​One of the more interesting things about child rearing is watching them experience growth spurts.

One day, they are still the small person that you always see, then suddenly, over the course of days or weeks, they shoot up, or out, several inches, sometimes radically changing their appearance.  With my kids, as their bones lengthened, they would often experience severe pains in their legs and arms as their bodies struggled to keep up with the rapid changes taking place. I would talk them through these literal growing pains by reminding them that these were necessary processes for them to grow to their fullest physical potential.

I didn't tell them that the process would continue: physically, socially, emotionally, and in other incredibly uncomfortable ways.

This has been perhaps the longest few months of my life.

Trying to pass the probationary period on my recent promotion has been relentlessly competing with serious issues with my children, activities that I committed to not really realizing the actual social and physical cost, and several micro items that left me wondering if this is what I worked this long and hard for.

In so many ways, we are all experiencing growing pains.

In her final year of middle school, my daughter is starting to realize that everything counts. In a lot of ways, she had been coasting on intelligence and charm, and it is now being made clear to her that she needs to put in more effort to get to her ultimate goal of a college degree. She is also learning that merely being loyal is not always enough to maintain a friendship, and that you have to be a little bit more flexible as you and your friends are all trying to find your place in a world that is working hard to fit you in the neat little box it already has for you.

My son has just learned, in the hardest way possible, that just because someone calls themselves your friend, this isn't always true, and you have to be very careful of who you hang around.  He now has to join that group of young men facing the world with a criminal record, that while minor, still leaves you marked as someone who might not be trusted with anything, much less a job.  He is currently attempting to put his life together in another location, and with quite a few strikes against him.  His heart is in the right place, but he is also finding out that sometimes, that might not be enough.

I have spent the last 16 years of my life working towards the job that I finally obtained in April of this year.  So no one was more surprised than me when I got the question put on my spirit of "Now what?"  It occurred to me that while I was planning my future around a specific job, I hadn't really planned much past it.  I also hadn't thought about much more than the things I had to do in order to support my children and survive.  Someone I consider a mentor once asked me what I really wanted to do with my life.  I didn't answer her because I had been taught that my dreams were impractical, and that I needed to concentrate on doing what had to be done to provide a life for my children.  But now I find myself at 45 years old, only five years away from my daughter leaving home for college, and asking myself what I really want to do once she's gone.  Do I take steps toward my dream career of writing professionally, or do I remain the solid, steady person that I am expected to be as a single parent of two?

Growing pains don't stop at 18.  Or 25. Or 30.

The truth is, growth is a lifelong experience.  As it should be.  Stagnation kills, and once you have decided that you don't have anything else to learn, you slowly begin to die: spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and occasionally, physically.

If you were to look at life as a football game you would see that my daughter is finding her way through her first quarter, my son is deciding what strategies to employ during his second quarter, and as I rapidly approach half-time, I am trying to figure out exactly how I want my second half to play out.

Ultimately, I pray that we will all eventually get to where we were meant to be.  The journey is currently getting more than a bit rough, and the destination may not necessarily be clear, but a lot of times, growth is just exactly that way: a lot of movement in often random directions.

But continue forward we will because continue forward we must.  Because going backward is not an option.

  I have mentioned on a couple of occasions that I sing with a few choirs.  

In the last couple of years, my now teen daughter has joined me in all of these choirs.  Mostly because she was always there anyway, learning the music, and would end up sitting in the choir stand, singing with us.  And as these things go, especially with smaller choirs, she has a song or two that she either leads, or co-leads, much to her teen-aged chagrin.  Of these songs, the one that has been playing in my head a lot recently has been one called "I Will Live".  It has to do with watching one's verbal reactions to the ups and downs, more specifically the downs, of life.  It posits that what you say affects not only your own attitude, but the energy in the world around you.

This is not an unusual stance.  Most major religions of the world have sayings along those lines.  Even the most hardcore of secularists believe in some level of Karmic energy:  What you put out into the world is what you receive back from the world.  Especially in moments of crisis and deep stress, it can be very easy to absorb negativity and reflect that back into the world. When your guard is down, and you are at your most vulnerable, can unfortunately be the times that bring out the worst in the people around you. The challenge then becomes not allowing the negative influences to turn you so negative that you began spewing that back out into the world.  Which is incredibly hard when your emotions are raw and exposed.

