You are the same today as you will be 5 years from now...

“You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.”― Charlie "Tremendous" Jones

Hey Friends: Going through a rough time lately. Feels like "lately" has been 10 years though! Not to get too deep into it, I've been feeling depressed and guilty for not becoming who I thought I ought to be. Most of all, for not maintaining friendships.

I'm not going to pretend to be besties with every one of my social media friends, but I do consider you my friends, so this is an apology if you've ever felt that I have distanced myself from you.

Like many people with chronic health and depression issues, I have gotten in the habit of pulling away so that I don't present that weak me to the world, even those I consider friends. LIke most of us, I don't like feeling vulnerable to the world and to let you see the me that is metaphorically curled up on myself sitting on the bottom of the shower stall crying. I'd rather you all believe I can adult with the best of them and take on the world with confidence and good humour!

I have spent the better part of 40 years trying to be philosophical about life and "figure it all out". I am NO WHERE near that goal (duh, obviously, since NO ONE can be!). I have learned a lot, though. So, I want to sound like I know what I’m talking about so people listen and learn from what I've been through. I think we all know we're all fakes in this area! Inside, we're all children until the day we die. (For my spiritual or religious friends, I'd like to note that I think this is what the Bible means when it talks about entering the kingdom of heaven as children.)

One night, years ago, I woke up out of a dead sleep with the very clear understanding of the meaning of life. Life is about relationships: Relationships with ourselves, with our environment, with God, with other people, with animals, with information…we live in relation to everything. We are defined, not by other people or our environment, but by who we are in relation to everything. I’ve heard “You are the same today as you will be 5 years from now except for the books you read and the people you meet.” Circumstances change us. People change us.

I have been changed by the people I have met in my 4 decades on this planet. Their feelings, their opinions, their treatment of me, my treatment of them, their love, their pity, their ire, their amusement, their disgust, their consideration. I have clear memories and loving feelings toward people who may not even remember me now. I feel sad about lost relationships and even sadder about lost lives. I still feel guilt over mean things I have said. I still feel hurt over mean things that were said to me. I have moved on, but the memories will never go away. The love I have been given still strengthens me.

I often feel like maybe the worst friend ever. I do know that relationships go both ways, but being chronically ill often leaves me depressed and beating myself up for things I can’t do. Withdrawing usually feels personal to people, who think that I simply don’t want to be friends with them anymore. Sometimes effort is needed for me to interact. Most people don’t’ have the time, energy, or inclination to “pull me out of my shell”. It’s an energy drain to them. After awhile, people stop expending the energy.

I guess this is just my way of trying to explain. I want my experiences to help others. When I am freaking out, hugging myself and crying for what seems like no reason, I’d like to believe that even this part of my life has meaning and purpose. What else are we here for if not to help others? 

Your Best Self

The Doctor - "900 years of time and space and I've never met anyone who wasn't important."  (New Season 6, Christmas Special)

You can surround yourself with inspirational quotes, intellectualize all your feelings, and consciously act according to the prescribed or determined rules. However, until you learn to actually love yourself – for all your faults and all your strengths and weaknesses- you’ll never be able to get over the negative things you think about yourself.  Until you accomplish that, you’ll never be able to move forward toward being the person you were meant to be. All that negativity will hold you back. To reach your potential, to understand the reason you were put on this Earth, you must let go of the negative, even the negative you do not consciously know you are holding. 

This is not an easy task. You have learned these things, and they can be unlearned, but they will not be unlearned easily. It will take time. But, have faith!  Be kind to yourself. You did not learn these things overnight. You will not unlearn them overnight. If you succeed, however, you can find that person. The person you were meant to be - your best self. Your contented self.The self that goes out into the world and lives your dream. 

“We’re all stories, in the end.  Just make it a good one, eh?” — The Doctor (New Season 5, Episode 13)

It's okay to be the 99%

I don't want to blend in. I want to blaze my own trail, make my own way, and be MYSELF. The trouble is...this world is not made for people like me. It's made for people who want to stay in the rut and believe they are rebels because they make 12 choices to order a cup of coffee.

Well, I'd like to believe that, but I'm faced with a reality that is a little different. I have become soft. I have become ill, and I've realized that the struggle against the confinement of my invisible cage is what continues to keep me ill. I envision the life I want, but come up short every time I face the obstacles that are keeping me shackled to this current life.  I'm so close, yet I have so far to go.  I look at the flat land in front of me and think it's going to be an easy walk, only to find that I can't see the great gorge below me until I am almost in it. Frustration is feeding back into my body and making me hurt.

I want to write something inspiring. I'll say it's for everyone else - because I want to feed positive energy into the world. But it's also a need to encourage myself. To remind myself that we all feel this way. We all come up against life's barriers. We look at heroes and laud them for making the effort, for overcoming the odds. The problem is that, if they've overcome the odds, that means someone has to BE the odds. If the odds need overcoming, it means that the majority of people AREN'T MAKING IT. Not a very inspiring thought, I know. But I'm facing this reality. That this IS the reality. The truth that most of us will not be the inspiring story.

But, you know what? I think that is OKAY. It is how we deal with that failure that matters.
The crazy guy in Colorado who cracked up and decided he must be the Joker from Batman? He didn't know how to deal with this idea.

We teach our kids that just participating gets you a trophy, but that's not true in life. Yes, how you play the game is more important than if you win or lose.  But how you handle losing is the most important thing of all. Anyone can be a good sport when they win. It takes grace to lose with dignity
Everyone is good at something. But the hard truth is that no one is good at everything. No matter what it looks like to us, the person who has it all together doesn't. We never see the behind the scenes.

Someone recently said "The problem is that we are comparing our behind-the-scenes to someone else's highlight reel." Ain't that the truth?!

It is okay to be average. Average is the backbone that makes this country run. Average is the woman who goes to work everyday to a nonglamorous job (possibly one no one even realizes exists), comes home and makes dinner for her 2.5 kids, goes to bed tired at night, gets up and does it all again the next day. It's a grind. It is not romantic. That's what books and movies and television shows are for. These people we see on television are not the average. No one writes stories about average people. People have ALWAYS wanted to hear about the above average.

What is important is that we are all okay with being okay - at least some of the time. Find something you love and do it the best way you can. Be happy. Be happy with who you are. There will always be someone who is better at something than you are. And that's normal, too. Don't be mediocre. Be the best YOU you can possibly be. No one else can do that better than you.

I had a lot of thoughts when I sat down to write this entry. The concept seems simple and short and sweet and to the point and all of that. But when I started to try to explain it, I realized how large and world-view changing this could be. I had so many thoughts on what to say. This is important.
This is not a rant or a manifesto of mediocrity. I'm not saying not to try. I'm not saying there is no point in trying. I'm saying there is every point in trying. Trying IS the point.

Growing up in the United Methodist Church, we would occasionally sit in front of someone who, for the life of them, could not sing. I mean, really off-key noises would assault our ears the moment the hymnal was cracked open and the organ music would start. But that person would sing their heart out. It was what my stepmother would good-naturedly refer to as "making a joyful noise". I was taught this fundamental lesson - God doesn't care if you can't sing. Your music is still beautiful to him. It's the heart that's in the noise that matters.

I might be burning to sing my own solo, but I know in my heart that what I really want is to find a way to sing my own part. I've been trying to sing with the wrong group - like trying to sing soprano when you're really an alto. The result is a screeching mess that leaves me with a sore throat!

