Monthly Archives: October 2024

blogger, Flexibility, Wordsmith, writing

Be Wondering about the “To Me”

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I have always loved the perspective of things happening “for us” rather than “to us”.  Lately, I have been wondering about the mental benefit of making this division in my mind between the words “for me” and “to me”. (You know how much I love words and my mind often does play mental gymnastics with words.)

In the last four months, I have had three things happen in my professional and personal life that I feel were definitely done “to me”.  Things that affected my life, without any type of discussion or collaboration beforehand. In one single moment, my life shifted. 

Fundamental.

Unprovoked.

Future shifting.

Life altering changes.

They have all ended up progressing me towards a positive, as I know when unforeseen things happen we can either become wounded or wise. I always choose wise.  But it still feels like these three things were foisted on me.

The latest example was my childhood kitchen table. The wooden, handcrafted fifty year old table that we ate every dinner at together as a family, celebrated birthdays and Christmases at, where my mom did her marking and my dad did his bookkeeping for his business. The hub of my family home growing up in Northern British Columbia where many memories were made. One night, a few weeks ago, I received a text from my dad with a picture of a new dining room set. Where had the kitchen table gone you ask? My father had suddenly decided to gift it to his girlfriend’s son. This one moment with the loss of my childhood table, which symbolized so many things about my sweet mom, brought me to my knees and made me reflect on all these moments in the last four months where things were simply done.

Gone.

Without thought of me.

Without any conversation beforehand.

Nothing I can say to change things “back”.

Done.

Unrecoverable.

Unchangeable.

Simply done and done.

As I sit in the sun today, I am not reframing these three events so that they sit better in my soul, I am simply sitting with this feeling and becoming wiser in who I allow into my life, what I hold tightly to and how I am spending my time.  Time is our greatest commodity friends.

Who? 

What? 

When? 

These are all up to me and allow me to live with JOY even when things happen “for” and “to” me.  

I am enough. 

You are enough. 

Keep being conscious of your who, what and when. 

Happy wonderful Wednesday folks and love what you do.

Xoxo Joanna 

Boys, Family, Parenting, Wordsmith

Be Living with Teenage Boys 

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Three weeks ago our youngest turned thirteen. The boys are now thirteen, fifteen and seventeen. Three teenagers in the house! I am not sure if what I am going to say next would be true for a family with mixed genders, but as we add a third teenage boy to the fold, I am noticing some patterns:

1️⃣3️⃣ – He wants to be more independent, but this independence often leads to boredom and then whining. He is embarrassed now when I drop him off to activities and doesn’t want me to stay.  Big feelings exist on the daily and we create space and honour those knowing this is “normal”. Bedtime tuck-ins are still mandatory and asked for every night.

1️⃣5️⃣ – We have solidly moved out of the early teenage stage and our 15 year old is now wanting his “mommy” again.  He is asking me to attend and actively watch every activity and loves one-on-one time.   He is making efforts to connect with others again, but still has big emotions, especially related to his siblings. Bedtime check-ins are a must and every night he asks, “Are you going to tuck me in?”.

1️⃣7️⃣ – This young man is almost an adult. He independently does most things and no longer wants any help with editing his writing from his wordsmith mom. The first few times that I did offer to help this year, he became minimally annoyed. (He is not one to move quickly to anger or sadness.). Our oldest now goes to bed later than us and is often the one saying goodnight to us, if we are still awake.

As we welcomed our third teenager into the fold, I now can internally say, “Oh, I have seen this before!” while I share a big mama hug and then gently correct a rude word or inconsiderate behaviour with a smile in my heart at these beautiful, incredible, growing boys.  We have always said that we don’t want to raise “robots” or “sheep”. I think we have done that!

I wonder what you remember about being a teen or what your journey with your own teens is like?  I am enjoying every second of this house of teenagers as I love change, evolution and watching people become their best selves.

Happy Friday amazing friends. Love what you do.

🤩 Joanna