Ostara and new foundations

Thank you so much to everybody out there who's supported me with their thoughts, prayers and good wishes while I was in hospital. At times I literally felt it and it worked like magic, because it all went very well and I'm on the mend.
Will have to take things easy, can't drive for at least two or three weeks, no hoovering, no digging in the garden, no lifting heavy things, and all that. But I'm sure I'll manage that without too much trouble.

If ever I had a lesson in letting go and trusting the process I had it in the past week. On the day I was admitted my sister in Holland was taken to hospital, too. Not planned.
And then the next day, when I came out of surgery, Ken told me that apparently my mother had had some sort of a heart attack and was in hospital, in the special care unit.
Now, in any other circumstances I would have been on the first plane out. But that was just no option. At all.

All I could do was lie there and practise radical acceptance.
In an attempt to do so I dipped deep into the healing energy that was being sent to me by so many friends, and I dipped deep into my own strength. And I cried and cried for hours. The nursing staff was so good about it. I explained briefly what I was trying to deal with and that I would really like them to draw the curtains around me and just leave me in my own 'private bubble', as Owen calls it. And they did.
I wish I could say I've got it all sussed now and that everything's under control, but I would be lying. Well, who wants to be in control, anyway.
I suppose lying in a hospital bed with needles and tubes in your body makes it kind of easy to accept you really can't go anywhere. That wasn't the hardest part.
No, there were other issues that, strangely enough (?) I'd been trying to get a grip on in the weeks before I went in, that were a lot tougher. Issues like what happens with me when my Mum takes ill or feels bad, the mechanisms I then fall into, the denial of my own needs and cravings. Issues about unconditional and conditional love. The different feelings I had about my sister and my Mum. The guilt trip I go on about these feelings... etcetera etcetera.

I was so happy to come home and to be able to speak on the phone with both my sister and my Mum. It was good to know that one of my other sisters (I have three) is looking after my Mum. She knows all the medical stuff, she professionally deals with doctors every day and she'll make sure my Mum gets everything she needs. It gives me space to let go of that terribly twisted feeling of responsibility, which in actual fact has more to do with guilt and therefore creates anger...
My sister came out of hospital yesterday. Talking to her, heart to heart, soul to soul, even for a few minutes the first time, I immediately felt the flow of unconditional love and I also felt it was okay, okay to need each other, okay to be connected. Because the way we are connected we exchange, we share, but we do not absorb each other. I do not need to feel responsible for her in any other way than to give her who and what I truly am.
And I am - in every sense of the word - her Sister.

I am really tired now. The days seem to last twice as long as normally, I have lost my sense of time and even place every now and then. I have tried to help cook a special meal today, but I couldn't stay on my feet for very long.
I did feel a bit sorry for not having done anything about Ostara this year. But I suppose this year I am celebrating Ostara by living it. The time for new beginnings, rebirth and balance.
This year at Ostara I've had the foundations under my motherhood strengthened.
Under a practically full moon.
Slowly but surely the picture is getting clearer, the bits of the jigsaw are falling into place.

This all probably looks like the ramblings of a recovering mind, making not much sense. And I'll stop writing, because the thoughts that are now entering my head haven't found words yet. And certainly not in English ;). But my body is a lot more relaxed now than when I started writing this post.
I'm going to close my eyes and ponder about Ostara and the time of radical changes it brings along.

Headed for Hospital

I will be going into hospital on Tuesday.
The blood tests came back okay, no reason to postpone the operation.
So it's going ahead as planned.
I asked the consultant - a very nice and straightforward Indian lady - to help me find the correct English words to explain to people what kind of operation I was having, without having to go into too much gruesome details and she said: "Just say you're going to have some major pelvic floor repair done and they won't ask any further questions."
So, now you know. :)

I'll be in for at least two, maybe three or four days, depending on how the operation goes and obviously how quickly I recover.
Ken's bought me a portable DVD-player and we're now filling a folder with films I've been wanting to watch for ages, and my favourite music CD's. Considering that and the books that are piling up to go in my suitcase I may have to ask them to keep me in a bit longer.
Just kidding!!

I find that I'm preparing as if I'm going on holiday and leaving Ken and the kids at home. And having similar ambiguous feelings about it.
I'm trying not to make too many lists and instructions, but the control freak in me is having a hard time. Also, I'm not wanting to upset or worry anybody, and after all it's quite a routine operation and all that, but it IS an operation and I am going to have full anaesthesia. So control freak me is having a hard time not to say farewell to the children, just in case... Or is that the drama me?
When I mention even the slightest of this kind of worries to Ken his eyes just go blank in the same way they did when I was giving birth. He just shuts himself off and I know that anything I say will not be remembered or used.