So I'm saying to you - make your life your joyful noise. You may trip over the words. You may be hopelessly off-key. But your life is beautiful to God as long as you are living it with all your heart. And you shouldn't be ashamed just because you aren't the soloist all the time. Think how lonely that would be. Remember, we're singing in a large choir - and we all have to sing our parts. That's how beautiful music gets made.

Brownie Girl

The floor was brown. Not solid brown. In my mind's eye, I'm looking down at it now and I see speckles and confetti-like patterns of brown and black and red and a few gold splashes here and there. It's cold and cut in large square tiles. Outside the wind howls. It's late October and I'm trying to think of a cool Halloween Costume for the different parties I'll be going to this year. I am 10. I hang my coat on a hanger inside the door - the pale blue bricks make a walk-in closet just across from the quadruple doors. I don't really want to leave it there yet. My arms are cold and I still feel the chill from the walk to the church. I know I will be sitting on cold grey folding chairs, too There is a smell, too. Something uniquely this place - something that will stick with me throughout my whole life - through the Baccalaureate service for my high school graduate that will be held here, just down the hall in the sanctuary, and through to my suddenly remembering it in a fugue state at age 38. It reminds me of the kitchen in my elementary school, but it also smacks of a certain amount of disuse and dust.

I hear other girls milling, their voices echoing in the large room. Stage at one end, fronted by the children's toys from the day care that runs here during the day, this is where banquets and bridgings happen. At one end, girls are running around and sliding on the slick, dark floor. A circle of those cold folding chairs is set up nearer to the stage. To one side, the adult ladies are talking and looking at books and pulling things out of plastic bags, preparing for the meeting to begin. The meeting, which seemed so long to me then, will only take an hour and a half.

Most of all, there is a feeling of safety this place gives me. A feeling of belonging and love and trust that will disappear later in my life. For now, this place feels almost as much home as my family home half a mile away. In warm weather, I climbed the tree with the almost 90 degree angled branch in the parking lot. If I look out the window, I can see it there, appearing almost on its own island of grass.
I can smell the powdered soap in the bathroom down the hall. A tiny little room with two squeaky stall doors that never seemed to line up with their locks, it smelled of borax-like powdered soap and urine. My mind strains to remember a faint memory of a 70s-style orange vinyl couch from that room, but I don't know where that would have fit. The mind is an imperfect thing and these memories are arriving through emotion. That couch will have to float there, Schrodinger's Cat - like, neither existing nor not existing.

Brownies, and Girl Scouts in my later elementary years, is filled with memories of this place. There was singing "Silver and Gold" and playing "Gossip"to prove messages can be misunderstood. One shining memory was the night Lilly Umholtz taught us how to properly set a table. Why I found that so interesting I no longer know. Perhaps because I was a loud sponge soaking up any and all knowledge.

Despite her volume, I would love to be that girl again. She was opinionated and annoying, but she had brass. She was unashamedly curious and planned to take on the world someday. She saw nothing but promise in her future and believed she could do anything.

A small bit of that girl still resides in me - she's the part that wants to ride Camels and be a wise old woman. I recently let her loose to make a list of 101 things she wants to do. She came up with driving Route 66 and going on an "Amusement Park Crawl", as well as taking a painting class and learning to fly a plane.

Sometimes people forget that, trapped inside a sick woman, there exists a little girl who still wants to play, to run, to learn, to explore. I don't know if I'll ever get to do any of those things on that list.  I'd like to think as long as I still have that list, though, I can have hope.

Rainy Easter

I woke up one Easter morning recently, having fallen asleep in a recliner the night before, to a bright sky and falling rain. It was that quiet kind of Easter morning, filled with reflections as I puttered around, preparing my traditional Easter Deviled Eggs for the family gathering. There was a moment that stopped me and reduced me to tears. But only a moment.

My mother died in April - just around Easter. That makes it a bittersweet holiday for me.

For many people, Spring is a time for renewal and change and all the things we associate with new birth and flowers and crops blooming.

For me, Autumn is that time.

Walt Disney famously said "Without change there would be no butterflies."  It's a motto I keep on my desk at work and write at the end of my e-mails. To remind me that, no matter how difficult transitions are they are necessary to life.

I love Autumn. Usually I don't care for the color orange. But there is something about the oranges of fall -- the yellow-orange, burnt-orange, red-orange variations -- that makes me feel good. At work we like to get out of the office on our 15 minute breaks and take a walk. Recently, a coworker and I were talking about the colors of fall and he shared with me that he had read somewhere that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has the highest number of color variations (i.e. the highest number of varieties of deciduous tree and bush, each with it's own particular shade) of any state. And I can totally see that. I grew up in a little valley with "mountains" (technically they are hills, but we called them mountains like everyone else in the Appalachian trenches!) practically on my doorstep. You have never seen such color!

And maybe that's why the colors of Spring seem pale to me in comparison. Pale green of new growth is so weak next to the vibrant shades of plants in their final bloom, going out with a burst of red and yellow.

But there's also the fact that, to me, Autumn is more a beginning than an ending, as some see it. I see this as the time that nature settles down to peaceful sleep to recharge for the oncoming year. Some people see life as a Life/Death cycle. To me it continues and is so much more. From the pungent loam of those leaves on a forest floor, a tiny seedling will stay hidden and warm until spring, when it will be fertilized by the leaves left it by the bigger trees the previous fall.

I was born in November. I love the crisp Autumn air, sweatshirt-and-jeans weather, and the smell of wood stove smoke on the air. Lit pumpkins on porches and the harvest coming in. American Football games and the start of the school year (orange-yellow busses and No 2 pencils and brand new jeans. I adore new notebooks and opening chapters in textbooks!)  I love the beginning of the countdown to Thanksgiving and Christmas (but not too early, please! No need to rush it!)  To me, September through early December is all about anticipation and dreams and beautiful sensations.

But there is also the fact that my mother and I shared this season. Her birthday was late October, just before Halloween. Mine was a week or two later. We shared a birth sign, and we shared something of a claim to this time of year.

It's been more than 20 years now since she moved on. It's taken me almost as long to get adjusted to her being gone. I miss her in the Spring, but that's a sad, bad memories kind of missing. In the Autumn, it feel more like a celebration. She, for one, adored yellow. And as I see the leaves turning yellow, I think of her and her green and yellow dining room. And her yellow roses.  And I see her walking down a leaf-matted path through the woods, probably getting ready to take the Road Less Traveled.

  (Hear it at this link - Poets.org)  http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15717

The Road Not Taken
published in 1916 by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one was far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth. 

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worth them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day! 
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
To roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

A Poem for My Brothers - Strange Trinity

A Poem for My Brothers -Strange Trinity

At 2 a.m., or 4,
when I am awake and dreaming of you

Have you taken me a picture of where you have been?
Have you written down,
in poetic terms,
the life you have lived?

Will I lose you all eventually-
my trinity turned duo turned four quartets?

scattered like wedding day rice
our new beginnings
our mutual ends
perfect love
platonic and endless

And where will God place you tomorrow?
My sorrow and longing
to see your face amazes me.

It has been long away
from the master of my poetic start.
I, apprentice to the art of life and and art.
You, teachers, with arrogance and truth,
always believing you knew so much,
that we believed it, too.

And I did.

