Life

I am *NOT* your friend.

I had to reaffirm some rules this weekend. It was not fun, but it was necessary.

My husband and I have long contended over parenting styles. I am more relaxed, I have more of an emotional approach. He is more rigid, more structure based. Our differences are all based on our individual personalities and beliefs, but also on what kind of parenting worked for us best. I am working on my firmness and follow through. He is attempting to be a bit more relaxed and not quite so rigid. We are all works in progress.

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So, at times, my kiddos will push the boundaries and limits I have provided to them. My youngest lost her use of a cell phone because of poor choices with social media. We are currently in month almost 3 of her not having her phone back because she has yet to show me that she deserves it back through her choices and behavior. But keeping it from her is killing me! I hate her not haivng what she wants, but I have to remind myself constantly that this is good for her. That I am providing her with clear expectations and consequences and I am allowing her to make the choice of how long her phone is gone. I do remind her that she is the one in control of how long her phone is gone and that I am not budging on what my expectations are for her to earn it back. I’m expecting she will get her phone back in a week or two because she is improving.

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When my kids got their cellphones, I made them all sign a contract with very clear expectations, do’s and don’ts, and requirements that came with them having access to cellphones. Some of those expectations are all authority figures have the ability to check the phone at all times, that we have access to all social media, and that they can not block us or lock us out of anything on their phones. Thisis to make sure they are not getting themselves into potentially dangerous ar risky situations that could harm them or others. My son decided to block me on a certain social media site. After repeated attempts to access said page, I had to remind him of who pays for his phone, how old he is, and that I am not doing this to embarrass him or cause issues, but to keep an eye out and to make sure he is safe. And I also reminded him that he signed a contract and he needed to abide by that. He gave me access…albeit begrudgingly. All of the teenage sullen looks were received last night. It was unpleasant, but necessary. He needed to be reminded that I am his parent, his authority figure, and even though he lives with his grandparents, that does not negate the fact that I am still his mother and he has to listen and obey.

not-your-friend-because-i-love-youI love my kids…but I am not their friend. I give them the boundaries and rules that I do to keep them safe. To help them learn how to work with others and to teach them how to behave in a way that is socailly acceptable, regardless of who they are with at the time. But staying firm witth them is hard…so keeping my mantra of “I am not their friend, I am their mother” going in my mind as I parent, as I discipline, as I spend quality time with them is what is going to help keep me strong in my decisions and firm in my boundaries.

 

Hard Choices and Parental Guilt

They make you second guess everything. They make you sit back and mull over all of the events leading up to the need for said choice. They make you rethink everything you have ever done when it comes to making that hard choice and they leave you wondering if the choice made was the right one once you actually make it!

My hard choice is still a hard choice. I’m over the second guessing myself, because I know in my heart that I made the right one…but it is still hard emotionally. Emotionally, I am torn. I am torn between what I know is right and what I want. But what I want is not based upon anything other than soothing my own emotional discomfort.

My hard decision was this: allowing my son to stay with my parents when my little family moved from my parents home into our own home in a different school district and county. Truth be told, it was a positive decision for him. My son is happy. He is doing well in school. He is making good choices and learning to do things that he needs to learn. Why did I allow him to stay? Well, he finally felt settled into a highschool and I didn’t want to move him. He is surrounded by friends that are good influences. He gets to be the only child that he wants to be while still maintaining a relationship with his younger siblings. But most importantly, he is happy.

I, on the otherhand, am pretty torn up. I miss my kid. I miss his goofiness. I miss his jokes and telling me all about some new game he is into or how he is trying something new with his lizards. I miss him being there in the morning and at night. Being physically seperate from him for an extended period of time like this is not okay and I feel guilt. I feel massive guilt.

Honestly, the massive guilt is probably why I feel so crappy. I really am thrilled that my son is happy and healthy and doing well. I am so fortunate to have parents who love my son so much that they would be okay with him living with them on a permanent basis. But that guilt…it’s brutal. And it eats at me at every possible moment.

I feel guilt for not being able to provide for my kid the way he needs. I feel guilt for not having the kind of relationship with my son that I had hoped we would have. I feel guilt for allowing someone other than myself to care for him. He is my first. The one who made me a mother 16 years ago. A young mother. And I think that is where it all comes to a point. I was a young mother. Not all young mothers have the same relationship with their children as I have with my son. Some grow to be inseperable. My son formed that bond with my mother rather than me, I think, because I was so young when I had him. I was barely more than a child-not even a month past my 20th birthday-when I had him. I needed her more than I knew and being a mother was something I had not planned on doing until faced with it realizing I couldn’t NOT be a mother because of what was in my own heart versus what society expected of me. And so I had him and cherished him (I still do) and I made the hard decision to allow him to live away from me.

