I am Jennifer.

When I was growing up, I went from 4' 10" at 11 years old to 5' 7" by 13. The realization randomly dawned on me the other day about why I longed to be short. Short, thin girls are sometimes perceived as being less powerful than taller girls. This lack of control would have more aptly fit me in my teenage years; it possibly would more aptly fit me still. If nothing else, it would have given me something to secretly attribute it to. I grew into the tall, thin, 5' 9" girl I am today. Some days, I feel beautiful, vibrant, healthy, and lithe. Other days, I feel lanky, weak, sallow, and bony.

While riding the other day, the thought occurred to me that I don't have to feel those negative things, if I would only reinforce the positive thoughts when the negative ones creep in. Tears came to me with this, as I know sometimes I need the negatives to feel the positives. Plus, it just isn't so simple.

Trying to find that perfect balance of necessary control versus happy chaos is not an easy thing to do. Some people grab onto the control more easily, and others prefer to let the chaos take over. I've dappled in both, and I want the middle-ground. Is there a middle-ground?

That may be what is making it so hard for her now. She is losing the balance she has found of control versus chaos, and I have a feeling hers leaned more toward control than otherwise. She knows she will leave behind everything and everyone she has worked so hard to gather, grow, and tend to. And the physical pain is not going away anymore, though she is holding on longer than we were told to expect. Acceptance of those things is surely not an easy thing for her; they are things she may possibly never accept. And yet, today, we will wish her a happy Mother's Day. How can it possibly be happy? That is not for me to understand. I can only wish her happiness - today and every day she has left, however long that may be - and know that it is possible, even if I have no control over it.

What I do have control over is what I do with my Sunday. And I am thankful for being able to spend it with someone I love. That, and the warm, snuggly cats in my lap.

Labels: observations

posted by Jennifer at 5/11/2008 08:20:00 AM | 0 comments

What I've been up to lately... taking more pictures of the flowers. :^) Of course.

And Kitty.

Labels: photos

posted by Jennifer at 5/04/2008 07:26:00 PM | 0 comments

I finished Strong Motion by Jonathan Franzen last night, and I enjoyed it immensely. If you are into stories about dysfunctional people (aren't we all dysfunctional to some degree?), you'd enjoy it, too.

Below are the parts I marked to share...

Louis was, at twenty-three, a not entirely untroubled person. His relationship with money was particularly tortured. And yet what he realized, when the import of the figure began to sink in, was that up until the moment he'd sat down in the burger joint with his father, he'd been basically content with his life and its conditions. A person accustoms himself to what he is, after all, and if he's lucky he learns to hold in somewhat lower esteem all other ways of being, so as not to spend life envying them.

In the help-wanteds there were thousands of boring jobs and no interesting jobs. Until you opened the help-wanteds, it was possible to forget the essence of the average person's job, which was: you perform this soul-killing "data entry" or "telemarketing" or "word-processing" function and we will reluctantly give you money.

She felt a flash of jealousy and anger, and in its light she saw that there was an absolute standard of goodness in the world, an ideal that she was infinitely far from achieving. Louis continued to press his thumbnails into his candy-red sores for no other purpose than the pain it brought him. She knew she had to stay with him and comfort him, but she couldn't bear to see him do that to his feet, and so she left him and lay down by Peter and let guilt and darkness swallow her.

Labels: literary

posted by Jennifer at 4/28/2008 08:21:00 PM | 0 comments

I'm really starting to like Spring. Fall's always been my favorite season, but Spring is coming up a close second...

And a little house before and after Darrell trimmed the hedges...

Labels: house, photos

posted by Jennifer at 4/20/2008 08:36:00 PM | 0 comments

In keeping with my promise I made to Lattie on Friday, I did something fun for me this weekend... I counted and photographed my bouncy ball collection.

I have 393 and a half.

Tomorrow, I shall make Jello! :^)

Labels: photos, procrastination

posted by Jennifer at 4/12/2008 09:10:00 PM | 1 comments

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