Life Under Construction

It's not uncommon once you start a small home renovation project that it suddenly turns into something much larger than what you had in mind and your level of discomfort increases tenfold. Your intentions may have been to put in new kitchen cabinets and suddenly walls are being knocked down, new windows are being put in and you are suddenly living in a rather big mess. And that, my friends, is how life goes. 

Typically, when I initiate change, I like to take time to make sure I'm certain it is what I want, which is what I did in response to the strong inner pull I had been feeling to do something with my three passions: yoga, teaching and inspiring people. In late November, I made the decision to leave my position as client relations manager at rtraction to pursue my own venture. In December, with the blessing of my husband, I made the announcement at work. But sometimes, life has it's own idea of what change should look like.

A month before I made the decision to change careers (again) my mother, who had surgery on her back last summer and can no longer work, was put in a position of having to find a new place to live by February 1st. Being that she lived alone and was 2 hours away, I felt the best thing for her would be to move closer to me.

Christmas came and my incredibly resilient mother-in-law began to succumb to the stage IV breast cancer that had been in her body for the last 4 years.  On January 19, my mother-in-law passed away. My husband and I were with her when she took her last breath and the cancer left but a shadow of her body. My husband, whose father died five years ago and who also lost his only brother in a car accident, is now the only living member of his nuclear family.

Like everyone else who experiences the death of a loved one, we took whatever energy we had left to plan a service in less than a week. The day before the service, on January 25th, we drove to Windsor, in a snow storm to move my mother to London; a date that was planned at the end of November. We moved her things into storage and she is now settled in with us until she begins receiving disability benefits, which, fingers crossed, should be early spring.

January 29 was my last day at rtraction. On January 30, I became an entrepreneur developing her business set to launch in September.

And that my friends, is how life goes. One little flap of a butterfly wing creates an unforgiving tornado that sweeps through your life and changes everything. And do you know what I think? I think it's the BEST THING EVER. To me, it is a sign of major transformation for my husband, my mother, my children, and myself. Will life in 2013 be challenging for us? Absolutely. Will it be scary at times? Absolutely. In times like these, I like to focus on the fantastic outcomes. For when the caterpillar enters the chrysalis and everything goes black and its body turns to goo, that's when the mystery enters and we just have to trust that it will know how to rebuild us in ways even we couldn't imagine for ourselves. Yes, these are exciting times for my family. And if I pay attention, there will be gifts around every corner waiting to reveal themselves along the way. 

And while we're at it, we are going to do some home renovations. What the hell... might as well keep the momentum going!

A Time to Heal

June may have been about tying up lose ends, but July was definitely about healing. I spent most of my energy focusing on my mom, who had a disc removed from from her back. We've had a rocky road, she and I, but the last decade has been good and nothing felt more important and right than being of service to my mom during her time of need.

Like any significant moment in life where you have the luxury of advance notice of what it is about to happen, you enter the experience thinking you are prepared. The left brain likes to try to keep life fitting perfectly in a lovely little box and may even trick you into believing it is succeeding. But by the end of the experience, you realize there were many things you did not account for, like emotions, which are not so tidy.

When I met my mother in the elevator once she was released from the recovery room, I didn't anticipate the flood of emotion I experienced when I saw her strapped onto the hospital gurney with tubes sticking out of her. I knew she was okay, but there was something about seeing her so vulnerable that suddenly made me feel vulnerable as well and I stayed that way until my time taking care of her was over.

My mom has had a difficult life. I could go into how much it had to do with choice versus circumstance, but it doesn't matter. All I know is the woman I call my mother is a driving force in my life. She poured her heart and soul into me and gave me the wings she didn't have. But it had been a while since I had stepped into her world for more than 48 hours. As happy as I was with how far we had come, we apparently had more headway to make.

I cleaned and cleaned my mom's tiny basement apartment and was saddened that my mother didn't take better care of her living space, but I cleaned anyways... with love. It wasn't long before my expectations of cleanliness turned into a realization that I was cleaning up somebody else's dirt and it wasn't my mom's.  No, the dirt I was cleaning up belonged to the people in my mother's past who demeaned and abused her instead of giving her the love that she and every human being deserves.No, you're not unlovable, Mom. I love you and those days are over, but I know the battle still rages on in your head.

My Mom:)

I served her breakfast, lunch and dinner every day and felt good knowing that she was eating fresh, healthy food. We played a constant game of cat and mouse every time she would try to sneak a cigarette against her doctor's orders. I sought her approval as I went through her apartment and purged items that were either not being used or too dusty and stained with cigarette smoke to keep. We laughed at the giant cookbook by Good Housekeeping that I used to love looking at over and over as a child. When I was little, I used to pretend I was royalty and order the dishes for my feast by pointing to the pictures of delicious gourmet fare. When I made her laugh, our connection felt timeless and boundless and every night ended with a hug and a kiss goodnight.

