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.

Speaking of Southern

I have seen so many movies with actors trying to mimic Southern accents who do its badly that I hang my head in shame, in embarrassment for them because they apparently don't know how bad they suck at saying thing's like "y'all" and dropping the "ing" from words.  As a Southerner myself, I think our accent is probably one of the easiest to fake.  After all, it's just a matter of speaking in a more relaxed way.  You can call it lazy if you want, we don't care.  Here are a few pointers for any of you out there who want to sound more like the locals when you visit places like Asheville NC or heaven forbid, Louise MS.

1. Speaking Southern requires a state of being that rejects concepts like traffic-jams, political arguments, standing in line for $7.00 coffee, or behaviors like tapping your foot at the cash register while the cashier sparks up some small talk with the person in line before you.  If you really want to sound like a Southerner, take a deep breath, clear your mind of all your sissy pants city-boy concerns, and imagine yourself instead, sitting on a front porch with hound-dogs underneath it as your uncle Clyde picks out a sweet gospel hymn on his guitar.  You can even imagine yourself with a cool glass of sweet-tea in your hand, if that helps.  The point is, anytime you want to feel more Southern and less like a jack-ass, take your mind to a happy, Southern place and then take action from there.

2. Onto the more technical aspects of enunciating the Southern way.  Folks from the hurried North seem to think that speaking Southern merely requires one to use improper grammar and say words that no one who lives above the West Virginia state line can define.  However, one of the key points to sounding more Southern has to do with  where you place the emphasis on any given word.  To demonstrate, I'll give a few examples.  Any word or phrase that is abbreviated, for instance TV, or CD, is pronounced with the emphasis on the FIRST syllable: "Honey, have you seen my Lynard Skynard SEE-D?"  Or: "Son, turn off that TEE-V and do your homework."  The same goes for words like:

Insurance--INsurance
Theater-THEE-ayter
Speedometer--SPEED-ometer
Magazine--MAG-azine
Peanut--PEA-nut
Pecan-PEE-Con

Hopefully by now, you get the point.  Just remember, emphasis!

3. I can't make this point clear enough.  You must, absolutely and without exception learn the proper use of the word "y'all."  Y'all is a Southern-grown contraction for the words "you all".  This means that when we say "y'all" we are talking about a group of people, not a single person.  Never, EVER refer to one single Southerner as "y'all". Just like you Up-North people, when we speak to a single person, the correct way to address them is with the word "you".  As in, "You fucked up my order, you dumb-ass Yankee, why don't you go back where you came from so you can understand the language."  Y'all is also sometimes a possessive pronoun. As in:  "Are them all y'all's junk cars sittin' in the yard?" Or, more commonly in my house, ya'll need to pick up y'all's toys before I break my neck tryin' to walk up the stairs."

4.  This one is optional, because some Southerners in recent years have begun to add the "ing" back onto words where it belongs.  However, many still do not, and if you want to sound authentically Southern, you'll need to lazy up your speech a little to achieve this.  There are some key words to which the "ing" are Southernly not necessary.  Here are just a few of those words:

Wedding-Weddin'
Getting-Gettin'
Fixing-Fixin'
Eating-Eatin'
Fornicating-Fuckin', sinnin' or goin' ta Hell....

You can probably figure out the rest on your own, but again, this point is less important than some of the others.

5.  The use of the word "I".  This seems to be the hardest one of all for Hollywood Yankees to figure out and I can't figure out why that is.  Here is the correct Southern pronunciation- "Ah"  here is the correct English pronunciation-"Ey".  We simply replace the longer sound of the "y" with a silent "h".  It's just lazy speech people!  Yeah, maybe we talk slower, but we are experts at shortening the words that we say so slowly, so it probably all balances out when you think about it.  "Ah'm goin' to the store to buy some 'maters.  y'ont some?"  Seems to me that takes a lot less time to say than, "Ey am going to the supermarket to buy some fresh tomatoes, would you like me to bring some back for you as well?"

5. We make up words to fit certain situations.  You won't know the meaning of these words until you've heard them a few times, but after you've gotten used to them, they'll make perfect sense. Just to be a stinker, I'm not going to tell you any of them.  It's too much fun watching you nod along as if you understand what we are saying to you, when in all actuality, we are probably making fun of you in the politest way possible.

