Hearts, Sirens and Hugs

My week began in an ambulance with the siren blaring. Surreal. It still feels like it might have been a dream.

I woke up very early Monday morning feeling ill. I had a pain in my chest. I thought it might be heartburn and took something for it but I couldn't get comfortable. I changed positions many times. Sat up. Laid down. My heart was beating strangely and I could feel a sharp pain under my left shoulder blade. I felt dizzy. I knew that women's heart attack symptoms were different than men's. I hesitated but, in the end, I called 911.

First time ever in an ambulance. The last time I was admitted to a hospital was when Chloé was born over 13 years ago.

It is a scary story with a happy ending.  After several cardiograms, blood tests and a lung x-ray, I was told that my heart was fine as was everything else. All of the tests came back normal. What I had felt that morning was a cluster of symptoms that could be explained by other things (indigestion, palpitations probably due to coffee and hormones, muscular aches, topped off by more than a bit of anxiety).

I spent nine hours staring at a hospital ceiling on Monday. I traced the pattern of those drop ceiling tiles about a million times. No book. No music. Not even my shoes or a coat. What did I think about? My family, my friends, my painting, Meeko. About how caring everyone was with me that day: the ambulance paramedics, the doctor and nurses, my husband and my two girls. I thought about how my husband had left a meeting and rushed home as soon as he heard. I thought about how brave and grownup Emma and Chloé were that morning. I wanted to go home and hug all of them including Meeko. I wasn't worrying about returning emails, making Etsy treasuries or new blog posts, checking my Facebook and Twitter accounts, increasing sales or churning out more prints on my temperamental printer. I was just thinking about what was important.

Amaryllis - work in progress (a mere beginning)

Yesterday when I woke up I felt so different. Lighter. Calmer. More centered. I felt thankful. I felt lucky. I took Meeko for an extra happy walk. I tried to breathe more slowly and deeply as I moved. I appreciated the powdery snow that had fallen the previous day. I got in touch with my relatives. I started a new painting of my beautiful amaryllis. I drank herbal tea in the late afternoon. I bought a pot of fresh basil to make pasta with pesto, potatoes and green beans. I revelled in the basil's beautiful colour and pungent smell as I picked the sprigs and thought about how my garden will be waking up not that long from now.

Maybe we all need a scary story every now and then so that we can put everything else in perspective. Today, nothing is different and yet somehow everything is.

Pick One

Years ago, I visited a printer who had a sign in their front entrance 'Quality, Speed, Price:  Pick Two'.  It made me smile because I think it can be applied to other things. Honestly, there are some days when picking one seems enough.

Balance is a difficult thing. I think it's probably even trickier when you work at home (and I'm not in any way diminishing the burden carried by those who work outside of home).  I can try to ignore duties attached to the house when I am supposed to be here being creative, but the house surrounds me. If one of my girls has a dentist appointment,  I'm the one with the 'flexible' schedule so guess who drives her? If Meeko needs a haircut, I'm the one who takes him (he's looking cute, by the way). Throw in a medical appointment for me, a sick day for one of my girls, two walks a day for Meeko scheduled in between rain and wind storms, and a week can disappear.

One of my daughters came home from school this week saying that some of her friends thought that everyone had a cleaning woman. No, not everyone.  We don't have a gardener either.  Well actually we do, but she lives here and is feeling bad right now about how neglected the garden is.

My husband is away from the house about 13 hours on most days and often works weekends, not by choice. He has an impossible job.  He comes in the door at the end of the day like a hurricane and rushes around the house being 'mostly' helpful in a very condensed way. It makes for a family life that feels upside down sometimes.

Beyond the demands of day-to-day family life, it's hard to achieve balance online as well.  If I look after my blog, I'm not painting.  If I'm painting (and I did finish a painting this week), I'm not producing new prints for my Etsy shop (which still take me a lot of time to do).  If I spend time making treasuries for Etsy (which is really helping my shop get more views), I'm not visiting other people's blogs and encouraging them.  But if I spend time visiting blogs, I feel like I'm cheering on others and I'm neglecting myself.

You get my drift.  I'm sure you all live various versions of this. It's hard to achieve balance or even feel that you're getting close some days. I'm not complaining. I'm mulling. I'm sifting. I'm deciding for today which one to pick.