Category Archives: Seeking Life Now

In My Room

06 Wednesday Apr 2016

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When I was a little girl, I truly lived in a wonderland that was my brain.

When I close my eyes and picture myself in my bedroom, a million stories and memories wash-over me and I am instantly nostalgic for the wondrous worlds in which I once lived.

I can see myself:

– 16 years old, with window wide-open on a cold, winter’s day, room temperature lingering somewhere around 60 degrees Fahrenheit, listening to a Mark Pinkus album (piano music) on my cassette player, room extremely organized and tidy, lying on my bed writing.

– 12 years old, cuddled-up on an old arm chair I had in my room for a time, eating a concoction of microwaved marshmallows, chocolate chips and butter while watching “Fievel Goes West” or “WKRP in Cincinnati”

– 13 years old, trying to clean and organize a messy, disastrous, room while listening to the “Reality Bites” soundtrack, rewinding “Stay” by Lisa Loeb over and over and over again while singing at the top of my lungs. Eventually, I give-up on cleaning and go-about creating interesting outfits from my wardrobe. I pluck-out a floral peasant dress, leggings, black Doc. Martens and a jean jacket, sit at my desk and start to sketch different fashion ideas and outfits. Maybe I’ll be a fashion designer one day.

– 11 years old, NKOTB posters plastering my walls, wearing lots of neon, a bucket full of empty peanut shells before me as I continue to shell and eat peanut after peanut while listening to “How to Eat Fried Worms” on book tape.

– 10 years old, watching “The Sound of Music” while I cleaned the giant china cabinet that my Mom had brought with us when we moved-in with my Stepdad, and had been stored in my room, pretending that I was a cleaning lady working at the house of some wealthy, handsome, romantic man.

– 15 years old, baritone in lap, music stand in front of me, practicing scales, arpeggios, exercises, and songs until my lips began to tingle. Dreaming of being a famous musician and picturing myself as an older lady, still playing the baritone, and extremely fulfilled with my life.

– 18 years old, crying. Sad. Alone. Depressed. Lying on my bed in a dimly lit room, writing even darker poetry in my journals while listening to “At This Point in My Life” by Tracy Chapman on repeat.

– 8 years old , lying on the floor with my Children’s Worldbook Encyclopedias strewn-out on the floor in front of me as I researched the solar system and geology and created little ‘homework projects’ and assignments for myself. Eager to learn, to soak-up information, create work of which I could be proud, and trying to achieve a goal of doing a project about every subject contained therein.

All of these moments, and so many more, come to life in my mind when I think of them. I was so consumed in whatever I was doing at the time. I don’t know if it’s the nostalgia or just how my imagination works, but these seemingly normal moments in my life all hold massive amounts of emotion, thought, feeling, and emotional pull to them.

I have recently watched the movie “Inside Out” and I wonder if the reason that these memories have such a strong place in my memory and bring with them all the things mentioned above is because, for whatever reason, these are “core memories”. I have always pictured my brain as a large filing room full of shelves, cabinets, boxes, safes and file folders. When I have to remember something, my mind actually has a whole system of locating where the information was stored and, depending on which part of storage area it is in, a different way it is kept, retrieved and opened. So, I really dug the “Inside Out” perspective.

For some reason, these memories of me in my old bedroom, all had a deep impact on my development. I think-back to each of these moments as ‘special moments in time’. There is a file in my brain that ‘pings’ every time I pull one of these memory files from the archives.

I refer to a few of these memories at times I need to “go to my happy place”. I will close my eyes, feel the cold breeze coming through my window, the smell of fresh, winter air, the sound of piano music in the background, the organization and cleanliness of a bright room and the soft, warm, blankets on my bed and feel instantly relaxed.

Or, I will close my eyes, hear “My Sharona” playing in the background, see a flutter of creative outfit ideas and designs around my room, experience the thrill of originality once again, and come out of it inspired and energized.

I guess I still have moments like this when I’m in my room. They happen less often as I am married, so share the space, have a child, and often don’t spend much time in there when not sleeping or cleaning.