Then it came time for me to leave and unlike my usual shorter visits, it was harder to say goodbye this time. The two hour drive home provided me with the space to process my visit and led me to the realization that the time spent with my mom wasn't just about her healing; it was also about our healing.

Not Too Hard, Not Too Easy

This time last year, my life was very different. I was working full time and life was going by way too fast. (I told my neighbour I loved him, remember?)  The real wake up call came when I realized a whole school year had almost passed and I didn't know who my children's teachers were– a hard pill to swallow being a former educator.

We had stopped eating fresh, slow-cooked meals because frozen, pre-cooked meals and (gulp) fast food had become more convenient. I remember one incident when my best friend was taking care of my girls after school. She drove them both to gymnastics for me and I later met up with them after work. I was wild-eyed and frantic, holding a bag of McDonald's food in my hand for dinner. I was on the verge of tears when I shook the bag at her and said "This is not how I want to live! This is NOT okay!" She and I laugh about it today, but that moment was a tell-tale sign I was living out of alignment with my values. I was suffering because of it and so was the rest of my family.

A year ago, we spent a lot of money on babysitting and if it weren't for teaching yoga, I would not have had any form of regular exercise because it was much harder to bail on 20 people who were waiting for me at the gym than it was to give in to the weight of being too tired. Speaking of  exercise and being too tired, I missed my husband and he missed me.

I finally gave myself my no-fail "when-I-take-my-last-breath-will-I-have-any-regrets" test and decided I had many regrets on the horizon if I didn't make some changes soon. I  didn't want to look up one day to see my daughters going off to university and know I wasn't there for them when I could've been. I didn't want to see my husband and I grow apart because I was too busy to work on our relationship. I needed to create more balance in my life.

Last May, I made the move to work only part-time. I'm making less money, but I've become richer in other ways and I am now enjoying the fruits of my decision.We're eating healthier. I can sit with my girls when they do their homework. I volunteer once a week in their classrooms and I'm involved with the school council. My husband and I laugh together every day and his odds of getting lucky have increased dramatically. I have room to express my creativity and better serve my community. Balance has been restored and we are all much happier.

Don't get me wrong, I still have busy phases. In fact, I'm in the middle of one right now; hence the single blog post for this month. Even so, I have more control of the flow of "busy-ness" in my life and it's a much more sustainable model. In Eastern philosophy it is recommended that life should not be too hard or too easy, but in the middle. I've found my middle... for now. How about you?

An Adventure Awaits...

I have dreamed of traveling to far-off distant lands for many years. It's one of those things I wish I did in my 20s– before marriage and kids. For whatever reason, seeing the world wasn't on my radar until my mid-twenties when my husband's best friend, who had recently graduated from his Master's program, decided to spend a year backpacking alone through Asia. There was something about those post cards we received from him that were so intriguing to me: reading his handwritten words that described his experiences, noting the colours and lines of the exotic stamp, and as strange as it sounds, I would even smell the postcards to see if I could catch a faint scent of what these places smelled like. It was Sean's journey that planted "one day" in my mind.

Of all the post cards we received it was the one from Thailand that planted the biggest seed... he called it "paradise". Sean wrote about sleeping on the beach in the most beautiful, rustic accommodations. He claimed to have found the best shrimp he had ever tasted (I LOVE shrimp!) and how there was nothing better than eating a fresh mango. What he couldn't get over was how ridiculously inexpensive everything was. I was sold. I knew that "one day" I would visit Thailand.

During Sean's year away I distinctly remember having a conversation with a family friend around a campfire about my intentions to travel. Her response was "you better do it before kids". I remember looking directly at her and saying, "no, my kids will come with me". She just smiled at me with a look in her eye that assured me it wouldn't happen.

Here we are, nearly 15 years later and we're finally making the trek and guess what? My kids are coming with me. Yes, this is going to be a family adventure. It took a year of my husband and I researching online, talking to people, reading travel guides, learning to speak Thai*, saving money and now we're ready for an experience of a lifetime.

This will be a trip we have put together– no travel agents, no resorts. We anticipate great memories to come out of it and would love for you to tag along. Some of you may have noticed the new "Family Adventure" tab at the top of this page. We'll be posting frequent updates here along with photos (and maybe footage) for you to follow us along on this special journey, which begins December 5th.

Life... is... good.



*We have a feeling no one is going to understand us when we speak it.