Ho hum

I don't want to write today. I don't have anything rattling around my skull. I haven't had any epiphanies. I am tired and emotionally spent. I am crying and have been weepy, but there's no underlying reason.

I filled up my gas tank tonight. I usually don't, especially right before Brian gets paid. I usually put just enough gas to get through to payday. That leaves me margins to shop or whatever I need to do.

I drifted off mentally. I took a second to blank out and when I returned, the pump said $75. It was not supposed to.

Ultimately, it's not bad to have a full tank of gas. That is what I have to remember. I worked hard planning meals and so my refrigerator is full. That is a good thing.

My kids are not demanding. They don't want expensive toys or outings. Their biggest demand is for a donut. I stocked my cabinet well. I can make cookies. Then we aren't stopping everyday to buy a donut. That means I'm not tempted to buy something else. That's a good thing.

I am going to have to spend the next 5 days saying "no" a little bit more. I don't like to say no. I don't like the fallout from the kids hearing know. It makes me feel afraid. I am afraid of rejection. I could stand to say no more. That's a good thing.

It's really just five days. The thing that bothers me is that I hate living without margins. I know where my boundaries are, but I am human. I am still making mistakes, still saying yes when I should say no.

I am sad both that I have limitations and that I don't know my limitations sometimes. I am bemoaning that which we don't have (more money) instead of rejoicing in what we do have; a full gas tank, full cabinets and full hearts.

Thankfully, I am a work in progress. God is not done with me. I don't need to internalize criticism about lazy people because I am not lazy. Are we struggling? Yes. Do I hate it? Yes. But I've never worked harder at life in my life.

So maybe that's the lesson. I need to be trusting God, not myself, to meet our needs; I just need to be working on drawing closer to Him. I need to remember that his sacrifice meant there is abundant grace for me. And He will meet all my needs according to His riches in glory.

I guess I know why I'm crying. I'm overwhelmed.

Shopping Cart in the Yard: Film at Eleven (Inspired by True Events)

Those who know me know I have a temper. It's a well-documented fact. The wake my temper churns up is, I am pretty sure, similar to the wake a 30-foot yacht churns up. It's better to get out of the way and wait until the water calms down.

I have been trying desperately to contain my temper with my kids, with varying degrees of success. Jeremy and Bekah no longer take daily naps. A couple days a week I will insist that they go into their room for quiet time. It ends up being "laugh-hysterically-make-lots-of-noise-and-destroy-things" time, but at least I can have a couple of hours to get some housework done, make phone calls, watch mindless TV, whatever.

The problem is that, for reasons I don't understand, my kids have become very demanding. Let me clarify. They have always placed huge demands on me. Lately, though, they have dropped the pretense of politeness and have moved on to just using commands. "Mommy, get me milk." "Mommy, I want my shoes on." "Mommy, the movie's not going." There is no please, no thank you, no may I, no grace whatsoever.

I have tried to explain to my husband that if being a full-time stay-at-home mom is my job, which it is, it's the only job where I cannot quit. I will always be Mommy. Move me to San Diego, get me a job as a closed caption person, I'm still Mommy. Stick me in a sub under the ocean, I'm still Mommy. That's not going to change. As well, the feature of my job that I like the least is that I'm open 24/7. Brian does a good job of helping out with the kids. He does bedtime with them, plays with them, whatever. But he's useless past bedtime. I mean, drop a bomb on our house and I'm still going to have to shake him awake.

It works out that I'm a night owl, but my point is that I'm the one getting up with crying kids at night. I'm the one doing laundry, cleaning up, etc. There's never a time (even when I'm out with friends) that I won't have to run home at a moment's notice. It's just part and parcel.

Couple the demands of this job and receiving commands with two people who have stopped understanding me? (Meaning, when I talk to them in English, their dominant language, they gaze upon me with blank stares.) Well, then you get a shopping cart in the yard.

