Drowning

When I was seven years old we vacationed on Lake Murray.  As of then it was the biggest lake I had ever seen.  I remember wondering if it was the ocean when I first stepped out of our camper and squinted my eyes at it in the hot July sun.  I had only seen the ocean one other time before that, and then only for a few minutes on the way home from our Easter trip to the Everglades.  The reason I thought it might be the ocean was because I couldn't see the other side from where I was standing.  My older sisters had always told me that the difference between the lake and the ocean was that at the ocean, you couldn't see the other side. It wasn't long though before my dad set me straight. He put me in the boat and took me to the other side of the lake, where we dropped our heavily-wormed hooks in the water and listened to the crickets and frogs compete for air time while we waited for the fish to bite.  The air was heavy with mosquitoes, the smell of "Off" and the sound of my daddy's laughter echoing off the shoreline, calling back to us with a deep sigh of relief to finally be away from real life.

We rode back to camp after dark, on top of water so smooth you could trace every ripple as the boat sliced through  wiggly elongated reflections from the far away shoreline, a never-ending pool veined with light that we followed right up to our camp-site.  I loved sitting in the front of the boat where the running light glowed a patriotic red and blue beside me, showing the other boaters where we were, but doing nothing to help us navigate.  No matter what lake we were on and no matter what time of day we were traveling on it, my dad seemed to always know the way back to where we began.  As a kid, it seemed to me that we could have taken any direction and ended up in the same place, but my dad knew better.  I never even worried about how we would get back to our temporary abode, I just sat back and enjoyed being a kid on the lake with my dad.

Our campsite always smelled of camping fuel and smoke, with a hint of fishy clothes wafting through now and then from my dad's fish-cleaning clothes that hung on a line between two trees.  No matter where we went on our camping ventures, our camp-sites always looked the same.  My mom always had her makeshift kitchen with a screen tent over a picnic table, we had our clothes line and special dishes, our tents, sleeping bags and pillows, even our stuffed animals and baby dolls.  It wasn't really that different from home, except that it was way better.

Swimming and fishing were our things. The kids pretty much lived in the water all day. My mother who had a life-long fear of water, would watch us from her lounge chair and holler at us every time she thought we went out too far from shore.   I remember having  very soggy wrinkly fingers and toes and sunburned shoulders that hurt at night when I tried to sleep.  My freckles would get darker from the sun and my hair would get streaks of strawberry blonde from being in the sun so much every day.

My dad the fisherman always got up in the wee hours of the morning to go fishing before the hot sun caught up with him.  Fishing was an escape for him.  I always imagined that he was sitting somewhere out on the quiet lake in the morning, trying to spot deer in the edge of the woods along the shore while his hook sat lazily on the bottom of the lake.  As peaceful as it was to him, it was also serious business.  It stirred up his competitiveness like nothing else and he became notorious among his peer-group for being a master of the art.   I think the biggest fish he ever caught  was a 21 pound rock-bass.  He caught it out of Lake Murray after sitting in the hot-midday sun for hours waiting for a bite.   It was the biggest fish I had ever seen.   It eventually hung over the bedroom door in our house for years and years.  My mom hid money in it's mouth, but she didn't know I knew that.

 One morning at Lake Murray when I was seven and my dad was out fishing, I wandered out to a floating dock with my fishing pole and a bucket of worms.  I didn't tell anyone where I was going.

I was wearing a pair of brown bell-bottomed pants with flowers on them--oddly enough, I'd probably still wear those pants if they fit.  I don't remember what else I had on but those pants were some of my favorites back then.  Someone had left a bar stool on the dock that I noticed but ignored at first.  I sat on the edge of the dock with my pant-legs rolled up and my toes in the water. I baited my hook and dropped it in.  Waited for a few seconds, and like a typical seven year-old decided to try a different spot.  I went to each corner of the small square dock, cast my line, waited about a minute and then went to the next corner.  I could see the smoke from the last night's campfire still smoldering from a distance.  I saw my oldest sister poking around in the screen tent, saw my nephew throwing rocks.  No one even knew I was up.

I wasn't a swimmer just yet.  I loved floating around in the lake with my orange life-jacket on and even diving in from the boat as long as I had a floating device, but I was still kind of scared of the way the water pushed against my chest when I got in without my orange cushion of safety clasped tightly around me, keeping me afloat. I had never swam a day in my life.

There I was, alone in the sun on a July morning impatiently waiting for the fish to bite and starting to feel a little bored.  I saw the bar stool again.  It was so tall I could barely get my behind up on it, but I eventually wiggled my way up where I sat, proud as a peacock that I was only seven and fishing all by myself.  I hoped my mom would see me there and be proud of the initiative I had taken.  Unfortunately, my place wasn't as secure as I thought it was.

A boat landing was nearby, and in hindsight probably a wake zone as well, but the boat that took off from the landing that morning wasn't paying any attention to wake zones or floating docks or seven-year old very proud little girls sitting atop bar stools with their fishing poles. The dock swayed from side to side and my perch swiftly became unsteady, tipping me over straight into the water. It was over my head.  All I can remember is the feeling of water swishing under my feet as I kicked around trying to find bottom but found nothing there to push against.  I flailed my arms and tried to scream "Help!" as I sank down and rose again just barely getting my nose above water.  I was engulfed by it, covering my face, clouding my vision with it's muddiness, choking out my cries, stinging my nose.  I kept fighting it though, kept trying to call  for help, and at one point, saw my oldest sister bent over,  pointing her finger in her son's face.  I think I could hear her high-pitched voice scolding him, but in retrospect I probably didn't.  My memory likely just adds that piece because I heard it so much when I was a kid.

Eventually she heard me calling out and jumped in, shoes and all, to save me.  She grabbed me up, set me ashore, then promptly turned her finger and sharp voice in my direction.  I was a little stunned as she took my hand and dragged me back to our campsite to our mother, who only kind of seemed concerned and told me that the top of my head wasn't even wet.  I remember thinking, "Yeah but that's not where I breathe from."

I spent the next hour or so in my dry red shorts and white tank top lying on my parents' bed inside the camper.  I stared out the screen door resentfully at the lake, as if it were the lake's fault I decided to sit on top of a bar stool that was on top of a floating dock.  I wondered why my mother wasn't more upset.  Why was she just leaving me alone to feel so afraid?  Didn't she care that I almost died?  I imagined the water laughing at me, threatening me.  I talked back to it.  I told it I would never go fishing again.  I would  never ride in the boat again and I would NEVER go swimming again even with my orange life-jacket on. I just knew the lake had it out for me and I wasn't going to fall for its dirty tricks.

When my dad came back from fishing I ran outside the camper to tell him I almost died.  My sister relayed the story to him in a fretful but heroic kind of way as my mother sat quietly, then said something about how I didn't have any business wandering off like that in the first place.  I kind of felt like I deserved to almost-drown because I did something I shouldn't have done.

After my dad had lunch and his usual afternoon nap in the shade, he put on his knee-length cut-off pants and waded out up to his neck in the water instead of zipping back across the lake in our blue boat to catch bass, like he usually did.  I stood on the shoreline without so much as a toe in the water and watched him tossing my sisters in the air.  I wanted to put my life-jacket on and swim to him so he could throw me across the lake and let me splash into the water, but I was too afraid.  He never pressured me even once.  Finally, I grew weary of watching the fun and decided to give the water another try.  I put on my orange life-jacket as tightly as I could and waded in.  I eventually made it out to where he was and after he tossed me a couple of times, he urged me to take off my squishy orange pillow of safety and swim to him.  So I tried.  I had to get used to the swish of water under my feet, instead of solid ground.  I had to remind myself to keep my chin up and  breathe with the water pressing against my body.  Most of all,  I had to keep my eyes on my dad.  It wasn't that I had no fear of the water anymore, it was just that I knew it was time to conquer this thing I loved yet feared so much.  I couldn't have put it into those words when I was seven, but there it is for me now.