Your magic and art will always be
in your older-brother charm, wit,
Fred Astaire grace,
small g godliness
and calm assurance
that life is to be tasted.

Experience, said the giant man
my blue-eyed Polish Switzerland
who love to laugh and taste of life
and see life through the lens
of art and light
True man.

what I owe you can never be repaid,
never stated, even,
it is too much
Italian Controversy led us everywhere,
laughing, robust, at life,
Politics
and War
all things Mars, it seemed,
in this realm of men.

Would I ever truly understand life
without you?
Could I ever see this world
through more dynamic eyes than yours?
Could I have seen my own delicacy
or realized to what depths the human soul goes?

Someday there will be women
woman enough
to handle you

And will she have a sister
woman enough to handle Chaos?
The fact is in doubt

Friend, you are the life that breathes into fire.
Whirlwind, uncontrolled
Danger in a Blues Brothers suit.
Brother, hot life breathing
even as you seem to speak
of death and darkness
Untameable
And so I will simply pray
you don't shoot anyone
unless they need to be shot
and that your plot goes unused
for a good
long
time.

Brethren!
As such you are,
every one of you inspires me!

I leave pedestals behind
and keep instead simply friendship's warm glow
to reflect
      the true touch of each on this life.
Each my child,
to motherly instinct
Each my enemy,
to feminist anger.
Each my love,
to wild instinct and matronly desire.
Each my best friend,
to heart, in truth, incessant.
And all of my life
I will hold you so,
No matter where we are.
No matter distance or time away
Always,
Forever,
I love you.

Ilene Danielle Oldham

What we wish and what we hope for - and what bites us in the bum

What We Wish\What We Hope For\What Bites Us In the Bum

We are all so full of dreams. We want this and we wish that. And we hope for this other thing. Without any clear direction to it. But you know the saying "Be careful what you wish for...because it may come true."

What happens when we GET what we want? How long do we appreciate it before it's on to the next thing? Cars and books and movies and houses and husbands and wives. And children. How many women long for children and then, when they get them, can't stop complaining about them? How many people say how they can't wait for their kids to grow up, but when the kids finally do, they are the ones we find crying, staring at baby pictures?

There is a show out there called "The Lottery Ruined My Life." As you can guess, it's about how people got what they wanted and then realized it came with a price.  Many modern gothic horror films and TV shows address this theme, too. You think you want eternal life? Well, this is what you'll get along with it. Wish for something from a genie? Here's the price you'll pay. "All magic has a price" we hear over and over.

Stepping out of the realms of fiction, that rings true in reality, too. Every choice we make means we eliminate some other choice. Every life path we start down means stepping away from another road.  It's a hard concept for some people to handle. In a world increasingly filled with options, we can become overwhelmed by the choices. What if I make the wrong one? I can't come back and change it later. When we close a door, it often becomes locked behind us. For people with anxiety issues, this can be paralyzing. For people whose life has gone off-script, this can be haunting. There's also the fact that, if we achieve our lifelong goal, we can find we've suddenly lost our purpose. 

For many people, the pursuit of a lifelong goal is the reason for living. Without that, we find ourselves adrift on an ocean of possibility. That can be paralyzing as well. For someone who found their mission at a young age, it can be like you are suddenly young again - and by young in this case I mean inexperienced and uncertain. This can be good or bad. It can re-energize you. AARP commercials like to highlight this idea. But, we often spend our youths wishing for retirement, only to find that we are adrift without the purpose that comes from getting up every day and going to work. It can make some people very depressed. In a society geared toward youth, we forget all the knowledge and experience that comes with 60 or 70 or more years living life. Technology may change, but the basics of being human never do. At that age, you can feel like you are young again at heart, faced with the daunting vastness of which road to choose, but with the knowledge now that there are things you cannot do because of physical restrictions or a limited life span. Add to that the idea that people assume you can't do as much because you are "old".

For some people, retirement is a chance to do that thing they've been dreaming of their whole lives - spend the days fishing or writing or becoming what they've always wanted to be. The great American novelist, the gardener, the volunteer. I know one woman who would love to simply be a home-maker and practice the feminine arts like crocheting and knitting and cooking.

It would be nice if we could have our roses without the thorns, but it is true that there is a price to everything. Every dream has a downside. If we account for it in our plans, it can save us heartache. They say "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence", but we all know that it is very different when you're seeing it up close. Fame comes with the inability to maintain privacy. Being a household name means that people will grasp on to it and attach it to untruths. Getting to travel in your job means that you won't be home or available for family or friends. Winning the lottery means having to pay taxes on it and needy friends and relatives (not to mention fund-raisers for worthy causes) will come out of the woodwork. Having a family of your own means that it is harder to pick up and do things without a lot of prior planning and it takes you longer to get ready and go places. Children require a lot of money for many things you never even imagine. Babies cry and get sick and keep you up all night. Having the freedom to travel and have a good job could mean sacrificing a family or children of your own.

I'm from a generation of women who were taught from infancy that we could have it all. It took a generation for all of us to realize that it really isn't true. What we can do, however, is make our own choices about what we keep and what we give up. And that privilege extends to anyone these days.

No one's life is perfect; no one ever truly has it all. Acceptance of that can give us some peace. 

Those Little Things

A recent post on Facebook started me thinking.

When my mom died when I was a teenager, I went through a really bad spot in my life. At 17, I didn't have the skills to ask for help or for comfort, or to really appreciate it when offered. One of our family friends was a secretary at the high school. Whenever I would come into the office, she would give me a hug. I didn't know how to react at the time, but when I looked back on it, it meant so much to me. Recently, I was finally able to thank her for that, only to find she didn't really even remember it. Point - sometimes the small things you do for people out of the goodness of just who you are can have a bigger impact on them then you ever, ever know. I'd say - go with those benevolent impulses!

Around the same time, I ended up being a Counselor at Camp Penn church camp.  Being a person with ADD and an inquistive mind, I have become really good at making plans, starting them, and then faltering as I try to keep the momentum going.  I am a deeply spiritual person as well, and I have made valiant efforts to read through the Bible (which I have managed to do, just not all at once) and to consistently read a daily devotional, as well as attempts at daily journalling, sometimes religiously-based. In previous years, I got to be what was called a Junior Counselor and, in that role, I was going through a phase where I was reading a college-geared devotional from Radio Bible Class, similiar to the Upper Room, called Campus Journal. For the duration of my week as a Junior Counselor, I was reading it regularly every morning.  I made friends with a younger girl who held the unofficial title of "Pre-camper Keeper." The job essentially consisted of wrangling the children of the counselors who were too young for this particular camp.  When I came back the following year in the role of full-fledged counselor, she had risen to my old rank of Junior Counselor. By this point, I was still trying to read the devotional, but I was pretty much failing to do so. One day, I happened to notice her reading her own copy. She told me she'd been reading it since I had introduced her to it the previous year. I hadn't even remembered telling her about it!

It's something I have thought about occasionally over the years. How many ways to do we really influence the world around us, without even knowing it? How many times do we interact with people, make offhand comments we don't even remember? There's a lot of news out there lately about bullying and how teenagers thoughtless comments have effected someone who is particularly sensitive about a topic. I don't believe for a minute that kids are more cruel than they have ever been. I know that high school has always been difficult. It's not a new concept that we don't fully realize our effect on the world around us. So what kind of solution can there be? The only answer I can see is that we strive, every day, to make sure we are sending positive waves of energy out into the world. Kindness. Generosity. Positive Examples. Encouraging Messages. The little thngs that can be the seeds for big things to grow!

