How do we make it work?

I know many of my readers are struggling with trying to do too much. We are parents, or artists, or workaholics, or renovating the house, or hitting the gym 5 days a week, and we struggle to afford the things we want, and it’s just tough sometimes to balance life out.

For myself, I’m a mom, and I work full time. I live here alone, and my son goes to his dad's three nights a week. I commute an hour to work and an hour home, 5 days a week. That means that I leave the house at 7:45 am, drop my son off at school, hop on the bus, stay at work for 8.5 hours, rush to the bus, pick up my son, and I don’t get back into the house until 6pm. Then, dinner, a few minutes of ‘together’ time with my son while he rambles on about something related to star trek or time travel, then it’s “brush your teeth” and then bedtime. 8pm rolls around and I’m writing, or I’m sleeping, or maybe reading- but I’m exhausted.

Right now, we’re in a 1 bedroom basement suite, because it’s what I can afford. My son’s bed is in the living room. This suits my son just fine because he treats it like a giant bedroom with a TV in it. The big downside (except for all the Lego in my living room) is that once he’s in bed, I’m pretty much stuck in my room. Granted he sleeps through anything, but its not like I can watch a movie or have a lot of company over.

So on the days he is here, I’m rushing around, commuting, working, rushing, cooking, cleaning, and then hanging out in my room, alone.

It’s kind of nuts. And we live 45 minutes outside of town (my son’s father lives 75 minutes outside of town and I need to be here to support that relationship). I’m far enough out of town and off the main bus routes that people can’t easily come and visit me at my apartment. I can leave and go to other people’s places on the days that my son is at his dads. But on the days that he is home, I have very busy days and not a lot of ‘me’ time, and I'm alone.

I think that is really common for parents; having to give so much, all the time just to make life work. We struggle to pay the bills, keep the place clean, get to the parent teacher interviews, play dates, birthday parties, swimming lessons, cubs, soccer, and sew the button back on the pants that broke last week.

Sometimes it is just too much. It really isn’t easy some days. And I am honestly not typing it because I want a pity party, because I’m the last person to ever really get down on myself. I say it because I know so many of you (parents and non-parents) struggle with day to day life as well. It’s hard to get everything done. It is hard to make financial ends meet. It is hard to get ahead. It is hard to save money. It is hard to find time to do it all. To landscape the yard, put on that extra coat of paint, wash the car, clean the windows, put in overtime at work, and mail the Christmas cards. Life expects us to be so many things, and to be perfect at so many things.

I know that it is hard. So how do we make time for ourselves in a world like the one we live in? How do we support our relationships with our friends, partners and family? How do we find time for our selves? How do we balance work, social life, keeping the house clean, and being good parents?

I haven’t figured it out, to be honest. I just live in the moment. I follow joy. I am gentle with myself. If I don’t vacuum for 2 weeks it is okay, because really, happiness is more important than vacuuming. I often buy pre-made, immediate food for dinners, because really, I don’t have time to make home-made food. And that is okay. We do our best. I pay my child to wash our dishes, because I don’t have energy to do them myself. I do what I can. I put the important stuff first. I have a list of priorities and I put the stuff on the top first.

First on my list are the people that are important to me. My son, my relationship, my family and my friends are all at the top. Then it is my blog and my job. Then last is house cleaning and cooking. I won’t take time off work to clean the house or make a roast. But if my son is sick, I will take time off work. It’s easy to figure out that way. And I am gentle with myself about the cleaning and the cooking. If it’s not perfect, it’s going to be okay. I am a really busy person. My friends, my family, my partner, everyone understands. And if they don’t, they won’t get invited over for frozen pizza.

Just find the balance. Know what your priorities are. Decide what is okay to slide, and when it slides, be okay with it. It helps. The world will not stop rotating if you don't do everything. Just be happy, really- because that's what the people around you really need. Happiness. Comment question of the day: What are your priorities, and do you ever let some things slide? What are you okay with letting slide, and what are you not okay with sliding?

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How to be HAPPY

Today’s post was supposed to be for youth and important bits of advice about becoming a happy adult, but then I realized that it might be advice for anyone. So here are some things I think I have learned about being happy. Add some of your own in the comments!

1. Be yourself. Don’t be afraid to be yourself. Wear your personality with pride. Be a dork if you’re a dork. Be happy with who you are. You don't need to try to fit in. Confidence is the biggest indicator of how “cool” you are. So be yourself and be proud of it.

