Eleven is a magical age.  You have hit the sweet spot where you are not a little kid, but you are not yet a full on teenager, so you have license to indulge in the slightly silly for just a little while longer, while slowly trying on the image of the young adult.  Eleven is a time of transition, from the safe routine of elementary school, to the busy uncertainty of middle school, which prepares you for the race that will be high school and college.  You become more aware of your emotions, as you begin to understand more of what's going on in the world around you, and your reactions start to take on an adult complexity.

I was reminded of this recently when my daughter and I went to see the movie "Inside Out", which details the emotional inner workings of an 11 year old girl after her family makes a major transition, moving from suburban Minnesota to San Francisco.  Up until that point, while I realized that my daughter had been through quite a bit in her short 11 years, I had completely forgotten how her processing methods themselves might be changing, from that of a child  to those of a young adult, while all of these things were going on.

Talking with both kids after watching the movie, I started to notice that all of us had major change going on in out lives at the age of eleven.  Changes that eventually shaped our pursuits, as well as out overall outlook on life.

At the age of eleven, my son was dragged along with me as we experienced the functional homelessness of living first with my then boyfriend (who eventually became my daughter's father), then with my sister.  As with most people living in overcrowded situations, tensions abounded, and no matter how much I tried to shield him from it, he couldn't help but noticed the strained silences from the adults around him.  Still struggling with ADHD, one day, his medication disappeared, never to be seen again.  This would start the longest, worst period of school for him, the time when he knew what he needed to do, but did not know how to stay focused enough to do it.

He became a big brother at the age of eleven. I remember him being woken up in the middle of the night, and told to throw on sweatpants, and pile into the car while I drove myself to the hospital.  I recall him pushing my wheelchair into the waiting room, and waiting with me for whatever my next instructions were to be.  I also remember the fascinated look on his face when he met his little sister for the first time, marveling out loud about how tiny she was.

He also resumed taking capoeira, a martial art he had started at the Lutheran school he had attended, and he also started cooking, as he was finally tall enough to see completely over the stove.  With capoeira, he would form friendships and mentor relationships that he still has to this day, and he eventually became such a good cook, he is in the process of pursuing it as a vocation.

My daughter only turned 11 in January of this year, but she has already experienced having to pack and move quickly from a place we had lived since she was a toddler.  She has experienced the death of a very young friend that she saw and played with daily.  She has dealt with adults that had no issues with treating her like a stereotype rather than an individual. She has experienced peer racism, sexism, and class-ism, and had to figure out how to NOT respond to any of these things, as she has unfortunately found out that any response to provocation will likely get her into more trouble that  those doing the provoking.  Such is the life of the bullied.

She has also discovered a love of learning, especially math and science subjects, and has a great deal of fun with the engineering kits created by GoldieBlox.  She has just completed her third trip to a week long camp conducted by the Lutheran church, and while she doesn't always enjoy her cabin mates, she absolutely LOVES the experience of going to camp: the hiking, swimming, sleeping outside, and simply getting out of the city, and around different people, for a little while. Soon, she will be part of two mixed generation choirs, and with one has performed as both a singer and a dancer for well over a year.

At the age of eleven, my older sister and I were in a state of flux.  Our mother and younger sister were living in Hawaii, our father was here in Los Angeles, but not living in a big enough place to care for the two of us, so we were living with his cousin.  I was in my final year of elementary school, and completely unaware of how to deal with my unusual personality.  Becoming a nerd was not cool in 1981, and my appreciation for, well, EVERYTHING, was not looked upon anything close to favorably.

In the middle of all of this, I received my very first Bible from the husband of the cousin we were living with.  This was in response to my complaints about the pew bibles at his church, and I treasured that small white bible with my name written on it in gold letters until it was lost in storage 9 years ago.  One of the sons in this family introduced my sister and I to rock and roll, via local radio station KROQ, often by acting out the lyrics to some of the songs for our amusement.  I've since taught the movements to at least two of those songs to my own children, which they find hilarious.  It was also during this time that I made my first halting attempts at writing at the suggestion of this same cousin, who suggested that I try to write down my feelings about everything that I was going through at the time.  After seeing a little poetry, and a few paragraphs, she then uttered the magic words:  "You are actually pretty good at this.  You should keep this up."

I sit here contemplating this as, eleven years after the birth of my daughter, my son prepares to leave the nest.  My daughter is losing her longest, closest friend, and I feel like I am losing the longest, hardest job I've ever had. We are both happy for him, of course, and in our own little way, will miss him.  But if eleven is our family's number for changes and transitions, then now is the time for him to start moving on.  It will be interesting to see what the next eleven years will bring.

Somewhere back in the early 90's, I was working on a temp assignment, and I pulled out a counter extension to see what the little paper sticking out of it was.  Turns out it was a full sheet of paper with a quote written on it, at that time credited to "Unknown".  At the time I first read that quote, I was a young, single mother having serious financial difficulties, and not sure if I had the right tools to be any form or fashion of even semi-decent parent (My how times have changed.  <<<shrugs>>>).  The words really resonated with me, and I found myself pulling out that counter extension to read the quote multiple times a day for the duration of that particular assignment.  As the assignment came to an end, I wanted to keep the quote with me, so I scribbled it down on a piece of paper, which I promptly lost on the way home.  But the quote was never far from my mind, and as soon as I obtained a PC, internet access and a printer at home (Thank You, Income Tax return!), I looked up the quote, printed it out, and it has remained at the forefront of my thoughts for going on 20 years now, as well as always having a prominent place on whatever desk I currently call home. To this day, I still read this quote multiple times a day, as it reminds me of the way I actually want to live my life.