Which is good, probably. Because it leaves me with no alternative than to trust and surrender. From the moment she walked into the consultation room I've had a very positive feeling about this consultant. I could immediately relate to her and within a few minutes we were joking and at the same time discussing in depth the options I had. I explained in a few words why I didn't want a hysterectomy. Unlike my GP she didn't start summing up all the pro's, but she nodded and said: "I see you've done a lot of thinking and researching. Are you satisfied you know enough? Have you any questions left?"
She definitely gave me the feeling that I'm in charge of what's happening with me, with my body.

I knew I'd go on a waiting list and it would be end of April before I could go in. And then I got this phone call a few weeks ago. The hospital, offering me a place in a private hospital in Lancaster, they'd pay for it, and I'd be guaranteed a place in the first half of March!
Tempting?
Not for me. Because it would mean a different consultant and long journeys.
So to their apparent amazement I declined.

Only two weeks later I got a call that I was expected to go in on March 18. Well, yes, okay, that's not the first half of March...
I'm thanking all the people that have taken up the offer to go private, because it has obviously shortened the waiting list!

Anyway, think of me please, while I'm in there. And think of my poor family who'll have to manage without me :)).

Edit: I just read this post again and realised that I've repeated some of the things I said in the previous post. Must be stress showing, after all. At least you can't say I didn't tell you. I'll shut up now, nothing coherent is going to come out anymore.

Silly Cow

That's me.
I'm forever nagging my children about listening to what their body tells them, exercise, fresh air, healthy mind in healthy body, and all those pearls of wisdom, but what do I do to lead by example? Zilch. Nothing. Well, very little, anyway.
Ever since we moved here I've hardly been out and about. Even though there's this lovely path by the river where the dogs can run off the lead, I hardly ever take them there. Ken does practically all the dog walking at the moment. My excuse is that I'm working hard and need to get my translation and stories done, but it's a lame excuse.
For a while now I've been saying to Ken how I really need to get fit, because I'm beginning to get circulation problems, I'm short of breath even after a short walk to the shops, and there's all sorts of other signs, that - would I see them in one of my clan - would get me on my soapbox about healthy living.

So, now I'm getting what I deserve.
Coz that's how things work.
I'm waiting for this operation to have some 'major pelvic floor repairs' done. First it was going to take place end of April, but they've brought it forward to March 18, which I was quite pleased about.
Last Tuesday I had to go in for a pre-operative assessment and it turned out that I had glucose in my urine and then when they did the diabetes test, that showed a too high BM. So then I had to go back the next day for a full fasting test.
Groan.
Now I'm waiting for the results of that to come back. If I do have a glucose intolerance or a form of diabetes, the operation will be postponed.
Groan.
Not that I was looking forward to the operation, but I was looking forward to get it over and done with, iyswim.

Now I know for a fact that if I'd done what my body had told me and got fit when I felt I should, I wouldn't have had the high glucose. And I would've just gone in next Tuesday, without a problem.

I'm just so utterly annoyed with myself and can't think of anyone else to blame but me. Me me me. Is this enough of a meme, EF?

As Myrna and Owen are in the middle of learning everything about the digestive system and blood circulation, and were only last week discussing the workings of insuline with their tutor, there is no escaping the facts. When Mr R came this morning they - obviously - wanted to go over it again, and I got everything I've said to them in the past about healthy living and the need of exercising thrown back at me...
Groan.

Now every member of this family is eager to help me get fit as soon as possible. So, where I used to sneak upstairs and do some work while they went out for a walk or whatever, I don't get the chance to do that anymore. There's no more escaping my own good council.
"Exercise and fresh air keep us healthy and wise."
Groan.

I hope somebody is feeling sorry for me, coz I get no sympathy here...

Choosing in the Moment

Life is all about making choices.
That's easily said.
But how do you make them?
And as a parent, in how far can you make choices for your children?
I had a very important talk with my no. 1 birth daughter the other day. In the car. Where we usually have our important talks. When there's nobody and nothing to distract us from each other. No getting away. And we don't have to look at each other.

