Lorraine Says: Fight, Flight or Nap

Lately, my diet has consisted of eating whatever I'm preparing for Gailey-Bird. This is also known as the Toddler Diet, or, alternatively as the Mac n' cheese diet. I like to give Gailey room to choose what she wants to eat every day. I may give her a few options, but she generally knows what she wants. I'm not sure if this is good parenting, but I'm not a parent, so there is that.

I clearly remember that this was not my mother's philosophy when I was growing up. My mother had more of a "I made it, it's in front of you, you better eat it" policy when it came to food. That my dear readers was a lot of forced bean and beef consumption. Hey, guess what two foods I hate that are in fact Dominican cuisine staples? Beans and beef.


I just think that Gailey will figure out that there is only so much oatmeal you can eat every morning, you know? It's a lesson you learn like you learn that there are only so many Tim Tams in you can eat in a day after your awesome friend from Australia sends you two packs because you lost your job and you were sad. (THANKS KIRSTI!)

C.S. Lewis said, “experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn. My God, do you learn.” I'd like to think this applies to chocolate induced stomach aches as well.

There are just some lessons that are learned over and over again, I suppose. I mean, maybe we never learn those lessons. Maybe we just acknowledge them. Maybe we forget we learned them. Maybe, we hope against the lesson learned. Maybe we ignore it completely.

These past two weeks (of near silence... whoops...) I've been very busy learning lessons I've already learned before and learning things about myself I pretty much already knew. It's been very exhausting, let me tell you.

For instance, I've re-re-re-re-learned that I don't do well with conflict. I once read a book by Don Miller (left) all about stories, how life is a story and if you are unhappy, you should just start writing a better life story. I thought it was pretty neat, but then I figured that good stories always have conflict and that sucks. It's also why I have a hard time writing fiction. I create characters and then wonder if anything bad ever has to happen to them.

(Answer: yes.)

I've been hiding out, basically. That some how seemed like the thing to do when conflict reared its ugly head. Ever heard of fight or flight? Well, they don't tell you the third option is "nap."

After my second interview, I was nervous. It went well, I thought, but now I would have to wait around and, uh, wait. I got so anxious that it bred some severe anti-socialism. I told Sara Nipples, after she text me something akin to "are you still alive?" that I was so anti-social, I was barely talking to myself.

Luckily, she didn't drop me as a friend immediately after that confession.

I'm reading the "Chaos Walking" trilogy by Patrick Ness and it's taking me double the time it would normally take me to read anything because, even though it's amazing so far, it's riddled with conflict. I feel like I'm reading it through my fingers. I'm so bad at stress.

Sunday, at church, our pastor was talking about fear and how debilitating it is. Peter momentarily drowning in the water and all that jazz. And there I was, the first time I'd combed my hair all week, still worrying what would happen if I didn't get this one job.

I had to calm down and learn valuable lessons all over again, about balance and time management and faith and hope and just getting on with it. "It" being life.

Because there are bright sides to every story, let me tell you that I took a bubble bath for the first time in a million years today. I usually prefer showers over baths, but today, Gailey's Dora Bubble Bath (shut up) was totally calling to me and saying, "relax. Everything is going to be okay." I would've grabbed a morning glass of wine, but my sister apparently doesn't believe in alcohol. I had to settle for a glass of grape juice. The Toddler Diet strikes again.

Further bright sides: I didn't expect BobU to pay me my vacation time, but alas, a surprise check this past Friday means I now have enough money to keep myself fed and the bills paid through July, with no additional income. That's nice.
                                                                                                                  

I'll tell you about that and the adventures I had with Venus, Fetus and Vye this past weekend soon. I just wanted to use this post to let you know what I was out in the world doing. (So, basically, eating Tim Tams. Thanks again Kirsti!)

All is well now. Feel free to tell me about how amazing you all are at handling conflict and dealing with life or what lessons you feel you are constantly re-learning.

I like all of your faces and have amazing weekends.