Everybody has a "thing": a certain little something that catches your notice when you first meet someone.  Because no one can immediately see what kind of personality a person has, more than likely your initial "thing" will be something physical.  And we all know some body part aficionados: legs, breasts, hair.  We are all at least a little guilty of being mesmerized by some aspect of another person's outward appearance.

I am just as guilty as anybody.  I am about as into male objectification as most single women my age.  I marveled at the well formed bodies of the men in Magic Mike, and I enjoy the, ahem, sight seeing on warm days in Southern California, when men turn to tank tops and shorts for relief from the heat.

But if I were to be completely honest, I would admit that I am a huge sucker for a beautiful pair of eyes.  Color doesn't matter.  I always thought it was a cliche that the eyes were the windows to the soul.  I don't know if I would go quite that far, but I know that really paying attention, and looking right at people during a conversation, can often tell you almost all you need to know about that person.

It's a habit I picked up after taking a class on work habits and study skills at a local community college.  We went through a section on different types of listening, and I was most struck by the instructor's definition of active listening: When you are completely silent, and absolutely focused on the person you are in a conversation with.  

Far beyond just looking away when they are not telling the complete truth (and even that isn't always necessarily true), you will always be able to get pretty close to what's going on with people internally if you watch their eyes during a conversation.  You will learn that even while smiling and insisting that they are "okay",someone's eyes can tell you that they are actually in the worst pain of their lives.  It takes a lot of learned empathy to see a person's life through their eyes, not just their words.  I've heard people say the sweetest things, while seeing the judgement and condescension in their eyes.  It was more than a touch disconcerting, and unfortunately confirmed suspicions I already harbored about those same people.

If I ever decide that I want to be in another relationship, I hope to find a person with nice eyes.  Not blue or green or hazel necessarily.  Although those would be nice, I mean a person whose eyes show me that kindness and understanding are a part of their internal makeup.  I've mentioned before that as much as I like a pretty face, internal qualities are extremely important, and we all need somewhere to start ascertaining what those qualities are.  I figure the eyes are as good a place to start as any.

  It's been a pretty quiet day.

For the first time in months, there was no reason to rise early.  My daughter slept until she was ready to wake up, and we both lounged around, watching movies, reading, and generally enjoying the day until we were ready to go to the restaurant for dinner.  We had a nice, unhurried dinner, and returned home in a happy food coma.  A glass of wine later, while finishing a movie I had started before dinner, I sat back and considered the day.


This was our first Thanksgiving without my son, and my younger sister, whom we generally hung out with for the last couple of Thanksgivings was out of town.  We are living in a motel room with only a microwave and a refrigerator.  My car is making a weird noise, and Tuesday afternoon, the seat started this weird lean to one side.  In theory, I should have been slightly unhappy about today.

What I actually feel, is blessed.  There is a roof over my daughter's and my head.  There are a lot of people that can't say that.  We were able to go to a restaurant for dinner,  Might not be what I had in mind, but at least we were able to do that:  there are plenty of people who could not.  My car note pretty much busted my budget for the next two weeks, but I am able to maintain my transportation, as I remember what my life was like on the bus.

What I have chosen, on this day, and everyday, is gratitude.  My situation is not all it could be, but today, and everyday, I maintain that there will always be someone in more dire circumstances that I, and that I should be grateful for the blessings I do have.  Always strive to do, and be, better, but never forget to be thankful for the small things you do have.

This occurs to me as we in the US prepare for Black Friday, the day when stores open frighteningly early in the morning to entice consumers to start spending for Christmas gifts for family and friends.  In all honesty, the large retailers hope to appeal to the shopper's latent feelings of something missing in their lives that they hope to get them to fill up with more stuff.  Coming on the heals of Thanksgiving, the day of gratitude for what you currently have, it's especially ironic to have all of the advertising leading up to this day focused on convincing you that you absolutely need to add something new to your life or home.  In fact, you need it so badly that you are willing to camp out overnight for it, and fight other shoppers for it.  Maybe if we could learn to be more grateful for what we already have, we could start to avoid the inevitable scenes of violence that we see every year over the Thanksgiving holidays.