I couldn’t ask for two better people than my parents to teach him, though. I am beyond blessed that they love him so much and are willing to look out for him and teach him and help him to become a good man. There is no lack of appreciation there, or gratitude, for their selflessness and generosity.

But this is hard. Harder than I ever imagined it would be. And even though I know this is what is best for my child, and as a parent I want to do what is best, it still hurts.

#Woke

via Daily Prompt: Oversight

It was gradual. But powerful. Sitting back and watching the protests in  Ferguson, where ever there was violence against people of color, the beginnings of #BlackLivesMatter movement, I thought to myself, “Wow-how angry these people are.” And went about my own business. I wasn’t indifferent, just ignorant in my understanding of their experience. Sure, I could watch the tv news every morning and night and see the violence that people of color are subjected to daily by the government meant to protect us all, but hey-it didn’t affect me, so….I didn’t think about it too much. Am I showing how deep I was in my own white privilege?  I hope so. Honestly, I am still shoveling my way out of this deep hole I am in.

Then I spoke with people. SPOKE with them about their experiences. SPOKE with them about their thoughts, their feelings, their beliefs. And it started to sink in. I wrote a piece earlier last year…about 6 months ago…and I stated that violence begets violence begets violence…but I better understand WHY there has been violence. I was still mired down in my own privilege and allowing that to influence my thoughts and feelings. But not anymore. I GET IT NOW. We have, since the founding of this country, used non-peaceful protest and actions to achieve the desired results (Hello…the American Revolution! A giant war that included an act of rebellion and governmental property damage in Boston). WE WERE FOUNDED ON NON-PEACEFUL PROTEST. I get it now, my friends of color. I get WHY there has been so much violence. I get WHY peaceful protest does not always work. And I understand that, if I want to be a part of this protest against the atrocities taking place in our country against people of color, women, immigrants, the LQBTQIA community, I HAVE to WAKE THE FUCK UP to the fact that it will not be peaceful, silent, or pretty. I HAVE to be okay with that because if I am not, I will remain in my bubble of ignorance surrounding myself with the unrealistic and idealistic point of view that just by talking about it, something will happen.

NO. I was WRONG to think that a peaceful protest will always be the best way to be heard. And it is uncomfortable. I feel guilty. I feel ashamed. I feel like I have been part of the problem. And I am going to try my damndest to correct my oversight. I am going to try my damndest to continue to be uncomfortable, because when I am feeling this discomfort, I am learning about what I have done to overlook the truth of it all. And MY truth is that I was too scared to be fully involved because I didn’t want others to think poorly of me, to think I was stirring the pot, to think that I was supporting something just to support it and not because I truly believed in the movement. I didn’t want to catch shit from my family, whom I love dearly, but I do not share the same political beliefs as they do.

The amount of emotional labor that my friends of color and my friends in the LGBTQIA (of which I identify as being a part of, btw) have put in to educate cisgender, heterosexual white people has been tremendous. They are the ones experiencing the violence, condemnation, anger, racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc and then they have to EXPLAIN WHY they are upset?? No. Not okay. NOT OKAY AT ALL. I should not expect them to go through all they do and then do MORE work to try to explain why things need to change. So, I plan to stay uncomfortable. And I plan to make other folks uncomfortable as well by talking about it.

So, my friends of color, my friends in the LGBTQIA community, stay angry. Keep protesting. Keep speaking out. I am going to be a better advocate for you. I am going to be a better listener. I am going to pay attention to the ignorance that is around me and try to educate people as best I can. And I may come to you from time to time to help me use the right words so I am not furthering misconceptions or passing along unhelpful and ignorant information. I am going to stay #woke.

The Insecure Woman Who Could

via Daily Prompt: Capable

It wasn’t as though I always believed myself worthy of success. Growing up, I was always scared of success. Because if I could succeed, then surely, I could fail. The fear of failure is crippling. Things I never relayed to my parents, why I hated the “P” word so much (Potential, in case your mind went other places), why I always performed up to, but not fully, my capabilities all through school. I always held back. Because fear. Fear of failure, fear of disappointing my parents, teachers, and mostly, myself. My fear kept me from being the straight A student I could have been and that harmed me more than failing ever could. I stunted myself because of fear…and I let that trend continue as I got older.