As my sister Noelle's favorite quote goes - "The mightiest oak was once a tiny acorn."

Longing

Screaming heart.
Inside me, the desire burns to turn back time.
Race me back, 5, 10, 15 , 20...
take me back to childhood and naive hope in the future.

Take me back to when I believed in happy endings
to when I believed my generation
was the greatest generation
and that the world saw us that way.
I lay awake at night and feel
the overwhelming longing
for what has been
for what might have been

I wish to run back in time
To be a child again
to be safe and secure
with my whole life ahead.
A longing so strong
my heart throbs with pain

To be again
with my mother and father
in the arms of my family
when my world was whole and soft and bright

International Business - Perspectives

I've thinking today about perspective. In this case, national perspective. I've mentioned before that I am back in school. One of my classes has been about International Business, and our class started off with a discussion about how culture affects how business is perceived, or, rather, how one country is perceived by another.
The United States is a wonderful country. It's my home country. I love her. I love the ideals that founded her - the ideals of freedom and democracy and independence. I am aware, however, that we did not invent these principles. The single greatest thing about the United States of America is that we are a mish-mosh of world culture. Like the English language itself, we have incorporated cultural aspects from all over the world into our culture. We began largely with Scots-Irish foundations, based upon English conceits, Scottish Enlightenment principles and a government discovered by the Greeks. We were not the first Republic or the first democracy. We weren't the first ones to fight. We weren't the first ones to explore our world. We weren't the first ones to believe it was our manifest destiny to conquer the "wilds". We are not the most self-aware people. We are not the healthiest people. We are not the most environmentally-savvy people. But the truth is we do not have to be. We are some of the most mixed people on the planet. And we are, in many ways, some of the most idealistic people on the planet. Sometimes because we pull people to us that are idealistic. And we always have.
No one can deny that we have problems. I think sometimes of the Roman Empire and how it splintered from within and I worry. But we are only two and a half centuries old. We are a teenager among nations. We are still finding our place. We may have been a child prodigy in some things, but we are going to hit our roadblocks.
Lately, we've become more aware of this division within - it's easy to see in presidential election results, when every state is one by a margin of 45/55 or 60/40.  And everyone keeps talking about how divided we are. Personally, I think we need to concentrate on how we are alike. Cohesion comes from finding areas of commonality and agreement. We need someone who can bring together this country - a leader who will, like a diplomat negotiating a peace treaty, bring people together to agree on something.
It's dangerous to try to be a prognosticator. The Cassandras of the world most frequently get stoned for their trouble. However, I will predict this much. If this nation cannot find a way to come together and identify itself as a country again, it will cease to exist amongst a world of interlinked commerce and culture.

The Best Mother in the World

“My mother gave me life and never once asked for anything in return. That is her secret, you know, always giving without expectations. She is as constant as the sunrise, the moon, the stars, and I count on her.  She helps me find my way through the years and makes me laugh while doing it. There are some things that only a mother can do.” Unknown

Not to be Debbie Downer, but this was true except that I never got to have her be there through the years, which makes me very sad. I had a mother who always encouraged me and told me I was a "renaissance woman" who could do anything I wanted to do. She hugged me, taught me to be a lady (a.k.a. respect myself and others), led by example in service to the community, taught me to dance the Electric Slide and the Tango in our tiny little kitchen, reminded me to laugh at myself, taught me to view life as an ongoing learning experience, and encouraged me to explore the world around me as I go through life. She taught me to have a living faith that embraces all possibilities without denying my essential beliefs. The way she approached her death, too, showed strength, courage and faith - and she continued to inspire people even after she died.

On Mother's Day, everyone talks about their mothers being "The Best Mother in the world."  I respectfully disagree, because to me, this woman whose physical presence I only got for 17 years on this earth was and will always be the best mother in the world!

Finding Self

"We don't find ourselves. We create ourselves." - unknown

This is one of those quotes that I have to agree with, but that challenges me at a really fundamental level. It's true, yet not at the same time. Because there are parts of ourselves that we have to discover. Especially if you are like me and feel you have lost parts.

What does this mean? That's what I'm asking myself right now. As a writer, it has something to do with finding a voice. That authentic voice you hear writers talk about in the abstract. It's almost mythical. But all it really means is everything.

Yes, I realize that's more abstraction. Yes, I realize it makes little or no sense to someone who is not also looking for their voice, or has not found it yet. It means to write what is true to yourself, true to your character. I cannot actually write in a voice that is not my own if I am being true to what I am saying. To write in someone else's voice is to copy someone like Ernest Hemmingway or Anne Rice by trying to write the same way they do.

But this quote isn't only about finding a literary voice. It is also about self-direction. It's about waiting around for your prince (or princess) charming instead of getting up and going on the quest yourself. It's about determining what you want out of life and choosing to become it.

It is also false because it implies that we have all the power over the world we create. Sometimes we do not. Sometimes you stumble over yourself while trying to create yourself the way you want to be. Sometimes that is how discovery happens - by accident. Another famous quote says

"Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans." 

But I think the secret is that truth lies somewhere between these two. Life is not going to happen if you are sitting around on your tuckus waiting to look like your couch. Life isn't going to happen if all you do is watch or read other people's stories all day. You have to make it happen. You just have to be prepared for things to not go as you planned them to go.

"Man plans and God laughs"

Timey Wimey...

"I reject your reality and substitute my own!" The Fourth Doctor, "The Deadly Assassin", 1976

So, I kind of cheated. I know in my last blog I said I was working my way through the old series. But I was afraid I wouldn't get through all the Doctors by November, which is the 50th Anniversary of this brilliant show. So, I checked out all the first episodes of each of the remaining Doctors (5, 6, 7 and 8). I'm sorry to say I was not terribly impressed with 5, 6 or 7. The 6th Doctor, especially, seemed pretty arrogant and unlikeable. And the clown outfit didn't help much since I don't care for clowns overmuch. I was tickled to hear Sylvester McCoy spouting a Scottish accent, though. It made me think of David Tennant's own gorgeous tenor brogue.

I did like Paul McGann, though (The 8th Doctor). I'm sorry that all he ever got was a TV Movie. I think he would have made a brilliant series Doctor if he'd been allowed to continue. He had a lot of promise. I was also singularly uncomfortable with the choice of Eric Roberts as the Master. And did I mention that they set it in California and the whole cast save the Doctor was American? *shifts uncomfortably in her chair* That was just....wrong somehow.  (And I'm saying that as an American.) I did watch the documentary that explained why that happened, but it still makes me shake my head and grimace.

Nonetheless, I've gone back now and am working my way once again through the Classic Series, in as much order as possible. Some of the early ones are becoming available on DVD for the first time, so I my order is a little out of order. Today I received The Deadly Assassin from 1976. It's the Fourth Doctor, apparently without Sarah Jane Smith this time. I have heard it's the source of Adam Savage's quote "I reject your reality and substitute my own!" from Mythbusters. I am looking forward to keeping my eye out for that little gem.

Wibbley Wobbley...

