Why did I go camping alone?

Why would I do such a crazy thing? Because I needed to do something for me. Yes it may seem a bit drastic, but it was absolutely necessary. Here’s why…

I had several boyfriends growing up, but my first long term relationship started when I was 15. When I was 17, I got pregnant by said boyfriend and I believed I needed to marry him, because I didn’t want to share my child. Well, THAT was an awful idea. We should NEVER have gotten married, especially for those reasons.

In the process of divorce, I met husband #2. He swept me off my feet, but honestly it didn’t take much. In the beginning, we were all giddy and dressed alike and wanted to spend as much time together as possible. Along the way, we had 2 beautiful children and then we grew apart to the point that the divorce was really anything but amicable.

Along came another boyfriend. We had sparks from high school that were re-ignited after hours of talking on the phone working through another ending marriage (he had been there for me through the first divorce as well). Over time, that relationship also was not all it was cracked up to be at first.

So I’ve never been alone. I’ve never truly been single. And while I had many people tell me along the way that I SHOULD be, I didn’t listen. Because I’m stubborn and thought I knew better. I clearly didn’t know better. I’ve gone through years of therapy and finally have learned a few things about being introspective and identifying my issues.

Apparently being bullied to the point of death threats at the ripe age of 13 scarred me more than I could ever have realized on my own. I became a perfectionist, and when the adults that I looked up and respected either took the side of the girls that were bullying me or didn’t believe that I was innocent, my little developing brain thought I wasn’t worthy. I sought love from anyone who gave me attention. I clung to them with all of my soul. And I got into relationships that I shouldn’t have. Well into adulthood, obviously. Only now am I able to see this.

So this solo camping trip was my chance at redemption – to myself. Proof that I COULD do it on my own. Proof that I CAN enjoy my own company. Time to reflect and decide what is truly important in my life. Time to find me and be ok with all of my flaws. But also time to be proud of my own strengths and realize that I am actually capable of the things others tell me I am. Now that I’m in my 40s I can honestly say I feel supported by those around me, and I didn’t always feel that way. Yes there were a few, but that number is far more than I ever realized.

While I was alone on my trip, I was never lonely. I was content. I not only survived, I thrived. And I’ll do it again in a heartbeat.

Till death do us part?

What does that actually mean? “Till death do us part?” Physical death or death of the marriage?

When I told my ex-husband that I wanted a divorce, he seemed shocked. He later admitted he knew we had issues, but thought we had time to work on them “because we said vows”. So our marriage wasn’t going anywhere, in his mind. Umm, news flash – if you have issues, you need to deal with them. You can’t just ignore them “because you said vows”.

Every year when a new year comes along, people vow to make changes that they know they won’t keep. The difference with wedding vows is that when you make them, you actually intend to keep them. Unless you’re in Hollywood – I swear their marriages only last a few weeks on average anyway. Their “I do” means “I do right now”.

The thing about marriage vows is that both people need to uphold them. You can’t neglect your spouse and expect them to stay because you made vows. You can’t be emotionally abusive or emotionally absent and expect them to stay. You can’t keep them on eggshells and expect them to stay. Just like you can’t expect them to stay if you’re physically abusive, unfaithful, or otherwise overtly brushing off your vows.

Marriage is hard work. For both parties involved. No one else’s marriage or lack thereof can actually have an effect on your outcome – only the two people involved have that power. But let me tell you, you can only put up with so much before you can’t put up with anything else. Just like a sponge: it can soak up water to a point. There comes a time when it is saturated and can’t hold any more. That’s literally how it is with the end of a marriage sometimes. You deal with so much – until you can’t deal with one drop more.

My heart goes out to anyone making this tough decision. It’s not made lightly, no matter how “easy” it may look to outsiders. In a time of social media when we can make our lives look as perfect as we care to, we have no idea if anyone is truly struggling in their marriage – unless they tell us. Only the people in that house have any idea what’s really going on. And sometimes one person in the marriage turns a blind eye to what’s happening, because they don’t want to admit that things aren’t as perfect as they seem. They may see it as a sign of weakness to admit there are issues. Well, let me tell you, the weakness of the marriage will come to a breaking point if you don’t work on repairing it.

Just because you said vows doesn’t mean you need to be miserable now just to hold onto them. And don’t hold on for the kids – they need to see good role models. They need to see happy parents. If you’re going to hold on to any vows, hold on to the ones you make to yourself – vow to love yourself and not blame yourself if things don’t go as planned. Vow to respect yourself and your children enough to set good examples. Vow to not be miserable for the sake of someone else. No one else’s opinions matter, anyway.

On being loved

I thought only dogs were capable of unconditional love. Then along came my little boys. There really is nothing quite like being a boy mom.

My boys have loved me since the day they left my uterus. All three of them. I guess that’s a typical right of being a mom to boys, but these guys of mine are something special. I just have to take a moment to brag and HOPE to GOD that I’m not the only one who experiences this.