Three weeks ago, I received a call no mother wants to get.  My son had been arrested in another state, and in all honesty, there was darn little I could do about it.  We've talked extensively in this space about the different ups and downs that I've had with my son, and like most parents, I immediately went to privately beating myself up about the entire thing.  My reasonable mind knew that as an adult, I only have so much say over decisions that he makes, and that realistically speaking, he needed to be held accountable for those decisions.  Unfortunately for me, there are those in my circle who would choose to kick a person while they are already down.  No mater how reasonable I tried to remain, once it became obvious to me that my efforts were futile, in a moment of weakness I started down a very dark rabbit hole.  I allowed my anger and hurt to dictate my response to the negativity being hurled at me, and I responded in kind. In front of my daughter, which I may regret for the rest of my life. Granted, this had been brewing for years, but the mature thing to do would have been not to engage, but again, when your guard is down, you are clearly not your best self.  Mercifully, I was still within shouting distance of my right mind, and my more reasonable side decided that I'd better get in front of this before the rumor mill, and I decided to seek broader support through social media.

On the worst night of my adult life, Facebook actually saved my sanity.

Because what I got over the next couple of days were people putting aside their judgement (if they judged me at all), to offer me voices of reason (this really could have happened to anybody), support, comfort, and prayers.  I learned that when people are in a storm, this is not the time to offer negativity.  Their head is already likely in a very dark place, and your blame and condemnation is not needed.  Put out into the universe what you want to receive back when it's your turn to go through the storms of life: peace, concern for those in the middle of the storm, hope, and if nothing else, prayers.  The simplest gifts that I received that I appreciated the most were the prayers: even if they did not know what to say, there were those who stopped what they were doing to offer prayers of hope for my son, and comfort for my daughter and myself, that have sustained me from that day to this.

What I have decided, during this particular set of storms in my life (there are several really trying issues competing for my attention at this time) is that much like the song states, I Will Live.  I will not let my attitude, and by extension, my words,  reflect the negativity that is directed at me.  The only thing I can control in my life is myself and my reactions to the stimuli around me, and I have the responsibility to set the example for my daughter of how to deal with the storms of life.  Yes, I slipped, and I apologized to her for it, but I know that I also have to be more cognizant of how I deal with emotional conflict in the future.  And beware of the "Be the bigger person" mantra:  sometimes it works, but sometimes it is just a setup for accepting ongoing abuse.  Which is not healthy.  For anyone.

I Will Live.

My son goes to trial tomorrow.  No matter the outcome, there will be a great deal of fallout and blow back from this for quite awhile to come. We will likely be dealing with this for some time.

I Will Live.

I am no longer surprised by the fact that whenever I take positive steps to start getting my life together on some level, I end up in social and/or emotional waters that compete to keep me distracted from my actual goals.  I finally realized that it's not the distractions that are the real issue: it's my reactions to the distractions.  Think about that for a minute.

I Will Live.

Where I want to be, spiritually, is like the people that were there for me during my very long night: the helpers and healers that exude an aura of warmth, comfort, wisdom and most importantly, peace.  I will not be the person that speaks chaos into an already bad situation.  I will bring peace, and love, or I will bring nothing at all.

I Will Live.

No, Dear Reader, I am not going to die anytime soon.

But I was reading back over something I wrote 4 years ago regarding this global art installation: http://beforeidie.city/

I loved that this went beyond a simple bucket list.  It's point was to make you think critically about where you were in your life.  Have you done what you wanted to do?  Are there still goals and dreams unmet?  What do you REALLY want out of your life.

At the time, then 41 year old me wrote the following five things.  I find it interesting that for the most part, four years down the line, most of these are still true.
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1.  I want to see my children grown, successful, and happy.
Although this is the goal of all parents, when you have children with any kind of additional challenge, be it physical, emotional, psychological, or social, or any combination of those, it becomes the hard focus of your existence to make sure that your children make it to adulthood, and make it there with some level of success.  The underlying current of this space is the day to day management of the lives of three people with ADHD.  Even though I don't always adult perfectly, generally there is nothing that can't be undone with a little damage control.  What I try to pass on to my children is that ADHD is manageable so long as you acknowledge it, and make certain to accommodate those little differences that trip up those of us whose mind is constantly racing about five miles ahead of our mouths and everything else.

My son is learning this slowly, as he tries to put his life together in another state.  He is definitely grown; he is working toward the successful and happy part.  He is finding tools to jog his memory when he forgets things, he is learning to budget whatever money he receives in a better fashion, and he is learning that emotional control is a tool he will need to employ more often if he wants to live peacefully with the world around him. The key thing here is that he has decided that he wants to succeed on his own, and once anyone makes that decision, and really puts all of their effort into it, they generally make it happen.

My daughter is coming to terms with what tactics she is going to have to employ to complete high school and move on to college.  She realizes that she is going to have to keep better track of what needs to be done and when in order to keep her grades up enough to get into the college of her choice.  She has decided, for now, that she wants to be a teacher, and she knows that half measures are not going to help her achieve that goal.  She is finally acknowledging that she has a few learning differences that she will need to make up for, and that little bit of acceptance will lead , I think anyway, directly to her eventual success.

At least this is what I hope for.