6.  My last point brings me to this point, which is my last point.  Southerners often combine two words into one to make thinks simpler.  After all, we are all about living simpler lives.  Along with the word y'all, we employ words like "nem": As in, "When are Bobby-nem gon' get here?"  And "Yonto" as in "I'm going to go huntin' tomorrow, yonto?"  or "Ustacould"--"I ustacuould talk like a Yankee, but I can't do it n'more."  One of my personal favorites is "Backair"--"I can't find that toilet cleaner you said you put'n the closet!"
"Well, I know I put it backair!"
This one also applies to "upair", "downair, and "inair".

Although I doubt if any Northern born and bred Hollywood actors are going to stumble across my humble blog post, I hope that in some small way, I have helped someone--maybe even a Northern Transplant to the South figure out how to communicate more effectively with the locals.  Just remember, be careful how you use these terms and phrases, otherwise, you might insult the wrong guy by saying something like "I sure do wish I could get to know your wife a little better downair."

The key is practice, and to not sound like a Northern prick who is trying to make fun of the way we speak.  The truth is, we think you talk funny too.

The Text Trap

I'm horrible at verbal communication.  I'm not sure exactly why, but especially during emotionally charged situations, I find myself grasping for words to effectively communicate how I feel or what I'm thinking.  I find myself having "verbal" exchanges with people who aren't present, as I go about my daily business, wishing that in that conversation that already happened in real life, I could have thought of the thing I just said.

I suppose that's why, whenever I need to share something deeply emotional or confrontational, I find it much easier to write out my thoughts and feelings.  It seems to me that I make more sense that way--that whomever I am communicating with must surely be better able to understand my point of view if I am able to state it more clearly in black and white, rather that with blubbering emotion and my struggle for the exact "right" words.

Internet communication and text have not helped me learn verbal communication skills at all.  In fact, technology has turned me into an emotional coward when it comes to communicating with someone face to face.  The mere thought of having an extremely vulnerable conversation with someone face to face literally terrifies me. What if I say something the wrong way and they don't understand me?  What if they're better than me at this "talking" thing and I never succeed in getting my point across?  What if they say things to me that I can never un-hear?  Things that hurt me, and things that make me more emotional and more likely to make a fool of myself in front of them.

I realize now, the origins of the "Dear John" letter, the suicide note and the silent treatment.  They all come from a very deep and very real sense of insecurity.  Perhaps, sometimes guilt, when we know that what we have to say is going to be emotionally hurtful to the other person.  The problem, as I am realizing it now, is that in communicating in such a disconnected way, like text or email, just makes the other person feel as if you don't have enough respect for them to discuss your issues with them face to face. 

I'm understanding how unfair it is of me to hide behind the black and white of my computer screen or the tiny text bubbles on my iPhone.  It's wrong of me, to refuse to let someone I care about hear my voice when I tell them that my feelings are hurt, or that I'm unhappy with how our relationship is going.  It is inconsiderate of me to expect them to read and decipher through mere words on a page, how I'm feeling or what I am trying to emotionally communicate to them.

I have to make an important phone call to a business acquaintance soon.  The news I have to communicate isn't good news. I sat here at my computer a few minutes ago, pondering whether I should just email the news to her and let her deal with the facts.  The problem is, she's also my friend and I care about her very much.  I know that I need to sit down with her, look her in the eye and tell her the cold honest truth and then be there for her as we both try to figure out how to fix things.

She deserves more than a one-sided textual explanation of things.   I can think of a few people who needed and deserved more than that from me over the last few years, since text and email have come along to rescue me from my own social awkwardness.  I realize I still owe some people some conversations, or at least sincere words spoken from my heart--not presented as black and white factual information on a screen.  So what if I shed a tear or can't think of the perfect way to phrase what I need to say?  The point is, they'll know I cared enough to give them my time and my effort--that I faced my own fear of looking them in the eye and letting them see me for who I really am, instead of seeing me as a cold and calculating person who has to perfectly measure her words and type them out, instead of speaking from my heart.

Lord be with me, as I venture on this new way of relating to the world around me that will not involve text or email, or even blog posts that I secretly hope the "right person" will read.  I want to be more genuine, more available and yes, maybe even a little more vulnerable in my dealings with those I care about.  How can anyone feel comfortable opening up to me, when my emotional world to them, is nothing more that a boring tirade of black and white on an electronic screen?

I guess I have a few visits to make in the coming weeks.

Wish me luck.

Race, Gender and Sexuality...Is there anything else to talk about?

