Lost? Or Temporarily Misplaced?

It is that time of year again! Yes, the time of year when I am not sure who I am or what I am supposed to be doing. Like a college student trying to pick a major or a preschooler trying to decide what toy to take for show and tell I am floundering. Have any of you ever felt this way?

I used to say I felt lost. I felt like I was wondering about in the dark with no real purpose. Now, I think of this time of year as a temporary misplacement of myself.

I know the direction I want to go, but I have taken a wrong turn. I just have to back track and find my road. Easier said than done. Especially, when the doubts are screaming directions in your ear, “You can’t go that way!”, “are you crazy! How are you going to make a living doing that!” The ever present doubt of “What are you going to do when you fail?” Finally, the kick in the stomach, “Maybe it would be better if you tried something else.”

Those doubting voices are all too familiar. They come and go through out the year, but this time of year those voices take up residence in my soul. The unwanted guests make me question every choice I have ever made. The result is a feeling of being lost and alone.

I could blame a great number of events or a handful of people for these voices. I could, it would be so very simple to blame outside factors for the doubts that run through my head and my heart. In truth, these people and events are contributors but they are not responsible for my actions. Only I am responsible for my actions.

In the past I have let these doubts control my every thought and action. I let them harass me and tear me down. Not anymore, things have changed, I have changed. I am no longer lost. I am simply temporarily misplaced. I invite the doubts in for a conversation. They are welcome to stay for a little while. They fire their concerns at me and I answer each one as thoughtfully as possible.

“You can’t go that way!”

Why? Why can’t I go that way? If there is a barrier maybe I can bypass it somehow. Why shouldn’t I at least give that way a try? What’s the worse that could happen?

“Are you crazy! How are you going to make a living doing that?”

I don’t know if I can make a living at this, but I currently have a small amount of means and a whole lot of determination. Why shouldn’t I try?

“What are you going to do when you fail?”

Failure isn’t something to be feared. If I never fail how am I going to learn what won’t work? Failure is a very good teacher. I am 39 years old, by now failure is a familiar acquaintance. In fact, failure and I have had many good conversations.

“Maybe it would be better if you tried something else.”

You might be right. My feelings could get hurt, I might put more money into this than I should. Life just might be easier if I did something a little safer, more solid with a guaranteed income. There are many things I can do that will be “better” for me than writing books. I know, I’ve tried a few. Life is often too short to continue waiting for the right moment. The amount of time, the right amount of financial stability. I have learned that the right time is always now, because tomorrow may not come.

I have my answers and my direction. I just need to find my road again. It’s not that far away. Along the way I drop off each doubt, give a little wave and a see you next year .

I’m not lost. I’m temporarily misplaced.

Confused

Have you ever made a decision thinking it was a good one and then a week or a month later began to think maybe it was not such a good decision? That’s where I am at right now.

I took a promotion at work with some trepidation. I had been offered the job twice before and declined each time. I didn’t feel prepared to take the job. My daughter was still very young. She is a few years older now. The time I can spend with my daughter is very precious. I am lucky that I have a very supportive sister and mother who will care for my daughter anytime I ask. Being a single mother I worry about babysitters and child care services, I am not always trusting when it comes to my baby girl. Not to mention the money those services cost. When I was offered the job this time I considered it briefly before accepting. I asked for a 90 day probation period, I was given 60 but told they would prefer 30. After almost 30 days I spoke with the owner and received a salary offer that wasn’t quite what I hoped but was sufficient. I waited a few days and then accepted the offer. It has been 4 days and I am now wondering if I made the wrong choice. The scope of the work is quite a bit more than I have handled in several years. I am capable of doing the work, I just am not sure that I want to do the work. I was also hired with an assistant. She got a new job and will be leaving, no new assistant to be hired at this time. Looking to the future I wonder if a new assistant will be hired and worry that if one is not hired that I will not be able to keep up with the work my assistant did as well as my own work. I want to be fair to the Center Director and the owner and let them know how I am feeling. The truth is I am not sure I really want this job. I thought I did, but second thoughts are creeping around inside my head.

I feel like I am in one of those cartoons where the character has to decide between doing two things and the little angel and the tiny devil pop up on each shoulder. Instead of an angel and a devil, my little people are my daughter and my checkbook.

My checkbook is constantly yelling at me about the bills I have to pay. I feel like there are alarm bells ringing all the time, “IT’S TIME TO PAY ANOTHER BILL”! That damn checkbook always reminding me that there never seems to be enough money to pay for every necessity, every bill and still have a little fun. When I think maybe I have bit off a bit more than I can chew by taking on this new job my checkbook begins to whisper in my ear. Well, it starts whispering and then begins to scream a list of everything I am responsible for paying. House payment, gas, electric, car insurance, car maintenance, gas for the car, groceries, pet care, student loans, medical insurance, co-pays, clothes, shoes, camps for my daughter, debt relief program because at one time I couldn’t control my spending, Dad’s funeral bill that, according to my Aunt, should have been paid off awhile ago, the kitchen remodel that I started (and now have no time to keep working on because I am working more hours), school field trips, and next year school uniforms and the list just keeps going and going until I feel like I am drowning. Oh, how that checkbook makes me feel so damn guilty!