2.  I want to finally make peace with my past.
Anyone that manages to live to a certain age is going to have a past.  I do.  It is a past filled with the kind of life choices that make for everything from funny stories to stuff that I seriously hope people can be open minded about if they ever find out about it.  I have made just about every mistake you can think of on the minor side, and a few major mis-steps just to keep things interesting.

It's not surprising that it is the major mistakes that continue to haunt me.  Especially the financial and health related actions, and lack thereof, that I am still dealing with the fallout from to this day.  The relationship errors were particularly painful, but as time goes by, the pain gets dimmer.  It is my hope that as I regain my physical and financial health, that I can finally let go of the memories and mindset that held me trapped in an endless loop of self-recrimination for too many years to count.

3.  I want to fall in mutual love with the right person, for once.
I am glad that Cupid is not real.

Because if he was, I would shoot that little jerk dead on sight, torch his bow and quiver, and break all his arrows into as many pieces as I could and scatter them so they could never be found.

Where I am concerned, that little creep has a VERY mean-spirited sense of humor.

Think arrows that only hit one person, or if they do hit both people, there is ALWAYS something wrong that prevents any form or fashion of forward motion.  Wrong person, bad timing, "friends" that advise other said person away, and into a more appropriate relationship.  It is this last bit that irritates me more than anything else.  In the 20-plus years since I realized that boys were for more than playing checkers and cars with, one pattern has NEVER changed:  nice-looking boy notices me, it takes me a while to figure out whether or not the person is real, or just being a jerk.  Once I figure out Boy is real, I react in my usual clumsy, awkward, but at least sincere way.  Which charms some and horrifies others, and leads immediately to either of the following two reactions: those that are charmed by it are immediately talked out of it by well meaning "friends" who remind them that I am too (fill in the blank), and that they can definitely do better; the horrified ones just disappear, either physically or metaphorically.  After so many years of the Same. Damn.  Thing.  Every. Time.  I have drastically lowered my expectations of people.

Realistically, I don't really see anything changing for me.  I remember taking a silly Facebook quiz that described me as being like that last piece of pizza: Everybody wants you, but nobody dares take you.  Odd analogy, but I am starting to see the reality of it.  Somehow, I am only approached by men who think I should be glad that ANYBODY is willing to talk to me because I am so (fill in the blank) that I should be grateful for any attention I get.  And Dear Dog, let us not talk about connections through friends.  I got a term from my younger sister, the Hook-Down.  This is when your female friends fix you up with someone without regard to whether or not there might be any mutual attraction, or if you have anything in common: they just want to make damn sure that you have less than they do, relationship-wise.

What I hope, is that at some point, somehow, it all turns out right.  Mutual attraction, good timing, and little to no outside interference that can't be handled gently, if it needs to be handled at all.  No settling, either: we are both there because we WANT to be there, not because we couldn't get what we wanted, or just took what was offered because we didn't want to end up alone.  No one deserves that, I will never do that to anyone, and I can only hope and pray that no one does that to me.

4.  I want to be out from under the constant cloud of debt.
This goes along with what I said in item number two.  Paycheck by paycheck, bill by bill, I am slowly chipping away at the vestiges of my financial past.  I will get there, at some point.

5.  I want to know that something I wrote actually helped somebody: maybe to laugh, or give them permission to cry, or just give them something to think about.
This is the hope of all writers.  At least I think so.  Writing is an exercise of reaching out to the wider world for community and understanding.  Whatever we go through in this world, we are never alone so long as we find ways to reach out and continue to talk to each other. Talking to each other is the most important thing we do. It is in that connection that we begin to see each other as we really are: beyond the stereotypes and caricatures to the all too real human beings underneath that are experiencing the same happiness, fear, joy, anger, wonder, resignation, and other emotions that we are.  Even separated by state or country lines, or oceans, we are all one community, and we see each other fully when we talk, even through a keyboard.

Although I am about to step into a very busy Saturday, I keep this little list on a mental post-it note stuck to the back of my mind.  As I said, I hope I have given you something to think about.  What do you want to see happen/accomplish with the time you have left?

So it is nearly 4am, and I will need to start getting ready for my day job in about an hour.

But the urge to write compels me to give you a short missive before the official part of my day begins.

We've been on this experiment for four years now, and I think for the most part we have gotten to know each other fairly well.  Although, I admit that I haven't been as communicative as I have been in the past, I think I am finally ready, in this next two year session, to talk about more subjects, and embrace the truth that this blog is very Seinfeld like in it's scope.  I talk about Nothing.  And Everything.

We laugh, we cry, we mourn, we celebrate.  And we take major life steps as a community united through the musings of a single woman in Southern California, navigating slowly and carefully through her life, and her roles as a daughter, sister, mother, and friend.