And there he was.  My dad, standing up to his neck in murky lake water with his arms outstretched, waiting for me as I struggled and flailed my way to him through the waves, his steadfastness giving me assurance that even if I began to sink, everything would be okay because his eyes were on me too.

Words

In my world, words are powerful. Even as a child I remember hearing new words and trying to figure out their meanings.  When I learned the word "Enormous" my mom was very impressed. Her reaction to it only encouraged me to learn more big words to say.

On my first day of school I was introduced to a whole new use of words that I never experienced before.  When I got on the bus with my two sisters that morning I was so nervous.  My stomach ached and I held back a well of tears as kids on the bus started calling out to my sisters and me, "Here come the dawgs"  and   "They live in that dawg house!" and "Oh they brought a puppy with em today!"  Then the howling commenced and we were tortured with words all the way to school.

It was mainly because of the house we lived in.  My grandpa Curtis built it way before I was born. I never knew my Grandmother and Grandfather Curtis.  They both died within months of my birth. I always kind of felt like I knew them, though, because we lived in their house.  I played in the huge yard and worked with my dad in the gardens.  I plundered the old barn and found things that had belonged to my grandparents.  I got my first bee sting under the apple tree and my first kiss in the back yard.

They were right I suppose.  From the outside especially, our house wasn't much to look at.  It was crooked and the shingles and siding were falling off in places.  My dad's boat shed was attached to the front of the house in those days, which also made it rather unsightly since the roof of the shed was also crooked.

 But inside our house there were certainly no dogs.  We got labeled dogs because in the eyes of the kids who lived in the subdivision one street over compared our home to theirs and came to the conclusion that only dogs would live in a house like ours.  I heard this put-down all the way from that first day to graduation day. Sure, it changed a little over the years but the basic message was the same. I was considered less than human because my house wasn't as pretty as theirs.

Until that first day of school I had no idea what name calling was or that it could hurt so bad. That day it intensified my fear and for many days after that.  It seemed as though those kids hated us enough to try to hurt us.  I realize now that the main culprits were from a dysfunctional family full of alcoholics who probably felt pretty crummy about their own "home" life and lashed out at us so they'd feel better. My older sisters didn't call me names.  My parents didn't resort to name calling.  I honestly had no idea that this happened in the world.  As time went on, I got pretty accustomed to it.

Words trigger emotions in people like me.  I focus intently on what people are saying.  I remember their words and play them back to myself over and over again--especially when someone says something hurtful.  I don't know why I put myself through that agony but I know it's something I have to do.  I have to take time to process those hurtful things and try to make sense of them before I can lay them to rest in the junk heap of careless words that have been flung at me all my life.

A while back a friend teasingly called me a skank.  I didn't realize it then, but that word triggered something in me and I'm sure I probably over-reacted.  I was pissed.  I was so angry that the comment got stuck in my head (and worst of all my heart) all this time.  It just occurred to me today why.  See, when I was in 7th grade my sister got my yearbook and wrote a really mean note in it about how ugly I was and how I would never get married or have a boyfriend because no one would ever want someone ugly like me.  The next day at school some girls asked to look at my yearbook so I let them.  They found the note my sister wrote. "That's so mean!"  I heard one  of them say.  "I know." said someone else. "What is it?" asked another one.  Before long, they had all read it.  I was sitting there, red-faced, feeling ashamed of myself for even being born when one of them piped up.  "Well, it's true."  Then a gasp from a few other girls.  Then laughter.  They were talking about me as if I wasn't there.  One of them called me a Scag.  Which I think is probably the closest word to "skank" we had back then.

These were people who didn't even know me.  They knew what kind of house I lived in and that my parents couldn't afford pricey brand-name clothing or shoes.  I never owned a pair of CK jeans and was only lucky enough to have a pair of Nike's for one school-year.  These people were judging me based on circumstances that were out of my control.  I was a kid, I had what my parents could provide for me.  They were no better than me just because their parents brought home bigger paychecks.


I wonder how many times I might have looked at someone's outer shell and made a judgment about them before I even heard them speak. It is so unfair to do that to anyone before you hear their story or get to know them better.  Swift judgments and harsh words really do hurt people and it's a hurt that lingers, sometimes for many years.

When I was a kid, I needed to hear words like "Smart" "Funny" "Cute" "Energetic"....But instead I heard words like "Lazy"  "Stupid"  "Hyper"  "Spoiled".

I really want to work on my use of words.  Especially words that can come off in a negative way or feed into my son's negative views about himself. Yes, even at 7 words can do damage.  Especially at 7.  I want him to know that he is smart and courageous and funny and tough (he prefers tough over handsome or cute).  My girls were teased mercilessly in middle school.  There were so many days they came home in tears over words that were hurled at them like daggers all throughout the day.  They always knew though, that home was a safe place.  At home, no one calls you names.  At home you can speak up, you can act silly, you can get angry, you can be who you are and no one is going to punish you for it.  At home, mom is there to use all the opposite words from the words you heard all day and instead of feeling hated you can feel loved and completely accepted.

I know that words have impacted my life in many ways, both good and bad.  They have shaped the way I see myself in relation to the rest of the world.  I've never thought I was attractive, just average.  But hey, that's a step up from ugly scag.  Maybe I'm doing okay now because back then, home was my safe-haven. I only had to make sure I kept my yearbook away from my sister, and trust me, I always did after that.  Home was my place where I could wander off by myself, into the woods or to the loft of the barn and create another reality where I was normal and no one hated me.  Home gave me a chance to recharge every day and build up the strength to go back again the next.

Home made me think of words like warm, peaceful, protected, content.
It is true: Our house wasn't much to look at. But it was the best place in the world to be.

What I learned at an Independent Fundamental Baptist Church, It had nothing to do with "God Is Love"

I don't like discussing religion.  It inflames people.  It makes people uncomfortable when they hear beliefs that differ from their own, even when those beliefs may involve some pretty small and insignificant details.  What is significant is highly subjective.  No one is going to budge an inch on what they believe from engaging in an argument about religion or faith, if you'd rather call it that.  I don't like talking about religious matters, but something has been nagging at me for a few days now, after I read a blog post from an Independent Baptist preacher about how the Independent Baptist Movement has gone astray.

It is a good piece that lists some of the areas (from an IFB preacher's point of view) where IFB churches need to get back on track.  (You can check out his blog post by clicking here ).  I agree with most of what this preacher has to say; however, there are several very important issues he didn't touch at all.  So, I guess I'm going to have a go at it.

I grew up in an Independent Baptist church.  When I was a little girl we had a pastor who was red-faced and happy.  He didn't holler at us from the pulpit, and he was super sweet to all the kids.  He had a big family himself that was a close-knit bunch.  I loved him.  I loved my Sunday School teacher too.  She was the most awesome person in the world, so far as I knew.  She made Bible stories come alive, she smiled all the time and she encouraged us to sing loud.  My best friend was in my class.  After Sunday School was over we would march out together holding hands and beg our parents to let us sit together for the worship service, referred to by most, as Preaching.

When that pastor left and another one came, things changed very little.  The youth group still went to the skating rink once a month.  The girls wore jeans and the rink was allowed to play rock music while we skated.  In fact, it wasn't even a big deal if women wore pants.  It didn't matter if we went to the movies and no one fussed at us about the music we listened to.

These two pastors, who were aged and wise, never spoke in a demeaning way about women, and if a woman spoke up about something, they listened.  In fact, if my Sunday School teacher hadn't spoken up once, I would probably not be intelligent enough to stumble through this blog post.  We had been using crayons with lead in them.  As soon as she found out, she went straight to the pastor.  He not only told the congregation about the crayons we had been using at church, but also urged our parents to throw out our old crayons and get new ones.  Then, he thanked Miss Sarah for letting us all know.

Back in those days, the attendance averaged about 200 every week for worship.  I wish I could say the church is still going strong, but from what I've heard, it isn't.