"Don't be fair to the Daleks. They're firing me at a planet!" 11th Doctor (Matt Smith), Asylum of the Daleks. Season 33 (New Season #7)

There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes." Doctor Who

Surprise! I am a Doctor Who Fan. Anyone who has read the rest of this blog will not be surprised by this. I'm a geek from way back. Literally. Tom Baker became the 4th Doctor in Fall of 1974. I entered the world the following year and never looked back.

Why am I fan? Oh, let me count the ways! There's the science theory stuff, the time-travel factor, the history ideas, there was that episode where they met Shakespeare and gave a nod to the academics...

And then there's the bit where the 10th Doctor (played by the absolutely fabulous David Tennant) got a DNA sample taken which the alien race then turned into a daughter for him, which would have been cool anyway since the poor Doctor's race had been completely wiped out except for him and The Master (his arch-nemesis). But then, in an odd twist of reality and fate meeting up - the actress who played the Doctor's Daughter Jenny is the real-life daughter of an actor who played the Doctor previously (Peter Davison). And then...oddly enough she and David Tennant hit it off and started dated. Last I heard, they'd gotten married!  Making the Doctor the son-in-law of himself and married to his daughter. LOL Actually, I remember reading that David Tennant was a fan of Doctor Who since he was about 3 years old, so he should be pretty ecstatic all the way around.

Meanwhile, I am still trying to get caught up. Doctor Who has existed since about 1966 and I've been slogging my way through all the available old episodes because I didn't get to see them until the late 1970s at the earliest. Our local PBS station was kind enough to show them on Saturday afternoons and I slowly began to absorb them by watching them with my father. I don't remember much from the beginning of that period, of course. I remember Doctor Who with a long striped scarf, big teeth and funny-looking hair being chased around caves by strange robots that didn't move very well.

I was disappointed to find that I didn't like the 1st Doctor much at all. He seemed like a cranky old autocrat to me. I guess he was a product of the 1960s, but I came to love the younger, more rebellious versions. The 1st Doctor is supposed to have stolen the TARDIS. In "The Doctor's Wife" (New Series Season 6), we finally get to meet a human embodiment of the TARDIS. More to the point, The Doctor finally gets to meet her. It's hard to reconcile the 1st Doctor acting like the 11th Doctor says he did.

The TARDIS: " Did you ever wonder why I chose you all those years ago?"
The Doctor:  "I chose you. You were unlocked."
The Tardis: "Of course I was. I wanted to see the universe, so I stole a Time Lord and ran away. You were the only one mad enough."

The Doctor: You are not my mother!
The TARDIS: And you are not my child.
The Doctor: Since we're talking, I mean with mouths, can I just say, you know you were never very reliable!"
The TARDIS: Oh really?
The Doctor: You never took me where I wanted to go!
The TARDIS: But I always took you where you Needed to go!
The Doctor (brought up short): Yes. Yes, you did.

Then again, we meet the 1st Doctor when he is an old man, so perhaps he was different when he was young, which is supposed to be when he stole the TARDIS, if I am not mistaken.

I do have to say I really like Ian and Barbara, who are the first two official companions the Doctor has travelling with him.  His "grand-daughter" Susan was always sort of ambiguous as to whether or not she counts as a companion. I always wondered, too, whether or not she was a Time Lord. Shouldn't she have been?

Right now I am up to the 3rd Doctor (Jon Pertwee) and I'm chomping at the bit to get to the 4th Doctor and figure out with adult eyes what I was seeing at 4 years old.

In Defense of the X Generation - Culture in Flux

To begin, this is what I understand to be the breakdown of generations by date of birth. There is some disagreement about this. I have yet to see a correct "definition" of any of the generations because they are usually biased depending upon who is writing it. I have noticed Baby Boomers and Generation Yers are very fond of disparaging Generation X and often confuse us with the other group (Generation Y and Baby Boomers respectively). Very few seem to want to give us any credit whatsoever. 

2000 approximately-present Generation Z
1980- approximately 2000 Millennials or Generation Y
1965-1979 Generation X 
1946-1964 Baby Boomers
1900-1945 The Greatest Generation or GI Generation

We are a culture in flux. If you've ever read Alvin Toffler's The Third Wave, you already know what I'm saying. Toffler talks about technology coming in waves. We're on the third one now,where everything is becoming digital (said the blogger).  The pace of this change is enormous and disorienting. "Kids" (those under about 23) don't really see it. They were born after the wave hit. I think the Baby Boomers mostly just write it off anymore as that they are getting old and expect to not understand a lot of technology (I THINK, mind you. I know a lot of Baby Boomers who embrace the new technology, too.) But they are the generation who used to laugh about the fact that my generation (the tiny little Generation X) could program their VCR better than they could. But that's telling in itself. What a lot of this new lot of "kids" don't get is that we remember what the Baby Boomers taught us, lived a lot of it ourselves, but also embraced technology. Also still do embrace it. But we have a healthy dose of the Baby Boomer distrust for machines in us. We still keep inside of us the belief in the phrase "technology is great...when it works."

We see in the millennials a sense of entitlement that we are sure we never had. Now, that may be right or that may be wrong, but I can say this. We had to pay dues that the millennials have never had to pay. We learned  everything the hard way, the offline way, first. My generation learned to type on electric typewriters before computers. We used land-lines before cell phones were invented. We began in an age when you were not connected to everyone 24-7. We had to learn to amuse ourselves because entertainment was not available to us at all times. We wrote papers for classes by hand. We were schooled in penmanship and actually wrote letters. We had to learn to wait for things. And, the biggest thing of all - we were expected to pay our dues in the world before we jumped directly to earning the rewards for them.

This last I find the most disturbing because it is directly affecting what is happening now. (And let me say again, I understand that this is all generalizing and that's a lot of people to generalize.) But what has happened is that, when Generation X entered the workforce (beginning in the early 1980s), we were expected to work our way up. The Baby Boomers were in charge. They had the mid-level management to upper-level management jobs. It was expected that we would put in our time in the lower levels and then, if we worked hard, we would move up. (Because that's the way companies worked then.)

But that's not the way it worked out.

Baby Boomers didn't retire like their parents did. They kept working.
Which meant there were no vacancies.
And companies began to change how they did business. Company loyalty gradually became a thing of the past. Jobs began to go overseas. Whole industries were outsourced to other countries.

In short, the world changed.

And the Generation X kids, who were labelled "slackers" (As in "why don't you go get a job and make something of yourself like I did") and "cynical" (Gee, wonder why), who had already been forgotten in the social changes of the 1960s and 1970s, were written off because they couldn't find jobs. Because they were not there the way that they had been for the Baby Boomers.
And then, we disappeared from the media. Seriously. They lost interest. Why? Because the next generation of kids were more interesting. Were a larger group. And we all know that the media wants to market to the largest audience they can.

I could go into more detail about the social changes this engendered, but it's not my point right now. My point is this - there came a time when the Generation Y kids started entering the workforce. And started competing for the same jobs as the Generation Xers. And guess what? The rules changed. In truth, they had been changing all along. But now they REALLY started changing. No longer did the kids have to conform to the original rules. Now the Baby Boomers were conforming to the way Millennials did things. More technology. More flexibility. Everything that Generation Xers had been prepared to expect was done. We had to re-learn just like the Baby Boomers. But most of all, because the rules had changed, Millennials didn't have to "wait their turn" like we did. They were allowed to compete for the same jobs, which were now open. It made a lot of Gen Xers feel ignored and, quite frankly, pissed off. 