Here is the quote as I first read it:

Such a small notion, that of what the original author thought comprised a life, lived fully.  What I found, many years later, was that this was part of a much longer document titled the Spiritual Laws and Concepts of Pathwork. A great deal of reading for anyone interested, but what stood out most to me was the overall reach of moving oneself to a solid place internally.  That had been an ongoing struggle for me back then, and is still a large part of my emotional and physical makeup today.  Would I continue to live the limited life of low expectations of a young, single parent with only a high school education in the inner city, or would I try to expand my options, branch out, and stop allowing other's low opinions of me dictate my own expectations for myself?

It took me a long time to completely grasp each of those concepts; putting them into practice was another huge step, but I am still making small progress each day.

It is impossible to live completely without fear, as there will always be some issue, incident or object that triggers the fear response.  Controlling how you respond to those triggers, as well as sorting out what is truly worth fearing is what makes the difference between living your life, and merely surviving. My biggest fears currently are homelessness (having already experienced it once), and the myriad number of things that could happen to my children.  A fear response would have me doing things I probably shouldn't to make sure the first would happen, and becoming overprotective to avoid the second.  Living life without fear, has for me anyway, meant knowing in the back of my mind that homelessness is a real possibility, while continually working to improve my financial situation while not jeopardizing my job or my legal status. It has meant not embracing a fear based parenting model, that allows me to teach my children about the dangers they will face in a way that is closer to "Be aware of what's going on around you", than "Be afraid of everyone that is different from you". Living in control of my fears has led to to take chances in education (multiple tries at finishing a degree), relationships (Yes, I do flirt "out of my league".  Why not? It's fun for me, and an ego boost for them.  No harm, no foul.), and career (moving from Clerical to Technology).  I've had as many successes as I've had had things crash and burn, but even with the failures, I've learned lessons I would not have learned had I not at least tried to make some change in the way I was already living.

Living without self-pity is harder than it sounds, especially if things tend to not go well as a series, rather than one at a time, spread far enough apart where you have the emotional time and energy to deal with each item as it comes up.  In my world, when it rains, it really does tend to pour.  Usually, as soon as I cut one branch off some thorny issue, another entire bush grows in it's place.  That stiff upper lip hurts when you hold it for too long, and the self-pity party group at least puts you in some sort of company, especially when you begin to feel like you are going through a lot of this alone.  A lifetime of dealing with migraines has taught me that while bottling my feelings of sadness, anger and occasional helplessness might look cool on the outside, I was paying a helluva price for it, health-wise, on the inside.  Giving myself permission to feel whatever it was I was feeling, with the caveat that I had to be prepared to put everything in perspective, and sort through what could be done, versus those issues I couldn't do anything about, saved my sanity more often than I care to admit.

I have never met anyone, in my entire life, that was not afraid of being hurt, be it physically, emotionally, spiritually, or in any other way.  I am no exception to this phenomenon of guarding certain parts of myself from those who might see my vulnerabilities as an opportunity to inflict damage for their own amusement, or the entertainment of others.  As someone who strives to live as authentically as possible, I have to live with the knowledge that there are people in this world that are only too happy to abuse anybody they consider fair game, and as such it is best to hone at least a minimal level of discernment.  The enduring lessons of a culture that devalues minority women, especially those with obviously ethnic features, has ensured that there are multiple generations of minority women that treat every interaction in life as a direct threat, viewing all through the lens of their emotional guard, always ready to protect the most delicate parts of themselves. They will survive in this life, most of us will, but if you dig down deep enough, you will realize that most of them never really get a chance to live.

Mostly, I strive to be happy.  To have that sort of internal peace that helps me realize that I've done what I can, weathered whatever storms came up, and am okay with how things are now, even if they are not perfect, or even particularly good.  That is how I define Real Happiness.  I know there are those who would focus on financial freedom as an indicator of happiness, and I don't deny that taking away money worries would free up a great deal of mental and emotional space for spiritual development, but, the steps mentioned here are all free.  Getting one's head right, as it were, can be done no matter what stage of life you're in, your financial status, or your current circumstances.  Well worth doing, I think, no matter who you are.

As I look at the plain white sheet of paper currently hanging over my desk, re-typed in the only version of the quote I could find, I am reminded of my ongoing goal.  Being present.  Living kindly, gently, and well.  And striving for real happiness.

In 9 days, my daughter will have completed her elementary education.  In roughly the same number of days, my son will finally start halting, hesitant steps toward his own future.  It's been a long, strange trip for both of them, especially the last six months.  Sudden moves, peer foolishness and the constant search for a safe space to be themselves in a world that endlessly begs them to conform, have been their unwanted companions on this leg of the journey.



Me, as Mom, has been the steady, if not always most reasonable, presence.  Stress can do that to a person, I suppose.  Always supportive, often honest to the point of unintended hurt, but mostly trying to keep every ball in the air while holding the kids together through their own slogs through this strange concrete wilderness, trying to figure out where they want to go, and how, exactly, do they get there.

For my daughter, elementary school was academically easy, socially the second circle of hell.  When she wasn't racing through her school work, she was trying to figure out the best way to navigate the tenuous social rules that would land her someone to play with at recess.  How do you communicate to a child that even under the age of ten the kids around her are being taught condescension, racism, sexism, and casual cruelty to those showing any kind of fear or weakness by parents who were likely taught the same things so early on in life that they are now ingrained? I wanted, more than anything to help her develop a lifelong love of learning, because in life, you will do a lot of that, un-dulled by the typical urban school experience.  I wish I could say I succeeded.  I will say that she doesn't hate learning, so much as she has developed a distinct distaste for both the institution of school, and the people within it. What I hope for her, as she takes this next step towards her ultimate (for now) goal of becoming an Engineer, is that she will meet new people a little more into academics like herself, and more teachers that spark her interest in different subjects.