One thing about human beings will never change:  Our constant need to feel better than those people.  By that, I mean anyone different from us.  Nothing makes this point more obvious than the constant media barrage of stories about equality that merely succeed in creating more of a divide between people of all kinds.

Here's what is happening as a result of the incessant "news" stories about inequality:  We are all figuring out that no matter who we are, we are screwed.

Women, for instance, are screwed because we don't get equal pay as men for doing the same work.  We are objectified and victimized by men.  We are judged harshly for our choices concerning education, family and work.  Women are too fat, too skinny, not stylish enough, not sexually adventurous enough.  We are bitches or sluts or prudes.  We are gold diggers or  Welfare leeches.  The list goes on and on, and who is pointing out all these things to us that make us feel like crap about our place in the world?  Check your Facebook news feed and you'll get the answer to that question.

I realize that there are activists out there who honestly want to help create a world where everyone's worth is considered equal.  I applaud their efforts and encourage them to keep pursuing their passion.  We all need a purpose in life, and if yours is working your ass off on behalf of a certain group that is considered underprivileged, bless you.

What I'm referring to though, is the never-ending over-discussed and occasionally exaggerated media flood of articles, nightly news stories and internet "feel good" or "Shame on you" blurbs that constantly remind us, women, African Americans, immigrants, gays, etc...that we should feel angry and put down by the society in which we live.

Somewhere along the way divisiveness has become the norm, and acceptance has become an anomaly.  It seems like all we hear about is how we should be more accepting of others as fellow human beings, regardless of our differences, but at the same time, statistics are being crammed in our heads about the disparities between people of different races, genders, sexual orientations and economic status.  With our media constantly focusing on our differences, pointing them out to us and encouraging our wrath about how unfairly we are treated, it is no wonder hate, fear and intolerance take over, leaving people to  feel more animosity towards one another.  We are being convinced, one Upworthy video at a time, that everyone else is out to keep us down.

I'm certainly not saying that intolerance doesn't exist.  It absolutely does, it always has and it most likely always will because we are all human.  We all have our own personal belief systems that act as our moral compasses, guiding us towards what we feel is right or wrong.  The problem comes when we try to hand our compasses over to everyone else and make them follow our path, instead of giving them the freedom to follow their own.  The only way to conquer division is to stop perpetuating it by labeling one another as minorities, homosexuals, heterosexuals, blacks, whites, hispanics, heathens, bitches, whores, lazy, unintelligent, unworthy and classically, the Privileged American White Male.

"So I'm just a person like everyone else?  Oppression bubble: bursted.

We flock to stories of what we have come to believe are the rare acts of kindness and acceptance as if those things are the exception to society's norms.  However, every day in America people of all walks of life, with differing beliefs, lifestyles, genders and colors get up and go to work driving ambulances, working in hospitals, caring for the elderly, looking out for the welfare of children, helping the homeless, feeding the hungry and smiling at strangers who might be very different from them.  The act of acceptance and the feeling of equality doesn't come from knowing everyone's differences or even from celebrating those differences.  It comes from seeing people as what they are:  People.

So instead of so many stories about our "rights" and shameful memes about how unfairly some people treat others, lets hear more about how we can learn to treat one another with kindness.  Instead of judgmental tirades about who is wrong and who is right, lets hear more about who is making a positive difference in the world.

I, being a woman and considered a minority, am not interested in hearing more about why my body image is distorted by Hollywood.  I don't want to read more articles in women's magazines about how I need to keep my age a secret so I can still snag a man.  I don't want to be reminded that to some men, I am nothing more than an object--like an old couch they can use and then toss out on the curb when they're ready for a new one.  Likewise, I'll venture a guess that there are many gay people who don't feel great about being constantly reminded that their version of love and companionship is frowned upon by lots of folks.  There is something about all of us that isn't widely accepted in today's world, but constant reminders of our differences, placed in a negative light only serve to create more frustration, division and unrest within all of us.

Let's face it, we are, above all else human.  It seems to me, if we all strive to remember that and focus on what is the same about us all, equal treatment of everyone would become a more natural and less talked about phenomenon.

 And we'd have a lot fewer angry videos popping up on our Facebook pages.

Here's to being human.  Enjoy who you are, and respect the humanity of others.

