Interviewing myself

Me: Thanks for taking the time to talk with me this evening. I've read the other interviews you've done recently, and it seems as though there were some other questions that could have been asked.

Also Me: I'm happy to answer some different questions!

Me: I know that you have repeatedly said that you really aren't all that special or amazing. Would you care to share why that is? It seems to be a pretty common statement.

Also Me: Well, the obvious answer is that I'm not all that amazing. That never seems to stop people from singing that refrain though. Here's my issue with being told how amazing I am. It doesn't really allow for much failure or humanity. To be amazing is to be better. I'm not better. I make mistakes, I lose my temper, I get depressed, I get angry, I wonder why on earth we chose this path. Just like any other person. Also, if I am amazing because I love my children then it actually reflects very poorly on them. If it takes someone special to love them, then there must be something terribly wrong with them that a "normal" person couldn't do that. It's actually kind of icky because my children are very lovable. 

Me: It seemed from a lot of the interviews that your main role in life is to be a parent. Is this all you do?

Also Me: You're the first person to ask me that, so thank you. While being a parent to my children is an extremely important part of my life, it isn't the only thing I do. I run a business, I coach parents, I read, I pursue lots of interests. I have a lot going on that doesn't involve parenting. This has been true for my entire parenting career. 

Me: So you read a lot. Tell me what you're reading right now.

Also Me: Well, I tend to have several books going at once... several non-fiction books and usually just one fiction book. Having just finished State of Panic by Louise Penny and Hillary Rodham Clinton last night, I'm now beginning a book called Live from Cairo by Ian Bassingthwaighte. As for the non-fiction I'm working my way through The Lost Art of Finding our Way by John Edward Huth; Women's Work: the first 20,000 years by Elizabeth Wayland Barber; Affective Neuroscience: the foundations of human and animal emotions by Jaak Panksepp; and The Feeling of What Happens: body and emotion in the making of consciousness by Antonio Damasio. Some take me longer to finish than others because I get interested in something else and set one book aside for the book on that something else.

Me: That's a lot. Tell me, how do you find time to read? 

Also Me: Mostly at night, though sometimes I'll sneak in some afternoon reading if I am close to finishing a book and need to know how it ends. I'm helped by the fact that I'm a very fast reader and have developed the ability to tune out the noise around me. I actually read more when I was nursing because that was hours of day of prime reading time.

Me: You've recently moved from a place you lived in for thirty years. What has been good and what has been hard about the move?

Also Me: Well, horses and more land has been a great thing about the move. Being out from under grinding property taxes that we couldn't pay is also a pretty big bright spot. I miss the people. I miss my friends. I miss the diversity. I miss my grocery store. We still haven't quite found a groups of friends yet. You know, the type of friend who calls you to say they're having a bad day and need an adult to talk to or who comes over with a chocolate bar and shoulder to cry on because they know you're having a bad day. Those friends who you call up at the last moment, say "It's a nice day, let's go have a picnic at the park," and they're willing to drop everything and join you. Oh, I also miss my kitchen. A lot. The move hasn't been bad, but it's been hard in quite a few ways.

Me: Those horses. The move must have been a pretty good thing financially if you can afford to have horses. Aren't they expensive?

Also Me: Yes, they are expensive, but by teaching horse classes and riding lessons as well as growing my equine facilitated learning business, they are earning their keep. Those things pay for their hay and their vet bills. What was expensive was building the barn. I'm pretty sure we will be paying that loan off forever. Don't ask me about the 70K we were essentially cheated out of by the contractor who bought the Big Ugly House from us. It would have covered the barn. I try very hard not to think about it. We are comfortable and can pay for the necessities. I realize that that alone puts us in a place of privilege, but there is still very much a paycheck-to-paycheck aspect of our lives.

Me: But yet you were able to adopt five children internationally? That's also very expensive, isn't it? 

Also Me: Yes, it is, for a wide variety of reasons that we don't need to get into right now. If you think about what it costs to give birth in a hospital, it might change how you view it. The difference is there is no insurance to cover most of the adoption fees. And truthfully, I actually don't have any idea how it worked. We took each adoption one step at a time, and each time a bill was due, we managed to find the money. It was either through savings or an inheritance that we decided to spend or someone would send us a check out of the blue. It worked out, but other than it being a total God-thing each time, I'm not really sure how it did.

Me: What are some of your other interests right now?

Also Me: Currently I have a stack of about twenty library books all about weaving and dyeing using natural materials. I'm kind of a serial crafter, I guess. I have sewing, knitting, spinning, and that sort of thing figured out to a level of competency, so it must be time to move onto something else. I'm also working my way through an OpenSource MIT course on neurology which I'm finding fascinating. 

Me: What are you looking forward to in the future?

Also Me: I would love to grow my equine business, particularly the equine facilitated learning piece of it. Our culture is not kind to people and I think spending time with horses can be very therapeutic (though I'm not a therapist!). Self-awareness of our emotions and our bodily states can help be the beginning to bringing positive changes to someones life. If you'll allow me to dream outrageously big at the moment, I would love to expand so that we could have some more horses and some sheep. (That big stable next door to us is still for sale if anyone was wondering what I might want for Christmas). I would love to also find a way to be a place where different fiber arts could be learned. The retreat I held earlier in the fall was very successful and it would be great to venture out with that same theme in different areas. Come spend some time in nature, free up some brain space so you can breath, and learn to knit at the same time. That sort of thing. I'd also love to be able to write a novel someday, but in many ways that seems even more outlandish than the stable. My head is filled with ideas of things I want to do or try. 

Me: Thank you so much for talking with me today.

Also Me: My pleasure. It was nice to answer some question that I haven't been asked repeatedly.