Purpose

Sometimes, when I get down, when things get rough, I need what I call "a punch in the arm".  There are a few people on my list who can do this service for me.  I am grateful for my friends who listen and offer something that I didn't see before.  Sometimes I can do it for myself by watching Joyce Meyer or Joel Osteen, who always seem to be sharing a message that is relevant to me.  Sometimes, God points out to me some little tidbit that reminds me that He's there and knows what I'm going through.

Recently, I've been going through a rough patch.  Financially, I've been struggling, and the relief that I was looking for didn't come, which means more struggling.  After struggling for a while (months, maybe even years), one can get down and wonder "when are things going to get better"?  If things happen for a reason and a season, it's hard sometimes to keep one's spirits up and keep going when there's no end in sight.

I'm going to share a little secret with you--sometimes I feel like a failure as a mother.  It's not because I don't feed or clothe my kid, or that I don't love her, it's because I see where we could be, and how life would be easier for her if we didn't live where we do.  This is hard to admit, because I have been driven all of these years to find a way for us to get out of here.  The economy is bad.  Jobs are so scarce here that 150 people line up for a crappy job at a fast food restaurant.  It is very discouraging.  On top of that, my vehicle is not reliable--it's 20 years old and  falling apart.  We live 30 miles from anywhere, so having a good vehicle to find work elsewhere is imperative.  When the car breaks down, life becomes more difficult, and I become more discouraged.

But here's the thing, the very thing that pulled me out of my funk recently.  I realized that time is short.  Sounds like a cliche' but it's very true.  I figured that at my age, 46, if I was lucky enough to live until I turned say, 70, that I only have 25 or so years left.  When I look at my daughter and realize this, I give her a big hug.  I realize that I need to make the most of my time with her, no matter what our financial situation is.  While I would have liked to be married like my cousins, living in the suburbs, with a big house, a pool, pets and all the other trappings of suburban life, God led me here, to this place.  And while I hate this place, I have something to be grateful for today--my daughter.

No matter how much life gets you down, you can find something to be grateful for too.  Time is finite, and we need to make the most of our time here, because life is too short.  Life is too short for lies and games, and life is too short for sulking about what we don't have.  Sure, we all want our kids to have a better life than we had growing up, but sometimes that's just not in the cards, and we have to make the best of what we do have.  So ok, we don't live where we want to and have a "normal" life like others we know, but we have something, we have eachother.  Sometimes you just have to be grateful for that, because that's all we have to hang on to.  

It keeps me grounded, knowing that my time here on earth is finite.  It helps me to stay focused.  I can get down, just like anyone, but I keep getting back up.  A close friend once told me he liked that about me;  life keeps knocking me on my butt, but I keep getting back up and when I do, I fight even harder.  God wants us to have a life that we can enjoy.  He said that he sent his only son for us, that we may have and enjoy our lives.  

Yesterday, I read an article in National Geographic about Bangladesh.  Bangladesh is a very poor country, which is flooded on a regular basis.  The people who live there have learned to be resilient.  No matter what hardships they face, they have learned to adapt.  They teach us all to let go of our comfort zones, and remember whence we came.  People have survived on this planet for a long time before our modern conveniences made life "easier".  These modern conveniences have cost us dearly, with our environmental issues, stress, financial instability, isolation from one another.  I was brought up to believe that these conveniences were the purpose of my life, and that I should do all that I was capable of doing in order to get them for my own family, so now when we are limited, I feel like a failure, like I didn't do what I was put here to do.

It's not true however.  Life isn't about the pursuit of comfort--it's about moving society forward as a whole, to be part of a larger community.  I now believe that I was put here to "stick up for the little guy".  I've seen myself do it so many times, when no one else would, that I know that God gave me a few of my talents for that purpose, because I have what it takes.  

I have a hard time, sometimes, because I start to compare myself to others, thinking "what did I do to deserve this"?  It's easy to follow the self-pitying path, but here again, I encourage each one of you to keep your focus, and do something nice for someone today, just to piss the devil off, because he'd much rather we all sit around feeling sorry for ourselves.

Never Give Up

If I really believed in the saying "one day at a time", which I do, then I would have to say that it has been a blessing to remember that life goes on, one day at a time, no matter where we are or what we're doing or what's going on in our own lives.


The days of our lives can be lived in peace or fear, or somewhere between.  If I was the fearful type, I would look at the last couple of years and conclude that life is only going to get harder.  Sometimes  it is harder to cope with.  Sometimes the troubles just get to be so piled on top of eachother that I simply feel the weight of all of them.  Other times, I feel light.  I realize, though, that I don't often live in complete peace.  It just hasn't been possible to live in complete peace here.  I know that spiritually, I need to remain at peace if at all possible.


This past weekend marks the 1 year anniversary of an event that has affected my life very profoundly.  A year ago, my life was adversely affected by something that was out of my control, as those things usually are.  The people responsible do not have to live with the consequences of their actions in as much as a personal way that I do.  Every day is more difficult, thanks to the thoughtless actions of others, and now they want me to pay for their mistake.


If you're puzzled, I am mortified.  Yesterday I received the news through my attorney that I did not succeed in gaining access to a surgical procedure to fix my shoulder and rotator cuff from an "accident" that I suffered last year.  The people responsible for my condition do not have to live in my shoes, raise my daughter, and deal with crushing poverty that I have to contend with on a daily basis.  Recently I had a choice to make--Christmas or phone bill?  I chose Christmas, again.  Then the fuel pump on my 20 year old car died.  After raising the money (with the help of a dear friend) for the part, and imposing on my beloved brother (again) to fix the darn thing, I almost had a tow for the car up to my brother's house, but it fell through.  Meanwhile, we've been sick and it's getting cold here, so now life's been generally harder.


I am not one to give up, but I get discouraged too.  This is when we have to thank God for working for us behind the scenes, opening doors for us where none are open.


"It is what it is, so now we need to deal with it."  I heard this in a sermon by Joyce Meyer within the last week.  Sometimes, when life feels like we're climbing a mountain, we need to remember that we can only climb one step at a time, that we shouldn't look down, and keep moving forward.  That's all.  If I can be productive today, great.  If all I get done are three things that I need to do, terrific!  Sometimes that's all we've got.


Today I'm going to do the best that I can, and like my dad said a long time ago, "As long as you tried your best you can sleep at night".  He was right.  I have no trouble sleeping.  When I hit the pillow, it's not too long until I'm out.  I guess I can be thankful for that too.  Some can't sleep.


Here's another tidbit I learned, and I've shared with others:  When Plan A doesn't work, try Plan B.  If Plan B doesn't work, have a Plan C, like Nancy Botwin.  Never give up! 

Just Another Day

Yes, it's just another day here in lovely Bourbonnais...  It's been a while since I've written, so, I'm going to start out with a simple, here's how it is here today.


Today is a new day, and it is sunny and cool here.  Last night, after getting dressed up in her costume, my daughter decided that she wanted to go trick-or-treating taking the same route that we did last year.  This year it was a bit more difficult to do, riding on her bike (with me rolling both bikes along, lol, as she made her way from house to house, block after block) while wearing her long, black dress with the moons and stars on it.  She didn't want that dress, she wanted another dress which made her look schlumpy, so at first she was taking her disappointment out on me by being generally disagreeable.


Recently I picked up a book from the library called "Dr. Rilley's Box of Tricks".  It has been a very useful book in giving this writer ideas on how to cope with my daughter's new "phase" of disagreeing with just everything I say, mostly using the phrase, "I don't care".  Little tidbits like, "the shut-up" problem and how to deal with it, have been very helpful...;-).