But, I still have those moments when I feel totally present in the moment and I wonder if I will be looking-back on these moments in 20 years and feeling the same way I do now about the things that happened in my room.

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There is no place like…home?

04 Monday Apr 2016

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Home.

It’s such a confusing, difficult and complicated term to me.

Where is my home? Is it where I am? Where my family is? If so, are we talking my immediate or extended family?

Is it where I feel most comfortable? Most relaxed?

Is it where I was born and raised or where I lived for the longest period of time?

Where is my home?

Our society puts such an incredible value on this idea or concept of home. But, I don’t really know what that is to me and so, I often feel lost.

They say that “home is where the heart is”. If that’s so, my home truly does exist in a great multitude of places, for my heart is always at many places at once.

At any moment of the day you can find me yearning for one of my ‘homes’. I long to be in New Zealand, driving along the stunning shoreline, and laughing with my friends and family who live there. I long to be back on the farm where I spent my childhood going on adventures and exploring the wilderness around me. I want to be in the homes where my parents live, and sitting with them over dinner, laughing and chatting about the funny stories, old and new. I desire to be in the residence where I am living now, playing and giggling with my son while I stream some great, new, tunes on Google Play.

There are days I am desperate to move back to NZ – and other days I am yearning to return to my hometown. And then, of course, there are those days when I can’t imagine living anywhere different to where I am now.

Being pulled in all these directions all the time is exhausting. I feel like I am constantly betraying someone. If we’re here, we’re disappointing both sides of the family because we are close to neither. If we lived in one of those places, the other side of the family would be hurt because we had not chosen to live by them.

I have been challenging myself lately to really seek what is best for my little family of three. What is best for my husband, for me, and for our son.

This is a difficult question to tackle when you feel guilty for not “being there” for the people who have stood by your side for your entire life.

But, what is being a parent if not preparing your child to mature, venture out, and embrace his/her own life, doing what is best for him/her and will make him/her the happiest that he/she can, possibly, be?

I have been seeking to turn our residence into a “home” ever since we moved here over a year ago. And, I have little moments- pockets of time- here and there when the sun is shining in on our lounge, my son is lying on the floor playing with this trucks and my husband is standing in the kitchen, humming to himself, when a deep breath finds its way out of the depths of my heart and exhales a contended sigh – “I’m home”.

But, I’ve also had this feeling when opening the door to my office on a weekday morning, and I’m greeted by my plants on the window sill, the desk where I spend a good portion of my life, and my awesome “Zootopia” mug out of which I enjoy a great amount of homemade mochas during the week.

I have also experienced the welcoming feeling of being home when I have looked-out on the city in which I live-when I see the lights of the familiar buildings, hear the sound of streetcars rushing along the tracks, and breathe-in the odd, but familiar scent that rises-up from the subway.

Does that mean that “home” really is wherever I am?

Do I bring “home” with me wherever I go?

Am I at home when I am on the streetcar, on the farm, on the beach at Lyall Bay, in my office, in my living room, and on the street where I am walking?

Maybe.

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To Thine Own Self…

31 Thursday Mar 2016

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I was terrified when I moved to New Zealand.

I wasn’t 100% convinced that it was the right thing to do, but the people I trusted around me seemed to be, so I was doing it with the faith that they knew what they were talking about.

3 years earlier I had joined a gap-year program in Toronto, where I had been living and working for the past year, feeling lost, in way over my head and struggling to make ends meet.

There were 6 other people on this program from USA, Canada and New Zealand.

Over the years, I developed a deep friendship with the guy from NZ. We spent a lot of time together and were given more responsibility in the organisation, culminating in the request for us to return the following year as team leaders for the program.

By the end of the first year, this boy professed his love for me. But, I just wasn’t feeling it. He was like a brother to me and when he started to be at all romantic towards me, I felt like I would puke. It just felt wrong. I loved his friendship, but was not attracted to him or interested in him in that way.