My son has had a much more difficult journey.  Starting with the fact that learning difficulties, pride and anger don't exactly mix.  Add crippling low self esteem, a dash of depression, and the societal pressure to hide it all behind a facade of "Everything is fine", and down the rabbit hole you go, wondering if there is in fact a bottom to this, or are you just being led along another endless trail.  Around, and around, and around went my constant discussions with my son regarding what steps he was taking to get on his way to whatever was going to come next in his life, the un-discussed issue being his fear of failing at everything he had ever tried, and his ongoing fear of continuing to fail, no matter how hard he tried.  Now that he has finally realized that not trying is failing by default, my hope for him is that he finds satisfaction in small victories, and finds some level of peace away from the voices that would belittle those small accomplishments.

Like most parents, I wanted to give my children things I thought were missing from my own childhood.  Not material things; a sense of peace, comfort and confidence that I am always there for them, even if I do work full time.  I wanted so much to spare them everything I had gone through in school: all the bullying and exclusion for being "different", the isolation associated with rarely being able to do anything or go anywhere with friends, standing out in all of the wrong ways for never being enough of anything (pretty, talented, intelligent, etc) to get away from the ridicule.  What I have learned is that while I couldn't, and can't, protect them from the ugly, the petty, and the pointlessly mean in the world, and I can, and do, they to prepare them by teaching them to handle life with equal parts resilience (you will likely deal with assholes all your life, so start learning now), and boundaries (no one is obligated to deal with harassment, in any form).  I can help them learn to be comfortable in their own skin, no matter how hard someone calling themselves your "friend" tries to fit you into their narrow mold.  I can help them develop a spiritual foundation so that even in the midst of terrible circumstances, even if all of their best efforts have failed, even if they feel they have done all they could and the world has let them down, they have a space within themselves to find peace, and calm, and hopefully, understanding.

And I can pray that whatever mistakes I made, or will make in the future, they know that my intentions were pure, my heart was always in the right place, and that, eventually, they will find their path, and continue their journey.  And they will always know that I am here for them: to hold their hands, kick their butts, or whatever needs to be done to help them get to their destination.

For both kids, one journey has ended, and another is about to begin.  Here's to having a great trip.

I have a set of New Year's Eve and New Year's Day rituals, that while essentially meaningless, I take great comfort in, if only because they are familiar.  Nothing harmful, mind you, just things I do to close out one year, and usher in the next.

For the last couple of years, this ritual has included a church service, then either back at home, or over to my sister's apartment, to just hang out, watch movies, talk and laugh until just before midnight, when we turn on the countdown on Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin Eve (every year, without fail), for the last few minutes before the clock strikes 12:00.  We toast the New year, my sisters and I text each other and our mom, and after we all wind down, and the kids are in bed, I say a prayer, thanking God for surviving the year that passed, and expressing my hopes for the coming year.  Then I make sure I wake up early enough to catch the first showing of the Tournament of Roses Parade (the one without the commercials), an annual tradition here in Southern California that leads up to the annual Rose Bowl game between college football teams..  Then I spend the remainder of the day relaxing, and/or preparing myself for whatever is going to come next in my life.

For whatever reason, I tend to pay particular attention to the first song I hear at or after midnight. I guess in my own way I think the song is either setting the tone for the year ahead, or telling me something about the year that just ended.  Generally, I tend to have the radio on as well as the television, and for several years, the first song I heard was "New Year's Day" by U2.  Which is fine, but I started thinking that maybe because this is a song about war and politics that contains the statement "Nothing changes on New Year's Day", maybe this is not the tone that I really want to set fot the new year.

This year, the host of the countdown stated that Elton John would be performing soon after the break, so, seeing as I am an Elton John fan, I opted to wait before turning off the living room tv.  My reward for not hastily turning off the tv, was that the first song I heard in the New Year was the 1983 Elton John hit, "I'm Still Standing", performed live (well on tape delay because we are on the West Coast) by the artist himself.  My kind of New Year theme!

Although the song is ostensibly about a man surviving numerous attempts by a former romantic partner to leave him defeated and depressed, I wonder if Mr. John realized how many people would recognize themselves or their circumstances in that song?   Does he know how many people see that song as inspiration to keep going through tough times?  This song tells us that, if you can arrive on the other end of your struggles, not just on your feet, but feeling triumphant for having survived it, you will eventually begin to put your life back together, and yes, you will be okay.

It certainly is the story of this past year of my life, especially the last few months.  I've found out recently that the fall out from my financial troubles are far from over, and I have many months of struggle ahead, but you know what?  I''m still standing.  I have a solid spiritual foundation, a rich internal life, and friends and family to listen to me when I need to talk.  I can go forward, even if because going backward is impossible, and while looking back may provide with some ideas of what I did wrong, and subsequently what I want to avoid, dwelling there will do far more harm than good.  

I'm still standing.

I still have a civil service job with a small, but steady, paycheck, and will be facing issues and opportunities with both in the coming days and months.  I've been here before, and I will get through this, hopefully wise enough to not make the same mistakes that got me into this mess in the first place.

I'm still standing.

My son hit some roadblocks on his way to getting on with his life, and it looks like there will be additional delays in his eventual exit.  My daughter is cruising towards her VERY emotional teens.  I have some support, but as always, on the day to day stuff, the micromanagement is still mostly on me.

So many things meant to destroy my spirit, break me down or just keep me running in circles so as not to get anything accomplished.  For so many others as well, the last 3-4 months of 2014 were devastating.  But I made it.  We all did. And by the Grace of God, going forward into 2015, I'm still standing.  I hope you are to.

Be well in the New Year.

Society taught me from an early age that I was ugly.