The kids had open house at their preschool today. I was excited for them to get to see their classrooms again, meet their new classmates and maybe do a small art project or two. Breakfast went okay and I was making my usual requests of them (take off your pajamas, pull-ups in the garbage, dishes in the sink) while concurrently getting dinner in the Crock Pot.

They even did okay at preschool. They played well with their friends, had a good time catching up and even had a cookie. The real problem came when we got home. As soon as I set foot inside the door, they were demanding lunch. As I was making their sandwiches and slicing up veggies for them, they were demanding lunch. As I was serving them their food, they were demanding even more lunch. I have started to tell them that I'm not a magician. I cannot conjure up food and make it magically appear. I cannot start a movie while attending to my needs in the powder room. I cannot make milk appear in a sippy cup without first removing the lid. I'm a great mommy, but I'm humble enough to realize I have limitations.

Not more than 30 seconds after lunch was served, eaten and Doug went down for a nap, Bekah was asking me for crackers. Not asking. Commanding me to give them to her. I almost fell for it, but then stopped when I saw she hadn't finished her lunch. I told her that she should finish her pretzels and veggies if she was hungry.

It was all downhill from there. She insisted on chasing her brother around (and vice versa). Jeremy is 16 months older than she. He's bigger and, because he's a boy, he's rougher. I must have asked her 25 times to stop playing that way with him. And here's where my blood's temperature started to rise. One of those times, I held them both by their arms. I made them look at me while I was talking. I said, "no more running around." If there was a speech bubble coming out of my mouth, it would have been hanging there, suspended, just as they started to run around again.

Not only that, Bekah kept getting hurt, either unintentionally or because her brother was tackling her. She then would run over to me and start crying, saying her brother hurt her. I let her know that if she was choosing to play with her brother like that, then she had to be willing to accept the consequences. I must have uttered that phrase 25 times.

I put a movie on and laid down on a the couch to doze for a bit. She must have demanded 25 times for me to put her socks and shoes on. They are Princess Aurora shoes and they light up. She's obsessed with them, but I do ask that they take them off when they're on the couch. I probably dozed off and on for 45 minutes, but the entire time I had her in my face saying "Mommy, can you put on my shoes and socks?"

I gave up the ghost on the nap, got Doug up and started putting the finishing touches on dinner. Meanwhile, I knew that my girlfriends were planning to get together for coffee. I wanted to get a workout in before I met up with them. Mind you, I spend (at most) 60 minutes of time exercising in a day. I love doing the DVDs produced by Leslie Sansone called "Walk at Home." It's a simple program, but there's a lot of intensity and it's just the right amount for where I'm at physically.

Doug was fussy and I ended up having to hold him as I was working out. That I understand; he's getting his molars. I did my best to follow the moves with him in my arms. I have spent the whole day catering to my kids' needs. I feel like it's reasonable to claim 45-60 minutes to do something that's good for me. My kids, on the other hand, don't take kindly to me not paying attention to them. They decided to add a level of difficulty to the chase game--add in toy shopping carts. They chased each other with them and also had head-on collisions with them.

I'm not going to lie. The reason I wanted to work out before meeting my friends is that I felt so full of rage I was afraid I would say something unkind to them. It's tough for someone like me, whose gift is gab, to go a whole day and and feel like no one is listening or respecting my words. It's infuriating, demoralizing and demeaning.

The last straw was when Jeremy pinned Bekah between his shopping cart, her shopping cart and one of the dog's crates. It was like a tightly-wound spring in my head snapped. I could no longer contain the anger and frustration that had been steadily rising. I ran over to Jeremy (this fit into the exercise program nicely), grabbed his shopping cart, when to the slider leading out from my kitchen to the backyard, opened it and, with all the force I could muster, threw it outside.

It felt kinda good, honestly. I did it without guilt or compunction. I slammed the door shut and went on to finish my workout. When Brian arrived home, Bekah immediately tattled on me. She told him, "mommy threw the shopping cart out into the backyard." God bless my husband, he's been the target of my anger and endured days like I had. Without skipping a beat he said, "yeah, I can see that happening. It makes sense," without a trace of sarcasm in his voice.

