Past Midnight Processing

Note:  This post is in no way written with proper grammar, sentence structure, or cohesive subject matter in mind.  It is purely some random and not so random processing in the wee hours of the morning.  Starts light and ends heavier.  I'll write a normal more running related post soon but hey, this is my blog so I suppose my random, raw, personal and unedited bullets are in a safe place.  

• Does it still count as sleeping with the girls on the trampoline even though we have all ended up inside by just a bit past midnight?
• It was still a great memory falling asleep under a big starry sky while cuddled close together.  
• Well, they slept.  I hadn't/haven't fallen asleep yet.
• I really don't do well sleeping in different environments.  Um, like on a trampoline with two sweaty little girls up in every inch of my space and one annoying buzzing teasing mosquito making sure to zip by my ear every few minutes just to let me know that he's waiting for me to sleep.  
• Dropping my glasses off the side of the trampoline wasn't a very good thing for this half-blind girl when I had to get up to pee at just past midnight.   
• It especially wasn't very nice when I realized that my husband had locked us outside so I had to squat in my own lawn to take a pee.  Lovely.  Now we've all done it.  Who needs a dog?  
• Unlike my son, I don't find it nearly as satisfying to pee in my own grass.  Maybe that has to do with the fact that he has a penis and I don't.  
• I was so relieved when my oldest daughter woke up irritated when I came back on the trampoline and made my blind way over their now wet with condensation sleeping bags. Irritated her meant that she wanted to go into her own bed (after peeing on the lawn).  
• I may or may not have suggested going into her own bed in a way that made her think it was her own idea.  Always the best route to take.  
• I love my own bed.
• Gosh, I love my kids.  
• The next few bullets might not make any sense to anyone but me since I'm the only one who knows what's going on inside this head of mine.  
• Goal:  To work on loving others as THEY ARE and not expecting them to be someone they aren't or somebody I wish they would be.   
• Another goal:  Not expecting life and relationships to fit into perfect little boxes...life is messy.  Relationships are messy.  Who determines what it means to be a:  mother, grandmother, wife, best friend, etc.?  I can't expect others in my life to fit the same mold for these relationships.  I especially can't expect the people in my life to fit inside the mold that I have decided is best for me when it comes to these roles.  
• Again:  Truly accepting others as THEY ARE.  
• I realized tonight (again) that I can be pretty darn hard on my mom sometimes.  Note to self: Keep going easier on her.  She's done a damn good job with her life and she managed to do a really great job with raising us three kids despite some extremely difficult circumstances.  Not so sure I could have done what she did.  
• I'm so thankful for the gift that my husband is to me.  I've never felt more loved by any other person than I do by him.  Sometimes I don't think I deserve him and I have a hard time believing that he has been placed in my life.  And that he loves me so unconditionally.
• I'm not so sure I felt unconditional love from another person before my husband.  Not to say it wasn't there...just not so sure I allowed myself to feel it.   
• Everyone should have someone in their life that they feel truly and fully LOVED by.  The kind of love that is whole, unconditional, adoring... Everyone should be "that person" to another.  So often this is in the form of a parent/child or grandparent/child type relationship and when I see and hear of my friends having these relationships with their parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren, it is always so beautiful to me.  
• I hope I can be the kind of parent to my children that provides this safe and adoring love that  makes them feel wrapped up and precious.  Safe.  Adored.  Free to make mistakes...to learn, grow, and risk.  I hope that they can grow up and always feel like my "baby".  Like they always have someone wise, loving, and open armed to embrace them and let them fall safely upon.  
• I'm not so sure I have ever felt this kind of love from anyone really.  This type of parental type love that I describe above.  Again, not to say it hasn't been there.  Just saying that I haven't entirely felt it. Or allowed myself to feel it.  This isn't necessarily a negative thing though. I think for much of my life, I felt like more of a parent and less like a child. I think I was able to create this kind of parental type love for myself in many ways as I grew up...I have come to provide that unconditional, adoring, always open armed, safe Love for ME.  Happy about this.  
• Just as we should all feel loved by others, there is so much to say about truly loving ourselves...just as a mother or father would love their child.  So much comes when we love US enough to provide ourselves with:   patience, forgiveness, belief in, adoration, understanding, room to grow, the acknowledging and validation of feelings no matter how silly we might feel.... Such power in loving ourselves the way we want to (or would) love our child.
• I haven't always felt this kind of love for myself.  Nor have I always had as much self-confidence.  I've grown into it and am so thankful for the people who have helped me along the way.  Believing in oneself and truly feeling worthy of love is such an amazing thing. It affects every part of our life.  
• I can't believe I'm up this late.  
• This was the most random post I've ever posted perhaps.  It started with camping on a trampoline and peeing on my lawn and it ends with some much heavier  topics.  
• I think I might delete this post when I wake up in the morning.  But it sure was good for me to write. I'm going back and forth between saving as a draft and putting in my journal or hitting publish. This is one of those "for me" processing times where I just let my mind flow and so often end up writing the lessons that I NEED to hear at the time.  This blog has been a great outlet for me in this way. For the most part I don't have a hard time writing vulnerably but it is still scary for me to share some things.  And I'm not sure why this topic on love...especially relating to parental love and relationships feels perhaps the hardest for me to be vulnerable about.   

Amanda