2. Laugh. When someone insults you or says something rude, smile. Laugh it off. If a small child came up to you and said something rude to you, you would probably laugh and be like “who is this kid”? That’s because a little kid has no authority over you. But the thing is, no one has that authority over you, no matter how old they are. Smiling, or laughing off other people’s rudeness gives you the power in the situation and will often diffuse tension. Try it.

3. Don’t take things personally. Sometimes people are jerks. Know that people are jerks because those people are having a bad day, or they weren’t hugged enough as kids, or because they’ve got something going on for them. Don’t take on someone else’s misery just because they’re offering it up. Let negativity slide off you, and you’ll be better off.

4. Be happy. Happiness is a choice. Surround yourself by people who bring out the best in you. Think positive thoughts about yourself. Do things that make you happy. Get hobbies. Make new friends. Develop a new skill. Learn something. Be inspired. Exercise. Find things to be passionate about. It makes life better.

5. Be okay being by yourself. Learn to sit comfortably within your own skin. Be comfortable being independent in a crowd. You will need to learn it eventually, and things get easier once you have. See: The strength in sitting alone.

6. Be understanding. Accept people for who they are. Know that it is not that far a leap from the life you live to the life they live. Remember that you could have been like them if you had lived their life, and that they, like you, just want to be accepted.

7. Set boundaries. Don’t let people treat you unkindly. Speak up for yourself. People live up to the expectations you set for them, whatever those expectations are. So set appropriate boundaries, and make them clear.

8. Be honest. Be honest with yourself, and with others. See: Honesty and Happiness.

I’m sure there are more great ideas out there, so please add them to the comments and we'll see just how much rich knowledge we've got together!

How do you measure up?

How do you measure up?

Ethan has been skateboarding ever since he was ten months old. His dad would stand on the skateboard with one foot, and prop ten month old Ethan in front of him on the board, and they would roll around the park. His Dad would hold his hands to keep him upright and lift him up off the board when they jumped off. It scared the crap out of me, but I trusted Ethan’s dad, and saw the huge delight on Ethan’s face when they rode together. They both loved it, and this is what Dads are for, right? Ethan had his own board at the time, and he would crawl onto it on his knees it and push it forward with one foot. This boy has always loved skateboarding.

So today Ethan and I were driving to the skate park, helmet and board all ready to, and Ethan tells me he’s changed his mind, he’s not up for going to the park today. So instead of pulling into the skate park, we keep driving, and park by the grocery store to talk. He tells me that he can’t Ollie yet and his cousin who has been skating for less time already can. He’s upset, and he doesn’t want to go to the skate park.

So I hear him and I acknowledge that that sounds frustrating. And then I tell him that you can’t measure yourself against other people. You need to measure yourself against yourself only, or you will never be happy or kind. There will always be people who are better at something than you, and there will always be someone who is not as good at something as you are. I told him that there are people out there who have HUGE blogs that get thousands of hits. I asked him if that makes me a bad writer because I haven’t got as many readers as they do. He said no. I told him there are people who have next to no readers yet and I asked him if that made me a better writer, he said no.

I told him that you can’t measure yourself against the people who are better than you, because if you do, you will never be proud of yourself; you will never be satisfied. I told him that you can’t measure yourself against people who are not as good as you, because if you do, you are not being kind and maybe you’re not seeing the whole picture.

I told him that he’s got to measure himself against himself. I asked him if he is a better skater than he was two years ago. He said yes. I asked him if he is a better skater than he was one year ago. And he said yes. I told him that’s how he needs to measure himself. By that, and if he is happy.

Then he was ready to go to the skate park. And while he was there, HE TOTALLY NAILED HIS FIRST OLLIE. He got it, and then he got it, and then he got it again. We were high fiving all over the place. It was epic.

When I tuck him into bed at night, I ask him what his favorite thing of the day was. Today, his answer was “getting my first Ollie.”

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Thank you!

Today I want to write about you. You adventurers (that is what I shall call you when I refer to you my readers) have been really amazing. I started the blog thinking “why the heck not”, without expecting much. But you guys have come out of nowhere and have been so supportive, encouraging, and candid in the comments, on twitter, and on Facebook.