Even from my birth in 1971, I did not fit the popular standard of what was considered "beautiful", so I adapted to life as the type of person that I was perceived to be.  Second best.    When hanging out with any group of people, I was generally the one no one really spoke to anymore than they absolutely had to, which forced me to learn how to be funny as quickly as possible so that whatever brief conversation I got to have with someone would at least be a memorable one.  Being considered unattractive and being an introvert (I sometimes wonder if the former fed the latter), I became the fly on the wall of every social situation, my lack of interaction with others enabling me to become a seasoned observer of human behavior.

I used to be mystified by certain people's reaction to me.  Saying hello to people, and having them look around to make sure no one is watching before they return the greeting is a very instructive lesson in how human nature works.  No one wants to be seen acknowledging someone thought to be ugly.   Unless of course they are reminding you of this fact, loudly and with a great deal of derision.

I wish I could say that my experiences were unique.  Perusing the website Jezebel last week, I came across a posting from a young woman who was ruthlessly catcalled by men for no other reason than they did NOT find her attractive: 
http://groupthink.jezebel.com/ugly-c-nt-my-experience-of-street-harassment-1561588177/all    We've reached a point in society where polite behavior is a rare commodity.  Especially as it pertains to the old saying that if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything.  This rule seemingly does not pertain to anyone society sees as unacceptable in any way.  Especially women.  Women are then subject from to anything from being ignored during routine social interactions to the loud, brutal assessments hurled at the author of the piece above.

But where does all of this come from?

My friend Susan sums it all up nicely: "We're conditioned to accept the societal definitions of beauty, which seem to grow narrower every year. Women are conditioned from the cradle. It keeps us in line and pits us against one another. If we weren't so busy worrying about what we looked like, imagine what we'd accomplish."

As it stands, the societal definition of beauty runs to the Scandinavian look: tall and slim, with pale skin, hair and eyes, is thought to be the absolute ideal.  The further you move away from that definition of beauty, the less worthy you are of consideration.  The less worthy you are of consideration, the more certain people feel that they are quite justified in being critical about any and every aspect of your personal appearance, or barring that, simply being dismissive of you altogether.  And while this is true across the board, women get the brunt of the harshest forms of this scrutiny.

The messages I have received from the media over the last couple of decades (or since I have been conscious enough to realize that there are subtle messages underlying a great deal of what we see), is that the main purpose of a woman's life is for men between the ages of 18-49 to find her attractive enough to have sex with.  In order to meet this goal, you must be as close as possible to the description outlined above, and if you are not, it is strongly encouraged that you spend as much time, money and effort as humanly possible in dogged pursuit of the ideal.  To be unable to spend your life chasing what for most amounts to an almost impossible ideal, due to disability, might garner you a pass from men who see the ideal as their due in life, if not their own goal to attain.  If you are unwilling to devote your life to becoming pleasing to the eye of random passerby on the street due to disinterest, or the fact that less than 5% of the population possess the ideal appearance naturally, and to spend too much time wishing to be something you are not is inherently mentally unhealthy, be prepared to be shown no mercy.

You will be assailed from all sides by well meaning, if misguided, attempts to steer you back on to the correct path of low-grade self hatred. It is the economic engine on which the beauty industry thrives.  Some will try cajoling, others will insult and demean you, but the larger goal is to let you know, by all means necessary that as you are, you are not acceptable to the male gaze. And if you dare to carry yourself with any kind of confidence (Those of us who have decided to be happy with our selves whether people find us attractive or not), despite being considered unattractive, many of the supremely insecure, who rely on others for validation, will make it their mission in life to remind you that, by popular estimation, you are not enough.  How dare you be happy with yourself, as is!  Don't you know that you are supposed to be striving to conform to what random strangers feel you should be so said random strangers won't have to tell you that you are still not acceptable to them?

If you are still unattractive, unwilling to attempt conformity, and perhaps content with yourself, you will be ignored, with an extra helping of contempt and scorn.  The comments section of the Jezebel piece will bear this out.  There are too many women who have been overlooked or ignored out right for no other reason than they were thought to be ugly.  To be thought of as ugly, but not sufficiently humble, will earn you large doses of what I like to call aggressive ignoring.  This is when someone attempts to interact in a normal way, and realizing that a horrified reaction is an overreaction, the person they attempted to interact with openly ignores them.  I can't tell you how many times, I've tried to participate in a normal discussion (after weighing my words carefully to make sure that my contribution was on topic and appropriate), only to be roundly ignored as if I weren't part of the group.  As I look around me, I see other women subject to this same treatment, and I shudder to think what internal processes they must go through just to get through the day.  For some, it must feel like the treatment they received in childhood never ended.

My friend Lisa put it this way: "When you're bullied as a child, you know who's bullying you and why. You learn how the system works because you have to in order to survive. I think it's the same for any children who are victimized by anyone for any reason, their brains develop a very sophisticated level of insight into the situation and they become very wise about it at an early age. Part of the damage that causes is that you never truly break out of that schema for the rest of your life, even though the bullying has stopped and everyone has grown up, you still read the people around you as though they're getting ready to bully you for the same childish reasons. And you don't even know you're doing that most of the time."

It's a strange road we walk, those thought of as ugly and/or unattractive.  It's a road made stranger by the fact that we live in a world where singling us out for random verbal and/or psychological abuse is thought of as perfectly acceptable as we are not considered real people, if we are in fact considered at all.  Pretty people will tell you that theirs is no easy walk through life either, what with the constant belief by those in the middle of the spectrum (neither conforming to the ideal nor considered ugly),that they are coasting through life on their looks, and are unlikely to have either any real talent or intelligence.  Women feel like they can't win no matter where they are on the spectrum.  This subject was covered in depth, and quite well in 1990 by Naomi Wolf in her book "The Beauty Myth".  The sad thing  about this is that, 24 years after the publication of Wolf's book, not only has very little changed, the treatment of women, based solely on their perceived attractiveness to a specific demographic of men, has actually gotten worse.  To paraphrase Wolf's opening, as women make larger social and political strides, the definition of the ideal woman becomes narrower, and those who do not conform are now met with open hostility by those who feel threatened by changes in the world, and feel the need to maintain the status quo the only way they know how.  Crush anybody you feel is beneath you by any means necessary.  These people don't realize that not everybody is entitled to their opinion, the person you are trying to embarrass has been hearing some version of the same thing all their life, and it costs you absolutely nothing to be polite to someone that is being polite to you.

