Happy Belated Birthday, Mom.

Mom, you would have been 79 years old if you were still alive.  Happy birthday, Mom.  The very best gift I could offer you is my forgiveness.  I wasn't the perfect daughter.  There was only one perfect human but that is saved for another day.  Today I offer my gift of forgiveness.

Mom, I forgive you for a lot of transgressions.  I am certain that through my remaining days there will be more things that pop up into my mind, both positive and negative memories.  I ask your forgiveness for falling short of the daughter you wanted.

I forgive you that you forced me to grow up and take responsibility for Matt for much of our young lives.  Even after you married Bud, I was still a primary parenting figure to Matt. That hurt him and it burdened me more than any 8 to 18 year old deserves.  I feel that the beginning was out of necessity because you were trying to keep us afloat with Dick not in the picture in any way.  After that, though is where the hurt is most profound.  You used me.  You neglected your duty as a parent to me and to Matt when you dropped us in Moulton so that you and Bud could live in Houston.  You tried to justify it that you were keeping us our of trouble after what Rick had done and been through.  I wasn't Rick, neither was Matt.  We were all in different developmental stages and dealing with a major shift when you married Bud.

I forgive you of all of the jabs about my weight and appearance.  I was doing my best to fill a hole that you created in me when you didn't fulfill your duties.  It started early and with increased pressure of adolescence, living in a rickety unreliable farmhouse in pretty harsh conditions, it got worse.  I forgive you of the jabs about recommending to the show, "What Not to Wear", telling me how to dress as an adult. So many instances, that I just can't count.  The strange thing was, you forgot that when you started to make more money that I needed to stop looking like I was wearing hand-me-downs.  You had forgotten the importance of positive body and self-confidence that you needed to foster and instill in me as your daughter.  I think this is what made me a "hard-ass", I always felt I was on my own.

I forgive you for the ugly things you have said about my home through the years, even my sons' artwork as children.   Nothing was ever good enough so you lived a life that wasn't full.  You tried to force that on to me.  You tried over and over to push me where to live and how to live and after forcing me to be independent, I wouldn't have it.  It bothered you that you were losing control of me.  I forgive you because, you shouldn't have controlled me ever.  I am sorry I gave that power to you, I cared too much.  

I forgive your shallowness about appearances.  You were insecure in who you were at the time and historically because of your own issues with your parents so you put on a mantle of everything beautiful and perfect.  Life isn't perfect and it is beautiful in the imperfections.  

I forgive you for failing to ever put me first.  I think you made a really good attempt with our wedding but for the rest of my life, it was all about you, you, you.  I pray that God is using my experiences to be a better parent and one day grandparent, to see and capture the beauty in togetherness.

I forgive you for treating me so differently than my brothers, holding me to a higher standard morally and behaviorally.  You seemed to have a real hands-off approach to my education through the years, I forgive you for that, too.  When I needed a car, you bought a sports car for yourself. I wasn't expecting something super nice, just something that would actually be mine.  I think Grandma and Grandpa gave Rick a car, Matt bought a car.  I didn't buy a car but I put my self through college paying for well over 1/2 of it, working while in high school and college and not accruing any debt in doing so.  I resented the way you would say, "Bud's put three through college right now." It was a lie.  You knew he wasn't paying for mine but you wanted to give laud and praise to him.  I resented that I was expected to be tough and work outside and do housework when on the farm but my brothers just had to work outside.  I forgive you for that and for all the little ways that Matt, my junior by only 18 months was coddled even through high school when I wasn't cherished.  You took advantage of my good nature and I forgive you.

Lastly, I forgive you for the role you played in your own death.  I think your borderline personality disorder grew and grew from late 1976 onward.  You would travel from doctor to doctor until you could get the medications you wanted to drug you and numb you from the pain you were feeling.  You were addicted to surgery and the need to be the center of everyones world.  Even the plaque on your desk stated, "Everyone is entitled to my opinion." You lacked humility, you didn't know how to ask forgiveness.  You certainly didn't know how to give it. Your drug addiction, your BPD, your insecurities make me overly cautious because I don't want my husband or children to have the relationship you had with me.  I forgive you for that conditioning. 

I think from heaven you are crying tears for me, hopefully looking out for me and helping me heal these gaping wounds.  I just think you didn't know.  

I forgive you Mom.

Oops!

 Well I have been poring my heart out on this blog with hopes to work through whatever:

a.  makes me have chronic pain (particularly in my back)

b. creates an appetite that is basically hard to control

c.  keeps me from doing what I love the most.

In doing so, I have bared some of my feelings about things in my past.  This is what "the work" demands.  As you know, if you read my previous posts from this week, it has been making me sad.  Duh.  Unearth your most unpleasant memories and yes, you feel raw, angry, vulnerable, sad, exposed.  I have spent years covering up those feelings and memories, so why shouldn't I be sad.

This morning I went in to see my pain doctor.  Yes, this is another area where I am similar to my mother.  I was going in for my second RFA --radio frequency ablation.  This is where electricity is used to burn nerves that are stimulated enough to give significant pain.  I have had numerous, maybe five or six, epidurals where a corticosteroid is injected to help provide relief.  That wasn't working so here we are today, going a step further.  The first one was for L3, L4, L5 on the right side, today was the left.

Last week I went for a physical and my new primary care physician told me my blood pressure was a little high.  When I had received the first RFA about 11 days ago it was high then, too.  Today I wanted to try to mitigate that and I have always felt that when I meditate, my blood pressure is lower.  Arriving early enough, I sit in my car to meditate about 10 minutes before heading up to the doctor's office.  It is in the beginning stages that I remember that the purpose of meditation is to learn to let go.  I had been faithfully meditating for about six weeks before Easter when I abruptly stopped, no known reason. So now I know what has been missing, I haven't been meditating to let go of all these unearthed feelings.  

Double Take

I look a lot like my mother.  At one point in time after she died, my dad and I went out to eat at their country club where the two of them used to go and eat with friends.  One of her friends audibly gasped when she saw me with my dad, the similarities were that obvious.  I have done the same when passing a mirror.  

