Learning Answers

    Hello! How's your Friday so far? I think mine is actually going to be a good day, but only because I'm thinking of making it be one lol. I had a lot of imposed stress this week (as in my brain invented and imposed stress... anxiety is irrational) so I lost a lot of days. There was a lot of busy and not a lot of writing, and it also feels like a lot of things didn't get done. Looking back, the list of things not getting done was due to unexpected appointments, a sick kid, a class field trip, and a two-day migraine... irrational anxiety labels those things 'small' and 'inconvenient' rather than as the actual blockers they are, however, so the spiral down in mental health is at least predictable. (And not very fast because I remembered I'm allowed to eat. I'm celebrating that not-so-little victory!)
    Today is the final day of things needing to be done. I'm determined to make today not suck because it's the last day before the official start of Spring Break and I don't want to drag the icky of this week behind me as I go into a week off. Positive things I do want to bring forward include some freshly started knitting projects that are looking good so far, a brewing idea to do one fun thing with the kids before the weekend ends, two new books I want to start reading, and some fresh advancements in the story for my big manuscript. Next week will involve sleeping in, possible naps, a messy kitchen from baking, and (if I'm lucky) the kick in the butt I need for putting together my next round of queries.
    Hope you have a good weekend!

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    I don't have a short story to share this week. This poem showed up a couple of months ago and, well... I didn't have a short story this week lol. I don't usually share my poems because I don't usually like them. (They're creative and a fun exercise for me, but not good, you know?) This one I like enough to share, so... fingers crossed you don't hate it ;)

Some folks have a lot of kids
And some folks only one.
Some folks have a great big house
And some folks… well, don’t have one.

​Some folks’ kids are smart and witty,
Other’s kids are oh so pretty,
Some folks struggle through the day
To find their kids (who’ve lost their way).

From the outside, looking in,
We can’t say who is who.
The ones who live the hardest days
Might, from outside, look like easy lives it’s true.

Most of us are getting by with
Just trying to do our best
In a world feeling mad, and just living getting bad,
And at day’s end our kids put us to the test.

We’re mostly folks who give our best
Attempts to give our kids a life,
So they can grow and find success,
Maybe even a husband or a wife.

We’re mostly also struggling
As we watch our world seem to decay,
And wondering what we have to give
To give our kids some hope each day.

The answers aren’t so simple
And it’s different for every mom,
For every dad, for every parent;
They’re harder answers than just ‘love’.

We know they’ll need to be able to see beauty;
But how?

We know they’ll need to be able to feel love;
From who?

We know they’ll need to be confident;
But when?

We know they’ll need to be capable;
In what?

We know they’ll need to be able to live;
But where?

It’s hard to teach the answers
When struggling yourself
To find them in your own life
And still maintain an ounce of health.

Especially when misabled
With lives not fitting tidily in the norm,
With chronic pain and mismatching
Daily added to this ‘Living’ storm.

Yet most of us keep on fighting,
Our way firmly entrenched in the quest
For reaching the how and who and when and what
And where is discovered that suits us best.

Wait… perhaps within that previous stanza
Is where one answer might lie?
Perhaps within the trench itself
Is an answer we can try?

Maybe… maybe it’s not the quest?
And maybe the destination isn’t best?
Perhaps the answer is what suits us
And those unrealistic, outside expectations create unneeded fuss?

The how?
That may be our own to make.

The who?
Perhaps that is ourselves.

The when?
Might happen anytime,

For what and where?
Maybe we try looking the ways we’re compelled.

Perhaps… our answers can be found as something so simple and still impossibly hard.
Perhaps… learning our answers teaches our kids.
Perhaps…

Our kids need to see us,
Happy us and sad,
They need to see our wins and losses
And the self-love that we have.

Hope and love aren’t sprung from roses crowds will toss us.
They’re not something lying around.
Looking outside for hope and love
Will mean they’re never found.

We can search and seek and look all over
The seemingly broken world we live in,
Or we can try, and I mean really try,
To give ourselves what we want given.

I think the most important part
Of seeking answers which can be learned,
Is that learning comes from everywhere
Not just from the lessons we think we earned.

Maybe our kids need to see us
Find a smile in a crowd
That can be passed on to a stranger.
Or not.

That smile can be saved
And taken home to those we love,
Kept for a moment in-between
When we’re too damn tired to shove

And fight and push for all our own needed answers,
When we really, really need a break
From the battles and struggles
That leave us nightly lying awake.

Our kids may need to see our broken times.
The moments when us folks are forced to pause,
And are allowed to cry. (I’m telling you because your folks
(May not have shared that crying is permitted per the 9.6 Adulting Contract clause.)

The teaching we can give our kids
To help them face this world
Isn’t that we’re strong and perfect,
It’s that we’re beautifully flawed, our frayed edges curled.

Our answers for how and who and when
And what and where are not the same
As the answers that our kids will need to find
When they go out and live their name.

That smile found within a crowd
And brought home in our pocket,
It’s one us folks can give our kids
So they have it on their daily docket

Of all the things they need to do
And the battles they have to face.
All of it without us there,
Because we can’t do it in their place.

We can find hope within ourselves,
We can share our love with everyone.
We can teach our kids those things they need
Even on days we lack the strength to “get it done”.

The outside expectation of us is perfection
And that expectation is wrong.
All us folks who care, who hope, who love, we’re doing right.
Remember, life’s not an easy song.

We can try our best for the day to be good,
And if it isn’t… well, so?
Moms and dads and parents are allowed to have emotions, too,
Life’s energy is not a steady flow.

Most of us do the best we can
So our kids won’t have our scars.
I don’t think it’s bad to teach them life is tough,
Because we can also show our kids the stars.

We can prepare them for life by living,
And teach them hope and love by sharing that, too.
(Both hope and love also shared with ourselves,
Which can be very hard to do.)

Hang in there, moms and dads and parents,
As this world feels worse day by day.
We need to find our own answers in reality
But I hope we can remember, too, that we’re allowed to play.

I hope you find your answers,
The how, who, when, what and where that suit to you,
Because each of us learning our own answers means
A better world where our kids have means to find theirs, too.