I did not anticipate that I would reach so many people so soon, and I don’t just mean the number of followers. I’ve gotten countless messages and comments from people (that I don’t otherwise know) about how grateful they are to have found the blog, and how thankful they are for what I am doing here. I did not expect that at all. So thank you. Thank you for sharing what I am doing here with your friends. Thank you for sharing yourselves in our comments. Thank you for asking me important questions. Thank you for supporting me and encouraging me as I open myself and my thoughts up to you. Thanks for the adventure!

Want to hear how we’re doing? Currently we have 90+ likes on Facebook. As the blog is only a month old, this is quite a few. Twitter now has over 500 followers. We’ve seen almost 700 unique visitors to the blog, with more than 500 people returning at least once.

Considering that I started this blog without expectations, this blows my mind.

It makes me happy that what I have to say is touching so many people. It inspires me that people see value in the words we’re sharing. But most of all I appreciate the comments. Something I appreciate the most is the community we’re building here. I so appreciate it when you post an important question in a comment, and another adventurer responds with advice, or you ask a question about something I wrote that makes me think. This means a lot to me. So thanks for that. I try to reply to all the comments. So keep the conversation rolling, adventurers! And thanks for reading.
Sincerely,

KR Munro

The pursuit of happiness

The pursuit of happiness.

I feel really strongly that life should be about happiness. I feel like the goal in life should be happiness, and I have some ideas about how to make life happy.

The aspect of happiness that I want to discuss today is honesty. We all say that we appreciate honesty, and yet so many of us struggle with honesty. We are dishonest with others and we are dishonest with ourselves. We hide the truth, or dress it up to make it easier to hand over to others.

One important aspect to living happily, in my opinion, is being really honest with yourself, and that means owning and understanding your emotions. You can be strong, and capable, and powerful, and beautiful, and be scared. It is okay to feel scared. You can be perfectly okay on your own, and yet feel needy. It is okay to feel needy. You can be a kind, loving, attentive, patient, careful person, and feel angry. It is okay to feel angry. All of your emotions have value.

We feel things that don’t fit with who we think we are, and so we negate them. We don’t allow ourselves to acknowledge that we are scared, or stressed, or sad, or angry because we don’t WANT those emotions. We deny our feelings their proper voice, and so they live just under the surface of our skin: scratching at our sense of selves and well-being.

Being honest with yourself allows you to be honest with others. Acknowledge and respect your own emotions. Learn to give your emotions a voice. Explore your emotions and learn to say “I feel afraid. I feel afraid that I might not be doing a good job.” Or “I feel angry. I feel angry because I don’t feel respected.”, or “I feel lonely. I feel lonely because I am missing something important in my life”.

These words give you power. Understanding and naming how you feel changes an emotion from something that is arbitrarily happening TO YOU into something you can look at, affect and address.

By being honest with yourself, you enable yourself to be honest with others. You no longer need to fear sharing your truths with others. You no longer need to hide from others what you feel. Understanding your emotions means you don’t need to hide them. You have justified the way you feel and honesty only requires you communicate those reasons.

This all leads to happiness because honesty with yourself gives you the power to be honest with others, which means you can tell others how you feel and what you need, and that ability means you don’t have to hide. You can be who you are. You can feel what you feel. You can tell others what you need. You know what you feel. It seems so simple, but is so profound.

Be honest with yourself. Be honest with yourself in all your emotions. Own your sadness, your loneliness, your fear. Own your bliss, your love, your gratitude. Own your melancholy, boredom, curiosity. Own it all. Set yourself free with acceptance and self-learning.

Knowing these emotions allows you to move past them into other emotions. It allows you to understand them and resolve or embrace them. It allows the voice inside to speak to you and tell you what those emotions have to say. Embrace all the emotions, and give them a voice so that they can move on.

It will take you one step closer to happy.

Where did you get your values?

So today’s post is about being my son’s mother. As some of you know, I have a blue-haired ten year old boy named Ethan. He’s an amazing kid. He’s bright, communicative, kind, and adventurous. Today when we finished eating, he offered to take my plate to the kitchen, and asked if I wanted a cup of tea. He loves star trek and lego and nerf guns. He loves to skateboard, build things and sing. He’s wonderous. He does his chores without being yelled at (most of the time at least). He is a really special kid. I love him.

I wish I could take the credit, by being an amazing, patient parent. But I can’t. He came pre-wired to be awesome. And he’s been surrounded by a huge team of humans who care about him.

