Sometimes, "Strong" doesn't look that way ...

In our society, strength is admired. Revered, even. Words like "big", "powerful", "brawny" are often used to describe strength. This type of strength is commonly called "physical strength".

When we are children, picking at our plate because we find something on it unappealing, we are often told we need to eat our veggies/meat/whatever in order to "grow up big and strong."

The law of "Survival of the Fittest" is often described as the strong overpowering the weak.

In sports, strength is admired in the form of an athlete; the stride of a runner, a football player's tackle ...

On the schoolground, kids who are perceived as "weak" are often picked on or otherwise bullied by kids who wish to be perceived as "strong".

These are all images with which many of us are familiar. These are the concepts of strength against which many of us measure ourselves.

But there are other kinds of strength, those which are, perhaps, less evident or visual. Strength of character. Strength of will. Strength of determination. The words most commonly used to describe this strength are "bravery", "courage".

One could argue that this type of strength is too subjective to measure, and that is true, to a point. But this type of strength, commonly called "inner strength", is less superficial and far more important in our day to day lives than physical strength.

These days, finding my inner strength has been very challenging. Finding the courage to dig down and come up with the words "Hey, I need help" has been pretty much impossible.

Heck, finding words to finish a blog post has been just as difficult of late ... I have no less than three partially-written posts in my "drafts" folder as I type this.

One is a topic for which I will need to really draw on my inner strength to complete; a tribute to my brother who passed away this summer.

I am not sure why I have a hard time asking for or accepting help; perhaps it is because my upbringing has somehow informed me that asking for help is a sign of frailty, or weakness.

In any case, sometimes asking for help when needed takes a lot of strength.

I am working on that.

Absence makes the heart grow ...

Insomniac?

Himself is away this week, which tends to make life around here a "wee bit" challenging.
Not just the lack of an extra person to help ferry the Minions of Chaos to their various activities (although that does present its challenges!), but also because, after nearly 22 years together, not having him here is rather like misplacing half of one's body- disorienting, to say the least.

Don't get me wrong, everyone has so far made it out to all of their games/practices/trainings and/or classes- I've arranged a ride or two, staggered pick-ups and drop offs, and our daughter has graciously driven her little brother (and his best friend) to and from karate both nights this week (doesn't hurt that her boyfriend also attends the same dojo and usually goes and helps teach Littlest Man's class ;-)).

We even managed to have a (sort of) laid-back evening at home last night- one which involved my setting up our new television set (the sort of task that would normally fall to Himself, but, alas, the TV didn't arrive before he left). There's something tremendously satisfying about managing to tackle that sort of a task whilst he's away, because normally, I'm pretty pleased that the house is still standing upon his return ...

Not that it ever is in mortal peril, but often, by the time we get to "the day before" or the day of his return, everyone seems to be a little strung-out. I often wonder if they're feeding off of my anxiety in that regard, as I do tend to get the worst case of insomnia whenever Himself is away ... (witness the timestamp on this blog post)

What can I say? I like having him here; he grounds me. We get by in his absence, but it's not the same without him. Himself and I typically manage to speak to one another several times throughout the day (our long distance phone plan rocks), and whenever something happens, he's usually the first person I want to tell.

Currently, we have just over 36 hours until Himself returns home. Thus far, the house still stands, the animals are still speaking to me, no one has missed an activity, and I have a cake to bake for the soon-to-be twelve year old's birthday party on Saturday ...

Film at 11.

Sleep is for wimps

Right?!

Happy, well-adjusted wimps, mind you ...

Himself is OOT (Out Of Town) at the moment. First time in a long time that he's been away, so I'm not complaining about that, but whenever he's gone, I have a hard time getting to sleep.

Like tonight, for example. Okay, technically, last night.

Yeah, haven't been to bed yet. Kind of got caught up in a little project called "Cleaning up the bedroom", which is also sometimes known as "Okay, so since he's not here to complain about it ..."

Didn't intend to stay up all night, just got to the point where it didn't make much sense to go to bed, since it would only mean losing most of the day whilst the little men ransacked the house.

Ah well. Managed to get rid of a lot of clutter (aka crap), at any rate.