Catching Up

We are having a very wet spring this year. This weekend alone should net us around 5" of rain, in addition to the plenteous rain that we have already received. I have some plants outside. Among them are several kinds of lettuce, bush beans (those long green beans for snapping), summer squash, cabbage, spinach, cucumber, watermelon, and radishes. So far, they are all surviving the rain and cold. The two types of cucumber seem to be struggling. We may have to sew in more of those seeds when the weather eventually warms up. 

Meanwhile, our other seedlings are growing away indoors under the grow light. My steakhouse tomatoes are both those about which I am most excited and also the tallest in the bunch! The broccoli and cauliflower are trying to decide whether to struggle or survive. The peppers are teeny-tiny yet, as is the single pumpkin seed we got to germinate. I will try to get more to germinate later. 

Here is a closer picture of the larger plants. I should have taken them after tending to them today. I added soil to some of the cups that needed it and gave them all a good watering. We missed watering one day and some of them began to droop drastically. They've been to perking up more but I've been especially careful with them since. 

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In other news, time is still moving along without my dad. It is not surprising how often he comes up in daily life. There hasn't been a day so far where we do not think about him a hundred times or long to contact him. 

I was flying the kite the other day and the intensity of memories of flying kite with my dad about knocked me down. That same day, we were eating the bright yellow flowers off of those small plants like my dad showed me to do when I was a kid. I was introducing this to my own kids. Giraffe asked if the purple ones were edible. That quickly, I was ready to call my dad and check. Losing him has shown me with great clarity just how often he was in my thoughts even before he passed. He was an enormous part of my life even when I didn't get to see him or be with him enough. I do not think that I will ever stop regretting the spans of time when I did not visit him.

There are still things that I would love to do with him and with my kids. I cannot wrap my mind around the fact that my children only got such a small fraction of years to be alive at the same time as him. I had goals for my family, to which he was essential. I wanted the girls to learn to fish with Papa at hand. I wanted them to stand by and watch him work on a vehicle, asking a thousand questions he'd patiently answer. 

Dad would say he was never one to support feminism but I would have to disagree ever so slightly. He always maintained that his daughters were better than ten sons. He wanted us to have the knowledge and ability to take care of ourselves, no matter what. He didn't want us to take garbage from anyone. He liked to teach us the things that he was doing. He loved to work with his hands and delighted when we worked with ours. There was nothing he deemed 'man's work' that we were not allowed to learn. He knew our worth even when we individually did not. 

I remember one time, crying to him about the fact that I did not feel like I am as good a mother as I want to be. He sounded completely exasperated when he replied that every one of us had said this to him at one time or another. Dad said that he wished that we would *never* feel this way because if we could see it through his eyes, we would know what a great job we are doing. He was always, always *so* proud of us. I am going to miss that forever!!
 

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Anyway... I could stay on this thread forever. I want to think and talk about my dad a lot. It is one way that I keep him with me... especially when I cannot wrap my mind and heart around the enormity of the fact that he is gone. Sometimes, I get the idea that people want us to move on...want us to begin life all over again with strength and purpose. 

I need to make it clear that I have not lost my strength. I have not lost my purpose. I was told since he passed that I was a weak person. It was said in passing and was not meant to harm me. Still, I took umbrage. I am not weak! I have been through a lot. (Have not we all?) I've been through things which changed how my mind works, yes. I struggle with anxiety, yes. I struggle with a life full of fear, which is something my dad never wanted for me.

The thing about struggle is that you cannot be weak through it. There are plenty of days where I felt or feel down for the count but I never am *truly* down for the count. Struggling with anxiety and triggers from trauma doesn't mean I am weak. It means that I am pretty flipping strong. It means that I don't just go about a 'normal' day. It means that I fight for (and earn) every minute some days. Maybe it does seem weak-minded that I have to really fight to do something terribly simple but if you lived on the inside, you'd see that the opposite is true.

I've recently realized that I have overcome nearly all of the birth trauma which kept me captive for over a decade. I am also making progress on the traumas that I went through last year. I know how to recognize triggers and how to fight against them. I have won a *huge* battle in my mind in the area of negative self-image. I used to be down on myself constantly. I know how to fight that now, too.

So, if you read these blogs and think what a pitiful mess I am, please think again. I am a mess, sure, but I am also a fighter. I fight darn hard and I win a little bit more every day. My dad was proud of me for that. My dad *is* proud of me for that.