I've spent the last few weeks contending with the results of some tests that we went to the allergy doctor for.  Alas, bad news.  My daughter's allergic to a slew of inconvenient allergens in the air at one point or another, pretty much all year long.  Dust mites (and their body parts) are her main allergy, followed closely by mold, tobacco, beef, shellfish, ragweed (and associated weeds), farmdust (which includes a whole slew of things)....whew, was that all of them?!


Well, all this meant that I had some work to do.  First was convincing my daughter that getting a shot once a week was a good idea for the long haul, which is not easy, lol, considering we're talking about a 7 year old.  That was the easy part.  The hard part was getting the whole place cleaned, and everything in it and through it (the ducts!) cleaned and disinfected.  Needless to say, I've found dust in places I didn't know had dust.  Now comes the expenditures:  the bedding covers, the clean air machine and the vacuum cleaner with the HEPA filter, oh, and not to mention the vent cover filters.  I can tell you, the only thing to do in a case like this is to, of course, take one day at a time.  


It brought to mind an episode of one of my favorite shows, Northern Exposure.  Maggie, a character on the show, is allergic to dust mites, and she goes crazy trying to clean, steam and cover everything in plastic, and I thought of the couch my parents bought in like, 1972.  They covered it in plastic, as did my grandma with her furniture.  That was what they did to protect the furniture.  You could sit on it, but you could never feel the texture of the material, you always felt disconnected from the piece.  My grandma, by the way, was an excellent seamstress.  She was the one who actually made those plastic slipcovers, along with shades, sweaters, scarves and other things that I can't even remember now.  When she came over with her supplies, you knew you were going to be hooked up with 'da goods!  I'll say another thing about her, she showed her love for you by making sure you had enough "good food".  If you went over to her house, you could be sure there'd be jello with fruit cocktail in it (or banana slices), and there'd be some homemade apple pie or chocolate cake for dessert!


I miss my grandma, she is so awesome!  She's gone now, but I know she's gonna be there on the other side to give me a big hug someday and I'll give her a big one back!  She taught me a lot by her example, and that's truly what a good leader does, lead by example.


Will write again.  Right now, I need to put out this morning's fire, the milk money needs to get over to the school by 11:00, and the car's broken down, so I have to huff it on the bike.  Thank goodness it's nice out!  Have a lovely day all!

He Has My Back

Well, here it is, the second official day of school, and I have an actual 20 minutes to write!  I said last time that I would elaborate as to why I wanted to share my review of "The Disposable Male" with you all at this point.  I could have included it before but I was waiting.  


Something new has happened.  After realizing that I wanted to run away from Trouble instead of deal with it, I decided to deal with it.  That doesn't mean that Trouble won't come back, 'cause we all know Trouble comes back.  No, it means that when plan A doesn't work and plan B isn't currently feasible, then, like Nancy Botwin, I must choose plan C.  


Plan C involves grabbing the bull's horns, holding on, climbing on top, and riding that sucker (pardon the phraseology) 'til it's broken.  


I was backed into a corner, and God gave me the grace to accept what I couldn't change.  I found strength and I showed courage, despite the spit in my face.


A long time ago, when I was about 7 or 8, I found out that in order to get married, I would have to leave my mom.  At 7 or 8, this was a frightening prospect, so I decided that I didn't want to take any chances of losing my mom, so I was going to be a nun.  Years went by and like a good Catholic girl, I strove to be virtuous.  At 10, I found out what porn was, 'cause it kept showing up different places.  I was intrigued, and thereby my virtue-seeking days were coming to a close.  My soul wanted to be chaste, my hormones were screaming otherwise.  I was totally ignorant about how things worked, but curious nonetheless.


By 15 I wanted to find my special someone.  When a guy would come along, I would think that he was "it".  Needless to say, I set myself up to be hurt, and I got hurt.  My parents didn't help.  I got stuck somewhere there, and ever since I have either been with someone who hurt me, or I've been alone. 


I've spent almost half of my adult life alone, and the other half either in a long term relationship or merrily choosing a random a-hole to satisfy my carnal cravings for the time.  There have been a slew of 'em, many of which I don't remember now.  I've had a love/hate relationship with men.  I crave the intimacy with them but can't quite seem to get there.  I know that I'm not alone.


I am telling all of this, now, because I've had an epiphany.  I have let go of those old expectations and decided that from this day forward, whatever happens, happens.  For years I wanted to get a good job, get married and have a family like my cousins did.  I waited for my turn but all I found was an a-hole because that's where I kept my standards.


After reading the books by Steve Harvey (Act Like A Lady, Think Like a Man) and The Disposable Male by Mr. Gilbert, and seeing the movie He's Just Not That Into You, I've learned a few things.  Communications classes were only part of the puzzle.  I only had the female perspective.  Although the majority of my friends were male, I could relate to them only so much.  I was in a state of confusion for years, even when I was in a relationship.  


Well, God takes you back through things that got you messed up in the first place.  Joyce Meyer made a joke (a while back) that we ought to at least give him as long to take us back through those doors as it took us to walk through them in the first place.  So, here I am.  


Ten years ago I woke up one morning and said to God, tearfully, "I hate my life".  Two weeks later, everything changed.  Ten years, a bad relationship and a daughter later, we are here, her and I, at the threshold of something new.  I'm done trying to live up to others' and my own unrealistic expectations.  It's up to me now to decide where we want to go from here, and up to God to provide the way.  I am thankful that God has my back.  He has shown me again and again that he listens to me.  I am so grateful that he cares, 'cause sometimes it's only been me and God.  It's a new day, and I'm going to be grateful for the one He made.  Currently, I'm reading a book called "The Evolution of Faith:  How God Is Creating A Better Christianity".  It's been interesting.  If there is anything good to share I will.  God Bless You

