Endings

This is our last day at camp, and I’m afraid that Ava will be in tears when it’s time to go. She has looked forward to this all year, and loved every moment of it. I remember being deeply sad when I left this place as a kid, but now I approach it much differently as an adult. I don’t have the same energy as kids do (writing that sentence is laughable in itself, because my energy level isn’t even in the same hemisphere when making the comparison). As a kid, I could be filthy and wear grungy clothes without batting an eye, but as an adult, I value a nice shower and clean laundry much higher on my scale of priorities.

It’s interesting to be in this place where I started as an eleven year old child. I look around at all of the kids and young adults here, and I think of myself at each of those ages and stages. I thought I might feel nostalgic for the times gone by, but I’m actually a bit astonished that I was ever eager to doll myself up and be seen at the tuck shop at eleven o’clock at night, or hang around the back of the service hoping to catch the eye of a certain boy. It was all important in its own way, but I literally cannot even imagine going backwards to be that person now. I love that it is my nieces and nephew’s turn, and will one day be my kids who are dressing up and hanging out in large groups on the grassy areas of this camp.

We all experience endings and new beginnings on a regular basis. As one experience draws to a close, another one is waiting to take its place, and that is how life is engineered. I didn’t pay any attention to the families with small kids when I was an adolescent, and now that I am in that stage, I look at the young people and marvel at how they spend their time. My novel and my card games are much more enticing to me now, as is going to bed at a reasonable hour. I wouldn’t want to go back, but I’m glad I experienced all of it when I was meant to do it, and want the same kind of memories built for my kids.

It’s been a very good week, with fantastic weather for a change, and I’ve made a real effort to enjoy it on my own terms. Watching Ava grow and flourish in front of my eyes has been a joy and a wonder, and worth any personal price I may have had to pay. Hopefully William will reach that place of appreciation and love for this camp, and until he does, Ava’s enthusiasm will be enough to sustain all of us.

She has reminded me of my childhood self this week, and it’s been fun to reconnect with the part of me that deeply loved and adored this place, and never, ever wanted to leave. When her tears come, as they inevitably will, I pray that my compassion is rooted firmly in place, because I’ll know exactly how she feels, and will assure her that she can begin to anticipate next year as soon as this camp draws to a close.

Death is a Healing

Last night, Jason returned to camp after working for a few days, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief as I left William in Jason’s hands and went to the evening service on my own. I was feeling tense and frustrated after a few days of parenting William, and it was bliss to sit and unwind for a few hours without the ever-present demands of my four year old.

During the worship, I saw a family in a pew a few rows up whom I remembered from my earliest days at this camp. The parents had a preschool age daughter when I first met them, and twin sons who were about a year old. I was a teenager, and to get out of the evening services, I would babysit in the nursery with my best friend. I fell madly in love with these twin babies, and befriended their parents, and over the course of the years I’ve attended this camp, I’ve watched them grow up, and now those twins are in university.

Last night, I saw the mom and the dad, sitting next to their daughter and her new husband. I watched the dad lean over and whisper something to the daughter, who giggled at him, and he laughed back, and at one point he put his arm around her and gave her shoulders a big squeeze. I thought about her as a preschooler, younger than William is now, and how fast the time has gone to get her to this point, where she is a newlywed, on the cusp of starting her own family.

For some reason, it didn’t bother me to consider how fast she grew up, and to notice how grey the dad’s hair is now, and how many more lines are on his face. Tears welled up for me as I watched the happy scene between a grown daughter and her loving father. Another stitch formed in the hole in my heart, closing the gap between what I wanted from my dad as a child and what he was able to give me.

I could visualize Ava and Jason in about fifteen years, and for the first time, the idea of ageing didn’t seem so foreign and terrifying. I saw it as a natural process, and it served as a glimpse into what we are trying to build as a family; a road map for the untraveled terrain ahead.

We can’t stop the process of growing older. It is happening to each of us, every single day. There is not much point in panicking about what is not under our control. The camp speaker talked about healing last night – God’s ability to touch our bodies and fix physical, emotional or spiritual damages. He said, “God doesn’t always choose to heal us in this life, but death is a healing, so one day we will all be healed.”

