Return of the...heckety?

Streetlights at Clontarf.
 

Recently I have been trying to get my act together and sort out website, marketing, Facebook, instagram and all that jazz and it occurred to me that it would be easier really to reactivate this blog as an interim measure whilst I try to figure things out.

Lazy bones!

Its been a while hasn't it? Lots has changed, some things haven't, and life goes on.

I was reading recently about how life changing experiences change some people's outlook so they promote living each day to the full, mindfulness, and lots of other carpe diem mantras with themselves as the embodiment of all that positivity. Great for them. The difficult thing for most people is that either there is no life changing moment or one can't change things, so its just 'same old, same old' with a bit more vinegar, trouble and hardship added each year. A lot of us are living life the best we can although it may not look like it from the outside. Not everyone can up sticks and live on a beach in Hawaii making millions on the internet...not everyone wants to either. For some of us a good day is getting up and cleaning one's teeth...or remembering not to wear slippers to school...or even just taking in the laundry before the rain!

Eldest told me last week to choose 'Fortitude' as the word of the day, perhaps 'Endurance' or 'Grit' was the word for the year but I missed that memo!

Still, lots to do, to see, to photograph. People to listen to, talk to, wind up.
And there's always chocolate.
Seize the day, they say, seize a nettle some days more like, sez I.

I need to get back to keeping a record of things, life, good things, places.
The habit of blogging was helpful before.

We'll see, as my mother says....

Questions Anyone?

When we get to the end of our time in this life, do you think we get an opportunity to ask all the questions which have puzzled us?

And if we get to ask them, would we also get to have them answered?

Everyone asks the huge imponderable questions- why does God allow suffering if he is so loving, or religious wars if He is so forgiving? How do we know for sure there is a God? Why do bad things happen to good people? Define 'good'. How is it there are so many bad rich people stomping all over poor suffering people?

And so on.

But then there are all the smaller questions relevant only to one's own life- why me? I do my best and still x y z happens. Why is this friend so ill with cancer when he has so much to give still, so much life to live? Why did this friend die so suddenly when he was so beloved and worked so hard for his family and the community? Why does God take the people we want to keep and leave us with the difficult, unpleasant, unhelpful ones? Why does this one live a long life doing damage to many and yet this one who was so lovely was taken in her prime?

Why why why?

I don't think the desire for answers is just a religious consideration. It seems to me that plenty of people who either are not religious or who actively dis-believe in religion are also looking for answers. Sometimes it is the lack of answers which drives people from the religion of their birth, and the apparent finding of answers which leads them to a different religion. I guess some people question more than others, but most folk would have some questions.

There's the old 'chestnut' that a Christian heaven would be an atheist's hell, but if there is an Eternity then I hope mine involves a very long question and answer session with Someone who truly Knows.

Closed for...

You know the way you'd see signs on buildings, 'Closed for Renovations. Sorry for any inconvenience caused.' ?

Wouldn't it be nice to put a sign on one's Life, 'Closed for Renovations. If you're inconvenienced- tough.' ?

Admit it, there've been times you woulda if ya coulda!?

Thass Life Mom...

What IS it with teenagers?

Some days I feel as though I am the only person in this household actually walking on the ground; everyone else  appears to be travelling alongside on a trampoline on wheels! Up one minute, down the next, laughing turning to bickering in a flash. One moment I am having a conversation with a (reasonably) civilised human and the next I'm fending off a termagant whom I have just mortally insulted...and as for the poor Noddy car- well I'm surprised the passenger doors are still attached with all the slams they've received lately!

If Life is a washing machine I've been stuck in the 'spin and drain' cycle for some years now!

I really do feel that in the Instruction Manual for Life with which we are all (not) issued in the Maternity Ward, there ought to be instructions on activating a personal 'seatbelt sign' like they have on aeroplanes, just so I get a split second warning to duck before any particular daughter goes stratospheric....y'know?

Nuclear fallout is dangerous when taken regularly in large doses and close proximity.

So much for the teenage years, with us they appear to be lasting well into the twenties!

I thought that when the girls were little they were lovable and I couldn't possibly be happier with their company. Then when they were toddlers and the whole house was in constant turmoil with their antics, I thought that was the best time. Each began school and I thought that watching them learn was the most interesting and revelatory (?) experience, despite very rocky patches through the secondary years.

When Eldest went to College it was scary and hilarious but she came home with laundry and stories and disappeared again with half the pantry and that was great, whereas Middlest seems to bring most of the Drama Department home on a regular basis so that I have had to learn all about Ravening Hordes and The Warfare of Genghis Khan...which training has stood me in good stead for Youngest and her school friends.

I have recently entered the peculiar phase of getting to know boyfriends, which, let me tell you, is a whole new minefield of guesswork and twisted ankles (metaphorically speaking- big word!!) and brilliant fun in a 'how much can I get away with?' way.

At each stage, despite tantrums and stern talks and occasional despair, I thought THIS is the best time! But finally I am coming to realise that every time can be the best time, even the evenings I want to knock their heads together or when Middlest comes home with yet another tattoo...

If I take nothing away from the last twenty four years except the experience of Motherhood, that's ok, it still makes me one of the lucky ones.