I have this weird relationship.  With a song.

This strange thing happens sometimes and has happened, I would say, at least 5 or 6 times in the last few years.  I'll be having an awful day, feeling down (usually on myself), and I'll turn on the radio to hear "The Middle" by Jimmy Eat World.

Now, I should say first off, this is not an earth-shattering song.  I don't believe it won a Grammy.  It's pretty much your usual pop fare.  But the lyrics, while hugely repetitive and hardly poetry, send a pretty good message, one that I really need to hear sometimes, like tonight.

A sampling:

Hey, don't write yourself off yet
It's only in your head you feel left out or looked down on.
Just try your best, try everything you can.
And don't you worry what they tell themselves when you're away.

It just takes some time, little girl you're in the middle of the ride.
Everything (everything) will be just fine, everything (everything) will be alright (alright).

(Incidentally, I looked up the music video on YouTube, thinking I'd link to it, and was thoroughly disappointed by it.  It seems to be the usual young male wet dream of scantily-clad women with questionable morals.  Which to me is not at all what the song is about.  Yes, yes, go ahead and Google it.  I'll wait.) 

It's kind of stupid, really, that such a simple pop song can actually make a difference.  But it does.  Yeah, it probably is only in my head.  Yeah, I do need to just try my best.  And yeah, everything probably will be just fine.  I needed to hear it, so thank you random pop group.

But what really gets me is the sheer ridiculousness of how often this happens, considering I don't have that many bad days (anymore, thankfully) and don't listen to the radio all that often and this isn't at all a current song.  My first reaction, now that it has happened so many times, is to laugh and shake my head and say "But of course".  Because although I'm not religious, I do think that there's something happening that's bigger than me, and while this may all be a series of coincidences, I find it comforting to think that the universe might be taking a moment to send me a reminder.  That this is just one day.  That I need to get out of my head and put my problems in perspective.  That some things do just take some time.

So I get it, universe, I get it.  And I'll try to keep all that in mind.  But please do keep that song at the ready.  I may need to hear it again some time. 

And thank you for listening.

I've been thinking, for a long time really, about getting back into this whole online journal thing (I hesitate to use the word blog only because it is kind of an ugly word, isn't it?  But I suppose that's what this is).  For those of you who already know me, you may recall that I once wrote fairly prolifically on my own site and later on blogspot.  And then I just stopped. 

There were reasons, one of which was a serious case of morning sickness.  Since I last wrote, over four years ago, I have become a mother.  Twice.  Two fascinating, hilarious, stunning wee ladies.   And life has become both ridiculously fun and ridiculously busy.

So there hasn't been much time to write, and not much inclination either.  Whatever this will be, this blog here, it won't be about my children.  While they are my favourite subject of discussion with friends and family, the internet does not need to know about them.  I'm sure that I'll share anecdotes from time to time (I do spend at least 12 waking hours with these glorious people each and every day) but the bottom line is that they are mine and they are special and I don't want to share.  And the absolute last thing (okay, maybe second to last thing) that the internet needs is another mommy blog.

Yet as a mom, and one of the stay-at-home varieties at that, I don't have a hell of a lot else to talk about.  Which brings me to this site's raison d'être, as it were.  I need to find other things to talk about.  I need to get Twinkle Twinkle Little Star out of my head, at least for a few shining golden minutes now and then.

Don't get me wrong.  I absolutely adore being a mother.  My girls are the most incredible life forms in the universe.  That's just scientific fact.  But I have this vague notion that perhaps I may have been somebody before becoming a mommy, and I'm trying hard to remember who that person was.  I know that she watched a lot of TV and slept in and I suspect she could go somewhere on the spur of the moment, just because she wanted to.  The idea!  It's also possible she had likes and dislikes and interests outside of Winnie the Pooh and Robeez.  I would like to reacquaint myself with that person.  I'm pretty sure she's still around here somewhere.  Likely at the bottom of the toy box.

I think that writing here might help me in this mission.  I have always felt my most true self in written form.  As some of you know, in person I am often a mumbling, inarticulate ball of anxiety.  I don't think I'm the most socially inept person around; I'm just not that great with people.  I do however get along very nicely with words.  There's no backspace in the real world (t-shirt idea?), and not enough time to construct exactly what I want to say with the precise words to say it best, at least not without standing there for several minutes looking like an idiot.  The internet can't give me a weird look when I say something that is clearly funny only to me.  I hope.  All that said, I'm going to push myself to be as uncensored as possible, and not analyze every little word and phrase to death.

I've been told all my life that I'm a good writer, that writing is what I should be doing, and despite my incessant self-doubt and many anxieties, I do believe that to be true.  Writing something well, finding the perfect word, expressing exactly what I want to say...these things fill me with great joy when they happen.  But I haven't been writing.  I've been afraid to really try.  I think I've been afraid that if I really try, I will discover that, well will you look at that, I can't actually write very well at all.  As it turns out, I'm quite terrible at it.  And there's my one thing, the one talent I was supposed to have, out the window.  What's left?  Well, I've recently come to the conclusion that if that really were to happen (and I don't think it will) there's a damn lot left, thank you very much.  For one thing, I can build a mean dining room fort.  I'm also pretty good at peekaboo.  And there are at least two people in the world who appreciate those talents, and they happen to be the two most important people in the world.

And it really all comes down to those two little people.  How can I teach my daughters to be true to themselves, to be fearless and create the life they want, if I don't do the same?  They push me every day to be a better woman.

As a stay-at-home mum, I have no social life to speak of (perhaps this shouldn't be a generalization) and there's a genuine danger here that I'll turn this into my social life instead of creating a real one.  But I'm trying to view this as a testing ground, a place to play around with ideas and opinions and discover what I actually think and believe about things, which I can hopefully translate into real life conversations with actual live people. 

And a note on opinions: I need to get me some of those.  I do know, dear friends, that I'm a fencesitter and a peacemaker and extremely conflict averse.  It comes from the point of view that, in most cases, I don't have enough information to form an informed opinion (formally), which I think is an accurate and useful approach but it's also an excuse.  "So get information, lady.  It's called the internet."  So you can look forward to some opinions about stuff, and things, and shit.

And that's another thing.  I'm swearing here.  I don't get to in my everyday life what with these small people always hanging about so there will be swearing here, mom.

Life is getting no less busy but I like this place here.  For one thing, it's purple.  So pretty.  Will I keep up with this regularly?  Who knows.  When it stops being fun and starts feeling like work, I'll stop.  But I'll try to keep it fun.

So what is this?  I have no fucking clue (you see?).  Let's find out together. 

P.S. Clearly editing for length was not something I worried about here.  Sorry about that.  Prepare a snack in advance next time.