That being said, I don't always favor my mother.  My brother Matt, used to favor her a lot.  He has the long lankiness that she did in years gone-by.  My nephew, Aaron, though over 6'3" also has facial features that remind me of Mom.  Sometimes, when I grow out my hair I look less like my mother.  I have had short hair for a while and in my life, many times.  After Mom died, I refused to get the short hair that I wanted as a courtesy to my dad, knowing that if he looked at me, he would certainly see my Mom.  Given the amount of care I was giving to him, I didn't want those lines blurred.  I have darker skin than Mom and tan more easily, I tan VERY easily.  I also have my father's deep set eyes.  Mom didn't have those bags that I now carry.  Because I was a smidgen taller, I had longer fingers.  That drove her crazy that I was taller by an inch.  She was quite competitive in just about everything.

We did, though, both have scoliosis, mom had migraines in her earlier life, and at a few points in time, we both wore the same size.  I, of course, got larger and she started shrinking.  

We have some personality characteristics similarities as well.  Mom and I both love(d) color though we didn't love the same colors.  She had a talent for making a room look like a magazine spread.  We both love the creative endeavors and stage performances.  We both loved playing games; she was competitive though and I just loved the togetherness.  Both of us loved to read and we both needed glasses.  Both of us could be perceived as "bitchy" as we were a little too direct for many peoples taste.  Maybe that was lack of female influence in our lives, I don't know.  

There were some quite obvious differences between us, though.  Mom, from about 1976 onward (when she married Bud) was always concerned about what other's thought. I think as she got older it became even more of an issue. I think this was when her Borderline Personality Disorder began.  While I do like having friends, I think that Mom was a bit preoccupied with keeping up.  She liked the perception to be that she had money.  She was nosey about what Glen and I had and we were/are extremely private about that.  Mom was manipulative and controlling and I am more apt to let go of things, I hope.  If I cannot, I talk to Glen about them and usually that sets things in balance.  My mom was a self confessed gambler.  She told me she lost their "fortune" in the stock market twice, with losses near millions.  I am a sit and wait kinda girl, way less impulsive.  Mom had real talent when it came to decorating and cooking, but she lost interest in the latter. Mom was often insensitive to others feelings, she would lose friends in a heartbeat and not know why.  I lose friends, too, but not in the same way.  I am so desperate to have that long term friendship, I am more apt to fail to recognize that some friends are only for a season.  

So, yes, I am in so many ways LIKE my mother.  I am not, however, my mother and I refuse to become the woman that she was.  I will continue to pray that God's grace stay with me to keep me strong in the pull to the darkness that my mother succumbed to: BPD and self absorption. I thank God for the gift of my mother and all that I have learned both positive and negative while I hope to be mindful that my life is a gift from God and what I do with it is my gift back to God.

The Weight(y) Issue(s)

Recently, I met a woman with a very body positive vibe.  It was early June, I had orchestrated a neighborhood scavenger hunt, and she showed up in workout wear with no "over" clothes like I would have worn.  She was a pear shaped woman, likely 15 years younger than I and was absolutely loving being in her skin.

I wish I could say the same. 

Sure, I have my positive moments.  Usually it's when I look in the mirror after taking a shower and I have hair and makeup on.  There are other moments, too, when I actually feel good about how I look.  But this woman, there was no ambiguity about her self image.

Because of my aforementioned battle with sugar, my eating to fill a hole, and struggling with understanding that I don't have to keep up with anyone, I have issues.  When I was in high school, I don't recall every feeling "fat" or even larger than I was supposed to. I do remember eating WAY too much junk food.  Some of it directly tied to our living with a stranger.  In college I put on the "freshman fifteen" like most of my female classmates.  I struggled with it, trying to exercise it off but realistically speaking, I could not stick with an exercise regime to save my life. 

The only summer of my college career that I went back home, my mother decided it was time for me to lose weight.  We were living in Moulton and there was actually a Weight Watchers group somewhere nearby.  So I counted everything and felt deprived:  deprived of sugar, and carbohydrates, and attention that I actually wanted.  My Mom thought she would be my coach, watching everything I did and ate, encouraging me to walk on dusty roads in the heat of summer.  Once or twice she went with me and then she started to feel bad.  I was supposed to "run home" and tell my dad who would come pick her up.  This was likely July, middle of the day, on gravel roads.  I don't run.  I have never been a runner but Mom made out like she would die soon if I didn't so I tried, in the sun, on a gravel road that was an  uphill trek to get home.  I think I ran, then walked, then ran some more.  Mom didn't die that summer but I thought I might. 

Every once in a while, she would pat the back of my legs ----- the ones my brothers called "thunder thighs" ----- and say, "you don't need to eat that."  By the end of summer I was down to an acceptable weight according to Weight Watchers.  When I was driven back to college and I went grocery shopping.  I distinctly remember being near the Albertson's dairy department when we were walking.  Mom stopped and I went ahead.  "What are you doing?" I asked. "I am just looking at how beautiful you are now that you have lost weight."  Sigh.

Obviously I didn't stick with it.  Who was I doing this for anyway?  This isn't the kind of attention I wanted or needed.  It's pretty hilarious that I look back on my college pictures and say, "Wow, look how skinny I was!"  After the summer after my junior year, one of my residents (I was an RA) came to me to confess that she had an eating disorder.  It was why she was always wearing sweaters.  That blew me away; her family didn't pay attention to her.  

After I graduated my mom informed me that my grandfather was giving me liposuction surgery. 

What?  

Rick and Carolyn had been given washer and dryer after they were married from my Grandpa.  Matt was given a trip to Europe.  What did I get?  Liposuction that I didn't even know I needed.  Mom was in control of Grandpa's money and she wanted everything to be fair.  In my mind did washer + dryer = trip to Europe = Liposuction and 6 weeks of recovery seem fair? It still doesn't.  LIPOSUCTION HAD NEVER EVEN CROSSED MY MIND and now Mom had me thinking Grandpa thought I was too fat.  