I had never heard this as a concept before, and it provided some comfort as I walk the road of my late thirties and approach my forties. I don’t like that I have become afraid of death. My life is going well, full of love and friends and many good things, and I find I want to stay here, in this moment, in this time. Death is a place which no one living can fully understand, and mystery is challenging for me. I prefer to know instead of speculate. Great faith is required to embrace and accept the idea of dying.

I’m not at peace with all of it yet, but seeing death as a healing for all that is broken within our human condition is a good starting point. So is watching a family who I loved when they were at the stage I am at now; an experience foreign to me as a fifteen year old but now well-worn in, like an old pair of jeans. It was good to see them last night, and visualize that coming stage, and realize that it’s not scary at all. If we invest all that we can into our kids now, the fruit will flower when they are adolescents and young adults, and we can hopefully enjoy the same sweet, easy relationship for the rest of our lives.

Expectations

I’ve worked a lot on my expectations for this week at family camp. I’m trying to take it as it comes, without expecting too much from myself, my kids or others. I don’t want to be so careful about how my choices or my actions will be perceived. I’m doing my best not to read into situations or worry about what others may think about me.

Life is a series of pitfalls and difficult emotional minefields. Any time you have a group of people gathered together, the potential exists for hurt feelings and words that wound and damage. We are all broken, me most of all, and I must extend grace to others where I require it myself. This week is a good reminder of this.

Getting older is helping me. For the first time, I feel like I can see the finish line for my life, and it puts everything into perspective in a fresh way. I don’t want to worry about things I can’t control. I never know if William is going to go to his kid’s program here, or flat out refuse and cling to my leg while screeching at the top of his lungs like he has been doing. I used to stress out about it, wondering what people would think if he was in with the adults and not with his class, but now I recognize that some things are out of my control, in spite of my best efforts.

I have to constantly lower my expectations on others and on myself. Where I disappoint others with my words and actions, I have to decide to let it go and not obsess over it. It’s not easy to do this, but it’s imperative if I’m going to be relaxed and happy in this world. I can only do my best, in any given situation, and not think about how other people may perceive me. Where I offend people and I’m not aware of it, I’m relying on them to tell me so I can take responsibility and repair the rift, but when nothing is said to me, I don’t want to panic about it.

If I could master this, my life would be much easier all around. I think we all make snap judgements on others, every single day, and therefore we are all sensitive to being judged the way that we judge. I want people to treat me a certain way, and I get angry when they don’t, and then I become concerned that they are frustrated with me because I’m not meeting their expectations.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s reasonable to have no expectations on each other. We expect good behaviour and polite manners from our kids, and they tend to rise to the level of our expectations. In these areas, expectations are positive things. The lines become blurred when we bring our societal and familial expectations to bear in our daily lives, thinking we’ll be treated a certain way by those in our circles, and then becoming miserably disappointed when people inevitably fail us.

I have to remember that I fail others, just as often as they disappoint me. I’m working from the assumption that people are trying their best, just as I am doing, and that sometimes failure is simply a part of the equation. Failure has more to teach us than success, if we are brave enough to really learn the lesson.

Generosity of Spirit

I realized recently that I am very hard-hearted in certain areas and with specific people. This came as a bit of a surprise to me, because I like to think that I get mad about things and then I move on and don’t hold it against people. It’s hard to move past things that bother you deeply and have for a long time, but it’s important to our emotional and spiritual well being. It makes me a grouchy and negative person when I hold grudges and don’t forgive.

Why is it easier to forgive some people and so hard with others? I think that I like to see improvement in myself and my friends, and when the same mistakes and situations occur over and over again, I find my forgiveness much harder to offer. I tend to throw up my hands more frequently, and say, “Seriously, again with this?” and as a result, my heart becomes hard. We all make mistakes, and I don’t want to become that person who is so sure of my own wonderfulness that I look down on everyone else, but I think that failure to progress in your human growth is my least favourite quality in people.

I love being at this camp because life slows down so that you can actually look at some areas of yourself that are less than stellar. Most of the time I’m rushing through my day and when the kids are in bed I flop down on the couch for a few hours before heading to bed and preparing to do it all again the next day. I don’t often get the chance to look around and think about the deeper things of life. Part of it is the stage of life I’m in with two small kids, but another part is a societal problem of busyness and rushing from one thing to the next in a way to avoid the darker sides of our own personality.