I am an idealist.  In an ideal world, what is on the inside really would count, and people would treat you accordingly.  If only.....

When I write the names of my children and myself, I write three different last names.

Maybe you've heard of me.

I am the never married, inner city single parent.  The image that is painted of me  by the world at large is one of wanton sexual promiscuity, complete irresponsibility and damaged children.  Statistically speaking, we live in an impoverished area, we live at or near the poverty level because I don't have enough of an education to have a job making much more than minimum wage, and since mine is the only income, it is woefully inadequate.  My children will suffer from not having both parents in the home, all the studies say, and I am to blame for it all.

That's what conservative media sells their constituency, anyway.  For some people that's very true.  For SOME people.  For most of the rest of us, the truth is far more complicated and nuanced.  If you are willing to listen, there is a story there, just not the one you think it is.

Mine is a story of an insecure girl who sought to soothe her insecurity in the worst possible way, relationships with men thought to be the objects of other women's attentions.  If you were to ask me what I was thinking, I would probably tell you that I thought that I could be the one to make the relationships "work" where other women had failed previously.  The fact that I believed this not once, but twice, tells you that I was either a hopeless romantic, an incurable optimist, incredibly foolish or a rotating combination of all three.  All I can say is that between romance novels and romantic comedies, there was a long stretch in my life where I had particularly unrealistic notions about relationships, and people's willingness and ability to "change" given the right circumstances.  Mercifully, I figured it out at the two child mark, but some women take far longer, and unfortunately, are the ones who turn bitter after the reality that you can't change people sets in.

But as much as I admit to making two extremely poor choices (based on looks alone) in relationships, eleven years apart, I do not regret having my children.  That's not to say that this has been an easy road.  I realized on the day of my son's birth that the majority of the responsibility for child raising was going to be on me, and I made a promise to God and myself that I was going to step up to the best of my ability.  I was one month shy of my 21st birthday with only a high school education, but I had a pleasant enough personality, a good professional demeanor, gave great "phone", and had a history of front of house type jobs (Which I didn't realize at the time meant I had kind of a pretty face. I've always thought I was funny looking.   Live and learn.), which I was able to translate into a series of receptionist jobs.  I say series because initially the only work I could get was through temp agencies, which was far from steady work (I can't begin to tell you the number of times we were evicted because I was out of work just long enough to get behind in the rent.), but it kept us afloat for 10 years.  During that time I worked my way up from Receptionist to Executive Secretary by learning on the job any skill I didn't already have.  The upshot to that, however, was that my son had a lot of issues both at school, and with his daycare, and when you are a contract employee, if you don't go to work, you don't get paid.  Which is why I missed my son's learning disabilities by so far a margin that by the time anyone was halfway willing to do anything about it, he had already given up on school.

By the time my daughter came along, I was in both a better, and a worse, spot.  I had completed trade school to learn how to repair computers, thereby turning a longtime hobby into a profession.  But my relationship with her father was already mostly over, and by the time she was six months old, we were living on my sister's living room floor.  It was a long slow crawl to the lower middle class for us.  The first step was an entry level civil service job for me at the ripe old age of 32.  The next step was a small 2 bedroom apartment in a working class suburb of the South Bay.  What was supposed to happen was for us to build from there.  But...

Our little family fits the description while blowing it out of the water.  Yes, we live paycheck to paycheck.  I wanted to live in a safe-ish neighborhood, especially because of my son, and I wanted to be somewhere I could let my daughter play outside, without fear or worry.  Mercifully, where I live is about average for the region, price-wise.  I drive an eight year old used car, but there is still a car note, and insurance.  I tried mightily to live without a car on several occasions, and so long as I had no life outside work or church, living without a car was doable.  The minute I wanted to do anything at night, or in any of the outlying suburbs at odd hours, there was an issue. My son did drop out of high school, and is struggling because of it, but so are many other young men and women with untreated ADHD and other learning disabilities.  The ADHD, by the way, is hereditary.  I have it, as does my daughter.  If you can tell from the title of this blog, there are three people in this house that have fairly serious social, emotional, concentration and organization issues.

Nobody knows how or why, but somehow, we make it work.  Despite what you may have heard about young Black males without a high school education, my son has not only NOT become a criminal, he has never been in any major trouble.  My daughter is an academic superstar, with the social behaviors exhibited by natural introverts, preferring to be alone with electronics or with a good book as often as with other people.  Whatever they end up believing later on in life, I gave them a Christian foundation so that they would both have some spiritual grounding, as well as an extended church family.  I have always encouraged communication between the fathers and the children.  Note:  I said between the FATHERS and the CHILDREN.  I have also made it very clear that the state of these relationships are the responsibility of the father, as I would neither force these relationships, nor discourage them.  I would only intervene if there were absolutely no other way to resolve an issue.  My son has chosen to have limited contact with his father; my daughter's relationship with her father is, much like the Facebook status,  "complicated" (see earlier statement about only intervening if I had to).

