Please don't call Hoarders...

This is my craft table right now.

And I'm using all of that stuff.

(Except the sippy cup. I've mostly outgrown those)

Creation

I've remembered something in the past week and a half, something that I forgot was critical to my happiness and mental health: creating brings me inner peace and focus. Creating anything, really. I remembered that the times I am not making something are the times I am the lowest.

Writing proved to be a little tricky, so throughout the last week, I've thrown myself into creating. I wasn't even that intent on the product, but the process. Sitting at the table my grandmother just gave me, I made things, immersing myself for hours in a blissed-out world of creation.

First I made flowers. And then I put those flowers in my daughter's hair.

And speaking of my daughter's hair, she finally has enough to do this:

I also made French bread. 

And then I ate French bread. I will say, making bread for two hours and eating said bread in mere minutes was one of the most satisfying pastimes I have indulged in. 

And I made preschool games for the class I'm teaching this term. 

(By the way, why in the world did I sign up to teach preschool this term? As I struggle with healing and muscle weakness and chronic fatigue, teaching 2, 3, and 4 year olds is a bewildering task for me to take on. They are most exuberant little people.)

While the finished products might not seem impressive to the casual passerby, the process of making and putting aside all the physical and emotional struggles in favor of creation has been more healing to me than medicine. 

The laundry pile can fall down around me, the kids can climb the walls, the dishes can stack on top of each other. I'm busy re-making myself during one of the most challenging times in my life. And doing random interpretive dancing in the woods, just for giggles. 

For real.

Self Image

My mind is going in many directions lately. Mostly crazy directions. And fragmented like reflections off a broken mirror.

I suddenly have much more interest in my appearance. Before, make up never held my attention for long. I was ambivalent in my resignation that my hair would never be coiffed in anything resembling the latest fashions. I silently judged women who obsessed over their looks; surely they were superficial or insecure. Surely I was above all that.

And then I had my neck sliced open twice in ten days. Surgery left its mark.

I'm superficial enough to be bothered by the red raised scar at the base of my throat, insecure enough to want to compensate for its rawness in other ways. Concealer masking. Eye liner drawing attention up, away. Bronzer highlighting. Shimmers reflecting, lip gloss wet and inviting. I braid, twist, coil and curl my hair, accessorizing with flowers and ribbons and scarves.

To be honest, I'm not caring about impressing others. It is myself I am trying to distract. I don't want to look in the mirror and see the sad, scarred woman I am slowly morphing into. If I highlight the right areas, maybe the ones that shame me will be muted.

Maybe I can recreate my own self portrait. Perhaps I can twist and coil and curl the struggles with my health into something worthwhile. "Cancer survivor" sounds heroic and so much braver than I feel, but I can apply it to my list of attributes like a coat of mascara. "Survivor" is a liner I can draw all over myself, really -- depression survivor, sexual abuse survivor, drug abuse survivor. Natural, unassisted childbirth survivor. Fingernail biter survivor. Multiple body piercings survivor. Counting experiences I have come through or encountered that haven't killed me yet is almost exhilarating. Difficult situations somehow sparkle under the word "survivor."

My fragments of broken mirror can be pieced together in a Picasso-like mosaic, a girl before a looking-glass. A girl looking at all the different pieces: lines, marks, colors. I'm reading my reflection to understand who I am now.

Like make up, Picasso never held my attention before. Yet now, like bottles of powder and color and shimmer, he is relevant to my life changes.  My changes in self perception.

On Depression

For me, depression has been a parasitic disease. It grips my neck with razor-sharp teeth and breathes heavy snarls in my ear. It plays Shrink and Regrow, almost disappearing entirely so that I forget it's there. Then it swells back up, thick and engorged like a giant mosquito drunk on my lifeblood.

Depression is an embarrassing parasite. I look around my home, my beautiful children, the things I have that so many others do without, my loving family, my network of caring friends. The shame of the disease adds up with many other negative emotions that float around me like a cloud of pollution: Self-loathing. Disappointment. Frustration. Anger. Grief. I often find it hard to breathe. Or, I just stop caring altogether. Apathy is embarrassing, too, so I pretend I care deeply and passionately about whatever it is I am supposed to care about.

"Fake it til you make it." I can't quite understand this philosophy. Not that I haven't tried it extensively. Feeling low? Just smile and be uplifted! Frustrated at the never-ending cycle? Whistle while you work! Don't feel like having sex with your spouse? Just say yes and go with the flow until it's all wonderful! I'd throw up at the saccharine optimism, but I really hate throwing up. I prefer to sneer with disdain, wrinkling the left side of nose and almost-smiling with sarcasm. Boy, I love who I have become. I've faked it more times than I can count, and I still haven't made anything that I can tell.

Self-loathing. That's the feeling that I know what I am supposed to be but I just can't quite swallow it into existence. Self-loathing settles like dust in that place in me that just doesn't understand how to actually make anything happen. I'm supposed to be happy. I don't know how. Self-loathing. I'm supposed to be loving, but I feel nothing. Self-loathing. I'm supposed to work hard, but I'm lazy. Self-loathing. I'm supposed to... but....
I'm just a pile of gritty, grainy dust molecules. Gross and worthless. Wallowing in my own misery, hating myself for wallowing in my own misery.