Clutter

It is amazing to me how much junk one person can accumulate in a few years' time.  I very unintentionally took a less than quick trip down memory lane this evening, after I suddenly and uncontrollably got the urge to clean out my son's closet.  I say "closet" but it is more of a cave of sorts.  I suppose that's why, over the years as we have gotten more and more junk that we couldn't find a place for, it all ended up in the cave.

I found a dresser-in-a-box that I bought when I was pregnant with Charlie that never got assembled, because my belly was too big and kept getting in the way and his dad wasn't exactly a handy man.  I found old toys that belonged to my daughter whose cave this was before her brother was born.  I found broken glass and abandoned toys and even a stink bug.  Once it was completely cleaned out, I stood back in amazement at all the empty space.  I have been lamenting for years that this house simply doesn't have enough room for us.  I find myself frustrated when trying to keep things in their places and running out of places to keep things, and here, in his little room was a space big enough for all his toys, a bean-bag and a whole setup of his new Bat Cave Underground world where he is now happily playing, yes, my child is playing Batman in his enormous closet with plenty of breathing room.

This experience has made me realize that I have some serious work to do.  I have a hall closet that is packed to the brim, my daughter's closet is a nightmare and the laundry room...well, let's not even talk about that.  The truth is, when we moved here almost 11 years ago I was two years fresh off my divorce.  I had kept very little from my past life and the things we had were hand-me downs and second hand store deals.  We had just enough dishes, just enough furniture, just enough clothes and so much storage space we didn't know what to do with it all.  Over the years we have all acquired junk that we've, for whatever reason, refused to give up.  I have always thought myself to be great at getting rid of unwanted stuff that served no good purpose, but as I rummaged my son's closet and found crib bedding from 7 years ago and Barbie doll shoes from AGES ago, I realized I hadn't faced all my clutter nearly as well as I thought I had.

Tonight I ran across things that I'm sure at some point I had deemed useful for future purposes; now though, it  is just junk.  I found myself filling up garbage bags and boxes and sending them out to the curb.  Maybe someone will find some useful stuff out there, but honestly, I think the garbage man will probably just be pissed off at us for leaving all that crap for him to pick up.  The up side?  The clutter all gone from the closet now and from my conscience.  I no longer will walk into my son's room and avert my eyes from his closet for fear of facing my own inadequacies.  I will be able to look in that direction and see that I have finally faced my fear of attacking the clutter and I've managed to obliterate it.

I vacuumed up the remains of dust and debris and then neatly rearranged his things inside.  Even he was happier and more content that his mom had finally gotten her shit together and taken care of the mess she'd created.

I hate to turn everything into a metaphor for life, but it seems like over the last few years God has been teaching me things in the simplest and most unexpected ways.  Ever since the death of a very close friend, the loss of a job that same year and various other losses,  I have been stuck in some limbo-land of not really wanting to rummage through the debris those experiences have left behind in my life, both in physical form (the state of my house) and emotionally and mentally.  I find myself unwilling to pick through my own insecurities and hurts that linger, tucked away somewhere in that huge cave of a storage space somewhere in my psyche.  I have tended to look the other way when I see my own fears and insecurities.  I tend to try to clean out other people's "closets" instead of my own.  I focus on who I can help instead of confronting my own mental and emotional clutter.  I realize this has held me back in so many ways.

Has anyone ever called you up and said "I'll be at your house in ten minutes, can't wait to see you!" and you immediately scramble to pick up every sock, shoe, toy and dirty glass you can find and hide them in the first place you can find?  I have been known to throw dirty towels in the bathtub and close the shower door to hide my mountain of laundry because I am worried about what people will think if they see I've neglected washing clothes all week.  Hiding emotional clutter is no different really.  We are afraid of what people will think of us if they find out we still have old hurts and insecurities tucked away.  We think we keep these things for good reasons; So we'll know better next time or so we can go to that closet and draw from our past experiences so as not to repeat them.  Instead, what really happens is that closet we hide our emotional clutter in becomes a scary place that we start to avoid at all costs.  It becomes a whole bunch of experiences, hurts, fears and insecurities that we don't really want to keep and can't really find a good use for anymore, but for whatever reason, we just can't pack them up and set them on the curb to be carried away.

What we fail to realize is that by hiding these things away and not going through them, sorting them out, keeping what is useful and getting rid of what takes up valuable emotional space, we end up cutting ourselves off from the things we really want and need.  All our emotional real estate is taken up with useless stuff that we would be better off to let go of so we can make room for joy instead of hurt, trust instead of insecurity, faith instead of disappointment, love and companionship instead of isolation.