You won't hear about my little family on the news of course.  We are the OK square pegs that simply do not fit in the dysfunctional round holes that society would have you believe we should be in.  We are far from perfect, obviously.  I get frustrated with all the new parenting methods and I yell.  My restless, impatient son is drifting between goals, and trying to figure out what to do with himself.  My daughter is in the throws of an ADHD enhanced pre-teen life, and it's attached emotionalism.  Quite normal, actually.

No one is suffering from a lack of anything.  Sometimes we run out of things, or have to wait until payday.  We are three people getting through life, day by day.  Nothing remarkable or extraordinary.  Which doesn't sell newspapers or political agendas.

Which is why you've never heard of me.  Or any of the rest of us.  And you never will.

I almost didn't write a post this week.

Busy, distracted by work and other issues, blah, blah, blah.  You know how these things go.

Then I got hit by perhaps the corniest inspiration on the face of the earth.

During the week leading up to Valentine's Day, radio stations like to bombard you with all the love songs they think you can possibly stand.  A grinch I am not, but I like to rock out when I'm driving, and all that soft, slow stuff makes me flip the station faster than you can say "talk radio".  A couple of days ago, though, I got caught on the tail end of a song I liked by the Foreigner track "I Want To Know What Love Is".  I let out a snort, then said to no one in particular, "Wouldn't we all?"  Later on that night,  the song replayed in my mind a few times (because that's how earworms work, unfortunately), and I realized that the song was such a hit because it stated a profound truth in an extremely, almost excessively simple way.  A man has been hurt many times, but he wants to try again, hopefully missing any landmines on the way.  What he would like, he says in the song, is some kind of map or guidebook that would tell him what he is looking for and how to get there.

It's like that with us singles.  Been around a few times, not all of them pleasant.  Wouldn't mind getting out there and trying again, but so many considerations.  One of the biggest considerations is where to start.

I have to say I like the way singer Howard Jones sang the question: What is Love, anyway?  Does anybody love anybody anyway?

The question is not as cynical as it sounds, and really neither am I.

A point of reference for me as to what Love is, is the 13th chapter of the book of 1 Corinthians in the Bible.  To me, it makes some very good all around points about what love is, and is not, and how you treat people when love is involved.  It also goes far beyond romantic relationships into the larger kinds of love.  I have a great deal of affection for the New International Version, so that's the translation I'll be working from here.

What I have always understood from this particular passage was that while there are a lot of people that have a lot of talents and can do a lot of things, if they are not doing it from a place of love, it means nothing.  If you knew, beyond a doubt, that you stood to gain absolutely NOTHING from your efforts, but that maybe, just maybe, you might help one person, would you do it anyway?  That might be a little on the extreme side of examples, but a small sample of what it means to use your gifts and talents out of love.

This passage is the one most often read at weddings, for the obvious reason that it lays out in very plain language how we are to treat each other in day to day relationships.  We need to demonstrate patience with, and kindness towards one another.  (As difficult as I know this can be, because there are people that will go out of their way to work our LAST nerve!)  When we love each other, there is no need for envy, or bragging, and among real friends, pride never enters into the conversation.  Not dishonoring others and not being self seeking are two sides of the same coin: one example might be gossiping  about someone else in order to bring down others estimation of them in order to bring yourself up in the eyes of those same people.  No, you are not to be happy when bad things happen to people you don't like, but be happy when the truth comes out for truths sake, nothing else.  With love, the urge is always there to protect, trust, hope and persevere.  These last four are much harder for those who have been hurt (or manipulated), but if they are thought of as goals, rather than insurmountable obstacles, they may be achievable.

We all grow and change over time.  Very few of us look, act or think the same as we did when we were children, and for good reason.  We know more than we did then, we can reason, and we have more self control than we used to.  Well some of us do.  The one thing that never changes is Love.  Perfect love, without flaw or defect (or price or hidden agenda or any of the modern equivalents) will always, we hope, come to drive out the imperfect, shed light on dark corners, and answer questions we've always had.  This is what we'd like to think.  What we dream of.  What we hope for.

I think so anyway.

Just a quiet Monday of what is going to turn into a busy week.

Contemplating the old hymn "It Is Well with My Soul.

It was written in the late 1800's by a man who lost everything: money, property, his children.  And yet he kept going. Despite tragedy, and most likely in the face of naysayers.  Because you know whenever bad things happen to good people, there is always someone around to point out how they would have done it differently, and not had such a terrible outcome.  They do not hesitate to make themselves known loudly, and often in the most condescending tone of voice possible.

Yet, he wrote:
"When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to know,
It is well, it is well, with my soul."

This isn't passive acceptance.  Far from it.  It is finding a deep place of inner peace in the middle of terrible circumstances.  From that place of peace, he was then able to deal with whatever was going on around him from a calm, spiritually focused place.  Death, disease, wrath, anger.  Whatever the world threw at him, he could withstand it because he had developed the internal spiritual and emotional tools to handle it.

Is it well with your soul?

What trials or circumstances are you facing today?   Are you holding on to hurt, anger, pride (one of my biggest faults, BTW), envy, past regrets?   Been lied to, or about, or otherwise slandered?  Or perhaps you are just in a season of things not going particularly badly, but not exactly good either.

What do you need to achieve that peace?  Sometimes, as Christians, I think we miss a grand opportunity during our weekly Sharing of the Peace.  We get so caught up in the pageant, we miss the purpose.  Somewhere, inside that Sanctuary (for some, that is the only safe space they see all week), someone is desperately in need of that peace.  We are to share whatever peace we have with each other, usually via a handshake or a hug.  Sometimes we see the need, and acknowledge it.  A lot of times, we don't, if only because it is covered up with a coat of "I don't want anybody to know anything is wrong.".