A few weeks back, my little boys and I started doing a live video on Mondays called “Mondays with Mom” and we talk about whatever comes to their minds before we go live. Today was what love truly means to us. I was MAULED with kisses from my youngest, and I absolutely LOVED it. We had so many giggles!!

It’s an amazing honor to be someone’s favorite person. That gift of being their mom makes up for so many bad days. I’ll take the temper tantrums and kicks and misbehaving any day as long as I can get mauled with kisses and hugs and told “I love you more than anything” at random times during the day. Even my adult child ends phone calls with “love you mama”.

All that stress I have melts away when I get love from my boys. I don’t turn down hugs. Sometimes I ask for faces to be washed before I get smooches, but I still get the smooch in the end.

While I love my puppies, there’s just something about a boy who loves his mama ❤️

I need to stay on vacation

Ever feel like you need a vacation, when you JUST got back from vacation?? Asking for a friend…

I spent a glorious 9 days in the woods of northern Minnesota with my little boys last week. We visited a bunch of MN state parks and had so much fun. We went to bed shortly after the sun did, and woke up shortly after the sun. We ate food either made on a camp stove or on the campfire, and we enjoyed every minute – well, except the mosquitos!!

There was no work email to check, no pager to respond to, no alarms. No stress. As we got closer to home on Sunday, I could literally feel the tension coming back into my neck. I started thinking about all the things I needed to do for the week to get ready for work, thought about how many emails would be waiting for me (150+), and came back to real life.

Happy mama went away. I’m back to rushing around like a chicken with my head cut off, having a hard time getting the boys to sleep and thus having a hard time getting them to wake up, and just overall feeling stressed. I need a vacation again. I need to be back out with nature. I need less stress. I need to find a job that I can work from a tent…who’s with me?

Keeping up with the Joneses

Remember that phrase from childhood? Or did I just age myself? Remember when there would be those families on town that always seemed so perfect and had everything together, and they always had the best of everything? Remember that envious feeling you’d get when you’d see them? Thank goodness it wasn’t every day!

But now we see them every day. Everywhere. On Instagram. On Facebook. On Twitter. They have it all. They’re practically perfect in every way. And you just want to puke.

YOUR kids lose their homework. They don’t get ready when you tell them to. They wear clothes that have stains on them, because “it’s my favorite shirt”. They may or may not have worn that same stained shirt the day before… The kids don’t listen at the grocery store and you have to count to 3. Heaven forbid you have malted milk balls as a treat in with the meat & cheese roll ups and blueberries in their lunch. Is this just me here? Or do you have the same experiences?

But as we scroll on facetagram or instabook, or whatever social media platform it is we’re mindlessly scrolling when we have a million other things to do, and we see all the perfection, we start to feel imperfect. We start to feel “less than”. And we start to wonder who’s judging us.

I used to live the ‘Facebook perfect’ life. Everything looked amazing on my Facebook page. Even my marriage that was less-than-perfect. And people were a bit surprised when we got divorced. Well, I wasn’t. I was in the trenches. I knew the truth. And I wasn’t surprised. And you know what? I’m not alone. People are living their truths every day, thinking they’re less than other people because of what gets blasted in our faces daily.

So why do we still feel the need to keep up with the Joneses? We SHOULDN’T! We should be free to live our own imperfect lives. Because it’s our lives, after all. Whether you’re a bento box mom or Uncrustable with a GoGo squeeze applesauce (real lunch that was packed this week), you’re still a great mom. Just ask your kids.

Finding yourself

Do you know who you really are? Do you know what makes you tick? Do you feel “stuck” in life? Did you answer these questions in your head as you read them? Then keep reading.

21 years ago I became a mom, then I became a mom again 10 and 6 years ago. And I guess I can say I’ve identified as mom and/or wife most of the time since then. I mean, sure, I had things I liked to do, but my kids always came first and my wants/needs took the back seat. Hell, if my kids eat all their food and they’re still hungry, I STILL give them food off my plate. Good weight loss program, I suppose.

I’m not saying I no longer want to or do pay attention to my kids; on the contrary, actually. I have realized I need to do things that are good for me in order to set a good example for my kids. I used to use the excuse that I couldn’t work out when I wanted to because I didn’t want to miss out on time with my kids. But now I’ll have my kids work out with me. Even if they don’t actually do the workout, they’re in the same room as me and we can talk and giggle together while I’m getting sweaty. And when I need to be on the computer to get some work done, I can give them some of their much coveted electronic time as well, and we can be sitting together on our devices. That way they get what they want, I get what I need, and we can spend time playing card games when I’m done.

It’s easy to lose focus on yourself. But at some point you start to feel empty. When you find that thing you love and that makes you tick, you get rejuvenated, and you’ll actually be a better parent. You’ll be more fun again. Just ask my kids.