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It took going through hell-fire to learn how to fail without fear. To learn how to live without fear. It took doing things that scared me the most to realize the experience and the journey is so much more satisfying because I *did* them rather than fantasizing about them. I feared failing when I went back to college. I was a young single mom to three children. But I had an amazing support system and that gave me just enough confidence to take that leap and apply. I got in. I feared failing my classes because I did not want to waste the money and the time that I had. College is expensive! And I was paying for this, securing all the grants and loans, on my own. This was my debt, my educational burden to bear. And I won’t lie, I failed some classes. Oh did I ever fail some classes. But, I didn’t let that discourage me enough to quit. Instead, I used that to propel me forward to do better, so I could graduate. So I could get my degree. And I did it. I rocked my senior seminar class, wrote a thesis that led to me acing my senior seminar class, and that was a great accomplishment in my own eyes. And I got my degree.

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Post graduation, I was afraid of moving forward into the big, bad world to get a real “big girl” job, because what if no one wanted me? What if I thought I could do it and was wrong? What if I…FAILED?!?!?! SURPRISE…failure happens. I’ve had a few jobs since graduation. One of them I was actually fired from because I was not performing to the standards of what the owner of the company thought was necessary. It wasn’t that I was not doing my job, it was that my job expectations and duties kept changing and zero effective communication took place. But I also don’t handle micromanaging very well and he was slightly…well, super extreme type A and had a really condescending and slightly explosive attitude. And as humiliating as it was to get that pink slip, I was more relieved than anything because I wasn’t happy there. I wasn’t respected and I never would be. So getting fired was amazing. ALL that stress was simply gone. And guess what? I didn’t die.

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I still do things that scare me. Just to try it. I traveled to NOLA all by myself, twice, to vacation in the city. I loved that time to myself and wish to return to NOLA so bad I can taste it. I fell in love with a city when I did something that scared me. I went to a haunted house that had zombies who chased my husband and me. It scared me. I cried. I didn’t die. But I do know that I will  N E V E R visit a haunted house again because I do N O T like any of that shit. I contributed to an anthology that was recently published. THAT was scary! But they didn’t reject the essay I wrote. And it was reviewed well. So I conquered, at least a little bit, that fear of failure.

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There is still so much more that I can and want to do. And now I know, for the most part anyways, that I am capable, I am worthy, I am better than good enough. As long as I do not let fear dictate the steps I don’t take, as long as I continue to maintain confidence and realistic expectations, I can do what I want and need to do to succeed.

Don’t let fear take away your ability to move forward. Don’t let your insecurities steal from you life experiences that are rewarding, gratifying, once-in-a-lifetime events that you will regret skipping over. Let that fear drive you to push past the boundaries you have set because who knows? You may find that pushing past this fear has led you to the most successful time in your life.

 

 

Remembering the Lost

I’ve had some ups and downs here lately. And yesterday, I had a big shock. A dear friend, someone I have known for the past 24 almost 25 years of my life, died.

He was an enigma. Rob was someone who, as cliche as it is, marched to the beat of his very own drum. He was never one to conform, always trying to new, different, and sometime dangerous things in life for the experience and the thrill. Rob was easy to love, easy to hate, easy to forgive. He had a way about him that would draw you in, anger or not, and you would find yourself smiling in amusement at the conversational twists, turns, and topics. Rob was, simply put, himself.

I met him in middle school. He was a wild child, bucking against authority and that appealed to every young girl he knew and met. He was a “bad boy” in his thrift store gear and combat boots, as though he was daring anyone to challenge his sense of self and style. I knew, from the moment I met him, that despite everything, we would remain life long friends. You see, it isn’t often you meet your male counterpart who shares the same birthday-year, month, and day…with only a few hours of difference between time. He was my birthday twin. And there was a friend connection that lasted over two decades and while he is no longer with us, that connection will remain for the rest of my natural life. I am sure that I am not alone in this sentiment.

He was a father, a brother, a son, a friend. And while I won’t lie and say he made only the best choices in his life, I will not stoop to slander him either by saying he was the worst kind of person; I truly believe he was a good man with a good heart and a lost spirit who only wanted to find his true and rightful place in this world. Everyone has a dark side. It’s our choice as to how much of that we share with others. And Rob, while he kept some things to himself, shared these moments with those he trusted. Not many people do that.  He was a musician. A talented guitarist and piano player. He loved his friends and his family with a fierceness. He was someone who loved and needed love in return.

I shall mourn the loss of my friend. I shall mourn the lost time with him here on this earth. But I shall celebrate his life. I shall celebrate his spirit. I shall celebrate him.

Rest In Peace, Robert F Cook IV. I hope to one day see you again on the shores of Valhalla.

rob

til vi møtes igjen bror

schwabs-obits-viking-funeral-illust

I did a thing…

and that thing was contribute to an anthology of essays for a book. It was finally published and printed. Here is the link to it

The Goddess in America

That is for the e-book. You can get it in print as well. I did. And it is Prime eligible.

