In the spirit of trying new things I’ve created a new blog site for some of my more business and career-minded workplace writings! I hope you will check me out and follow me in my new location at http://www.WorkThinkForward.com! Cheers … Continue reading
I have always thought it important to have both dreams and goals. For much of my life, that was difficult to articulate: I am one for who most of those dreams have always been a little hazy and insubstantial…with a few exceptions:
I woke this morning before 5am, as is becoming normal for me. I went into the bathroom, starting to get ready to take a shower and I realized my iPhone was at 1% of battery life. Instantly panicked (as anyone as phone-dependent as I am quickly becomes at this status) I brought my phone over to the outlet in the bedroom and plugged it in. I started checking my email, etc. and the next thing I knew, ended up working on a blog post for www.mischiefofminions.com (my other blog, more kiddie-focused: feel free to check it out!).
My husband discovered me still there when he woke up 40 minutes later.
“Um – whatcha doing?” he asked.
I may have mentioned before that I am fat. It’s not much of a secret. I don’t like to use that term, hate it in fact, but it is a medical reality. And I am struggling once again in attempt to fight it.
My inspiration is simple: I don’t want to be this big. I hate it. I sometimes hate me because of it. And that is not a good example to be setting for my kids.
When I went to a doctor recently because I seem to struggle with losing weight – even when I eat the right things, I was put through a battery of tests that basically said there isn’t a darn thing wrong with me. The dietician looked at food logs I presented, then back at me, perplexed.
I hear all the time how women don’t want to become like their mothers. I feel sorry for them.
Don’t get me wrong: my mama isn’t the cuddly, Hallmark type. She can cut you down into shreds with words if you get on her bad side, she can talk you into doing things you would never in a million years otherwise consider, and I would pit her against Mike Tyson any day: the power of her stare would make the guy quiver and shrink into the fetal position in a heartbeat.
In essence, my mommy is one tough b*tch. She is the badass of motherhood. And I want to (mostly) be just like her when I grow up.
My mama can out-cook, out-clean, and out-organize just about anyone that I know. She will give the clothes off her back to someone in a pinch. She has raised most of her grandchildren for free. She is an artist, a poet, and an accountant, and had she had the opportunity to go to college, she would have pulled straight “A’s” out of pure determination.
BKS would put any executive to shame with her ability to understand the bigger picture of a situation. She will go a week without sleep preparing for a party and making it perfect; she is relentless in her diligence to everything. She never forgets (although she may occasionally get confused) and she is always prepared.
She is the strongest woman I know, and can simultaneously be trusted with your deepest secret and depended on to help wherever she can. She is ridiculously self-less. She has bailed me out of my own messes so many times I cannot even count, and she loves the heck out of me even if I make absolutely no sense to her.
And believe me, I make little to no sense to her. It’s not that I’m so complex, it’s that she thinks I am completely ass-backwards in most respects. She’s probably right.
Truthfully, my mother’s not entirely sure how I’ve survived this long. I’m not entirely sure how I’ve survived this long either – except by the Grace of God and the help of friends and family.
Anyway – even if I don’t make sense to her – my mom has pushed me to do something with my writing for about 25 years now. I think she knows that inside, that’s what I really want to do, if I can only figure out how to do it. I haven’t managed it yet, but I am trying: if I had half her moxie and drive, I am pretty sure I’d have managed a book or six by now.
I love her dearly, respect her more than anyone, and hope someday to do as I am told like a good girl and to make her proud.
So, Momma, it’s not a book, and I doubt you’ll ever read it – but this Blog’s for you.
Not only am I grateful this Friday that it IS, in fact, Friday, but also for the following:
What are YOU grateful for today??
We learn as little kids not to hit when we get angry – usually after we’ve slugged somebody. Apparently, we find, punching your sister in the face when she hurts your feelings isn’t proper behavior. Throwing things, screaming, pulling hair, tantrums of incendiary proportion: all bad.
By the time we hit adulthood, we have learned to hide anger. Pacificism and enlightenment are the answers. We learn to repress, to justify, to just suck it up. We learn to drink, to medicate, and to hide. We are successful, it seems, when no one outwardly experiences the other end of what we’re feeling. The closer we come to the embodiment of Spock, the better we are.
I don’t know how that works personally for you, but for me it sucks. I am a woman of, good or bad, strong opinions and even stronger emotions. I don’t just get angry: if unchecked, that anger ferments into a fine, ugly rage. And with nowhere to go, the emotions eat at my insides like acid. There aren’t enough mashed potatoes I can eat (suddenly craving mashed potatoes) or veiled, snarky comments I can make to reduce the bile that burns me up from the inside out. It uses too much of my energy, and I burn out. I shut down.
Here are some things I’ve learned can help when homicide just isn’t an option:
Throughout her life, my Grandma Ellen wrote letters. She had a whole area of her table dedicated to the art: lovely pens, sharpened pencils, and an index box of addresses. She even had a fancy blue letter opener that sliced her mail with a precise ‘swish’. Gram wrote to her sister, her friends around the world, her colleagues, and when I went away to college, to me.
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You were born original don't die a copy - John Mason
A podcast where I invite guests from all walks of life to discuss their favorite movies, and we use that film as a starting point to talk about deeper issues such as faith, politics, and social issues.
Life that Never Stops
Life, Insights and Observations Through Writing and Art
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