Ah, 2012...you're finally here! How nice to see you! You look wonderful, not even a day old yet! So, would you like some resolutions or something? No? You're sure? I'm sure I can dig around and find something for you to nibble on. No? Fabulous.
Well, let's get started then, shall we? I really am so happy to see you. I just know that we're going to be good friends. 2011 and I parted amicably enough. I packed up the good stuff and left behind the bad stuff. I let her keep the heartache and frustration and I took the love and hope. Seems fair, right?
I hope you'll help me be healthier and I'm going to do my part to be happier. Could you just give me a little push once in a while if I need it? I knew you would! I'd really love some inspiration and if you could spare just a little bit of extra time to write that would really be awesome.
I know you don't want resolutions but I'd like to offer a couple of goals if that would be okay? Yes? Oh thank you! I would like to get my book written by the end of the year. 2011 gave me a little inspiration by way of seeing my friends push themselves (that means you, BeFri :) ) to get a book written. Could you go with that and inspire me? Help me find the words? I've finally found the right style for telling the story I want to tell and I've even named my characters! I'm so excited to see them make their way through my story.
I'd like to get to a maintenance phase with my health care. I know I'm never going to be "better" but I want to be healthier and more able-bodied if you don't mind. No more crazy doctors that take up way too many days in my month for tests and appointments and ....just no more. Please?
I know I'm not doing anything major this year. No having babies or getting married or buying a house. You and I are just gonna hang out this year and love our kids, educate my youngest, write my book, and just have a year without any insanity in it. How does that sound?
Oh!! And I'd really, really love a road trip to New England this year. Massachusetts and maybe even a little Maine if we can squeeze it in. That's my Heaven.
And finally....2012? Would you please look out for our forward deployed soldiers and sailors? Could you bring them home safely please? This war has gone on too long and I'd love to see those that have already sacrificed too much be able to come home. Please watch over those that need a little extra love. Thank you, 2012.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Monday, November 21, 2011
I have to go. I have to go. Where the &^%$ does everybody have to go?
It's been a hell of a year. People that I thought would be in my life, people I love, have drifted away. I've had several procedures, surgeries, and lots of tests. My "best" friends have vanished, my parents are gone. I feel so alone and I can't figure out what the hell just happened most of the time.
There's a line in the movie "Gia" that keep playing through my head. She says " everybody that I love keeps going away from me....and it hurts". She's this beautiful supermodel that has the whole world at her finger tips, but all she wants is just to have somebody stay with her, love her. I'm never going to be a super model, and I definitely don't have the world at my beck and call, but all I want is to be loved. That's all anybody wants.
The new acceptable attitude is just to "be positive" and be friggin' overjoyed to be alive. I don't do bright and shiny; I never have. But I know what it feels like to find the joy in a moment. It just sneaks up on you and suddenly, you're alive and in that moment with everything you are, and inside of what joy really is. I know how that feels. I have had those moments. Those moments when you are just....happy, really really happy.
I'm not an unhappy person, but I'm just not overly bright and shiny. And I believe that we all can't be happy and positive all the time. It's not good for you. People need to know it's okay to be frustrated or hurt or sad. They need to know that we all have a right to mourn change or loss. They need to be able to be real.
But what I'm seeing lately is that people move away from someone that might be working their way through anger and discovering what's behind it (I believe that anger is never a genuine emotion, it's like a curtain and you always have to investigate what's behind it and deal with *that* emotion....but that's another blog), or mourning a loss or a change in their lives. But all too often we're doing these things behind closed doors.
The society we live in have become all about the social facade. If you're not happy and spreading positivity, well....then people tend to have other things to do. And an awful lot of people are simply wrapped up in their own lives. I'm not seeing people reaching out to each other and caring about what you're going through. What happened to being there with your friends? Going through their rough times with them, and celebrating the good stuff together? We're closing up and moving away and letting go much too easily.