Let me be crystal clear about a few things.  My mother's mother was over 5'10" tall and not a small woman at all.  My father was a large man.  Even in his early days when he was courting my mom, he was not a scrawny guy.  His own mother was a portly woman and his father died of a heart attack.  My sons are both above average at 6'1"; they got that from me and my side of the genetics.  One of the two is ectomorph and the other is an endomorph (I think) and honestly, I don't care so long as they are happy, healthy, and morally upright.  

I still eat too much and too fast but now I know why.  I can usually stop myself or at least slow down.  Fullness is a rarity for me.  It is truly better if I do intermittent fasting and wait to start eating around noon.  Nowadays, I feel like open the mouth, open the flood gates.  If I kept a food log, it might help but honestly I don't want to.  I still remember writing everything down for WW. Enough.

No, may I have a serving of unconditional attention please?  Let's serve it with a side of forgiveness.

Friends

 I almost took today off from writing but I really do want to establish a habit until I think that I have either worked through my issues or until it has morphed in some way to something else.  I just really didn't want to be sad and truly digging through sometimes unpleasant memories can be heavy.

That being said, I think I want to focus on friends.  I have friends that have a friend network that goes back decades, truly.  I don't and most of the time, I am okay with that.  We all enter this world alone and that's how we go out. Well unless you were a multiple birth.  My student asks me every few months who my best friend is and I know she is on a fishing expedition.  She needs to hear that she ranks in my life enough to be named.  She doesn't like my answer though because it is Glen.  We have been friends for such a long time and we usually behave like friends.  He wants to sit and drink coffee with me in the morning, we take turns deciding what to watch and even with that we are mindful of what the other person avoids, he knows I don't like to dry so I usually wash.  

The friends in my stages of development have been pivotal.  I don't have a whole lot of memories of friends before we moved to the West University area. In the West U area, Mom was working hard as a single Mom and we were on our own a lot. When we moved there, I don't remember how, my I became friends with Erica Herndon.  She had a lot of friends and I am pretty certain that I ranked lower on her list than she did on mine but that was okay.  She lived about five blocks away in a house that was perhaps 3 bedroom 2 bath and she didn't have siblings.  This was so novel to me as I was always scrapping for my place with Rick and Matt---seriously stuck in the middle. Erica, though, had at least 3 doting parents: a Mom, a Step-Dad, and a Father.  During this time, I had one. Mom.  She lived with her Mom and her Step-Dad in what I thought was a dreamy house. There was color and style and there were pretty things.  I remember my awe at her bed linens as they seems so cloud-like.  Any way, she was nice to me and we spent time together.  

My best friend, however, was Julie-Anne.  She was also an only child, living just down the street from me with her Mom and Dad.  I know her Dad was former Air Force and her mom a Psychologist.  Her Mom later divorced her Dad and took up residence with a woman.  That was pretty earth shattering for 1974.  She and her parents also had nice things. I think mine were all hand-me-downs and our furniture was not quite as stately.  With both of her parents working, I think we might have been their charity case.  At any rate, Julie-Anne had fabulous creative birthday parties.  Her parents owned a sailing vessel that could sleep 5 as well as a small Prindle cat.  I wish I could thank her parents for including me in so many of Julie-Ann's experiences for a few years.  They were so kind!  Julie-Anne attended a private school while I went down the road to Robert's Elementary (where I frequently dropped Matt at Kindergarten).  The difference was inconsequential as she was a year younger and we wouldn't have been in the same class anyway.  Being with Julie-Anne and her parents was my first real glimpse into what a happy family looks like.  Her Dad, even after the divorce, stayed near and active in Julie-Anne's life.  

I guess what I am realizing is that everyone in your life has a role:  some are principal actors, others supporting actors, and there is always the crew.  My heart is full of gratitude, for those few years in particular. 

Am I Allowed to Be Sad?

 I am writing these blog entries to work through things that I feel I might have buried for years.  I think these incremental burials played havoc on my body and rather than acknowledging that what I was feeling was a sort of stress, I was taken to doctors.  My migraine headaches started when I my period did.  My back trouble didn't bother me until much later. I developed Irritable Bowel Syndrome when I was in high school.  My poor eating habits took root in my body after my parents married.  My memory is very clear on three things:  my dad (Bud) had 3 large boxes of fortune cookies that he had for work.  All the fortunes were the same: "Schlage will bring you good lock." They were kept in the pantry --- perhaps my first foray in "closet eating".  I also remember coming home and making buttery pasta.  I don't recall there being any healthy snacks in the house that interested me.  I am thinking maybe some gross granola bars, like nature valley.  I do remember enjoying Yoplait yogurt but it was the pasta that I craved.  Also, I would save up my money and ride my bicycle to Mr. M food store.  It was a convenience store in our neighborhood in The Meadows.  I would grab my babysitting money and head that way and buy candy, all that I could.  I would eat quite a bit before getting home and hide the rest.  All three were absolutely awful choices for what to eat but I was living in a home with 2 parents working, not paying an incredible amount of attention to me, and not being given a whole lot of options.  Mom at this point was addicted to Coca-Cola; it was her morning coffee.  I come to realize much later into my adult life, that I rarely feel satisfied when I eat.  With brothers and later sons, I thought it was my job to keep up.  At one point in time a friend of mine gave me a sidelong glance and a comment that still stays with me.  She had noted that I had a hard time stopping eating something that I thought tasted good.  It was years later that I realized food (especially sugar) was to me what moving was to Mom.  I was trying to fill a vacuous hole and honestly, it is still a problem.  The primary difference is now is that I am aware.  My sugar addiction over all these years has lead to inflammation and issues from that----migraines, back pain, urinary tract infections, etc.  This is why I am doing the work.  But am I allowed to be sad and angry?  I, truthfully, don't want to do this work if the only thing I get out of it is anger or sadness.  