And, of course, in the middle of this, the economy tanked. So, even more of a glut on the labor market occurred. Newly minted college grads, Generation Xers who SHOULD have been in their prime earning years, and Baby Boomers who suddenly found the could not retire after all (or worse, had to come out of retirement). 

The other day, I read a blog that supported Generation X's right to be angry (thanks for the permission), but did it in a way that was rather offensive and uninformed. Once again it called us "slackers" and "cynical".  And blamed it on the fact that we never learned how to deal with disappointment. Really? The author (obviously a Millennial) forgot a lot of important facts, beginning with everything I outlined above. But there's more. 

We lived through the Cold War. We saw the Berlin Wall fall, but we lived in the time before that happened. We lived the tail end of it, when it seemed it had gone on forever and was going to have to end soon, one way or another. We grew up expecting to live through a Nuclear Holocaust. If you doubt this, watch the original Red Dawn. To us, that movie was frightening because it totally could have happened.

We were the first generation produced during the rampant divorce rate. We were cynical because we were being told to believe in fairy tales - Cinderella and Snow White, yes,  but also happy little family sitcoms where everything was worked out in half an hour.  Then we looked at the realities around us and saw that there didn't appear to be any neat little happy endings. We were a generation of women who grew up being told we could have it all and do it all, then coming to realize that was a lie. These days, people talk about having a good work/life balance. That wasn't an option in the 1970s - 1990s. It was accepted that a woman could be an executive, but she still had to know how to cook or she wasn't "really" a woman. And she still had to contend with a glass ceiling. 

A working mother was still usually expected to go to work, then come home and cook and clean. A man was supposed to be inept at taking care of children (see Mr. Mom if you want an example of this) and told that a woman could do everything, so why did she need a man? It stripped away a lot of what men were being told was masculine - breadwinner, protector, dominant. It made a lot of men feel pissed off and ignored as well. I'm talking about cultural stereotypes and expectations here. There were people breaking down these barriers, but the censure was always still there. This is the world in which American Generation Xers tried to find their identity as men and women.  We grew up in a world of contradictions and tension. The Baby Boomers had defined, stable roles (even if they needed changing), and the Millennials had an openness of societal roles that we didn't yet have. If we weren't at least a little cynical, we would be incredibly simple and naive. 

That we aren't simple and naive (as a generation) partly comes from the fact that we also grew up with technology (imagine that!) and increasingly more mass communication. We are a well-informed lot. We learned to embrace changing technology from an early age (hence the "My 8 year old can program my VCR better than I can" kind of comments). Kiddos, we invented (or helped to invent) half that technology you are using! And by "invented," I mean we thought it up. That stuff came from our imaginations, our brains, our hearts, our dreams. We played video games with rudimentary graphics and black (and green) screens, using our imagination, and thought "That would make a great movie" or "wouldn't it be cool if you could actually tell that those stupid little pixels were a princess with an actual face". And then we went on and made it happen.  We traveled to other countries and learned what they had to say about things and brought that back to America. We started with giant computers 

Not know how to deal with disappointment? Us? We grew up being able to lose at team sports and not have to be consoled by the "there are no losers" mantra. Instead, we got the "you'll get 'em next time" speech. And we needed it, too, given that life changed on us midstream. 

I'm hearing Millennials now saying that they are the first generation that can't be lumped together and generalized as a single generation. I say that's bollocks. You can't do that with any generation anymore. The Baby Boomers were path-cutters and weight-bearers, stoners and hippies, country-clubbers and night-clubbers, drop-outs and innovators. There is no solid stereotype for a Baby Boomer. And there is none for a Generation Xer, either. We are just as much innovators, philosophers, stoners, cynics, dreamers, standard-bearers, boring suburbanites, entitled asses and Mother Theresas as any other generation. We are political and apolitcal. We are creative and dull. We are smart and stupid. And so are Millennials. I strongly disagree, by the way, that we are, as a whole, self-centered, unwilling to work toward our goals, "conversationally shallow" as one blog put it (supposedly because all we like to do is watch movies), and "short on loyalty." I think we are loyal, but we don't put up with as much as our parents did, because we have suffered so much disappointment as a group. 

The truth is that all you can ever really say is "This was the cultural climate right at that moment in time." I know marketers love to talk about pyschographic profiles of their "target market," but what is interesting is that the more they "personalize" things, the more it becomes evident that there is wide variation from one person to the next. There are frequently a few similarities, which is a good thing, but now you can identify with someone on the other side of the world just as easily as you can identify with someone next door. Sometimes more easily. 

So, here's what I say. Be an individual and not a generation. Go on. I dare you. And, while you are at it, stop  trying to categorize anyone that way. 

Endurance

Having a disease like Fibromyalgia is not easy. I would say it is one of the hardest experiences I have ever had to endure. It is frightening, painful, isolating, demeaning - in every way a nightmare. It's made even harder when the ones you love don't understand it.
I want everyone to know that, before I got sick, I was an extremely active person. I used to hike, camp, ride bicycle, walk, do crafts, quilt, sew, scrapbook, cook. As a teenager, I play softball, tried basketball, enjoyed  volleyball, mowed the lawn, was in the marching band, and participated in all number of other school activities. I even lifted weights and ran. I would have been on the track team if we'd had one at my school.  I was literally hyperactive (although I didn't know I had ADD at the time). As I got sicker and sicker, I sought a cure that would return me to my active self. After awhile, I figured I was just getting old or lazy. Many years and multiple diagnoses later, I finally found out what was going on.
But in the meantime, I isolated myself from friends because I felt bad every time I had to cancel at the last minute. I despised them thinking of me as rude and uninterested in our friendships. I felt like I was the worst best friend in the world. I loved these people, but couldn't seem to make time for them. And I didn't know why.
More than once I thought I was losing my mind and falling apart. Even now that I know what is going on, I feel that way.
My husband was able to stick through me when I was sick with something that could be fixed - a gall bladder removal left me out of it for a few weeks. I was vulnerable and obviously too sick to do much besides sleep and stare at a TV screen.
And then I got my diagnosis. I started medication and it seemed to finally be helpng.  And then a few weeks later, I lost my job. And relief became nightmare again.
No insurance means no medication for the woman with the chronic, debilitating disorder. No medicine, no treatment, no doctor's visits, no medical support, no solutions. A sick economy means no jobs for the woman with a chronic illness but a dual college degree and work experience.
And then my husband decided to leave me.  And, because I know the set of problems he faces in life, I convinced him to physically stay because I knew he needed to know he had a place whee he was still loved. And I hoped to work things out.
Have I mentioned that high levels of stress negatively effect Fibromyalgia?
And that we had to accept help from a relative to survive?
And, in the middle of that, I decided to do something I'd wanted to do for years. I went back to school.
I accept some work. And then my husband got sick and had to be hospitalized for a week. My hell week.  I started a new temp job, my husband was admitted to the hospital, I'd just adopted 2 kittens, and my first week of classes started. To this day, I am not sure how I managed to survive that week.
Somehow, several years later, I am surviving. Someday I hope to be thriving again. If I can.
In the meantime, I endure...
day by day.

Standing still in the center of the storm...

"Imagine your life going by and not having the energy to keep up."