I've played the game of maintaining the social facade and it almost ended my life. I fell apart and went a little crazy for a few months. I thought about jumping off the bridge or swallowing a bottle of pills. Maintaining the social facade was not a good thing. And I swore I would never get wrapped up in trying to be somebody I wasn't ever again. What's that saying? I'd rather be hated for who I am that loved for someone I am not. Yeah.
But how do you say to someone...you hurt me? How do you reach out and say I need you to care about me and my stuff too? How do you reach out to someone in a society that have left us more closed off and closed minded than we all were 10 years ago? How do we reach out when we're all so afraid of being burned or ignored. How do we change the mindset of only being wrapped up in oneself?
I want to be involved with my friends and family. I want to care about what they are going through and have them care about what I'm doing too. But I feel like there has been some sort of explosion and when I looked up, the people that I thought were my people were gone. Poof. Just a whiff of smoke left and their scent and I'm standing here with my head ringing wondering what the hell just happened. Wondering where everybody has to go.
There's a line in the movie "Gia" that keep playing through my head. She says " everybody that I love keeps going away from me....and it hurts". She's this beautiful supermodel that has the whole world at her finger tips, but all she wants is just to have somebody stay with her, love her. I'm never going to be a super model, and I definitely don't have the world at my beck and call, but all I want is to be loved. That's all anybody wants.
The new acceptable attitude is just to "be positive" and be friggin' overjoyed to be alive. I don't do bright and shiny; I never have. But I know what it feels like to find the joy in a moment. It just sneaks up on you and suddenly, you're alive and in that moment with everything you are, and inside of what joy really is. I know how that feels. I have had those moments. Those moments when you are just....happy, really really happy.
I'm not an unhappy person, but I'm just not overly bright and shiny. And I believe that we all can't be happy and positive all the time. It's not good for you. People need to know it's okay to be frustrated or hurt or sad. They need to know that we all have a right to mourn change or loss. They need to be able to be real.
But what I'm seeing lately is that people move away from someone that might be working their way through anger and discovering what's behind it (I believe that anger is never a genuine emotion, it's like a curtain and you always have to investigate what's behind it and deal with *that* emotion....but that's another blog), or mourning a loss or a change in their lives. But all too often we're doing these things behind closed doors.
The society we live in have become all about the social facade. If you're not happy and spreading positivity, well....then people tend to have other things to do. And an awful lot of people are simply wrapped up in their own lives. I'm not seeing people reaching out to each other and caring about what you're going through. What happened to being there with your friends? Going through their rough times with them, and celebrating the good stuff together? We're closing up and moving away and letting go much too easily.
I've played the game of maintaining the social facade and it almost ended my life. I fell apart and went a little crazy for a few months. I thought about jumping off the bridge or swallowing a bottle of pills. Maintaining the social facade was not a good thing. And I swore I would never get wrapped up in trying to be somebody I wasn't ever again. What's that saying? I'd rather be hated for who I am that loved for someone I am not. Yeah.
But how do you say to someone...you hurt me? How do you reach out and say I need you to care about me and my stuff too? How do you reach out to someone in a society that have left us more closed off and closed minded than we all were 10 years ago? How do we reach out when we're all so afraid of being burned or ignored. How do we change the mindset of only being wrapped up in oneself?
I want to be involved with my friends and family. I want to care about what they are going through and have them care about what I'm doing too. But I feel like there has been some sort of explosion and when I looked up, the people that I thought were my people were gone. Poof. Just a whiff of smoke left and their scent and I'm standing here with my head ringing wondering what the hell just happened. Wondering where everybody has to go.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
pain = learning
There was a line in "Private Practice" this week that made me pause, and I knew right away that it would end up as a blog. Shelton (one of the resident shrinks, if you're not familiar with the show) says to someone else.."Unfortunately human beings need pain to grow and learn". I stopped. I ran the words through my head. I went over the line one more time. Oh wow....this was what I needed to hear. Today. This week. This year. I needed to hear those words. Because for me it was almost like validation, or maybe just one more of the puzzle pieces I had found, finally.