When I was 12 we got another new pastor.  His ideas about Christianity were kind of different from what we were used to.  The first thing established was that the women of the church were not to wear pants, tight clothes, low cut blouses, skirts with splits above the knee or sleeveless dresses.  Oh, you could wear those things, but you couldn't sing in the choir or teach Sunday School or have any other office in the church if you did.  If you were a man, you had to have the "Whitewall" haircut.  That was it.  The only rule for men was that they couldn't have long hair.

But the list of restrictions went on:  No going to the movies, no drinking alcohol, no dancing, no listening to secular music, no swimming with people of the opposite sex (even in a public place like the beach) if you did so, you were "mixed bathing" which was very, very evil...in other words, no having fun, unless you consider playing Bible Trivial Pursuit for 2 hours a day "fun".

As the years have gone on, things have only gotten more strict.  I remember when they banned Contemporary Christian Music.  They added a rule about bra straps showing or something like that, and one about tithing.  Over time, the older members started to die off, and younger members just weren't showing up anymore.  If they did, they didn't stay long and the church wasn't doing anything to help their situation.  They embarrassed one lady and her family into never coming back by chastising her for wearing a skirt with a slit that came above the knee.  Another family over the fact that their teenage daughter wore jeans and listened to country music.  The list goes on an on, but that's not what I'm here to talk about.

My point is, I spent my formative years of learning about Jesus hearing nothing about what I should do.  I was basically taught that if I wanted to be a good Christian, if I wanted God to use my life for a purpose, I had to abstain from everything "normal".  I actually came to believe that I was worthless unless I abstained from the laundry list of "sins" my church gave me.  Never once did I sit through a sermon on what I should DO for Jesus, other than browbeat others who were not of my denomination or who weren't believers at all.

I was taught: "Know what you believe so when your beliefs are challenged you can prove you are right and they are wrong."  According to my church, my denomination, we were the ONLY ones who had it right.  We knew that being a Christian was all about not doing anything on that list.

But here's the kicker:  There were several sexual predators who sat in our congregation and held offices in our church.  Some of them are still there, on the pew every Sunday, depositing offerings in the bank on Monday.  The pastor knows these men are sexual offenders.  In one case, he couldn't find anyone else to replace the accused man, so he let him continue his office.  In another case, well, several cases, he turned a blind eye and just let those men slide right back into their pews, their licenses to preach, their positions with youth.

I know this is all true, because I was almost a victim of one of these men.  Maybe I even was a victim, since he did manage to fondle my breasts when I was 12 and since another one violated my ex-husbands little sister.  One man in the congregation actually made comments to my ex-husband and father of our two daughters about how his step-daughter (who was also his niece) was really "developing".  My youth minister made comments like that to me when I was going through puberty.  It was highly inappropriate, but I all I knew back then was that it made me uncomfortable and embarrassed.  A few years later, he was accused of sexually assaulting a member of the youth group and he left the church.  He went to another church where he probably still has access to young girls.  There were men who sang in front of the congregation who had molested children and sexually harassed women who weren't their wives.  They had to have all known that the consequences wouldn't be that bad even if anyone found out.  No one ever made a police report.  The pastor never reported these crimes.  The families weren't going to report them without the pastor's approval.  In essence, the church was a sort of playground for predators by the time I was an adult.

Put yourself in my shoes then, as a twenty-something wife and mother, youth group leader, assistant pianist at church who read her Bible and prayed daily, but still felt so spiritually unfulfilled because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't obtain perfection.  I heard the same sermons over and over again about how God hates queers and I'm not in "God's will" if I'm not reading my Bible every single day.  I went to church three times a week to be told what a worthless  pile of crap I was.  Very rarely did we hear about the love of God, or the acceptance He offers us.  All I knew was, I would never be good enough for God...according to my pastor.  Meanwhile, he and my former pastor had people sitting in their congregations who were only there to prey on others and the pastors said nothing against them.  The message I was getting was only men could be good enough for God, because even though they committed horrible sins, they were forgiven, and their sins forgotten by the church.  These weren't sins like telling a lie or stealing a pen.  These were sins that actually harmed other people, warped the minds and killed the spirits of small children.  Sins, crimes these men would go on to repeat over and over again with an endless bounty of acceptance and forgiveness from the IFB church.

Once I left the "bubble" that Independent Baptists tend to live in, where the pastor's word is as good as God's, I began to view the world and my relationship with God in a much healthier way.  I slowly started to recognize my worth, I started to realize that being close to God is about the things we DO in life, not the things we abstain from doing.  I don't look down on people who are different from me.  I don't think God hates gay people, and I don't hate myself for not being perfect enough. I go to the movies, I swim at the beach, I listen to whatever music I'm in the mood for.  I drink once in a while, and I wear jeans.  I also wear dresses with spaghetti straps.  They don't seem to make skirts with splits in them anymore, but if they did, I'd wear one.  And you know what?  God wouldn't love me any less for it.

In my life I have learned that the joy of being a believer comes from giving to and being present for others.  You can't really be present if you live in a bubble that consists only of other people, who like you, look to a man to tell you the rules to follow.  Jesus gave two commandments in the new testament:

Matthew 22:35-40

"...Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

And those are the two commandments I try to follow as best I can.  I don't always love God as I should.  I don't always love others enough.  I often love myself too much.  I know what I believe though, and I choose to believe the words of Christ over the words of some venom spewing pastor who gets his kicks out of pointing fingers at everyone else's imperfections in order to make himself feel more holy.  One thing that I have learned that maybe they haven't, is that my worthiness of Gods blessings isn't based on what anyone else thinks of me.  He is the only judge, and only to Him will I answer.

Now, I think I'm going to go put my favorite jeans on and go to a movie.   Because of my Sunday School teacher, I know that Jesus loves me, and my jeans or entertainment choices will never change that.





If you are or know someone who is a victim of a sexual predator in your church, please report the crime to the authorities!  People who face no consequences for their behavior are GOING to repeat that behavior over and over again until someone stops the cycle.

Here is a website where you can get more information about sexual abuse in the church:

Stop Baptist Predators.org

Annoying Agnes: The Story of One Old Lady

Not Agnes, but the expression is relevant

When she was a little girl, her older brothers teasingly called her "Agga Bag-a Turnip Seed”. She didn't like it one bit. She knew they loved her, but she was the only girl and the youngest child in her family which meant they could pretty much call her whatever they wanted.


Hers was a family that worked. In the huge cotton fields of South Carolina, even as a child, she ended up spending many of her days in the sun working (mostly playing) along-side her brothers. She was a cheerful little girl who dreamed of becoming a mother as she played with her dolls and pretended to keep house.


 When her own mother passed away, Agnes, who was only 9 or 10 as she recounted the story to me, was lost. Her father had no idea how to raise a girl and soon remarried. I'm not sure Agnes ever realized that, most likely, her father remarried just to have a woman around to raise her. Agnes and her new mother got along very well. Back in "her day", people didn't believe in taking time to grieve. There was too much work to be done and too much life to be lived.


By the time my path crossed hers, Agnes was 80 years old. She had always been an independent kind of woman. She raised her daughters single-handedly after her husband passed away. She lived alone in her own house, still drove her car, got her nails done every other week and did her own grocery shopping. The problem was, one day she suddenly got the news from her knees, that they were tired of holding her up. She had a series of tumbles and the last one left her with a broken hip. That's why she and I met.


 I think it was a spring day when I went bouncing into the rec room at the nursing home where I worked and found a very unpleasant lady in a geriatric recliner trying with all her might to get up. I had no idea who she was but I knew right away that she was angry. "Git me outta this thang!" She hollered. "I wanna go home! They beatin' me up in this place!"