On the other shoulder is my beautiful, smart, loving daughter. She is backed up by my writing wants and needs, as well as at least one of her aunts. When I was trying to figure out if I should take this job I considered the impact it would have on my daughter. She is my priority, always. I thought about it and the bulk of my working hours are when she’s in school, with the exception of school breaks. I talked to her about it and she was all for me taking the job. Now I am left wondering what I am going to do with her for part of the summer. She has 3 weeks of day camp, but then what? Summer break is 9 weeks long. I am working extra hours and I feel like I cannot make some school functions and as though I am not spending much time with her, not like I was able to before. Despite the fact that I am at work mostly during the day while she is in school, I feel that I am taking something away from her. Then there is my writing, something that I really want to make a priority in my life. By the time I get off of work I am so tired that I am ready for bed after dinner is made. There are dishes in my sink and I haven’t done laundry in 2 weeks. One of my daughter’s aunts told me that she wouldn’t accept the job if she had social security like I do, she would stay home with her kids. If you are new to my blog I receive benefits from social security until my daughter turns 16 because my husband died 6 years ago. I can understand the aunt’s point. It was my intention to only work part time until I was no longer eligible for the social security and then go back to work full time. I don’t really care about money. My daughter isn’t going to remember all of the things that I buy her but she will remember the times we spent together. For this reason, it was a difficult decision to go to work full time. A decision that I am now struggling with.

I realize that in the grand scheme of things, my dilemma with work is small potatoes, but I could really use some advice. I feel like I have been deceptive to the owner and the Center Director and unfair to myself and my daughter. I am conflicted because I want to do well at this job and not give up so easily and yet I want to be able to give as much of my time to my daughter as I can. I don’t have another half that can pick up the slack for me when I fall short. I have a wonderful family that helps out, but it isn’t the same. I have roughly 2 months to make a decision before I will lose my social security benefits. I feel that taking those 2 months would be very unfair of me, so I am trying to do my best and decide what it is I want and make a decision within the next week. I am so very confused.

 

Good Wine, Good Food, Good Friend

Five years ago I felt like my world collapsed. I honestly thought I was only surviving so that my daughter wouldn’t have to lose both parents. I didn’t want her to feel any more pain than she had to feel. Then in April, I was slapped by death again as I lost my grandma. I kept going because I couldn’t do anything else. In June of that year, death beat me down again as my Dad lost his battle with cancer. Keep moving, wall up the heart and close the gates of emotion. Ha! Not easily done. Honestly? It was probably the worst thing I could have done. But let’s fast forward five years, I think I have dwelt enough in the past.

This weekend I spent some time with friends. It was great! It usually is, I have pretty good friends :). We went to the Mackinaw Valley Vineyard in Mackinaw, Illinois. It was the second time I had been there and it was just as nice as the first. The first time I went with a group of friends to a wine and chocolate tasting, this time, we went and saw a murder mystery. It was so much fun! Dinner was tasty and the company was great! The little murder mystery play was put on by a small company of 2 people, a married couple, with the assistance from audience members. All of this with dinner and dessert in between. The wine you could purchase by the glass or by the bottle from the vineyard. I am partial to the sweet wines and really enjoyed their Edelweiss and Diane’s Desire.

All of that was great, but the nicest and scariest part of the night was when a person that I had gotten to know during the horrible year of pain came up to me and said hi! I haven’t really seen much of anyone from that year in person for quite some time. I was a mess that year and not my best me, so when I run into someone from that year in person I have to stop a second and try to remember through the fog. I remembered her right away of course and was happy to see her. I’ll call her K for the purpose of this post. K looked happy and was with her husband. It was really great to see her happy and to get to spend time with her. The scary part, for me, is the question. The question that everyone who hasn’t seen me since that time asks, “How are you?”. My standard answer is I’m good. I found that this time it’s true. I really am doing good. I mean my life isn’t cake or anything, but it’s good :). I have a great daughter, a wonderful family, awesome friends and a life that I didn’t think would be possible 5 years ago.