In 37 years or so on the planet I have faced a lot. I have faced more than one lifetime's worth of hope, and love, and loss, and moments. My life to me, is now divided into two sections, two parts. My life before was healthier, stronger, I could dance and I could run. I was young and beautiful and strong. And I had never really known the kind of loss that rips through your soul and divides your world.
In 2001 I lost a child. A little girl that weighed about 9 ounces and was born too young to breathe. I was that 1%, that unimaginable number, I was that one in a million.....and I lost my baby girl.
And it almost destroyed me. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep. I couldn't think. They delivered her to save me (long story, not the much fun to tell so we'll just skip to the pertinent parts). If I did sleep, I slept with the light on for the first 6 months. I had nightmares, 2,3,4 times a week for almost 18 months. My body was trying to deal with everything I had been put through, it was trying to regenerate lost blood and heal a broken heart. My mind and my soul just took a vacation because I was just a zombie for a good part of that first year
I went home after I was discharged, told to rest and let my body mend.
But my darling ,sweet husband came home more grateful that he hadn't lost his wife of less than 2 years. I've been contemplating that in the last few years. How hard that must have been. I was devastated and he was hurting for our loss, but he was grateful for getting to keep what he wanted more than anything else.
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We waited 9 months and after many long late night discussions, swaying from a yes to a we can't survive that again, we went with yes and tried one last time to have a child. The docs answered up and said we had one more shot at a healthy baby, and then something drastic would need to happen to either P or I so that somebody's baby making ability was shut down, and we knew they were right. What needed to be taken care of was.
And it was a hhaarrdd pregnancy, I got tossed over to the high priority team, I was a "complicated OB patient " due to the fat that I had suffered two miscarriages after having two healthy children 10 years ago. I believe in miracles, and this is one of the reasons why: Dr. Cynthia Wilkes saved my life the first time. She was able to see the labs and the scans, and the charted meds and suddenly.........she saw what everybody missed and sent me to Straub's Trauma One Center. She couldn't be there at the very end, but she treated me post delivery. I went to see her a few weeks after delivery, telling her that I can't eat, or think. All the while, bawling my eyes out. She said one of the greatest things I have ever heard anyone say as a doctor, "I can not medicate it out of you, you have to grieve. You have to deal with this." At the time, I wondered if could.
But with the woman's amazing hope and strength, she got me to 20 weeks through my final pregnancy. And she was amazing. She never gave up on me. And I have a beautiful baby girl who is almost 9 now because of her unfailing ability as an OB.
My "before" is my life before the pregnancy in 2001 that almost killed me and claimed my baby girl. My "after" is the 10 years that have passed since that. My husband and I have faced the kinds of things that destroy people and tear apart marriages. And we did struggle because of these things. We did almost break down, but at the last minute, what really existed between us was still there by the skin of our teeth and we pulled ourselves and our marriage out from under it all.
Fast forward a few years and I'm smack in the middle of going through Chief's Induction with my husband, but he was 1,000 miles away. And the whole thing brought me to my knees.
The point in all of this is that people do indeed need pain to grow and learn. To me, that's an important piece of the puzzle because my life has been more difficult, more painful than a lot of other people that I know. My childhood was chaotic and hurtful. I have lost family and friends and dealt with the aftermath of a suicide, leaving me feeling guilty and so regretful. I have hurt. I have felt the kind of agony in your soul that would tear a person down. But, somehow, I'm still standing.
I believe that we come back. I believe that we come back until we get it right, and I believe that this is my last run through. This is my last time here. So I have a lot of things that I need to get right. I have a lot of things to learn, so I've had a lot of pain.
In 37 years or so on the planet I have faced a lot. I have faced more than one lifetime's worth of hope, and love, and loss, and moments. My life to me, is now divided into two sections, two parts. My life before was healthier, stronger, I could dance and I could run. I was young and beautiful and strong. And I had never really known the kind of loss that rips through your soul and divides your world.
In 2001 I lost a child. A little girl that weighed about 9 ounces and was born too young to breathe. I was that 1%, that unimaginable number, I was that one in a million.....and I lost my baby girl.