I refuse to be a part of the madness. Yes, this is the start of the Holiday season, but I will not be joining the insane crowds.  I will remember what I have, and where I am, and find ways to revel in some kind of peace.  The one thing in really short supply, that we can definitely use more of.  Perhaps a short hike, a trip to the park, or maybe just a walk around the block.  So long as it is something that will get me outside for a little while, away from the TV, with all of it's non-stop advertising, and finding some small sliver of peace in the outdoors.  

Have a peaceful day, Dear Reader.

I'm not generally a person to let my gas tank get to the point where the Low Fuel Indicator turns on.

I know that running one's vehicle with the tank so close to empty will eventually harm the fuel pump, among other things, and that is bad for the car in general.  But there I was, on a Monday evening, on my way home from work when the indicator light came on, with my paycheck not hitting the bank until early Wednesday morning, and still needing to get my daughter back and forth to her daily before and after care, and myself round trip to the Metro station for work.  All I could do for the next day was pray that my car would start, and just get me to where I needed to go until Wednesday.  I had to go as far as I could before the one gallon left in the reserve portion of the gas tank ran completely out.

It was a VERY long couple of days.

I thought about this again over Halloween weekend, as I watched my daughter try mightily through two extremely long days that started with a 6:30am wake-up to get ready for school (and get into costume for the school's Halloween festivities), a full day at school, followed by a sleepover for a friend's birthday, in which very little sleeping actually happened, but a couple of dips in a hotel pool which did a number on her pressed, 4C hair, getting back on Saturday, which was Halloween, around 2:00, followed by eating while I ran my errands, only to get back to our room to endure the 2 hour ordeal that was washing, conditioning, de-tangling (an unholy mess!), and blow drying her by then dry and very matted hair.  By then it was time to get into Halloween costume #2 for trick or treating and a Halloween party for grownups and kids given by some good friends of ours later on.

Unlike a car that might start sputtering when low on gas, my daughter got unusually cranky and overly picky about little things when hitting her reserves.  The costume itched, and the wig I had purchased to go with the costume was driving her crazy.  The friends she was to go trick or treating with were running a bit late, and she fussed about that until they showed up. She mustered enough energy for a festive round of trick or treating, but I could tell after an hour or so that she was definitely starting to get tired.  By the time we parted ways with her friends drove to the party, and grabbed something to eat and drink, I could tell that she wasn't going to last too much longer.  My daughter then proceeded to lean against my arm, and fall fast asleep in the middle of an extremely loud, boisterous party.  It was very difficult to wake her up, walk her to the car, get back to the room, then wake her up a second time in order to get her into the room, and ready for bed.

She had just done the human equivalent of "running on fumes": pushing herself to use every last bit of energy until she quite literally had nothing left, and had to rest to replenish.

I am considering this as I listen to the local news while watching my daughter sleep on an early Sunday morning.

Soon, this peace will give way to the normal noises of my daughter and I preparing for our weekly church service, although this Sunday, we will be visiting our sister church to sing.

There are a lot of people who wonder about those like me:  This group who regularly rouse themselves out of a comfortable bed on a weekly basis to attend a worship service.  For me, it is the equivalent of refilling my tank, after a long week of having my faith challenged, tested, and almost run into the ground.  Especially when I've been going through some iteration or other of the same issue for a long period of time.  My father calls those pro-longed faith fights.  You pray and pray, and do everything physically, that you are supposed to do to change, or improve, your situation, but there is no movement for long periods of time. These issues can drain you, physically and spiritually.  My method of replenishment is to spend a few hours each week among kind, like minded people (Not to say that there isn't anyone there that is mean-spirited or petty.  I've just become an expert at avoiding the overwhelmingly negative.) who may or may not have been through what I've been through, and at least TRY to understand.  I need that little bit of understanding and empathy to get through my own dark moments when I wonder if any of my ongoing efforts are ever going to yield any results.

It's getting late, and I need to get dressed.  I suppose I could talk a bit more about how it's other Christians that make it hard for Christians to be Christians, but that is a subject for another post.

​Time to go refill my tank.