I am happy to report that I finished my workout, met up with my friends and got no judgement from them, either. Certainly it's not an ideal way to handle the constant haranguing. I have strategies, gleaned from my friends, that I intend to implement first thing in the morning. But really, seeing that shopping cart land in the trees that line our backyard was oddly comforting. And it was a vastly better idea than launching Jeremy out there. At least, I think it was.....

My Husband the Hero

I am writing to recommend my husband for Husband of the Year. He is a great guy, that's no mystery. It's rare for him to meet someone he can't talk to or get to laugh. He is great with our kids, even when he feels insecure and even when he needs to mete out consequences.

I'm not nominating him because of his sense of humor, although that is a highlight of him in general. It was the first thing I noticed about him. I guffawed at his jokes from the very beginning; had I known this would encourage him to tell the same jokes for the following 10+ years, I would have tempered my reaction.

I'm not nominating him because of his gift of gab. It's true, though, that he does have that gift. He gets anxious talking in front of groups. His face and neck get flushed and he becomes convinced that he's having a heart attack. (Please note, he feels like he's having a heart attack about 8-10 times a day. The majority of it is anxiety.) His physical reaction to public speaking notwithstanding, he is wonderful at conveying his ideas with warmth, humor, and compassion. I have saved various cards from flowers and gifts because I can't believe he wrote them.

I'm not nominating him because he is a great son and brother. His sister, Jenny, is 7 years younger than he. She once wrote an essay in school about how he was her hero. She stood up in our wedding, has cut our hair numerous times (she's a hairdresser), always shows up when one of us in the hospital and runs at least 3 races a month. He has been equally loyal to her. He gave her away at her wedding, is godfather to his niece, Ashley, and does everything in his power to make it to her house several times a year. His mom is smitten with him, to be sure. I went to a birthday party for him once and she refused to eat until he arrived. She's been in the hospital a few times and he's rearranged his schedule to visit her and support his sister.

I'm not nominating him because he loves animals. I will say, though, that although it took some convincing for him to adopt our dogs, he became a big softie once they got home. The first night the dogs were home, he heard Scout crying in the kitchen of our condo. At the time, we were living in a 2-bedroom condo. We were sleeping in a queen-sized bed. I lay there, trying to sleep, when he said to me; "she sounds so sad!" I told him that if he went to get her, if he brought her into our bed, it would be like that for all of time. We now sleep in a king-sized bed.

I'm not nominating him because of his outdoorsman skills. He honestly has none, so this one is completely true. We were fishing once off of the pier behind Jenny's cabin. I don't mind fishing, and I think he decided to try it because I was doing it. There were catalpa worms in the trees overhanging the pier. Bill (my brother-in-law), Ashley and I all grabbed some to bait our hooks. I took some time to make sure the catalpa worm concealed the hook. When I turned around to check on Brian, he had the worm in one hand and the fishing hook in the other. It seemed like he was trying to convince the worm to impale himself. We've not been fishing since.

I'm not nominating him because he's fearless. This is another one where there's a true lack of skill. He's squeamish about blood, hates heights (even when he sees them in movies) and generally doesn't like to be involved if there's pain or suffering. A few years ago, a robin built a nest above the light on our front porch. We watched as the robin built the nest, laid eggs and cared for her young. I'm not sure where I was, but he decided to take the kids around the front of the house. He wanted to show them what the nest looked like.

The account that follows has changed several times. He is sure that the robin swooped down on him. Full of fear, he pushed the kids out of the way in an attempt to flee. I will say that as he's told the story, the size of the bird has gotten progressively bigger. It's now an albatross.

I'm nominating him because today I have a horrible stomach bug. I'm not sure why or how I contracted it, but I woke up at 7 AM and have been sick non-stop ever since. The kids, to their credit, have been incredibly understanding. I had hoped to take them either to the library or local petting zoo, but in light of my dependence on modern plumbing, decided against both. I sent a few texts to Brian, letting him know of my plight. Under his own steam, he asked if he should come home.