I find that the still, small voice of God is always speaking, but I have to stop what I’m doing and listen in order to hear what he is saying. This camp provides that opportunity, if I’ll get past myself in order to listen. Being in nature all day and hearing speakers who encourage us to be open to God’s voice helps with this process. I find that my heart is softened, but I don’t always like what I see about myself.

If I strip away the excuses, I find that I am mean-spirited in specific areas, and I don’t want to be this way. Forgiveness for people I love and respect is easy for me, but grace for those who I don’t feel deserve it is another matter altogether. Why do I feel it’s up to me to offer forgiveness only to those I choose? Isn’t it an all or nothing concept? I either forgive, or I refuse to forgive and hold a grudge. I shouldn’t be picking and choosing.

I can very easily convince myself that I’m entitled to my hard attitude for reasons which may or may not be valid. I do know that I don’t need much to cultivate seeds of anger and injustice, and nurse my grievances like they are newborn babies. The problem is that this rage and bitterness grows in my spirit, like a stubborn root, and when it gets big enough it threatens to overtake all of the other good things in my life.

I always feel uneasy when I punish other people, but I have trouble letting the hurt go. It must be a decision, somewhere in my will, to let go and give it over to God. I don’t think it can be done once and forgotten, but must be done over and over in order to take root and create a new path for my behaviour and attitude. It’s not easy to get away from my prejudices, but I am not the judge and jury for other people’s decisions. We must all live with our own inadequacies and frailties.

I want to cultivate a new generosity of spirit for those in my life, the people I find easy and those who I find to be difficult. I expect this to be a hard road to walk, and one I would prefer to turn away from, but I know it’s something I need to work on, and I’m hoping I’ll be able to make some changes in this area.

Camp Memories

I want William to be like Ava in this family camp environment. She thrives and flourishes in the outdoor air, always up for a new adventure. This year we’ve hardly seen her from morning to night because she’s off with her cousins, finding something fun to do. She giggles and laughs and tells us each night at bedtime that it was the best day of her life.

William is an entirely different story. He needs routine to feel safe and relaxed. When every day is a bit different and there is no real structure or shape to the way he spends time, he becomes anxious and more high-strung than usual. This brings him to an emotional collapse more frequently than usual, and then I become tense and crabby with him. And so the cycle goes.

I find this church camp stressful because William struggles in this environment. I suppose if I’m really honest, I can relate to him here. I need structure and order. I want to know what is coming next, and then the next thing after that. I chafe under the expectations that I must attend a service or an event because everyone else is, and I struggle with my desire to relax and unwind instead of amuse my bored four year old.

Perhaps the problem lies in remembering how much I loved this camp as a kid, then a teenager, and then a young adult. It’s much harder to be a part of the camp with young children who are afraid of the classes which are designed for them. The endless uphill struggle to convince them that the classes are fun becomes wearying and frustrating, especially when other people’s children will attend willingly, rubbing just a bit of salt into my gaping, public wound.

I have watched Ava come alive this year. Maybe seven is the magic age for kids at this camp, because they can confidently ride the bus to the youth side and become immersed in the culture of that special place. She is making memories that will last her a lifetime, much like I did when I camped here as a kid. Possibly I need to take the long range view - in three more years William will be seven and hopefully start to understand how fun it can be to participate in all that this camp offers.

Until that time, I have to be flexible, and not expect too much from William. I have to try to see it from his four year old perspective and not force my wishes on him. It’s like the first camping trip you take with your baby when you are used to camping as adults: the effect is similar to having ice cold water dumped over your head, and then being kicked in the face repeatedly when the shock from the water has worn off. In other words, it’s a thousand times harder to camp with small kids than it is to camp without them. You have to adjust your expectations for leisure or you will go insane.

I’m going to change my attitude and try to enjoy camp with my four year old. He’s easier now than he’s ever been before, but compared to Ava, he’s still very time-consuming. This is a family camp, designed for children of all ages, and I want him to have good memories too. Instead of remembering the good ol’ days, I must create new memories for us as a family that include William, and make room for what he needs in this changing environment.

Burnt B

After our BBQ chicken, potato and green bean dinner last night, Jason was horsing around with William on one of our zero gravity chairs, when screaming ensued. We all raced over to see William’s beloved B, his ratty teddy bear, face up in the burning citronella bucket. Jason snatched him from the fire and I raced him to my mom’s motorhome, where she ran his smoldering head under the tap to try to limit the damage.

