What’s up & resolutions

So… after my post about Emily, and not being able to sleep while on vacation, I of course came down with Noah’s cold. Rather brutally.

The Briars was a nice spot to have a cold, although it sort of put the damper on swimming, etc., since I’m not that mean to the other swimmers. But I was really glad to have gone, because the space for the emotions was there and the pampering was really nice and it felt sort of like some cobwebs were getting cleared out on the mental landscape. Travelling with baby is a whole other post but it was not as hard as I thought it would be in most ways.

Anyways, in talking and being quiet and thinking and trying to centre a bit, I realized a few things. One is that I’ve been waiting all this time, almost 7 months, for life to change back to the way it was after Emily died… holding my breath, in a sense. Also the number of stress-creating life changes really has been ridiculous. And, I have been trying to plan for all contingencies at once: what if Carl loses his job, what if my company closes down, what if Noah gets sick, etc. And some of this has been good ’cause I’ve been frugal and cautious in many ways.

But I’ve also fallen into that holding pattern that I get into sometimes where I don’t really entirely take care of myself. Some stuff has been really good: keeping our environment nice, not getting caught up in other people’s drama or creating our own. I’ve been doing reasonably well at reaching out to people socially and that’s something that usually drops out when I’m in the holding pattern.

But some things haven’t been that way.

Lately I’ve been eating a lot of sugar + fat stuff like brownies, and also letting our family fall into Carl’s bad eating habits which involve pizza once a week and copious amounts of pasta. (I don’t think pasta is a complete evil all the time, but having it a lot and especially pasta carbonara, not so smart). The spooky weight loss continues, possibly due to breastfeeding, but possibly due to losing muscle, too.

I haven’t been walking every day, and I haven’t worked out since getting mastitis. I haven’t stretched every day, so I get achey. I haven’t been taking a lot of time to notice the small wonders unless I’m pointing them out to Noah… which is cool, to do with the baby, but there’s a difference between Doing Good Parenting and Simply Being In the Moment and I have been only doing the first.

And I’ve been going about writing in a very very half assed way. And nothing we’ve done has had the oomph of gardening or creating (except, again, for stuff with Noah). Some – okay, a lot – of that has been because Carl has been woefully unavailable. (This is supposed to be changing right now, and in fact, maybe has since he actually did have a vacation.) Having him around during vacation pointed that out dramatically. But some of it has been me not seizing the moments and instead flicking around the ‘net or making brownie-like snacks or watching Sex and the City DVDs or basically doing all the things I do to not-write, not-be, etc.

So as spring comes (hurry up, by the way: it’s beautiful out but cold!) it’s time to get past the next hurdle which sort of falls into the ‘getting real with myself and taking care of my stuff’ category.

Yesterday’s baby step was a grocery shop with all good food, tons of veggies, and no baking supplies. This morning’s breakfast was: plain yoghurt mixed with fresh strawberries (I know, I know) and sliced almonds. Yummy!