Typically, there are about five days a month where I want him to stay home. I don't ask him five times a month, but I secretly yearn for him to come home and act as a buffer. The past few years, his time off has been eaten up with hospitalizations and illness (his and Jeremy's). I know he covets the idea of taking a day off just to vegitate, even though that rarely ends up happening. This morning, while I was busy cursing gravity and praising the inventor of the indoor toilet, I had that moment. I wanted him to be home. I didn't want to have to deal with the kids on my own.

So when he asked, I accepted his offer to come home early. And that's why I'm nominating him. It takes a pretty special guy to realize his wife needs help. It takes an even more special guy to step out of himself and his daily activity to help his wife. Don't worry, this is going to be forwarded to the nominating committee. He's a shoe-in.

For Snorts and Giggles

I have always laughed too loud. I was the girl who got in trouble at sleepovers. I was the one incapable of playing "Telephone" because I was snorting and shaking so hard.

I grew up hearing my dad laugh. I would be sitting downstairs, watching TV and hear him pounding on the floor with his feet.

I wish I could say I only laugh at highbrow humor, but that would be a lie. I laugh at grade-school jokes. Ones like "where does a snowman keep his money? In the snow bank."

And I don't just giggle. I snort, convulse and stomp my feet. I was in CVS a few months ago, picking out a card for Brian's birthday. The front of the card has a man named Gutnis climbing a mountain. The punch line was, "so enjoy your birthday, for Gutnis' sake."

I laughed out loud and snorted simultaneously. When Brian opened it and read it, I told him I literally laughed out loud. His response was, "I know you did."

I prefer not to see funny movies in the theater because I feel like a fool. I am much more comfortable at home, where I can stomp on the floor and snort and twist around on the couch.

I don't like to watch funny movies with strangers. I don't like to watch funny movies if someone else hasn't already seen it. (I tend to start laughing in anticipation of the funny parts and it ruins it for people.) I don't like humor that is angry. I don't like humor that is explicit or racist.

I will watch the same funny movie multiple times and laugh just as hard at the funny parts as I did the first time I saw it. Case in point, Bridesmaids.

I laughed until I cried. I especially loved the scene at the bridal boutique and the bridal shower. Those two scenes alone almost made me pee my pants. Even the thought of those scenes makes me laugh.

But repeat viewing allows me to catch subtlety. I get to hear the small comments in between the obviously big laughs. And those cause even bigger laughs. I am famous for memorizing lines, repeating them randomly and then laughing out loud some more.

I am glad to report that my kids have adopted some of these traits. We laugh at movies together, perform scenes together and generally spend a lot of time laughing. It's a great way to walk through life.

Blah, blah, blah

I love my husband. We have been together for almost 11 years. I was immediately attracted to him because of his sense of humor. All these years later, he still cracks me up.

But we have an ongoing joke about a mode of his which I call "lecture Brian." It seems like he is still the same, mild-mannered husband, but there are distinct differences.

First, his tone of voice changes. He has a deeper tone to his voice. He used to work at home and one of my concerns was that he would wake Jeremy up because of his booming voice (he never did).

When he is "normal Brian," his voice is not as deep or booming. Ask him a question about politics, government or other weighty issues and his voice drops an octave.

Second, he crosses his arms and assumes a more authoritative stance. His hand gestures change. He straightens up a bit. There is a marked change in his physical demeanor. I am not sure if anyone else realizes it, but as soon as I hear a politically-tinged question, I steal a glance at him to witness the transformation.

Lastly, he inserts superfluous phrases into the conversation. His favorite is "to a certain extent." I know I'm in for a really long conversation when he breaks that one out.

Don't get me wrong, he is an excellent source of information. He was a political science major and has a really good handle on how things work. He is also well-read. He is constantly reading articles to deepen his understanding of the world.