Lest you think this is specific to Christians, anybody can achieve this inner peace.  First, there has to be is a willingness to admit that there are some things you may never understand, especially as tragedy and difficulties go. Second, know that you absolutely cannot control every circumstance and every person around you, nor should you try.  Last, know that once you have put forth your very best effort, sometimes there really is nothing left to do but wait.  All of these things were hard for me to do, but I needed to work on them in order to be a better daughter, sister, mother and friend.  Let me tell it, I still have a long way to go, but like anyplace in life worth going, the destination is often far less interesting than the journey.

Wherever you are in your journey today, I hope it is well with your soul.  May peace be with you, today and always.

I read.  A lot.

Because it is the current thing to do, much of my reading is done online.  Because I can be a bit of a masochist, I tend to read a lot of relationship articles, and receive items in my news feed from two relationship themed Facebook pages, Thoughts of a Real Man (A young man from Georgia sharing his ideas on life, spirituality and relationships) and Dating and Waiting (support for those who are voluntarily abstinent for spiritual reasons). Much of the talk about male/female relationships in the articles and news feed items I read surround the idea of finding, and/or keeping a good man or good woman. 

The most interesting reading is sometimes the Comments section.  Guarded by the relative anonymity of the internet, people let fly with whatever it is they are truly thinking and feeling, that goodness only knows they would never say in real life. Perusing the comments, I see that there are a lot of people that believe that a good man or good woman does not exist.  They take the position that if they can't find the right partner, and repeatedly have crappy relationships, it just HAS to be the other person's fault that these relationships did not work out.  There is something wrong with the entire opposite group, because they have done everything right.  This is hyperbole of course, and comments sections are often full of it.   My take on it, however, is that good men and women tend to miss each other, often by a wide margin, quite like the cliched ships passing each other in the night.   After reading hundreds of these articles over the years, along with the associated comments, I began to form a theory of what was driving some of our worst relationship behaviors.

The behavior is due to what I am going to call the Shiny Penny theory. Everybody wants the shiny, new penny; not because it holds any real value,  but because it is pretty. All men and women want the prettiest or handsomest, most noticeable partner. Sometimes I think it's because we are fundamentally insecure, and feel the need to prove that we are able to attract and retain a better looking mate than the next person. To achieve that goal, we ignore is  glaring red flags that tell us that this is not the person we should be with. Then rather than take responsibility for our own poor choice of romantic partner, we turn our focus outward, and state that "All men/women are (fill in the blank with your favorite stereotype)!"  We can't admit to ourselves that perhaps we made judgment errors based on incorrect or incomplete information, or blatantly overlooked faults.

This is where we go wrong. Instead of turning our focus upward (for some, seeking spiritual guidance) and/or inward (introspection; what part did I play in my own situation) in order to heal ourselves and discover what we need (not want. I will go into more detail about this later) going forward, we just hop from relationship to relationship, dragging our poor decisions with us, then wonder why nothing ever works out.   Add the societal pressure to get coupled up, WITH ANYBODY, or risk being alone (this is the ultimate shame by society's estimation) to the aforementioned insecurity, a little sprinkle of media driven unrealistic expectations, and you have the reason for the staggeringly high failure rate of modern relationships.

Yes, I am speaking from experience.  Years of being reminded, often in the unkindest way possible, that I did not, ahem, fit the popular standard of beauty, resulted in a fractured sense of self worth.  I am a female, after all.  If I am not "pretty", then what am I?  (Keep in mind that this was during the 80's.)  What I needed, I told myself, was a way to prove that I was just as acceptable as other girls.  Male attention, specifically in the form of a boyfriend was what was called for.  Not just any boyfriend would do, of course, thus beginning my crippling addiction to what we used to call "pretty boys".  Now called metro-sexuals, these were guys with very fine features that took excellent care of themselves, were always well groomed and well dressed, and had personalities specific to guys that receive a great deal of female attention.  Not all of them were charming, but self-absorbed, just the ones I gravitated to, which set the tone for every bad relationship I was to have later.  Well, that and a steady diet of Cinderella, romance novels and romantic comedies.  Yes, I know these things are ridiculous.  I'm an introvert, okay?  That was my reading kick for about six years.

But I digress...

15 years and many relationships (and two children!) later I finally figured out that fear of being alone plus huge amounts of insecurity equals desperation.  Desperation draws the worst possible people into your life.  You may get what you want; a partner with looks, money, status or whatever you deem important.  However, it is almost a guarantee, that you won't have what you need; kindness, empathy, and the kind of love that doesn't fade in the face of trials and disagreements.  Now if you are one of those people out there that went into a relationship situation both fearful of being alone and horribly personally insecure, and got everything you wanted and needed, and are still happily together to this day, then I say Congratulations, I'm happy for you, this blog post is not meant for you, and you can move on.  Nothing to see here.

This blog post is for the seekers.  Those that have done the internal work they needed to do, and would like to get out there again, but are reluctant due to the mistakes they've made in the past.  Those that now realize that Needs; those intangible, internal qualities that make a person suitable for relationships, are more important than WANTS; external qualities that can come and go.  Now you know that who they are on the inside and how they treat themselves, you and others is the meat and potatoes; what they look like and what they have is gravy and dessert, respectively.   You have made peace with your own faults, and rather than expect perfection from others, you know what faults you can handle in others, and which will make you walk away.  You are no longer focused on searching for a good man or a good woman; you are focused on developing the kind of internal qualities that you need in a relationship so that you can attract those qualities in someone else.

If this sounds like you, then you are ready to move on.  Best wishes.  Remember that like ships on the water, you are free to set your own pace.  You can either use your motor (online dating), or sail with the wind (casual meetings through friends or just wherever).  No rush (despite what society says) and enjoy the journey.  It'll definitely be worth both the work, and the wait.

