who i am, who i'm not, who i want to be

My summer has been a whirlwind of activity and now we're getting ready for our youngest to go off to college. It's such an exciting time for her and I'm so happy to be a part of it. I'm not sad in the least--I'm thrilled for her. It is not enough to say I wish the world for her. My dreams for her are limitless. I forget about being negative when I'm around my children. They have always been my hope for bigger and better things. In my deepest heart, I know that what I get from them is more than what I have given to them. The list is endless. Not surprisingly, the list begins and ends with love.

One of the pleasures of running every day is that I turn a glorious shade of bronze just by trekking through my neighborhood. I think exposure to the sun has been demonized by medical professionals to the point of ridiculousness and I'm sure that's mostly because sunshine cannot be bottled and sold at exorbitant prices to the masses. The sun has always felt so healing to me and maybe that's because my body instinctively knows how good it is for me. My blistered, aching feet are wounds I curse and cherish simultaneously. They remind me I am alive. They keep me in the moment.

I am not sure why I haven't been writing as much lately. Partly it has to do with me trying to come to terms with this life of mine. I've been on a quest for truth in everything and have found that you cannot find the truth if truth is not inside you. This has proved difficult because I'm a keeper of secrets. I can bury secrets deep inside the vault of my soul and forget about them. Occasionally, I will take them out in the dead of the night but never long enough to sort anything out. I ask myself what it is that I am afraid of and I answer that I am afraid I will fall apart if I dare to stare down the secrets/truths about myself that feel impossible to come to terms with. I think I do not have the time to fall apart when I've got real life to deal with and so I keep putting this showdown off till another day. I think the sun will continue to shine and time will continue to march on, but there are days I'm not convinced of it. There is truth inside me that I need to set free, that I need to face without fear so that I can find the truth in everything.

Rule breakers

(another shitty person story)


I had picked up about 25-30 items at the grocery store last night. I walked up to one line and saw that there were two people ahead of me with their carts filled to the brim so I wandered down to another lane and started to unload my stuff. I was halfway through unloading (I was bending over my cart picking a couple of yogurts up) when this woman comes up behind me and shouts, "WELL, I GUESS THIS ISN'T A 15 ITEMS OR LESS LINE ANYMORE!!!" then she stomped off in a huff. It was at that moment that I happened to glance up to see that I had wandered (unknowingly) into a 15 items or less line. I seriously did not even notice the sign hanging from the ceiling (also, not that this is an excuse, but these stores all have different item limits--some say 10 some say 15 some say 25--I clearly had more than 15 items, but they were yogurts and gatorades and some canned goods--and checking out would have been quick). Apparently this is a death row offense as far as some people are concerned. The woman behind the indignant bitch said jokingly, "ooooooooo, you're such a rule breaker!" I told her that WOW, I would have moved if she had just acted like a normal person, but she assumed that I was conspiring to make all the 15-items-and-less-people wait behind me on purpose when I didn't even realize I was in one of those stupid lines. OMG, people are really trying my patience lately!

I was incensed for most of my trip home, but then a good song came on the radio and I let it go. I mean, if the biggest problem that woman has in life is ME making a mistake and unloading too many items at the checkout, then she has nothing to complain about, and if MY biggest problem is a nasty old bitch griping about a silly mistake that I would have been glad to rectify if she had simply been normal, then my life is quite excellent indeed.

He said, ask anything

I am trying to limit my time online. I was becoming increasingly depressed about the state of, well, everything. The mainstream media insults our intelligence by only reporting news which has been approved by "higher ups" in the broadcasting industry. This means we get watered down information or bloated information depending on what the real agenda is behind the scenes. So I look to the internet to tell me the truth, and the truth is mostly always ugly. I'll be in a good mood and forget that our government is marching us towards socialism/communism and then I'll read something that reminds me and I start sinking into a pit of despair again.

