My brother gave me a self-help book for Christmas–Safe People

It is odd to receive a self help book as gift. It implies that I need some help, and maybe I should get my self together.

Then again, my brother loves me. I probably *should* get myself together.

I read it. And very quickly I was engrossed. It turns out there are a number of icky relationships I have been tolerating in my life. The book is very Church, very Christian-y, which I do not like. I am a Christian, but I don’t care to be given the bible as the only supporting evidence to prove a point. If it were true, it would be true outside the Bible as well as in.

I read stuff that triggered all kinds of exmples. My experience provided the outside examples of what theauthors were trying to prove. It rang very true.

The end of it gave a formula. It came from some bible verse, but which one doesn’t really matter.

It was a formula for how to gauge a safe and true friend.

Dwell

Grace

Truth

“Dwell” means that person will hang with you. They will be around. They will spend the time and be available. Yes, that is the first part of a friend. Spending time, spending some effort.

“Grace” means a lot of things to me. The churchy meaning is “god’s grace”, as in forgiveness. Or comfort. Or empowerment to do a difficult thing. Grace also means elegance. The opposite of grace would be awkward. An awkward friendship might be on that just doesn’t quite mesh. Not the same sense of humor, or a way of speaking that is out of rhythm with one’s own. If you can’t find a naturalness to being with a person, then the friendship just won’t work.

Then there is Truth. A friend has to be the one to tell you the truth. Who among us would not doubt the veracity of a friendship, upon realizing that a friend didnt’ tell you about spinach in your teeth for the last hour? If our friends won’t tell us the truth, they are not friends.

Not that they should be cruel about it. See: “Grace.” A friend would also hang around to help you deal with a painful truth. See: “Dwell.”

This is a great measure to hold up against the people I spend time with. I find myself changing some plans.

I have a friend who is super fun and kind of glamorous. She is very willing to get together (Dwell). We have great times, and laugh (Grace). But I know that a couple times she hasn’t really told me the truth. She said a couple things, smallish, but I can tell she’s not real strong on the truth part.

I have another friend who is willing to hang, and is a little less glamorous and funny. But I can feel a lot more sure of what she tells me. She’s a lot stronger on the truth than GlamGal.

It occurred to me, that if there was a choice, all things being equal, I’d be better off spending time with truthgal.

When I had a paper to right for an assignment, and the assignment was to turn in so many pages, I got very good at knowing how to use fonts and margins to my advantage.

When the measure was number of words, I knew how to string those together.

When I myself wanted quality writing, well…that was something else altogether.

The thing is, when I want something to be a certain way, I pay attention. I get out the scale nearly every morning.

And if I want to lose weight, i pay attention to the amount of veggies I’m eating.

I know of certain people who talk about what they want.

“It should be thus and so…”

But they are not measuring. Or maybe they start measuring, but they don’t do anything about the measures.

If i weigh myself in the morning, but do not think about and be disciplined with my eating, I am not really doing anything with that measure.

If i find that someone is talking about it, but not measuring it, they are getting the good they want. The talk is enough for them.

Once again she woke us up at 5AM …like she did yesterday.

She was a little better this time, because she was cheerfully loud. Not wailing.

Nevertheless, it remains that the sun rose, and her entire clothing set needed to be changed twice by 6:15

So we are going to go to McDonald’s playland and get some breakfast. And I am going to get some coffee.

Chris is going to sleep.

I wish that i could quietly discover if any other local moms where having a morning like mine and wanted to meet me at the Playland on Foothill.

But i haven’t found a way to do that…Maybe I should find a sort of stealth texting tree mechanism:

‘Psst! Are you having a Morning as well? I’ll be at the playland in 15. And I promise she’ll be in PullUps this time! No puddles.”

Those cinammon chunky muffin thingys they have are tasty

My friend told me that she made a point of watching all the Oscar nominated movies this year. Only one of them, she said, was one she would watch again if it came on TV.

“They are all so overwhelmingly depressing!” she reported back.

I’ve noticed this problem already. It’s very easy to express sadness and unhappiness. Boy oh boy, we seem to be able to just get down into that mud puddle and hang out FEELING it.

It’s a lot harder to be believable when  you have something happy to say.

But ‘they’ say it’s really hard to do comedy well. And I have to say I agree.

Comedy is a lot more needed too. I have my own mud puddle thank you very much.

Can’t I get the medicine in a spoonful of sugar? Give me something to smile about.

I was talking with Chris about novels, and how I have given up on *literary fiction* lately. That used to be all I read.

But now, the only good stuff is the dead author part of the library. Yes, Dickens and Austen, love you both.

Toni Morrison, can you lighten up? Do we need another past-the-breaking-point story of sorrow?

Chris said that there is a whole category of “It’s hard to be (x)” novels.

It’s hard to be poor

It’s hard to be gay

It’s hard to be black

It’s hard to be poor gay and black

sigh

It’s true, and I don’t want to minimize the suffering. But I’m sort of done. I guess that’s why I’m in love with fantasy novels.

It’s hard to be the son of magical parents raised by an unmagical foster family. But golly gee whiz! Look what I can do now!!!

I want a meaty story that I can think about. But how about a story that makes me smile while I’m learning something?

Last night Veronica had trouble sleeping. Her tummy is upset.

So, from midnight to two, I was up and down to help her relax.

Except, it didn’t seem like such a big deal. It used to. I used to wonder how I could possibly do this FOREVER. Other parents didn’t help either. They would never say, “You will be stronger, you will be fine after time”

They just roll their eyes and say “Oh you think it gets better? It doesn’t.I haven’t slept since my firstborn, and he’s 40 now!”

Crao, Crap Crap. It’s enough to make you get into your car and drive and not look back.

But I remember one young girl talking to me. She was maybe 12, and the oldest of a large brood. I was pregnant, and she said “I am so scared to be pregnant! I think it would be so hard and it would hurt so much!”

What am I supposed to say to that?

I’m supposed to be the grown up and reassure HER.

“Well,” I said. “You have to be older and then you will be strong enough. THink how much stronger you are than when you were 8! When you are older you will be strong enough to bear it.”

“You think so? Maybe…”

“That is also why you should wait!”

See how clever I was? And how utterly ignorant? I think a 12 year old probably recovers much faster from teh physical injury of childbirth.

But it turns out that I’m recovering from the shock of the definite possibility of never sleeping a solid 8 hours for the next 5 years.

It can be done. And, if you make sure to leave room in your life for breathing it doesnt’ have to be that bad.

But here I am, talking about it some more. Talking about the unrelenting shock of parenting

AGAIN.

I’m not thinking new original thoughts. I’m sleepy. I’m just mostly churning old thoughts. Treading water.

But at least I’m still afloat.