After 3 years in the country, he decided it was time to return to Aotearoa-the land of the long, white, cloud. However, the leadership of the church did not want him to leave, as they still had plans for what we could do together. I was sent-in to talk to him because they all thought I would be able to convince him to stay.

But, even I could not persuade him to stay.

My minister pulled me aside and told me that she thought I was making a huge mistake by letting him go. She told me that she thought I had been blinded to my real feelings for him by feelings I had for someone else, the focus I had on the ministry I had been doing in the community and even a fear of commitment.

I trusted that she knew what she was talking about, especially since she wasn’t the only one saying that we were meant to be together. Everyone in that community had been pushing me to be with him and expressing the belief that it was what God wanted.

So, clearly, I was missing something. I began to feel as though I couldn’t trust my own mind or my own emotions, so I had to trust that everyone else knew what was right. And, so, I did what she told me to do and I went to this friend and suggested to him that we should give “us” a real chance.

It didn’t change his mind about going home, but he did agree to come to my hometown for a few days and meet my family.

It was a horrible week for me. I felt uncomfortable, nervous, odd, sick to my stomach, miserable and confused for most of our time together.

I just kept telling myself that I couldn’t trust my thoughts and that my “real”, romantic, loving feelings would eventually come to the surface. They never did.

Despite all of this uncertainty, I found myself in Toronto, saying my farewells and crying to everyone I trusted that I didn’t know if I was doing the right thing. I shared that I didn’t think I had feelings for him, that I wasn’t sure that I really wanted to be with him and I was afraid I was making a horrible mistake. I was hoping someone would hear me and tell me that I shouldn’t go.

But, time and time again these friends and mentors made me feel like I was silly, confused, and didn’t really know what I wanted.

I sobbed the day I left the city, my chest heaving with every breathe as though it had the weight of a thousand bricks on it. My other best friend was with me at the airport and I sobbed and clung to her for dear life, hoping she wouldn’t let go of me. I didn’t want to go. I really didn’t.

The next 5 years would be the hardest, most miserable, most terrifying, troublesome, difficult and challenging of my life. There would be many, many, many times I would be seconds away from packing my bags and disappearing. I had never been so sad, so depressed and felt so lost and helpless.

Those people, all of them who thought they were speaking for God, were wrong. Totally, absolutely, 100% wrong.

I felt like a victim for years about this. I felt that they were all to blame for this horrible life I found myself stuck in. They were responsible for making me be with this person to whom I wasn’t attracted, leaving everything I loved to follow God’s plan for my life.

This all changed when, 7 years after she had left me at the airport, my friend visited me and said words that made me so angry because they were filled with undeniable truth. I wasn’t a victim. I had made the choices all along. I made the choice to go. I could make the choice to leave. I couldn’t blame anyone but myself for staying and feeling trapped.

She spoke frankly with me and for the first time in my life, I actually felt like someone was talking to me adult-to-adult.

This year will mark the 10 year anniversary of that flight and as I sit here, writing this tale, the guy from New Zealand is in my kitchen cooking himself some eggs and watching “Dancing with the Stars” and we are happy.

We are happy because I made a choice. We are happy because he made a choice. We decided, together, that we were going to make this work, no matter what.

It’s true that we never had the “head over heels” romantic phase that most people do before they get engaged. We never went on dates. We didn’t get giddy over texts. We didn’t giggle with friends and chat about stolen kisses or the silly things being done during the wooing stage. We skipped all of that and went straight to the ‘married for 20 years, romance is dead, have to work on it’ phase.

And so, that’s what we did. We worked on it.

And, the most incredible thing happened-the further we got from the church, the healthier our relationship became. When we removed all of that unhealthy, outside influence, the added guilt and pressure to be something we’re not, and the expectation to fit into roles that didn’t suit us, we found that we really could enjoy being together. We went to counselling and with the guidance of someone who actually knew what she was doing, we worked on things together.

As I said before, I have spent years doing what others wanted me to do and believing that other people knew what was best for me-even more than I could know for myself until that autumn day, while walking the streets of Toronto my friend put me straight.