The Disposable Male is not so disposable

     Today is a new day.  Each day that goes by brings us a little more wisdom and understanding about ourselves and about the world.  At some point in our lives we either take that knowledge with us to the other side or we stop and say, "wait a minute here....".  If the average person gets around 20,000 days to his or her life, there is only so much time to learn and pass things on.
     If life teaches us lessons and we don't get to apply them here, why do we go through them?  If 20,000 days could be thought of in terms of dollars, wouldn't we want to budget very wisely?  Here, 20,000 dollars would buy a descent car.  Is a descent car what our lives mean on the grand scale? To God, we make the best (or not) of our 20,000 and he gets to see what we've done with what he gave us.  It is for Him that I continue to strive.  My life truly has no meaning if all I'm doing is making myself shiny and pretty, without a good engine to support the frame.
     I could write about several things this morning, but I have been holding on to something for quite a long time now, that has not been published to my knowledge.  It is a book review about the book "The Disposable Male".  It was not published in the newspaper because of it's length, but I was never contacted further about it, in order to edit it, after several attempts to get the darn thing to them.  
     The reason I am going here (or there, depending on how you look at it), is because I am letting go of something that I thought I once wanted.  I am going to surrender now to the inevitable change that comes to us all...
     He is not the first person to examine intimate relationships and familial ties, but Michael Gilbert's “The Disposable Male” has evoked the most dramatic reactions from the few males that I have mentioned the title name to.  There is a wince, a turn of the head in disbelief, and finally a “Whhaaaattt?” that is accompanied by the mere mention of the title.  “That's terrible” they say in response.  The subtitle, “Sex, Love and Money-Your World Through Darwin's Eyes” was intriguing to me and won me over because I have heard of this here man named Darwin.  The author, according to the back cover, “is a Senior Fellow at the Annenberg Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California, where researchers track the ways in which digital technologies, the Internet and virtual communities are changing the social, political and economic fabric of our lives.  A lecturer and consultant, he lives in Los Angeles.”  The book was published in 2006 by The Hunter Press, Atlanta, and is 307 pages in length.  This includes an introduction and an index.  Mr. Gilbert heartily acknowledges the many contributions and references he draws upon to make the discussion of male/female relationships more organized and thoughtful. 
“The everyday male is in trouble”  Mr. Gilbert begins his introduction.  He decided to explore these issues and invite readers.  “In addition to generating novel and thought-provoking perceptions, the nature-based thinking proposed in these pages-what this book calls an evolutionary lens-may help us better understand why we feel the way we already do.”  He continues, “For as far back as history records and the natural sciences can trace, men and women have shared common goals even if they often have opposing agendas.  Dependent upon each other, the sexes' unique tasks and specialties have been etched out and deepened over the ages by necessity, chance, and circumstance. During humanity's recent leap from an eternity as primitive foragers to today's city sophisticates, the hard-wired and complementary feminine and masculine energies so essential to our success have been obscured and devalued, weighed down with a paralyzing modern ambiguity.  Men and women have gone from nature's perfect partners to uneasy, cosmopolitan competitors.”
Mr. Gilbert starts at the The Big Bang to explain human relationships.  ponders, “the job of every animal is to survive, but unless we are content merely to exist, our goal as humans must be to get better.  Survival is the first instinct; getting better is the second.  In a crucial sense, self-improvement is a form of survival insurance.”  He makes intriguing observations and  in the first chapter  posits  “Even on a crowded and increasingly dangerous planet, for most of us, launching the next generation is at the heart of our existence, the very essence of our lives.”
He segues “Assured of our own personal well-being, the universal gene-driven compulsion to survive takes shape in us as an urge toward sex.  The fulfillment of our earthbound destiny, sexual reproduction is survival pushed into the future.  If our genes do not find a new carrier, they die off.  That is why we cherish life, crave intimacy, and love sex.  This biological stimulus is the reason why every culture in the world put reproduction at its core.”
In the chapter titled, “Positioning Sex”, Mr. Gilbert examines masculine insecurities.  “The male compulsion to ensure the certainty of his bloodline is the force that has driven men's extensive, often bizarre, and sometimes abominable attempts to control the women around them.  From veils to chastity belts, cloistered seclusion to vaginal mutilation, even the lenient treatment sometimes accorded men who kill because of their wife's infidelity, paternal insecurity is revealed across every known culture...Inflaming this male obsession for reproductive control is the harsh reality that, at least for breeding purposes, we do not ever come closed to needing all the men in the world....This daunting equation of male competition, when added to their vivid biological insecurities, is the source of much male aggression and competitiveness; their fixation on resources, dominance, and territory; even the origins of war.”
Mr. Gilbert emphasizes the male need to develop his masculine role in the world and how not giving them that space and ability hurts us as a society.  “Male initiation provides socially acceptable means for the male youth to gain status and position, something they seek the world over.  These rites act as social pacifiers.  By channeling and cutting down on excessive male competition, and fostering a disciplined response to exterior challenges, these celebrated passages help stabilize society, drawing young men, who are every community's most aggressive and precarious element, into the fold.  Contemporary studies of male prisoners suggest that those with the greatest sex role anxieties commit the more predatory and violent types of felony.”
We are cutting ourselves off from basic human, and natural instincts, and we are paying for it.  In the chapter called “The Cult of the Individual”, Mr. Gilbert builds his case.  “Despite sustained prosperity, Americans say they are overworked and underhappy...At any one time, in what is sometimes referred to as an epidemic, a fifth of Americans report being depressed, lonely, or upset, most often resulting from relationship problems and marital strains....The overall shift to detached, high-tech urban lifestyles has cut us off from the rhythms of nature, distanced us from the wisdom of instinct and the innate sense of our own bodies....Accountable to no one, morality becomes whatever you can get away with.  We drift like ethical flotsam on a sea of moral relativity.  Finally, ego alone triumphs.”
“Despite some pulling back, the broad cultural attack on marriage and the family is relentless and unprecendented.  Social acceptance of casual intimacy discourages matimonial commitment in the first place, and easy divorce promotes its destruction.  Women have been encouraged to make it on their own, and men have been  liverate3d from troublesome responsibilities.  Instead of treating motherhood as the cental axis of our lives and our community, we have run it down.  Rather than trying to attach men to their families and their children, we are driving them away.”  
Females are “encouraged or forced to support themselves and build careers in today's long stretch between puberty, marriage, and beyond.  The contemporary woman has become a hunter as well as a gatherer” he writes.   “Despite all the changes over the last two generations-or perhaps because of them-young women often report that they are struggling to cope in a man's world while many young men believe women get all the breaks.  As a result, America is turning into a culture of severely diminished men without distinctive roles and responsibilities, and overburdened women trying to balance too many agendas.  In the process, masculinity has become a disease, femininity has become a burden.”  
Mr. Gilbert reminds us of the statistics:  “Barely one in three American women held a paying job in 1950: almost three-quarters do now.  And there's not much relief when a husband and children are added to the equation:  two-thirds of women with children under six now hold down a job compared to less then 20 percent half a century ago.  For many of these sleep-deprived women, forced to assume the triple role of wife, mother, and employee, 'you can have it all has turned into a cruel joke.  'You have to do it all' is the not-so-funny punch line.
As children are ever-increasingly raised in single parent households, going without has become a way of life.  “Absent fathers mean absent dollars, which often results in children growing up in impoverished neighborhoods where family instability and crime are more prevalent.  In addition to resource deficiencies, many studies report a significant correlation between an absent father and a child's poor scholastic performance, higher dropout rates, a doubling of emotional and psychological disturbances, and big increases in drug use, teen pregnancy and violent crime by boys.”
As recently as Wednesday, September 1, 2010, on page A9 of The Daily Journal, Mr. George Will from The Washington Post writes about the alarming data publicized by “Nathan Glazer...sociology professor emeritus at Harvard,...writing in The American Interest...”By the age of 4, the average child in a professional family hears about 20 million more words than the average child in a working-class family and about 35 million more than the average child in a welfare family-a child often alone with a mother who is a high school dropout.”  Mr. Will continues, “After surveying much research concerning many possible explanations of why progress has stopped, (speaking about how black families are struggling in the Obama era) particularly in neighborhoods characterized by a concentration of deprivation,” the ETS report says: “It is very hard to imagine progress resuming in reducing the education attainment and achievement gap without turning these family trends around-i.e., increasing marriage rates, and getting fathers back into the business of nurturing children.”
Mr. Gilbert offers some suggestions on how to “bring men back into the fold” of the family.  One thing he emphasizes more than others though, “Honor Men”.  More important than all of the specific measures and detailed recommendations for rebuilding masulinity is the overall social awareness of the importance of preparing boys and honoring men.”
Mr. Gilbert supports commitment.  “For all but the last few thousand years, a man's work has summoned his evolved mental and physical skills as hunter and defender.  Males had a sharply defined purpose, a mission that harmonized with their abilities and held their attention.  Men knew what was required of them...More recently men have learned that being yoked ever so gently to wife and child holds profound rewards, enlarging their horizons and extending their perspective into the future.  Purposeful partner rather than an optional loner, the married man is encouraged to become a responsible citizen, enriched by the connection to his children and the exclusive, enduring partnership of a woman.”
All in all, we are in trouble unless we can learn to work together instead of against eachother.  Mr. Gilbert's observations are concurrent with the general state of things.  I enjoyed his insights and felt his frustrations.  He is pleading with us to get our priorities straight.  As a single mother struggling to balance, I can endorse his observations as hitting closer to home than I am comfortable with, but hearing the truth is never easy.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

I haven't written in a couple of weeks.  Things have been crazy for a couple of weeks.  Every day we are blessed with new challenges and new understanding.