This was the last photo taken in the apartment my daughter and I vacated over the last couple of days.

The same apartment we felt so blessed to get into in a hurry right after Thanksgiving last year that, while not a complete nightmare, was definitely a HUGE disappointment.  Or whatever you want to call mice, ants, mysterious water leaks that we never did discover the source of, and in the final couple of days, an industrial sized cockroach that opted to menace us, first from the hallway, then from inside the apartment.

When it finally occurred to me that I didn't know when the Sheriff was coming to lock us out, my daughter and I went into a flurry of getting as much of our stuff could fit into my car into storage, then refilling the car with the stuff we were going to need day to day.  My rules for my daughter were simple, "Grab anything that actually means something to you, and pack it in the box you have.  In the bucket, only pack things you can actually fit, and wear on a regular basis."  Of course some things got left behind, including the vast majority of our large furniture and appliances.  I grabbed some pots and pans that it would be very difficult to replace, as well as my Tupperware (You will pry my Tupperware, especially my few nice pieces, from my cold, dead hands), and tossed those in storage yesterday.  But for a couple of chairs that my daughter and I fit into the hatch of my car, and our electronic items, whenever we get another place, my daughter and I will be completely starting over.  As I stated to my daughter over and over again while this was going on: "It's only stuff."

One of the Bible stories that kept occurring to me over and over again during this particular go round with my housing situation was the story of Job.  For some reason, I was taken with the idea of studying the story of Job in depth during Lent a couple of years ago.  The short version of the story is that Job was actually a good guy, and Satan suggested to God that Job was only praising him and faithful because he was successful and didn't want or need anything, and his kids were healthy and happy.  So Satan bet God that if Job lost everything, he wouldn't still be happy and faithful and praising Him.  God basically told Satan to do what he wanted, so long as you don't kill him.  Satan took God up on it, and made sure Job lost everything: money, livelihood, family, house, eventually, even his health.  Job's friends came around to tell him what a loser he was, and how everything that was happening was probably his fault in some way shape or form, and how he should just leave all this God business alone, and just die already.  Job wasn't having any of it, which he told his friends to their faces, although privately he whined to God, "What did I do?  Are you mad at me, or something?"  After a couple of rounds of God telling Job not to tell Him His job (a summary of a much longer conversation), God eventually restored everything that was lost and destroyed back to Job, and the narration of the Bible resumes.

I again contemplated the story of Job as I prepared to possibly spend Sunday night in my car with my daughter as I didn't get paid until Wednesday, and I had spent the remainder of the money I had left getting what of our stuff we could into storage.  I burst into frustrated tears as the one thing that terrified me, my biggest fear that I had been doing everything possible to avoid, visited me for the second time inside of one year.  Watching my daughter watch me, I realized that I had a decision to make.

Was this going to bend me, or break me?

After a series of texts and phone calls, I secured a few days at my sister's place until I could get a motel room for us, some phone numbers that I called today (every homeless service in my area is taped out beyond belief: http://www.dailybreeze.com/social-affairs/20150512/homelessness-jumps-39-percent-in-south-bay-12-percent-in-la-county-in-past-two-years ), and in general started making plans to live in motels until I find a way to put it all back together again.  Again.

Like Job, I finally understand a few things about this life.  Although old Job was blameless, I made a few mistakes along the way, and I earnestly tried to fix them.  It didn't necessarily work, obviously.  But like Job, I know that losing my Faith just because things appear to be at a dead end, would be the worst thing that I could do.  Especially right now.  I am already putting in the hard work to improve my situation and repair my credit.  Everything I was raised to believe as a Christian tells me that so long as I continue doing the right things to put my life back together, God will meet me more than halfway.  The Spiritualist/Humanist version of this says that What you put out into the Universe is what the Universe gives back to you, and often more so.  So we all agree that hard work and blessings often go hand in hand.  Which is the face I want to show my daughter while all  of this is going on.