Do you know the difference between nerds, geeks and dorks?  Being a nerd goes beyond simple intelligence; it is the possession of a great fountain of occasionally useless knowledge about a wide range of topics without the filter needed to know exactly when to share what.  Geeks are usually enthused about one or two specific subjects, about which they can talk to you, non-stop, no matter what other topic is being discussed.  Dorks are usually intelligent, but missing certain key elements of information, will argue loudly, and wrongly, for whatever the point is that they are trying to make.   Rolled eyes and requests to "Shut up about it already!" be damned.  The common element that draws them all together is a lack of social skills beyond what is minimally needed to function in society.  The pursuit of information for information's sake is the highest priority; interacting with people is an inconvenience that must be dealt with only when absolutely necessary.  This over abundance of information, the ability to not just apply it correctly (most of the time, anyway) but translate that into phenomenal test scores, often at the expense of developing social intelligence can get people labeled a lot of things.  For the sake of this post, I'll just focus on the name I am most familiar with: the Nerd.

I know of whence I speak.

I am currently on my fourth decade as a nerd, having learned to read at four years old.  I can geek out about certain subjects, as can most nerds, but I don't enjoy debate, and can read at least some social cues, so I narrowly escape the dork.  When I get interested in a subject, any subject, I can be a somewhat obsessive researcher, just so I can feel confident enough to discuss the subject with anybody that asks about the subject once I bring it up.  I have been known to read a book, then if that book references another book or two, I might just read both of those as well.  And I can retain most of what I read.  Of course that means I have been known to accidentally lapse into TMI  (Too Much Information), giving people more information that they asked for or needed.  When I finally started noticing eyes glazing over (or looking around for a way out of the monologue),  the development of a shy smile and a little self deprecating humor to ease the tension from those accidental over share moments helped a great deal.

Social anxiety comes early for the Nerd.  Good grades and high test scores often come at the cost of time spent playing with other kids.  Parents that are not careful to make sure that kids have downtime and outside activities run the risk of building the perfect academic beast that has no one to play with at recess.  Then again, if a kid is both socially awkward and has no hand eye coordination, recess might turn out to be overrated.  I can remember many a day of getting picked last for every recess activity because everybody knew as well as I did that anything involving me and a ball was going to end in complete and utter disaster.  I was always the guaranteed "out" for the other team.  In Jr. High School (middle school, nowadays)  I was the kid that got a C because I at least dressed for PE.  Other than running laps, which I could do without tripping over my own feet, most of the time, any athletic  ability passed me at a clearance of 35,000 feet, which is roughly the altitude of most commercial aircraft, but I digress...

There is no one particular look to the Nerd.  They come in a wide variety of shapes, colors, sizes and hair lengths.  In fact, most clean up real nice when they want to or have to.  Key words: "WANT to or HAVE to".  The vast majority of the time, the Nerd couldn't care less what they look like to you.  They would rather be working on their latest project, testing a new theory or figuring out a tricky line of code.  If they're comfortable, they are generally more productive, and productivity means EVERYTHING to the Nerd.  Being made to look a certain way is a card best played sparingly, and only if absolutely necessary.  Some are actually quite attractive.  If they feel like making the effort.

The Nerd is the original non-conformist.  Conforming to what the cool kids did was always a lost cause, so why continue trying to play the game?  The Nerd was the first person to embrace the mantra Just Be Yourself, because imitating someone else was a fast road to disaster.  Many a Nerd can quote you chapter and verse about how they tried to  fit in at some point in their lives.  This was generally inspired by wanting to hang out with some group (Lest you think otherwise: Yes, Virginia.  There ARE adult cliques!) of people that were thought to be at or near the top of the social strata.  The Nerd would then change anything about themselves that was deemed unacceptable by the group: Hair, clothes, manner of speaking, conversation topics.  Whatever they felt they needed to do.  After a while, one of two things would happen which would prove the old movie cliche to be entirely true:  the group would find some way to push the Nerd out anyway, or the Nerd would figure out that not being genuinely themselves was not worth the hassle of keeping up an appearance acceptable to someone else full time.

Despite all this, the Nerd manages to reproduce.

I myself have given birth to two Nerds.  My son wasn't your regular academic go getter. Far from it.  But he did develop quite an affection for Manga and anime, which he follows on every medium available to him, and can give you more back story on any anime character than you ever asked for.  Although with his naturally argumentative nature, he can occasionally slip into Dork territory, his saving grace is a sense of humor that allows him to escape whatever verbal hole he digs himself into.  He will look into any subject he is actually interested in, enough to give himself some working knowledge of the topic so he can talk about it without sounding stupid.

My daughter came to Nerdom through school, the same way I and most of my fellow Nerds did.  A powerful combination of grades and test scores marked her entrance into the realm of the Nerd, and her recent passing of the Cognitive Abilities Test, or CogAT, which certified her placement into the Gifted and Talented program, solidified her place in the hallowed halls of the Nerdsphere.  I am getting her into the habit of looking up anything she has a question about, and trying to introduce the concept of reading for pleasure.  She loves math, and is almost insanely good at rapidly absorbing Math concepts, something I always had a hard time with.

In this generation, the Common Nerd is clearly evolving.  No longer content to be a shadow on the wall of popular culture unless he or she conforms to it, The Nerd is taking ownership of his or her own particular quirks, and letting the world know that they are in fact, good enough to play on the playground with the cool kids.  As is.  Witness the popularity of TV shows like the Big Bang Theory and game shows like Jeopardy, that not only entertain you, they challenge you to think a little.  The Nerd now exists outside of the classroom and the lab.  There are Nerd athletes, models, actors, artists and any other profession you can name.    My son is both a budding chef and a developing stand-up comic.  My daughter has a talent for dance and an interest in cheerleading.

And both children are conventionally good looking.  If and when they feel like putting in the effort.  Which I don't force them to do, unless there is a valid reason.  I know the rules.