She has always been unhappy with our decision to move to England. She was thirteen when we moved. It was a major uproot for all of us, but at the age of thirteen - and especially in her case - it was terrible.
She didn't like the house we moved to. She didn't want to participate in anything we did. We tried and tried - maybe too hard - to cheer her up, but she was mainly unhappy.
Although I knew, both in my heart and in my mind, that we'd made the right choice, for her too, I still felt if not guilty then responsible for her unhappiness. And I did my best to accommodate her, to acknowledge her, to listen to her and to support her.
After about two years we reached an all time low. She was blaming us for 'having no life', for missing her friends in Holland, for being stuck in the 'back of beyond'. She did some really dire things to express her feelings - and hurt others in the process - and I felt extremely inadequate and powerless.
It came to a point where, when a very dear friend in Holland magnanimously offered AL could come and stay with her for a while, we accepted. AL was over the moon, happy to get away, happy to go to Holland. She could go to the private school that M had just set up. A school for child-led learning. I cried many, many tears about her leaving like that, it felt as if my heart was torn out of my body. But I let her go. Fifteen, she was. When I returned home after taking her to Holland it felt totally appropriate that the biggest storm ever was raging over the North West and Carlisle was flooded.

After about six months she came back to England. It wasn't entirely her own choice - again - but for many, many reasons it was what needed to happen at that particular time.
She didn't want to stay at home fulltime anymore, and she chose to go to college and do First and National Diploma Horse Care and Horse Management. Something she'd always wanted to do. College life was wild and wonderful. Within no time she had loads of friends and a very busy social life. The first year of the course was relatively easy and when she turned sixteen she wanted to move to campus. But then the whole learning experience started to get more complicated, more difficult. And her response to every challenge would be to say she wanted to go back to Holland. And she did go, she spent most of her holidays there.
After her second year she decided she wouldn't do the third year anymore. She wanted to go back to Holland, find a job and a nice place to live and stay there. Her clan-sister had said she could stay with her for a few months, until September, to start herself up from there. This time it was different to let her go. Still, I did set a unilateral limit. If she wouldn't have a steady income and her own place to live come September, she'd have to come back to England, back to us.

And then we heard we'd have to leave the Vicarage. So when AL left for Holland she had no idea of what she'd be coming back to, if she'd come back in September. Weird. Very unstable. She had a great summer in Holland, a lot of partying and socializing and at one moment she held three jobs at the same time. But it didn't last and she didn't find an affordable place to live. So in September she came back to England. Again. Determined to be back in Holland for her 18th birthday and celebrate it over there.
But then she found a job, some really nice friends, and she found herself liking living in our new house in town and she was thrilled when she was given the chance to live in the temporary house when we moved to where we are now (just over the road). After her fabulous birthday party she confessed to me that before she'd found it really hard to make friends in England, because she was afraid of having to say goodbye to them when going back to Holland. Goodbyes are just so hard, especially when you feel you have no choice in the matter...
Her other insight was that she'd come to idolize Holland, her Dutch friends and the Dutch way of life.

A few weeks later she was going through some hard times at work and generally feeling tired and down. So that one morning when I took her into work she started about how she still wasn't sure where she wanted to live and did I realise how hard we'd made life for her by moving to England, how much she missed her friends in Holland... The whole old song was sang. First I was inclined to do my usual "I understand how hard it must have been for you" and all that. But then I somehow got this urge to stop treating her like the eternal victim in this matter. I wasn't doing her any favours there and I just know that in essence she is one very strong person.
So I took a deep breath and confronted the problem. What I said boiled down to this:

There is no way of telling what would have happened if we'd have stayed in Holland.
Maybe, if we'd stayed in Holland you'd now be on drugs, like a few of the friends you used to hang out with then. Or maybe not, maybe you'd be a prize winning show jumper by now.
Maybe, we'd have lost the next court case for exemption, because of a new judge. Or maybe the laws on education would have changed and home ed was legal now.
Maybe, your Dad's burn out would have turned into more serious health problems or we would have gotten a divorce. Or maybe he'd extended his business and made loads of money and maybe I'd written a bestseller.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
The point is, you never know what would have happened if we'd made a different choice.
Fact is, we did choose to move away from Holland, to live in England. Because at that particular moment it was the best choice for us.
We can't undo that choice, we can't undo the past.
But with every new day we can make new choices.
You have the choice to remain bitter about the move to England and keep blaming everything that goes wrong on us, or to take responsibility for your own personal feelings and situation and make sure you get the most out of your life, for yourself.