My dad has been giving us a subscription to National Geographic for a few years. I love it because I can't read novels anymore. The most time I have to myself is in the washroom, but even then the most I am allowed to digest are articles.

Brian shares my affinity for the magazine and we have some great discussions about things featured in the magazine. The problem is, Brian doesn't have a filter.

If I have a question that I believe should require a short answer, I don't ask Brian. If I am looking for his input on something important, I ask him over the phone. That allows me to get other work done while listening with one ear to what he has to say.

Really, I don't have time for a 5-10 minute-long explanation to all of my questions. I am bombarded all day by inane questions; I do my best to answer them, but it's overwhelming. I do a lot of deflecting-"ask your dad," or "I don't know."

Brian must not get a lot of questions throughout the day because he treats every question with the utmost respect and dignity. It's like he's the Title IX of questions; he wants to make it fair for everyone.

I have started avoiding asking him questions. I just don't have a desire to know all of the things he feels he needs to share with me. I'm especially guilty of asking him a question, getting distracted by the kids or something else and then not listening to a word he's saying.

It would seem like this might discourage "lecture Brian" from appearing, but apparently the only thing Brian loves more than his family is the sound of his own voice. I'm not sure if he'll find this insight as funny as I do, but I'm sure as hell not going to ask!!

Lazy Sunday

I enjoy Sundays and loathe Sundays. I am not ashamed to admit that I go to church so that I can have a break from my kids. I think Sunday worship can be a bit long, especially before full caffeination.

I am glad to see and greet friends on Sundays. I love my church and the people that attend it. It's comfortable to attend; I smile at people I'm glad to see but I don't feel like I need to be best friends with everyone.

There is a routine to our church visit. We are usually late, even when we serve. I never go to bed early enough and so my alarm and I have frequent disagreements about when I should wake up.

Once at church, we drop off the kids at TGA, our version of Sunday School. We are secretly glad when we see friends also just dropping off the kids.

Then it's all about finding a great seat. We've been favoring the balcony for several reasons. First, it's a little bit of exercise to get the blood flowing. This works to counteract the exhaustion and lack of caffeination.

Second, our small group-most members anyway-sit up there. That means we don't have to worry about shaking hands with complete strangers. I'm not unfriendly. I just hate the feeling of running into the same people I've greeted and completely forgetting their names.

Third, sitting in the balcony means we are not distracted by the three or four families that refuse to put their kids in TGA. I try not to judge, but that doesn't always work. So I sit upstairs and just don't see them.

Today was a bit unusual. My church recently remodeled and turned the one side of the sanctuary into a lounge area, replete with comfy couches. People who arrive late usually sit there. There was a small family sitting there today and I think they mistook it for home. The mom appeared to have just had a baby. There were two older boys and an older girl.

They didn't sit still for more than three minutes combined. The mom was understandably fidgety; having a newborn means almost constantly moving. I couldn't understand why the older kids were even in service; there is a ministry for them, too. They moved constantly. The daughter was lying on the couch at one point. The older boy was playing on his phone.

I listened to the sermon as I studied the frenzy of activity. I am not without sin; my pastor's wife ribbed me after the service for taking a turn in WWF. I try, though, to be discreet. My mom would never have stood for that level of activity during a sermon.

After the service is over, we retrieve our kids, have truncated conversations with friends who are doing the same. The hallway leading from the lobby to TGA is cramped, though, so we do our best not to hang out there. Bekah and Jeremy usually run through the jumble of people to find my parents.

Then starts the long and arduous journey to our van. We usually park about 300 feet away from the entrance. On good weeks, it takes us 5 minutes to reach it. Other weeks, the wailing and gnashing of teeth causes me to demand that Brian pull the van up.

Once home, it's lunch and then a nap. Sometimes it's just Doug and I napping. Other weeks, everyone is required to nap because of poor behavior.