I was still quite green when it came to handling situations like this with the elderly. I knew the nurses had strategically placed her in that room so I could keep her distracted from her anxiety about being away from home and not being able to get out of that chair. Up until that point, the most difficult elder I had ever worked with was a lady at another nursing home who used to yell obscenities at passers-by. It was easy to distract that lady, but this one I knew was going to be a challenge. I had been in the room 5 minutes and already I was feeling annoyed by this woman. I stood for a moment just observing her, listening to her wild ranting, venomous anger and absurd accusations. The accusations were, for the most part, directed at a Certified Nursing Assistant named David. David was a tall, big guy with a heart of gold. All the other residents on that floor absolutely thought of him as one of their best friends. Some of the ladies admitted that, at first, it was awkward having a man help them with their personal hygiene, especially a black man. But in the end, the finally learned something they hadn't known their entire lives: Black people are just as human, and just as "normal" as anyone else.


 People born in 1912, like Agnes, were raised by parents who still harbored fear and  even hatred for African Americans. Human-kind has always feared what isn't familiar to it. Many of our elderly folks today were raised by parents who taught them that black people were dirty, prone to raping white women and likely to steal. So with that belief system still in place, although perhaps not as strongly as it had once been in her mind, Agnes was completely terrified when David came to her room to help her to the restroom in the middle of the night.


 The nurse filled me in on the details about Agnes' run-in with David, and I went and pulled up a chair beside Agnes. I touched her hand. "Don't touch me girl!" she spat at me.

 "Okay," I said. "I won’t touch you. I was wondering if you and I could talk."

 "What would I have to talk to you about? Unless, you can take me home I ain't talking to you or nobody else!"

 "Wow, I'm sorry to hear that," I responded. "I was really hoping you could tell me what you are so upset about and see if maybe I could do something to make you feel better."

 "Well ain't you sweet," she came back at me, with the most charming southern sing-songy sarcasm I'd ever heard.

 "I try to be sweet, but sometimes I'm mean."

 "Y’all are all mean in this place. I got raped by a black man last night and nobody in this place even cares!' At that point I started to feel panic setting in to my own bones. I knew she was afraid of David, but rape?

 "Oh, my goodness! Are you going to be okay? Who raped you?"

 "That black man, I told you! There he goes right now! Don’t let him near me!" She pointed at David as he, embarrassed, shot by the door as quickly as he could.

 "Why do you think you were raped, Agnes?" "Look at all these bruises on me! Why else would I be so bruised up? I'm an old lady, who would want to have sex with me? He's just nasty!"

 Of course, her bruises were from the fall she took, wherein she broke her hip and ended up at the nursing home in a geriatric recliner. Turns out, the pain medication Agnes was taking was making her kind of delusional. She thought she could get up and walk around with a broken hip, and she was convinced that David had raped her and left her covered in bruises. Every day, day after day, I walked into my work-space and found Agnes sitting there looking angry and vengeful. She eventually came to love David, but she wouldn't admit it. She always griped to me about wanting to go home to her "perfectly good house." She wouldn't listen when I tried to kindly reason with her. In my foolishness, I tried lying to her by telling her that she'd get better and go home soon. I knew, though, that she was never going back home. She knew it too. She might have been old and confused at times, but there was no pulling the wool over her eyes. She was angry at us at first, and then her anger turned towards her children. One morning, as I was listening to the thousandth speech about why her children were evil for taking her away from home, I dropped my pencil and looked Agnes straight in the eye. "I'm tired of your complaining." I said.

 Without missing a beat she said, "Well I'm tired-a you wearing them stupid lookin' boots all the time."

 "I'm tired of you acting like I broke your hip" I said back.

 "Well that's just bullshit" She answered. "I broke my own hip doin' something I shouldn'ta been doin' in the first place."

 "Tell me about that," I said. She sat there with me and told me the whole story about the morning she fell in the kitchen and broke her hip. About the EMS people coming and about her daughter taking care of her at the hospital, and about thinking she was going home when they brought her straight from the hospital to the nursing home.

 "Wow! I can see why you are so angry." I said when she finished. "I think I'd be angry too." 


"Angry? I ain't angry" she said without making eye contact. Her normal harsh tone had disappeared as she finally sat in silence, looking out the window and picking at her fingernails. I left her with her thoughts for a while as I worked. Eventually she dozed off there beside me. On some kind of level, Agnes and I had bonded. For whatever reason, she was starting to feel safe with me and that made me feel amazingly good. I realized that day, that Agnes was a tough, independent spirited person. She didn't want to be placated or patronized, and that was what everyone around her, including me, was doing. She was an annoying old lady that everyone wanted to dismiss. Everyone who came into contact with her immediately started looking for an escape. They didn't want her to know how much they disliked her for her meanness, so they tried to say to her what they thought she wanted to hear, when all along she just wanted some honesty.


 For weeks after that, Agnes would come sit with me and we would talk about her house, her late husband, her children, and the garden she used to have at home. We even talked about her sadness about never being able to go back there. She was softening, and we were becoming friends. After a while, her true colors started to shine as she would make jokes (sometimes off-colored ones) and get into silly rants about the decor of the building or the behavior of another resident. Annoying ol' Agnes became one of our most beloved residents. She and the nurse bonded well with a relationship based on honesty and an absence of pretense. If you heard Agnes and me having a conversation, you might have thought we were arguing or angry at one another but we weren't. We were always honest with one another, and sometimes we didn't agree. For instance, I thought my boots were great.


Eventually I called her Agga Bagga, and she called me Rebecker. She came looking for me every morning and hung out with her nurse at the nurses' station every afternoon--cracking jokes about people walking by and telling Donna how to be a better nurse. Agnes always had handy advice to give out whether we wanted it or not. I recall one day when a CNA was talking about her boyfriend not proposing. Agnes very matter-of-factly told her, "Git yerself pregnant, then he'll marry you." One day she was looking through catalogues with me and we ran across a page of women's lingerie. "Oh you need to git some of this stuff, Rebecker. I bet your feller wouldn't know what to do if he saw you in that!"

 "Yes he would." I answered. And Agnes proceeded to giggle like a school girl.


Today when I was looking at my blog stats, something stood out to me. Since the tongue in cheek post I wrote titled, "The 10 Most Annoying Things About the Elderly" It has gotten more page views than any other post. So I did some digging, and found out the three search terms that bring up that post. And they are: "Why are old people so annoying?" "Annoying old people" and "Are old people annoying?" Turns out, on Yahoo answers, there are several "annoying old people" questions and rants from the youngsters about how old people are unnecessary, annoying and smelly. There are lots of comments about weak old men and slow old ladies and how irritating they are to be around because they're always telling stories about the war, etc. It made me kind of sad seeing that there are so many people out there who completely deny the elderly the human dignity and respect they deserve. They've done more living and more sacrificing than any of us have done. Whatever we are going through now, they've already been through it, often without the resources we have today. Yet they are still fascinated with what's new in the world. They want to know more, and they want to be validated as human beings who did the hard work it takes to even get old.


 After I left the nursing home and went to work for hospice, Agnes would call me up every afternoon from the nurses' desk to see how I was doing and tell me she missed me. I looked forward to hearing her voice every day. However, as her health declined, the calls were fewer and further between until she finally stopped calling. Her nurse kept me up to date on her condition and I went by to see her whenever I could. The last time I saw her, Agga Bagga was lying in bed. She was polite and very happy to have a visitor, but she didn't recognize me anymore. I was saddened by the loss of our camaraderie, but happy to see her anyway.


 A couple of nights later, I had a dream about Agnes. She was lying on the floor of a dark room and I was sitting beside her. I asked her if she was afraid and she said no. She told me she was ready to go see James. James was her late husband. I sat and held her hand in the dream and she told me she just wanted to say goodbye to me before she left. She told me she was ready over and over again and told me it wouldn't be long and not to worry about her. I shook my head and kind of laughed it off the next morning. I figured my recent visit and Agnes' memory loss had induced the dream. That could have been it, but I'll never quite be sure.


 Later that day at work, I got a phone call from the nursing home. It was Donna, Agnes' nurse. She told me that Agnes had just passed away a few minutes before she called. I told her about my dream and she insisted that I come by the nursing home. I left work and went over. Donna met me in the hallway outside Agnes' room and told me that just before she died, Agnes looked at her and said, "I'm ready. I'm ready to go see James. Don't worry about me, I'm ready." Donna and I both had goose bumps.