We talked about how to choose, how to feel which choice would go best with your flow in life. And how the most difficult thing about choosing is that if you choose to go down one route, it often means you can't go down another one. We talked about what real friendship means and how much work it takes to keep a friendship going when you're in different countries. And we talked about how pain and sorrow are inescapable, and how important it was to accept and try and live through it.
It was a very special drive down to work. And then we arrived. With the typical flexibility of an eighteen year old she checked her make-up in the mirror, gave me a quick kiss and hopped out the car. "Don't forget to pick me up tonight at seven! Oh, and can L and I have something to eat at ours before we go into town? And do you think Daddy will drive us there?"

She'll be fine.

On Love

From: The Dawn Horse Treatment, by Adi Da

"Love does not fail for you when you are rejected or betrayed or apparently not loved.
Love fails for you when you reject, betray, and do not love. Therefore, if you listen to me, and also if you hear me, and also if you see me, do not stand off from relationship. Be vulnerable. Be wounded when necessary, and endure that wound or hurt. Do not punish the other in love. Communicate to one another, even discipline one another, but do no dissociate from one another or fail to grant one another the knowledge of love. Realize that each one wants to love and to be loved by the other in love. Therefore, love. Do this rather than make any effort to get rid of the feeling of being rejected. To feel rejected is to feel the hurt of not being loved. Allow that hurt, but do not let it become the feeling of lovelessness. Be vulnerable and thus not insulted. If you are merely hurt, you will still know the necessity (or the heart's requirement) of love, and you will still know the necessity (or the heart's requirement) to love."

Full House

Since the moment we moved into this house it has been full with people.
Of course my Mum, my clan-children and their partners came over to stay, but apart from them there have been guests practically every night.
I can remember thinking, after we first had a look inside this house, ah well, it's not as if we still have loads and loads of people staying over all the time, like in the 'old times'. We did get ourselves a caravan, just in case we had people coming over in summer. And we thought we'd manage with just the three bedrooms, because AL had made it quite clear that she definitely didn't want to move back in with us.
And here we are, not even two months after moving in. Not only have both Owen and Myrna had friends sleeping over constantly, but AL has decided she doesn't want to find a place of her own yet, so she is moving back in with us when the contract on the temporary house runs out.
Which is fine, of course. Well, in a way. I am very much aware of how her present lifestyle has kind of moved away from our family way of living. So it'll take a bit of adapting on both sides. But mostly on hers, I'm afraid.
I can vividly remember coming back to live in the parental home after having moved out when I was sixteen (and went to live in Spain). It wasn't easy and it must have been hell on my parents, because I wasn't trying to make it easy either. I guess it's pay back time, then ;).
The other thing is that our family seems to have expanded in a more or less organic way. It happens in this household, every now and then. Not only has a third cat - a lovely big ginger named Mr. Mushu - joined our ranks, but there's this young boy, 12 years of age, - let's call him Remi - who has crossed our path and conquered a place in our hearts and home. His is a bit of a complicated story, but let's just say that he was very much in need of some mothering energy and a homely environment, and we have an abundance of that. So he came here with his little rucksack a couple of weeks ago and now lives in the conservatory. Every once in a while he goes back home for one or two nights, but then he phones to ask if he can come back to us.
The challenge is that we'd planned to put AL up in the conservatory. She panicked slightly when she found Remi had taken that space. But I reassured her that there would be a place for both of them. How, I don't know yet. As usual, I'm relying on CSC for the right solution at the right time and meanwhile I'm doing some serious thinking.
Weird, isn't it, that the moment we think it's not a problem to live in a smaller house because surely we're past the stage where we need a huge house with many rooms, these things happen. I wonder what lesson is in it. It's obviously got to do with choice. But then, everything in life is about choosing.
The point is that I am truly truly enjoying this Full House here. I love to be able to give Remi a feeling of being appreciated, wanted, loved and I also love the fact that my children's teenager friends feel at home here. Including the not so teenager anymore friends of AL.
A few years ago one of my clan-children nicknamed me MOM, which is an abbreviation for Mother Of Many. I consider it an honorary title and am very, very proud of it. And in spite of all the mess and noise, in spite of regularly cooking for eight to twelve people, in spite of not being able to find the time - let alone the space - to do my work, in spite of feeling very old and tired at the end of one of those hectic days, in spite of all that I still feel so incredibly happy being a MOM.
I suppose it just suits me down to the ground.