11.05.2015

this

as evidence presented for: why Denmark is the place I am supposed to live happily ever after.

Should high school students be shown porn to learn about sex?

Ninth grade student Anders Kaagaard told DR, "I think you could get something out of it — for example the difference between real love between two people who have sex and hard porn and orgies from the US."

and Im just going to leave this link here too... from a few years ago.

James Deen

Sometimes learning so much about the way different people think makes me question things that are simply true to myself. That's why writing things down is so good for me.


8.21.2015

re: my broken heart


He called them kid gloves. He said none of his friends get treated with kid gloves. And it was harsh and mean-spirited maybe. but it was logical and he was necessary. All I had was Jon (and Jessica and a small hope to join Brendan or Laura) but I felt like all I had was Jon. Lots of travelling kept me distracted. Jon worked the night shift a lot so we roamed the city a bit doing ridiculous things. It was just fun to be with each other and there was never anything ever to spark. though I do remember complaining to Laura or Jessica about how sometimes Jon did things that I thought might be a bit too flirtatious. Oh the drama... anyway real life problems were that in the previous month my boyfriend of 5 years dumped me out of nowhere, my dad died and I graduated university without any job prospects. When my dad died I told him I was going to be fine because I had a plan to go to Calgary. I never went to Calgary.
Sometimes, when L is screaming and E is whining and Marc is playing video games, I think about how I did not go to Calgary. a whole nother life honey.

And here I am, in this life, thinking about how the only reason I did not punch Jon in the face when he told me how much I should just get over my problems is because he was real with me from the get go.

I will never change the way I treat you based on the circumstances of the life you are living.

[spoiler: he would however be very willing to change the way he treated me based on the circumstances of the life he was living. #whipped #scaredoflifealone #possibleunrequitedlovestory]

in any case...
I am thinking about how much his behaviour shaped me. Because I loved and adored him like a brother. And I know what it is like to confuse brother love with boyfriend love. I had full on brother love for Jon. Even though he did not treat me well as a friend and he filled my life with drama through the poor choices he made for himself. and as far as I know, that has yet to change.
I just loved him anyway, like I do. It is brother love, there is a lot of room for forgiveness.

anyway...
I hated it when Jon would be insensitive, but I also understood it was actually necessary to take a break from agonizing about circumstances completely out of my control. In the before time, I had a community, financial security and a partner to do life with. I knew where I was going. I had plans.
Now I had nothing but a lot to complain and uncontrollably cry about. Jon basically forced me to stop crying, so then I could talk to him about things I couldn't get out to other people. And he listened. And he helped. And I used him as a tool like this for many years. Eventually, I could stop uncontrollable tears by just dialing his number. He was a good friend in the moment. He did like me. He just would never stick his neck out for me, where I would have for him. It was something I knew but he didn't know. because he didn't really understand people or himself. and he didn't want to. he just wanted easy. but the whole thing made me feel insecure at the time. because he could just drop me, but I really needed him. Marc changed that dynamic a lot, but it took years. years where, if I was uncontrollably crying, I would need to call Jon. even if Marc was sitting right next to me.

Everything. all the progress, it took years.
Nothing was apparent in the moment. I could not in any way, shape, or form have the understanding of the situation that I do without having lived through it first and then reflecting on it. just like having kids- no matter how prepared you are, you are not prepared.
There is a point where situations get extreme enough that the emotional experience is the same for everyone. It doesn't matter what is making you feel it. it doesn't matter what country you come from. it doesn't matter what period in time you live! 'Grief because you lost everything' is a state of the human mind that is universal. And you know what it feels like, if you know.

And I know. And I am actually thankful for it. now.

because in the before time, I was also very lost. Like a bleating sheep all alone in darkness. Sheep are not aware they are lost and I was not either. I was never trying not to be a sheep, though. And God heard prayers in between the lines of my prayers. He knew that I wanted to be the best version of myself and he knew how to get me there.
And it was a horrible experience, having the entire world drop out from under you such that your life becomes a surreal dream that you are watching swirl around you. because nothing is processing. and as you slowly start to wake up from this proverbial fall, the pain is so excruciating it freaks out your brain. The brain always responds by acting like you are going to die. Survival mode!