Interestingly, since starting this writing journey a few days ago, I have been sad. It is a very strong and sudden pull.  I will be okay, like a mellow 3 and dip down to a 1 in a matter of seconds.  It is really strange how quickly it will come.  So I think about the things I am writing and what is making me sad and acknowledge it.  I think I am allowed to be sad, I just don't want it to overtake me.  I think this is telling me I need to keep writing to write my way through my feelings.  

I had remembered back in the early 2000s I was struggling with depression and my Mom told me that I should go to a counselor.  I remember telling her, "Are you sure you want me to do that?  Because if I do, this is all your fault."  She didn't say anything in return.  So for now, at least, I am okay with being sad.

Fresh Air?

 If you can't tell by what you have read so far.  We moved a lot and I still move a lot.  I think somewhere in my mother's mind, it was what was supposed to happen.  She was an air force brat and that was what she had to do as she grew up. My father was an officer in the air force so it just continued into her adult life. Honestly, it never went away.  It wasn't until I was an adult myself into my 30s that I understood that Mom was moving to search.  She was always looking for something better to make her happy.  

My dad, Bud (not to be confused with my father-Dick) was an only child who loved the outdoors.  He had spent most of his adult life living in Houston but wanted more.  More space, more views, more time,.... just more. So while I was in the thick of invisible in the middle school years, my parents bought acreage about half way between Houston and San Antonio.  I think they were "bitten" when our neighbors who had acreage and a weekend home outside of Moulton, TX invited us.  The amount of time we spent there was not insignificant.  We would walk, explore, swim in "tanks", catch grasshoppers and appreciate beautiful sunrises and sunsets.  I think there were poker games, card games and fireflies.

So during those years, we too would traverse on the weekends.  It was about a two hours drive each way and we would work to clear land, make an abandoned farm house habitable, work work work, eat really good food, listen to country music, work some more.  When people meet me, they are usually surprised to know that I lived on a farm for four years and took weekend residence for a couple of years before that.  The house was primitive at best with one working spigot stuck out of a wall, inches of dust and dirt in the attic, absolutely nothing close to air conditioning (not even ceiling fans), complete with an outhouse. While my dad was away one weekend, my mom thought she would surprise my dad and have us kids (aka slave labor) clean out the house.  So here we were, 4 brothers and me, shoveling (literally) dirt out of an old farm house and sweeping and spraying a garden hose and sweeping and shoveling and spraying water all weekend. Maybe it was even a holiday weekend because I felt like the "fun" never ended.  When we blew our nose in the evening it came out black.  Farm house had no bathroom (yet) and maybe two bedrooms? Who could tell what was supposed to be a bedroom, etc. We later learned that my dad had intended on burning it to the ground.  Even though it wasn't fun work, I am glad we did it.  That experience and living in that house is part of me.  

Fast forward a few years complete with a bathroom and a kitchen sink and Mom and Bud decide that we will move out there.  "We" is actually my younger brother Matt, and myself.  My parents would commute back and forth over the weekends and "we" would live in this house built the beginning of the 1900s with a stranger and attend a new school where were knew ONE person.  Matt would start 7th grade and I would start 9th.  This was moving from a suburban neighborhood where I graduated from eighth grade with a class of 300+ students to attending a high school where the class size was perhaps 25 and everyone there had known each other since birth.  The counselor was also the principal.  We had to argue with him that there was no need for me to take Homemaking as all the girls did because I had already taken two years of Homemaking.  So, here I am in a town where I know no one and immediately placed into a situation where I am only with boys and not making friends that way.  I was the first girl in Moulton High School to ever take Agriculture and I know I wasn't the last. 

Let's just stop here and let that sink in.  New small town (population about 1000), new micro small high school, no friends, living with my younger brother (let's keep in mind my role when he was in kindergarten) and a stranger, not even taking all my classes with the other girls almost all of whom had been together since kindergarten or sooner.  There was also the prevalence of the Catholic Church across the street; most of the town's inhabitants were of German or Czech descent and Roman Catholic.  I was none of these things.

Invisible in the Middle

 When you are stuck in the middle of something, oftentimes one feels as if there is nothing to do or change.  Maybe that's why I am an INTJ because from the middle you can watch, soak it in, learn and think.  You might not be able to act but there is certainly time to judge.

As a middle child, I still see and feel this primarily in reflective moments.  As an educator with more than 20 years experience, I can pinpoint birth order with some accuracy.  

Nineteen seventy-nine was a fairly pivotal year in our family.  In late August or September, my Mom was introduced to Bud.  Finances had been getting more challenging and Mom told me she had actually considered prostitution to help put groceries on the table.  She did a wonderful job of shielding us from that stress. Yes, I did wear second hand clothing but I didn't understand that money was tight.  I actually thought that everyone wore someone else's castoffs. Maybe this was where I first learned the value of thriftiness.  I was ever the saver child.  At one point in time (maybe early 1976 or 1975) my best friend Julie-Anne and her Mom (and her Mom's gay lover) took us to California for a vacation.  I remember Julie-Anne's mother telling me that I was told that I couldn't spend any of my savings on anyone other than myself.  That was hard for me and is still a challenge.  

Mom had been dating a man named Charles that took us fishing early one morning.  He seemed okay but there was something that made me uncomfortable.  One night, while asleep in our house on Sheridan, I woke to see him standing in my doorway staring at me.  He didn't touch me or walk in, he just stood and stared, making me quite uncomfortable.  It was about this time she met Bud and from my recollection of our conversations was that she had two marriage proposals: one from Charles and one from Bud.  She was so desperate to get out of this hole that she knew she had to consider.  She had only known Bud 3-4 months before they married.  God must have been truly guiding her because I shudder to think of what life would have been like with a man that stares at a 9 year old while she sleeps. She and Bud married in December of 1976 and remained married until her death in 2016, just shy of 40 years.

