And spring thinking...

Well, we've decided to forego planting a full in-ground veggie garden (yet again) this season in favor of keeping our regular herb garden and ordering up a share in our university's CSA.  We decided the amount of time and effort required to get trees down, beds put in, and everything started from seed and planted was too ambitious for this year.  I still want to get a rain barrel set up and a compost system started up again, since that's something we used to do but got away from in the last couple years.  I've been dealing with a recent flare of my illness, as I do most years around this time, so between that and the doula training, there just hasn't been much time to really think about anything else.  Even after over a decade of living with my health issues, at times - and this is one of them - it still catches me by surprise when I realize how much effort it sometimes takes just to get through the days, to do what I absolutely have to do.  This is especially true now that I am a mother, and I feel as though I watch a lot of time and energy just slip away without anything much to show for it.  It's then that I have to stop and reframe things.  If a happy, well-adjusted, thriving child isn't a good use of my time, then I don't know what is.  Also, there will be plenty of time to get around to gardening and canning and everything else I feel that I'm not doing now, once the kiddo is older and I can carve out a bit more space in the routine here and there.  I also know that signing up for life as a doula, which means that I will often be on call and will sometimes have to work very long hours, is going to bring additional challenges and require additional sacrifices, but I'm so thrilled to finally find something I feel passionate about doing that I am willing for now to do what it takes.

Every little hiccup with my health takes me to a sort of inner space for a brief round of navel gazing.  It used to be a scary place, full of fear and anger and pain, but now it's finally feeling like a place that stays a little brighter, a hole that's a little less deep, and one where I can more constructively deal with the issues that come up.  It's taken a lot of hard work on my part and a lot of generosity of spirit on the part of my husband (especially in the last couple of years, which have been very healing) to get here, but here I am, and the view is - for the most part - fine.

Are those buds I see?