When I am in survival mode, I never feel hungry. I am a person that is very aware of eating when I am not hungry. I got so aware of eating, that it stressed me out too much and I had to stop altogether.
I stopped eating. for months.
But with Jon, I would eat. because he would make me act like everything I was going through was a "normal" part of life. His way was very harsh, but it was necessary. And I was able to eat when I was with other people because I could do it first with Jon.

I am not harsh. but I am honest. and I will not lie to people, even just by being passive. no matter the circumstances of life. My honesty comes from a the most loving place and reflects love, never judgement. And even in situations with my children, where I must judge their actions to teach them the ways for the world they need to learn to survive in- even in those situations, I do not judge the heart of my children.

The thing that has happened because of your actions is bad, maybe your actions were poorly chosen ones. But you, child, are not bad. You are better. You always have the opportunity to do better.

I make that distinction to them, so that there is no perceived judgement coming from me. All perceived judgment is logically abolished. Because they love their mother so much, that they would be shaped by any judgement they perceive from me- whether I intend it or not.
And I know that because I lived that too.

I know what being forced to hear things I did not want to hear did for me when I was drowning in the rubble of what was once "my life." I do it for people in a way that is filled with love and understanding because I also know how horrible it feels when someone treats you harshly.

8.07.2015

how I do a bandaid

E slipped and fell on the way out of børnehaven. It was a hard fast fall, one that took my breath. But he was ok. Just scared and scraped. His knee did start to bleed, but only a little. E said he wanted to go home before getting a bandaid. But, in the car on the way home he starts freeeking out.

"I think it is time to wipe the blood away! I think every time I look at the blood, I get scared!"

So I tell him that is ok. That is normal. I tell him how for a really long time humans have had to feel that way -!"scared"!- about blood because we have to care about when our bodies are bleeding. It matters for our survival. And then I tell him that it is also ok to not be scared, because mommy and daddy have seen a lot of scraped knees in our time. And we know when it is ok not to be scared by blood. This is one of those times. We would tell him if we were scared too. But we aren't scared, and we have a plan. We are going to go home and get a bandaid to cover the blood!
And then we are off counting how many bandaids are needed- 3! he decided.

Oh and look now we are home! because we live that close.
And he waits in the car while I get a bandaid. I bring it out to him and wipe around the wound with a baby wipe. I explain how I won't touch the blood. And I won't. because I know the body is going to clean the broken skin better than a baby wipe. But I get as much skin clean as I can, without touching the blood, without breaking my words. Everything is clear to both of us as it happens.
The bandaid goes on. We are lucky to have a big enough bandaid that he only needed one- :-)
Minion bandaids- all the rage these days.

I heard a conversation between two celebrities (Most likely Jon Stewart and someone else- he had his last episode of the daily show last night!! haven't had time to watch it because E turns five in like two days!!!) It was a conversation about how Minions are like, scientifically engineered, to make people feel tiny, squishy, and happy inside. Like the Aliens from Toy Story did in the 90's. Maybe the Aliens are a case study that leads to the Minions. Maybe they are two different studios competing. I don't know because I can't remember if Disney owns the Minions.

Disney DOES NOT own the Minions. So Aliens vs. Minions will never happen on screen- only in real life. And apparently Disney is "losing" that fight right now.. or whatever. 

in a world where
(dolla dolla bills = highest value) > (human lives = highest value)
and the humans build their lives centered around the `highest value´

So that is why Disney is "losing" even though Disney and Universal both contribute to the future of humanity in very positive ways, including employing Creatives. I feel like something will shift in my lifetime though. So many people are speaking more and more about how things really are. The two teired societyThe three teired society.

So, until things shift in favour of loving one another,
EXISTENCE OF HUMANITY OVER DOLLA DOLLA BILLS!