First came the news that my daughter's father was about to get out of prison.  At first this brought apprehension and anxiety.  Then we've been having trouble (perpetually) with some boys here where we live.  We took a trip up to see my grandma who's losing her battle with Alzheimer's.  We spent an afternoon with our favorite uncle, Mr. Mike.  I've been hustling to get my daughter's supplies ready for school in a couple of weeks.  This week my daughter is in a day-camp with a Star Wars theme.  She was very excited to go as she thinks that light sabres are really cool.


The Chicago Bears (football team) are in town and currently holding their training camp across the street at the university.  Their visit brings excitement to the town here, as business greatly appreciates the tourist dollars people spend here this time each year.  


I would like to take some time to talk about role models in children's lives.  I once heard that you can make a child into either a leader or a sociopath, depending on the environment that the child has to live in and the people in their lives.  Role models are so, so important to children.  If they don't have a good role model, they begin to turn, to become cynical and sneaky.  


This is very evident here where I live.  I can hear a parent tell a boy to go outside, but I don't see the parent play catch with the boy.  I see a parent send their children outside, and tell their children "if you have a reason to come back, you'll have to come in", so the child asks my kid for water.  I hear a mother tell another adult, "well, my son's gonna RESPECT me!", and create an environment where the son creates trouble behind her back.  Another girl, 9, was outside at midnight, watching over her toddler brother and infant sister while the mother apparently "wasn't aware" that the kids were outside at that time of the night for a couple of hours.  I can say, with a great amount of certainty, that these children don't feel either safe or protected or valuable in their own homes and that's a real shame.  These are the same ones who turn cynical and begin to resent authority.


I know.  I felt my father was a hypocrite and didn't trust him and didn't feel my mother protected me.  I grew up feeling closer to other relatives than to my own parents.  I became self-hating and self-destructive.  I started smoking to piss off my dad.  I really didn't even like to smoke, but it was an act of defiance that kept my spirit alive (at the time).


I've also heard someone say, "If you don't want to spend time with the child when they're young, they won't want to spend time with you when you're old".  Don't you think that's true?  Who wants to spend time with an adult who abused you, or never came to your baseball games, or was too busy working all the time to take you out for ice cream?  I'll be the first to admit that as a single mom, my energy, time and money are all budgeted.  I'll also say that I have to "budget in" time each day to just hang out with my kid.  On Saturday nights we have a "family fun night", where we watch a movie together, play a game, maybe have popcorn and a pizza.  It's sometimes exhausting to keep the "schedule", but I know that later on that we will both appreciate the time that we've invested.


I remember the times that I played cards and spent time with my Grandma when I was young.  When I would come over, she'd make a favorite food of mine and sometimes she'd let me stay up late with her to watch the news, maybe even Johnnie Carson.  I felt that we were friends.  She still looks at me with those smiling eyes, like she's so proud of me.  I am comforted by the familiarity.  I can't go back home again, but I can remember feeling safe in my grandma's kitchen.   I can only hope my daughter will have the same kinds of memories to keep with her on rainy days.

Hidden Glen

Some days are just easier than others.  Sometimes we ride high on the roller coaster of life, and sometimes we ride low.  The coaster doesn't stop 'til it's time to get off.  Sometimes I wish that it would be even-flowing for a while longer.


Life for us here is about survival.  Sometimes things go along nicely for a while, and we get a break from that struggle.   There are times when the coaster turns from the right and then to the left, and then we are spun upside down.  It's crazy, you just never know what's next.  I guess it all comes down to purpose.  The purpose of our move here was to get stability going.  Life with Johnnie was anything but stable, and it was incredibly draining for me.  When all was said and done, I moved us here to get a "jumping off point", from which I could plot my next move.  The rent is what drew me here.  These apartments are privately owned but federally subsidized, so a single mother with a baby can move in with just a deposit.


Seven years ago we came here.  If I thought one way before I came here, I now think another.  First of all, I didn't see us here for more than a year.  Secondly, I expected the apartment to be horrible.  Third, as I've made friends with my neighbors everywhere else, I expected to make a friend here.  I was wrong on all three counts.  The apartment is small but clean, primitive but not horrible.  


There are other real problems here.  When I moved here, there was no bus stop.  If you needed to ride the bus in this town at that time, you had to be able to call and schedule the bus to come near to your location.  This didn't serve the community here, and was very difficult to do without a phone.  Since I lost my vehicle, and everything else, I had to rely on my feet and our stroller.  It was bad.  The first winter I took a job a mile away, as a waitress (for $3.00 an hour plus the$1.00 average per hour tip you made) and because I was on my feet so much, my feet fought back and I developed serious problems with them, so now I can't be on my feet that much.  I pushed that stroller to the grocery store, and tied the bags to the stroller and pushed the whole thing (with my daughter in it) back home.


The struggles have been many here, isolation (because the people here are from here and they don't like outsiders), poverty, depression on my part, being looked down upon by the other townspeople for being poor.  Having to stand in line to receive 2 toys for Christmas at the Salvation Army is an exercise in humility.  I have many stories to tell.  I don't do that anymore.  One year we got a box of expired food, and that was the end of that.


What has been the most company here is the hatred.  I just happened to move in next to a paranoid, controlling anger addict who has,  along with her sons, made our life a living hell here. For a few years, every summer, she'd find some reason to start a fight with me.  She's vandalized my stuff.  Her sons, last year, assaulted my 6 year old daughter by threatening her with their aluminum and wooden baseball bats, groping her under her clothes, circling her on the sidewalk, humiliating her and laughing.  I walked up on the tail end of it.  We went through a nightmare for 8 weeks, with no where else to go.  We ended up losing our case for a restraining order against them, which would have been grounds to get them evicted, because we were given the run around by the agencies that are supposed to be here to protect us, and I ended up on the stand being thrown a bombshell that I was supposed to prove that they had been stalking her. The law has been set up in favor of the criminal.  When I tried to get her counseling to help her, I was also given the run around by these people.  When she finally found someone to talk to, the agency closed down due to lack of funding.  That's when I knew we were in trouble, so I found someone at a martial arts school (Christian) who cared enough to take us in and gave my daughter a year's scholarship to study with them.  I am SO SO grateful.  It is still hard, but I take her twice a week, and she's earning her fourth belt and has just been nominated into the "Leadership" program.


Despite everything, and with God's help, I've struggled to make a few improvements here.  We have a bus stop now, and the kid's have a small playground.  The university next door shut their spotlight on us down by half, and the management here respects the 24-hour notice thing.


Still,. I sit here this morning so very sad.  I've been upset for days, because while I've tried to get my work done, and my daughter has been playing in our front yard minding her own business, the other, older kids still prey on her (and me).  They do this because they don't know what respect for your neighbor is, and if you're not part of the "home team", you are out.  This has been very difficult for my daughter, who doesn't use words like "mother fu___er", "fu>> you", and other choice expressions, sometimes with the word "nigger" thrown in.  She sits on our porch and watches them, but doesn't interact.  And if she is just being herself, they consider it to be a weakness to be sweet and playful, and they bully her.