I have been making sure that I stay committed to my running again. I feel less pessimistic about the world for at least the couple of hours it takes me to work out, cool down, shower and get on with my day. I feel peace in those two hours, and there are even moments where I can convince myself that we are not doomed, that something or someone will intervene on our behalf and save us from our traitorous government. I'll be quite honest--I've handed it over to God because I do not know what else to do. On my good days, I am convinced that evil will not prevail because no matter how powerful evil forces can be, God, in His infinite goodness, is the ultimate superpower. I find myself praying all the time--for guidance, for strength, for patience, for hope. I have spent inordinate amounts of time searching for answers, for truth. I read everything and I am open to all sorts of different opinions on things because I think it is a mistake to think that there is only one way that is the right way. I've read articles by people who say there is no God and I can understand where they are coming from even though I do not feel that same way. For me, it's essential to believe in God, to know that He is somewhere watching over all of us. I try not to question if my faith is a result of not being able to bear the thought that God doesn't exist, because I pretty much know I couldn't bear the thought of that. So it's settled for me. There is a God of goodness and light and I pray to Him always to watch over us and keep us safe. I pray for the destruction of the evil people who are ruining everything. I don't even care if this is an awful thing to do because it feels right to me. I'm sick and tired of being kind to people who wish to do me and my family harm--so I wish on them what they are doing to us--times a million.

My washing machine broke today, so I had to run out and buy a new one but it won't be delivered until Wednesday. By then, the pile of unwashed clothes ought to be up to the ceiling in the laundry room. I usually can't skip even a day or I end up being sorry that I thought I could get by without doing at least one load. My life is one thrill after another, to be sure.

I am struggling to find a balance between acknowledging the alarming reality of our changing world and living my best life, and it is proving to be quite the challenge. Sometimes I wish I didn't know so much, that I didn't search and search and search to find out truths that take some of the color out of the world for me. Still, I think I'd rather know than not know because at least I will not be surprised, I will not be caught off guard. I've always hated surprises unless the surprises are diamonds or sapphires or rubies.

Joke me something awful

I'm sick of shitty people.

Example A. I've lived in this neighborhood for a little over 7 years. I pretty much keep to myself but I always go out of my way to say hello or wave to my neighbors and will engage in small talk if necessary. So there's this guy I always passed when I used to do my run. He doesn't live on my street but a couple of streets over. He's really the unfriendly sort. It took me about two months to get him to respond to me when I would say hello to him when I would pass him. I think part of the problem was that I was onto his scam of walking his dog and allowing it to crap on everyone else's lawn without picking it up and carrying it home to dispose as the rules in our covenants state. We even get reminders written on whiteboards at the beginning of our subdivision so there really is no excuse for this sort of ignorant behavior. I caught him doing it a couple of times but never said anything, I just filed it away and would refer to him as the guy who let his dog crap on everyone's lawn without picking it up.

But after about 2 months of continued HELLO'S on my part, this old fart finally said hello back to me. I considered it a success because this guy is what I call MAD AT THE WORLD. You know the type--mad at everyone for all of life's little hardships and blaming everyone else for the fact that he's a loser. The type that would take his dog out every single day and purposely allow it to crap on a neighbor's lawn without cleaning up after it as a way of sticking it to all of his so-called enemies. I can just picture him chuckling at home about how it's such an awesome thing that he lets his dog crap everywhere. HehHehHehHeh. I can almost hear him. And you KNOW he's the type who would have a complete COW if you allowed your pet to do the same thing he does to everyone else. Typical ass.

Fast forward to today. I pass him walking his dog (he actually took the dog to the backyard of a home that is for sale to take a crap because that's where I saw him exiting and he has no business being on that property). He continues walking down the street and I passed by him and WAVED PLUS SAID HELLO and this freak looked me straight in the eyes and then turned away without saying anything. I was dismissed. That was IT for me. I said "OKAYYYYYYYY" and let out a huge sigh like WTF? and ran by his obnoxious ass. I will NEVER acknowledge him again for the rest of my life. Some people are just beyond any sort of redemption. I am convinced of this. He better stay off the streets, too, because I might be tempted to run him over if he gets in my way.

