Our retreat this weekend was so rich. A weekend full of fun, tears, silliness, pedicures, bared souls and the undeniable value of time spent together. I have so many big thoughts to explore, but tonight all I can think about is how much I love these women.

There are no words to describe the importance of good friends.

Well, my one little backpack is packed. I am spending the weekend in Sequim with the women from my recovery group. We are finishing over two years of work together and I am looking forward to relaxing and enjoying time with my friends.

I think I am a little over zealous though, all my stuff is piled neatly outside, waiting for the car to come and pick me up.

The car is coming in approximately seven hours.

I should probably find something to do in the interim.

“Every mix tape tells a story. Put them together and they tell the story of a life.” Rob Sheffield Love Is A Mix Tape

I just finished reading Love Is A Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield. After nursing the bitterness that I did not think of this idea first, I reminded myself that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and decided to do something similar here.

I make a few mix tapes each year, one to recap the year that has passed, others for various purposes. I will post the song list with links to the lyrics on a new page called Mix Tapes. Check it out and read the story of my life.

Yes, that’s a Poe reference. No, I’m not that depressed.

I am having a hard time shedding the labels that I have applied to myself for so long - depressed, fat, afraid. These are not where I live, these are not who I am. They are merely things that have applied to me at times. I can not let them continue to define me.

The steps that I need to take in order to redefine myself overwhelm me. Too often I try to tackle everything at once and my inner control freak has a field day for a few weeks before I collapse in an exhausted heap. I then swing to the other extreme and give myself over to my panic, doing nothing and becoming overwhelmed by all the things I should have done.

During each of these extremes I long for balance. I idolize this imaginary place of peace and contentment and then beat myself up for not being there.

The cycle sucks.

And so, as I ride the pendulum toward over organization and obsession, I have decided to enjoy the process and allow the ride to take me where it will. Not in the sense of being a victim, rather in the understanding that this is a season and that it too shall pass. I am determined to not miss the grace that surrounds me every day.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Andrew is scared of other kids.

I know. You think I am over-reacting. I’m not. He reacts with genuine fear when other kids approach him, crying and shaking and climbing my leg.

At the park today we met nice little boy named Will. Will is one of the nicest almost-three-year-olds I have ever met. However, his solicitous attention to Andrew served for naught. As Andrew cried, Will drew closer and closer asking, “What’s wrong with him?”

This did not help the situation.

I try to stay calm through these situations, trusting that this stage will pass and that my nonchalance will diffuse the tension. But inside I am seething. I get so frustrated with this kid. Why can’t he just have fun and play with the other kids? And then I get frustrated with myself. He’s only two and he is genetically programmed to be a shy, cautious introvert.

And then we were getting ready for bed and I asked Andrew who he wanted to pray for and he said, “New friend. From the park.”

And then I cried.

It’s 10:00 in the morning.*

We have been outside for over an hour, alternately digging for worms, driving trucks and “helping Daddy”.

I love spring and summer.

*apparently, in my haste to get back outside, I neglected to hit publish. So now it’s 5:15pm and this is the first time I have seen my computer since typing this. I told you it would be a good day.

It’s good to be home. I am enjoying my son and I am happy to see all my plants blooming. Spring is running a little bit late in New York and it was sad to go back to the mostly bare branches of the newly changing season.

We had a great trip. We saw a ton of interesting things and enjoyed our time without the responsibility of Andrew. I remembered that Justin laughs at almost all of my many jokes and that his sense of comic timing is damn near perfect, though sometimes rare, and I dig that in a boy. We saw a Yankees game, walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, took a boat trip around the island, went to The Cloisters and the American Museum of Natural History, went to the observation deck in Rockefeller Center, went to the library and Bryant Park, walked and walked, saw an awesome Broadway show and ate fantastic food. We spent an entire day in Central Park and I walked over 140 blocks in that day alone. I took over 1000 pictures, you can see a much smaller selection of them here.

But some things still trouble me.

The jet-lag is a problem. I have a hard time with daylight savings and I just don’t have the reserves right now to bounce through a three hour time change. So I am tired. And I use my fatigue as an excuse to not keep up with the things I need to do, and the cycle of running-behind and being overwhelmed begins again. I know it is my fault. All I have is guilt because I’m not Getting Things Done.