And it almost destroyed me. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep. I couldn't think. They delivered her to save me (long story, not the much fun to tell so we'll just skip to the pertinent parts). If I did sleep, I slept with the light on for the first 6 months. I had nightmares, 2,3,4 times a week for almost 18 months. My body was trying to deal with everything I had been put through, it was trying to regenerate lost blood and heal a broken heart. My mind and my soul just took a vacation because I was just a zombie for a good part of that first year
I went home after I was discharged, told to rest and let my body mend.
But my darling ,sweet husband came home more grateful that he hadn't lost his wife of less than 2 years. I've been contemplating that in the last few years. How hard that must have been. I was devastated and he was hurting for our loss, but he was grateful for getting to keep what he wanted more than anything else.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We waited 9 months and after many long late night discussions, swaying from a yes to a we can't survive that again, we went with yes and tried one last time to have a child. The docs answered up and said we had one more shot at a healthy baby, and then something drastic would need to happen to either P or I so that somebody's baby making ability was shut down, and we knew they were right. What needed to be taken care of was.
My "before" is my life before the pregnancy in 2001 that almost killed me and claimed my baby girl. My "after" is the 10 years that have passed since that. My husband and I have faced the kinds of things that destroy people and tear apart marriages. And we did struggle because of these things. We did almost break down, but at the last minute, what really existed between us was still there by the skin of our teeth and we pulled ourselves and our marriage out from under it all.
Fast forward a few years and I'm smack in the middle of going through Chief's Induction with my husband, but he was 1,000 miles away. And the whole thing brought me to my knees.
The point in all of this is that people do indeed need pain to grow and learn. To me, that's an important piece of the puzzle because my life has been more difficult, more painful than a lot of other people that I know. My childhood was chaotic and hurtful. I have lost family and friends and dealt with the aftermath of a suicide, leaving me feeling guilty and so regretful. I have hurt. I have felt the kind of agony in your soul that would tear a person down. But, somehow, I'm still standing.
I believe that we come back. I believe that we come back until we get it right, and I believe that this is my last run through. This is my last time here. So I have a lot of things that I need to get right. I have a lot of things to learn, so I've had a lot of pain.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
10 Years Later
Xunnie's been going through a lot this year.The doctors have re-opened all of my tests and so I have a lot of people poking and prodding at me these days. My baby girl moved away, grew up on me, and decided to get married. We've moved around and had to deal with people that don't make any sense. And my parents have now each individually and for their own reasons walked away from me.
I haven't talked to my mother in eight months. I cried all the way home from my hematologist's office after my appointment yesterday. I cried out of frustration and out of inconclusive test results, and out of the kindness he showed me, and I cried because I want my mom. I want my daddy. I want somebody to hold me and tell me that it'll be okay and they love me.
I have a wonderful husband who does just that, and I have these amazing people in my life that I am lucky enough to call my friends. They are kind and relate to all these different parts of my life and they are some of the best people I have ever met in my entire life. I have great friends. And I have fantastic little people in my life. My kids have turned out to be these smart, compassionate, empathetic people who love their mommy so much. I have a great little kitty even. My Phoebe girl is the sweetest and most patient cat I have ever seen. Sara puts her through everything but actually putting doll clothes on her and shoving her around in a shopping cart. And she never scratches. She's sweet and funny and I'm so lucky that I rescued her.
The funniest thing my kitty has ever done was: on the final night of induction my husband was gone all night for Navy events, and so I was home alone. She came to sleep on my bed with me and brought her teddy bear with her. I collect bears and have about 85 teddy bears and my Phoebe chose one as her own and she drags it all over the house and wrestles with it. Well, she came to sleep with me because daddy wasn't home (side note: she sleeps with me about half of the time....with and without daddy home) and this time she brought her teddy bear.
I have people in my life that are really great and love me so much, and I love them totally and completely and with my whole heart, and I even get to have Ging, who would do anything to protect me. But I miss having my mom. And I miss being able to have a daddy. And I wish I was in a place and that they were in a place that we could all figure out enough to try to be family again. Not my mother and father for each other , but each of them for me. I don't know if my mother and I will ever be there again, and I know my daddy won't be. But it doesn't mean that there isn't a little girl inside of me that misses them.
