Denmark is Looking Pretty Good

Well this is turning out to be a cheery week. You've probably seen it all over the news. Depression peaks at age 44. Guess how old I am.

Here is a highly scientific graph to demonstrate.
That explains a few things. Not just about me but about my peer group in general and why we are so heavily medicated. But! isn't this just warmed over midlife crisis? Haven't we known this forever? I remember when we were all getting married and having babies and feeling as if we were the first generation to have experienced these life events. Now we're all unhappy. Alert the press! Good job news people and smart people who study these things. That was money well spent.

What Were We Thinking? Thinking Had Nothing To Do With It.

Roughly eighteen years ago someone at the hospital handed me this....

(our firstborn, aka, Cap'n Jean Luc Picard)

and sent me home without a clue.

Now, nearly two decades later, through trial and error and by the grace of God we've ended up with a mighty fine human being. He's still a work in progress, of course, but so far so good.

Henceforth the seventeen-year-old shall be referred to as the eighteen-year-old. Happy birthday my firstborn.

Inhale, Exhale, Repeat.

A couple of weeks ago our family began a new normality. The rug was pulled out from underneath me for a brief time and left me in a bit of crisis vortex for a while. What I'm trying to say is, my family is facing a difficult problem at this time. One good consequence of growing up in a constant state of semi-crisis is the knowledge that, this too shall pass. Or, if it doesn't pass, it will soon be integrated into life-as-you-know-it. So our current crisis has started to weave it's way in.

I'd like to be less vague but it is not exactly my problem to share. What I can share is how I now fight feelings of being a complete failure as a parent. I am occasionally able to put those feelings into perspective but it's a constant battle. A battle because one of the very things that I had hoped to protect my child from has now reared it's ugly evil head. Ugh. No one is in imminent danger of death, divorce or even dismemberment but this is serious stuff. Hopefully we have caught this thing early enough to keep it from becoming as destructive as it once was to me.

So why bother even saying anything about it on this blog? I don't know really. I considered several times over the last couple of weeks bagging it all up and calling it a day and taking my blogging offline. I considered moving my blog elsewhere and beginning again with a clean slate. I've actually done that a couple of times now. I'm going to hang in there (or here), though, because this thing has actually done me a lot of good in the last year. It is a creative outlet that doesn't leave a mess around the house. It's about as simple as that.

I hope to have more to share about this new normality. It may be that I can only share how I am affected by it or how God is working through these circumstances but It will not become the definition of my life. There is still a dog that needs attention, toilets to clean and a four year old who tells me my chubby tummy makes a good pillow. All is not lost.

See ya soon.

Is This Fun or What

I'm as cynical as anyone that grew up in the Watergate era but seriously, isn't this fun? A primary season where there is no foregone conclusion. People fired up by Presidential elections that ended up being decided by the Supreme Court. Two, viable, history making candidates. An evangelical not making apologies for his opinions. Wow. Fun.

At the end of this month we will have a new voter in the house. I am trying to impart wisdom to him the best I can so that he will be able to make an informed decision, not just vote based on his parents preferences. He is excited to vote but getting informed doesn't hold a great amount of interest to him. Maybe I'll ground him to his room to watch CNN, Fox and the BBC. That should even it out don't you think?

This post could just as easily have been a rant about what I think is wrong with the American system of politics but as I look at Pakistan and look at Kenya, I'm thinking, it's not so bad after all.

What I Like About Not Blogging

It means I'm actually living. Doing exciting real life tasks like...... laundry, carpet cleaning, moving piles of paper to and fro, driving hither and yon.

It's not all glamor and fame though. I actually completed that on again off again job-that would-not-die. Now that I have a little breathing space I think I'll spend some time contemplating the meaning of life, getting to know the candidates and honing my guitar hero skills.

One question about that guitar hero deal: does Slash have to contend with a four-year-old hanging on his leg begging for a jelly sandwich during his guitar solos? I think not. How about a harried mom handicap guitar hero people.

So I Was Going to Run off and Pursue My Dream.

But that Guitar Hero audience isn't doing my self esteem any favors. So I'm just going to finish the laundry. At least it doesn't boo at me.