Oh, wow, does this say it wonderfully. And this is totally what I am immersed in today. Fibromyalgia has stolen my life and some days it is obvious to me. Other days, I survive on the hope that it will be better, that I will be stronger, that the pain will be less and my energy level will be more. And it's a very lonely place to be, because I think most people don't understand this. I feel left behind. I feel time passing and I am standing still. for the first 25 years of my life, roughly, I epitomized the John Mayer lyric "She's always moving, just like neon." Now I only move because I'm trying to minimize the pain. 

If I had the energy to do what I want in my heart to do, I would be scary to behold. I am not lazy and fat with some made up disease. I want to move mountains and I'm willing to do the work to do that. But there are days it takes all my energy to move myself up and down stairs and to the kitchen to cook anything. This says it beautifully. I can't keep up. And suddenly it's 10 years later and the person who used to camp and hike and canoe and sing and quilt and write and run and work is gone. And I don't even recognize the person in the mirror. 

I can't help but think of all the things that I probably will never do now. All the things that maybe I'll never do again. Standing on top of mountain I have hiked up. Waking up to the smell of a wood smoke fire and the sound of birds chirping above me in the trees. I always slept better camping than any other way. Now it feels like torture to wake up on the ground, assuming I could sleep that way at all. To sit calmly, quietly and still, listening to the natural world around me. Now I have to move every few minutes as the muscle pain catches up to me again. Feeling the strength in your limbs as you walk - the exhilarating feeling of your body move as designed. I can't clearly remember what it feels like to be comfortable anymore. 

How does a person not get depressed? How does anyone find a way back to thriving? All I know is to take it day by day and try to hold on to hope and to concentrate on the blessings I have and what I can do. I try to stay positive and find things to laugh at and smile at and take my mind off the multiple layers of pain that inhabit my life. My passion, my love, my hopes - they still reside somewhere inside me. I try to hold on to those. And if somehow, in all of that, I can make someone else smile or lighten someone else's load - well, then, that gives me a reason to still be here.  

The Times They Are a Changin'

I have been finding myself having a lot of conversations lately where I'm uttering the phrase "The rules have all changed in the last few years." These conversations range from socializing and shopping to job hunting and world politics. I am certain I am not that old. Yet from the time of my "youth" until today, the world is a completely different place.

When I was a kid, we didn't have cell phones. Think of it - not being available 24-7! What an amazing idea! What did we do in an emergency? Answer - we fended for ourselves and we did things like walk to the nearest gas station. We walked to someone's house and asked to use the land line. We didn't worry as much about not being able to handle a situation when it came up. We relied on each other more than we do now. 

I know every generation says this, but I think it's true. People were friendlier and less rude than they are now. Not everyone, mind you. But if someone wasn't a nice person, they were considered to be "that cranky old hermit-guy" or "that crotchety old lady." More and more these days I see people doing crap like strolling out in front of traffic expecting everyone to stop for them. There is less consideration these days for other people. We seem to have this new awareness of the length and breadth of the world and less and less awareness that this world does not revolve around us. Maybe it's because so much as been "personalized" that so much is less personal in terms of relationships. There is so much pop psychology out there that everyone is psychoanalyzing everyone else and no one is actually building relationships and getting to know people. 

We have a new world of people who are at once savvy and entirely naive about the way the world really works. They believe that you should judge someone by what's inside, but at the same time think it's okay to call someone "fat" or "whore" as an insult. They call their best friends "bitches" and use the "f-word" as emphasis in every other sentence. They think seeing a "current" picture on a social media site protects them from old people "masquerading" as young people and that means they are safe.  They think texting while driving is safe and see nothing wrong with posting "fml (f my life)" when the tiniest thing goes wrong. They believe in disposable relationships. 

Notice, I am not labeling any particular generation in this? That's because I have seen this behavior across generations now. Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, Millennials. It's all of us. We have created a world that is freer, more open-minded, more aware that we live on the same planet with millions of others, more aware that people do things differently. And that's great. But we are also less connected, more blind, less self-aware, less communal, less accepting and less willing to work together to accomplish big goals. We are less aware of history and less willing to learn the truth about things. And that is a very, very scary combination. When we are too tired or too stressed or too lazy to learn, we are susceptible to forces that aren't. 

"All it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to stand by and do nothing." paraphrase of Edmund Burke by way of John F. Kennedy.

"Those who will not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." paraphrase of George Santayana

This is the kind of culture that spawned the rise of the greatest dictators in the world. The greatest deceitful and charismatic propaganda. It leads to people being herded, sheep-like into pens they didn't even know where there until suddenly the gate is shut. And even then, some people don't see it. 

I'm not saying that politeness is any better. In the United States, the 1950s saw some of the greatest social repression and that was because everything was lacquered with a thin veneer of politeness and propriety. The 1960s and 1970s saw so much upheaval because people were tired of being repressed. But I sometimes think we went too far in the name of freedom. We pushed so hard for personal freedom that I think we forgot about responsibility. 

It is said that history is cyclical. If that is so, we will probably see a push back and lines drawn all over again. I'd like to think that someday we're going to see the balance that is needed, but that probably will not happen in my lifetime. The scary thing to me is that I am not sure just where we are heading - somewhere new or back into what we've already been through because there is no one looking backward or paying any attention to the "elders" because no one thinks they have anything valuable to say any more. In a time of rapid change (what Toeffler calls "The Third Wave"), everyone wants to judge progress on the next new invention. We are not valuing our historians and our elders. After all, in a youth culture, who wants to see anything of value in the old?

This is not to say that age alone brings wisdom. The truth is that neither being old or young makes you more qualified to judge anything. It is simply that knowledge is important, and ignoring knowledge of the past is a dumb thing to do. The arrogance of youth is to believe that "everything is different today than it used to be" and the truth is that this isn't so. People are people, no matter what age you are in. We look back at history, after all, and think that we can judge people from that time. Very often, we can, in basics, but we do have to take into consideration the time period. Motivations often remain the same- all people have passions, dreams, desires, fears, things they are proud of, things they despise. Human relationships have not changed over time. 

"The greatest thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been." - Madeleine L'Engle

I find myself wondering what people will think of this time period if we survive to look back at it. I don't think it will be looked upon favorably, despite the rapid technological advancements. I keep thinking that this must have been what people felt like in the 1890s and 1910s, during that explosion of technological advancement. But I think this is different. Like many things, however, I believe only time will tell. History is going to have to be the judge of whether or not these changes are for the better or for the worse. God help us all. 

THESE are the bad old days...

A wise person recently reminded me that "Permanence is not permanent." Change is what life is about. I need to hear it at that time, too. I've been having a rough time lately. 

Since 2010, I've been struggling with one change after another in my life. To be honest, it's been going on since I was 17 years old. I've been struggling ever since my mother was taken out of my life. 

When I'm hard on myself, I tell myself that it is ridiculous and unhealthy to be consistently drawn back to a date now 20 years in the past. When I'm strong, I tell myself it was the catalyst for a whole long list of lessons learned. I learned young and well that life is short. And I knew early what it means to sum up a life. What matters is not how much money you earned, what clothes you wore, what address you had. At funerals, no one mentions what kind of car you drove, how many bedrooms your house has, or how much you weighed (in most cases). What people remember was how you LIVED, how you treated others, if you "always had a smile for everyone" or volunteered in your community, and if you helped other people out. My own grandmother's epitaph included a young cousin who stood up at her funeral and talked about how she always had time for a cup of coffee and a chat. My other grandmother raised 9 children, who talked fondly of how many yard sticks she broke disciplining the 5 boys, all of whom towered over her. My mother was remembered to me, more than a year later, as the inspiration that caused her nurse in those last days to set aside time to become a camp nurse (which is where I encountered her). My father, whose obituary read like a laundry list of community accomplishments,  left us a poem that summed up his life as something of a religious mystic in accountant's clothing. I have been reared by people who spent their lives focused on other people. 