This year has been especially poignant because it's been 10 years since I started going through all of this. Ten years ago I lost Angie, my baby girl who was born too soon. Ten years since I started having symptoms that didn't add up. Ten years that I have been hurting and slowly losing my abilities. I take it out in my crocheting now, and my cooking that I'm so proud of. I take out the ability to run, or dance in the ability to create now. I am learning how to crochet. I am learning how to be an even better cook. And I am writing.
So take a little bit of time to light a candle, or send up a prayer, or meditate on some positive energy, or send out a little bit of hope for the people that you love and for the people on your Facebook pages. I mean, that's what we're all here for, right? Love each other.
I haven't talked to my mother in eight months. I cried all the way home from my hematologist's office after my appointment yesterday. I cried out of frustration and out of inconclusive test results, and out of the kindness he showed me, and I cried because I want my mom. I want my daddy. I want somebody to hold me and tell me that it'll be okay and they love me.
I have a wonderful husband who does just that, and I have these amazing people in my life that I am lucky enough to call my friends. They are kind and relate to all these different parts of my life and they are some of the best people I have ever met in my entire life. I have great friends. And I have fantastic little people in my life. My kids have turned out to be these smart, compassionate, empathetic people who love their mommy so much. I have a great little kitty even. My Phoebe girl is the sweetest and most patient cat I have ever seen. Sara puts her through everything but actually putting doll clothes on her and shoving her around in a shopping cart. And she never scratches. She's sweet and funny and I'm so lucky that I rescued her.
The funniest thing my kitty has ever done was: on the final night of induction my husband was gone all night for Navy events, and so I was home alone. She came to sleep on my bed with me and brought her teddy bear with her. I collect bears and have about 85 teddy bears and my Phoebe chose one as her own and she drags it all over the house and wrestles with it. Well, she came to sleep with me because daddy wasn't home (side note: she sleeps with me about half of the time....with and without daddy home) and this time she brought her teddy bear.
I have people in my life that are really great and love me so much, and I love them totally and completely and with my whole heart, and I even get to have Ging, who would do anything to protect me. But I miss having my mom. And I miss being able to have a daddy. And I wish I was in a place and that they were in a place that we could all figure out enough to try to be family again. Not my mother and father for each other , but each of them for me. I don't know if my mother and I will ever be there again, and I know my daddy won't be. But it doesn't mean that there isn't a little girl inside of me that misses them.
This year has been especially poignant because it's been 10 years since I started going through all of this. Ten years ago I lost Angie, my baby girl who was born too soon. Ten years since I started having symptoms that didn't add up. Ten years that I have been hurting and slowly losing my abilities. I take it out in my crocheting now, and my cooking that I'm so proud of. I take out the ability to run, or dance in the ability to create now. I am learning how to crochet. I am learning how to be an even better cook. And I am writing.
So take a little bit of time to light a candle, or send up a prayer, or meditate on some positive energy, or send out a little bit of hope for the people that you love and for the people on your Facebook pages. I mean, that's what we're all here for, right? Love each other.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
time and circles and whatever's in my head
I either don't write for sometimes months at a time, or I am constantly writing, mostly in my head. Example: I'm standing in the shower today thinking of some real life issues that need addressing and somehow I start thinking of the bigger picture.
Things like; at one point in time, I thought my ex-husband was it. THAT was were I was supposed to be. But then I wasn't. Now I am sure that my purpose in life is to give my husband my time and teach him the things that he doesn't understand. Poor Mr. straight-and-narrow ended up married to me. He married a girl that just had one little tattoo on her arm from when she was 20 and she was a country girl. I've tried to be a country girl, a mid-western girl, and a west coast girl, but none of them ever worked for me.
Now the poor guy, the one who lives in a world where there are rules and SOPs (standards of procedure) and lines in the sand, is married to me. Somebody who these days has 4 or 5 tattoos and is planning to get more soon, has her nose pierced, and her hair is never the same length or color from year to year. I embody the tortured writer's soul occasionally. I ask him all the time what the hell he is doing with me. But somehow it works.