The kids were screaming and crying, the stench of burnt fabric and stuffing hung in the air, and we were all shell-shocked because this isn’t just any toy. This is his security and his closest friend – the talisman which eases his transitions to anything new and which he smells frantically in times of stress like he’s hyperventilating into a paper bag.

We’ve told him over and over to leave B in the trailer and not to bring him outside, but he finds ways to sneak him out so he can sit in a lawn chair and smell him. This kind of thing was an accident waiting to happen, and there was a good lesson in consequences in it for William, but when it comes time to teach the really hard things to our kids, it’s always very hard on the parents.

He was so distraught, beside himself with grief, and at four the emotions are so close to the surface that there is no room to pretend anything except what you are actually feeling. Gran had the presence of mind to get her first aid kit, and wrap B’s head in gauze so William wouldn’t see the full extent of the burn and the damage, and I dabbed some burn ointment on him in an attempt to disguise the citronella and the smoke smell.

I handed B to him, and he took him gingerly, while we all made jokes about B’s new pirate look, and chattered about how his head needed to heal before camp is over and Gran sews a patch over his burn that would be better for smelling. I held my breath, wondering how William would react, and he took it in stride, pulling a little at the gauze and then accepting that the damage was done and there was no going back, and finding a small section of his good ear, and placing his nose against it.

We can’t protect our kids from the big or the small things that can hurt and devastate them in this world. We do everything we can to keep them safe, but sometimes despite our best efforts, injuries and accidents occur. And then we gently help them through the best that we can, and hope that what they learn will stay with them for their lifetime.

I was moved by how shaken up Ava was. She cried harder and longer than he did, and when the storm had passed, she told us, “I was just so upset for William, as he loves B so much.” Her compassion was inspiring to me. Now we have to hope that B’s bandage stays on until William is ready to see the extent of the burn, and accept B with his new scars.

Body Image

I wish my excess weight bothered me more, because then I might be more motivated to take it off. Like most women, I go through phases where I feel horribly fat, and unhappy with all of my clothes, and I feel miserable about myself, but most days, I accept that I’m not as thin as I once was, and I’m completely fine with it. Other things are much more important to me than making time to exercise, and I can easily put off fitness for another day, or another year.

I keep hoping that one day it will be important to me to change my diet and increase my amount of exercise. I think everyone has a point where they decide to change, and their motivation becomes stronger than the status quo they have been living with.

I didn’t really have to work at weight loss after I had Ava. I went with the “nine months up, nine months down” philosophy, and when she was a year old I was pretty much back to my regular weight, without really trying or doing any additional exercise. William has been a different story. Maybe it’s because I was three years older when I had him, and my metabolism changed, but there are an extra thirty pounds on my frame that don’t belong and should come off, but my “doing nothing” philosophy isn’t having the same effect as it once did.

He is four years old now, and the baby fat excuse begins to wear thin. Some days I like that I’ve accepted my body, and the stretch marks are worth it in order to be a mom, and if society thinks I have to conform to a certain body image then I don’t have to buy into that lie, and so on and so forth. All of these things are true most of the time, but once in awhile I have that niggling guilt feeling that I should be working harder at this problem, and conquer my own body, and make my health and fitness a higher priority. Not necessarily for any societal reason or pressure, but simply to increase my chances to live longer and be healthier for the rest of my days.

I deeply admire anyone who has changed their diet and exercised regularly in order to lose weight. I know now that it’s very hard to resist the temptation to eat junk or to be lazy, and that kind of will power is worth admiring and respecting. I think the key is to be satisfied with yourself, whatever your body shape, because when people work hard to lose weight and get fit and still feel bad about themselves, that’s a real shame. I’m trying to find the sweet spot of recognizing my own limitations and enjoying life (in the form of a slice of pie or a chocolate bar), and upping my motivation to be healthier, and not necessarily thinner. I don’t want to work so hard on my exterior, only to find my interior in need of encouragement.

As women, we are all beautiful. If we don’t feel beautiful on the inside, we won’t project that confidence to the world, no matter if we look like Julia Roberts or her exact opposite. For now, I want to spend more time building up my own confidence in myself and make slow changes to the way I eat and exercise, doing what I can on a daily basis to improve my health. I want the inside to match the outside, so that I feel good regardless of how I look, and I want to genuinely learn to accept and love myself as I am, not as I wish to be.