I have big thoughts about some of the things I saw in New York, I was shocked by the way that racism, class-ism, and age-ism rear their ugly heads in a new city. I am not blind to their presence in Seattle, but the callouses on my heart are strategic and I don’t see as much as I should. My defenses were not set up for New York though, and I was pierced by what I saw; impatience and rudeness directed at my 92 year-old Great Aunt, a market in a lower-class neighborhood with the most rotten selection of over-priced produce I have ever seen (there was a sale on potato chips and TV dinners though), and an avowed liberal democratic friend of my Aunt’s perfectly comfortable sitting at The Princeton Club with a bunch of other white people, snapping her fingers to get the attention of an overworked non-white staff member. (No joke, everyone in a chair was white, everyone employed by the establishment was non-white. EVERYONE.)

I realize that we are a capitalist, not socialist, country and that capitalism demands a class system. I realize that socialism and communism work a lot better on paper or in the woods with a small group of people than they do in a large country. I realize that 100 years ago in New York the same scenario was playing out with different actors. I read Whiteness Of A Different Color and White By Law, I know that the cycle of immigration and social integration plays through this country every century and I live on the hope that someday the so-called Melting Pot of Americanism can be big enough to include all the peoples of the world. But I don’t see that yet. I don’t even see how we can start. I am stuck in the despair of the cynic. I see the Statue of Liberty and I wonder why she is still there. We don’t want the tired, the poor, the huddled masses. We want the smart, the useful, the competitive. We want English speakers and those with something to add to the marketplace. We don’t know what to do with the rest of the world. I don’t know what to do with the rest of the world. There are only so many jobs busing tables, even in New York.

The weight of history is crushing.

The house is quiet. The laundry is folded (but not put away). The dishes are clean (but still in the dishwasher). I am sitting down trying to get my pictures from NY up on the series of tubes that is the internet to share with you….

AND THE BLOODY FLICKR SITE IS DOWN!

Circumstances like this really annoy my inner control freak.

I’m going to go read my book.

We got back home about 1:00 this morning.

Just as you suspected, we had a great time and everything went fine. Boy, don’t I feel like a nerd for all my worrying? But that is how the cycle goes.

We took a whole bunch of pictures which I will inundate you with in the days to come.

Now I’m off to do laundry.

This is one of my favorite Andrew Peterson songs. It is what little boys are made of.

Just in time for warm days with the windows down, the infamous hairbrush tape is finally finished.

Hey, I never gave you a timeline, I just said I would make one.

Thanks to Nichole, Alicia and Jalene for their suggestions. They will all be receiving copies of the mix tape. (aside: Jalene emailed me a suggestion of The Hairbrush Song by Veggie Tales. While I laughed out loud at the thought of it, I couldn’t fit in on the tape. However, since her idea also gave me the title of this post, she gets a cd. Good things happen when you join the discussion…)

Grab your hairbrush (or pseudo-microphone of choice) and sing along!

Track 1: I Will Survive - Gloria Gaynor
Track 2: If I Were A Bell - Guys and Dolls
Track 3: I Want You To Want Me - Cheap Trick
Track 4: Don’t Dream It’s Over - Crowded House
Track 5: Goodbye Earl - Dixie Chicks
Track 6: Strawberry Wine - Deanna Carter
Track 7: Here With Me - Dido
Track 8: Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off - Ella Fitzgerald
Track 9: One Week - Barenaked Ladies
Track 10: When I’m Up - Great Big Sea
Track 11: Video - India.Arie
Track 12: I Feel Pretty - West Side Story
Track 13: Roxanne - The Police
Track 14: Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go - Wham!

Love it? Hate it? Tell me in the comments.

Because I have, apparently, completely taken leave of my senses, I entered the April Write-Away Contest over at Scribbit.

The theme of the contest is growing, and the posts I entered (here and here) address the growth that blogging has wrought in me. Entering the contest is one of the surest signs of growth for me as a writer. I want to be a better writer and submitting pieces for review from a disinterested third party is a good place to start.

I’ll let you know what happens.

This time of year always gets me thinking about the big plans I have for my garden.

Lots of things are blooming already.

Some things are almost ready.

And others want to make me crawl back under a blanket and pray for six more weeks of winter.

This last set of pictures are from my side and front yard. I have visions of a flower garden instead of grass in the front yard, but that is a few years away so I will content myself with living plants and more color.