We got into an argument recently (married people argue?? who knew??) and I opened my heart and my mind and asked for guidance. I'm a Buddhist, so I asked the universe, the karma gods, and Buddha what am I supposed to do right now? The answer came to me as I meditated. Love is always the answer. Love the people you have in your life. Teach them and be open to their teachings for you.
I have spent my whole life saying "I want to go home.....I just don't know where it is". This gypsy soul has searched through the west coast, Hawaii, the south, and the Midwest for some place that felt like home, (see above) and it was only a few years ago when I ended up in a place I'd never thought to go. I got to Maine through a series of crazy unforeseen steps. I originally ended back up in Michigan and now I realize that I was there for a completely different reason that I thought. I was where I needed to be for my hip surgery, and then it was time for me to move on. I got to Maine and something in my soul whispered 'you're home' .
My point is you never know if you're at some point in your life for your own reason, is this the important stuff, or other, bigger reasons that you don't know yet. Some times you just have to close your eyes and wait for the answers. No matter what faith you have, they will come to you.
I am currently stationed back in Maryland on my husband's last tour in the Navy and although I wasn't thrilled to be here, and living out in the middle of no where presents some challenges. I am here because finally after all these years, I am really getting some where with my doctors, and I believe when we leave here in two years (because right now, I just can't see retiring here) I will have a diagnosis. Finally a firm diagnosis and an understanding of what's wrong with me and a treatment plan. So I hold onto that. My hubs is here to network with the people he needs to talk to as he nears retiring from active duty and I am here for some answers.
Like I said, you just never know if it's your own reasons that bring you to a place or if there is a bigger plan. The important stuff never shows up in your best clothes or scheduled celebrations. It creeps up on you in the ordinary day to day life, in the moments when you're not looking, and then....suddenly.....you get it.
Things like; at one point in time, I thought my ex-husband was it. THAT was were I was supposed to be. But then I wasn't. Now I am sure that my purpose in life is to give my husband my time and teach him the things that he doesn't understand. Poor Mr. straight-and-narrow ended up married to me. He married a girl that just had one little tattoo on her arm from when she was 20 and she was a country girl. I've tried to be a country girl, a mid-western girl, and a west coast girl, but none of them ever worked for me.
Now the poor guy, the one who lives in a world where there are rules and SOPs (standards of procedure) and lines in the sand, is married to me. Somebody who these days has 4 or 5 tattoos and is planning to get more soon, has her nose pierced, and her hair is never the same length or color from year to year. I embody the tortured writer's soul occasionally. I ask him all the time what the hell he is doing with me. But somehow it works.
We got into an argument recently (married people argue?? who knew??) and I opened my heart and my mind and asked for guidance. I'm a Buddhist, so I asked the universe, the karma gods, and Buddha what am I supposed to do right now? The answer came to me as I meditated. Love is always the answer. Love the people you have in your life. Teach them and be open to their teachings for you.
I have spent my whole life saying "I want to go home.....I just don't know where it is". This gypsy soul has searched through the west coast, Hawaii, the south, and the Midwest for some place that felt like home, (see above) and it was only a few years ago when I ended up in a place I'd never thought to go. I got to Maine through a series of crazy unforeseen steps. I originally ended back up in Michigan and now I realize that I was there for a completely different reason that I thought. I was where I needed to be for my hip surgery, and then it was time for me to move on. I got to Maine and something in my soul whispered 'you're home' .
My point is you never know if you're at some point in your life for your own reason, is this the important stuff, or other, bigger reasons that you don't know yet. Some times you just have to close your eyes and wait for the answers. No matter what faith you have, they will come to you.
I am currently stationed back in Maryland on my husband's last tour in the Navy and although I wasn't thrilled to be here, and living out in the middle of no where presents some challenges. I am here because finally after all these years, I am really getting some where with my doctors, and I believe when we leave here in two years (because right now, I just can't see retiring here) I will have a diagnosis. Finally a firm diagnosis and an understanding of what's wrong with me and a treatment plan. So I hold onto that. My hubs is here to network with the people he needs to talk to as he nears retiring from active duty and I am here for some answers.