Three is my personal magic number.  This is the third time I've re-newed this website, and I think this is going to be one of our best runs as this experiment continues through another two years.  So many things to talk about, and so many subjects to explore.  I don't just look forward to seeing where we end up in two years; I am also interested in seeing how we get there.

Here's to the journey.

I miss writing.

I realize that that is a strange thing to write, especially as I am in the midst of composing another long overdue blog post.  But as I struggle to organize the overflow of words and images jostling for space in my mind in to some coherent form before translating them to keyboard for your consumption, that same simple truth occurred to me over and over again.

Like a lot of people, I have a "day job": a day to day job that allows me to pay rent and bills while I pursue my art, as it were, in my free time. Unfortunately, free time has been at a premium lately.  My last job left me emotionally and psychologically exhausted at the end of the day.  My current job exacts a very physical toll, that while it's good to work hard enough to be physically tired at the end of the day, coming home so wiped out that I only have enough energy to eat, check in on the kids, then crash, hasn't left time for much creative expression either.

And, too, like other creatives, I have that internal struggle with doing what I know has to be done, weighted against doing what I actually want to do.  If I were to visualize the struggle between my creative side and my pragmatic, practical side, I would say that my creative side is a bright pink fairy, with mauve gossamer wings and a bright sparkling wand, tiara, and shoes, dancing lightly on my right shoulder (I am right-handed, so I guess that's why she is there) reminding me that I have this gift of being able to get words on paper in such a way that people can understand and relate to them, and I shouldn't NOT use it.  On my left, in a plain beige suit and sensible shoes, is my business oriented self, sitting patiently (most of the time), telling me that while it is wonderful to have creative goals, I am still supporting two people other than myself, and even if that were not the case, rent does not pay itself, and the practical matters will ALWAYS need to be handled before anything else.  The analyst in me knows that this is true. The vast majority of the world moves in a specific rhythm: We are born, we go to school, some of us get degrees, but most of us get jobs in some form or another, and join "adult" society in working and paying bills, with occasional stops at light recreation, relationships, and if we get really lucky, maybe a real adventure or two, just to give us a few good stories to tell around the table.  This isn't good or bad, mind you. And for most people this is both expected and satisfactory; familiar music played at a pace they can understand and join in easily.

The beat for those that feel a creative pull is a jazz composition with sudden switches and breaks. First slow and steady, then suddenly speeding up to heart stopping levels, before suddenly moving into a mid tempo to let you catch your breath.  You have a story to tell, and image to convey, an emotion that is begging for some way to tell someone else that they are not completely alone in what they are going through.  And most creatives will feel a strong pull to answer that call to expression. To suppress the creative desire is eventually to kill it, either through neglect, or through the constant subjugation of have-to's, and need-to's.  Which is how so many leave us without composing that poem or piece of music that had always been inside them, but they never got around to getting down on paper.  Too busy, and dreams are for young people, and you know how things get....

I miss writing.  It is my way of talking to the wider world about the life we all go through together. Things I think of as the mundane details of an ordinary life might mean a nice break in a stressful day of someone who might just need to feel less isolated.  In some ways, my writing might also be a kind of therapy, writing out my thoughts on a fast changing world, both close to me, and on a macro level.  The ability to express myself clearly on paper was a gift given to me, and it would be a sin, and a shame to not use it in the spirit, or for the reason, it was given.

I will get back to writing regularly again.  Even if I have to put it on my calendar and prop my eyelids open to do it. I don't want to let my song go unheard, as it were, in the service of practicality. Even at what is thought of as the old age of 45, there is still a story or two left in me that I think worth telling, and it is completely up to me to make sure that they get told.

There is also the small matter of the novel I keep promising my kids that I am going to write.  Even if it is just to prove that it is possible to start, and finish, a passion project.  I still have a lot to write about.  I just have to start, again.

So I am sure you noticed that I haven't written much lately.

2016 knocked me for multiple loops, and the stress going in to 2017 wasn't much better.  Although I had developed the habit of writing every week, soon it devolved to every 2 weeks, then every month.  It wasn't that I lacked anything to say; I had lost my writing ritual, and re-gaining it has been one of my great challenges.

Actually, during this last year or so, as my children and I have adapted to any number of startling and profound changes, we have found that a number of our rituals have either been seriously modified, or eliminated altogether.  We are not living in what we had once defined as normal circumstances, so we adapt as we can to a narrower version of what normal looks like today. Less material things, unless they are a necessity, was of course the first change we made.  Living in a motel room the size of an efficiency apartment necessitates that we keep the "stuff" down to an absolute minimum. With a growing teenager, clothes need to be purchased at intervals to make sure they fit properly, and are not worn out.  Space needs dictate that for everything that comes in, something else must go out.  Such is the law of living in small spaces.  And with a small kitchen with little storage space, groceries are bought while keeping in mind where exactly can said groceries be stored, and for how long.