Today, I take great pride in my marriage because it has been forged with fire. Tested with tears and fights and moments where the desire to run hung as heavy in the air as an elephant would hang from a weeping willow.

This is our marriage. Our relationship. Our friendship. Our victory. It doesn’t belong to anyone else. It doesn’t belong to the church. It doesn’t belong to God. It doesn’t even belong to our counsellor. It is ours.

And, just as I couldn’t blame anyone else for where I found myself back then, I get to take the credit for where I am now.

“This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.” –(Hamlet Act-1, Scene-III, 78–81)

I am in charge of my own life.

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The Word Became Flesh

30 Wednesday Mar 2016

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When I was in my early 20’s I moved to Toronto.

For years I had been working towards becoming a minister in a non-denominational church. I had received acceptance into the school that would last 2 years and see me ordained as a minister upon completion of the training.

I had packed all my boxes and my current job contract was going to be finished in a couple of weeks when I received a letter from the school stating that they had decided to defer my acceptance for one year.

There had been a few young, single, women that had recently gone-through the training, found it all too much once they had been ordained, and crashed and burned within a few years of graduating. They were nervous the same thing would happen to me.

And so, I found myself sitting there, staring at the wall, wondering what I was going to do next.

I pulled-out my journal and pen, prepared to write my frustration, fear, anger, doubt and confusion when a pamphlet fell-out and fluttered to the floor.

The pamphlet talked about a rough area in Toronto where ‘real Christians’ were supposed to be. “Give a year-get a Life” it judged that what I was currently doing was not good enough. “The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighbourhood” – words from John 1:14 called to me promising the opportunity to become the living, breathing, word of God in a community that desperately needed it.

Within an hour I was dialing the 416 number, butterflies exploding within my stomach and my head spinning with nerves.

I spoke to a guy who sounded very cool and expressed interest in having me come and join the team. I was told that I would have a place to live and that they would help me find a job when I arrived. By the time the conversation was done, it was pretty much decided. I would be moving to Toronto.

With $500 in my bank account and a world of dreams in my heart, I headed for the city.

I was extremely young and naïve and it became painfully obvious within my first few days there that I was in way over my head.

I remember sitting in a meeting with the guy I had spoken with on the phone, the local minister of the organisation and the office administrator, barely being able to understand anything they were saying. They seemed to speak their own language, using words and expressions I had never heard before.

I sat there observing like a National Geographic photographer crouched in the grass, watching a pride of lions creeping upon a herd of gazelles.

I could barely get my head wrapped around it all.

Here I was. Young, inexperienced, uneducated, unprepared and ready to save the world.

The Word become flesh.

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Aotearoa

29 Tuesday Mar 2016

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Aotearoa

Land of the long, white, cloud

Your mountains beat in my heart

While your rivers course through my veins.

I can’t sleep tonight, I lie awake thinking of you.

Dear land that earned my love.

You gently wooed me with your subtle charms.

I close my eyes and I can hear the cicadas beating their rhythmic percussions.

The salty smell of sea mixes with the earthy tones of flax and rises through my nostrils to my deepest senses and my heart cries out:

“I am home”

Come to me as I sleep.

Let me walk along your shores.

Welcome me home once more.

No i ki te whenua.

Haere mai.

Heather 2.0

29 Tuesday Mar 2016

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For many years, I wanted to be able to hit a reset button on my life and try to do it again the way it should have been done all along.

I have wanted to set myself up to be more successful than I’ve been with the first attempt. I have often felt like I made the wrong choice in “The Game of Life” and it has ruined the whole game for me. You know, when you choose to skip college and go straight into the workforce and then there is no way you can win the game.

But, the older I get the more I realize that, although my life choices up to this point have not helped me get a ‘leg up’ in life,  they also have made me the person I am today.

And, although I’m not perfect (not even close), the truth is, I think I do actually like myself. I like my sense of humor, my intelligence, how much I care for people and my ability to make people feel at ease.