Exhibit B. I asked my daughter to take her car to get an emissions test so that I can get the yearly car registration sticker. I give her a check to pay for the test, I am paying for the registration, we paid for the car in full and gave it to her and we also pay the insurance each month on the car. Well, she starts giving me attitude about how it's such a bother to go get it inspected! Lots of stomping around and mumbling under her breath. Now if I was the sort of person who made up a huge list each day and asked everyone to complete all the tasks or ELSE, I could understand all the drama, however, I rarely ask anything of anyone. She's 25 and living at home with no plans to leave any time soon. I keep asking my husband if we can just slip away during the night and leave everyone because I am convinced no one will ever leave. They left, found out life was difficult/expensive in the real world and came back.

Part of the reason I've been having a hard time lately is that I see no end to this and I think that a good mother should just go with the flow and welcome everyone back and not feel like I'm losing something important that I feel I've worked towards (my children growing up and moving out). I told my husband that I would not have had children so young if I had known that things would turn out like this. More than half my life has been spent caring for other people and before that I lived at home and was under the thumb of very strict parents. It's like I never got to live and have tons of fun or be in any way selfish. EVER. I know that's dramatic, but it's how I feel sometimes. And when stuff like this emissions test kerfluffle comes up, I want to quietly go into my room, get a suitcase, pack a few things, then hit the road. And here's the thing. I don't think I would look back or be sad because I'm so over all of them. I know in a few hours I'll have cooled off but right this minute I can picture myself by myself forever.

Let freedom ring.

I read somewhere today that freedom is a state of mind and I like that thought so I'm going to try to remember it the next time I start worrying. The worries. The worries are heavy. I want to knock them off my shoulders and dump them in a bottomless pit so that I never have to deal with them again. The worries keep me up at night, they consume my thoughts throughout the day. I breath them in and breath them out. I cannot make them go away.

Freedom is a state of mind. Ok. For the moment, it's working.

My hair smells like smoke from the grill. I had a massive grease fire going on this afternoon when I was cooking up the food. I'm the griller in my family which I know is unusual, but with my husband gone a lot of the time, I needed to know how to fire up a grill or go without and so now I am an expert. We had hamburgers, hotdogs, sweet italian sausage, baked beans, salad, my specialty deviled eggs, and corn on the cob. It was all so delicious. I don't think there are fireworks in town this year due to the economy but no big deal. We can buy fireworks in the grocery stores here so if we want them we can go buy them. When I was growing up, my father would put on a fireworks show each year for the neighborhood. We'd crawl up on the roof of our house and watch them and it's great how I can think back to that time and I'm back there. I love the snapshot memories that take me back.

I bought a new pair of sneakers last night and I am thinking about taking up my walking/running routine again. I took a "day" off that lasted 8 months. I always do this. I run like an engine for a year then get tired and decide to rest a day and then I don't go back. There is no sense in this, I know and I fight to understand why I'm wired this way. I lose motivation somehow. It leaves me when I don't realize it's going and then I can't get it back no matter how hard I try. I know the motivation must come from within, though, so there's that.

I'm trying to keep my mind off the economic difficulties going on in our world. I'd feel better if I felt that we had people working toward fixing what is broken, however I think we have people intentionally working to destroy rather than build up. I worry for the people without jobs. I feel strangely calm about my husband's job even though he is in an industry that the Obama administration is working tirelessly to decimate. I'm certain we will be ok but I still care deeply about the direction our world is headed and I wish I could get everyone to think good thoughts and pray to God to help us. We have a bunch of people in our government who are not our friends, who are following a path that is wrong, who are betraying us. I've gotten beyond the democrat/republican thing because I think both are rotten and corrupt.

Anyway, my hope is that freedom, or at least the form of freedom we have now, does not get smaller. That is my wish this 4th of July. For everyone.

