I'm struggling.
Life is overwhelming and boring at the same time. Things happen and I want to write but then I start to second guess myself. Is it my story to tell? Is it partly my story and partly her story? Where do I draw the line? How much is mine? So I write nothing and life continues, simultaneously overwhelming and boring. Words and ideas swirl in my head, Willie grows and my belly button continues to disappear, strangers troop through my home while I stand outside and silently will them to love it (and buy it, oh please, someone just buy it already.) Overwhelming and boring.
So I struggle.
I struggle with this space that I love so much. My blog has introduced me to so many awesome people and helped me in so many ways, but has also taken its toll recently. I feel stifled, like this space isn't really mine anymore. Which is silly because I am the one stifling myself. Fretting and doubting and wishing I could just say "fuck it" and write without anxiety.
I struggle with Shawn, who has decided that the city is no place to raise Willie and wants to move to the suburbs if we manage to sell our condo. The suburbs! The mountains, specifically. He dreams of a backyard for the pups and a garage where he can work on his motorcycle and room for us all - Willie included - to have our own space. He references crime rates and asks me to tell him - off the top of my head - where the nearest tree is to our condo and crows when it takes me a full minute to tentatively say that there's some sort of decorative tree two-ish blocks away? I think? He's not wrong. Four people were stabbed a block from our condo just last week and the only reason I remember that tree is because I walk by it every morning and every morning it makes me sneeze. But it's the suburbs. The no skytrain connecting me to downtown, no coffee shop / movie theatre / favourite burger restaurant / market / bank all within 3 blocks of our condo, no concrete highrises reaching into the sky suburbs. I don't think I'm ready for that yet. So we struggle.
Life trucks on and I play the waiting game. Wait to see if our condo sells. Wait to see if we can find a location and a home we can agree on. Wait to meet Willie before deciding on his name. Everything so overwhelming and so boring.
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I've been reading your blog for a long time, and I will delurk by telling you that this is the most honest, open, and moving entry that you have written in recent history. It's not boring at all. Your life is changing, and you are changing, and it is the change itself that is most interesting and exciting.
ReplyDeleteCan you compromise? I lived in the highrise condo part of town (with no trees), and we moved to a house with a yard in a neighborhood. However, within 2 miles we can both walk to work, find 3 grocery stores, at least 20 restaurants, a huge park, and the bank. It's a great location (with trees! garage! a yard!), but still very "city." Either way good luck. Some days the compromises in marriage make me want to scream. As my lovely husband says, "compromises are where no one is happy" :)
ReplyDeleteThat is life: ordinary tragedies, ordinary miracles, ordinary yet unique issues.
ReplyDeleteIt's both so ordinary and so hard. And just because these things are ordinary does not change our reactions and feelings toward them because they're not ordinary for us. They're new and scary and strange and hard.
I totally get it.
Find little happyinesses in the middle of all the waiting and stress.
Like chocolate. I highly recommend chocolate.
I totally get this. TOTALLY get this. Maybe I should email you and fill you in.
ReplyDelete(No babies! Just work stress...and not able to write about it.)
Hugs, friend. Love you. xoxo
maybe you can p/w protect posts that might have too much shared info? just so you can get the feelings out there and have only a few people weigh in?
ReplyDeletein the meantime, i agree: CHOCOLATE. :)
It's totally allowed to password protect posts and still be completely genuine, without spilling it all into the universe. I wish I could give you a big hug right now. I've always dreamed of raising my kids back in England, and talks about living here in the prairies never seem to end well, but it's what I'll do because logic dictates that it makes the most sense safety-wise and cost-wise. It's hard when you don't see eye to eye on such big decisions but have faith that whatever happens, it'll be for the right reasons, and whatever happens, you will always have a loving husband, a beautiful baby, friends who love you, and a home, even if you don't know where that is yet. Keep your head up <3
ReplyDeleteYou have a lot going on right now, it's only natural to feel overwhelmed by such big changes to your life. I'm sorry you're struggling, and I'm sure the pregnancy hormones aren't helping.