If you are interested in different cultures, religions, and feminist opinions, I suggest you read this. I loved writing my piece for it and I am so excited to read the rest of the book.

My piece is called, “From Marilyn to Maleficient, Pop Goes the Goddess”

I hope y’all enjoy it!

Soul Band-Aids

I’m tired. I am tired of “the end is nigh” and I am tired of “stop being all butthurt, you liberal crazies” and I’m tired of all of the violence and the hate and the disgusting, vile nature of humans that has been revealed since the election happened last week.

My soul hurts for all of the people.

So, here are some band aids for anyone else’s soul in case they need them.

 

No More Cat Declawing!

Strangers being decent!

Cops doing good things for the community

I’ve included just a few things to read/watch and make you smile. I pulled them from Sunnydays and the Good News Network. There *are* good things going on in the country right now. Even though it seems as though we are being inundated with all of the bad, remember: GOOD THINGS ARE STILL HAPPENING. WE can not forget to smile in the face of adversity, no matter how hard it seems.

I love you all.

XOXO

A Call To Action

Time is of the essence.

I know there are tons of people out there who voted for Trump who are not bad people. They are not racists or homophobes nor do they want to deport all the illegal immigrants while dancing on the revoked food stamp cards and BLM t-shirts of others. They were fed up with the political climate and decided to take drastic measures and vote someone into office with whom they, in any other situation, would rather not associate. Someone who promised them *everything* they wanted, who said *all* the things these disheartened voters wanted to hear. This is a huge wake up call. Washington needs to see. They need to listen. They need to remember they are elected officials who are supposed to represent the people of this country and they are supposed to do things in our best interests and not their own. But is has always been a boys club and the electoral college..whom I believe is guilty of gerrymandering…went against the popular vote (what WE THE PEOPLE wanted, no less) and elected this man president. This shocking, unconventionally popular man who has made a name for himself in the public’s eye as someone who will gladly insult you should you even appear to be against what he wants.

So…for those of us who are sitting here wringing our hands, wondering what to do next other than be consummed by fear, stop. STOP. Stop the hand wringing. Stop the blaming. It is what it is. And all we can do is come together in an organized fashion to make sure next go around, something like this doesn’t happen again.

I have seen calls to action. Petitions to disband the Electoral College (an idea I am not wholly unopposed to) have already started circulation via email. Groups dedicated to fighting the good fight started during the campaign and now it’s members are pulling together to help us all become more politically active and aware. People are pulling together, declaring themselves allies and friends of people of color, of the LGBTQ community, of immigrants, of all of those who will potentially be negatively impacted by any of the political ideology espoused by the new President elect.

So, dear readers, I encourage you to get out there and act. Non-violently, of course. Do your research. Make sure the information you are giving out is not some overblown rhetoric that has been falsified via Facebook or even Wikipedia. Watch ALL the news channels. Find a group of like minded individuals and see whast you can contribute…be it phone calls, letter writing, blogging, interviewing, data compiling, or even just supporting others by being a listening ear. Stand up for those you see being treated unkindly, unfairly, unjustly. Say something to the people who are spewing the hateful words towards marginalized people. Make sure others know you are a safe person to go to, someone they can trust. Show compassion and kindness and don’t be afraid to tell people, if how they are behaving is wrong or discriminatory, that they need to stop and don’t back down until they do.

It is so cliche but it is so true. BE the change you want to see in the world. Put out kindness and compassion and understanding and hopefully, it will help make change. NEVER STOP FIGHTING.

“This loss hurts. But please, never stop believing, that fighting for what’s right is worth it,” ~ Hillary R Clinton, 2016

#I’mSTILLwithHER

Last night was…well, if I am being honest, it was devastating. I fell into a fitful sleep next to my husband who chose to stay up and watch the rest of the election. I awoke this morning with a pit in my stomach…that overwhelming sense of dread was so strong and as I checked my phone (as I do every morning) I realized why the dreadful feeling was there.

Trump won.

My intuition told me what happened and the onslaught of sadness, disappointment, and-worst of all-FEAR came cascading over me much like an avalanche would cover unsuspecting hikers of the Himalayan Mountains. I got dressed-reluctantly-and made my way to work. And when I did dare to speak on what happened, I couldn’t keep the tears from flowing as the reality of what happened set in.

Trump won.

Misogyny won. Racism won. Bigotry, hate, fear, homophobia, rape culture, and arrogance won.

Well…it won the election. But it did not win me.