The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part. Job 42:12

I hope so.  I sincerely hope so.
​
​

Well, Dear readers, this is something new. Although I have been down eviction road before, it has never gone this far. I've usually been blessed to find another place rather quickly, and pull it all together, and move on. Not this time. Although I am making every effort to get it together, I have to be gone by COB on Monday. Or, first thing Tuesday morning, I lose everything that I haven't moved.

Once you have an eviction on your record, most PMFs will not rent to you under any circumstances. Even if the circumstances that caused the eviction have changed, or you have tamed (sort of) the payday loan beast, an eviction is an eviction, and owners mostly don't want to take that chance anymore. le sigh.
I wish I had never taken out even one of those doggone loans. I feel like not only am I going to be paying for it for the rest of my life, now it's affecting my daughter as well, which is the one thing I was trying to avoid. This has been quite the learning experience. One that I fear is not quite over yet.
​
This is going to be one long, strange weekend.


ETA:  A friend of mine suggested the I do a Go Fund Me to help with my living situation in the meantime. Pride-wise, especially since I have been through this before, AND very recently, at first I rejected the idea. But I swallowed my pride and did it anyway: https://www.gofundme.com/2r62yfjs

​Sometimes, I hate my life.  Will I ever live down my mistakes?  Only time will tell.

To His Holiness, Pope Francis:

I don't know if you read or even accept correspondence from non-Catholics, but I opted to write to you to let you know that you have quite a few admirers among the general populace here in the United States.  I live on the west coast, in California, and I don't have the means to make the trip to the East Coast to see you in person, so I will have to follow your visit via television when I can.  I look forward to hearing your calls for social justice, economic equality, and responsible stewardship of our natural resources.

Your holiness, this openness, and unprecedented concern for the least among us, is the reason so many people have taken to you.  In a world where it seems that those with the resources and power to change the circumstances of those around them could seem to care less, you are in a unique position.  You are the first person that I can recall, in my admittedly short 43 years on the Earth, to have the kind of authority needed to speak the truth about social and economic injustice, without being shouted down by those who profit from violence and poverty.  You can speak freely and from the heart about such issues as greed, wrath, and injustice without being accused of ulterior motives.  You have a position from which to shine a light on the so often overlooked people of this world, which coming from someone with your power is so rare that it is actually non-existent.  

Your Holiness will never know how much those of us here in the trenches, just struggling to get by day to day, appreciate your willingness to give voice to the rest of us.  Not just the poor, but the much maligned working class, and the rapidly shrinking middle class, who are finally starting to understand that the bottom line here in America is profit, no matter the human cost.

Which leads me to the prayer.  As a Christian, I understand the concept of prayer as a necessary, and integral part of everyday life.  Especially for you, Your Holiness, as you travel into what might turn out to be hostile political territory, which it shouldn't be, but you never know with some people, particularly when uncomfortable truths and flaws are being pointed out.  Of course, my particular brand of Christianity, which mixes in some progressive and feminist ideology, means that we are not going to agree on every issue, but I identify with enough of what you say that I certainly hope that those in power here in the US, will listen carefully to what you say, specifically about the economy and the environment, and take it under consideration rather than just discarding it out of hand.

Your Holiness, I pray for traveling mercies as you travel to the United States, and for the entirety of your visit.  I pray that hearts and minds will be touched by your visit, and lives will be changed for the better by what words are spoken while you are here.  And even if there is disagreement with something that is sung or preached, I pray that everyone will find at least one positive takeaway from your mission here in the US.  I pray that you will enjoy your stay here in the US, however brief it is, and that you will know the depth of the commitment of the citizenry to at the very least attempting to help the helpless, care for the environment, and do our very best to become the good people that we want to be. I have always believed that there is something in every sermon, or every word that is preached that will have a special meaning to someone, even if it is only one person in the audience, that could spark a change that will positively impact the rest of their lives.  I pray that your visit will spark that positive change here in the United States, not just for the elite class, but for everyone.

I look forward to your visit later this week, and reading more of your statements on the world we live in.  I wish more people in power had your courage and vision, but maybe this may just spur more of them to think more about the people they depend on to vote for them, and less about the people that pay for the campaigns.

Wishful thinking, I know, but a Christian (Ok, Lutheran, but who's counting?), can dream, right?