So we moved again, into Bud's suburban home in the the SugarLand area.  It was a four bedroom, 2 bath house in a neighborhood.  I made friends with a lot of kids.  There were Lisa and Craig across the street, Martha diagonally across, Kim down the street, and Monica a few streets over to name a few.  I started babysitting for $1 and hour and swam on the swim team in the summers.  It was good.  I started fourth grade at Meadows Elementary School and later graduated to SugarLand Junior High. I had unique friendships with the friends listed above.  Martha and her brother were an immigrant family from Columbia.  I think I was with her when we watch Prince Charles marry Lady Diana.  Craig was my first strong crush but he didn't reciprocate.  Craig was a year younger and his sister 2 years younger than Craig but I hung out and played with primarily Lisa.  Kim down the street was my first exposure to the Catholic Church and what I would later desire for my own family to look like.  Her mother was a stay at home mom who was an amazing cook and decorated beautiful cakes.  I still make a recipe I found in Lillian's (Kim's mother) collection of recipes.  Kim was also a year younger so when I started Sugar Land Junior High, things changed.  Monica and I became close friends throughout swim team and junior high.  

When Mom married Bud, timing was excellent for me and probably my younger brother Matt, too.  Our father had seen us perhaps 4 times since my parents separated then divorced.  It was good to have a strong male influence in our life and Bud was STRONG!  Bud insisted that we answer with "Yes, Ma'am, No, Ma'am, Yes, Sir and No, sir".  He was a former Marine who served in Korea. Bud had 3 older children of his own, we would see his two sons on the weekends. Their ages are wrapped around Rick's and my age. We were in sorry need of a male influence but Rick, as a 13 year old, wasn't so savvy to have some militant man telling him how to behave and live.  Things got touchy and Rick rebelled in a few different ways including some theft, running away, throwing parties behind my parents back, etc.  

Middle school, oh those years. How I would wish I could swallow them away!  There are always things about middle school.  I had some fun and made some friends but no friends I am still in touch with.  As a matter of fact, I don't have any friends from my youth.  That's another story for another day.  Monica and I did everything together, until we didn't.  We spent most weekends together.  I would travel with Monica and her Mom and sister and sleep in a tent at the Bluegrass Festival in Kerrville a few summers.  I learned how to French Braid with Monica and her sister.  She and I dressed the same, both had brown hair and brown eyes and roughly had the same intellect or perhaps she was smarter.  I struggled with Science and Bud tried to help me but I think that was the beginning of the end of my academic career in science. Ugh, I loathed it.  At SugarLand Junior High, there were crushes, Sadie Hawkins dances, roller skating, parties.  At the end of eighth grade, maybe seventh, Monica had a party and invited all the popular kids.  I wasn't invited.  I can't imagine how my mom felt seeing her child hurt by the actions of her best friend.  I wasn't popular enough.  When Monica's sister later figured out that I wasn't invited, I watched her slug her sister hard and yell, "you don't do that to your best friend."

I guess truly, like a lot of kids in Middle School I just didn't know where I fit in.  Here I was again, feeling alone. My mother was busy with work, my brothers were at an age where hitting on your sister seemed like something you should do.  I recall hopping off the junior high bus, the high school bus right behind us and hearing Rick and his best friends yelling out the window, "Missy's got big titties." I don't for the record but was sufficiently embarrassed in front of all the kids who rode my bus.  I began to feel more invisible.  Mom and Bud would get home from work and I would approach them to tell them something and the response I got was, "Traffic was terrible, I have had a rough day. Not until I have had a drink." Bud had a beautiful champion Labrador Retriever named Duke who on many occasions would come into the house and pee on my quilt and dust ruffle.  I think he was claiming me as his.  This meant, however, that I was washing my quilt and dust ruffle a lot with no help.  In the meantime I was sharing a bathroom with two brothers, one of who sleepwalked and peed all over the place and yes, I often clean it up.  In the summer to earn money, Mom would let me clean the house. She would then question the job I did by running her fingers over the shelves to see if there was still dust.  This was all, mind you, before I was even 13 years old.  There were loaded pistols on either side of my parents bed; I was expected to move those pistols to dust.  My mother kept her perfume bottles on a wicker paper plate holder. While trying to clean her bathroom, one of her perfumes feel over and dumped out more than half.  I got in trouble for that with a lot of yelling and shaming when she returned from work. I still hate the smell of that perfume.  

I was just invisible.

In My Beginning

Unlike many of my peers in the 70s, I came from a "broken home". Born in New Jersey, we left the Northeast for Texas after my parents separated.  My brothers and I were quite young when Mom moved away, I was around 2, my younger brother 6 months old and my older brother between 5 and 6.  Evidently my father had been unfaithful on more than one occasion, later marrying the woman who was his secretary.  Later in life, my mother admitted to me that his unfaithfulness was not all my father's fault indicating that she might have been cold and/or manipulative. My older brother suspects that she was unfaithful as well.

Going back further, though, and remembering my grandmother for who she was, I see that maybe problems started earlier.  Born in 1916 or 17, my grandmother's mother died at a young age, leaving a single father to raise several girls in a era of financial strife and living in the south.  My grandmother, as the eldest child, shouldered much of the parenting though she was just a child herself with no one to teach her "how to mother" nor how to be affectionate.  She was often a hard woman to me and my brothers, though I knew and felt she loved us. After she wed, her own husband left her shortly after the birth of my mother.  So here she was in the 1940s raising a child on her own.  She worked as a beautician, even honing her skills for the funeral homes to work on cadavers for open caskets. She later met the man I would always consider my grandfather whom she married.  Grandpa adopted my mother and truly treated her as his own child.  My mother, on numerous occasions, told me of the coldness that came from her mother even as a young child. Mom was long when she was born, at about 20-21 inches but didn't even reach five pounds.  Her own mother told her that she looked like a shriveled up old man when she was born.  What that psychologically did to my mother, I can only imagine.  My grandmother was a tall woman at 5' 10" and thankfully, that gene passed to and my brothers and me.  Mom was above average in height but not like Grandma.  My grandmother, a few years after she married Grandpa, had my only uncle who was cherished beyond measure by my grandmother and also very tall in stature at over 6'2".  I think Mom always felt jealous of her brother's spot as beloved but she loved him, too!  Mom married at a young age (19 I think) and had Rick by the age of 20. 