I did NOT choose him. I can count myself among the many who chose love, hope, positivity, inclusivity, diversity, and a desire for effective change and even though those choices did not win the election, they helped to open my eyes to what needs to be done.

NO MORE FEAR. We CAN NOT let fear rule us now. We CAN NOT let fear dictate our lives. We must move forward, we must ACT to make this country what it is supposed to be and what it CAN and WILL be if we all come together to tell those who would try to silence us that WE WILL NOT BE SILENCED.

So stand with me. Stand with the rest of the nation so grievously wronged by the outcome of this election. Stand tall. Stand proud. Stand for those who can’t and those who have yet the ability to stand. Take action. Get involved in your local political groups. Look at your children, your friends, your family who will be negatively impacted and stand with me so THEY can have a better future.

I can tell you who I am standing for-I am standing for my daughters and for my son, for my niece and nephews, for my friends and family of color, for my friends and family in the LGBTQ Community, for my immigrant friends, for my friends who are chronically ill. I stand for them because I believe they deserve better than what was handed to us last night. I stand for them because the actions I take today can help make a better life for them tomorrow. So stand with me. For the fight has only just begun.

#ImSTILLwithHER

#PantsSuitNation

#HRC

 

Save The Drama For Your Mama

My husband and I have been binge watching a show on Hulu to catch up to recent episodes. The show is ‘Empire’-a story about a recording label started by a rap/R&B artist, built upon the CEO’s musical talent as well as on the back of his wife’s 17 year imprisonment for slinging dope to help make ends meet and to raise capital for the start of said company. It is FULL of drama. ALL the drama. Sex, drugs, mental illness, relationships both hetero and homosexual, deceipt, betrayal, love, honor, loyalty, respect and the lack there of…it’s ALL there. Within the first few episodes, I noticed a pattern. Going on a hunch, I asked the almighty Google and sure enough, Empire is based on Shakespearean drama…King Lear, MacBeth, Antony and Cleopatra, etc…all of the episodes have something that ties it to a particular, if not more than one, Shakespearean drama. Which I find fascinating.

We humans, as a collective whole, thrive on drama, it seems. We have been writing, reading, performing, and watching dramas for centuries as a form of entertainment. It has even leaked over into reality. Look at the state of our politics! The past two presidential debates have been more focused on drama, arguing, mudslinging, and defense than they have on actually debating the issues. Perhaps that is because of who the two candidates are, but at the same time have we, as a collective, really tried to keep the focus on the issues? In my humble opinion: No. Not really. And not whole heartedly if any of us have tried.

It is nice to have some fictionalized drama to fall back upon when one needs to escape into television shows. But why can’t we just leave it at that? Why must we pull that level of contrived drama into reality and MAKE it news and politics and what we deem most important to report upon? Why can’t we let the drama stay on television shows that are supposed to be dramatic and focus our attentions to the reality of what is around us? We have massive student loan debt, millenials that are faced with fixing the economy those before them screwed up all while realizing the very dire possibility it can’t be fixed, extreme poverty, national debt that is in the trillions and growing every day, a Cold War that *never* ended despite the media and all other unreliable sources telling us it did, a growing fanatical power in the Middle East that is threatening the safety of people continents away, a greater focus on the inequalities that people of color face every day that leads to biased policing, biased conviction rates, biased “justified” police shooting deaths of supposed perpetrators of color, more claims of sexual impropriaties towards women by men in power, rampant homophobia, rampant bigotry…the list goes on and on and on… One would think with the amount of drama we have going on in our nation *without* the presidential race going on it would be enough…but no. As stated before…just watch the last two presidential debates (I’m sure they are on YouTube somewhere). FULL of drama.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I will stick to watching fictionalized drama on the television screen instead of watching it play out in our nations politics. My night time soap operas can be played out by paid actors and actresses instead of politicians who are supposed to be working for the good of our country (snort)…
Sorry…the last bit of that sentence made me laugh. I think we all know that politicians are paid actors and actresses, too…the only difference between them and real celebrities are the celebrities KNOW what they do is fiction and is meant for entertainment while politicians believe the drama they bring to the table affects real change.

I wish I had a clever bit to end this rant post with but my brain isn’t caffeinated enough yet. So I will end with this: My opinions are my own. I don’t expect nor care if anyone agrees with my viewpoints. Yes, this is a somewhat political post, but I don’t talk about giving my support to one candidate or the other, nor will I reveal who I really support. But I wish I could have a sit down with them both. Because if I did, I would tell them both this: Save the drama for your mama…and stick to the issues. Care more about this country than you do your own agenda. And if you don’t have anything nice to say, then shut the fuck up.