Yours in Christ,

Erica

Being raised by Southern women, I was raised to believe that it was somewhat impolite to talk about money.

Talking about all of the material things you owned was both unwise, as it could be considered advertising to thieves, and could be construed as bragging, which was considered tacky.

Lamenting the things you didn't have made you seem ungrateful for whatever you DID have, which would get you labeled as a whiner, especially considering that we were all working class, so the majority of us had just enough money to have modest used cars while living in lower middle class suburbs around those of similar income and education.  The adults would joke around about being behind on bills, but shushed when we kids came around, and there was always some small gift or celebration for birthdays and holidays, so that we never (or rarely anyway) felt the sting of what our parents were going through, financially.  The big takeaway was to only buy what you could afford, and to avoid huge amounts of debt, if at all possible.  We learned that all gains could be lost very quickly when we saw our parents going through the Reagan era layoffs, and some of our standards of living changed dramatically.

Generation X internalized our parents attitudes about money, for better and for worse.  Most of us got some sort of secondary education because we realized that real, long-term prospects for a career, not just a job, were on the other side of a college diploma, as well as the salary that came with it. We did our best to be at least somewhat financially conservative, and do as good a job as our parents in terms of balancing our needs with our wants.  Take care of business first, and maybe treat yourself to something later.  Very few of us were, or are now, flashy types that had to have the best of everything to show off how affluent we wanted other people to think we were.  We maintained, we thought, modest standards of living that could take small hits without disaster.

Or not.

I now find myself talking about money rather frequently, as I have written at length about my own financial struggles.  I knew, peripherally, that there were others, friends and family, experiencing similar difficulties, but like a lot of introverts, when trouble comes, I tend to keep to myself.  I noticed a few folks around me having difficulties, but could not focus much due to being so wrapped up in my own issues.

I began to peek out of my own cocoon of worry, shame and self doubt, and started to not only pay more attention to the world outside, but look around to see how many more people were like me; everything should have been running smoothly, but for that one accident, or tiny mistake that sent their entire world tumbling out of control.  It was far, far from uncommon.

Let me start this by saying that I am not anti-capitalist.  All economic systems have their pros and cons, and the purest forms of all systems tend towards the problematic.  But I have seen capitalism, especially as it's practiced in the United States, hurt just as many people, if not more, than those that have benefited from it.  The engine of capitalism runs on the ability of a populace to spend money on goods and services. As people spend money, business and property owners put the profit back into the business, allowing them to employ others to help with the production of goods and services.  Those people use the money they've earned to purchase goods and services, and the cycle goes on.  When any part of that cycle is interrupted, it causes a break in the system. I realize that business and property owners are meant to turn a profit; but I have often wondered if the enormous human cost is worth it.  The men and women that have been laid off repeatedly, if they are even able to find a job.  Those that go years without finding a job, and when they do find one, the huge possibility that they will be making far less than they were previously.  The ripple effect being that they now have less to spend and/or a less reliable income, so now you have homes being lost, and entire families moving from place to place based on the amount of money they have right at this moment.  Lenders and landlords have an entire court system to enforce their rights,and while you can propose arrangements, and come up with workarounds, when your income becomes not only overburdened, but a moving target, often there is only so much you can really do before the little used car (desperately needed if the public transportation is spotty, and/or the job you COULD find is quite some distance away) has to go back, or you have to pack up your family and move, yet again.

While those at the top continue to reap vast profits from getting the same amount of productivity out of a fearful, overworked remnant, who wonder if they'll be able to duck fast enough the next time the axe is swung.

Have a car breakdown, or medical emergency, or some odd unforeseen expense while adapting to your new paycheck to paycheck existence? Unless you have a great deal of backup, a large network of family, friends, or other resources that you can tap until your financial situation improves, you will be subject to those that make their living preying on the most vulnerable among us.  Loans that provide enough money to cover the sudden debt, loaned at a rate that provides an easy payment are rarely, if ever, available to those that are already facing financial difficulties from underemployment.  When laws are made to curtail the subprime lending industry, they just find ways around the laws meant to stop their predatory tactics.  All in the name of making money, of course.