 This lady, this mean, annoying old lady that made my days so difficult for weeks and weeks, turned out to be one of the most influential people in my life. We forged a deep connection just by being honest with one another. Sure, sometimes we disagreed about things and sometimes we had to tell each other painful truths but beyond all that, we learned to love and appreciate one another just as we were. That angry, bruised up old lady with a broken hip--yeah, she was annoying. But she was also hurting and in need of someone to meet her where she was. When I was able to finally do that, her load became lighter and her last year became brighter and happier. She died in a place where she was so loved and she has been missed ever since she left us. I'm not claiming any kind of special powers with the elderly. I didn't know what I was doing with Agnes, I just kept trying until something worked and she taught me that starting with honesty and sincerity is the best way to reach someone's heart. I'm so blessed to have had her in my life for a little while.


The next time you meet an elder who is annoying or mean or whatever, stop yourself from rolling your eyes and giving that exasperated sigh. Think for a second about your own troubles and remind yourself that the elder you see has probably been where you are and made it out. That elder that you're so quick to judge as worthless and irritating is still battling problems and worries and he or she has never given up on the fight. Be proud of them, be honest with them, respect them and try not to patronize them. The world wouldn't exist as it does if they hadn't been here to shape it for you. Stop before you judge and hold your tongue. Trust me; elders get sick of annoying young people too.

I Don't Like Sweet Tea

Yesterday morning someone posted some maps on Facebook that showed how awful it is to live in the South.  The caption said I should be outraged by what I saw, but I wasn't.  It did make me think about moving to the Midwest though, because it seems like (based solely on these maps) that's the best place to live in the United States.

Here's a link to those maps, by the way :
Maps That Show How Awful The South Is.

Now, I could go into how depressing some of this information really is, especially economically, but we who live here already know how dismal our economy is.  When I made a comment on the maps yesterday a friend of mine made a comment back about Southern stereotypes.  That got me thinking about all the things I've had Northerners try to educate me on about the South over the years.

Speaking of maps...This one demonstrates not only variations of the Southern accent, but different accents across the country.  Too bad even they got the South wrong....We don't speak Coastal Southern in the whole state of SC.
  Go Here to read more about this study.

In sixth grade my best friend was Judy.  Judy was from Florida, technically the South, although you don't find many people there who would classify as Southern.  In fact when Judy and her family moved to SC, they were a little worried that they wouldn't be able to understand "the language".  Seriously, Judy thought that we spoke a whole different language here.  While our Southern dialect is different from what you'd here in other parts of the country, it is still English.  We don't all use bad grammar when we speak and we don't all have the same Southern sound.  A lot of people don't realize that people in the South Carolina Low  Country speak with a different kind of Southern accent than those of us who live in the mountains or piedmont.  People in Louisiana have a different accent than people in Georgia and  in the accents of West Virginians sound like an exaggerated form of the Tennessee mountain accent.

I had someone tell me once, "Southern people talk slow."  I never really thought about us being slow before then but after that, I started paying attention.  We don't talk any slower than anyone else.  We even sometimes shorten words to the point that they might not sound like English to the untrained ear.  One such word that comes to mind is the word "ruined."  I remember the first time I heard that word pronounced correctly.  I thought it sounded ridiculous.  Here in the South, a lot of us say "rurnt."  See, much quicker to say.  It's not at all that we talk a lot slower than other people, it's just that some of us put extra syllables in some words.  Like someone named "Joy" might get called "Joey" and words like "Catholicism" might be pronounced "CATH-olicism."  Incidentally, saying anything Catholic-related might also make you go to Hell--if you're a Southerner.

Here's one that's true.  We are a religiously protestant and  opinionated bunch of states.  I don't know who came up with The Bible Belt description of our fair lands but I don't like it.  It makes one conjure up an image of fat Southern Baptist preachers walking around red-faced, hollering at

"We can't wait to slap y'all upside the head with this Bible!"

everyone and whacking them upside the head with a king sized King James Bible.  Anyone who knows a few Southerners knows that for the most part, we are a passive-aggressive bunch who would rather silently judge you for your sins and discuss your iniquities with our "fellow believers" than call you out on them.  Yep, most Southerners are Republican and conservative, but certainly not all of us.  Likewise, we aren't all Bible thumpers, running around street-preaching and trying to cast people into Hell with our bare hands. Our beliefs are important to us and we tend to cling to what we believe worked for our families in the past.  It just so happens that many of us think that if it works for us it should work for you too.  It's not out of hate that Southerners want to change your opinion of all things God.  Most of the time it's out of a genuine concern for your immortal soul.  Think about it, if you believed sincerely that anyone who did not believe in Jesus was going to be cast into a lake of eternal fire and it was YOUR responsibility to try to convince them to believe so they wouldn't be tortured for eternity, wouldn't you be pretty emphatic?

Not your average Southerner

Once I dated a guy from Michigan.  His family moved to Georgia when he was a freshman in college.  He was devastated by the move and really worried about driving in Georgia where there were no paved roads and the bridges were always out.  He obviously had never taken a ride down I-85 through Atlanta.  His whole perception of the South came from The Dukes of Hazzard, which by the time he was a freshman in college was already a show from the past that none of us could believe we watched in the first place.  That's one problem we have down here:  Everyone gets their ideas about who we are from TV that is made by directors, producers and actors that have never stepped foot in the home of a Southerner.  Don't get me wrong, I love watching My Name Is Earl.  It's hilarious, but really aren't there people all over our country who live like Earl and Randy?  The difference is their accents, people who live in trailer parks in Ohio sound more nasally than people who live in trailer parks in Alabama.  They're poor, some of them practice very poor judgment, some are criminals, and some are just regular folk doing the best they can to get by.




Waterbeds?  I don't know where this one comes from, unless it is from My Name is Earl, but I don't know any Southerner that owns a waterbed.  At least not anymore.  I admit though, that at one time in my life I lived in a trailer and slept on a waterbed.  So sue me.

If I had a nickel for every time some Northerner raised her eyebrows at me when I order UNSWEET tea for lunch, I'd be rich enough to buy my own F150 complete with towing package and a bass boat.  "Unsweet tea?" They exclaim. "You're a Southerner, you're supposed to drink sweet tea!"  Thanks for the tip on how to be "Southern" but there aren't really strict rules we have to follow.  We live in the South together, but we are still individuals--just like you Yanks.  According to some, I am supposed to be dumb, drive a truck, eat turnip greens, cornbread and fried chicken or bacon and grits at least once a day. I'm supposed to live in a trailer, be fat, date my cousin, have 6 kids with at least 5 different dads, go to church 4 times a week, whack people on the head with my Bible, hide moonshine under the floorboards and bury my money in the back yard in a mason jar because "Southerners don't trust banks."  Also, I am supposed to get my water from a well, walk around barefoot all the time and I really shouldn't have indoor plumbing.  Most of all, and I can't stress this enough, I am supposed to be dumb.  Stupid.  Ignorant.  Idiotic. Uneducated.  Foolish.  An imbecile with big hair and blue eye shadow who smokes and drinks beer for breakfast.

Don't let me forget that I am also supposed to be a racist, gun-totin' homophobe.  I really need to work harder on those things if I want to keep being card-carrying Southerner.  I really like people.  Any kind of people.  It doesn't matter one bit to me if you're black, white, purple or green.  Just so long as you're not a Clemson fan.  I have never owned or shot a gun and I'm most definitely NOT afraid of gay people.

On the other hand, this guy scares me.

 I hate to shatter your preconceived ideas about Southerners, but here's the cold hard truth:  We don't all do what you think we are supposed to do in order to qualify as a true Southerner.  Maybe I am supposed to drink sweet tea, but I don't like it. Perhaps the gene of a Yankee somehow made it into my family's bloodline and I got stuck with the non-sweet tea-liking taste buds.  Who knows?  We really don't need to have such a hard line drawn between North and South anymore, do we?  I mean, don't we all have a lot in common despite where our homes fall on the map?