We begin to think peace with ourselves and our lives in unattainable because of all our past hurts and disappointments, most of which we hold onto so tightly, although we convince ourselves they are tucked away, out of sight, out of mind.  But the truth still exists that behind the doors of our private caves, those past experiences call to us, and remind us not to trust, not to hope, and to most of all, never forget what happened to us the last time we took a chance.

I've decided that I don't want to live among door after door of hidden clutter.  I want to sort through it all, experience those thoughts and emotions, whether they be joyful or unpleasant, and then do my best to neatly put them where they all belong.  I want to keep and cherish those things that make me a stronger, better person.  I want to box up all the pain, the disappointment and failures and lay them at the feet of God.  I know that even He, in His infinite mercy and grace will look at those things and merely see a bunch of junk that neither He nor I need to hang onto. He sees me as His child and knows I have no need, no space in my soul to harbor all those past hurts and disappointments. And I know that whatever wrongs, hurts, mistakes or heartaches I learn from by finally sorting through them and then giving them over to Him, He will deliver me from all those wounds that keep me from living my life to its fullest.

Spring is coming, and I'm hoping I can maintain the momentum to keep weeding out the things I don't need to hang onto, both in my heart, in my home, and in my relationships with others.

Do Nice Guys Really Finish Last?

I've heard this whine so many times it makes my head spin around on my shoulders like I'm possessed by evil spirits whenever someone says it to me now.  So many men think they have to be assholes if they want a woman in their lives because "Women don't like nice guys, they like jerks."  That one irks me too.

Here's how it happens (or at least here's how it has always played out in my life).  Woman meets man.  He is kind, thoughtful and considerate.  He volunteers (or so he says) he goes to church, he has 7 kids to raise by himself because his slut wife left him, his parents were abusive and he either has deep emotional scars that he needs Woman to help him heal, or he hates everyone in the world besides Woman...It all depends on the guy really, but that's the general scenario.  He wins Woman's affection, by being kind to her and/or telling her the horrifying tales of his past.  She thinks he's a sweet guy (meaning NICE) and decides to give him a chance, and things are great for a while.  THEN, he decides if he wants to keep her, he better start treating her like crap because women don't REALLY like nice guys.

The reality is, if you have this line of thinking, you are pretty self-absorbed and you probably aren't as much of a nice guy as you think you are.  How many women have you gotten involved with by being kind and thoughtful in the beginning?  Are you even aware that you morph into some other person after you've been with someone a while?  We don't fall for jerks.  We fall for men who we believe are GOOD men, and then they BECOME jerks.  What was that you said?  Women become Bitches?  Yes, we do at times.  Some women are bitches, just like some men are really jerks and nothing will change that.  But if you got involved with a woman you KNOW is a good person and she suddenly starts acting bitchy, it's probably something you said--or did or didn't do that you should have done.

I actually told a guy very recently that he was a nice guy.  He reacted as if I just called him an ugly name.  "I'm not a nice guy!" he said.  "Nice guys finish last and I'm not going to finish last."  That was the beginning of him becoming a jerk to me.  I stuck with him though, believing the best of him despite the evidence to the contrary.

Here's what women want: A companion.  That means someone to talk to, do things with, cuddle with, make love with, hang out and do nothing with.  We want someone who is on our side, who will stand with us through thick or thin.  We, just like you, want someone we find attractive yet not conceited.  Just so you know, when I say "someone we find attractive" that doesn't mean you have to look like Brad Pitt, but at least bathe, do something with your hair and wear something besides ragged T-shirts and jeans once in a while. Just as you don't like the idea of a fat woman, we don't like the idea of a fat man, but the difference is, if we truly love you, we will love you despite your imperfections and even if you are fat or get fat, we'll hang in there with you because we care about you.

Your nice-guys finish last mantra will always defeat you.  Every time you feel like you're starting to fall for a woman, you'll start acting like an asshole.  You might not even be aware that you're being an asshole, but you are.  You stop calling, you stop being considerate, you stop acting like you care, and then she catches on to your attitude and she changes how she behaves towards you.  She wants the "nice" you to come back, but the harder she tries to get back to the YOU she fell for, the less of that person you are, until finally she gives up and goes looking elsewhere for what she wants--and you think, "I knew it.  Nice guys always finish last."