With every item or habit that was left behind with our last place there were a couple of little rituals that take place around my pay days that I kept in place, at least to the extent that I could.  I suppose that because even in trying times, evn the smallest thing can lend a little comfort.

For both of my children, I have collected some item that they expressed interest in.  For my son, it was Hot Wheels cars, which we unfortunately lost in our former storage unit.  For my daughter, it's Hello Kitty: when I can find them, the tiny, Beanie Babies, and when they are not expensive, the larger plushie dolls.  With the ravages of both early adolescence and ADHD wreaking havoc on my already stressed daughter's emotional state, the Hello Kittys function both as a little reward for continuing to keep it together, even if not perfectly, and at all times, and a reminder that we will get to a place where she can get the remainder of her collection out of storage, and display it again.  Our lives weren't always this way, nor will they always be this way.  The world is fluid, and nothing always remains the same. So in that way, the Hello Kittys also represent a kind of hope; the hope that at some point, our lives can return to some semblance of the normal that we used to know.

I surprised a couple of my co-workers the other day by stating that I have never been on a vacation in my entire adult life.  Never.  Anytime I use vacation days, I either have something to do, somewhere to go, or I have to, for some reason or another.  And even then, I usuallyend up performing some task or running some errand that I otherwise would not have had time to do.  Or as my daughter put it last night, when I commented that we didn't have anything that we had to do until late tomorrow, so we could relax during the day, "No.  You will find SOMETHING that needs to be done.  You always do."

Guilty.

As a single parent of two people with moderate to severe issues, I find myself often in the unenviable position of hyper-awareness of the kids moods (a survival skill), and micro-management of their needs to make sure that their issues don't overwhelm their achievements.  This is a second full-time job outside of my regular full-time job, and that is with only advising my son, who as an adult, still has some level of difficulty managing his own affairs.  With my daughter, I am seemingly always in full "Mother on top of everything" mode: emailing teachers, touching base with her sitter, and generally making sure that I am never caught off guard by any of her words or actions.  Or lack thereof.  I am "on" at all times, and rarely ever alone, either at home or in the car.

Which is why I try to protect my payday Friday breakfast.

I work an alternate work schedule, called a 9/80.  All this means is that I still work 80 hours, it's just compressed into 9 days instead of 10, which results in me having a day off every other week.  My regular day off is the Friday after payday.  So my RDO ritual is basically unchanged since my daughter started school: On my day off, I take her to school myself, which she loves, run whatever errands I need to run, and I treat myself to a breakfast that is NOT fast food: cooked by someone else, in a restaurant, and served to me on a plate that I do not have to was myself.  Mercifully, thanks to places like Dennys and Norms, this is something that can be done inexpensively, but it is one small pleasure I reserve for myself, once every two weeks.  I get to eat one meal alone.  No moderating arguments.  No trying to engage a bored teen in conversation from the other side of a phone.  No warnings about only ordering something if you are going to eat it.  Just my favorite meal of the day, eaten in peace, with some favorite reading material by my side, and a cup of coffee that I can drink while it is still warm.

Of course as my financial situation has fluctuated, I have had to occasionally forgo this part of my day off Friday ritual, and I feel seriously deprived when that happens.  Much like Ashley with the Hello Kittys, this is sometimes my only little glimpse of joy, and reminder that not life was always this way. Sometimes it is my gift to myself for continuing to do what I know is the right thing to do, even as my paycheck disappears into bills and obligations the minute I get it.  I suppose I see it as a little act of defiance:  I am bold enough to spend $10-15 on myself, by myself, once every two weeks. My little admission being that I do need some sort of little break to make up for the vacations that I don't take.

Which I am hoping to change in the next couple of years.  With two of my sisters and my mother to soon be out of town, I now have a reason to try to find ways to get out and travel.  What with taking real vacations, and actually going somewhere, I may not need my small rituals anymore.  But I may just keep them, just because.  Comforts, even small ones, are hard to find, and worth keeping when you find them.

I was a reader long before I was a writer.

I didn't come to avid reading naturally, or early.  I ended up learning to read early because my great grandmother ran a daycare, and I was around when she was helping everyone with homework.  My ability to read well at an early age was a nifty parlor trick that got a tiny version of me lots of attention from the big people, so I read everything I could in order to show off at pick-up time.  I clearly remember picking up a copy of a flyer that got sent home with one of the kids off of the table and reading it.  No one thought I could possibly read every word on the flyer, so my great grandmother told me to read it out loud.  Imagine everyone's surprise when the 1st grader sounded out the word "auditorium" without any assistance, or prompting.