It is difficult to watch those you know and care about struggle with the simple day to day tasks of keeping their families housed, clothed and fed exactly the way they were raised: get a job, pay your bills, don't buy anything too expensive if you can't afford it.  The terrible thing being that it's the necessities that they can no longer afford, as while housing (and food, and utilities) costs keep rising (and occupancy limits becoming more strict), less money is being made by fewer people.  But the owners are still making money, so this is seen as okay.

Especially troubling to me are the attacks on public sector employees.  After cutting so many middle class jobs from the private sector, now it seems the objective is to eliminate as many well paying jobs from the public sector as possible.  The public sector is the last bastion of middle class jobs in the country right now, and often the only way into the middle class for minorities.  The mass elimination of these jobs, I think, would be the final nail in the coffin of the American economy.

I have never completely understood the concept of paying people as little as humanly possible, while expecting them to spend every penny, but exhorting them to save as much as they can, then blaming them when they can't.  To me, it is the equivalent of setting someone up to fail, then mocking them when they do exactly what you expected them to do in the first place.  There are those who have learned the game well enough to get ahead of it, which is wonderful, but that number grows smaller everyday.  Which makes no sense to me.  If were in the business of selling goods and services, I would want a well paid populace, because it stands to reason that the more money people have, the more they spend, which means more money flowing through the entire economy, not just to a fair few people at the top.  THAT is how you keep an economy moving, not just flowing money to the top, and trusting that it will roll back down in the form of jobs that pay enough for people to LIVE, not just survive.

There is a man running for political office right now that might just be talking about a revolution.  Although he calls himself a Socialist, I see him as a bit of a pragmatist.  He knows working people need all the assistance they can get, and he aims to help us get it.  If I were being honest with myself, I would admit to myself that it is something that really needs to happen.  The current rapid depression of wages while costs skyrocket is not only not sustainable long term, it is creating a crisis of homelessness and poverty that, if left unchecked, is going to cause a revolution of a sort not seen since late 18th century France, and I doubt anyone currently in power wants to experience that.  If we keep doing the same things we've always done, we are going to keep getting the same results we've always got.  Time to do something different, perhaps?

But I am tired, quite possibly rambling, and have been dealing with a great deal of stress surrounding my living situation. Like so many others, the last few years have felt like a long trip over difficult terrain, and the journey not being over yet, I know I am still looking at probably another 10 miles of rough road.  Sometimes made rougher by chance, circumstance, and the fact that we live in a world where you will be made to pay, and pay dearly (and repeatedly), for whatever mistakes you make. 

Which someone will, undoubtedly, be there to profit from.

My son left for San Diego, and the Job Corps program just under two weeks ago.

My daughter is on a field trip to Knott's Berry Farm with her Daycare/Day Camp buddies.

And for the first time in quite some time, I have been in my house alone for an entire day.

No wondering when my adult son was going to wander in and out of the house, or fretting over why he wasn't doing much today, or being frustrated by the fact that he didn't seem to be making any progress.

No counting exactly six and 1/2 hours between dropping my daughter off at school, and running to go pick her up.  When she goes to amusement parks with her group, they generally close the park down, so I won't see her until much later on tonight.

And I am alone.

If I didn't have the TV to provide background noise, I would find myself listening to a new and unfamiliar silence in my home.  Not unwelcome, mind you, just unusual, considering I am used to music or several televisions or some loud phone conversation always going on somewhere around me.  It is clear that a presence that used to be here suddenly isn't, and there is something new to get used to.

I do a little cleaning, a little writing, a little binge-watching of an old favorite tv show, and even manage to sneak in a little nap.

And I contemplate a time, likely seven years from now, when this silence will be my normal.  As my daughter prepares to enter middle school, I realize that someday soon, I will be alone in the house all the time.

And I think I am ready.

I think about the many things that I have been putting off until either this child peels off, or that child is old enough to stay home alone for a little while.  I think about traveling, missionary work, writing full-time.

Like the commercial says, I begin to consider the possibilities.