On being present

I used to be a tech-aholic. I had a smart watch for monitoring my workouts, I turned on my phone running app to monitor my runs also (yes I’d monitor on my watch AND my phone, because they weren’t always the same), AND I’d strap on my heart rate monitor to keep track of my zones. And if I forgot to push the start button on my watch or phone? Let’s not even go there…

So now you get an idea why my boyfriend had to stop and pretend he was marking a day on his calendar as we walked at the zoo the other day. I had started walking the path, intermittently holding the hands of my boyfriend and/or my children as we went, and I didn’t look at my phone or push a button to mark the starting and stopping. WHAT?! You’ve GOT to be kidding me…

I NEVER would have done this in the past. I had to mark these trips on SOMETHING to get credit for it. If my watch ran out of battery in the middle of the day, I’d get VERY cranky because it wouldn’t track my every move! I mean, why even walk anywhere if you can’t track it?!

But in the midst of my autoimmune troubles lately, I’m really working on decreasing my stress and just being. Being present, loving, breathing, laughing with my children, not even getting pictures of EVERYTHING they do to chronicle our lives. I realized after tucking the kids into bed tonight that I haven’t taken pictures of them in two days. I’ve just been with them. We cuddled on the couch, we read books, we giggled. It’s been wonderful.

I’m still working HARD to have this become the norm. My stress level has got to decrease BIG TIME! It’s the only thing I can really control right now. I can’t control much in my life, none of us can, but I CAN control how I respond to things. And I want to enjoy the days I have with my kids. I think it’s safe to say we’ve enjoyed the last few days, even though I have very few pictures to prove it. You’ll have to take my word for it. Or theirs. 🙂

To post or Not to post…that is the question

Do you remember the days of 35mm film, or did I just age myself?

I was in a conversation the other day where we were talking about the pros and cons of digital vs 35mm photography. Which do you prefer?

Back in the days of 35mm, you couldn’t see what you just took a picture of. It may not be perfect. (Bite your nails and pray that at least ONE picture turned out!) You had 24, maybe even 36 chances to get a picture of what you wanted, then you had to take the roll of film out of the camera, take it to the drug store, and wait about a week to see what turned out. You could ask for duplicate prints if you wanted to share. And there were times I got duplicates of fuzzy pictures with not a single photo I could use, and nothing to show for my day with the camera. I also had a time where we learned we were about 25 feet from a giant bull moose in the mountains when we opened the door of our tent as the sun was starting to come up. My flash went off and all that turned out in the picture (weeks later) was the reflection of the flash off the moose’s eyes…two little yellow dots with a black background. Ugh!

You also had to be careful not to let the film get too hot or cold, or get exposed to light, and you better take care of those negatives in case you wanted to reprint something or get something enlarged! And those precious photos you took went directly into a hard cover album so you could share them and keep them forever, regardless if they were “perfect”.

Fast forward to today – we all have digital cameras, or even better, our phones! We snap as many pictures as we want and then proceed to stare at the camera or phone for a while (even in the presence of our friends or family) to choose the perfect images. And if everyone wasn’t smiling in the picture? Well, delete that one and start over. Candid shots? A thing of the past. Why actually GET candid shots when you can MAKE it look candid? And how about those precious hundreds of photos on your phone? Are you going to print them and put them in a photo album? Oh HELL no, just post the few perfect ones on social media and move along. But keep the 1000s of photos right there on your phone, because you can just get a memory card to keep them or, better yet, buy more storage on your device so they can continue to sit there forever.

And how “real” are those photos you post? You make sure the lighting is just right, everyone’s smiles are perfect, the hair is just right, suck the gut in, stick the boobs out…there you go, post THAT one! Success! Now you look just like the cover of that magazine you passed by earlier in the day. Because heaven forbid you post the picture that has a shirt on the floor behind you, or a hair out of place, or you catch someone mid-laugh with that real twinkle in their eye. And heaven forbid you post a picture without makeup, or a bra, and that sweaty workout selfie? Fix your ponytail first so it’s straight. Pull your top straight so your rolls don’t show…

What’s the point to all of this? We’re all striving for some form of “perfect” that doesn’t exist. My perfect and your perfect likely aren’t the same. You and I probably don’t drink the same adult beverage. Maybe you don’t even drink an adult beverage – gasp! For years I posted only “perfect” images. My ex and I would pose for several selfies (because who asks a STRANGER to take a picture for you anymore?) while on “date night”, while we kept checking our watches to see if it was too early to pick the kids up from their “parents night out” activity, because we apparently couldn’t figure out what to do as a couple for the whole 4 hours of their activity. Perfect happy couple? Of course! Don’t these smiles show that everything is perfect? The best real smiles we had were back in 35mm days when we stared at each other dreamily. Sure we had more recent real smiles, but it wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies either.

And my workout photos? I had my remote on my write and I could take video after video or photo after photo, then would spend the next 10 minutes (my “cool down”) sorting through to find the ones where my belly rolls didn’t show, my granny arms weren’t evident, I didn’t have a goofy look on my face…and I would post the best. Now I post the goofy ones. Because those are real. And sometimes when my kids are working out with me, they do the most adorable things, and there’s no way I could delete those videos or pictures just because I don’t look perfect. Those are the ones I have to share, because they’re precious. Real life is precious. We should post more of that.