I think we do, and I think Southerners are great people.  They are strong, determined, faithful, intelligent and witty folks.  Southerners don't tolerate foolishness very well, we don't drive as fast as they do up North, and we are totally thrilled when it snows.  We know how to cook, and we know how to eat some good freaking food.  Some of us like fat-back in our green beans or collard greens, and some of us don't like green beans or collards at all.  We are just people like everyone else.  We love our country and we love where we live for many reasons that you can only understand if you come live here with us for a while.

But when you do come on down for a spell, try not to advise us on how to be Southerners.  Let me enjoy my unsweet tea in peace.  Otherwise, the other part of my Southernness might pop up, and although you may not understand what I'm saying to you, you'll get the message. I am a Southerner  AND I do not like sweet tea.

No Sugar, Please

Saving Time

Having a serious disease really changes a person's perspective.  Especially when it comes to time.

A lot of people are thinking about time today, the first day of daylight savings time for 2014.  In fact,  I have heard so many complaints about that lost hour that I finally stopped engaging people with, "I know, it really sucks." And just smiled and nodded instead.

It is one hour.  An hour of sleep no less.  It isn't as if you're missing out on an hour at your kids birthday party, or your wedding got cut short by an hour.  It's not like something has really been taken away from you at all.  It's an hour that will still come and go as usual, but with a different number to symbolize it.  12:00 pm, 1:00 pm, what's the big deal?

I understand the importance of sleep.  I really do, because if I don't sleep, I'm not myself.  I make silly mistakes and I don't comprehend much of what is going on around me.  Because of my disease, I have spent countless nights without sleep--much more than just an hour.  So pardon me if hearing you whine about losing ONE HOUR of sleep kind of irks me a little.

Time is something you really can't save.  You can't hoard it away and keep it handy to spend however you deem fit when the day comes that life makes no demands of you.  You can do things you do like to do a little quicker, but no matter what, time is ticking away and there's nothing you can do to stockpile it for later use.  You know the old cliche, "There's no time like the present?"  Well, it's a cliche because it's true.  The present is really all there is.

I'm not saying we shouldn't have goals and dreams.  It is only human and quite natural, by our design to look to our future and think about what we want to accomplish.  But if that's all we ever think about, we are wasting now.

Time can't be saved, but it can be wasted.  This is the bare bones of what having a life-threatening disease has taught me.  It's both a good and a bad thing.  It's good because it drives me to try to make my days count, even if in thee tiniest of ways.  It's bad because I, too often, beat myself up for not making my days count enough. I give myself grief over wasting time in the past, on people who didn't want or deserve my time anyway, and on pursuits that, from the beginning were wrong for me.  Then I start telling myself that I am not good at budgeting my time, that I don't value myself enough to make wise choices about whom and what I give my time to.  I start to think I can't trust myself to make good decisions and then I get paralyzed by the fear of making another mistake--wasting more of my time--squandering a resource I can never replace.

I spend a ton of time lately, just staying alive.  This dialysis at home stuff is no joke.  People see me out and about and they'd never guess there's a tube in my belly, or that I sleep hooked up to a machine every night.  They don't know how long it takes me to get ready for bed because of that machine, or how long it takes every morning to disconnect from it, throw out all the garbage it produces and then go about my day.  I lose more than an hour a day, just staying alive.  I don't consider it time wasted, but it would definitely be much more fun if I could spend it another way.

That brings me to another thing I've learned from having a serious illness.  People complain about the silliest things.  I hear them moan and groan about so many things they can't change, instead of accepting what can't be changed and concentrating on what they can actually control.  I hear them whine about "problems" that aren't really problems at all.  I realize we all have daily irritations that get in the way of our sunny outlook on life, but really, before you complain to some single mom who is getting by on the tightest budget imaginable about not having enough time or money to get your nails done this week, think about it.  And then keep your mouth shut.

If you have love to come home to every day, pleasant people to interact with in your life, children, extended family, or even just a few great friends, you have plenty of time-worthy endeavors to explore in your life.  Instead of lamenting a lost hour of sleep, you could choose to be thankful for the time you have to give of yourself to those you love.

Those of us with serious illnesses are reminded all too often that life is short.  Time eventually runs out, and it can't be recovered.  But really, everyone should think as much about mortality as we do.  None of us are promised tomorrow, and today could be the last day we get time to let our loved-ones know for sure that they are loved by us.

As afraid as I am of my own decision-making abilities, I have been trying harder lately to learn to trust myself.  If something or someone seems to  be leeching away my time without any regard for my life and the way it is spent, I have to let go of that person or that thing.  It isn't easy.  Especially when you have to let go of someone you love or a comfortable situation.  But if the decisions go unmade, my life passes me by without meaning or purpose.  Sure, others may benefit from my presence, but if their hearts and minds are closed to who I am and what I can offer through the gift of my time,  I should find a better place to spend it...a more appreciative and caring person to spend it with.

I still want to make a difference in the lives of others.  I still have love and care to give.  Those are things I can save up, for the time when the right person and the right situations come along.  But in the meantime, I have to keep busy working on myself.  Even though I'll return to dust sooner than any of us may think, the only way I can affect the world around me, is by constantly working to better myself, spending my time learning to be a better person.

And that means trying my best to not complain about losing an hour of sleep for daylight "savings" time.

Super Hero

"Mom, if I forget to be Batman when I grow up, will you remind me?"

My son asked me this one day as we were going about our usual routine.  "Of course I will!" I said.

Truth is, I will always try my best to remind him of his Hero status.  He's too young to know it yet, but he has saved me more times than I can recount.

When my girls were small I would sometimes try to imagine myself at the age I am now, with no little kids around and all I could feel was a kind of grief.  It's true, that from the moment they are born, we have to slowly start letting our children go although when we're going through the day-to-day motions of raising them, we sometimes feel the task is never-ending.  I remember going through the steps with my daughters, talking, walking, potty training, kindergarten--with each milestone I had to loosen my grip a tiny bit more, until finally one day my oldest announced she was getting her own apartment.  How did it all happen so fast? I wondered.  Wasn't it just a few months ago that she was 10?

Hannah and Sylia in matching dresses, 1996

Oddly enough, even though my daughters are 19 and 24, I still think of them as 6 and 10.  It was strange, when my youngest daughter suddenly shot up so tall that I would mistake her for her older sister whenever she entered a room and I wasn't looking directly at her.  Now they are both taller than me, smarter than me, and more beautiful than I could have ever hoped to be.  They are kind-hearted, goofy, artistic big dreamers, and for so many years, were my only reason for getting out of bed in the mornings, especially after the divorce.

I know that life as an adult is supposed to be multi-faceted, and mine has been.  Maybe I've even had too many irons in the fire at times as I was raising my girls.  I know I haven't been a perfect parent, but the one constant I have had in my ever-changing life has been the presence and love of and for my children.

That concept of constancy applies even more to my little boy.   My future Batman.  Since he was born my life has taken more twists and turns than I can even keep up with in my mind.  I could list the crazy things that have happened, the poor decisions I've made, the dips and dives my roller coaster has taken that were unexpected and out of my control, but I'd rather focus on the one little thing that has stayed the same:  The comfort of knowing I still have my boy depending on me.

My girls are learning more and more independence.  They make their own decisions and they deal with their own consequences, just as all adults do.  I still worry about them.  I still want to make decisions for them sometimes, but I know it is there turn to brave life, just the way I did when I was their age.  I wish I had been a better mom to them.  I wish I had been more present, more of everything they needed.  But I realize I did the best I knew how to do at the time, and I feel so blessed that they love me so much and still depend on me when they need to.  I know that when something comes along that they just can't handle, they're eventually going to call Mom.  That's something I have never been able to do--call my mom, that is, when I need support or guidance.  I'm glad I at least did a good enough job with them that they trust me.