All of these things occur to me as I begin my search for another place for my daughter and I to live, as this place turned from blessing to not quite what I thought it was.  I will be searching for an affordable place, nearby, for a mother and daughter, and a son who will be home on winter break only.  So occasionally, there will be again three people in the house, but mostly, there will just be two of us.  However, on my days off, when my daughter is off being an adolescent, I will be in my home, alone.

And I will enjoy it.

I think most people do a bit of idle Facebooking (Yes.  I did just make that word up.) in the mornings, just to see what friends and family got up to overnight. While scrolling through my feed one morning not long ago, dropping a "like" here, and a random comment there, I came across a meme featuring a large woman riding a bike, clearly competing in an athletic competition, seriously intent, and completely into what she was doing.  The wording on the picture was about encouraging people more than we criticize, which was all well and good, but what struck me most about this picture was the woman's obvious commitment to what she was doing.  Her focus and dedication absolutely moved me.  I wondered about her journey, how she got there, and honestly, how I could get there. 

Turns out the woman in the picture runs a website for plus-sized female athletes, featuring them in all of their triumphs and trials. Me being a plus-sized woman who wants to get more seriously into biking and hiking, but have always been rather intimidated both by my size and my clumsiness, was intrigued.  As I read article after story after blog post about these remarkable female athletes, pursuing their goals without regard to anyone else's preconceived notions of what they should be, I started to realize that I am probably my own biggest critic when it comes to my fitness goals. (Well, okay that and whenever I decide to exercise after work on a regular basis, my son suddenly finds things to do at night so he can't possibly watch his sister while I go to the gym/track/whathaveyou, doesn't really help either, but I digress.) I am also far from alone in this ongoing self negating.

The comments on most articles about any woman that is not very small or thin bear me out on this.  Although there are plenty of comments from men, which is almost to be expected, the comments from women range from hateful (the usual amount of shaming comments) to heartbreaking.  The number of women that hate themselves, and anyone else for that matter, for not conforming to an image very few people can meet has reached epidemic proportions.  Dear GOD, don't let it be an article or post about self acceptance.  If a man between the ages of 17 - 35 can't get a boner by looking at your picture, you had better not even THINK about self acceptance.  All of this will be hidden underneath a layer of barely concealed contempt, dressed in snark, and condescendingly labeled "concern for your health".

What so many of these keyboard critics don't realize is that all of the most important things about a person's life start with their perception of themselves.  Anything that starts with self hatred is destined to end in failure, and self hatred starts where inability to accept that not everyone is going to look exactly alike begins.  This is not to say that everyone shouldn't strive to be the best possible version of themselves, so much as it is reminding them that no two people are meant to look alike, and to decide for themselves what that best person looks like.  Of course there are certain industries that thrive on personal insecurity; our job is to develop a healthy enough sense of self to let these industries cater to those they may.  We can always opt out of the get thin quick schemes and harmful nonsense diet peddling.

Loving yourself first means seeking out and prioritizing what's RIGHT about yourself, rather than obsessing over flaws.  I mean your real flaws, as decided by YOU, not dictated by a popular media that has an agenda, and a product to sell.  Learning to love yourself BEFORE you begin to make changes puts you in the right mindset to stick to whatever plans you make to  change what you feel needs changing, be it looks, finances, career or location.  Everyone has at least one thing about themselves worth loving; if you don't know what that is, there are probably one too many people in your life whose favorite form of entertainment is making sure they let other people know precisely what is wrong with them, never mind the fact that their gleeful negativity is the largest part of the problem. But I digress.

By developing a healthier attitude towards yourself, you improve your outlook on most other aspects of your life, which in turn gives you the proper foundation for dealing with whatever comes your way after that.  People that love themselves first develop a sort of resilience that carries them through failures, disappointments and thornier issues, all the way out to creating better habits, completed goals, and triumph.

Like that woman in the picture, who has completed marathons, triathlons, and is an avid competitor in sports.  None of this could have been done without first loving herself enough to ignore the negativity, and pursue what SHE was interested in. I've always strived to be more of an encourager.  It's nice to know that my thinking goes along the correct lines.

I want to be like her when I grow up.

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.