« Older Archive for October, 2009

Echo Challenge

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 by Alyice

I’ve been following Christy Hydeck’s blog for about a month or so, but for some reason I totally missed her new Echo Challenge or the poignant message that so resonated with my heart.

While I don’t suffer the same neurological illness as she, or completely understand what it’s like to live with such an illness, I do suffer from mild depression; and therefore can relate on many levels to what she says about finding herself “dwelling on the tendency to fold into myself…Pulling away, rather than towards people…” and concur wholeheartedly that “it can be a lonely state of mind to live in”.

It can be a worse place, however, when you find yourself living in a town that isn’t privy to making friends with outsiders. It has only added to the depression, causing extreme moments of loneliness and large drops in my self-esteem—despite the fact that I have a wonderful, loving, supportive husband and teenagers who still don’t mind spending a few hours a week with “mom”.

I suppose that’s why I spend a better part of my morning trying to connect with people via email and their blogs, facebook pages, and forums. And yet, even that can sometimes feel isolating and lonely. So when I read about the “Echo” challenge, I just had to take part.

As of right now I don’t have a diptychs partner, but perhaps one will surface—and if not, that’s okay because Christy and her partner, Susan, have created a group effort in which I can still be a part of the team.

The first challenge was to take a moment to reflect on the word “emerge” and then interpret the word through the lens of a camera. The quote used to share insight into the word was from Marcel Proust: “only through art can we emerge from ourselves and know what another person sees.”

As I pondered both the quote and the word, I remembered a photo I had taken of a prairie dog during our trip to the Reptile Gardens in Rapid City. As I watched him (or her) that day, I was in awe at how well his community played nice together—how they co-existed. And at the same time, I was inspired by how comfortable he was to go off by himself to explore, to rest, to eat, to play. There seemed to be a perfect balance between needing his community and needing to be alone.

And so, reflecting back upon that incident and the word “emerge” I am now realizing that the reason I’ve become so uncomfortable and annoyed with the isolation I feel—over the past four years of living here—is that I am ready to emerge. I am ready to grow and bloom and become something more than I currently am—and I don’t want to do it alone.

The second challenge was to reflect upon the word, “decorate” and of course, photograph something that resembles the word.

At first, I was bummed because our house isn’t decorated this year. Then I thought about the one and only time we attempted to bring our tradition of hosting a Halloween party to our new home and instantly, sadness and bitterness crept in as I was reminded, once again, how difficult it has been to make friends here—for both my daughter and I—and how much I miss going all out on Halloween or having others to socialize with.

But looking through the photographs and realizing just how much fun we had that day—despite the fact that nobody I invited showed up and only two girls from my daughter’s school showed up—reminded me that as long as I have my kids and my husband, all is right with the world.

It truly is in how you choose to see things.

So no more pity parties, no more regrets for moving here, and no more trying to change what obviously isn’t meant to be changed. I choose to emerge a happier, more joyous person this year. And I choose to decorate my home with memories of time spent with the relationships that have always brought me the greatest joy and blessings—my kids and my husband. And I will not let the current circumstances of my life steal any more of my energy or consume anymore of my time.

Keep Creating.

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Just A Couple Of Gators

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 by Alyice

Awhile back a colleague commented on how much she liked the picture of a gator I took during our summer trip to the Reptile Gardens in Rapid City, South Dakota—so much so that she bought one of the magnets!

After thinking about how much she’s enjoyed her gator magnet, I thought I’d have a little fun with the guy and create a couple of greeting cards.

First I started by digitally distressing the image to give it an aged look, then I tweaked it in Corel Painter Essentials to come up with three new looks. Finally, I took three of the altered images to create the cute card you see below:

Keep Creating

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Thanks For Letting Me Be Mom

Monday, October 26th, 2009 by Alyice

Today, I ran across an old journal entry I wrote back on December 28, 2008 at 9:52 PM and thought I’d share it as it truly fits how I feel today!

There are days, like today when I absolutely L-O-V-E being able to take care of the family, clean the house, cook the meals, run the errands, and handle the recordkeeping and bill paying without the added stress of working outside the home. And it’s been great to be able to create art for the sake of creating art—without feeling like I should be marketing and earning money from it—thus allowing myself to have “me” time outside of the kids and my husband.

And I am grateful that I still have bonding time with the kids. I realize that while I don’t have as much quantity time with them as I’d like the bits of time I do have are priceless because we do laugh, and they do share their lives with me—a lot more than I was allowing myself to believe and definitely a lot more than I realized.

The thing is, as the kids began to grow into teenagers my life became more and more empty and I missed “our time” together. I desperately tried not to latch onto the kids and make them the center of my world—allowing them to branch out and grow and be independent—but secretly, I was hurting inside.

At first it was “Mom, you don’t need to volunteer in my school anymore”. Then it was “Mom, I don’t like birthday parties and all that attention. I don’t want them anymore”. Then it was “Mom, you don’t need to meet me for lunch—at school—anymore”. Then it was “Mom, you cannot help me with my homework because it’s over your head”. Then it was “Mom, you don’t need to drive me everywhere, I can walk or hitch a ride with a friend or drive myself”. Then it was “Mom, it’s too embarrassing to be hanging out with you—playing ball and stuff. I get teased enough when we do things as a family”. Then it was “Please don’t hug me anymore, I have personal space issues”. Then it was “Mom, I’m gonna hang out with my friends at their house instead of ours because—no offense—you guys are weird”.

For so many years I was everything to them and then one day, I wasn’t. And with each passing year, I was needed less and less and as happy as I was for how wonderful they were turning out, I missed being the center of their worlds. And when did I go from cool, supportive, caring, fun-loving parent to weird, anyway?

It’s a different relationship now that they don’t need me to do everything for them anymore. It’s a different relationship now that they don’t need mom to entertain them, either. They are self-sufficient and secure in who they are—and that’s a good thing. Really it is!

I guess it was last night that things really clicked and I finally became okay with them growing up and needing me less and less. It doesn’t mean that I don’t miss having more one-on-one time with them or them needing me. And it’s not that I want them to need me less, but that they “need” to need me less. They need to be able to grow up and I need to let them.

And so today, I am grateful for the wonderful young adults they are becoming and for the fact that they haven’t completely pushed me out of their lives—that they still want me around.

Give thanks…

Posted in It's Gratitude, Dude! | Comments Off

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I'm a freelance writer, mixed media artist, SMVA, and the owner of The Dabbling Mum.

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