The second question I hate getting when I meet someone after a long absence is “What are you doing now?”. I hate this question because when I explain my current life to people I get mixed reactions. I was not able to secure a teaching position after I finished my Master’s in Education degree. I know why and it stings horribly. I have been told by several that I would make a good teacher, so why don’t I have a teaching job? Well several reasons possibly, lots of people looking and few jobs in my area are at the top of the list. But I know the real reason and it bothers me tremendously. That, however, is a story for another day. The main reason I hate this question is because there are those who see my lifestyle as lazy or irresponsible. My choices are my own, for the most part, and I weigh each one heavily. Some do not agree and others just nod as if this all they expected of me. While I don’t always like the path that I have been forced to forge on my own, I am ok with my decisions. Yes, even the ones that I later regret.Why? Because I know that life isn’t easy and it so frequently lobs rocks and digs pitfalls and tries to drown a person at every turn. I have a choice, I can constantly bemoan those rocks, pitfalls, and tons of water, or I can see past all of that to the rainbows, the helping hands, the green trees and the blue skies. I can choose to see the smile on my daughters face or hear the laughter of my friends rather than the tears I have cried and the pain that I endure. Life is about choices and I accept the responsibility of all of my choices, the good and the bad.

My lost acquaintance/friend asked this very question and I asked it of her in return. K seems to be doing well and really likes her job. I am so happy for her! When I told her what I am doing now there was no judgment in her face and for once I didn’t feel worried that this knowledge would cost me a potential relationship. This was also the first time that I called myself a writer, so that was a little scary. I am so glad that I ran into K and her husband! It was nice to see someone from that year of hell and not feel awkward or like an utter failure. K is just as nice as I remember her and I look forward to getting to know her again.

As for the other stuff. I think too much! Here is me, my friends, down and dirty! I am a mother, semi-hoarder(I’m getting better at that), an artist, a teacher, a writer, a gym goer, a pescatarian, an art lover, a B-movie watcher, wine drinking, cussing, animal loving, goofy, middle-aged, young at heart, emotional,  thinks too much about herself and not enough about the world around her(working on this too) person. This is me, unapologetically me!

This weekend taught me a little bit more about myself and I am good with what I learned. Also, this weekend rocked! I had good friends surrounding me, good food to eat, good wine to drink and it was amazing!

So here is to you, my friends! May you always have enough of everything! Love to all!

Healthy has no Size

found on peoplemagazine.com

I saw this cover of People while in line at the grocery store. Upon seeing this I had simultaneous thoughts. Yes I really did think two things at once. One part of me thought “she’s pretty, good for her!” while the other part of me thought “Who employees a size 22 person to be a model?” Not proud of the second thought, but there it is. Later at home, while fixing dinner, I asked myself why I had that last thought, Tess Holiday is beautiful, why shouldn’t she be a supermodel? She also seems very confidant in herself and that, in and of itself, is beautiful. So why did I react the way I did?

As realization dawned on me I stopped beating myself up for my not so generous and rather fleeting thought. I was born in 1978 so I grew up in the 80s to the mid 90s. What seemed to be drilled into me as I grew up is that being a larger person was wrong. Being large meant that you were fat. Wearing over a size 10 meant that you were fat. Supermodels were a size 2-4, anything bigger was fat. I don’t recall the words healthy or unhealthy ever being used, it was fat or skinny. The scale and clothing size determined if a person was healthy or not. What a person ate or if they exercised did not matter. No, not in the era of Cherry Coke and ice cream, when people ate salads, not because they were tasty, but because that’s what you ate when you were on a diet. I have brought those notions with me from childhood into adulthood. I honestly thought I had left them behind. When I started on my get healthy journey I thought I had left those thoughts in the past. After my reaction to this magazine cover I can see I was terribly mistaken.

I realize now that the numbers on the scale and on my clothes have meant more to me than I originally thought. I say this because last year my lab results came back quite good despite my 220 pounds. I wanted to keep them that way, to stay healthy and keep all of my families health problems at bay. I also wanted to be able to keep up with my daughter and not feel like i was going to faint after five minutes of playing. That’s why in January I really started exercising and thinking about the food I ate. That’s why I switched to a semi-vegetarian diet. I understand now that I also did these things to make the numbers move. There is a part of me that wants to be the size 10 or less, a part of me that wants to yell back at the mean people from my past, “See! See I’m thin! I am worthwhile! Will you let me in now?” That poor girl:( she just wanted to fit in, wanted to be like everyone else. She couldn’t see, because they couldn’t see, that she was just like them. She liked music and tv and talking about boys. She was lucky too though. She had a few really great friends. Good thing she did, because I’m not sure she would have made it through those rough years without them.

That girl is 36 almost 37 years old now and she is doing pretty good:) There are days though when she sees magazine covers with size 22 supermodels and she involuntarily goes back to the rough times. Healthy isn’t a size. That’s the thought that jumps out of all this babble. Healthy has no size. A person can be healthy at size 22 or size 2. It isn’t about the scale or the tag, it’s about how a person feels physically and emotionally. I don’t know Tess Holiday, but I know that she looks radiant on the cover of People magazine and that is where my thoughts now stop.