A New Kind of Inspiration

 

It's been a long time since I've claimed to be a writer. When people ask me what I do, my instict is to automatically say, "I am a mother" and yes, it should be this way. That is my priority. But I'm missing something that used to be such a large part of me. I want to write again. I want to be crazy with that fire to capture it all down. Something tells me, just write. About what? Do I write a journal entry? Attempt to write a poem, or short story? Freewrite? It all seems so foreign to me, and yet longingly familiar at the same time.

Today, I went to write a poem and I felt the words wanting to pour out of me. I was careful, and a little timid to come face to face with them again. As I wrote about Maya, the words began to flow more easily and I realized that there is a way to combine the old me with the new me. I just have to set some ground rules, remind the old me that I am not who I once was; I don't want to revisit with ghosts anymore and pick apart old wounds. I don't have to anymore. For such a long time, I used those ghosts to fill up the voids in my life. I used the sadness for inspiration.

Right now, Maya is laying on the couch with her Daddy and Anthony runs around in a wild blur like a mini Tazmanian devil. This is what I want to focus on in my writing life now. I'm no longer that young girl who needs the darkness in her life. In fact, I have so much light that maybe that's why it's nearly impossible to put it all down on paper.

Soul on Fire

{ Aaron Jasinski }
A few days ago, Dad said to me, "You're getting away from your natural self, Felish" and then went onto tell me about how when I was little I would write, and draw, and create for hours. My dad and I don't have the greatest relationship, but at times, he says something like this and strikes a cord so deep inside of me that I realize just how much he truly knows...and loves me.

I think my sadness has been evident lately. More and more I realize that I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing with my life, and I want to curse my younger self for not having the courage to branch out into my creative passions. I know that I'm still young, and that I can pave a way to that life that I want so badly now...it is just so much harder to do that while raising two kids. I think about the year and a half that I spent at the Court Reporting Institute and realize that it was a wasted effort, because that is not what I want to do. I know I could be good at it, but at what price? I need to be doing something that sets me on fire.

I read an article a few weeks ago about Suzan Lakhan Baptiste, or as the Trinidad locals call her the "Crazy Turtle Woman". It talks about her persistence to turn what was once a Leatherback turtle massacre site into one of the biggest turtle nesting grounds in the world. I was inspired by not only her bravery, but her passion for the work that she did, passion that others around her thought she was crazy for.

"'When I got started, a lot of people thought I was crazy,' Baptiste said, and she admits that she sometimes wondered if they were right. Reflecting on what she and her team have accomplished, she now believes it was worth it.

'I love being crazy, you know?' she said, laughing. 'Crazy with a passion, crazy with a dream...'

I want to be crazy with a passion. I want my soul to set on fire with what I do for a living. The question now is: how do I get from here to there?

The Parenting World

{ Pablo Picasso }

The parenting world is full of smiles, laughter, horrible knock down tantrums, a little voice saying "Night night, Mama", the smell of a newborn baby's breath... I always thought that I would never have what it takes to be a good mother, or if I could even handle the responsibility of taking care of a child. I wrote an entry here, years ago, about my fear of becoming a mother and to this day, some of those fears still haunt me. The question am I a good mother? tends to rear its ugly head from time to time. I never thought I would be able to relate or communicate with my children, and the thought of having to teach them so many things throughout their lives terrified me. I am realizing now that though I gave birth to them just how much I have to learn from them and how much they have already taught me in their young lives.

I would never trade in this life for anything else. It is a wonderful world, but there is also a dark underbelly to it, that side that you never want to venture towards. As cocky and horrible as this may sound, I never thought we would be those parents - sitting in the emergency room, listening to other parents screaming at the nurses, a worried look across their faces, as they listen to their child cry or laying limp in their arms. What parent ever wants to see themselves in that situation? You don't realize until you're actually there how real it is: the uncertainty, the fear...maybe fear isn't even the right word to describe it. It's a sheer terror that crawls into the very core of you and something that you try against all odds to hide. At least, that is what I was trying to do when our little girl was admitted into the hospital last Wednesday.

I'm learning now that being a parent means being there through everything: the joy and laughter, sadness, sorrow, pain that comes from some unknown place. It is rubbing their backs and soothing away their tears as they cry, or holding them completely still as a nurse tries to find a vein in their tiny body for the fourth time...putting on a brave face and trying not to let them see you cry. Because your tears are not important now; they don't matter. All that matters is making them feel better, nursing them back to health, and being their therapy. We are all home now, back from the hospital, but still not completely out of the woods yet as we still don't know what my daughter's diagnosis will be. There's been multiple times that I've wanted to break down from all of this, but I know that won't help the situation. I can't believe how resilient Maya has been through all of this. Up until the day of her procedure, she was still smiling and laughing as if she didn't have a care in the world. If I could laugh in the face of my pain and stress how much of a different outlook would I have in life? I've always wondered what I'd be like in the middle of a very real crisis. I know I've handled it well.

