In the beginning there was... darkness? Light?

I wear a bracelet.  It is a bastardized quote from a T.S. Eliot poem: "darkness shall be the light and stillness the dancing."  The quote is not exact.  I didn't have a big enough letter allowance to fit the exact quote (missing "the" before stillness), but the important part is there.  The problem is: I don't actually know what the line means.  It is from the poem "Four Quarters."  The poem is essentially a diatribe of nonconformity and questioning of... well, pretty much everything.  I do not envy those who are poets.  They have a tough battle mentally to get what is inside, outside. Painters also receive my utmost sympathy.  But I digress. 

Back to Eliot. 

So the quote reminds me of different things on different days.  Some days it is a reminder of the duality that exists in everything.  Stillness, dancing/darkness, light.  Some days it is a reminder that these dualities are actually one in the same.  Originally, I think this is why I bought the bracelet.  I wanted to be reminded, every day, that those things that are opposite, or in fact, many times, the same.  The old thought of "they are two sides of the same coin." 

So, where am I going with all of this...?  Basic enough; this blog, which I am unsure about writing in the first place, is an attempt to understand, explore, and grow two sides of the same coin.  The coin, obviously, is me.  The two sides?  That is a little more difficult to explain.

Or is it?

I am who I am because of who I am.  A circular path of existence.  That sounds all nifty and original, but I am, no doubt, stealing it from someone in the past.  Because it is the truth.  You are who you are.  Right now.  At this moment.  Not who you were yesterday or who you will be tomorrow.  Right now.  Tomorrow you will be that person tomorrow, and it will be right now.

But, I am getting ahead of myself.

The reason for the blog. 

Partially, this blog started out of a letter (read: e-mail) that I sent a very good friend of mine in Texas.  She wrote back and said that it could be the start of a very successful blog.  Encouragement.  Absolutely.  But I started to think about the letter.  In it I wrote about my life as a stay-at-home-mom.  (Yes.  I am one of those.  I will go into that side of the coin).  But, I also had long lengthy passages about my current obsession with spirituality.  (And yes, I am one of those too). 

I went back to read the letter.

The stay at home mom (from now on known as "SAHM" because I don't want to type that out every time) talked in length about peanut butter and jelly stains on everything... including,  but not limited to, television sets, fridge doors, and... wait for it... toilets.  The toilets gross me out.  My two year old; he loves peanut butter and jelly.  He would eat pbj sandwiches for every meal and likely be perfectly happy.  Unless I offered him pizza, and then pizza would, maaaaybe, dethrone the pbj.  Anyway.  My pbj loving son, also likes to take his pbj and create art.  I have yet to decide if he does this out of a genuine creative need, or because it drives me batty and he knows it.  Oh yes, my son knows and exposes those things that drive me batty.  He has learned.  Already.  I blame it on his father.

But again, I get off track.

The letter.  The letter addressed the adventures of pbj in my household.  And then it talked about this journey that I have found myself on.  This is the flip side of the coin.  I have always been a bit of a geek  intellectual.  I love school.  I love to read.  And I like to think.  Literary theory is probably my favorite subjects.  No, it is my favorite subject.  I love thinking.  To make a (very) long story shorter, when I decided to stay at home, my thinker got put in storage.

It rebelled.

Not pretty.

Depression, anger, irritability.  I became a nightmare.  Bless my husband and his (unknown to most people) patience.   He is a saint.  Don't ever tell him I said that, it will go straight to his head and I will hear stories about his sainthood for years and years...

Anyway.  My thinker rebelled.  The problem is, I had no idea what was going on.  I was just blah.  Inside and out.  I don't actually remember at what point I realized I needed to get something straight.  Well, I knew I needed to get something straight from the very beginning.  (I was not unconsciously bat-shit crazy, I was very aware).  However, I didn't know the reason behind the crazies until I started reading Martha Beck.

Yep.  You heard -- well read -- that right.  Martha Beck.  The Oprah life coach.

Wait.  Oprah.  What??

Now I was a SAHM that read Oprah.  My 20 year old self rolled over in her grave.  But, the point I found as I read Martha Beck, then moved on to a whole host of others, is that my 20 year old self was, just that, IN THE GRAVE. 

Two sides of the coin.

I am a sahm.  I find myself playing for hours with pint-sized super heroes and doing endless loads of laundry.  I cook, clean, and wipe snotty noses with the sleeve of my sweatshirt (yep, me!).  I kiss boo-boos and I yell and threaten with time outs. 

I am also a thinker.  I devour books on psychology, spirituality, and politics.  I need to stretch my mind, grow, and look for answers to questions I don't know exist.

And somewhere in the last two years (that's right, two WHOLE FREAKING years) I discovered that I have to be both of these people. So, now I am on a journey.  I am on a journey to reconcile the two pieces.  To grow in my spiritual and thinking life all the while growing as a parent and wife.  This blog is part of the process.  Part of the being "vulnerable"that Brene Brown (another Oprah find) talks about in her latest book as essentials for happiness.  Writing a blog.  And honestly (and we will do -- swallows nervously -- honest here), documenting this feels right, though it feels scary.  I am a writer.  Oh, did I forget to mention that?  Yes.  A writer.  I think when I put words to paper.  So that is what I will do here.

A journey.

I am not the first person to attempt this kind of journey, or the only person, the last person, or any other kind of person that is different from anyone else.  I just am.

Today. 

Tomorrow will be different.

I am who I am because of who I am.

Welcome.