Although reading assignments for school were never an issue for me, reading for pleasure never really crossed my mind until 7th grade.  I will always remember 7th grade, specifically, because that's when I was introduced to the teen novel "The Outsiders".  I finished the book in a couple of sittings, and light years ahead of the class.  I loved it, and ended up not only re-reading it, but reading all of S.E.Hinton's novels because I was so fascinated by the world of teens and young adults in the Oklahoma of the late 50's and early 60's that she drew on as inspiration for her novels.  From then on, I was drawn to the world of fiction, and reading became one of my favorite pastimes.I read all of the youth and young adult fiction of the time, and by high school had developed a serious appreciation for cheesy romance novels (ok, ok.  I was just reading for the steamy parts. I was a repressed kid from a slightly conservative family. It happens.)

What really turned me on to reading, not just fiction, but prose, essays, and other points of view, was something I wasn't even supposed to be reading.

Those of us born in the late 60's and 70's, and were in our teens in the 80's and 90's were the last great generation of latch-key kids.  We came straight home from school (more or less), and let ourselves in with our own set of keys.  In our house, that means we picked up the mail off the floor, and left it on a nearby table where my parents would see it when they walked in.

Among the bills, junk mail and sales papers, were my Dad's copy of Reader's Digest.  Once a month, he availed himself of short articles, jokes, quotes, and points of view that may have been opposite his own.  What initially intrigued me about Reader's Digest was the Table of Contents listed on the cover.  I have always been the kind of person that once something caught my eye, I just HAD to read it.  Now being that this was my Dad's subscription, and I didn't exactly have permission to read it before he did, my tween mind saw the challenge as reading it very carefully, so as not to wrinkle or bend the pages, and put it back before he got home.

My Dad, who caught on very quickly to the slightly bent pages, told me in a very amused voice one evening, that although he had no problem with me reading it, just let him read it first, then he would happily leave it out for me to read.

This began my current life long love affair with the little magazine, and introduced me to two writers, among others, who would inform my style of writing for the ext 30-plus years.

I was first introduced to Erma Bombeck during my son's infancy, when I read a short, humor piece that had been re-printed from one of her many books.  I am not kidding when I say that I was desperately looking for information after I had my son, as I was only 21 years old, and had no idea what I was doing.  Because parenting has always been a competitive sport, I was completely unaware that I could laugh at things like potty-training, kids saying embarassing things at exactly the wrong moment, and 1000 other little things that can drive you crazy when raising little people.  Being able to read Erma's funny, and ultimately, wise, little tidbits got me through so much of my son's childhood, and also showed me that you don't always have to write James Michener length novels in order to be a writer.  Sometimes simplicity is the best tool in your toolbox.

This simplicity is what drew me to the next essayist.  Several years after I started reading Erma Bombeck's work, I was introduced to the quiet, reflective world of Robert Fulghum.  I was introduced to his work the same way many people were: via the essay "All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten".  Of course it's not comprehensive, but I was stunned at his phiolosophical, but very straightforward, take on life.  Sometimes, he mused, the answers to our big questions in life are found in the places we are least likely to look: our humble beginnings.  Reading through his body of work after that, I continued to see that same warmth, wit and wisdom displayed on every topic he covered from his pursuit of a favorite meal, to interactions with neighbors, to his hindsight regarding the practice of religion.  With Fulghum, I realized that not only is humility the better part of philosophy, it might be the best part.

And it is with humility, dear readers, that I leave you with this last post of an incredibly long and somewhat painful year.  I will return next year, my fourth year in this exercise, with what I hope will be with, wisdom, and some insight into this space we all share.  You have been kind, and exceptionally patient with my musings over the last 3 1/2 years.  I also hope that I can be a little more consistent with my content in the coming year, as there will be so much to talk about.

Good Night, Dear Readers.  Take care, and Be well.

It is a warm, mid-September  early evening here in the South Bay.  The children are out of the house, and I am "resting", and preparing to go back to work, after a week of fighting the flu.  As I listen to the traffic racing by just outside my window, I contemplate the past few months: the summer, as it were, of my discontent.

I am sure that you noticed that I haven't written anything in a while.  There were quite a few attempts, but at no point could I get past more than a few sentences.

My father, Milton Washington, died on May 19th in Little Rock, Arkansas, where he was living, one week before he was to escort his youngest daughter, my younger sister, down the aisle at her wedding.  In what was likely to be one of the strangest emotional moments in our lives, my sisters and I found ourselves preparing for both my sister's wedding, and our father's funeral, all in the same week.  I wrote my father's obituary on a Saturday morning, emailed it to my older sister, then dressed my daughter to be an attendant in her aunt's wedding, heading out to the celebration shortly after.  It was a wonderful service and celebration, tinged with just a hint of the bittersweet, for the glaring absence of someone that was supposed to be there.  And the day after my sister returned from her honeymoon, we help my father's funeral.

May was a helluva month.