Twice in this last week her and her friends tried a "stand".  They didn't sell lemonade, they wanted to sell "origami".  The other, older kids (a swarm of them) came up and tried to get the stuff for free (of course), and started arguing with eachother and the girls, so that I finally had to put a stop to it.  For weeks now, the son of a mother out here (strife personified) has been bullying my daughter because he knows his mother condones it, to be mean to me because she's never liked me because of my skin color.  So this boy and his friends have been coming around to ruin whatever fun the girls were having each day. 


The day before yesterday, my daughter wanted to put up her (kid-sized) tent, so she and her friends could play in it.  It took 45 minutes to get the darn thing up.  It was up only an hour before the unsupervised swarm appeared.  When they were asked to leave, they got smart mouthed.  Another mother asked them to leave, they laughed at her.  Finally, they started throwing things at the tent, smearing mud on the outside walls, and punching on the roof.  I went out there with the only weapon that I'm allowed here (and condoned by management), my camera.  I said, "say CHEESE"!  They went away for a while, deciding whether or not I could "take them to court".  Then they came back.  I took down the tent.  Several of them (and their unauthorized dog) came around the back of the building and sat themselves down (the one in particular) on my air conditioner and was picking up my plants and looking at them.  I asked them twice to leave.  Finally, trying to get dinner on the table, I took another picture and told them I was going to have a word with the mother.


A few minutes later, the racist mother came over to my door, banging on it and screaming obscenities at me, calling me a "pedofile", a "tramp", etc. wanting to beat me up outside.  Lovely.  I told her that she wasn't worth the trouble (because we would get kicked out too), but I'd love to oblige another day.


Yesterday my daughter stayed inside most of the day.  When she finally went out, a friend came up to her and they sat on the porch talking.  A moment later, some older kids (the other kids' friends of course) came up to the door, screaming that my kid is "gay" and that I don't discipline her!  My daughter made the mistake of showing love!  Next thing I know, there's a freaked out father on my porch demanding to know whether or not my daughter kissed the other little girl on the mouth.  My daughter said no.  The other girl said no.  The older kids were starting trouble with me, I explained to him, because of what's been going on with them being disrespectful to us.  The father wasn't satisfied and stomped off saying I was "blowing him off and he would handle it his way".


At 7, my daughter hugged her friend, and she was labelled "gay".  There are so, so many things wrong with this picture that my eyes fill with tears and my heart with disgust.  As a Christian, I am supposed to pray for them and forgive them, but how do you forgive someone (or some people) for such hatred, evil, and stupidity?!  


We left last night, to retreat to a friend's house nearby.  We needed a reprieve from these stupid people.  To say that they are "so ghetto" is an understatement.  I'm going to share a little secret with you.  The people in the surrounding area say that no one ever wants to help "those people" here "because of the way they act".  I felt then that they may be a bit afraid or aloof to the plight of the poor, but now, truly and unfortunately, I understand what they meant. 


Even the property management is apathetic.  I've been waiting for 2 years for the property management to approve the improvement of a field here on the south end of the property, for the kids.  They blew me off and every time I would ask them, I would hear that "it isn't a big priority right now".  They've owed us $75.00 gift cards for 18 months, and every month I am blown off.  All they care about is their money.  They have done NOTHING for the kids here, they didn't contribute one dime to that playground effort.


Some people have suggested that I stand up and be the leader that I am and help them.  I've tried, despite my loathing for the place.  This place only represents sorrow and struggle to me, and my daughter doesn't know any different.  When I thought about it, I thought, what a shame.  


There are no jobs here.  We are 30 or 40 miles from anywhere.  I'm going to have to leave the area to find work, and I have to wait for my shoulder to be fixed to do that.  Meanwhile, I'll renew our month-to-month lease here for another year, sigh.  I hate signing those papers, and for the last couple of years, I've had to fight off tears at the desk I'm signing them at.  This year, we are going to break free of this concentration camp.  This year, I'm going to make it my business to find a way.  I hope God will open the window, please.

Drive

What drives us forward?  Is it the desire to find love and happiness, the desire to achieve, the desire to see the future?  What happens if you lose "your drive"?  How do you find it?  We all know (probably) by now that life is full of twists and turns, and they're generally supposed to teach us things about ourselves and life.  What if you get stuck somewhere along the way, as most of us do, do you keep going forward, or which way is forward?


For a long time I thought I wanted to be married with a house and family near where I grew up.  I moved around quite a bit during my adult life, and even moved back near to them, but it wasn't "where I belonged".  Even though "everyone knew my name", I didn't feel it was home.  It's weird, my cousin moved into the house right next door to her mother, but I couldn't do the same thing.  For a while I wanted to move to Wyoming.  Why Wyoming?


Well, for one thing, the state has more land than people, and as a landscape photographer, that appealed to me.  Beautiful scenery and open spaces, fresh air.  People appreciate eachother more when people are scarce too, you know?  When you live out in the country, a neighbor is a treasured and respected friend.  Neighbors become very important people in your life.  I want to be able to see the stars at night, which is becoming increasingly difficult in our light polluted skies. 


When I became a mother, I realized that I would have to put my kid's needs ahead of my own, which is why I give consideration to the fact that she wants to stay in her home town, here, but something is beckoning me to leave.  It's like there is no "bearing of fruit" here anymore.  Life has become a difficult struggle for survival, and in that arena, I can hold my own, but the stress gets to you after a while.


To make my point, and only to make my point, I will share "a day in the life of...".  


Yesterday morning, at 1 o'clock, I was awoken by "(so and so's) so NASTY!  HEY (so and so)!"   At 9:30 a.m., there's a knock on the door.  It's the maintenance man, who's 5 days late in coming, talking in Spanish on his cell phone (but who doesn't bother to call me to say he's coming), finally here to unclog my bathroom sink.  And what does he do?  He puts on his pair of rubber gloves, grabs my bucket, asks me for some bleach, takes apart the pipe under the sink, (after my daughter and I have to clear the cabinet under the sink), and smells up the apartment slopping gook out of the pipe with my toilet paper.  It was like he was looking at my underwear.  I felt invaded.  I'm never calling them for that again.  I could have done better myself.


After things calm down again, I go downstairs to start cleaning the kitchen, and my daughter tells me someone is knocking on our door.  The guy at the door wants to buy weed.  I say to him, "Man, you've got the WRONG door!"


Money, what little drips in, arrived in the bank account, so we took off for the store to buy desperately needed paper goods.  But, wait a minute!  We can't go directly to the store because we'll run out of gas on the way there!  It's below empty!  Detour!


 You see what I mean?  After a while, life becomes about the performance, not the purpose.  It's in times like these that I need to get back to the "why".  Books can give insight and inspiration.  Spending time away from things can give a new perspective.  But the underlying theme remains.    Yesterday, I read something thoughtful.  An army sergeant and a lieutenant were in a bad situation and the sergeant remained cheerful.  The lieutenant asked the sergeant why he was still so cheerful, even though the situation looked bleak.  The sergeant said that when the circumstances are "fixed" (unchangeable), the only thing to change is our attitude towards them. 


How, I wondered, could I change my attitude about being poor and living here?  I am not from here, I don't like it here, I don't like the "ghetto mentality" that exists here.  My heart is somewhere else.  Then came a small voice with a suggestion.  "Use this as a stepping stone."  Joyce Meyer reminds people that "you are not your circumstances".  She also says, and I know it's true, that people in the best of circumstances usually don't appreciate it and are not happy anyway.  It's true, it's what's in your heart that is important.  You take yourself with you where ever you go.