I loathe Sundays because it's a lot of activity. This weekend in particular was chaotic. I was tired emotionally and physically and wanted nothing more than to pull the covers over my head and avoid the day. I don't have the energy to act like everything is okay. When there is a lot simmering under the surface, it's tough to not have that written all over my face.

I love my friends and I love connecting with them, but it can be emotionally taxing sometimes to make small talk. Sundays are never good for heart-to-hearts. There is too much else going on to do anything other than a brief check-in.

At the same time, I needed to process yesterday. It was a lot to handle at once. I find it tough to have a taxing Saturday because it typically means I won't process things until about Tuesday. I wanted a chance to ask a few people about things, but there isn't time for it.

I'm blogging even though I don't want to. That helps me process what happens, but my heart is still heavy. I am not sure how long it will take before I can untangle the latest set of emotions and conflict. I'm hoping it'll happen before next Sunday.

A Long Day

I knew that today was going to be a long day. I tried desperately to make sure I was asleep at a godly hour. The problem is, I work best at night.

I went to hang with my BFF last night. I got there at around 9 PM. We talked for a while. I checked my phone to see what time it was. 9:30--still enough time to chat a bit, then head home, do my nighttime cleaning regimen and go to sleep.

Unfortunately (this has happened before), the next time I checked the time it was 11:00. I was still 15 minutes away from home and had a list of five things I wanted to do.

I mentioned in another entry that I was going to take FLY Lady's beginner baby steps. I am two weeks into it and am happy to report that the house is cleaner and more organized than its been since we moved in four years ago.

The nighttime routine that's enabled me not to backslide involves shining my sink. That means I clean everything out of my sink, clean the sink with soap, dry it and then use Windex on it to make it shine. I have added to this by making sure I'm running the dishwasher, every other night I sweep and Swiffer and I like to vacuum. (I love my dogs but the dog hair situation grows quickly out of hand if I don't.

The lovely part about completing this routine at night is that I can work uninterrupted and without "help," I am able to enjoy a clean downstairs for a bit and my mornings are, by extension, much less stressful.

But leaving my friend's house at 11:00 meant not getting home and starting the routine until close to 11:30. It was quickly apparent that my bedtime was going to be far from godly.

I am incapable of going to sleep quickly. Brian is usually asleep before his head hits the pillow; I spend an inordinate amount of time getting comfortable, checking e-mail and Facebook and trying to turn my mind off. Therefore, it was 1:30 in the AM before I knew it.

Morning always comes too quickly for me. I'd prefer to start my day at noon, but alas having children moved my start time up several hours.

Doug was scheduled to be evaluated today and we planned to join other people from our church at a local park around 4 this afternoon. I followed through on my commitment to myself and managed to workout, then headed out to the park with my friend (same one I saw the night before) and her kids.

The rest of the day has been a blur. Doug's evaluation went well. I prayed beforehand that I wouldn't get defensive at anything and that I would not internalize what the therapists had to say.

Doug has been obsessed with dog food and, of course, came crawling down the hall to join us with dog food crumbs on his chin and shirt. He wasn't impressed with being confined as he was evaluated. In true Doug form, though, he smiled his way through it.

I was told a few weeks ago, at his intake interview, that he would qualify for services if he was more than 30% deficient in any one area. He showed off his crawling skills, demonstrated how he can sit up from being on his belly, and made the effort to stand up.

At the same time, he didn't know who Jeremy was (meaning that when asked "Where's Jeremy," he didn't look at or near Jeremy). He is making noises, but doesn't say "momma" or "dada." He has a hard time focusing. He looks at people in the eye, but only briefly and then he's busy looking at other things.

They explained to me that this lack of focus was probably why I've not been successful in using sign language with him. Never once did they place blame on me for his deficiencies. They contributed his delays to his issues with reflux and his ears. They didn't call me a bad mom or criticize my parenting.

I almost started crying as I was processing everything afterwards. It occurs to me that Jeremy and Bekah are beyond proficient at having their needs met. They are constantly making demands of me; for attention, food, attention, etc.