ReplyDeleteI don't think blogger has the capability to do password protected posts, but if you need to vent perhaps you could guest post on another blog without using names, yours included? Just a thought.
I'm sure I can speak for most of your readers when I say this - we're all here for you and you can e-mail me or any of us any time if you need to chat!
This post wasn't boring at all- life gets like this, it's that weird "in between" when your sandwiched between REALLY BIG EVENTS....sometimes, I just have to remind myself when I'm there to enjoy it as much as I can't- they won't be "boring" for long ;) It'll all work out darling.
ReplyDeleteOh, hunny bunny. I really like this post - it's very real and very true. So much of life is overwhelming and boring. And losing your belly button is pretty traumatic, as I recall. Hugs to you.
ReplyDeleteLife is...complicatedly boring. Mundanely exciting.Good, bad, AND indifferent. It's not only ok, but expected, that you feel that way.
ReplyDeleteYou've got a metric ton of stuff going on right now (even just the stuff you talk about, much less the stuff you don't!), plus hormones, plus, if you are anything like I was while pregnant, overwhelmingly freaked out about the future.
Write what you can, and give yourself as much of a break as you can. It's a lot.
I have the opposite problem. So many awesome (I think) things happen that I want to share and talk about. I'm so eager to share them! But life happens, and I get busy, and suddenly it's been three weeks since this awesome thing happened and now I feel like writing about it now would be lame. Opportunity gone.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the thought of moving to the suburbs makes me want to fill my eyeballs with battery acid. Never.
Sometimes it the "boring" times where underneath the most change is occurring, it just hasn't popped to the surface yet. I am an impatient person so I struggle with that in between time. There are a lot of unknowns it seems like in your life right now and that can be a hard place to find comfort or ease in.
ReplyDeleteWhen I have stuff to say but don't want it out for public consumption I either eblast it to a small circle of close blog friends or I password protect it.
Parenthood changes lives. Period. Sweets and I have always been strong proponents of raising a family in the city. Until we got one of our own. And now we're quite certain our next move will be out of the city.
ReplyDeleteI can't tell you what will feel right or when. What I can tell you is to be open to change. You've got a lot of it going on in your life right now. Don't fight it. Embrace it. And see where your family lands over the next few months - when one door closes, plenty more open up.
"Life is overwhelming and boring at the same time" - I concur. I feel pretty similar. On one hand there's a shit ton of stuff going on but on the other hand I can't really talk about it online yet. And even all this stuff that's happening doesn't really give me anything to *do*, if that makes any sense. I can't change anything and can't rush things along. It's frustrating. I'm bored and I'm sick of winter.
ReplyDeleteWe moved from downtown to the suburbs last year - granted this is a much smaller city than Vancouver. I had my doubts about moving. Now I'm about 80% happy about our decision. Sometimes I miss being able to walk three minutes to get coffee, but having a yard makes up for it.
I am nearly in the same space, save for the whole impending baby thing. Thus the vast emptiness of my blog right now.
ReplyDeleteNow that I've been living in Vancouver for 4 months (in East Van), I'm starting to get desperate to get out again. I'm trying to figure out how I can move somewhere smaller without having to give up all the other amazing pieces of my city life that I love-mainly my Pirate. Havne't figured that out yet though...
ReplyDeleteOh how I understand. The situations are a littl reversed. We're in the middle of trying to buy a house and to try to start a family. But I understand nonetheless. Hang in there.
ReplyDeleteI don't think this post is boring. How could it be? There's so much movement. :-) I found having a blog to be challenging after a while because too many people read it and I often found myself worrying about how any one of them would take something I wrote. Eventually, I gave up....
ReplyDeleteOh, and sorry if my tweets to you on people looking through your crap came across as ... dickish. I was trying to be honest but I think I was supposed to try being sympathetic because having someone go through your shit sucks and next time you should booby trap the drawer with a paint bomb. :-)