I guess I should probably get to work.

Andrew says that the dandelions are beautiful. (”Beutful welwo fowers, Mommy”) Maybe I will keep some of them.

Why is it that everything seems fine in the light of day?

Why am I so affected by light and darkness?

I am giddy at the thought of travel. Bright lights, big city, child-free, reconnecting. A break. Vacation. I can’t sleep.

I can’t sleep. The images flash in my mind. Planes hitting the towers. The recordings of phone calls home.

What would you say? If you only had one phone call to Andrew. I love you, little buggy. I shouldn’t have taken this trip. I should have been there for you. I should never leave you. What if something happens to you when I’m not there. What if you are trying to say something and your caregivers don’t understand you? What if you want to play a special game or snuggle in just the right way and I am not there for you? Who will take care of you the way I do?

Never leave? Are you insane? The little boy is fine. You are a textbook co-dependent. You know better. Isn’t your God bigger than this? You need this trip. You need to breathe. You need to remember what it is like to enjoy your husband. It is not wrong to take a trip. It’s not wrong.

It is wrong. You are his mother. He needs you. He will be sad when you are gone. You are choosing your own comfort and convenience over his well being. You are selfish. You will be punished for your selfishness. What goes around comes around, you know.

You are insane. You are utterly daft. Shake your fist at this so-called Fate and get on that damn plane.

I can’t sleep. I want to go. I am afraid to go. I can’t wait to be there. I can’t wait to get home.

It’s going to be great.

It’s going to be terrible.

You need to go on this trip.

Justin would rather go to the ocean. You should take Andrew to the ocean.

You said you would go. You have tickets and plans. You said you would go. What will people say if you don’t go?

You can’t go. Something awful is going to happen.

You will have a great time.

Something is going to happen.

You will have a great time.

Who am I to argue when the two year old wants to wear his moon boots on a balmy, 70 degree day?

Andrew has conquered the ladder and is officially a sliding master!

Some funny things that Andrew has said recently:

-When I handed him the generic brand granola bar “Need Quaker man!” Actually, he said, “Need Quar man!” and I said, “What do you need?” “Quar man!” “Granola bar man. With. The. Hat.” And I said, “The Quaker man?” And he said, “Need Quaker man!”

(Apparently I am not doing well in the humorous story telling department tonight. Oh well.)

-As I was folding laundry the other day Andrew picked up a pair of underwear and said, “Mommy’s diapers.”

-Andrew was sitting in his high chair playing with a loader and eating graham crackers. He asked for more and I said, “You need more grahams?” And he looked back at me, injured, and says, “For the loader.”

I went to Hale’s Ales on Monday night to attend a discussion presented by The Kindlings. My friend, Jen, was on the panel for a discussion entitled Inklings 2.0: Can Lewis and Tolkein’s Pub Experience Be Replaced By Online Interaction?. (For those of you who aren’t familiar with The Inklings, check this out.) The conversation was interesting, and you can listen to the podcast here.

My reaction to any conversation about online vs. in-person relationships has always been mixed. Before I let The Crazy out, I used email as a convenient communication tool and marveled at the amount of information available on the internet. I did not have an online community. However, in the last few years that has changed. When my anxieties prevent me from picking up the phone, I can still communicate through IM. When the idea of telling my story to someone and watching their reaction to it makes me want to take a vow of silence, this blog has allows me to speak and get The Crazy out of my head. By telling my story I have forged stronger connections with people I have known for years and have made new friends who share similar experiences. Through social networking sites like MySpace, I have reconnected with old friends and rekindled some relationships that I believed to be lost. My friend Nick is a good example (Hi Nick). We were good friends at the end of high school and early college. Then we both got married and went our separate ways for a while. He contacted me a few months in to the Really Bad Crazy, but since I had no words to communicate what was going on with me at the time, I just declined the invitation for dinner at their new house and went back to hiding. As I got healthier, and learned that they moved to Hong Kong, I regretted not getting together when we had the chance. Last year, he noticed that I had updated my MySpace page for the first time in a while and dropped me a line. I have been traveling vicariously through their overseas adventures ever since and I look forward to getting to know he and his wife again when, or if, they ever come back home.

