Great New Blog

My oldest childhood friend just told me her daughter has started her own blog. How inspirational! She puts me to shame. Check it out at www.wishdaisy.blogspot.com. I better get off my butt and start writing again. I have to say I have been nervous about writing about what is on my mind. I am again teaching in the public school system and I have a lot to say that I fear might get me fired or at least in trouble. What about free speech, I wonder? Should I worry? Is this an appropriate format for discussion about what is happening in public schools today? Perhaps I should begin an anonymous blog about that topic. Any thoughts out there?

Meanwhile, I am very grateful to have a job in this economy! I am am thankful for this home of mine, even if the security of it may be an illusion. The illusion is warm and cozy at the moment, so it is working for me. I am mostly thankful for my family and the joy they bring to my life everyday! I feel so supported by their love. Also, I feel utterly blessed to have so many wonderful friends in my life from coast to coast. I only wish I had more time to spend with them all! Finally, I am grateful to have art in my life. It helps to make me feel whole and engaged with the world, creatively, intellectually and spiritual. This is a great gift.

My daughter built her first "Build a Bear", yesterday, which is actually a cheetah. She was so excited to pick out rollerskates, clothes and a backpack for her cheetah, named Tofi. She keeps forgetting this creative name. She has asked me at least 4 times today, "Mama, what is her name again?" I made a recording with my voice saying, "Mommy loves you sooooo much! You are the best girl ever and Mommy and Daddy are sooooo very proud of you!" This morning when my daughter pressed Tofi's paw and played the recording, she said, "That makes me cry happy tears!" Ahhhh, what more could a mommy ask for! Blessings to all on this great holiday!

Quote of the Week

"Booboos are a part of life."
-My Wise Beyond her Five Years Daughter

The Chosen Road not Taken

So, it has been over a year now since my third miscarriage. It is very difficult to come to terms with the fact that I will never realize my chosen path. You remember Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken”. Well here it is to refresh your memory:

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 as 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 worn 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:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

I studied this poem in high school and I remember interpreting it as Frost lamenting about choices in life and the difficulty of not being able to do everything we might want in this lifetime. I concluded that he was ultimately happy with the choice that he made, perhaps because he had the freedom to choose.

I have had great difficulty coming to terms with the loss I experienced with my last miscarriage. This has been in part due to the bitter pill that this event was not a choice. I was raised to believe that I had the power to create my own reality, but this is not my chosen reality.

I also have been raised to believe that everything happens for a reason and that even with pain, and perhaps especially with pain there are lessons to be learned and growth to be had. One of my favorite expressions is “Oh no, not another f----ing opportunity for growth (A..F.O.G.)!” So I have been working real hard to figure out what I am suppose to be learning here. I feel so powerless.

I think that I will always feel sad about the road not taken, but I am beginning to appreciate the road that I am on. I didn’t choose this path, but low and behold here I am and it ain’t so bad, and it surely could be worse.

Deductive Reasoning

I am 41 and a half. I just realized tonight, for the first time in my life, my half birthday came and went unnoticed. I have to say I feel a little gypped. Not that I ever celebrated my half birthday by cooking half a birthday cake or anything, but it was always acknowledged, at least by myself. Missing this nonevent seems very poignant now that my daughter is almost five and a half and the halves are very significant to her. She asked a few months back, “If you are five and a half, you are really just five, right?” “Yes dear.” “Then I can say I am five and a half, because I just turned five.” Ah the powers of deductive reasoning, I can see losing arguments with her in my future.

My Daughter's Quote of the Week

"My teacher says that we shouldn't kiss the boys, but just blow them."..... (Kisses that is)

Humanness

Rant for the Day: I don't know about you, but I am so very tired of hearing about politicians' sex lives! Why anyone would ever want to run for office is beyond me. Having all of your human flaws picked apart publicly has to be a worse form of self-inflicted torture than even hanging yourself by flesh penetrating hooks in trees (People do that, you know. CRAZY!). It is hard enough being a human and making mistakes the way humans do without having everyone in the world knowing about it and giving their opinions. In fact, it is our purpose in life to learn from our mistakes and therefore become better human beings. Why is anyone shocked to find out that politicians make mistakes too? Heaven forbid!

The Nature of Addiction

My mother quit smoking twenty years ago. Last month she quit Nicorette Gum. She always told me that nicotine was more addictive than heroin. She also told me that if I ever used heroin it would end up killing me. These cautionary words discouraged me from ever trying heroin, but parent modeling is stronger than words of wisdom; so for a period of my life I did smoke.

I fancied myself a social smoker; I smoked when I was out drinking with friends. I also smoked when I felt down or depressed, which made me feel even worse, both physically and emotionally. It allowed me to wallow deeply in a smoky cavern of self-loathing.

Call it denial, but I never considered myself a real smoker. I could get away with it, because whenever I felt myself getting sucked into the addiction, I quit. It usually took a few days with a migraine headache, but I was able to quit repeatedly without too much torture.

I would know it was time to quit when one of two things happened. One was when I started to have asthma attacks. I know you probably think it is crazy that a person with asthma would smoke in the first place, but the allure of that modeled bad/cool girl behavior was too tempting. I think that kids’ brains get subconsciously hardwired to do stupid behaviors like smoking when they are teen-agers if they have grown up around it. Of course peer pressure is huge, but I think parent modeling is even stronger.

The other way I knew it was time to quit was when I noticed my every thought being taken over by plans for having my next cigarette. I realized that I was expending an exorbitant amount of mental energy thinking about smoking. When was I going to have my next cigarette? Where was I going to smoke it? Will other people be able to smell it on me if I do it? Should I change my clothes or brush my teeth? Do I need to buy some more? Should I have just one or two? How about just one more? Etc, etc, etc ad nauseum, literally!

I realize now that this is the thing with addiction and I don’t care what the addiction is to; it could be to heroin, to food, to nicotine or even as the song says, to love. The thing with addiction is that it takes over your mental life. Ultimately, I found that fact more disturbing than the physical manifestations of addiction. I just thought that there were so many better ways I could spend my thoughts. Even if I didn’t actually smoke that often, I didn’t want to use up anymore mental space thinking about it.

So when my mom was agonizing over chewing her last piece of Nicorette Gum, I shared with her my thoughts on addiction and the mental space it takes over. She found this perspective illuminating and helpful and she suggested I blog about it. So here it is. I just hope that the cycle of addiction in my family is now broken, for my daughter’s sake.