miss closing the bathroom door. I miss having space for my own thoughts, for my own self, for being who I am when I’m not being someone’s expectations. As much as I adore staying home with my sweet boy, I am envious of my husband who at least gets to go the restroom alone a few times a day and do luxurious things like eat a meal sitting down in the company of other adults.

This is whining. I know this. I am lucky beyond measure. But even so: I am feeling rudderless and trapped and don’t exactly know how to carve out space for me to exist in separate from the expectations of motherhood and housewifery. I turned 35 last week and here I am, on what is likely the downhill side of my life, feeling as though the self-knowledge I’ve struggled to build is somehow eroding. I don’t know what to do.

What I do know is that I don’t want to be a cliche. I don’t want to grow to resent people for depending on me when I’ve been encouraging that dependence.

I just want to find space to remember who I am, because I know if I lose any more of it, I will eventually cease to be useful to anyone.

What she said.

This is perfect. Just…perfect. There’s nothing more to add.

Figuring things out.

A big recurring theme in my life these days* is care versus control.  It’s probably a product of having an ugly childhood, living in a culture that tells us to disregard our inner compasses for external “expert” opinions, and being a woman.

Whatever the reasons, I’ve spent most of my life believing I just needed more control.  I needed to exercise more control in my food choices, my exercise, my housekeeping, my work life, my financial life.  I needed discipline.  Willpower.  I needed to be tough and unyielding and whip myself into shape.

Sounds awesome, huh?  I mean, whipping one’s self into shape has to lead to positive changes!  Right?

Yeah.  I know.  It totally doesn’t.

What’s finally occurring to me is that when I let go of all that…when I drop “control” as the key concept in my life choices and instead pick up “care,” everything gets a lot easier.

I can’t “control” my food choices.  Trying to do so makes me stubborn and hungry and ultimately, I act out with all kinds of food-related dramas.  My weight fluctuates.  I get obsessed with food and feel anxious about it constantly.  But lately, I’ve been really trying to “care” for myself with food choices.  By eating what I want.  By not eating to the point of discomfort.  By letting go of rules.  By not freaking out about calories or Points or any of that.  By thinking of myself as a treasured, loved person and feeding myself accordingly, much like I would feed that treasured, loved little boy of mine (though I do not cut my food into tiny toddler-sized pieces).  It feels awesome.  My weight is stable, below the weight that I struggled for years to maintain through vigilance and fear.  That just blows my mind.

I’ve also applied the whole control v. care thing to my home life.  I can either beat myself up for not being Homemaker Extraordinaire, or I can ask myself, how can I, as me and not as some awesome person on the internet, best care for my home and family?  And when I ask that?  It all falls into place.  I do things because they feel good instead of not doing them because they feel punish-y.  I take care of my little family because I care for them, not because I have to – and so I do a much better job.

There is one habit in my life I’m wrestling with a bit these days: my beloved cocktails.  I don’t drink often or all that much, but I think I may do it for the wrong reason?  To escape, or maybe relax is a better word – I like that slow, unspooling feeling I get after a drink.  But I don’t like the feeling I get after two drinks, and lately, there always seems to be two (or three, on rare occasions) when there is one.   So, old me would have said: No more!  Just show some discipline, you hedonist!   But instead, I’m trying to think about this in terms of care: how would drinking look in my life if I approached it from a place of self-care?  What would I choose if I were really focused on taking the very best care of myself right now?

I don’t know the answer yet.  But I’m glad to have it out there, to put into words this nagging concern I’ve been carrying around.  A happy, joyful life doesn’t come without asking hard questions, right?

 

*It’s probably always been a theme, but I’ve really become aware of it in those terms recently. 

Love, Housekeeping-Style.

If I had not already pledged my troth to the very tall man who lives in my house, I would totally marry Mrs. Meyers.

Oh, Thelma. You had me at orange-clove countertop spray. I didn’t know that awesome scented cleaning products could change a life, but they totally have.

My markedly cleaner home thanks you.

The Memory Maker.

Today my boy is 15 months old.  I can hardly believe it, that this wild-haired redhead running through the living room, chanting “dog dog dog dog,” is the same tiny, dark-haired, serious baby who was in the new mom trenches with me last fall.

He is pretty amazing, at least in my eyes: so smart, funny, curious, busy.  He loves reading books.  He helps me with the laundry.  He claps for me when I sing.  He shows me his muscles, flexing his little arms and grunting.  It is SPECTACULAR.

What I’m coming to realize is that being his mom is more than just raising him, teaching him, loving him.  It’s so much more than any of that.  I am the custodian of his entire world.  Someday, when he looks back on his childhood, what he will see is the world I created for him: the things we did together, the home we made, the experiences we shared.

That’s a pretty heady responsibility.

But I love it.

Christmas is coming, and it almost seems like our first one together – last Christmas we were in survival mode and he was far too tiny to notice any of the hubbub.  Not this year, though – Monday morning, he walked into the living room and saw the tree his father and I had put up the night before and it stopped him in his tracks.  He smiled, and looked at me.  And smiled even bigger, like the moment was too good not to share.

There are memories I want him to have and I’m so excited to start creating those memories, to shape those future recollections of a childhood filled with fun and wonder and joy and a mom who couldn’t have loved him more.

 

Things worth noticing.

This morning, while I was going over my Thanksgiving to-do list (“1. Make pies.  2.  Eat pies.“), I realized that for the first time in years and years, I hadn’t expended any energy in worrying about what the holiday eating would do to my weight.  Even last year, when I was a sleep-deprived, hormone-addled new mom, I was anxious about what all that food would do to my quest to get back in non-stretchy pants.