Bob tripped over his enormous ego during the last leg of the race

On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have the "nice guy" who calls too much, expects too much of your time, and smothers the daylights out of you.  He seems like a nice guy, but his insecurity drives you crazy.  Love is not insecure.  It is confident because real love doesn't depend on the response you get from another person.  Love isn't knowing that someone else is always thinking about you or needing to be near you at all times.  Love is something you give without regard for what you get in return.  If you're obsessing over a woman, you aren't in love with  her. You are trying to soothe yourself by having her reassure you that you are loved.  You aren't being a "Nice Guy" showing his love, you're being a self-absorbed insecure BAD GUY.  Self-absorption will trip you up every time.

So, to all of you REAL nice guys out there who think you'll never find a good woman I say, check up on yourself before you blame women for "crapping on you" because you're nice.  Are you really a nice guy or do you just think you are because you're not getting what you want from life?  I have no doubt that there are really some nice men out there. I say that with a lot of hope and even a tad of faith because I've yet to meet any of you.  If I ever do meet a nice guy, I hope he'll be single and emotionally available as well, but to be quite honest, I'm growing weary of looking for you.

Be who you are.  Don't adjust your personality based on what you believe you have to do to hang onto someone. Who ever said life was a race anyway?  So what if you do "come in last?"  The point is to finish the race and to be at peace with who you are.  Life is a journey not a competition.  Try not to be a sore loser when things don't go your way, just keep your nice little head up and keep moving forward.  You'll finish the race in time, and even if you don't get there before all your friends, you'll be right where you're supposed to be, just when you're supposed to be there.

Here's to Nice Guys everywhere.  May you finish.

Back to Me

I got a new CD for Christmas.  It's a Neil Young CD, with lots of the songs that got me hooked on Neil to start with,a few years ago, and a couple I've never heard before.  It's strange how I have felt so out of my element lately, like I'm just feeling my way around, really unsure of what I should do next and even of who I am.  When I put the CD in my computer and settled down on my couch to relax I had no idea that his voice coming from these speakers would make me feel so at home in my own skin.

The first song I listened to was "Bad Fog of Loneliness".  It's a song I had forgotten about; but a song that truly describes me and the situation I'm in.  I listen to it and remember my resolve, only a few months ago, that I was meant for singleness and that I was determined to be at peace with my destiny.  I guess the loneliness got to me though--a bad fog of it that led me to make bad decisions for myself, like getting re-involved with a man that I knew couldn't, wouldn't and probably shouldn't love me.  I let myself get comfortable with his company instead of getting comfortable with my alone-ness.

After several days of not communicating with him at all, I struggle again with the pain of being forgotten--being used up and tossed aside again. Although I'm not surprised by it all, I am still sad and disappointed in him.  I remind myself that this is who he is: distant, cut-off from the world, emotionally, and sometimes, downright mean.  He's also the sweet man I came to love at some point, but in loving the sweetness of him, I must also accept the ugliness and love him despite it.  I must love him from a safe distance and never let him get a hold on me again.  It's not healthy for me or for him, the way things have been lately and I know we are both better off apart than we would be together if things must stay the way they've been lately.  I have no desire to hold him back and I don't intend to let him drag me down anymore.  I know I'm doing the right thing to keep my distance, but it is so hard to not reach out to him somehow.

It is my nature to want to keep the peace.  I almost always cave to the other person's wishes in order to avoid conflict.  This time though, I have to be strong and let this discord be.  I can't take any more insults from him: He doesn't even seem to realize how insulting he can be at times, perhaps because he doesn't understand that I value his opinion about things.  If you value someone else's point of view, it cuts into your soul when they criticize you or tell you you aren't good enough.  I know he's only one person in my world, who used to be in my world, but he's been pretty important to me.

I just keep praying that I will learn to love the way God intends for me to love.  I keep practicing the letting-go part of loving in hopes that it will eventually become natural to me to love without holding on too tightly.  I keep reminding myself that love is not something I do for myself, it is a gift I give to those God has blessed me with.  I shouldn't expect anything from anyone, I should just love.  I think if I ever get that right, everything else will likely fall into place and I will find the peace and contentment I crave.


I'm thankful for my new CD.  I'm happy about getting reacquainted with a part of myself that I have neglected for a long time--a part of myself that I really like.  Oh, and lest I forget, I'm thankful for Neil...maybe someday I'll get to hang out with him and we can swap stories.  Wouldn't that just be the coolest thing ever??  I think so.