And so, instead of starting over, I’m going to approach my current state as a sort of system upgrade. Heather 2.0

It’s easy to sit-back and say “well, I never went to university and I’ve missed my chance. Boo-hoo for me”. But, I’ve never been someone who likes “easy”.

I’ve always loved a good challenge.

It’s true that I never went to university. It’s true that I have a family now and a desire to be in bed by 10:30pm and so I will never have the “college experience”.

But, that doesn’t mean that I can’t pursue my dreams.

There have always been a great number of ares that interested me and all kinds of things I have wanted to do and to be in life.
But, none of these have ever been as persistent as being fit and being a writer.

Therefore, Heather 2.0 is all about pursuing these dreams.

I have spent the bulk of my life doing what I was told, what I thought people wanted from me, what I thought people needed and being a person who always put others before myself.

It is my time.

It is my time to do what I want to do. To do what makes me happy. To think about and put myself first some times.

And, truthfully, to stop being a whimp and start doing what needs to be done to be the person I want to be.

As with all system upgrades, however, there will be glitches as I go along and things will constantly need to be tweaked and adapted. But, the important thing is that I’m all in. I’m totally invested in myself in a way I never have been before.

Welcome to the world, Heather 2.0.

It’s gonna be great.

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Being a Mom

22 Tuesday Mar 2016

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It has been said that being a parent is like watching your heart running-around outside of your body.

This has, absolutely, been my experience.

I have always been an emotional, caring, deep and sensitive person. But, being a mother has quadrupled these things and shone a light on them that burns me up like an ant in a magnifying glass.

Everything is so much more extreme now.

I have rage that even terrifies me sometimes. I can only imagine what my husband must be thinking when this beast comes out in place of his wife. He must think I’m a total Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And, believe me, he wants to hide, when that monster is on the loose.

There is something that was unleashed deep inside of me that is so primal and utterly overpowering the day my son was born. I swear that this juice would allow me to lift an airplane if I had to, or rip a mountain out of its socket. I often picture myself grabbing an intruders rifle in my bare hands and bending it in half as I protect my family. I feel fairly certain that there is nothing I couldn’t do if my child’s well-being depended on it.

The rage I feel towards his safety sometimes reminds me of a cartoon character. I become Yosemite Sam and the smoke starts bellowing from my ears, my face flushes red and my nose starts to screech loudly like a kettle ready to boil over.

But, it’s not just the rage that has intensified, it’s the love as well.

I have always considered myself someone who tends to love too much. And now I find that  I love my child so intensely that it physically hurts at times. Do you remember what it was like when you were a young, early, teen or preteen and you had those first crushes on people? Remember how it would make you feel physically ill and achy at times?

Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve felt that way about a peer, but I feel that way about my son every single moment of every single day. The poor kid. When I’m with him, I can’t stop kissing him. I’m a serial kisser. And, now that he’s growing a bit more independent, every time he says something like “I sit in my own chair”, my heart crumbles just a little bit.

I love him more with every day and I’m terrified that one day my heart will just give-out under the immensity of love it has been expected to manage.

I will never be the same person that I was before I became a Mom. This little life has totally transformed me. I could never be the same. He has unleashed so many things inside of me that are completely beyond my grasp.

I am a wild-eyed, steam-whistling, heart-pounding, serial-kissing, intense, dangerous and endless-lovin’, mama.

And I couldn’t be happier.

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In Such a Little Hand

21 Monday Mar 2016

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I sat down to write a couple posts, was listening to some good music, cuppa tea by my side and I got inspired. I pulled-out my guitar and wrote a little number. Here are the lyrics.

In Such a Little Hand

In such a little hand
There was so much love to find
The universe exposed
All brokenness made whole
In such a little hand

In such a little face
So much to explore
The day you formed the world
Beauty did restore
In such a little face

There were days we were soaring
There were days when we began to drown
Falling tears all felt more heavy
And laughter weightless as a cloud

Sunlight touched the skin more warmly
And the clouds were darker grey
The whole world opened up
In such a little hand.