Like I said, you just never know if it's your own reasons that bring you to a place or if there is a bigger plan. The important stuff never shows up in your best clothes or scheduled celebrations. It creeps up on you in the ordinary day to day life, in the moments when you're not looking, and then....suddenly.....you get it.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
the class of 1991
It's after 11 o'clock at night. I just took all my nighttime meds and hubs and I are settling in for the evening. The animals are fed and the day is winding down. It's time for bed soon, so why does inspiration otherwise known as (occasionally or sometimes my best writing) strike at these odd hours. I do more writing (even if it in notebooks or in my head) in these odd hours than at any other time during my day. Even when I want to sit down and write in the morning, but alas it comes late at night.
I have finally started (in somewhat earnest) writing my book. The first 1027 words are in a document saved to my desktop, so these days I find myself putting more and more things throughout my day in the context of how does this relate to my story? The memoir that I want to share.
Today I found a link to a business that somebody I went to school with forever ago is running. It got me to thinking. I see people that I sat in class with that have become chiropractors, massage therapists, business owners, business people, analysts, financial something-or-other....and I thought. What have I done? I don't have my own business or travel the world for meetings. So are they more successful than I have been? Out of the people that graduated in my class, what are we out in the world now?
Then I thought, wait a minute. I am a writer*, a blogger, a mother, and a Navy Wife (something I take great pride in). I serve our country too, just in a different capacity. I tell my oldest daughter that because she is a military wife now too. She'll be 19 tomorrow and she's married to a Marine. I make a difference with my blog and my Facebook page to women I know very well and women I have never met. I do the research for chronic pain conditions and I share the newest information with people that are struggling with the kind of pain that would make most people cross their eyes, and these people do it every single day. I know this because I do too.
And I'm a home schooler. I have taken on the task of raising and educating my youngest child because I honestly believe I can do a better job then the public school system. I have a college degree and I have the love and the hope of sending my kids out into the world to make a difference. My oldest is already out there, and she makes a difference in the people she has in her life and I'm proud of her for that. My son graduates next year, and he will go out there and be a good man.
So what really is the class of 1991? We're friends, and lovers, and fighters, and business people, and wives, and husbands, and students, and parents. I haven't kept up with the people that went off to business school and work in suits and offices with secretaries. But I found out that Steph and I share a bond of broken hearts and unimaginable pain. I found out after all these years that K and I share a chronic pain condition and we both know about live in and around the Navy. S and I are both married to the military, through our husbands, and through our service. We take care of everything when our brave husbands are away. And if it can break, blow up, or bleed while they are gone, it will. And we handle it with amazing strength and grace.
I myself have survived death, taxes and lightening literally hitting our house. Dead armadillos and cars that won't start, blown pipes, and birthdays spent far away from one another.
But out of the class of 1991, who are we twenty years later? Some of us are still friends, some of us drifted apart. Some of us bounced around for a while and then found each other again. I play Words with Friends with D. After all these years, I still get to hang out a little bit through game apps with the guy that I spent my junior and senior year hanging out with because we both took the new kid placement tests at the same time. I chat with Steph and share youtube videos posted by K. And even by one of my bestest friends who graduated in our year, but she was 6000 miles away when it happened. My Gingy. I graduated with her too.
LOVE IS GREAT AND SEX IS FUN
WE ARE THE CLASS OF 91!!
*I have been published. Once back in 1999, in a book of poetry.so yes, I'm a writer =)
I have finally started (in somewhat earnest) writing my book. The first 1027 words are in a document saved to my desktop, so these days I find myself putting more and more things throughout my day in the context of how does this relate to my story? The memoir that I want to share.
Today I found a link to a business that somebody I went to school with forever ago is running. It got me to thinking. I see people that I sat in class with that have become chiropractors, massage therapists, business owners, business people, analysts, financial something-or-other....and I thought. What have I done? I don't have my own business or travel the world for meetings. So are they more successful than I have been? Out of the people that graduated in my class, what are we out in the world now?