So here was Mom, raised for at least a while by a single mother, also becoming a single mother.  According to my mother, my father did not do his part in raising us.  At one point in time, my mother became ill with pneumonia and asked my father to take us so she could rest.  He pointed out that it wasn't his weekend to have us.  This was when my mother knew that she needed to be closer to her own parents to raise us.  She moved to Texas, a 6 hour drive away from her own parents who lived in Shreveport. My mother said that my father also didn't pay the child support that she needed to raise us.  She later sued him but he didn't have money anyway. 

Until 1976, my mother was basically on her own raising us.  We moved a lot in my lifetime. I am still moving a lot. We lived a few different places but my strongest memory is of living on a street called Sheridan in the West University area.  We were renters living just off of Greenbriar.  More on this later.

Prior to that we lived on a home on Olympia drive north of Westheimer in Houston, it was a wonderful house and life.  I remember attending kindergarten and first grade at the public school there.  I had a penchant for numbers at an early age, winning the Easter jellybean estimation jar in Kindergarten.  I remember wondering how some of my classmates though there were guessing 10-20 jellybeans when there were clearly a LOT of jellybeans.  In first grade, Mom used her creative talents to teach us art in my class either every week or every other week.  It was slightly traumatizing to have my mother as my teacher as she truly held me to a higher standard than my classmates and wasn't cognizant of that impact it was having on me.  I think this is my first clear memory of how my mother could be hard.  I fully understand, though, that memory is memory and not necessarily truth.  

We moved to the West Houston area in 1974.  I have many clear memories of that home and my duties there.  Though Mom took Matt to kindergarten the first day, it was up to me after that.  So, here I am a second grader, taking a child to kindergarten where I recall Matt wept.  Rick couldn't help as he was already in middle school. I remember showing him the yellow "Dick and Jane" books that he would read and trying to get him to stop.  My second grade teacher would sometimes let me go check up on him.  I loved my second and third grade teachers at Roberts Elementary.  Matt, on the other hand, had a teacher in first grade that taped him to the chair and put tape over his mouth.  I made friends, some in school, and my best friend, just down the block.  I had wonderful experiences with Julie-Anne.  She was younger and an only child, but her parents were financially on sound standing and I spent as much free time with her as I could.  

There were times as we were growing that things became "uncomfortable" financially and otherwise.  Mom was doing the best that she could, all of my clothes were hand-me-downs and we were living hand to mouth.  Mom was being paid 50% of what her male counterparts were paid for doing the same job, as a commercial estimator.  I have clear memories of Mom telling us not to call her at work unless we were bleeding or vomiting.  There were three of us at home alone, latch-key kids.  I have a recall of some boy being our sitter which I thought was strange as he was either my brother, Rick's, age or just about.  I learned to bake in that house. With my intro to baking from that boy on how to make a cake from a box; what it meant to "eject" on the hand mixer and what the purpose of "preheat" was.  Mom was going out in the evening, frequently leaving my brothers and me alone.  At one of these evenings, my brothers were fighting.  This was a usual occurrence while I was trying to watch television. I tried to push them apart and one of their feet swiped my head and scratched my cornea.  I was awakened by my mother in the middle of the night for crying in my sleep and taken to the emergency room.  

It was during these years that Mom would also visit a friend, Rita, often.  She would take us and place us in Rita's bedroom to watch television while she partied.  We were on our own so long that it was there we watched Benny Hill and "Love American Style".  There were no games or anything for us to do other than watch television.  Sometimes I would bring a book and read, I don't recall if Matt did as he was still so young.  If I am not mistaken, Rick was living with my grandparents for much of this time as he was in need of a strong male figure and my grandfather fit the bill well.  

I can fully appreciate the need my mother had to escape her circumstances; a single mother with a huge financial burden.  I don't remember Mom drinking a lot but I do know she drank.  I never felt physically threatened by Mom or anyone I stayed with.  I do remember feeling alone and lonely, though. 

Running To

 I am not a runner.  I never have been and doctors have given me an emphatic "Don't ever run" speech on more than one occasion.  I am a metaphorical runner though.  Truth, knowledge, and self awareness you can bet I always run toward. In an effort to have a better understanding of who I am, my current quest is to understand how my past has shaped me and continues to do so.  

In the days ahead I will share things that may be known to you and could be new news.  Please, dear reader, be gentle.  I will start my "running toward" or "running to" in smart runner fashion with a warm up.  I am just putting my shoes on now, carefully lacing to assure that I don't trip.  The laces are bound to come untied but I will pull away from the trail, re-tie, and get back to it. 

Memory is not truth, merely a story of the truth.  I must continually remind myself of this as I seek to find truth.  

Have you ever taken one of those Myers-Briggs personality quizzes? I think I have at least twice, and I have always been a data junky.  Perhaps in a parallel life, I am a statistician or researcher.  My personality type according to the Myers-Briggs is INTJ.  Of course there are numerous names of all sorts of "famous" people who are INTJ:  Colin Firth, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elon Musk, Ronald Reagan, Jane Austen, Jodie Foster and Julia Styles just to name a few.  INTJ is considered "The Mastermind" according to one website.  INTJ stands for Introvert, Intuitive, Thinking and Judging the laughable acronym is "It's Not Thoroughly Justified". According to not just one website, INTJ is often referred to as "The Architect" and can be considered intimidating.  Big sigh here.  Yes, I think that's me.  I am inside my head a lot and it can be perceived as standoffish.  

Given my INTJ propensities, this should be fun.  

Full Disclosure: Sinner Here

As a mother of two and a teacher of I don't know how many, I have seen my fair share of animated films.  I have several favorites but there are a few that I would have absolutely no problem watching again and again, much like the years my sons were young.

There is one scene in Shrek in which Donkey wants to be "selected" and he bounds up and down saying, "Pick Me! Pick Me!"  I was always that way as a young student but I think that what I love most about is how it ties to my faith life.