In such a little foot
All the places it will go
To follow all your dreams
A million paths to take
In such a little foot

In such a little heart
A world where life is made
Where purest love exists
And no one is afraid
In such a little heart

I’ve finally found my place
In such a little hand

Life is Magical

19 Saturday Mar 2016

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I don’t know if it’s just me, but my mind is full of memories that seem to be filled to the brim with magic.

I’m not talking saw the girl in half or house of Gryffindor magic. But, I guess what I will call, movie magic.

These are moments and memories upon which I look back on and see them as if watching a beautiful film. Everything is perfect- the lighting, the mood, the script, the cinematography, the soundtrack- it’s all there.

My movie reel is beautiful. I love tapping into that part of my mind and just reliving these moments.

Most of them are bittersweet. Unrequited love, happier days long forgotten, a time when life was less complicated. But, it is so sweet to relive the moments and experience the thrill of the emotions that accompany each one.

I love reliving life in my mind. But, I am constantly questioning if I am living too much in the past. I have, until recently, spent a great deal of time simply wanting to go back.

The positive impact this life movie reel has had on me is that I have started to realize how beautiful, how magical, life really is.

I seek to be fully aware of each moment because, one day, these will be the magical times I think back on with nostalgia and wish I could relive.

I try to live the moment to its fullest the first time, so when I see it again years from now, I don’t feel sad that I hadn’t known how wonderful it was at the time.

I find myself yearning a little bit less for memories of the past and embracing the present moments, looking for every morsel of joy, love, wonder, imagination, beauty, emotion and magic that they have to offer.

This is life.

And, it’s not that bad.

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Sexual Abuse and Being Fat

17 Thursday Mar 2016

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At risk of contradicting myself (see previous post entitled “Shame, Shame-Double Shame”), I want to take a moment to talk about the effects of sexual assault in regards to shame.

Another reason I feel more comfortable “covered” is because I was sexually molested twice as a child.

I start to feel uneasy when I think that too much of my body is exposed. I don’t being uncovered. I don’t like giving guys a reason to look at my body.

Because two grown men looked at my body when I was a child, liked what they saw and decided that it was something to take for themselves.

And so, staying fat is also a way to protect myself.

The second I think a man might be noticing me for my looks, I start to feel uneasy, my body temperature rises, I get queasy and my mind starts to spin out of control. It’s a panic attack.

Feeling shame, or ashamed, results in a wanting to cover oneself. Many women who have suffered sexual abuse are overweight or obese and find it very difficult to lose weight. Being bigger and unattractive can make us feel safe. No one will want to do that to us again. No one will want this. If I give it up, who knows what they will do to me again.

Even now that I am happily married, have a son, a family that loves and supports me, I am scared all the time that if I look too good, something bad is going to happen to me.

For those of us who carry around this shame in our bodies, the battle we face is an exhausting, uphill and constant struggle.

If someone thinks we look good, it’s difficult to separate that compliment from the feelings that ‘looking good’ to someone is shameful because shameful things are done to you when you look good to people.

We feel as though our own bodies have betrayed us. Our bodies have caused horrible things to happen to us. It’s because of how our bodies looked that people touched us inappropriately and did things that robbed us of our innocence. We feel ashamed.

And so, we hide.

We hide behind hoodies and jogging pants. Behind pigtails and messy hair. We hide behind humour and bubbly personalities. And, we hide behind fat.

We have to learn that it was not our fault. It was not our body’s fault. Our breasts aren’t to blame. Our skin is not in the wrong. Our thighs are not the problem. Even our most intimate of places have done no wrong to us.

Your body did not betray you. Your body did not fail you, or allow this to happen. It was not in agreement with any of it. Your flesh did not betray you.

For us this journey is about learning to feel safe in our own skin. We have to learn to make our bodies our allies, not our enemies. We have to learn to trust our flesh. We have to learn to forgive ourselves for hating ourselves so much.

I am trying to become friends with my body again.

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