So, now I ask, "Where does that leave me?" I was groomed at an early age to go out and be a productive, active member of a community. At age 37, I find myself without any community. Really. 

I am underemployed enough to be counted as unemployed by anyone except a census-taker - which makes me an out-of-work writer/secretary/customer service representative with excess education, in the process of getting more over-educated, who is struggling in a troubled marriage, has no home church, an almost totally unformed direction in life, with several chronic illnesses and the serious possibility of fertility issues. So those glorious poems I wrote in college about being "the mother of mothers and mother of fathers" are now pretty much reduced to b***s**t. I am not only struggling to make ends meet - the ends aren't even within sight of each other anymore. 

I feel like Jaye from Wonderfalls. If you haven't seen the show from 2004, you should see it. It never found it's place (I don't think it was ever given a real chance), but it's pretty hilarious and includes Lee Pace, which is always a plus. I'll warn you, though, it's quirky. 

Ahem...so, pity party over. This is what I see when I look with dark, dingy, A Scanner Darkly kind of way. But being me, I prefer happy endings. 

I imagine that these are my "bad old days" days. That in 20 more years, I will be looking back and remembering what it was like to come through this to where I will be then. Maybe I am feeling like I am running out of time because my parents had short lives (46 and 58). If this is only midway for me, I have almost 40 more years to go! 

Right now I have the time I wanted for so long to have to go back to school (which I am doing!) and learn some valuable, practical knowledge (which I'm doing - I am getting a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration to balance out my dual English/Journalism degree). Once I finish the degree, I am free to move anywhere I can find a job with my newly minted Bachelor's Degree! And I have a great deal of experience in many areas, which makes me a more versatile employee. I am free to go where God wants me to go! No home church means, again, I can pick up and go wherever. And my husband and I are working things out in our marriage, so it could end up being stronger than ever. None of my chronic illnesses are life-threatening in and of themselves. They are all manageable with diet and exercise and some medications. 

These struggles I've been going through are teaching me compassion and understanding that I don't think I would have had otherwise. Until you go through unemployment, underemployment, struggling with illnesses and childlessness and being dependent upon the State or your relatives, it's hard to imagine just how hard that is on you psychologically. We like to consider welfare recipients as free-loaders in the United States, but it's like adding insult to injury. You already have to ask for help. Then you get insulted for it and told by politicians that you just didn't try hard enough. I feel like I have been given a unique opportunity to understand both the haves and the have-nots. I was a world-traveler by age 16 and had a taste of what upper-middle class was all about. I was given Upper Middle Class sensibilities. However, I was also taught to never turn my nose up at honest, hard work, and I married a man who is a proud self-defined redneck who grew up on farms and in trailers. I grew up somewhere in between. I'm proud to say one grandfather was a Master Carpenter and the other was a machinist. My grandmothers were a nurse and a teacher-turned-stay-at-home-mother. My parents were a teacher and a teacher-turned-librarian. I get to be a State Clerk-turned-something else. I just haven't decided what I'm turning just yet. 

I knew a really interesting 80-year-old woman. She's the kind of woman I want to be in 40 years. She traveled to the Middle East to see the Holy Land (at 80 years old) and rode a camel. Now, that's an image I want to shoot for. I want to be 80 and ride a camel in Egypt. And as an homage to my mother, I'd like to play a game of Chess with a Turkish man while I'm there (when she was in England in the 1960s, she surprised a Turkish man because she could play). 

When I was graduating college for the first time in the late 1990s, there was a great spoken word song out on the radio called "Everybody's Free To Wear Sunscreen" by Baz Luhrmann. It's almost 14 years ago now. Being 40 years old seemed so far in the future.  I imagined I would find my path in life by then and it wouldn't apply to me. (At that time, 40 seemed soooooooo far in the future.)

The YouTube Video says the lyrics are from a famous essay written in 1997 by Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune. That whole column can be found, here on the Chicago Tribune's Website: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-schmich-sunscreen-column,0,4054576.column. It's worth a read. 


Like I said, I like happy endings, so I'm going to close this entry with my favorite line from it. 

"Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't." 

Planned Planning

Planning.
Apparently, it's a problem.
For those of us with ADD/ADHD, it can be our nemesis. We have problems getting started planning, completing planning, following through on a plan. In the worst cases, all of these are true. We can feel it is a trap - something that will squash our creative energies (probably due to memories of years of teachers and authority figures telling us to pay attention and just do THIS). The problem is that it can also be incredibly freeing once we've done the planning. It means we don't have to spend any more time than necessary on structuring things we don't want to be doing in the first place. Personally, I like having the boundaries. Otherwise, I get overwhelmed and can't start things or I get incredibly distracted by all the shiny POSSIBILITIES.
I have the almost unique opportunity to learn what it's like on both sides of the ADD aisle, so to speak. I am an ADDer and I am MARRIED to an ADDer. While that may sound wonderful to those of you with ADD who feel no one understands what it's like to have ADD, let me assure you it is most often NOT. Because that forces me to alternately act the role of the NON-ADDer or the ADDer being misunderstood.
Our house is in chaos most of the time - and I am not just talking chores. Our finances. Our social life. Our TV schedules. Our work. Our meals. Even our love life. There is no anchor in the storm. Sure, we can have a lot of fun. But without someone to be the calm influence, we're frequently sniping at each other and wondering whether or not the electric company is going to show up at our door to turn off our service for a bill that got "missed."
I'm constantly struggling to "grow up" and waiting for adulthood to begin. It would be really easy to blame all these things on my husband. Really, really easy. But I'm not going to do that because I know that I am just as much to blame. Neither of us can get a handle on things. And the truth is there is really no one to blame for it.  This is how we are both hard-wired. It requires us both to constantly be trying to figure out how to navigate a world not designed for our kind of wiring. I try to keep this in mind when we are arguing because I know that these problems are frustrating and people say things they don't mean when they are frustrated and angry that they are always fighting against the world to live. Still, you can only take personal insults so often and be called controlling so many times (and this goes both ways).
I think I've been blessed to have been exposed to so much since I first got my diagnosis of ADD in college in terms of ways to manage time and impulses. I have learned to make lists and made schedules my friends. Most importantly, I have learned to pick myself up and keep trying when one system or another fell apart (although I am pretty sure I learned that growing up with ADD and not knowing it). Unfortunately, I don't know how to teach this to anyone else, especially my ADD husband. How do you convince someone to sit for 5 minutes and discuss how you plan to move couches up and down stairs? My husband's mentality is: we just move it. Any suggestion about planning moving the items which they will have to be moved around (such as bookshelves) makes him decide I've worked in state government for too long. I guess those management classes are a waste of money, too. Why talk about it beforehand, after all? And then there is the insult that women want to talk everything to death. I'm pretty sure he forgets sometimes that I also have ADD. I just wanted to get the darn things moved without breaking anything, living or nonliving.
So, I guess we'll continue to live in chaos for awhile longer. And my husband has the satisfaction of moving the couches without me. Because I really don't want to break anything living...so I'm going to the library.