I got married when I was 5 months pregnant, at 19 years old. I was a very young mother and very naive. I tell people the truth: he was planned, yes, but not planned well. If my pre-frontal cortex had been fully developed, I would probably have known that there are reasons to wait until you’re a little older. But I didn’t know, and so I did what I did.

When I was 21 or 22 I separated from my husband. Ethan was 2 when we split up. From the beginning we decided to share our son, as close to 50/50 as we could reasonably do. It has almost always been 4 nights with me, 3 nights with dad.

Ethan’s Dad met a woman he loves, and they moved in together before Ethan was 3. The interesting thing is that the values in the homes were different at moms house and at dad’s house. Different religious beliefs, eating habits, and value systems began to exist between the households.

I think most children naturally adopt the values of their parents without having to evaluate them. Mom and dad are vegetarians, and the young child eats vegetarian. If Mom and Dad go to church every Sunday, and pray before bed, the little ones do it too.

So when Ethan came home with new and different religious beliefs than my own, I needed to figure out how I was going to handle it. He was, with all his four year old innocence and wisdom, trying to tell me why I should believe the same thing as him. It was a strange conversation that he attempted more than once.

I wanted to give him the freedom to believe whatever he wanted, because who is to say that what I believe is the truth? I have beliefs, but I know that my beliefs are based on the experiences I have had. Other people have other experiences, and believe different things. I can’t say that I am any more right than they are. So I wanted my son to decide for himself. When he asked me about my beliefs I was honest. I said “Some people believe that God created the earth, and some people believe that evolution and other things happened.” (This is very simplified because really, I was talking to a 4 year old).

He had some pretty convincing arguments, actually. But I tried my best not to negate his beliefs with my own. I admit there was some part of myself that was threatened by the idea of my child having different beliefs than me, but I figured that was better than forcing him into mine, or alienating him with my desire for him to share my beliefs. So he was given the opportunity to choose which religious beliefs fit his own. He wasn’t just handed down beliefs, he adopted his own.

His dad’s wife is a Vegan, and I eat meat. So Ethan has had the fortune of choosing, and experiencing different styles of eating. He’s a really open minded kid when it comes to food, too. When he was about 4 years old (there was a lot of discovery that year!) I had made him some chicken to eat. He was sitting at the table picking at his lunch, and this conversation followed:

Ethan: Mom, is this a chicken?

Me: ...yes, it’s a chicken.

Ethan: Where are its eyes?

Me: He doesn’t have his eyes anymore.

Ethan: (sounding worried) Where did they go?

Me: (getting squeamish) Umm. The farmer cut his whole head off and his eyes were on his head.

Ethan: Is it dead?

Me: (feeling mortified) Yes.

Ethan: Can I eat something else please?

Me: Yes!

I felt that this was quite the conversation for a 4 year old. I was entirely shocked and mortified and yet curious about his thought process, and somewhere inside of me I was laughing at the whole thing. But, that day, he was a vegetarian. He eats meat now, but often only at mom’s house. And I think its working for him. It will be interesting to see what he will eat when he’s old enough to buy his own groceries.

But I like to think that experiences like this, how he has had more than just one set of values to choose from, has made him who he is. Because we all respected his voice and his ability to choose what works for him, he is who he is. And I am lucky and thankful that he’s had such a rich life of experiences. He is a very lucky boy and I am truly lucky to be his mom.

Have you ever questioned or decided your beliefs, or have you always accepted the values that were handed to you by your parents? Do your values work for you? When did you truly adopt your values? How do you think that would have been different if you had or had not been encouraged to choose?

Loneliness

Lets talk about loneliness

Something I’ve discovered while writing this blog is loneliness. I started writing because I was lonely. And I have had many conversations with men and women who are also lonely. Being single can be very lonelyBut even being coupled can be lonely. Being a parent is lonely. No one tells you this.

I know that you’re sometimes lonely. I also know that you’re not lonely all the time. But I know, most of you sometimes feel lonely. I think loneliness is more common than we as society make it seem. They say things like “enjoy being single” but they don’t admit to how hard that can be. And they don’t say that sometimes you will be in a relationship and feel really lonely then too. They tell you everything will be perfect once you have found someone to love, and it’s misleading for the single people, and for the coupled people. The stories say that love will come to those who wait, and just garden and sing or whatever until it happens. But that’s really hard. And then love comes, and it isn’t always pretty and perfect. It’s sometimes complicated and vulnerable and sad.