Then I thought, wait a minute. I am a writer*, a blogger, a mother, and a Navy Wife (something I take great pride in). I serve our country too, just in a different capacity. I tell my oldest daughter that because she is a military wife now too. She'll be 19 tomorrow and she's married to a Marine. I make a difference with my blog and my Facebook page to women I know very well and women I have never met. I do the research for chronic pain conditions and I share the newest information with people that are struggling with the kind of pain that would make most people cross their eyes, and these people do it every single day. I know this because I do too.
And I'm a home schooler. I have taken on the task of raising and educating my youngest child because I honestly believe I can do a better job then the public school system. I have a college degree and I have the love and the hope of sending my kids out into the world to make a difference. My oldest is already out there, and she makes a difference in the people she has in her life and I'm proud of her for that. My son graduates next year, and he will go out there and be a good man.
So what really is the class of 1991? We're friends, and lovers, and fighters, and business people, and wives, and husbands, and students, and parents. I haven't kept up with the people that went off to business school and work in suits and offices with secretaries. But I found out that Steph and I share a bond of broken hearts and unimaginable pain. I found out after all these years that K and I share a chronic pain condition and we both know about live in and around the Navy. S and I are both married to the military, through our husbands, and through our service. We take care of everything when our brave husbands are away. And if it can break, blow up, or bleed while they are gone, it will. And we handle it with amazing strength and grace.
I myself have survived death, taxes and lightening literally hitting our house. Dead armadillos and cars that won't start, blown pipes, and birthdays spent far away from one another.
But out of the class of 1991, who are we twenty years later? Some of us are still friends, some of us drifted apart. Some of us bounced around for a while and then found each other again. I play Words with Friends with D. After all these years, I still get to hang out a little bit through game apps with the guy that I spent my junior and senior year hanging out with because we both took the new kid placement tests at the same time. I chat with Steph and share youtube videos posted by K. And even by one of my bestest friends who graduated in our year, but she was 6000 miles away when it happened. My Gingy. I graduated with her too.
LOVE IS GREAT AND SEX IS FUN
WE ARE THE CLASS OF 91!!
*I have been published. Once back in 1999, in a book of poetry.so yes, I'm a writer =)
Monday, July 11, 2011
A New Way of Looking at It
I'm the kind of person that gets locked up inside my own head, so sometimes the simplest and best ways of looking at something don't immediately occur to me.
If, for example, someone from my past had reappeared in my life and influenced me making decisions that (at the time I thought were good decisions)but maybe didn't end up being what I needed in the long term but were some how just what I needed then, and because of those decisions I ended up being where I needed to be when I needed to be there, but after all of that, it was time to move on.
What I'm saying if that if I believed in a higher power and miracles, I got one 3 1/2 years ago and I was just where I needed to be when I tore the cartilage in my hip, and found the #2 surgeon in the country. And now it's time for me to move on and see what the rest of the universe has in store for me. I needed to be in Michigan for my hip surgery, but that doesn't mean that I shouldn't realize that the promises made to me were just lies in disguise. And I need to see them for what they are. And I need to know that the people that made promises to me are who I thought they were ten years ago.
People change, but seldom.
If, for example, someone from my past had reappeared in my life and influenced me making decisions that (at the time I thought were good decisions)but maybe didn't end up being what I needed in the long term but were some how just what I needed then, and because of those decisions I ended up being where I needed to be when I needed to be there, but after all of that, it was time to move on.
What I'm saying if that if I believed in a higher power and miracles, I got one 3 1/2 years ago and I was just where I needed to be when I tore the cartilage in my hip, and found the #2 surgeon in the country. And now it's time for me to move on and see what the rest of the universe has in store for me. I needed to be in Michigan for my hip surgery, but that doesn't mean that I shouldn't realize that the promises made to me were just lies in disguise. And I need to see them for what they are. And I need to know that the people that made promises to me are who I thought they were ten years ago.
People change, but seldom.
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