But all the emails and comments in the world can not substitute for the real thing. And so, the highlight of the evening was meeting Leah, a kindred spirit who I had previously only known online. She is the first person that I have developed a relationship with in the online community and it was wonderful to sit across a table from her and talk. She found this blog through Jen and got on board just in time for me to open a can of Crazy. My story resonated with her and she began commenting. I checked out her blog and found a friend. Now we are bonding over the lack of cute shoes for girls with big feet and planning to meet up again and talk over cocktails.

The internet is a scary place sometimes. As the world gets smaller and we share our lives with more people, it seems that fewer protections are in place to keep us safe. But the flip side of that danger is the amazing possibility of new and deeper relationships, whether that be through escaping the isolation of young motherhood, learning a new culture or sparking a conversation with someone who has a different perspective. The problems of social isolation arise when we fail to take these online connections to the next level. Like anything else, the internet is a tool that can be used for good or used for evil. By creating relationships and connecting with other human beings we are using the internet for good.

I think Lewis and Tolkein would agree.

I had two kids today (we babysit a friend’s little girl on Mondays) and we had a successful outing. Not only that, but when we got home both kids napped for a couple of hours.

It is kind of pathetic how circumstantial my happiness is.

And now, the kids are up. The Mariners are on the radio. It’s Opening Day. I’m off to a fun event hosted by these cool people tonight.

And Life? She is good.

You can read this story from the beginning here.

Where does The Crazy come from? Is it something that you are born with or something that you learn? Does everyone have it, although it only shows in those of us who are not so good at hiding it? What happens when we can not hide it anymore?

The nursing thing still bothers me, two years in. Every time Andrew gets sick, or someone comments on how big he is, or I see a mother nursing her baby, I hear it. If he had been breastfed, he would have a better immune system. If he had been breastfed, he would have more lean muscle mass. That could have been you, but for your choices. My three biggest fears about having another baby are that I will bleed again, that I won’t be able to nurse and that the baby will disrupt the good thing that Andrew and I have going. I resented Andrew for so long, I don’t want to resent another baby. And Andrew and I do have a good thing going. I love that kid past the point of safety, more than I have ever loved anyone or anything – except maybe myself – and it scares me. But, when I realize the potential that I have, the potential to love other people the way I love Andrew, it blows my mind. Imagine a life where your heart was overflowing with love for all the people around you. Imagine the possibility of only wanting the best things for everyone that you loved. Imagine the relationships that could be formed if we weren’t so intent on protecting our hearts. Maybe you live this way, I know that I don’t. I believe that other people have found this capacity to love in different ways, and I would never say that you have to have a child to live this way, but, for me, that is what it took.

So, what do I know now? I know that I am not finished or fixed, although I expected to be. I am working on forgiveness, of others yes, but mostly of myself. I am working on proper perspective. I know that some of the things that happened were not at all my fault, and that some were. I know that most of the things that were my fault occurred because I was too proud to ask for help, and so I am working on telling people that I can’t meet all their needs. I know that, no matter how much I obsess over something, I will never be able to go back and change the past, and I am learning that maybe I should just let it be.

For years the possibility of panic defined my life. I would not stay home alone after dark. I would not go check on a noise that I heard, preferring to cower in bed and nag Justin to take care of it. I would not go unaccompanied to the small town where The School is located. I would tell mountains and mountains of lies about why I was afraid of conflict, or why I wasn’t teaching anymore, or why I spent so much time at my parents house now that I had a house of my own. But, slowly, those things are changing. I stayed alone for a week while Justin was away on business – and I liked it! I enter that small town carefully now, still on guard to make sure that I see anyone from The School before they see me, but I enter. Instead of having spider dreams, I usually dream that I am having a spider dream. I wake up, ask Justin if that was real, turn over and go back to sleep.

I wanted to close this story with some sort of happy ending, pretty bows and all. But I can’t. I still struggle. Sure, the medication helps to keep me numb most of the time but, occasionally, my fears and anxieties get the better of me and I end up crying or hiding and I’m not convinced that numbness is my desired state of being anyways. I am working on my issues with food, but it is still a minute-by-minute battle in my mind, and one that I often lose. I drag my feet about having another child because the thought of going through that again makes me nauseous. I drag my feet about what I am going to do with myself once our kids are in school because the thought of going through that again makes me nauseous. And so I am here. I am still learning. I am twenty-seven years old.