We’re social beings that exist soley in the uncomforts of our own sculls. We interact and relate and seek praise and acceptance and love, but we only have access to our own, solitary minds.

So we need to acknowledge the loneliness we all feel. Because talking to other people who can say “I’m lonely too” makes the loneliness feel smaller. While we’re stuck in our own solitary minds, we really want to reach out and share a moment with another person. So share how you feel with another person. Write in a comment about how you are feeling, or respond to someone’s comment with a word of encouragement. This world, this humanity, it is lonely but we do not have to be alone.

Comment anonymously if you like (that’s the option at the bottom of the list of ways to comment and won’t require any special information or pre-existing accounts), but be sure to sign off in your comment with a name or a pseudonym, so that people can address you by name when they respond. We have a community here. Access it. Ask questions. Say hello. We have a rich resource of human beings here for you to take part in. It’s beautiful. If you comment using anonymous, be sure to hit "subscribe" to the comments so that replies are emailed to you, or just be sure to check back in to see what has been posted!

Was just reminded that this video really fits here:

Life!

Hi everyone!

I've gotten many comments wondering when the next post will be up. I'm sorry that I've left you waiting. Today's post is an informal one. I want to talk about the blog, and about what you want from it. And I want to tell you what I've been up to.

Today, I left work early to make it home in time to pick my son up from after school care. He's ten years old and I need to meet him by 6 oclock when the daycare closes. I was rushing to catch the soonest bus, and I remembered that I hadn't picked up my bus pass yet. So I was fumbling through my purse, wondering why I had to carry SO MUCH stuff in such a small bag, and saw the bus. Everyone else got on, and I was still searching for the change to pay. The driver waved me aboard, probably willing to accept what change I could find. I found the change I needed, and we were off.

Half way home I notice that the driver has not taken an important turn off towards my neck of the woods and is now on a highway headed in the wrong direction. I had apparently gotten on the 57 bus instead of the 50 bus. The visual appearance of these two buses are only subtly different (whats one digit between friends?) and yet, they are not the same.

I ended up in the middle of nowhere, waiting in the scorching sun for one of two buses required to land me at home. It was a good 25 minutes before the first bus arrived, and by this time it was nearly 6 already. I called Ethan's after school care. His Monday childcare is a licensed daycare, and they have all kinds of rules in place for my child's safety and I'm pretty sure actually for my inconvenience. Such rules as: there will be a 25 dollar late fee if you don't pick up your kid by 6:00, and then a billion dollars a minute after 5 minutes, or the "your kid cannot leave without being signed out by someone authorized on the official form" rule. So here I was, stuck in the middle of nowhere, dying in the sunshine, with my child across town being held hostage by a daycare that was going to charge me a million and a half dollars in ransom for being late.

I phoned everyone I know that lives within a reasonable proximity to the daycare and not a soul answered their phones.

Thankfully for me, while the daycare is designed with these awful (and very important safety) rules, they are also staffed by highschool kids who don't want to do any more work than they have to. So I begged them to release him into the wild to fend for himself, while I prayed that a bus would arrive and I could get home before he died of starvation or lit himself on fire.

In the end, the bus arrived and then the second bus arrived, and Ethan made it home and he knows how to work the TV so he was happy and fine. I was exhausted, and he was fine, and I didn't have to pay a million and a half extra dollars ransom to the daycare. What a day!

So I was going to write an amazing post about truth and happiness and emotions, but I thought that this would be more true to where I'm at today. Today is an unpolished post about what being a single mom is REALLY like. Sometimes it's tricky and imperfect. Sometimes I'm an idiot, and I get on the wrong bus because I forgot to buy a bus pass and end up across town and stranded. But it all worked out. I didn't burst into tears and flail myself into the street in a desperate attempt to acquire rescue, and Ethan didn't light himself on fire. I think it went well.

- KR Munro

PS. What do you guys think of this kind of post? Is this something you would enjoy once in a while? I am hoping to post frequently again, but know that sometimes I won't be perfect about it. Sometimes I'll be stuck on the other side of town because life happens. Sometimes the posts will be polished and artful, and other times they may be casual and playful, or uplifting, or who knows. But they will most likely reflect real life. Real life as a single mom isn't always easy.

Thanks for reading. I'm glad to be back.

- Kell