Close your eyes and sleep to dream

I've been reading a lot of political blogs lately and what I've found is that they tend to depress me and make me lose hope in everything and I think hope is important to have. It makes getting up in the morning worthwhile if you believe that there are positives to counter all the negatives, that there is light somewhere within the darkness. So I decided to stop obsessing over wanting to read everything and know everything because what can one person do with all that knowledge anyway? I want to know what is going on, but I need to continue to have hope that things will be ok. I'm not sure if I'm just fooling myself or what. I've become somewhat jaded about everything and I am not exaggerating when I write this. I'm like the dark cloud over Eyeore's head threatening to rain at any moment and spoil everyone's day. Tell me something wonderful and I'll be able to root out the evil that's lurking beneath the all the wonderfulness. I've turned into quite the killjoy for sure.

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and we were both lamenting about how our lives did not turn out the way we had dreamed they would--how things happened that we had no control over and how we had to adapt to a different life plan. There isn't a place to go where we can just cry about the losses that probably aren't significant to most of the outside world but still feel huge to us. There's this fear of expressing dissatisfaction when you know that mostly your life is blessed, because the rule is that you count your blessings and you do not ask for more than enough when you have enough. And so we discuss this with each other and tell each other that we're lucky because we are. And the speaking of the words that feel like a betrayal helps for a while. We hang up our phones and get on with the lives we have and we feel less alone knowing there is at least one person walking the earth who feels the same things.

I'm on one of my cleaning binges again. It's always all or nothing with me and I tend to disrespect housecleaning now that I have been doing it more than half of my life. There's nothing rewarding about it but I get to the point where I feel like I need control of something, anything, and so I clean. Even when I know that tomorrow at this time everything I've done will be undone there are at least a few moments when things are in order and that gives me a little peace. My gravestone will probably read something like, She lived, She cleaned, She saw her cleaning come undone, She died.

I'm almost done the Bible and know that I will have to go back and read it all again because there is just so much to take in after just one reading. My mind is filled with all the stories and all the questions I have that I am afraid I will never get the answers to--at least not in this life. I've found some of the most beautiful prose inside the Bible and I wasn't expecting that. And I've also found that while there were things I did not understand, I did get the messages of love that were preached throughout, and the messages of forgiveness. Life is so complicated, and people make it more complicated than it needs to be. The message of loving one another is such a simple thing, yet most of us can't sustain that sort of love long enough to make a difference. There are too many outside annoyances calling our attention away from what is most important and we simply allow those distractions to steal the gift of love away and put it on a back burner. I start off each day swearing to do better and by noon I'm off track. I'm not sure good intentions count for anything when good intentions are all I ever end up having.

Watermelon is great this time of the year...and air conditioning is the greatest invention of all time when it is 100 degrees outside. I feel alive when I go outside and within a minute am covered in sweat. I feel alive when I come inside and am met with a wall of cool air. I am here in this corner of the world struggling to make sense of everything that doesn't make sense. I turn the page and think about all the things I need to put down in words so that I will not be forgotten. I scream inside my head, don't forget me.

I never wanted to fit in any place except your heart

I went with my youngest daughter to her college orientation this week. She was accepted at a top 10 university and the place is enormous but she's coming from a one of the largest high schools in the nation so it shouldn't be too big of an adjustment--just lots of walking to classes and whatnot. I spent a lot of time riding around the campus trying to find all the different places so I could get a feel for where she'll be, and for the first time in a long time I really started to feel old--like more of my life is behind me than in front of me now. I don't know if that's true--it's just how I felt at the time.

There was so much young life all around me, and feverish activity, and I remembered how it felt to be in that place feeling those things. For a moment or two, or three, I wished I could go back. I don't know if that's a horrible thing to feel or not, but I wished it with my heart. Not that I would undo anything that's happened since I've been to college, it's just that feeling I would like to get back, of the world being this wide open place filled with nothing but hope (not Barack Obama socialist hope--REAL HOPE). And I miss having dreams for myself, because most of my dreams are now for my children, and it's been this way for as long as I've had them (many, many years). I think I need to find a way to change all that and get out of this funk.