We touched on Original Sin in class on Sunday September 16 and I asked students what sin was.  I got a lot of good answers and clarified their responses that sin is anything that breaks our relationship and/or direct connection to God.  I think that they understood it very well.  So when given the opportunity to receive the sacrament of reconciliation, I am very much like Donkey from Shrek.  There is nothing in the world like forgiveness. Forgiveness is divine and can move us by light years closer to God.  I want to be close to God, always--even when I fall, I want my savior and forgiving father to be right next to me.

I used to use an analogy with my middle school students (now in college) that Reconciliation is like the very best car wash/detailing for your soul.  Yes, when we leave the confessional there is still work to do but in my humble opinion, that is why I am here.  My life is God's gift to me; what I do with my life is my gift back to God.  I want to walk in His ways all that I can, but I am a sinner. 

When we further discussed sin, most students tied sin as what we do to the earth.  This is true but a deeper stretch is what we do to fellow man.  How do I treat my "neighbor"? When my temper is short or I am not getting my way, how am I treating a fellow human made in the likeness and image of God?

The children grasped very quickly the difference between saying, "I am sorry" and asking for forgiveness.  Please encourage your child to practice this skill and also discuss what we need to remember to keep our relationship with God in tact. 

Next posting:  What It Means to be Your Child's Teacher

And So It Begins....

Last Saturday I started another year as a catechist.  This marks something like my thirteenth year and I must say, every year, I learn something more. 

This year's religion class is at St. Catherine of Siena/Newman Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.  I think I heard Father Marcin refer to the catechism class as "Sunday School".  This is a first for me as I have always taught CCE (Congregation for Catholic Education).  Friends here in Salt Lake tell me their experience is to call it CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine).  Whatever the name, this year I am charged with students during their second grade year.  This means First Reconciliation and First Holy Communion.  I am humbled that I was called for this task and hope to live up to what is expected of me from The Church.

Blessings to you.
Alexis

The Top 5 Things My Parents Got Right

While listening to TED Radio hour, I was inspired.  By the way, if you have never hopped on to TED.com,  I highly recommend it. TED presents talks, usually 10 minutes or less, from experts in different fields.  You can find just about anything that piques your interest.  TED: Technology, Entertainment, Design

A wee bit of background on me before I start.  I have a Mom, a stepdad who legally became my Dad, and a father (in the biological sense of the word only).  My Mom was pretty much raising the three of us on her own until late 1976.  I have two brothers: a younger brother with his master's degree in a field related to code and/or IT and an older brother who is a successful attorney.  So you see, we kids have done fairly well in a mixed up and often messed up world.  A good portion of that credit goes to my parents.  We are a product of our environments and our upbringings.  My parents did a lot of things right.  These are the top five things I learned along the way that helped shape me into who I am now:

1.  College wasn't an option.  That grabbed your attention, right?  College wasn't an option, it was an expectation.  A two year school wasn't a choice either:  we are talking full on university.  Obviously, the three of us took it to heart.  Rick has his Doctorate of Jurisprudence, Matt has his Master's degree, and I have graduate hours.  What is so amazing about this is that my Dad didn't finish high school but rather received his G.E.D. so that he could serve our country.  My Mom didn't graduate from college until I was 20.  When we were finishing high school the question posed to us wasn't, "What are your plans?" The question was, "Where are you going to college?"  That being said in this digital age and ever changing society, I think much like the Dirty Jobs guy, Mike Rowe, there is a high need for skilled work as well:  technicians, welders, etc.

2.  Unplug.  Ironic as it is, I am saying that turning off devices is one of the best things you can do.  When I was in junior high, Pops used to insist that we go outside for fun.  The result of this was all sorts of neat things.  Matt and I would plop into an inflatable raft with a kite in hand and sail ourselves across our pond (or tank as it is called).  Sometimes we would turn it upside down and treat it as a SCUBA diving haven.  We built treehouses, played "Spotlight" (which was Hide and Seek in the dark), went camping on our own acreage, played in the rain and learned all about bayou biology.  I could go on and on with the countless learning and fun that went on outside.  It was almost always unsupervised which I don't think was an error. That being said, we were always on our country acreage or within whistling distance of our Sugarland suburban home.  That brings me to the next item.

3.  Respect.  When Pops (my Dad) was introduced into our lives, we didn't have a significant male figure around regularly.  Grandpa and Grandma were seen a few times a year and talked to on the phone weekly but there was no male authoritative figure day in and day out.  Pops is a Marine that served in Korea.  We learned to answer with "Yes Ma'am and Yes Sir or No Ma'am and No Sir" quite quickly.  At the time we thought it felt like it was boot camp but I am glad for it.  We were always a whistle away.  Pops would place his fingers just right, under his tongue, and blow out a call that could be heard at least ten houses down the block.  The dog had a whistle, too, in for which he came back -- different from our own.

4.  We are all members of the house, therefore we all contribute.  We quickly learned when Mom was single with little or no support, that we had to help.  At a young age, I cleaned out litter boxes, baked cakes, and hand washed dishes.  After Mom and Pops married, I learned to clean the whole house, do some cooking and started to take care of laundry.  Some of this was out of necessity as they both worked and commuted.  No matter, it taught us that we all do what we can to help the famiy run smoothly.  We kept a garden; this alone could be a numbered "got it right".  We tended, tilled, weeded, harvested and helped to cook what we grew.  Now with a Zombie Apocolypse possible, I feel better knowing that I can grow food, start to finish.

5.  Dinner is eaten TOGETHER in a dining room. Will I ever hear the end of this one? At dinner, and for that matter breakfast on the weekends, the five of us would sit and eat.  Sometimes it was quiet but most of the time it was conversation building connectivity WITH EACH OTHER rather than the web.  I distinctly recall my older brother, Rick, trying to distract me and chug my milk.  I have a very clear memory of finding creative ways to avoid peas.  "Take what you want but eat what you take," was a common mantra in our house but so was eating vegetables.  (Sigh----for the record I still won't eat green peas or cooked carrots.) In the mornings before school, the three of us kids would eat cereal sitting at the dining room.  We were together.

