One thing I usually treat myself to during a holiday is a new book. We just came back today from a relaxing week trip to Kuusamo, about three hours away to the south by car from here. The book I bought is this: The Elephant Keepers' Children by Peter Høeg. I was in the mood to read interesting and not-to-heavy stuff that didn't include thrillers, crimes, or murders ('coz hubby and I do watch a lot of TV series and movies with those themes) and I couldn't find anything else, so I decided to try buying it just out of curiosity.
I bought the Finnish version of it and I haven't finished it yet, though I've already found some paragraphs that I just would love to share and remember. Høeg's quite funny :-D. Mind you, I've never read any of his books before this one, so I can't compare them with anything else, but here are two paragraphs that I have bookmarked (sorry for the rough translation):
"Parents are obviously quite okay, even ours. However, if there is such a thing as a special academic study that adults have to go through before they can have children, honestly speaking how many of them would pass the exam?" (page 45)
***********************************************"Alexander Finkeblod...asked, 'What is the name of the sea surrounding the island of Finø*?'
'Kat's Assh@£$', answered Tilte.
Alexander Finkeblod almost fell out of his chair. He gave a cold stare towards Tilte, which would normally cause total destruction to everything that was in the range of the stare, but Tilte had found out from the Great Encyclopedia that Kattegat actually meant a cat's assh@£$, so Alexander couldn't argue with her." (page 64)
* Btw, Finø is a fictional island. :-D
Anyway, one of the highlights of our trip was being able to see a gorgeous lynx called Elvis. I've added some annotations to the video clip so that those who don't speak Finnish would be able to understand what the caretaker was telling us, but better watch it in a bigger version 'coz the text is kinda small.
In another world, we had already died. And we had left behind a few children and grandchildren. I'm not kidding. It happened in Sim World LOL!!! Hubby created my character and his character and then we got married and then the rest followed he he he he he...Years ago I used to play the game, but I was too stressed out with the limited amount of time in which I had to play the characters, but hubby can play it for hours on end when he wants to. He's a nerd, after all. :-D Speaking of nerds, we just finished watching the last episode of "Chuck" series and I'm happy to say that there are no kids in the last episode for the main characters (though there's a baby for the side characters), but it was powerful enough to be an emotional ending, so I'm very pleased with it. I was a bit disgruntled already 'coz in the episodes prior to the last one it seemed that the show was going to "that" direction (it reminded me of my disappointment while watching the last season of Coupling). And it's nice to be able to watch the featured clips on how emotional some of the cast members were on the last day of the shooting. Ahhhhh... Anyway, today has been a hot day here (24'C) and I've been doing spring cleaning (in a tank top and shorts!!!) for the past two days 'coz my first batch of summer holiday starts already, so I'm pretty happy to be able to do whatever I want and forget about work ha ha ha ha ha ha...:-D Here comes Lappish summer! :-D
P.S. The icing on my cake today was to be stared at by a very cute squirrel! :-D
Had a restful and lovely quality time with hubby on our cabin trip yesterday, saw a bloody gorgeous sunset at around midnight, and then came home and found a message from my bro, asking me to give him ideas for a baby boy's names with the meanings.
I was nicely surprised and I went browsing for baby boy names and I realized how daunting the task was, even when it was for someone else's baby (or maybe it's harder 'coz I have no idea what kind of names they want to give the baby) he he he he...but bottom line is, my heart has been really warm 'coz I was given an opportunity to be involved in the baby even before he's born. It doesn't really matter even if my bro and his wife decide to choose a different name than the ones I suggested, but I just realize that this is something I haven't really mourned yet until I was given a chance to participate in the task. Infertility is really strange...and here I am writing this post with tears running down my cheeks - not of sadness, but I'm ABSOLUTELY TOUCHED!!!!!!!! Bless my bro!!! My cup runneth over...
Anyway, let me share this gorgeous sunset that I saw last night...
I've been thinking about grief lately, mostly about the healing process of infertility grief and there's this idea brewing in my head. The idea is this:
"The further away into the healing process of grief you are, the less often you think of other people's live events that you can't experience (preggy bumps or announcements, Mother's Day, etc.) as in direct opposition to your broken dreams."
It's like in the beginning of the grief process, you're standing in front of the mirror and you're VERY well aware of what you don't have and so if someone else comes along that gets to experience what you can't experience, the mirror suddenly pops up right in front of you and it naturally breaks your heart in an instant (the feeling of being punched in the gut or below the belt whenever you see that shattered image in the mirror). So even though you're happy for the person who shares the good news or who's going to experience a lovely event, you can't help feeling the pain.
I have this image that the further away you are in your healing process, it's like you're also a lot farther away mentally from that place of pain, from your broken dreams. If you are unwilling to let go, that means that you're still sitting right next to your broken dreams or you're probably even still be holding the broken dreams in your arms. The closer you are with your broken dreams, the harder it is to avoid this "direct opposition" theory. Hmmm...this is still just a rough theory, but I feel that I'd better write it down anyway.
A desire for even a good thing becomes a bad thing when that desire becomes a ruling thing. Comfort is perfectly good to want, but it makes a bad god. Acceptance is perfectly good to want, but it makes a bad god.
My struggle with anger is a struggle of self-sovereignty. I want my world to work the way I want it to work. Your anger is connected to something going on inside of you. When you're shaken by life, what comes out of you is what was already inside of you. - Dr. Paul David Tripp Side note: Just found out from Facebook today that two more friends have got babies last month (didn't know they were preggy). It seems that this year is really a baby boom year in my circle of friends and acquaintances. So far starting from January there have already been three boys and three girls (not to mention another boy last Dec). Three more boys are coming in August and another baby whose gender I don't know yet is coming in October (not to mention the other preggy people in my circle that I don't know yet). Bring it on! :-)