I was walking the other day and passed by this gorgeous magnolia tree. Have you ever seen one with your own eyes? They are staggeringly beautiful. The flower is like some sort of sculpture it is so exquisite. They make you want to stop and stare at them, and in this world of "hurry up and get there yesterday" that's saying something. It was the scent, though, that felt most like heaven. It's a scent you wish you could drink so you could get filled up with it. I think I will always want to live in a place where magnolia trees grow.

She brings light, she is like the sun

"For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out."~James Baldwin


The saddest part of today was when I was sitting way up in the civic center stadium while the class of 2009 marched in and I couldn't find my daughter among the sea of 1000 green caps and gowns.

I stood there looking for someone I knew so I could approximate in the alphabet where she would be and I couldn't pick out even one face that I recognized from so far up. I panicked then, just for a little bit, because I thought--who sends their kid to a high school with a graduating class of 1000? And I could feel tears pooling in my eyes with the ridiculousness of it all--but then I found her--decked out with her honors collar and ropes (cords) and medals and pins and my heart filled with joy. She never found me in the crowd, but I found her. She has done everything right and I hope our country doesn't get too screwed up before she gets to really shine because that would be a damn shame. She brings light, she is like the sun.

On the way over to the graduation ceremony, stuck in traffic, my husband sighed and asked me if our daughter just couldn't have skipped the ceremony and picked up her diploma at the school sometime next week. I've gotten good at taking this sort of remark and not exploding on the spot anymore. What I do is I tell him I can't entertain his nonsense at the moment and to please act normal. Then I'll file the comment away in my head somewhere and take it out (like now) and think--whatever will I do with myself if I have to deal with this craziness for the rest of my life.

You might think that your youngest daughter graduating from high school with so many honors she barely has room around her neck for more would be an experience you'd want to dive into and enjoy forever. But no--it's an inconvenience for him--finding a parking spot and whatnot. I had to remind him that today was not about him and I truly think that I should NOT have to do that sort of thing at this point in my life, but for life to run smoothly, I suck up the things that make me want to scream. I think I am getting better at accepting that life will not always be the way I want it to be.

Then it's time to choose a place to eat and of course there's a battle between the graduate and my husband and he doesn't seem to get that it's HER day and that he should take her where she wants to go. Nope. An argument ensues and I sit there feeling myself shrinking and wishing I could disappear because no one will "just go along" except for me. What's so hard about doing something you don't want to do once in awhile? My father used to tell me it builds character.

Anyway, I thought I'd be very emotional today but between my husband's juvenile behavior and my son's griping about not "having a plan about where to sit," and the kid who sat next to me who hogged the armrest while my husband hogged the one on the other side leaving me scrunched up and claustrophobic, and my camera malfunctioning, and the 12 or 13 people who needed to get up and as a result I had to get up to let them go by so that I was pretty much a like a jack-in-the-box for most of the ceremony, and then the restaurant wars afterwards--well, I was too aggravated to feel sentimental and weepy. Mostly I just wanted to hit someone.

I'm really proud of my daughter and all she has accomplished. I'm happy to think I played a small part in all that greatness.

Tic toc, tic toc

"If someone love you for what you can do then it's flattering, but why do they love you? If someone loves you for who you are then they have to know you, which means you have to know them."~Ann Patchett

At the beginning of the week my husband informed me that he was taking the entire next week off because he felt burnt out from work. I wish I could be the type of wife who, when I heard something like that, could find some semblance of joy in that news. But I'm the type of person who thinks..."GRRREEAATTT!!! Another person I'll have to pick up after, and another person who just takes and takes and takes from me as though I am a never ending well of giving."

These impromptu vacations of his always involve "lists of things to do" which would be great if he took that list and did those things himself, but that's not what happens. What happens is that there becomes this constant talk of "togetherness" which translates into me doing more than my share of the work because I do things quickly while he seems to take on a supervisor role handing out critiques on how I'm coming along with whatever job he's got lined up for me. Totally not fun. His vacations mean more work for me and I don't understand why he doesn't understand why this would not excite me. These are the times when the ticking inside my head gets progressively louder by the day and because no one can see or hear it, it always comes as a surprise to everyone when I explode from the frustration of it all.

