El Mundo Bueno

"...there is the Good Reality, or El Mundo Bueno, literally the Good World, and the Bad Reality, El Mundo Malo, and they were always vying with each other. In the Good Reality, you have a mild headache; in the Bad Reality, you have a fatal brain disease...We walk in the Good Reality as if we tread on the thin skin on warm milk. It is always possible to break through and drown."

"There is a hopeful side...Even in El Mundo Malo, the Good Reality is always just on the other side. If you can learn to reach and pull yourself through, you can make miracles."
~ StarHawk, Fifth Sacred Thing

Working through Day 5 of the Joy Equation, the prompt is:

What's the difference between the two memories you've written about the last two days? What was present in the first that was lacking in the second? What was prominent in the second that wasn't experienced in the first? What do these differences tell you about your preferences and comfort levels? Are you relying on others and outside forces to make you happy or sad? Any other insights?

*sigh* The prominent difference in my eyes is the kids' presence. It is damnably hard to love them and admit that I am not in love with motherhood. I managed to delve into this a little with my new counselor person on Friday.

In 2004, I was invited to work in emergent environmental policy in the US Senate in Barrack Obama's office. If I had followed that path, chances are I would be working in the US EPA today. When I fall into El Mundo Malo...my Bad Reality...the voice inside me reminds me THAT is what I gave up, and for what? To be stampeded whenever clean-up has to happen or it is time to leave? To be told every day how the kids hates me? To be reduced to nothing more than a housewife in suburbia?!

In El Mundo Bueno,I know it isn't fair to lay blame on any one decision, person, or exchange. I know that I have two awesome kids who tell me they love me (probably) as often as they tell me they hate me. I know that my experiences in politics were painfully slow and frustrating, and I find myself looking at the issues and not seeing much change for the eight years that have passed. I know that I have been amazingly lucky to have met people and explored lifestyle choices that probably wouldn't have ever happened if I wasn't a stay-at-home mom. The sting is still there, though.

My preference has never been for a life with children. I have children, however, and there is no simple change for that. I love them, for all that I yearn for something different, I DO love them. So...that preference is not a valid choice.

I do have some amazing changes on the horizon, though. Girl going to school in the fall means that I can look at my own classes. I am working on two different volunteer opportunities that will get me away from my domestic responsibilities and back into the world.

I have already, in one visit, gotten to a place with the new counselor where we can talk about building a positive, constructive internal locus of control. I am not there, but I am gathering tools and I am learning to pull through.