Happy Feet, Sad Mom

With the husband/father person out of town, I decided we deserved a couple of hours off and we set off to the movie theater. Both the kids have been loving the previews for Happy Feet and it looked like something I could enjoy (with the bonus of the Harry Potter trailer in the previews).

It is a very cute movie. I honestly didn't even recognize Hugh Jackman's voice, he did such a good job at being the character "Memphis". Nicole Kidman was back in her Moulin Rouge glory and Robin Williams was...Robin Williams. I think he could have been better (see the Genie in Alladin) but he still added quite a few laughs to the movie. Catchy songs, cute penguins a great initial message: it's ok to be different.

Both kids (6yo and 2yo) were good through it. At one point, J. had happy feet of her own, tip-tapping while the music played. C. just had a happy bum...wiggling because, as he said, "This is loooooooooong."

There came a point where the message wasn't just the quest to find your heart song (whether vocalized or tap-danced) but also about people encroaching on animal habitats. It felt awful to see how we're making an impact, even in Antartica.

There was a point where I thought- how can this end happily? Not only are they teaching us it's ok to be different, but they're lecturing us about our impact on the planet. From that I can see why Steve Irwin was involved (he did the voice for an elephant seal). But it resulted in me leaving the theater filled with guilt. Maybe justified, but not what I expected to feel after a kids movie called Happy Feet.

What might have felt better was to have some solutions included at the end. I waited in vain through the majority of the credits for that- and some sort of dedication to Steve Irwin, but saw nothing. The kids could have distracted me during a crucial second, but overall nothing came of the heavy message.

saying goodbye

One more post for the day (on a roll, huh?)

Recently I left a group I have been in for years. I got to the point that seeing interactions/non-interactions was a negative experience to me. Let me emphasize: to me. It's all about my perception and what I could handle. Individually, they are fantastic women. Even as a group, just wonderful. But the particular dynamics weren't something I could handle in my life at this point.

I didn't want to leave in a huff of drama, like I have seen others leave email loops. The melodramatic good-bye posts are often really a ploy to get others to beg them to stay. So I just quietly left, figuring nobody would notice/comment for awhile.

What was there to say? No matter how I say it, it would seem like an accusation. Ya'll aren't meeting my needs at this point and I would like to move on instead of trying to live in the past and recapture the golden years. But that reads wrong, since (as the old break-up line says) its not you (all), it's me. It's my lack of the social ins and outs that other women seem to have. It's my fear of asking for help while intensily longing to have very close connections. I don't expect anybody else to meet my needs as I often don't even know what my needs are.

I just wanted to leave while leaving was a strength for me. While I was doing it for the right reasons, to decrease the negative feelings I have. The only problem, is because I have seperated myself so quietly, and I already have a habit of not reaching out, I fear that I have cut myself out of their lives completely rather than just this aspect of it. And par for the course, I don't know how to fix it.

woohoo

i fixed it- just switched to a new template. now what pearls of wisdom will I drop?I have so many things I think about then I forget in the day to day activities.

celebrity gossip:
did it strike anyone else as a coincidence (slightly ironic) that on Friends, Anniston's character had a vaginal birth w/ a breech baby. And IRL Jolie had a c-section w/ a footling breech (the tv baby was butt first IIRC).

mental status:
I'm almost scared at how hard things are to understand lately. It's like there's just no more room in my brain. I get so stressed out because I can't seem to grasp things like I used to. Like this whole comments thing. HTML- totally threw me. Yet, I have been known to HTML a webpage in the past.

guilt trips:
DH doesn't really want anything to do with his father. He says no regrets, he doesn't want the drama in his life. But he admits if it wasn't for the family, he might not take that step. I can't help but feel guilty because he might one day regret this. Oddly enough I did the same thing with my mom- too much drama, too little attachment. But that was happening before I even graduated high school.

kids:
man, it is hard to be a parent, but how could I love them more? I honestly think they are the best of who I am.

weight:
I beat myself up over it, yet keep on with the eating habits.