Have you ever heard of "The Secret"?  The book/movie was featured on Oprah a few years ago.  I was so inspired by the possibility of overcoming my circumstances by positive thinking and affirmations that I told all my best friends about it.  I encouraged them.  I wanted to see results.  I wanted to believe.  The premise is simple.  If you are in need of money, instead of expecting another bill in the mail, start saying to yourself, "I have all the money that I need coming my way!" If you want to land that job, you would see yourself driving to work, performing essential functions, having lunch in the cafeteria.


Trouble is, I can't say to myself that "I love living here!"  I've kept the mental attitude about the money thing, but as time wears on and opportunity hasn't arrived, I'm beginning to feel that those people are full of crap.  I'm also beginning to believe that the book that I'm reading now is correct in saying that we need to be bold, try new things, do things that we're afraid of. 


Contentment has to come from within too. Be happy with what you have and for your friends and family, right?  It's true.  Circumstances are only for a season.  Despair is the real enemy.  There are depressed and apathetic people everywhere.  People go through the motions.


I want a new day.  I want to wake up in a place that I want to be at.  I want something to look forward to again, more than just my motherly duties.  I am more than just a mother.  I want a life outside of this crappy town, and that is what drives me today.  I don't know how we're going to get there, but I have faith that God will open a door for me when it's my time.  I just pray that it's soon.

Connections

There are plenty of ways in which we're connected.  There's the obvious blood ties, friendships, governments, churches, etc.  There's also a bigger connection.  If every action causes an equal and opposite reaction, and energy is neither created nor destroyed, what I do affects the outcome somewhere, sometime to someone.


Here's an example.  In 1982, I went to a wake for a classmate.  I was 15, and I remember more about who was there than interacting with the grieving mother.  She was broken up.  Several years later, her new husband decides to purchase a lot at a campground in order to spend time with his new wife's grandsons, who lost their father to addiction, also one of the sons of the original mother.  Around that time, my mother and I go down to the same campground and pick out a spot of her own, for my brothers to camp and bring their friends.  It's next to the mother of the sons who died.  The two women meet and become friends.  Eventually my mother invites the other mother over for get-togethers, and we meet.  She is aware that I knew her son.


Years go by and the grandsons grow up and my brothers grow up.  I run into some trouble and end up taking over the property.  One day I find out that I am pregnant, which is very unfortunate because I just broke up with the father.  The other mother comes down that day and we talk, and she wants to help, to be a friend.  My daughter's father and I give it one last shot, which doesn't work. He ditches me at the hospital and I call the mother of the boys who died and she is present when I and the baby (thankfully didn't happen) run into trouble and almost die.  She is the first one to cradle my daughter in her arms.  


Her husband tries (in vain) to be the same kindly grandfather that he was to his wife's grandsons.  My daughter doesn't like the idea.  For most of the last 7 years, she has avoided him.  She didn't like his beard.  He tried and tried to befriend her.  We visited him in the hospital the week before he died.  He had been sickly the last few years and finally his heart gave out June 17th.  Attending the wake, the grandsons' mom spoke about the husband and the way he took her boys under his wing and was kind to them.  He took them out to that campground just about every weekend every summer until he couldn't do it any more.


The boys have grown up now.  My daughter finally smiled at the husband the final time she saw him alive, and I truly hope that it brought the man a little comfort.


Make a difference in a kid's life today, you'll never regret it at the end.  I hear people don't count their money at the end of their lives, they count their blessings.

That 70s Show

I sort of imagine time and space together, you know?  Time travels backwards in space, like in the opening of the movie Contact, when a television signal is traced back through time and space, travelling at the speed of the wave.  At the speed that the camera was going, backing up from a point in time on the Earth, backwards, as if zooming out from some giant celestial camera (maybe much like our own Hubble telescope), I am not sure if it was a sound wave or at light speed.  


Cold Case Files is much the same way for me, with the accompaniment of era-appropriate background music.


Somewhere in time (in the late 70s) I was blessed to meet a new friend.  She was new at school, and didn't really know anyone, and we became friends.  She came from a big family, and they didn't live too far away that they were only accessible by car.  It was exciting for me to get time to be by her house.  She had 4 brothers, 2 younger and 2 older, and a younger sister.  Their mom was strict, and their dad was easy-going.  They had a big back yard with an above-ground pool.  They had Atari-which was brand new technology back then.


If we weren't playing a game, we were swimming, riding our bikes, playing pool in the basement, or waiting for our turn to play Space Invaders and Asteroids.  Those were our favorites.


They were used to having extra kids around, so 1 more didn't phase them too much.  It was a welcome reprieve from the strict micro-management style of parenting that I endured at home.  When there were more kids, I found out, things could be gotten away with that were otherwise under scrutiny in a not-so-busy household.


Sometimes they went out and would let me tag along for the controlled chaos.  It was fun being "just another kid" in their imperfect but lovable family.  As the years passed, and my friend and I attended high school, her older brothers became instrumental in our "teenage freedom".  When bribed and cajoled, one of her older "driving" brothers could take us to the mall, or somewhere else we didn't want parents to know about.  Once in a while, I would run late enough to need a quick ride home so that I didn't incur my father's wrath.  Sometimes I didn't make it and would regretfully be grounded for a week or two.


As time wore on, too, they became instrumental in having an excuse to hang around their friends.  Their friends would come over to play pool, a few of them became regulars at the house, and would occupy space in the giant, overloaded Chevy station wagon that was used for the family transportation.  My friend and I were perpetually vying for a back seat, not the"rear", hang-on-for-your-life "seat" that was the trunk.  Ah, the 70s, back before car seats and required seatbelts.


One brother was a crazier driver than the other, and you better hope that you're at the car before the others called dibs!


Eventually I came to have a crush on one of the brothers, and would look for any excuse to be around to "impress" him.  I became like Erkle, lol.  Time wore on and I wore him down, and one day another friend arranged for her boyfriend and her and I and him to all ditch school and spend the day in the woods, lol, doing all the things you don't want, lol, your teenaged daughter to be doing.


It's one of the times of my life that I can remember perfectly.  I can remember that the weather was perfect, sunny and warm, but not hot.  We acted as "natural" as we could, running for the corner, later called "party corner".  When we got there, we walked up the path, along the edge of the field, out of sight from anyone.  We sat down in the grass, and whew!, oh my...I have to stop here!  It is still as clear to me now as it was then.  I am transported back in time and can feel what I felt, see what I saw.


It was one of the few days of my life that I felt free.


We walked further into the woods, over a log that bridged a creek, around the bend, and voila!  You were at a fire pit.  We hung out there, in the woods, all day, until it was time to go home.  I wanted, after that, to recreate that feeling, but could never get it back.  A year later, I snuck out during a snowstorm, all bundled up and playing commando in the snowdrifts, lol, to sneak over to their house in the middle of the night to "steal" some time with him, but then my dad found my bundled up robe under my blanket and I was grounded for a month.


There is really nothing like the first kiss, you know?  It's either hot, or it's not...but when it's hot, MAN!  You can never really forget!


One time I made a complete ass of myself (lol, wouldn't be the first time, wouldn't be the last!) at a wedding trying desperately to get his attention...lol.  I don't remember what I did but I did it good.  It was the end of our relationship, and we really didn't communicate for another couple of years.


Alas, sigh...looking back now, with hindsight...I can see why I felt the need after that to "conquer and win".  I didn't want to feel that vulnerable again and I wanted control of the situation, so I detached emotionally.  It wasn't until much later that I let myself be vulnerable for the sake of attachment.  Unfortunately, it was to someone who "demanded" it of me and used it against me. It was, you guessed it, a-hole #1!


