Really!!??

I'm in the great American class known as "working poor"...at least I think that is how the government identifies me. I have a job and so does my husband but we both work for small companies and neither of us is full-time. We get by but we don't have health insurance. Which means that for things like birth control and infections we have to go to the doctor and pay everything out of our pockets. I had a thing, a little bout of pancreatitis, a couple years ago and just paid the hospital off last month. The doctor that I used to see moved and left me with no doctor so when it was time for my yearly lady-parts check-up, I just went to Planned Parenthood...$400 bucks later (that was with the "poor people 40% discount"), I walked out with two months supply of birth control and a prescription for the rest of the year. That was six months ago. Today, I was due for a new round of b.c and went in to pick it up. They called me to the back after a few minutes and informed me that after today, I would not be approved for any more birth control until I had a mammogram.

A mammogram!? Really? And just what exactly is a mammogram going to do for me? Tell me if my breasts have cancer? And what if my breasts do have cancer? Does the mammogram price include the cost of cancer treatment? Because if it doesn't, I'm going to die if I have breast cancer because I can't afford the treatment. And if I don't get a mammogram and I do have cancer, I'm still going to die...I just won't have wasted any money on a useless mammogram. And to top it all off...whether I have a mammogram or not, whether I have cancer or not, I'M STILL GOING TO DIE!

We are all going to die.

So, no. Thank you. I will not pay anyone to squish my breasts between to plates and zap them with radiation, so that I can die with the knowledge that had I been able to afford health insurance I might have lived to be an old lady with very nice fake boobs.

The thing is...I can tell you I am not going to get breast cancer. My family, we have a strong propensity for diabetes and heart disease. If I am somehow fortunate enough to avoid (not super likely) any death-inducing accidents, I know I am going to die of heart failure so the mammogram is really not necessary.

Melancholy

Melancholy: a gloomy state of mind

That's me. Kids are gone for their summer trip, this year to Virginia. I hate it. I recently had an epiphany about them. Someone said something about having "freedom" while they are gone and how happy I must be...blah, blah, blah. It occurred to me that I am most definitely not happy for my "freedom". The epiphany is that without them, I would not be who I am. All the best things about me really have come from being their mom.

The truth is, I am not a good person. Not only am I not a good person, I would be a very bad person if it were not for them. I actually cried almost daily for the last eight months of my pregnancy with my oldest child. I would have cried the whole time but I didn't know I was pregnant for the first month. I am not proud of this fact but it is truth. I cried because I didn't want a child. I didn't want to be a mother. I had plans for my life and they did NOT involve a child. I was going to do something important, be someone important and make money. I wanted freedom and to do MY thing. Instead I had a kid and I knew, I was finished. MY life, the one I had planned, was over. The thing is, I had great parents and I knew what having a kid would mean. I already knew what it would mean to be a good parent and the biggest change would be that my world would no longer get to revolve around me. I knew that whatever I did, where I lived, the food I bought, the places I went, the work I did, all those choices would not be made with what I wanted or what's best for me in mind, but what was best for my baby. That was the example my parents set for me and I knew I would lay everything down for that kid and that's why I cried for all those months.

That kind of decision, it changes you. There is no escaping the change. I'm not perfect and I don't have it all figured out as a parent by any stretch of the imagination. But this week, I realized that those kids saved me from myself. The truth about me is that so much of what I do or don't do, or haven't done is because I know/knew it would not benefit my kids. I see this most clearly when someone wrongs me or someone I love. The first thing my brain goes to is the best way to retaliate. I don't just want revenge. I don't want anyone to think, "Yeah, I deserved that..." when I get them back. I want them to be scared shitless and move to Ohio. And I don't think about it for a second, I think about it, I develop a plan, I rehearse the scenario where I tear open a can of "All Hell" and dump it on them. I never think about making the score even, I think about how I can make that person pay for every sin they and their daddy ever committed.

But I know there is a better way... up on that "high road". And that's were I live because that's where I want my kids to grow up. I know that nothing good comes from destroying someone else. I know that forgiveness and grace is where real freedom lies. And those kids of mine, they keep me there because I have a job and a purpose to teach them right from wrong, to show them that Love is better than anything else and that forgiveness, hope and grace bring real freedom. And all I can do is be grateful that I am that I found all of it for myself when I became a mother.

Not so neighborly

Neighbors. Neighborly. Neighborliness.

I live on a corner. Nearly all my yard is fenced to keep out wandering neighbors and their dogs. I wish I was neighbors with the guys in Robert Frosts poem, "Mending Wall". But I'm not. In fact, it appears that my good fence has made one of my neighbors a particularly bad neighbor. And by "bad neighbor" I mean that she goes around to all the other folks in the near vicinity telling them how much she hates my fence.

Half way through building the fence she came by to tell me that my fence was in violation of the the CC&Rs (Contracts, Covenants and Restrictions) for my neighborhood. I gently informed her that my house is not in any neighborhood with CC&Rs. She begged to differ. We continued to build the fence. I checked the disclosures on my house sale. I emailed my real estate agent. My house does not have CC&Rs.

Next day she brings over CC&Rs for my neighborhood. I was neighborhoodwinked.