I, too, know why the caged bird sings.

Today he calls me and says, "Hey, how about next week we go room to room and deep clean everything and throw away stuff we don't need."

So, yeah, I'm really looking forward to THAT!

Searching for something

To combat monotony in my life, I have taken to cooking new things. Every week I ask around the house for suggestions and someone always comes through with an idea and I make it. I've tried lots of different things and I've had more hits than misses, however I think this is mostly about having a challenge, of doing something different. My life has come to this: I cook for a little excitement, to say I've done something new.

My youngest has only 1 more day of high school left. I thought by now my heart would be breaking with sadness for all the time that has slipped by without me really noticing. I thought tears would constantly be at the ready to fall and fall some more. But here I am, not really all that wistful or sad. I cannot cry for what I am losing because I need to focus on everything good that is in front of her. There is a world out there with its arms open wide just waiting for her. I pray the world is gentle with her, with all of us she leaves behind.

I had a bit of a meltdown last weekend and if I must say so myself, it was not one of my brightest moments. I feel this ticking inside my head sometimes, like a bomb just waiting to go off at the smallest of provocations. I've learned to turn it off a good deal of the time, but there are moments when it gets the best of me and I lose control. Afterwards I feel like such a loser--like I will never be able to rise above the pettiness of life and people because inevitably, I engage in these despicable scenes where I don't know who I am anymore. And I could not even tell you what was really wrong, just that everything felt too much and one wrong word sent me over the edge. I resolve not to do it again until I do it again then feel rotten for my lack of self-control.

I'm still searching for the truth in religion, God, faith, church, life. I have this idea that the truth should be simple, clear, static. I think that the truth should not be subjective, depending on a particular agenda we might have inside our heads. It's like molding a truth to what you want it to be. That's not real. But I'll read something about church/God/religion and it will strike such a chord with me and I think that I have found the truth and then I'll read something else that makes more sense and completely leave the first truth to stand behind the second truth I've just found. So I think--what is it? What is the truth? Are there as many truths as there are people in this world, or is there one truth that I must dig and dig to find? And will that truth still be the same 10 years from now, because I want it to be the truth 10 years from now and not have to find out that I've had faith in something false. So is it that I'm afraid to be wrong--or wrong again? I think I am. It's not like I haven't been wrong a million times before. It's not such a big deal. If I'm wrong, life will go on and I'll just believe in a new truth. I should be happy that my heart is open to hearing everything and sifting through it all to try to find what I am looking for.

The ongoing list of things I don't want to do, but do anyway

Things I do this week that I don't want to do but do anyway because I LIVE IN REALITY AND REALITY REQUIRES IT OF ME.

This will be a list that I add to as the days go by. I asked my daughter to move her car up the driveway so that another car could fit in. Well, you might have thought I was asking her to drive to Alaska to get me some ice what with all the huffing and puffing that went along with her moving her damn car. It took all of about 3 minutes but I was disturbing her "movie watching." Boo hoo hoo. Life is SO rough! So here's my list starting Sunday night:

Folded and put away about 20 towels.
Just threw in another load of laundry at 10:00 PM.
Listening to my husband bitch about seeing a spider--OMG! Whatever will we do? (I walked over and stomped the life out it).
Sorted through a bunch of socks.

Into the light

Over the weekend, I had several moments when I had to actively fight being hateful, and I lost. It's not my nature to be hateful. I think I am the exact opposite of hateful, and because of that, it's easy for other people to view me as a doormat you stand on to wipe away any dirt you might have picked up on the bottom of your shoes. The people who love me think the well of my giving is bottomless--that I exist for that purpose alone. I think when it gets to be too much I have to scream for them to hear me, see me. And then they behave for a couple of days like I am a queen and then after that we repeat the whole process until I get hateful and start screaming again. I've never mapped out these episodes but I'd estimate a guess that this happens every couple of months. It's good to know that I can count on life never changing.