What does it all mean?  I guess it means that I didn't guard my heart when I should of.  I wanted approval from 2 people who weren't going to give it to me, and it left me feeling empty inside.  I did further damage to my spirit because I didn't take very good care of myself and wanted to win so badly (everyone hates to lose) that I ignored blatant warning signs warning me to back off.  Instead of trusting God to work things out for the best, I tried to force things to be "right".  It doesn't work.


All I can say is, I can close my eyes, and still have my sweet memory.  Maybe someday I'll be blessed with that kind of joy again, but this time, I won't have to hide.  

The One That Got Away

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.   Part of the reason that I write this blog is to enlighten others by using my life as an example of "what not to do".  


Tonight I watched a sermon about change (from Joyce Meyer ministries).  Joyce was making a point--that if we want change in our lives, we need to make changes.   We need to stop looking at the past because we won't see what God has laid before us for the future.  It makes sense.


Today I found out that someone whom I once loved is terminally ill.  If you've read my blog before, you know that I have two ex-fiances.  I didn't get married because I knew I'd be divorced by now, but I didn't mention another special someone.


I'll confess something...I fell in love with someone, hoping beyond all hope that things would work out between us because I was very attracted to this person.  It was something about him and the way he carried himself.  He spent time in the military, so he carried himself with respect.  His teeth were like Robert Redford's (back in the day), all neat and shiny and big.  The guy had a movie star smile.  He was tall and he had a six pack.  My one ex-fiance referred to him as "George with the six pack abs" because I confessed one day that I loved the guy.  He asked me what I found so attractive about him.  The first ex-fiance understood this, because he was the one who prodded me to read "The Harrod Experiment".  There was no sexual insecurity with us.  He compared me (mostly how I lacked) to Playboy centerfolds, and I found every beautiful boy toy to have sex with behind his back.  As my self-esteem dwindled, the boy toys became more "studly".   What dickhead #1 didn't understand was that he, in essence, drove me from his own arms with his mouth.


Anyway, after breaking up with dickhead #1, I moved closer to my family and home town.  I met George one night, as our eyes locked from across the room.  We gravitated towards eachother.  The attraction pulled us together.  George blew me away.  I wanted so badly for things to work out, but the more I wanted it to, the more it unraveled.


There's always one person who loves the other more in a relationship.  Unfortunately, my emotions gripped me as he rejected me.  He chose someone else.  It broke my heart.  Every time I saw him, I wanted to cry, to melt, to mourn.  I had to change my life and accept that my dream of us being a couple was just a dream.  It still hurts today, as if it were yesterday.  I remember an incident where I was at a friend's house, and he drove past on his motorcycle, and I started feeling sick.  I kept looking for some sign of hope, but none would come.  I finally gave up on men all together and spent the next 8 years alone.


A long, long time ago, I wanted a happy family.  I set out to make one.  I tried like hell to fit into everyone's box.  I did what I was supposed to do, and still I failed.  Many times, what God has planned for us is incredibly different than what we thought we wanted.  Recently, it has come (blatantly) to my attention that I need to change again.  I need to get beyond my own insecurities to become the leader that I need to be.  Did I say "need"?  Well, I am, a leader, that is.  Always have been really, just got knocked down for a while.  The qualities have always been there.


Before I came here I didn't know what it really meant to be poor in this country.  I've lived here since my conception, but I wasn't poor.  Oh, I've never been rich, but I didn't have a child to think of either.  I was spoiled in a way, because I had things and took them for granted.  Money talks, and while I've never had a lot, my looks and charm carried me where money left off.  I never had to be a single parent with no real outside help.  I never had to stand in the line for the food pantry, much less for a few toys for my kid for Christmas.


Becoming a single mother was an exhausting exercise in humility, because believe me, people treat you a whole lot different when you don't have the Benjamins.  I've been lied to, used, treated like a zoo animal, scorned upon and pitied.  There are ways that we treat others we judge that I was previously oblivious to.  Now I've found out what it's like.  


That was the change that God saw for me, way back when.  I wasn't going to get my "happy family" with my looks, or with my money.  I was going to get my wish, just not how I wanted it.  


Even still, I cry at the thought of missing the opportunity of sharing my life with someone I truly cared about.  I hug my daughter tightly, knowing that she may be the only family I may have for the rest of my life--but I still have the rest of my life.  Someone is out there that I still have feelings for and he's going to leave the Earth without knowing how I ever felt about him, and that makes me sad.  Maybe he didn't deserve it, maybe he didn't ask me to love him, but that won't change anything.  Today, the only person I know that I can change is myself, and it hurts.  Knowing that doesn't make me feel any better.


I know I'm not supposed to look back Lord, and wish for things to have been different, and I know why things worked out the way that they did, but I still wish, stupidly I know, that he loved me too.

It's Complicated

     Men and my reaction to them has always fascinated me.  Back before I cared (and acted differently than I normally did) I liked a couple of boys, and they liked me.  One kid I was sitting next to in kindergarten (on the floor, ready to watch a film) smiled at me one day, and he was a good looking boy, so I decided I liked him too.  Around that time, I went over to my aunts house quite a bit when my parents were working, and she lived next door to a family who had a boy my age, and we were friends.  I am not sure how it developed, but the relationship culminated in him and I "getting married".  Geez, what pressure for a 5 year-old.  I don't remember what happened when, but after my family moved out of the area, he became more and more distant each time that I came for a visit, and eventually they moved away too.

     I started acting weird (and not being myself) when my self-esteem began to fall.  This happened after fourth grade, when my family moved to a new area, and I found it difficult to "fit in" with the kids at the new school.  My parents were no help, quick to point out (as usual) that it was "all in my head".  I was the problem.  

     In the fifth grade, I liked a boy in my class.  He didn't like me though, and rejected me, for the most part.  One day he was visiting my neighbor, and they must've found out about boobies, and they invited me into their "club" and wanted me to show them mine.  I ran away, thinking they were creeps.  

     In 6th grade, I had 2 major crushes, one on an older boy, whom I adored for the next couple of years, and another on a boy from another school, whom I chased all over the magic kingdom to get him to notice how fabulous I was.  Alas, he never did.  I settled for less and my first kiss was with a boy I really didn't like.  

     In 6th grade my parents hung out with several other families in our neighborhood.  At one of the weekend get-togethers (pool parties), I stumbled upon a Penthouse magazine in the upstairs bathroom and proceeded to sneak upstairs whenever I had the chance to read it from cover to cover, to learn about the mysteries of life.  I found that the women in the pictures all proceeded to find a man and seduce him, post haste, have her way, then the two would go back to regular life as if nothing dirty had just happened.  At 12, this was dangerous information.

     I found the power of womanhood.  I proceeded, for the next several years, to push the envelope (and my boyfriends) to ever-increasingly dangerous heights.  I thought I was in control.  I desperately wanted love to go along with it, but would never admit that to myself.  I felt out-of-control in many different areas of my life, but sex was something I had power over.

     This continued until I decided I was in love with someone.  He didn't want me to love him, which made him all the more of a challenge to me.  Sex had now become equivalent to a challenge for me.  I would pick the biggest challenge, and seek to "conquer the mountain".  I usually won-there were few that walked away.  This left me feeling empty, and in need of more conquest.  It was a pattern for years, until one day I decided "enough is enough".

     When I made the decision to go back to school and get my degree, I also made the decision to stop my self-destructive ways.  I needed a new path. 