This year, I find myself at a rather comfortable place with food.  I’m not counting calories.  I’m not weighing or measuring portions.  I’m not picking the most diet-y choice.  I eat at home or at restaurants and don’t feel nervous about either.  It’s pretty awesome.

Now is when would normally talk about what areas of my food relationship still need work – I would point out the times when I don’t always eat because I’m hungry or how I scarf my meals when The Butterstick is napping, even if I don’t have an appetite right then.

But I’m not going to do that.  Instead I’m just going to think about how far I’ve come, how the terror I used to feel about food has been replaced with calm.  I’m just going to be thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving to me.

Next.

So, the new approach to home-keeping has been glorious.  My house is actually cleaner, because cleaning doesn’t seem so daunting since I’ve simplified things in a way that works for me (such as keeping an entire set of cleaning products in each bathroom because I’m willing to do a quick scrub-down if everything is already there – not so much if I have to haul things from room to room).

This week, I’m focusing on the next value.  Which is:

I value health.

Health.  Not thinness.  Not a certain size.  Health, the kind that occurs in both body and mind, because I happen to have both.  So, here’s how I plan to pursue it in a way that’s meaningful to me.

1.  Eschew all food rules other than “eat what you want when hungry and stop when it no longer tastes good or you are otherwise satisfied.”  I’ve screwed around with my eating quite a lot in the past 10 or so years.  I’ve tried all kinds of diets, I’ve counted calories, I’ve made up my own random food rules.  And yet, the only thing that makes me feel sane, healthy, and keeps my weight from wildly fluctuating is paying attention to appetite and then eating whatever I want.   Trying to “control” my food choices ultimately makes me eat more than I do if I just relax and trust my appetite.

2.  Get lots of exercise.  I may think I hate working out a lot, but I hate how I feel more when I don’t.  I need lots of activity to stay centered and, let’s be honest, I like how I look when I have decent muscle tone.  It doesn’t have to be hours and hours each day, but I need my sweat – “chasing after a toddler” just doesn’t get the job done and I’m fooling myself when I pretend it does.

3.  Trust my own body.  Yeah, that’s pretty hard for me, but as I get older and more comfortable with myself, I’m learning there is wisdom to be had there if I only listen for it.  More than one drink, and I feel dehydrated and regretful the next day.  Too much running without stretching (I know!  Why do I never stretch???), and my knee starts to ache.   Too much weight loss, and I look 15 years older and get dizzy when I stand up.  It’s hard to change behaviors that may feel good or be easier or seem desirable, but if I’m willing to notice, my body tells me how I can feel my best.  I don’t just live in my head, after all – how I function in the world is often a direct result of how I *feel*.  Gotta remember that.

I can’t give my best to my kid, my husband, my family, my world, unless I’m taking good care of myself.  I want my boy to see that health is about how we treat ourselves, not how we look.  He deserves that.  So do I.

Thoughts v. Actions.

Have you ever looked around at your life and been suddenly struck by the fact that it doesn’t match up at all with your priorities?

Okay, maybe “at all” is an exaggeration. But this much is true: what I value isn’t reflected by the choices I make every day.

I mean, I have great ideas. I imagine and plan and pin things on Pinterest and read other people’s blogs and look at magazines; I have a clear picture of the things that I like, that matter to me, that speak to the life I want to lead.

But what do I do each day to those ends? Read more. Pin more. Look at more magazines.

I don’t *do* much of anything.

And as a result, my life doesn’t measure up to my imaginings and I drift along, feeling a sense of disconnection and disappointment and not-good-enough. I look at my own imperfect life and feel…sad.

The crazy thing is, though, I am the author of my own disappointment, because I am the author of my own life! I spend my time comparing and imagining instead of creating and doing.

I’m kind of over that. I don’t want my life to be a Pinterest board, all pretty pictures and ideas, but not really existing. I don’t want an image. I want a life.

So, I’m examining things this week. I’m putting down in words what matters to me and what actual actions I can take every day to create a life of authenticity, a life that feels like home for me and my family. I want my values and priorities to be reflected in how I spend my time, not spend my daydreams.

First up: I value a welcoming home.

I have a fourteen-month-old boy-shaped tornado and two dogs. My house is never going to be spotless. I can’t own things that are fragile or not washable. You will not walk into my home and feel transported to the pages of any magazine. But this is what I can do:

1. Set my own standards of cleanliness and adhere to them in a daily way, using products that I like. I am not a bad person if I buy my cleaning products instead of making them, not matter how awesome baking soda might be. I will choose products that are as safe and non-toxic as possible and that will be good enough.

2. Focus on ambience. I don’t have the time or budget to redecorate my home to my liking, but I can do things that make it seem more pleasant. Light candles (again, as non-toxic as possible). Have more music on and less television. Make sure there are always comfy pillows and cozy throws nearby. Embrace the power of plants, flowers, and good lighting.

3. Remember that anything that makes me or my family happy is a good decorating decision. The homemade wreath on the door may not be as nice as one I could buy, but it makes me smile. The slightly-wonky slipcovers I made out of clearance-sale bedsheets are family-friendly and the fabric delights me. If my house tells the story of my family, then I win. That’s all there is to it.

It’s a place to start. I’m done being trapped by perfection, by feeling if I can’t do things exactly right (all DIY! All natural, homemade products! All perfectly matched!), then I can’t do them at all. After all, I want a happy home, not a snapshot.