Looking back, getting a grip.

2011 has been a very reflective time for me, which means I'm probably right in step with many baby-boomers. Hitting that mid-century mark makes you think hard about your life. (Although I'm not there yet, April is looming.) I think for many of us, we are looking around and thinking, "Is that all I did with my time?" Much of my life to date has been spent in the employ of other people, furthering their business agendas, and in general, spent on ephemeral things. (Since I have been a graphic designer, much of it, literally, ephemera.)

Being a wife and mother has been more satisfying in the sense that I feel my investment has been more meaningful, but as many women my age have experienced, the active part of parenting comes to a close. If you do your job right, you will be declared redundant, to coin a British phrase. And that has been very hard to take.

So I have been depressed and blue, and feeling sorry for myself. No really, let's not sugar-coat it. Self-pity is not an attractive trait, and I have been indulging myself.

Working my way out of the pit, I have been, well, reading books to help me figure things out. (Anyone who knows me would say, when are you NOT reading a book? or six?) In one book, "Emotional Equations," the author, Chip Conley, said that at a low point in his life he would "go into my emotional darkroom, where all my negatives were developing." What a great — and oh so appropriate — mental image!! 

Fast forward. Yesterday my husband and I had dinner at his parents house. Now "mother-in-law" has a very specific, ahem, and bad, connotation for most people. Turn that around to the complete opposite, and you have my relationship with my in-laws: one the biggest and best blessings of my life. (My husband is number one.) I can always count on unconditional love and acceptance from them both, and my mother-in-law is a true kindred spirit in many ways. After dinner and good conversation and watching NCIS together, we went back to her computer to review how to sign in and create new blog entries. She said she would mention my technical support in her upcoming blog.

Instead of the short "thank-you" I was expecting, today, I found that she had described me as "...kind and smart and intuitive, a fine wife and mother, a more-than-talented artist, and I love her a lot." 

Gulp.

Even if I do nothing worth noting for the rest of my life, that would still make a fine epitaph. Especially coming from someone for whom I have such love and respect. Way to put things in perspective. Thanks Mom! 

Because it's a messy business

Inspiration for my Blog title came from an old Northern Exposure episode. Chris of course. He was always one of my favorite characters because his ruminations would so often spark my own. Ruminations, that is.

"We all carry around so much pain in our hearts. Love and pain and beauty. They all seem to go together like one little tidy confusing package. It's a messy business, life. It's hard to figure - full of surprises. Some good. Some bad." — Chris Stevens, Northern Exposure

Getting to that halfway point on the journey has gotten me thinking quite a bit about this business called life...  and all of the love and pain and beauty it brings.

So I'm going to use this blog as a way to explore all those confusing aspects and hope to maybe make some sense of it for myself. Maybe it will make some sense to some others as well and we can share a little encouragement along the way.

Here's to the messiness of life...