Slow Down...

Is it really August...? Wow!

I feel like this month is eating me alive and I still haven't even come down off of all the stuff I/we had going on last month. I need to breathe, re-center myself and mellow out. I've felt sick for days and the only thing I can think that's causing it is stress and anxiety. Summer...ugh. I miss the days when summer was a time of excitement, fun and adventure. Now it's just the days between snow. When you're an adult, you don't feel the bliss of a summer day in the same way you did as a child. You only feel the day to day-ness of life. Work, sleep, eat, pay the bills, repeat process. Shampoo, rinse, repeat... that's how I see life now. Shampoo, rinse, repeat... Pathetic.

"Most people don't grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is aging." 

~ Maya Angelou

I do still enjoy every beautiful day that comes into my life. But at some point in that awareness of beauty of sunshine and blue skies, something happens to break up the reverie. A phone call, an email...something, anything to bring the happy moments to a thud, crash landing. Yes...I am dramatic and emotional and worrying and happy. I am ALL of those things. The best part of getting older is you, some of us anyway, you come to accept all that you are including the bad parts. Flawed. That's me.  But I am aware of who and what I am and I accept these things about myself. I refuse to walk through this life just existing. I choose to ask the why of life... No matter how you see me or think you see me, I'm always introspective. Even in the depths of anxiety, I am looking for the lesson, the awareness of it all... the meaning. 

This morning I woke up full of anxiety. This is how my days begin. The awareness of another day beginning. Another day without a job, children, my mother, my dog...is my dog ok?, forcing my husband out of bed so I don't have to hear the incessant noise of his alarm, pain...I feel pain, sometimes so severely I have to take medication and lay in bed waiting for a bit of relief to even move. Then I get up and think...damn. I never wanted to be a housewife. I don't want to do the dishes or the laundry. I'm an academic! I worked HARD to get those degrees. What the hell am I doing as a housewife? That's not a reflection on my husband, it's just how things have gone. Moving to a new country is hard work. Then one day you realize you haven't worked, like had a full time, grown up job in 5 years. And everything takes its toll. I have a medical condition that causes me extreme fatigue. It's just beating the fight out of me. I'm whining aren't I? Shit...sorry.

But... but....today I forced myself out of that drama. I loaded the camera, picked up the bird feeding supplies and went outside with my dog. I refilled the bird feeders, hung some suet and "fat balls" (I know...right?) and then took a walk with Hamish. We sat on the dock and watched baby ducks, we enjoyed the sunshine. And it was good...

"Where'd the days go, when all we did was play? And the stress that we were under wasn't stress at all, just a run and a jump into a harmless fall." 
~ Paolo Nutini

It's all about perspective...trust me. 

This photo is of the baby ducks on our pond and their momma, of course. They are getting so big. I moved a bit too close and they all "PEEP, PEEP, PEEP'd" at me. When they realized momma trusts me, they came around to swim near my feet. Hamish likes to watch them. He's interested but not dangerous to them. In the warm sun of the early morning, watching the ducklings reminded me...don't take it all too seriously, we're only here for a minute.