all fixed

Once upon a time there was a woman who was very very angry. She had been angry for a long time, since her childhood. Angry at somebody in particular, so angry that she suddenly lashed out at the person who had been hurting her, lashed out in a very unreasonable way, in a mean way and she hurt the other person a lot.

The person expected apologies that the woman never made. The person would not talk to the woman any more. The person's wife got sad and the woman tried to persuade herself that she did not care, that she had made a clean break after years of verbal abuse from the person.

The woman went to see a therapist, the woman tried to forgive herself, the woman tried to go on with her life. The woman never cried, but she had a constant bellyache, she was wolfing down vast quantities of food, and oh the guilt. The guilty feeling that was always there, so painful, so heavy.

The woman stopped visiting the person and his wife, but after one year of not visiting, asked her husband to take their children to see them, a 600 km drive one way. The wonderful husband agreed, and the woman was to meet up with him and their children after the 2 day visit, somewhere else.

But 3 days before leaving, the wonderful husband, for the first time in 20 years of driving, got caught by the police at an unreasonable speed on his motorbike and his driving license was taken away on the spot, for one month. And the woman could not bear to think of the disappointment that the person and his wife would endure not seeing the children, so she drove them all there, and stayed with them and all went well.

Wonders....

She could not bear continuing to be hurt, but then she could not bear having hurt in return. What is a person to do? Some relationships are such hard work it's unbearable.

Mont Saint-Michel

Petite escapade en amoureux au Mont Saint-Michel... Jérôme lui a trouvé un petit côté EuroDisney, avec tellement de reconstructions au cours des siècles qu'il n'y a plus grand chose d'original.

Faut pas exagérer, elle est tout de même un peu magique, la Merveille..

Mais on en a vite fait le tour, et prendre une chambre sur place a un certain charme, (si on en oublie le prix) pour se balader le soir après le départ des hordes de touristes. On se l'approprie un peu...

Drawings

Just sharing one friend's terrific good idea: take a picture of your children's drawings and then throw them away! YESSSS! So much place gain, it's amazing, and I feel so much lighter. Haven't gone very far yet, but I have thrown those away, and looking forward to doing more !

Because, quite frankly, who wants to be handed over a huge cardboard box full of drawings and exercise books at the advanced age of 21 with a comment like "I kept them all for you, for the day when you move in your teeny wheeny 15 m2 studio and take all your belongings with you"...

So instead, they will get a thin folder of the very most cherished ones, AND a photo download.

Changements

Vous avez vu, j'ai relooké! J'y ai passé un peu de temps... J'ai même réussi à me sentir intelligente en ajoutant un code CSS pour faire passer le titre du blog de gauche à droite, Yipeee!

Week-end de soleil et de bons amis, les enfants sont repus de bon temps et nous de bonne compagnie et bons moments, on profite de l'été indien, chaque jour de soleil est du bonus sur l'hiver..

Moyenne Soeur trouve toujours un moment pour se déguiser, j'aime bien ce look-là.

A gift

I seem to have some difficulties finding things to say at the moment. It might be a good thing, as in 'I am too busy to sit down..' but no that's not it. I find that I don't necessarily want to say the same things in english and in french, so I had to find inspiration for my english post. I have lots of ideas but by the time I start typing, the idea is gone or discarded at not valuable enough.

Lately, one thing stands out though : I can't wait to go and see the movie 'Eat, Pray, Love' as I really loved the book. I read an article (Grazia...?) by the author Elizabeth Gilbert on what we women do to ourselves, particularly always comparing and in the process never feeling adequate enough. She mentions how her sister organized a treasure hunt for the neighbourhood kids and one of the mothers complimented her by saying 'You are a much better mother than I will ever be." Elizabeth Gilbert's sister grabbed her friend's hands and said "Please. Let's not do this to each other." (And yes, it was in Grazia, issue 285)

This short anecdote means a lot to me. We are all doing it, aren't we? You have a successful job, I don't. I have 4 children, you say 'I have only 1 (2, or 3).' You play often with your children, I play one game of Monopoly per year. You are on time to pick them up, I am often late. You have never slapped your children, I have. You don't bake cakes, I bake a mean chocolate cake. Your child loves beetroot, mine hate it. Your children speak their native language, mine speak 2. Your children make their beds and tidy their rooms, mine are slobs etc.

Let's focus on the important things. It seems that the 'memory trick' is a good one. When I think of you, what will I remember you by? What do I want you to remember me by :

'Remember how you were always late?' 'Your chocolate cakes were incredible'?

Mhmmm... Can I choose please?

Last year, one girlfriend from my old life in Brussels said to me 'I miss the endless coffees we had in your kitchen, your kitchen is the fondest memory I have of the house you lived in, it was so cosy and warm and comfortable... (we are talking big 70's kitchen in rented house, with dirty white broken tiles and brown cupboards, complete with Ikea stools with screws coming off)

I nearly fell of my Ikea stool when I heard this.

I always felt so inadequate, offering coffee in the messy kitchen because there were always snacks, dishwasher emptying, homework, meals to prepare and I could never spare the beautiful calm moment to sit down properly in the living room and enjoy a peaceful cup of coffee with my friends.

And then this. What a gift this friend gave me. I had given her something she enjoyed and I did not know it at the time. I was too busy feeling sorry for myself, nurturing the feeling of inadequacy.

So while I will keep trying to do better, I will also stop nurturing the wrong thoughts, stop comparing, stop trying to measure up to standards that are made neither for nor by me. And that goes for you too.

There you go.