I had no idea why at 36 God would think I needed to have a baby.  I was in a relationship I wanted out of, I was overwhelmed by life already, I had stage 3 Renal Disease.  None of this seemed like a good idea to me.  But despite one doctors emphatic suggestion that I was crazy to risk having another baby in my condition (he strongly urged abortion) and despite my child's father trying to convince me of the same,  I knew, deep in my heart that this little boy was going to be an essential part of the rest of my life.  I even knew, before the first ultra-sound that I was having a boy.  Don't ask me how I knew, I just knew.

I don't tell him that he saved me just by being born.  I don't tell him how, there are days when I'm so grateful to have him, just so I'll have a reason to wake up in the morning.  I don't want him to ever feel the pressure of knowing that I look to him for purpose in my life.  But just as my girls gave me purpose years ago, he continues to give me purpose now.  He keeps me young, keeps me thinking about things that I would probably have stopped considering long ago without him around.

He is ever-inquisitive, always wanting to know how, where and most of all, "why?"  On days when I have been unable to find anything else to laugh about, he makes me laugh.  During times when I feel no one else in the world cares whether or not I exist, I remember that he cares-and he needs me to to exist.  I am the only constant he has ever had has well, I'm the only person in his life who has ALWAYS been here.  It's the nature of life that people come and go, but for a kid, a parent shouldn't be one of those people.

He's my hero, because every day, he keeps me on my toes.  He gives me  a reason to keep fighting for my life.  He gives me purpose and he brings me joy when nothing else does.  He makes me proud, he makes me exasperated, he makes me tired.  He is strong willed and resilient--honestly, one of the strongest people I know.  Sometimes he makes me want to pull my hair out, and other times he makes my heart want to explode because I love him so much.  He keeps the memory of my little girls alive and close to my heart, even though when I look at them now, it often seems as if they were never little.  He has little pieces of them that pop up in his personality--which I guess are also little pieces of me, and that reminds me that even if I never live a life that makes a big impact on the rest of the world, I will have made a difference to at least whomever my children love and cherish as they live their lives.

I hope I'm still around to remind him, when he's getting ready for college, that he's supposed to major in Super Hero studies.  Either way though, he'll always be a Super Hero to me.

Escape

"Hey, a kid could escape from here!" Charlie piped up from the backseat today as we were driving around the corner where he can see the back-side of his school on the way home.

"Yeah, I guess they could," I said.  "But you wouldn't do that, would you?" I asked a little worried.

"Nah, not unless I had teleportation or invisibility." He answered, very matter of factly.

"Well, that's understandable." I replied.  "But where would you go if you escaped?  Would you go home?"

"I'd probably just do whatever stuff I want to do."  He answered.  And I thought about how nice That might be, even for a kid, to be able to just do whatever he wants to do.

It might be a while before we have invisibility cloaks or the ability to teletransport, but as adults, we really should try to carve out a little more time here and there to do what we want to do, instead of always running around doing things we feel we have to do.

Adulthood often smacks us in the face with all its, go here, do this, do that and then feel guilty because you didn't do the other, crap.  I noticed about myself the other day, that no matter where I am or what I am doing, I feel guilty--as if there is something more important I should be doing or some other place I should be.  This feeling, having nagged me for so long, I went in search of answers.  Does anyone else feel this way, I wondered?

 So, of course I asked Google.

 And of course, I just ended up feeling more confused about the whole situation.

Yes, I found out.  Other people do feel the same way as me, but for so many various reasons I couldn't decide which one applied to me personally.  Is it because I'm not doing what I'm supposed to with my life?  Is it because I procrastinate? Is it because I'm deeply scarred from my up-bringing? Is it because I really should be doing something more productive whenever I'm just doing what I want to do?  Is it because I haven't found my purpose in life?  I honestly still have no idea why I feel so unsettled about where and what I'm doing all the time. If you have any insights though, I'm open to your analysis...

All I have kind of figured out over the last couple of years is that life keeps on happening no matter what we're doing with our time.  As a mom of two girls after my divorce, my life seemed like a never-ending list of chores, work and errands.  A few minutes to myself seemed like such a luxury I dared not wish for it.  Then I had my son and two teenage daughters and was in the most miserable relationship of my life with a full-time job and an extra "stray" teenager living in my house for a while, and those were the days when I took several showers a day just to have a few minutes of peace and quiet to escape the noise of responsibility.  
During all that time my life was happening, and I was spending a whole lot of my energy feeling resentful about where my time was going.

I don't know where else I expected to place my time and energy, really.  After all, I was living my life.  I was doing what needed and had to be done, but I was going about it in such a joyless way that I ended up wasting what could have been a whole lot of happier days.  It wasn't that I could have slacked off any more, I couldn't.   Responsibility was making me its Bitch, and I couldn't fight that.  I suppose though, that I could have had a better attitude about it all, and not kept quite so much of my angst to myself.

Today though, instead of guilting myself all day long, I just let the day happen.  It started off stressful, just like yesterday, but I came home after dropping off my boy, took care of the dogs and then took a nap.  I almost felt bad about that, but I stopped myself.  Then I went to Goodwill and bought some books, picked up my boy, had the aforementioned conversation and proceeded to Sonic to buy milkshakes and then go play at the park.  It was a single day in my life, and not one I'm likely to even recall in years to come, but I've lived it the way I wanted to: Spending time with my little boy, enjoying the sunshine and learning something new from reading a book.  I think back now, on all those times when I was so tired and longed so much for some quiet time to myself and paradoxically find that I wish my life were more like that again.  Even though I enjoyed today, I feel as if I've had too many days lately where enough isn't demanded of me and I'm not quite sure what to do with myself.  Life, though hurried and difficult, seems much easier in a way when someone else is dictating how you spend it.

The thing that came to me, and this is all I can figure out about my feeling of not being or doing the right thing all the time, is that I have some big decisions to make.  Until I make them, my life is essentially on hold.  As long as my life is on hold, I'm always going to feel displaced.  My problem is, I am afraid I no longer possess the ability to make good decisions.  What if I screw up again??

That's what it all boils down to, I suppose.  I feel out of sorts because I'm putting off making some important decisions that absolutely have to be made.  I am living in a kind of fear mode, that whatever I decide will end up making my life worse, instead of better.  Goodness knows I've made plenty of similar choices before.

So much for all the "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" mantra.  Looks like for me, what hasn't killed me has just managed to make me a yellow bellied coward.  Ugh.  I don't like that about me.  Is that really me?

That does it.  As soon as I figure out how, I'm just going to teleport myself out of this mess.  Don't bother trying to find me.  I'll be invisible.

Welcome to Planet Mom

My dog loves to whine.   It's not that she's neglected, starved  or in need of anything.  She's just a whiner.  The vet likes to say that whiny dogs are anxiety ridden, always worried about being left alone or not being fed or loved enough, so they whine and whine to get our attention.  Sometimes she starts out with a whimper and if I don't respond by speaking to her or coming to her right away she increases her volume until the neighbors across the street probably begin to wonder if she's being strung up by her hind legs.  I assure you she's not.  You see, she's still got quite a lot of puppy in her and if I take my eyes off of her for a second serious damage could occur.  She's a poor decision maker, deciding to eat whatever toy she finds on the floor (Legos are a recent favorite) dig through the garbage or chew up the furniture. Once she even ate a big chunk out of the wall.  Because of her mischievousness, I often have to put her in her nice cozy crate when I'm so busy I can't give her my undivided attention--like during homework time with my son or when I'm in the shower, and especially when I leave the house.  In time she settles, circles down into her doggy bed and watches me with those pitiful puppy-dog eyes as I go out the front door.  Sometimes as I turn the lock I hear one loud, mournful wail before she resigns herself to be content with her surroundings.