     For the next 8 years, through much of my 30s, I was celibate.  I still had my boyfriends, but they were now "just my friends".   It wasn't until I asked God to bring me a man that I decided I'd waited long enough.  I met Johnnie while seeing his friend.  By then, I was good at being a guy's friend.  We could hang out, he could do what he wanted with whomever he chose, and I wasn't affected in the least.  When our friend decided to move out of state for a job, I was bummed.  Johnnie pursued me, but I had no interest in him.  For a couple of months we went out as friends, until one night he confessed he liked me.  What?!

     Now that our relationship has been over (4 years now), I am alone again.  This time it's different.  I have no desire to pursue anyone at this point.  People say to me, what about sex?  I just smile and tell them I didn't miss a thing...

I Can Do Bad All By Myself

About 10 years ago, I was a different person.  I finished up a stint in the Student Senate, got my degree, worked as a freelance photographer, worked as a store manager, and delivered pizzas on the weekends when I wasn't taking pictures.  I lived in an affluent area and there was never a shortage of work.  I never went more than 2 weeks without work.

There were so many awesome restaurants, theaters, and music venues that I never lacked for something to do or people to be with.  I had my friends.  I had boyfriends.  I had my family, we were pretty close.

One day, in July, I woke up from a dream.  I realized I was missing something.  For all that I had, I didn't see a way to get where I really, deep down, wanted to go.  I wanted a family of my own.  The biological clock was ticking, and working so much, I didn't see a way to make room for a family life.  I realized then that I wanted something more than just money, I wanted the whole "picket fence thing".  I didn't know how to get there.  The previous 8 years were spent with the nose to the grindstone, and when I woke up that morning, I uttered "I hate my life" to God.

Well, he heard me.  He had a plan for my life all along.  He knew my heart's desires, so my life took an unexpected turn.

Less than 2 weeks later, I went to work as usual.  Towards the end of my shift, the police came into the store.  I was mortified when they told me that my mother's house had been raided, and they suggested that I was dealing drugs.  They questioned me and arrested me.

Turns out, they were after my brother.  They arrested him too.  We had warned him, several times, pleaded with him, but he didn't listen.  I was horrified to find out that they found paraphernalia in my room.  After spending a week in jail, they dropped all of the charges except one, the paraphernalia charge.  I took the supervision, did my community service and everything turned out okay.  They didn't want me, they wanted a dealer, and when they found out that I wasn't who they were looking for, they let me go.

I take responsibility for my own actions.  I was never, ever a dealer.

The event changed my life.  Suddenly, I lost one of my jobs, my home, one of my cats was missing, and I didn't know where I was going.  I was lost and incredibly sad.  I was forced to pick myself up, get my things and move on.  I moved in with a friend for the next month and saved every penny and got my own place.  Humiliation was a constant companion.  My friends were supportive, but I knew a door had closed.

Another job came along, and I worked 2 jobs again.  For the next 6 months, I kept my nose to the grindstone.  On New Year's Eve that year, I asked God to bring me a man.  (I say now that I should have been more specific--"Good man, kind man, who has himself together, not an addict", next time, lol).  Then Nermal, my cat died and I met my daughter's father.  I was going to marry Johnnie and I called the family one day to tell them the good news--out in the wilderness, I had found love and was going to get married.  My mother cried for 2 days I heard.  It was an unexpected reaction, at first I couldn't figure out why she would be sad.  Then I realized it was because Johnnie had brown skin.

I was comfortable with my decision, (until the day I broke my elbow falling off my bike because Johnnie had taken my car up to Chicago and was f%$*ing another woman in the back seat of it, while I had no way to get to work) until things changed again.  He told me that he was in a relationship with someone in the city, he ended it, and was prepared to "make good" to me. I wasn't sure.  Really, I should never have given him another chance.  I felt alone in the wilderness, and didn't want to be.  

Funny during all that time, God was giving me what I wanted, but I couldn't see that, nor did I thank him.

After I broke my elbow, I couldn't work with one hand.  One of my bosses let me keep delivering pizzas on the weekends to feed myself, but I relied more and more on Johnnie.  I lost the apartment when I couldn't keep up with the rent, the car payment, the credit card, and all the other bills.  I hit a deer in the wilderness, lost $7,000 on the deal, and eventually lost the new car because they repo'd it while the insurance company and the finance company argued over whether my gap insurance covered the payments.  So we moved further into the wilderness.  When I regained the use of my right arm, I pursued a way out.

I secured work, took Johnnie to work, and took care of us.  Things didn't get better with Johnnie. He was deeply addicted to cocaine.  I didn't know then what I know now.  He would trick me sometimes, take my car and disappear for the weekend with all the money.  It left me devastated.  I kicked him out.  A couple of weeks later, I found out I was going to be a mom.

WOW!  Not good timing!  Everyone (just about) talked me out of marrying him.  Everyone felt I wouldn't be able to raise a kid on my own, it was just too hard.  When I told Johnnie, he begged me to give him one last chance, for the sake of our child.  He got an apartment, went to work, but the addiction never slowed.  I just landed up taking care of the 3 of us.  One day he said, "If you don't like it, get the f%$& out".   

When I was 6 months pregnant, I took out a little "insurance policy".  I signed up on the waiting list for the place I'm at now-a subsidized apartment complex, where it didn't matter how low your income was.  After he said that, I moved out.  I never looked back.  

Since then, I drove him to rehab, helped him get back to work (again), helped him in any way that I could, for the sake of our kid.  Still didn't work.  He was going to hit bottom, no matter what I did.  I prayed that God would take him from us, because life had become "avoiding Johnnie" and his craziness.  One day, he stole my last $20 bucks, and I just started a new job and needed the money for gas.  In order to get the money back, he made a deal with a guy and the guy didn't pay him what he owed him.  This set Johnnie off, and he broke into the guys apartment (while he was in there), tied him up, and when the guy didn't have his money, he stabbed him.

The news came a few days later.  He's been in prison since then.  He writes me every 2 weeks, first apologies, the pleads, finally, now, he's clean and sober, ready to make a new start.

But this story isn't about Johnnie.  It's about me, God and Tabitha.  You see, God knew all along what was coming.  Through it all, for richer or poorer, he was there beside me.  He was there through all the sleepless nights I layed awake crying.  He was there.

Recently, as things turned bad again, I was very angry.  I was angry about the way things are, that we are struggling so much, that we are so poor, and it felt like no one cared.  Things are bad all over.  I felt alone again, with a child in tow.  I felt lost and afraid.  For the last week I've been trying to pick myself up off the floor and find hope somewhere.  Then inspiration came last night through a comedic film called "I Can Do Bad All By Myself" by Tyler Perry.

Ohh, I can relate to that title.  The movie was okay, but it opened my eyes (thank you God) to something.  The main character in the movie was a woman, lost much like I was.  When her sister's kids showed up at her door one day, she wanted to run the other way.  She was unhappy deep down, but didn't want to admit it.  The kids (and a handsome handyman) showed her that she was capable of so much more than she previously strived for.

See, it made me realize something.  It didn't matter that she wasn't prepared for motherhood.  Motherhood was prepared for her, and once she made the commitment, she would be fine.  Actually, she married the handyman and adopted the kids!  It reminded me of that 80s movie where the career woman suddenly finds herself a mom, checks out of corporate life to raise the baby, then starts her own baby food company.

Growth comes through adversity and self-realization.  Suddenly, I realized that it didn't matter if we are poor (now).  I had the greatest gift that God could bestow upon me--a family of my own, someone to love and cherish, who loves me back!  As a mother, I now make sense, and even if the world is beating me down, God gave me the greatest gift of all--love, in more ways than one.