Yesterday, we had our father's ashes scattered over the spot in the Santa Monica mountains just opposite of where they filmed the TV show MASH, which was one of his favorite shows.

On Monday, September 19th, he would have been 66 years old.

And except for a brief moment, the moment I found out for sure that he was gone, I haven't cried.

Shock, grief, anger and regret have played through my mind and heart at various times over the last few months, sometimes overlapping at odd junctures where you wouldn't expect them.  But I had supposed that because he lived in another state, and I hadn't seen him in a bit, I thought I would just have a delayed reaction.

Or not.

If you talk to each of his three daughters, like the stories in the synoptic gospels, you will get slightly different versions of the same person.  Milton gave each of his daughter's a different side of him, neither perfect, nor horrific, but ultimately, entirely too human: another person muddling his way through life, doing the best he could with the tools he had.  One could argue that his preferred methods for coping with a relatively young marriage and parenthood in the early 70's left something to be desired, but one could also argue that despite the psychological bumps and emotional bruises that come along with a person trying to figure out parenting while still trying to grow up himself, we three girls actually turned out none the worse for wear. Two Master's Degrees and a skilled trades-person aren't bad outcomes.

Maybe my own guilt over an un-returned voice mail, figuring that I would see him in a week anyway, and was in no mood for one of his long phone conversations, and admitting to myself that I was sort of avoiding him.

Or perhaps it was the realization that, rather than spending anymore time or emotional energy replaying the past, even if in an effort to repair anything I though wrong or off, I was now forced to push forward, as now nothing could ever be said again, to explain or rationalize our common story with the wholly uncommon elements.

And Dad has gone, and we go on...

It is interesting to contemplate; this relationship between sons and their mothers.

Especially when the mother in question is parenting on her own.

I have talked extensively in this space about my darling daughter: her wit, her intelligence, her perseverance in the face of circumstances that might hobble another child.
​
But I don't say nearly as much about my son.

​Possibly because, in my own mind, I'm not really sure how to talk about him.

There is a certain group of mothers whose sons can do no wrong.  No matter what is going on in their lives, their sons are heroes.  Everything they touch turns to gold, or will, eventually.  In all honesty, they have every right to be proud of the accomplishments their sons have made.  They have made every correct turn, always taken the right path, and have remained steadily on course for eventual success.

​On the other end of the spectrum are the mothers whose sons made terrible choices, and are either incarcerated, dead, or well on their way to either fate.  Some of these mother tried everything they could to make sure that their sons had decent lives, but in the end, none of that mattered.  This is NOT the way their sons were raised, and the man they see is not the boy they saw growing up.  This is the group most vilified in popular media.  Especially if there was no father in the home.  The reason for the absence of the male parent doesn't matter; there was no male role model, so any and all parenting was pre-determined to end in failure.

And then there are those sons that fall into neither group.  Neither reaching the lofty heights of perceived success, nor the terrifying lows of a life gone tragically off course.  They are flailing somewhere in the middle, quite literally neither here, nor there.  Sometimes they are continuing their education post high school; sometimes they are working; most times they have no idea what they really want to do.  They are not bad people, often telling those that inquire about their latest change in direction because in all honesty they've changed their mind so many times even they can't remember what they originally wanted to do.

It is in this wispy gray area that my son exists.  Funny, talented, and utterly frustrated by his own shortcomings as he embarks on his latest run at getting his life to the point where the world determines it should be: a 23 year old should have a job, a car, and his own apartment, excuses be damned.  It is a different relationship, this one between a parent, and an adult child with an issue or two that may be hindering his ability to move as fast as his peers or get the same results.  Me, the parent, trying to be both understanding, as I have been through a great deal of this already, (with a child to take care of to boot), and nurturing but firm, without being pushy or nagging; and Him, the son, wanting badly to be the independent young man, running to make up for past missteps, and trying to deal with the issues that are preventing the move forward.  All while dealing with a certain level of snarky condescension from adults who are supposed to be in a position to help, advise, or at least encourage him get to the next steps in his journey, but are far too jaded to be of any real assistance.

As I watch him crawl, walk, run, stumble and fall, then start the process all over again in an effort to reach this or that goal, I marvel at  his willingness to keep trying until he find out what fits him in a world that expects all young people to identify a goal as soon as possible, then stick with it until the end.  There was no promotion ceremony from Elementary school or Middle school for this son. And after going far too long without any help for a learning difference, and it's related co-morbities, no high school graduation either, as he dropped out.  I observed during a frustrated conversation with him one night that I have spent most of his life waiting for him to FINISH something.  As I study his hurt, defeated and angry eyes, I realize that I just want to be able to brag about my son the way I hear my friends bragging about theirs, which is completely unfair to him.  We have come up through some strange and trying times, this young man and I, and as hard as it is for me to realize that it is even harder for him, this teetering between where he is and where he wants to be.  The burden of managing other people's expectations, as ridiculous as they sometimes are, is now on his shoulders, and he is finding that the yoke of adulthood can strangle just as fast, if not faster, than the one he wore as a child.