7.30.2015

saved your life

we have this thing in our house. I think I started it. Like when a child does something life threateningly stupid and I stop them, I tell the child "I just saved your life." I never say it without truly believing it happened. In the least I saved our family a hospital trip. I noticed the phrase now because E uses it all the time in his over-dramatic, almost-five-years-old way. it's cute. sometimes he is accurate.
when he catches his brother and keeps him from falling off the bed during the craziness that is jumping on the bed.
"I just saved your life L!"
yes. yes you actually did.

other times he is like "I almost fell of my bike, but I stopped myself. I saved my life"
maybe you did. you definitely have good instincts, no matter what.

I guess I am remarking on this because I feel like that is the point of being a mom: keep the children alive long enough to teach them how to keep themselves alive.
basic human instinct. and if we didn't feel this way then, you know what, we humans would not have survived long enough to have this conversation. for real.

The survival instinct can really drive a lifestyle. Fear of not surviving gives a push that mimics the push a person gets from doing something they love and are incredibly passionate about. fear can flog you raw. passion and love do not do that.





7.10.2015

100 year rainfall

In school I learned about designing storm water drainage systems. We practiced designing them for 100 yr rainfalls. Humans only have data for so long when it comes to volumes of rain falling on places that people live. In developed areas where paving keeps rain from soaking into the ground, you have to have storm water management- essentially places for water from the sky to go so that it does not sweep people or buildings away. The maximum capacity volume of water that a system should be able to handle is the highest volume of rainfall in the last 100 years for that area. So what happens when rainfall breaks a 100 year record? flooding. With climate change, higher volume rainfalls break these records. The storm water system can only hold so much, it will overflow and floods will happen. This is just inherent in the design. There is nothing that can be done. You just have to clean up any damage, then change the highest rainfall in the last 100 years, and add the required capacity to the storm water system to meet it. You gotta clean up and then build, it takes energy and time. Just the way it is. The new normal requires a higher capacity.

When things come that are worse than you could ever imagine, you have to get to a place where you are thankful for them. A place where you can build on top of them. The things that change your life have to be accepted as part of your reality. The only way I know how to get there is through therapy. Emotionally focused therapy. Opening up to other people. Not trying to teach all the time, but trying to learn as well. Even when you think you know more. Open your ears and hear a new perspective just because it is there to be heard. You might find it is as valuable as your own, or you might reject it. Are you more open to information about humans from people that don't know anything about your life, or can you take information from people that do know something? Do you have it in you?
Vulnerability. The end and the beginning.
Apparently, energy and abilities are endless if you trust in the Lord. And I do believe that even though evidence from my own life could suggest otherwise, at least on a physical level. For me, I know, I can increase my capacity because I have done it before. I can turn and face an entirely different direction, I have done it before. I know how rough it is, how much work. But there is no reason to delay change. Even if I am stretched so thin that another change might break me. It won't break me all the way through, and if it does then I will be healed. Let it come. Let it all come at the same time. If a part of my foundation is washed away, then I can rebuild it better and more beautiful than it ever was before. Opportunity to be even better. to live more fully. to not care about what faceless people think of me. Freedom to be exactly what God made me. My whole foundation has already been washed out from under me once. maybe more. This is life. It doesn't stop. I don't want it to stop, that is why I am working so hard.


5.13.2015

coming

Ive been doing a lot of reading and watching and absorbing for the last five years. in two languages. alongside people of many different cultures. Culture is a gigantic and basically invisible barrier to achieving enough understanding between humans that we get to have real world peace. Gigantic and very translucent- I don't have the words yet to explain it, but they will come. and there will be a lot of them.

Anyway. I have been a sponge for five years and I am about to ring myself out. And it needs to be OUT not just expressed. Rung out onto the floor and left for people to accidentally step in, then maybe their socks get so wet that they have to remove them and walk around the house bare foot for the rest of their lives.