I think I mentioned before about how I decided to read the Bible and it has been a very sobering experience for me. Being raised a Catholic, I remember most of the stories, but what has surprised me is how much I missed as I left it to other people to interpret for me. I don't want to sound fanatical or anything, but I feel as though the experience of reading the Bible has changed my life. The messages of God in the Bible are very clear but they get lost in man's translations. Furthermore, God stresses that man should NOT translate his words because God says what he means and means what he says, so no translation is necessary.

The Catholic church has done lots of rewriting of the laws of God, and this is not something I recognized until I took the time to read the Bible. I followed where I was led and never questioned anything. This is just one more example of how I went along with what other people said to me or wanted for me. I have a long history of doing that and I am not sure why. I'm the "go along gal" even when there is voice in my head telling me to run in the other direction. It's not that I like sabotaging my life, but you might think so by some of the choices I have made.

Anyway, without going into a whole big spiel, I think I am finding truth inside the Bible, and the truth I am finding is throwing my life into a bit of a turmoil. I have to wrestle with the fact that I have been deceived by a church that has moved away from serving God. I mean--I didn't even realize that the Catholic church had changed God's ten commandments! But they did! And I just followed along reciting the Catholic church's altered commandments as if I was speaking the truth. And I felt self-important and superior to anyone who did not have the same beliefs. I did not know any better--but is that really a good enough excuse? I don't think so.

No one really likes the new me who keeps quoting God's words and telling everyone that the truth they believe is a lie. But it's like I can't stop. I want them to see what I see. And then I'll panic and think that maybe this new truth I'm believing is just another deception, another way that I'll end up being wrong about everything. That's what finding new truths has done to me--it has made me question everyone and everything.

I feel like the story of all of our lives has been written already and our purpose is to try to make the best choices that put us in the best position for peace in our next life. Obviously I have some things to work on. I am a work in progress. I am potentially awesome.

Positivity early in the morning

My daughter was gathering her things to get ready to go to school and my husband yells out to her:

"Sara, drive carefully. There's lots of nuts out driving this time of the morning. Keep your wits about you. And be on the lookout for any end-of-the-year Columbine-type episodes at school. Have a great day!"

The nerve of some people

While I was on vacation a week ago, we stayed at a really nice hotel with a pool that was located right on the ocean. We had an ocean front room and it was simply heavenly waking up, opening the shades and seeing the beautiful ocean right there in front of me. I would sit on the balcony late at night and listen to the waves crashing and think about how much I would like to live there forever. I belong near the ocean. Case closed.

During the day, my daughter would spend a lot of time at the pool because she doesn't especially like the annoyance of sand. From the beginning of the week there was a group of women (about 4 of them) who would come to the pool with their children (each woman had at least 3 kids) and they would hog a whole section of the pool area with all their pool/beach/snacking/drinking paraphernalia. This wasn't a quiet little group as you can imagine. There was lots of drama coming out of that corner, including, but not limited to: the women downing beers as early as 10:30 AM (who watches the kids when you're partying with the gals???), balls being misfired and landing on other hotel guests who were minding their own business, fights between the kiddos while the moms were focusing on their tans, and there was even an episode of a MISSING CHILD where they could not locate one of the children for about an HOUR. Come to find out, the little boy had wandered to the BEACH by himself to play in the ocean. The horror! I would need to be sedated for the duration if something like that happened on my watch, but this group merely gave the lad a little time out then he was sent back into the pool to splash and make noise to his heart's content.

This group could give soap operas a run for their money what with all the over-the-top-nonstop-nonsense. Both my daughter and I wondered where the husbands were because we never saw any men in the group. Then, on the second to the last day a man showed up and spent about an hour with the group--but that was it. I assumed they must be out fishing or golfing or whatever it is men do while avoiding taking care of their kids and hanging out with their wives on these "group" vacations. I've never really understood the need for group vacations. I know people who NEVER go on vacation unless they have another family (or two or three) going along with them. I don't get it. I keep thinking these people cannot stand to be alone with their own families for any extended period of time if they have to have "buffer" families along. Maybe I'm just an oddity. I only want my family around, and sometimes even THEY are too much for me, let alone 2 or 3 other families.