Occasionally, I look back over the times and struggles we've had over these last going on 24 years now, and wonder how he made it through, even when I admittedly was still learning how to be an adequate parent. I love my son, obviously, and was always determined to do right by him, even at enormous personal cost to myself, if that's what it took.  I look at him now, and see traces of both his father, and myself: His father's temperament, mellowed by my sense of the absurd; his father's hair and chin, with my eyes and nose; His father's nonchalance about most politics, mixed with my passion about issues that affect me directly. In the midst of this, he still manages to be uniquely himself, which is all he should ever be required to be.

Really, this is the story of patience for a late bloomer, in a world that expects early and continual success.  But the rose that blooms latest smells just as sweet as the rose that bloomed first.  We just have to continue to nourish, water, prune, and WAIT, until the rose is ready.  Like all things in nature, it will happen when the time is right, not when we want it to.

​As it should be.

 May I be completely honest with you for a minute?

I wasn't always a Christian.

I mean that to say that while I was raised in church (first Baptist, then non-denominational, a long stretch of non-attendance, and now Lutheran), the early part of my life was a lot of ritual performed out of habit, always doing what had always been done.  How I actually lived, however, was an endless loop of experiences and regret when those experiences didn't turn out the way I thought they would.  Or to be honest, I couldn't get away with what I saw my friends getting away with, at least not completely unscathed.  We all called ourselves Christians; we had all been raised in church, and knew, at least peripherally, that there were certain expectations for our lives and behavior, we just chose not to meet them.

Looking back from a vantage point of 20-plus years, I now realize that we were part of a very common group of Christians.  We called ourselves Christian more out of habit than anything else, but our personal practice of it was incidental at best, and completely non-existent at worst.  This is not a condemnation.  There is a time in every young person who was raised in a religious household's life, when they begin to question what they were taught, and if that is what they still believe.  It is a natural part of growth, and an important transition from merely practicing your parents faith, to forming your own point of view, and spiritual life.

Or not.  I suppose this is why I have no quarrel with questioners, atheists, or anyone who has a different spiritual practice than I do.  Different points of view are a healthy part of a functioning society. Especially considering the behavior of some of us Christians.  I will be the first to admit that sometimes it's our own behavior that gives people pause.

At some point, I posted on Facebook that I didn't have an issue with either this song or a couple of others that were either denying the existence of God outright, or at least seriously questioning everything those of us who were raised in a faith environment, were taught to believe.  Although, viewing the above video now, I notice how many of these disasters are really the results of man's greed, selfishness, and contempt for everything and anybody that has no personal benefit to himself.  We Christians are not immune to these same characteristics, and I wonder if part of the reason most denominations are seeing a drop in weekly attendance is a lack of critical self examination that might reveal what part we play in the problem of how Christianity is popularly perceived.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7fkjv_pet-shop-boys-it-s-a-sin-1987_music

The video linked above, for the song titled "It's a Sin" by English band The Pet Shop Boys, shows songwriter Neil Tennant's take on his Catholic upbringing in England.  Based on personal accounts of those who no longer attend services, the Catholic Church seemed to depend on guilt over perceived sins as a means of gaining obedience to entrenched church doctrine.  The entrenched church doctrine being at least part of the problem.  I give the current Pope, Francis, a lot of credit for trying to change the direction of the Catholic church to at least be somewhat more inclusive.  While he is being applauded for practicing the philosophy "Change Begins at the Top", this still might not stop the slow trajectory of individuals and families away from weekly attendance and participation.  There is a very different set of questions for that.

This song, "Loving the Alien" by David Bowie, delves a bit into Christian history, and the origins of our faith.  It asks more questions than it answers, which is kind of the point.  How much do we really know about the faith we practice?  And if we knew more, would that make us better practitioners of our own faith?  Would we still lie, steal, gossip, backbite?  Would we still practice usury, mean-spiritedness, and spew vile rhetoric at others, as well as each other, then still stand before the world and continue to call ourselves Christian?  Will we continue to teach our children one thing, do another, then try to cover it all with "Do as I say, Not as I do", knowing that just underneath the surface, it is our hypocritical nature that is driving the younger generation out of church more than anything else?

Spirituality is as old as the Earth itself, organized religion has existed for thousands of years, and while I doubt either of these things is going to change anytime soon, our approach is going to have to.  Not just in terms of how we get our message out to the world, but how we conduct ourselves while teaching it.  We will never be able to answer those honest questions, if the askers' are so turned off by the messenger that they don't bother to ask.

Methinks that's where our true challenge is coming from.