I want to make use of this "ring-out" in the best possible way. I don't want to waste a drop, so I have to slow it down. The actual expression has to come out at a reasonable pace. I am only one of me. The family is still number 1. The ideas have built over five years; grown from roots that need to be explained and explored. The expression is important, and needs to be efficient, but it also needs to have all its corners.

So it comes. It comes soon. I don't want to link my personal identity to any of it. I don't trust "the internet" with my personal identity. I want the ideas to stand on their own. A huge challenge is anonymizing the context enough so that it is still genuine but also hard to place.
I live in a bubble. You can be famous in one part of the world and live as not in every other- that kind of bubble. I don't know anything about either place I am attached to without putting the effort in to find out. I am an outlier. I have spent my whole life telling myself that my experiences are not unique or special, don't get it twisted. But now, that is an undeniable fact in some aspects of my existence.

The combination of my experiences has shown me something that is not the same as other people. From that demonstration, I have made choices that are different and through that I learn things other people don't know. And of course, one can find another person in the world that has made the exact same choice- or knows the exact same thing. even in the exact same moment. But the choices before and the ones that come, the lessons learned from choices- eventually it leads in different directions. Chains of choices. One of the many ways Jesus saves is through being a love activated highlighter of the "choice chains" that are harmonious with mine.


And that is all for the first day in years that I have had pre-scheduled, truly legitimate alone time.
EAT IT.
no, but seriously, thanks for reading.







1.29.2015

january five this year

on January 5 2015:

I woke up in a weird way. I just opened my eyes and I was awake.
Normally I spend a long time between asleep and awake. I fight the transition because I always want more sleep. It is the curse of being a narcoleptic, co-sleeping parent of young children. Never get enough of that sweet sweet premium quality sleep.
Normally my children are talking (babbling in L's case) and climbing on top of me as I go from sleeping to waking. They crawl all over me as they play with each other. In their games, their knees and elbows inevitably gouge my full bladder. Eventually sleep is not possible even though I want it and the best place for my body to be is out of the bed.

So it was weird to just open my eyes and be awake. And it was weird that my children were both sound asleep right next to me. Even more weird was the message that was in my brain and in my heart... just all over inside me. A message that said:
"Everything you have been planning is going to change now."
And I know in my heart that message came from God. I know it was a prophecy of sorts- using that word in the most humble and innocent way possible, mind you. But it doesn't really matter where the message came from- the fact is, it was there. And it felt really weird in a peaceful way.
Just like how I woke up. Weird and peaceful.

I lay there feeling weird and peaceful, contemplating this message that made no sense. I looked over at L and his eyes partially opened. He woke up immediately once he saw that I was awake. He crawled all over me and then E. So E woke up. And just as things started to feel normal- the weird feelings of my wake up fading away alongside the peaceful feelings- my phone rang.

It was a short enough conversation that basically went like this: Hej, this is the lady from the kommune calling. You know how you were supposed to put L in dagplejer with the dagplejer mor that you have been waiting for since before he was born? She decided not to be a dagplejer mor any longer. She quit, so your son has no dagplejer place now.

Ok. I cried after the phone call. Mostly because it was overwhelming to go from feeling like everything was going to change, to something big actually changing. I had planned for L to start dagplejer in January of 2015 with E's dagplejer mor. I planned on this for the entire time that L was inside and outside of me! The plan was dashed in a two minute conversation, so I was shocked. But I don't think I would have cried if I had woke up in a normal way.

I was putting L in dagplejer so I could go back and finish my Danish education. BUT, a few days after I find out I don't have a dagplejer place for L, I also find out that I am actually not allowed to return to Danish school. The details are, at best, sketchy. I am actually still in communication with the kommune about whether or not the decision is accurate. It seems like it does not fit with the law.

But still, the plan was to put L in dagplejer so that I could go back to Danish school. And all of that changed. And even more has changed since then. I thought I knew what was going to happen for the first six months of 2015. I had a plan. I shared that plan with every one in my life. They all knew what January 2015 meant for me. Now, not even a single element of that plan is the same. Everything has changed.



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