On the second to the last night there, my daughter and I headed out to dinner and as we were turning out of the parking lot of the hotel, I happened to look across the street and saw this entire group of people camped out at a house (a rental home). There were 5 cars outside the home, and everyone was on the front porch having some sort of gathering. I said to my daughter, "Is that the noisy group of people that have been at the pool all week?" (I thought I must be seeing things because if they were renting that house for vacation, there was NO WAY they should have been hanging out at the hotel pool). She said, "Yep, that's them."

Huh? I couldn't it believe it. I had noticed that a couple of the women had brought along beach chairs for when they went to the beach (from the pool), and I wondered why they would do that since we were given complimentary beach chairs and umbrellas if we stayed at the hotel. I decided to keep an eye on the cheaters the next day so that I could confirm their nefarious pool/beach shenanigans.

So the next day, I watched them at the pool, then they'd go to the beach (and they would take along their chairs), they'd go into the hotel and use the bathrooms. We ended up going out for a while and when I came back later that evening I noticed the troop marching over the stairs from the beach. The women instructed the kids to jump into the pool to wash the sand off, and they also rinsed their boogie boards off in the pool. Then the group took their belongings and made a beeline across the street to their vacation house for the evening. I kid you not.

As far as I am concerned, those people were stealing. They were using a pool for free that everyone else had to pay for. And the thing I couldn't get over was how brazen they all were. If I was blatantly stealing something, I think I would at least try to be as inconspicuous as possible and yet this little party did nothing to blend into the background--in fact, they behaved as though they owned the place. Who acts like this? Who thinks it is a good idea to teach your children that it's ok to be dishonest in this manner? Do they not have consciences? Don't they think it's important to do the right thing, especially when little eyes are watching?

I learn something new every day, and some days I learn more than one thing. Lately, the things I've been learning about people leave me wondering what the hell is wrong with some people.

Brighter than sunshine

I came home from the grocery store Sunday afternoon to find my son sitting on a bench outside the front door armed with a hose and one of those car cleaning mitts. I asked him what he was doing and he explained that my husband was being driven crazy by a tiny bird that kept coming up to the brass kick plate on our front door. Apparently, the little bird could see it's reflection in the kick plate and hopped around cheep-cheeping at himself. So I was like...um...ok. "But what are YOU doing?" And he told me that he was waiting for the bird to return so that he could spray it with water or toss the mitt at it so that it would go away. This is what I live with. I went inside and I had to hear all about the terrorist bird (about the size of baseball) who would NOT stop making a racket while my husband was trying to watch TV. I told him to turn up the volume. I mean, REALLY. The little bird wasn't hurting anything or anyone. He was just hopping along the front step looking at himself and cheeping merrily and we have to immediately institute plans to murder the poor thing.

This reminds me of the time years ago when we were taking a road trip back home with the kids. It was a 18 hour trip and about 10 minutes into the ride, the kids were in the back screeching at each other at the top of their lungs. I had brought a book to immerse myself in and I just tuned them out but my husband went ballistic and pronounced that "Everyone better knock it off and remain silent for the rest of the trip!" Now that's reality for you!

The bird hasn't been back all week while my husband has been out of town so let's see if he makes a reappearance to start harassing him this weekend again.

I can't believe it's mid April already. Time is flying. My youngest daughter is getting ready to graduate from high school and I thought I'd be truly depressed by the prospect of her leaving to go off to college, but strangely, I'm just so excited for her and how well she has done. I really have been blessed to have children who have remained grounded in a world where it's so easy to get distracted by excesses everywhere. She has been especially hard hit by the loss of friendships due to their involvement in drinking,drugs and just plain rebellion towards EVERYTHING and she has managed to pick herself up and find new friends and a new way of life without them. She has kept her eye on the prize and I am unendingly proud of her for that.