Sometimes I like to whine too.  Times like this morning, for instance, when my dialysis machine is taking too long to finish its work and the pain from having it drain the fluid from my abdomen is excruciating AND its time to get my boy up and ready for school.  Penny is whining loudly to go outside and the OTHER dog is scratching and whimpering at my bedroom door, hoping I'll forget about my kid and hop up to get him his breakfast, pronto.

On top of everything else my boy is not cooperative.  He lies in bed like a mannequin, forcing me to sit him in an upright position and strip his clothes off before he wakes up enough to get dressed--then promptly lie back down and fall back asleep.

I tell my boy, "Go get your shoes on." Then I go into my bathroom to brush my teeth and get dressed.  When I come out and into the living room, I find him sitting on the bottom stair, head rested on his knees with his shoes still sitting on the floor at his feet.  Resigned to his resignation to not cooperate, I put his shoes on him.  Then I make the oatmeal while both dogs are still hollering at me to hurry up with the kid already so I can take care of them.

After he eats I tell my boy, "Go get your jacket and book bag, it's time to go."  Then I go put my shoes on and grab my jacket and gloves.  When I walk back into the living room, he's lying on the couch.  The book bag and jacket are still hanging on the coat rack.  Losing my patience, I pull his feet off the couch and stand him up, telling him firmly, "Put your jacket on now!"  Finally he does something I've asked him to do.

On Planet Mom, you can always expect the unexpected.

Once in the car I say, "buckle up!"  Just as I always do.  When I turn and look at him, my boy is sitting in a haze, no seat belt attached.  "Look," I say.  I don't know what planet you think this is, but I'm telling you right now that this is Planet MOM and YOU are going to do what I say.  Put your seat belt on!"  He did.

He was late for school, of course, and as I dropped him off at the front entrance, I swear, the School Resource Officer who stands outside and waits for all the stragglers to make it in safely looked at me scornfully and shook his head as if to say, "What a shitty mother!"  Under my breath I say, "Suck it, Officer Safety Patrol." And I drive away feeling a deep, heart-wrenching, soul screaming whine well up inside me.  Honestly, I wanted to howl.

I came back home to a  sink full of dishes that I didn't dirty and a laundry room piled to the gills with laundry that, in all honestly, I think might belong to a hobo or something.  Seriously, where does it all come from?  It's trash day and the garbage is all still sitting beside the house but I'm in a hurry so I don't take the time to roll it to the curb, telling myself I'll do it on my way out the door to work.  Maybe I will, maybe I won't.  

It doesn't help that I had dreams all night that left me feeling the emptiness of loss at my core as soon as I woke up an hour before the alarm clock said I had to.  I suppose it is never a good thing to lie in bed and wish for too long, that your slumbering reality were still your waking reality.  That kind of thinking gets your head stuck in the past and then you start to feel like everything you ever loved is suddenly missing.  I tried to make myself think about all the good things in my life, tried to implore the power of positive thinking, the peacefulness of prayer, but nothing really worked for me this time.  Then the pain of the machine doing its job, the refusal of my son to go with the flow and the yelping of my dogs suddenly started and I...well I lost my shit for a while.

"All I want is a little help!" I thought.  "I just want someone to be around, even if all they can do is give me a big hug and tell me to calm the heck down."  I thought. I said to God, "What's the deal here?  I'm only one person, you know.  Hello? Remember me?"  I'd like to tell you that I suddenly felt His peacefulness sweep over me and comfort me with indescribable relief, but I'd be lying if I said that.  I felt no such thing, just a whole lot more alone and forgotten, really.

Now I have to get ready for work, and I'm still squelching that huge, final mournful wail deep inside me as I give in to the day and accept that these are my circumstances for now.  This is my life and like it or not, this is how it's gotta be.  Because apparently I'm a poor decision maker and for my own safety and the sanity of others, I probably need to be confined to Planet MOM.

The Waiting Room

Life is sometimes like being stuck in a waiting room for hours and hours, staring at the walls, memorizing the art-work, and wondering when the hell your name is going to be called.  Everyone experiences the waiting game at some point in life, especially after having done all the growing up, trying new things and screwing up lots of things.  Screwing up is the key there.  Screwing up is often what lands our  judgment impaired asses right back in that hard, uncomfortable waiting room chair with not so much as an outdated issue of Vogue to thumb through.  Screwing up isn't fun.  It isn't easy, and fixing our screw-ups often takes time.

The set-backs we have in life, whether we create them on our own or whether they happen by circumstance, can serve a purpose.  Before you roll your eyes and stop reading here, remember: Everyone is sick of hearing that our trials make us stronger and that mistakes teach us important lessons, and that God is preparing us for something awesome, He just has to bully us around a little bit to make sure we deserve the Prize....You get the gist.  No one wants to be told that his long-suffering, ever grateful attitude through troubles and trials will someday pay off.  The truth is, we don't really know if that's true.  Lots of people have had terrifically horrible lives where things happened to them that they didn't deserve, and for many of them, life never got any better.

Take, for example, the short life of a 13 year old Ethiopian girl, whose mother abandoned her at age 3 and whose father died when she was only 9 years old.  Hana, later known as Hana Williams after an American family from Washington state adopted her, never had an easy life. When  Larry and Carri Willliams, a Fundamentalist Christian couple with 7 biological children decided they wanted to continue to grow their family past Carri's physical ability to bear children, they turned to adoption. Specifically, to adopting a young deaf Ethiopian boy they had seen in a video.  Around that same time, they also saw Hana, a pretty Ethiopian girl whom they claimed they also wanted to give a better life.  Soon after their new daughter became part of their family, she started her period for the first time.  This apparently angered Carri Williams, who, according to a friend stated that she thought she was adopting a sweet little girl, not a half-grown woman.  Hana endured harrowing abuse at the hands of her adoptive family, being locked in a closet where sermons and scripture were piped in for hours, some say even days at a time.  She was beaten, ignored, starved, forced to use an out-house and bathe outside in the hose with no privacy, and eventually sent outdoors on a cold May afternoon, where her "family" watched out the window as she succumbed to hypothermia and died after falling and hitting her head numerous times.   They later began to abuse the 10 year old deaf boy they had adopted as well, but because of investigations into Hana's death, the boy was removed from the home and placed with another family.  If you have the stomach to read more about Hana's experience you can do so here .

What purpose could Hana's suffering have possibly had?  The pain and abandonment she endured did not shape and mold her into a strong young woman of character who took her horrible childhood experiences and turned them into an inspiring life-story of reaching out to other children who were hurting.  Hana's suffering served her no good purpose at all.  For this poor girl, and for many people all over the world, those who die young and those who live to old age, the purpose of life--the very definition of life, is suffering.  Do you think any of these people want to hear you talk about how their pain and suffering will someday be "worth it?"

We all screw up, and bad things happen to everyone at some point or another.  You don't have to be happy about your consequences or circumstances.  Sometimes there are no obvious steps to take to change an unpleasant situation.  Other times, there are options, but no matter which one you take, you're going to be screwed.  There are times when there's nothing you can do but wait out a bad situation and see how it turns out in the end.  The only thing you can change about your wait, is the way you spend it.

We keep hearing all the time that our trials help us grow, but it is really those in-between times, after a loss or a big mistake, that we incorporate what we have experienced into who we are.  We can dwell on what we have lost indefinitely, we can drown ourselves in shame and guilt over our mistakes, or we can throw our hands up and accept life, let it use us, the same way life used Hana to rescue 8 other children from the hands of two horrible, evil abusive parents.  We think we always deserve to know the reason for everything, and we tend to get impatient with waiting for whatever trial we are suffering to be over.  But we aren't entitled to know everything, even about our own lives.  What about just acknowledging that you are here for a purpose, and that you may never really understand what that purpose is?

Hana Williams in Ethiopia

What if the waiting we wail and complain about so much is not a curse, but a blessing?  Maybe instead of lamenting what we don't have yet, we could spend more of our time being grateful for what we already have and what we have had the pleasure of experiencing.  Maybe, just maybe the wait we lament so bitterly isn't waiting at all.  Maybe the waiting room is where life really happens.