We finished the fence. It's been almost a year. She still hates it. She still tells me. Even though only a small part of my fence is actually in violation of the CC&Rs and it is not the part that even faces her yard. Whatever. The rules state the the fence has to be approved by the developer which has been defunct since 2006.

The worst part is that now that I know about the CC&Rs, I feel an obligation to honor that, even though I didn't know about them when I bought the house. I also feel a little bad for all my neighbors too because they have an expectation about their neighborhood, that I clearly have yet to meet.

Blech.

Thoughts on Feelings...

For more years than I care to admit but suffice it to say, it has been a vast majority of my life, I have worked hard at keeping my emotions not just under control but out of sight. There is a small but trusted number of people who have seen me weep in my brokenness and there is an even smaller number of people who have seen me let off steam from my anger. And when I say "let off steam" I don't mean, like a tea kettle that gets to boiling and promptly releases steam, I mean the pressure cooker variety kind of steam.

Maybe I like the pressure of keeping my emotions under control. Maybe I have some unacknowledged control issue that manifests in keeping my emotions stuffed and under wraps. Maybe I got the impression growing up that how I felt about stuff wasn't relevant and maybe that was reinforced by my culture and in the relationships that I chose. I have lived a life of stoicism and stiff upper lips and all that. And, I think it is not that I like pressure or like control so much as old habits die hard.

Anyway, I am now married to a man who keeps reminding me that my feelings do matter and I honestly don't know what to do with that. Especially when I have negative feelings about something he does. I almost feel sorry for him but how do you feel sorry for someone who willingly walks into a train wreck and makes a home out of it? I said, "almost". What I really feel is that I am extremely fortunate. This man...this person...he loves me better than I have ever been loved and all at the same time it is humbling, frightening and wonderful.

Mistake

Oh...look at me...blogging again.

So, my friend, I shall call her MCW came to visit recently and she told me about a show called Hoarders that she watches sometimes on Netflix Instant Watch. So tonight...I was browsing on the TV through the instant watch options and saw it and thought, "I'll give that a shot." I watched 1.5 episodes. CRIKEY! I am really quite disturbed by it all.

I realize that people who hoard like those on the show have some deep-seated, unmet-emotional needs but wow!

I couldn't finish episode two because I had to take Mo's friend home and I am glad because I did not want to see the bathroom full of dirty man diapers. There is a limit to what I can stand and that is definitely on the other side of that line.

Back in the Saddle

It has been so very long since I wrote. A dear friend recently asked me if I was going to start blogging again and I answered that I didn't know but it made me want to write again. The thing is, I haven't been writing anywhere for the last 8 months. In the past, sometimes I would be silent on one blog while writing up a storm on another or writing something elsewhere but I haven't been writing anywhere...except for that one little rant I helped Ty write to his school principal (truth be told - I wrote - Ty watched and edited). Rest assured this was not a school assignment, it was merely a giant complaint about his school's lunch system.

But I digress...I do miss writing. I have been at school. Beauty school to be exact. It is weird, I know. But I did it and I had fun. I even learned some skills. I finished last week with all my hours and criteria at school so all I need to do now is go to the state capital and take the State Cosmetology Board's written exams and then I will have a certificate that will allow me to put fake nails on people and/or remove their body hair with hot wax.

School has also ended for Mo, Tmo and Ty. That was Friday, last. They had friends over for the annual Ice Cream for Dinner Party. Then yesterday Tmo turned 15 so there was that party too. So this means that I now have a 16 year old, a 15 year old and 12.5 year old. Crazy.

In other news, I got married on May 13 to the best guy. He is better than anyone my imagination could have conjured for me and even though it has been an adjustment to learn to live with someone again and share a bed and a room with someone again, he has managed to earn even more of my respect and admiration. Turns out, I like things my way and for the last eight years, I have gotten my way. Being single has a way of facilitating self-absorption. If it weren't for having kids, who make being self-absorbed difficult, this transition would have been a lot more difficult.

Anyway...that's about all the riding...err..writing I can manage after having been out of the saddle for so long but I am hoping I will muster up some discipline and get back out here again. I think I have some stuff to say.

2010 Closeout

So here we are, another year done...

The highlights for me:

• watching my Mo play softball on her high school JV team
• having my brother & his family stay with us for two months...this was both challenging and wonderful. I love them so much and getting to do life together like that was really good. It was hard to find a place to eat, though :)
• watching Mo take her first drive after getting her permit
• seeing Tm finish middle school with flying colors
• every hug and kiss from all Mo, Tm and Ty...I hope they never let up on this and at 15, 14 & 12...I think I have a pretty good chance
• my favorite man (FM) coming home after travelling the world for 9 months
• floating the river with Eeyeore
• camping with FM, Mo, Tm, Ty and KK...nothing says fun like teenage girls fighting in the dirt and food poisoning in the middle of the woods
• McBeth and Dra moving here
• starting cosmetology college
• watching Ty play drums in the worst holiday concert EVER
• FM making sure I got time alone when it seemed impossible in December
• Christmas with family

I learned a lot about myself this year...and as painful as some of my personal growth has been, being on the other side of it and being loved and supported unconditionally thru it all has been the greatest highlight of it all.