The small family of five that was firmly established in late of 1976 isn't perfect, it's not meant to be.  My parents did a lot of things correctly.  These top five are keepers that I hope to instill in our sons.

For more on parenting with purpose, I suggest Parent Expectations Relating to Academic Success. 

Life is Fleeting

During rainy conditions today, while traveling something like 60-65 miles per hour while going South on the Grand Parkway I hit a dog.  I was driving our Mini Cooper, a.k.a. The Super Mario cart after a visit with my husband's side of the family for a baby shower.  The dog came out of nowhere and I promise you this, I didn't see him/her until it was in my rearview mirror.  A white SUV was behind me in the left lane, I was in the right.

I was totally stunned.  I actually only felt the rear right tire lift and from what I can see, the dog seemed to weigh somewhere between our former dog, Bacon and our dog Shadow which translates roughly to 80+ pounds.  I kept driving (I know I should have stopped) because I could tell in my rear view mirror, it was a goner, not to mention the fact I would have had no tool or way to put the dog out of his misery.  I was also, as I stated, leaving a baby shower and it was raining and had been for sometime.

I called my husband, very shaken but proceeded onward toward home.  My hands kept shaking at the enormity of taking a life.  Though it was a dog or coyote, I was trembling.  This is the second dog that I have hit and back in high school I hit a cat.  At any rate, I drove on.

Another 15 miles later, my A.C. wasn't cooling and the windows were fogging terribly.  Then the light came on and went from orange to red in 3 seconds flat.  My phone was dying and I had no cord for charging.  The light was an indicator that the engine was overheating.  I wondered if something in the incident made me lose oil.  I phoned Glen, again and he told me to pull over.  By the time I reached the Rosenburg exit I had made an erroneous assumptiom of the A.C. and the warning light. When I turned off all the fans, etc. the light went off.  I was having great difficulty seeing though my windshield, passed my exit and then low and behold the light was on again.  After pulling over onto 2218, I called Glen again, gave him a report and let the car cool. When pulling to a stop, it all but died. I got out and looked toward the passenger fender (where I thought the dog hit) and found no damage.  I had truly only felt the back passenger tire lift.

I let it cool and tried again but only made it one exit further pulled into the McD on 36 and called Glen again. He told me to wait while he found me.  I sat and chewed off most of one of my "fake" nails.  When Glen arrived he was surprised to see a lot of the front end hanging and dented.  After inspecting the damage and finding dog/coyote hair he determined I hit it head on.  The radiator was smashed.  For the record it is now more than 5 hours later and my heart is still racing.

Why? Why was the accident not more profound to me--- why didn't the car careen and then roll, why didn't I slam on the breaks (even afterwards)?  Why?  The Mini Cooper is super low to the ground, why didn't I get hurt?

A Parting

What is the great division in the Church?  Tell about it, what lead up to it and what it looks like today.

Living the Good Life

Around the year 300 AD, a group of hermits came together in community.  This was the beginning of the practice of Monastic Life.  Tell more about monastic life:  the history, what it entails, etc.

Heretics one way, Councils the other

A heretic is someone that rejects at least one truth of our faith.  Councils were developed to combat heresy.  Tell a little about the history of either one.  It is filled with some interesting info.

Constanine Played A Large Part of Our Church History

Write a sentence or two about the church before Constantine and what it was like or during his reign.  You can write your own findings or extend a classmates.

Saint Ambrose

Who is St. Ambrose?  Write your own unique sentence or respond and extend someone else's. 

Service Hours, Service Hours, and more Service Hours

What is the big deal with service hours?  Do you find yourself wondering this?  The answer to this question is a multi-layered one.

Now that you are entering your last year at St. Philip School, you wear a totally different hat than you ever had.  You were always following someone else's lead.  Now it is your turn.  There are a lot of benefits of being the leader and there are also a lot of challenges.  There are phrases that you will hear quite often from Mrs. Edwards, myself and other teachers.  Service hours are a huge bite out of what culminates (or rounds up and finishes) your Religion instruction at St. Philip School.

By the end of January you will need to have accumulated fifteen documented clock hours for Service.  These hours are split into 2-3 categories.  Here is how it works.  You must have at least five clock hours in the category of Church/School.  Church/School means St. Philip or your home church.  This can be Catholic or not.  But to be a part of a church is to be a part of a greater community.  That means service to a large group of people.  If you worked to move teacher belongings from one room to another for Mrs. Stary, Mrs. Edwards, or Mr. Stary for let's say, seven hours, on Monday.  You can have the adult in charge sign the appropriate form that stated so.  If you worked VBS, things are a little different.  The max you can claim for VBS is 3 hours.  This is because VBS is a lot of fun and goofing off.... I know, I have helped with plenty. Moving belongings from one classroom to another is HARD sweaty work and we want to be sure our hours are as fair as possible.  Being an altar server you can count as well.  You will need to adult in charge of seeing you serve sign your form.  This will mean the acting sacristan.  Usually in the summer St. Philip Parish has a work day to do maintenace to the building.

You must also have at least five clock hours doing service work for the elderly and/or handicapped.  This is for anyone ill or unable to do something for themselves.  Documentation will work the same.  You will need to have the adult in charge of the work to sign off on the number of hours you worked with a one or two sentence description of what you did.  I have had anything from painting an elderly woman's toenails to organizing a fishing tackle box.  Unfortunately, you cannot do work for your own grandparents or even those grandparents of a classmate.  This is familial duty, not service hours.  More on that after school starts.

You need to do an additional five hours where ever you would like.  If you want to sit in the Respect Life line for an hour, that counts.  If you want to shelf books for the public library, that also counts.  If you would like to pick up aluminum cans on the side of the road for five hours and donate the money to SPS, that counts too.

I can further explain all of this once school starts.  You are also welcome to comment on this blog with any questions.  Chances are if you have a question, so does someone else. 

Once I obtain your email address, I will send your the service hour document.  Please save it to your computer.  I will post it on our Edline, Religion page once I have access.

God Bless you and your family,
Mrs. J