Psychology suggests that expectation is the leading cause of disappointment. I feel about that similarly as I do about "fake it until you make it" which is to say, I hate it. I hate it because I'm disappointed. I'm disappointed that I'm not doing more with my life, that I'm not a missionary in another country or doing life-changing work in my community, or creating something of intrinsic value or... something. I'm disappointed that being married is so difficult, and that I don't know if I'm parenting well at all because my children seem rather soft and spoiled. I'm mostly disappointed that I don't enjoy life, living, barely at all.  I feel perfectly justified in expecting that things should be better than what they are right now, but I'm disappointed that I don't even know where to begin to make changes.

Ignorance is frustrating. I don't know what to do, and I don't know where to find the answers. I look for answers, but I don't understand them. I'm frustrated that I can't seem to pull myself together. Frustration and anger are conjoined twins vying for the same vital organs. They twist the stomach and harden into a lump in the chest cavity. I can't tell where one ends and the other begins. They just are.

Then, of course, there's the grief. Grief first stutters and struggles to convey itself. Then it settles into a sadness that never truly goes away. Grief for things lost. People. People who died, or people who moved away, or people who simply floated out my my life the same way they seemed to float in. No matter where they went, they are gone, and their absences are wounds stitched closed and scarred over. I grieve for lost ideals and hopes that never surfaced. I grieve for beliefs that proved untrue. Grief is forever a collar around my neck that I feel when I try to stray farther than my chains allow. I cannot follow the things lost.

I was once wild and untamed. I still have echoes of my former determination, so I will take my antidepressant, and swallow some vitamins, and do a few exercises to release endorphin. I will read the self-help books and other books for enjoyment. I'll play with my children and smile at my husband and go to church. I'll do my yoga breathing and call my mother. I'll do the laundry and cook dinner and vacuum the living room floor, over and over. I'll scratch at that parasite, and hold out hope that at some point in my life I will find the answers I seek.

Oh, and today is my birthday. Happy birthday to me.

La La... Lollies!

For the past few days, I've been playing with five very beautiful children. Of course, I'm biased; those five children came from the wombs of my sister and me. Since I think they are all as sweet as can be, I decided to do  a fun little project: Homemade lollipops.

The concept is really quite simple. I went to Michael's and spent only $11 on more than enough supplies (it could have been cheaper, but I got the fancy foil wrappers...). And as an added bonus -- Teachers get 15% off! Whippee! I purchased the following:

• a bag of assorted Jolly Ranchers
• a bag of old fashioned cherry hard candy
• lollipop sticks
• parchment paper
• fancy colored foil candy wrappers

For our first set of lollipops, the kids and I arranged the Jolly Ranchers in rows of three, whatever colors/flavors we wanted, on parchment paper. Then we put the tray in the oven for about 7 minutes at 275 degrees. When I pulled them out, we stuck in the sticks quickly before the candy re-hardened. 

I put them in the fridge to cool faster while we worked on our second set of lollipops. This time, we put different colored candies in plastic snack bags, and I crushed the pieces a few times (with a wrench because I couldn't find a hammer at my sister's house...). 

Then we all arranged our candy pieces mosaic style on the parchment paper. Elena and I made flowers, Micah made a blobby man, and Christian made a colorful pile of something-or-other. 

Those melted for a few minutes in the oven; then we admired our delicious handiwork. 

Ahhh yes, vibrant globs of un-uniform candy. Simply perfect. 

While they were cooling, we taste-tested our first lollipops. They were, as expected, absolutely delicious. 

(The babies got a little lick too.)

We wrapped the remaining lollipops in colorful foil to save for later (or, as I encouraged, gift-giving). 

It was a quick and easy, inexpensive, undeniably and deliciously fun afternoon activity. And in between licks of her lollipop, my niece exclaimed, "This is the BEST day ever!" (The boys were too busy licking their lollipops to say anything at all). 

Kara's Adventures in Unadventureland

I came to the conclusion a while back ago that I am a strange sort of perfectionist. Not that I do anything perfectly (at all!) but that I often expect perfection out of myself, and even sometimes out of others as well. I won't go into how unrealistic and unfair that is of me... this time. No, today I am thinking about my strange perfectionism, and how I allow it to cripple me. So often I want to make changes in my life, but I am petrified of messing up or not having the desired outcome, so I fear to make that first step.

When I used to work my Dream Job, I would often counsel with students who were struggling beginning to write a paper. So often over the years I heard, "I just don't know where to start!" Perhaps somewhere along their life journeys they heard the absolutely wretched advice to "begin at the beginning... and go on till you come to the end: then stop"  (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland). My go-to counsel for such a frustration was simply this: Start anywhere! Start in the middle, or even at the end! You can always go back and build around wherever you start. Sometimes it would take a lot of coaxing to get a student to relax enough to start writing a paper in the middle. Wasn't that cheating or somehow not following the rules? In one of my finer moments in teaching (tongue in cheek) I told my students that freewriting was like Outback Steakhouse. No rules. Just write (/tongue in cheek). I saw many students go from frustrated and bound with tight ropes by writer's block to writing fabulous papers.

*Ahem* I give others such very good advice... Why don't I follow it? I allow fear of failure to dictate how much of my life I am really living. I allow fear of getting in over my head to keep me from actually trying to accomplish my goals and desires.

I decided I'm going to try to break free from these constraints and start accomplishing the goals I set years ago. I'm trying not to be petrified of falling on my face in dirty old mud and risk looking like an imbecile in front of family, friends, and perfect strangers. I decided a good place to start was in the middle -- my blog... and writing, which has been a life-long goal -- and I can always go back and build around my small successes. I don't want to be afraid of taking that first step, or fifth step, or 100th step anymore.