I can save my breakdown for later when I know Maya is okay.

Broken Relationships

I feel kind of heartbroken today. Sometimes I get jealous of the relationship that my parents have with Anthony and I start to wonder why they weren’t that way with me. I love the fact that my grandmother raised me and that I am close to her…but why can’t I be close to them, as well? I feel that this is one of the major gaps in our relationship and the number one reason why I can’t push past all of the bitterness. I want something that I can never have. Anthony loves his grandparents so much, and I don’t want the way I feel to affect that bond that he has with them. But the question now is: do I let them know just how deeply I hurt because of the decisions they made or do I try to look past it and somehow accept it?

At times, I feel like they are making up for their absence in my childhood and they are doing it with Anthony. They just took Christmas pictures with him, without Andres and I knowing and said that it was supposed to be a surprise for us. I don't want to feel this way, but looking at those pictures infuriates me. While I can somewhat understand their need to make up for lost time, I also get frustrated because I feel that sometimes they forget that he is my son, not theirs. I feel that I am constantly reminding them of this, day by day and it is draining me. How do I get them to see me as being not just their daughter, but a mother now? How do I get them to realize that nothing that they do with him can make up for what I missed out on?

Maya

Maya (4D Sonogram)
Originally uploaded by unraveled

We got to see our beautiful little girl yesterday through the amazing technology of a 4D sonogram. We did this when I was pregnant with Anthony and for some reason, I thought that Maya would like exactly like him but she doesn't. She is much chubbier, her nose and lips are different, and the sonographer said that she is very, very active. I used to get worried about Anthony because he hardly ever moved. Maya is always moving, and kept yawning as we were getting the sonogram done. I made a comment about how it's because she never sleeps. I am 32 weeks along in my pregnancy and still, it doesn't feel real sometimes even though her kicks keep me up at night. I don't think I am ready for her (emotionally, physically, or mentally) but I love her so much already. I can't imagine life with two children to meet the demands of, but I'm so excited, so scared, and just ready to meet my precious little girl and hold her in my arms for the first time.

Breathe Me

I think it's time for me to breathe some life back into this place. I've missed having a haven for myself. I've been thinking a lot about my writing and the passion that I once had (still have) for it. I do believe that it is still there, flickering inside of me somewhere, but maybe I just need to get reacquainted with that part of myself again. I know that words will always be there, because just when things get to be a bit too much, I always turn to them again. I wish that I could find the time, motivation, and energy to sit and write in my paper journals the way I used to but it's been so hard lately. I'm hoping that blogging will inspire me to find those conversations with myself again.

There was a speaker at my job on Tuesday for staff development day. He was specifically talking to the teachers in the room, but something that he said struck a nerve within me: "You can't teach a child to do something, and then do it half-heartedly yourself." This made me think about my writing, and my need to express myself. How can I teach Anthony and Maya to express themselves when I've been doing it half-heartedly? I don't want them in the future to notice the absence of my writing and equate that to their being in my life. I want them to see just how passionate I am about my writing and all of the other creative releases in my life.

I think of another quote that I read in a book somewhere about how absences in journals can speak loudly, or even more so, than the words themselves and this is something that I have to keep in mind too. My life is so full of wonderful things: Anthony's laughter and smiles, Maya rolling around and kicking in my tummy, Andres holding me close to him at night. It is and always has been so hard for me to capture these happy moments when they are the ones I want to remember the most.

Parts Divided

{ Nicoletta Tomas Carvio }


It seems I have no place to call my own anymore. I used to have several layers, places that I felt I could go to and share pieces of myself and my life. Now, I am not so comfortable with the thought of sharing myself in a completely public place like this. I find myself at a strange crossroads. I read old journals and realize that I never thought I would be this person I am today, a wife, a mother, pregnant again. It's strange to realize that the pathways we take in life are not what we expected at all. I am happy, but I want more.

I never have time to just sit down and reflect anymore, and I feel that I'm losing a part of myself. Thinking back to my old journals and what they meant to me makes me a little sad. I used to pour so much of myself into them; now that energy is reserved for the little one who stares up at me with such beautiful, innocent eyes. And I have to wonder: am I still that girl in those pages? Motherhood is a wonderful thing, but you have to give so much of yourself to this tiny person that relies on you for everything. I would not give that up for anything, but I need to find a way to combine the person I was with the person that I am today. Just because I'm a mother doesn't mean I have to lose all the old parts of me, the parts that I loved. I love my son so much, but still at times, I feel I can give more to him, more of myself to him. And yet, I don't want to lose myself, as well.

I am a mother, but this mother is also a wife, a writer, a painter, a lover of creativity...Can I be all of these, too? How do I find a way back to this?