Doug, on the other hand, is pretty laid-back. He doesn't whine at me except when he wants milk. Otherwise, he is perfectly content to play in our cabinets and eat dog food. He doesn't mind having a dirty diaper and very seldom needs extra cuddling.

He has started asking to be picked up. Today at the park, he held out his arms to me. He has been hurting lately because of emerging molars. I was more than happy to oblige him!! He is a snuggle monster, but because he has just recently discovered crawling, he's not been wanting to sit still much.

We had fun in Fox River Grove, but Bekah and Jeremy ended our time there with lots of tears. Jeremy wanted to go play at the park, but it was already 7:30 and we had to pick Doug up from my parent's house.

The best quote of the day came from Jeremy: "Mommy, I need to talk to you about a situation. I'm a Jeremy and Jeremies like parks." I did my best to hide my laughter as I put his pajamas on him.

Tomorrow is another busy day. It's currently 11:00 PM, but I'm already done with my nighttime routines and will shortly be snuggled in my bed. I'm Sue and Sues like to get enough rest.

Boycotting the Evil Empire (a.k.a Wal-Mart)

A few years ago, my mom gave me a book entitled "Nickled and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America." The author is Barbara Ehrenreich, a journalist, who decided to work four low-paying jobs and report on it. The book description on Amazon captures it correctly, saying, "Millions of Americans work for poverty-level wages and one day Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised any job equals a better life. But how can anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 or $7 an hour?"

Ms. Ehrenreich moved to four areas of the country and worked as a waitress, a hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing-home aide and Walmart associate. At the time I first read this book, I was working at Hobby Lobby, a "Christian" retail chain. I have a lot to say about them, but I will hold my comments for another blog entry. In any case, at the time I was working at Hobby Lobby I was living with my now husband. I was making $10 an hour (at the time I left). I felt like I could relate very uniquely to what Ms. Ehrenreich had to say. That is, if I were not living with my husband, I wouldn't have been able to pay for shelter and feed myself based on what Hobby Lobby was paying me. And the only reason I had health benefits was because I was on Brian's; I couldn't have afforded to pay for Hobby Lobby's benefits based on what they were paying me.

I should also mention that I do not shop at Wal-Mart. Ever. For anything. I have been given Wal-Martgift cards and will use only the money on the gift cards to shop there; if there is a balance left on the cards that it too small to pay for anything, I will give the gift card away so that I won't have to spend any of my money there. I am very passionate about my boycott of Wal-Mart. I do everything in my power, even when out of town, not to have to set foot in their stores.

Let me explain why. It's a many-pronged issue, one which Ms. Ehrenreich illustrates and one that is illuminated well in the documentary "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price." I recommend reading and seeing each. There is a lot of Ms. Ehrenreich's book, especially, that is just appalling. I will try to highlight three or four of the main reasons I do not patronize their business.

My first issue with Wal-Mart is how they treat their labor force. They do not pay as well as other big box stores (such as Target or Meijer). In addition, they do offer health benefits, but in many instances the cost of carrying Wal-Mart's benefits is out of reach for it's employees. There have been multiple lawsuits filed against Wal-Mart for making their employees work off the clock. As well, there was a class-action lawsuit filed against them because they discriminated against women. The latter lawsuit had the wind taken out of it's sails when the Supreme Court ruled that it couldn't, by definition, be considered a class-action suit.

I'll illuminate. If a single individual feels that the company they are working for is discriminating against them, they can consult with a lawyer (at their own expense and on their own time). The lawyer charges their client for consulting with them and charges them for any court motions that need to be filed, any time they need to appear in court, etc. I am not criticizing; I believe that lawyers are in business to make money and I get that. I'm just making some declarative statements.

So a woman, who makes on average less than her male counterparts, seeks out a lawyer. Mind you, she is just barely scraping by as it is collecting a paycheck from Wal-Mart. She sits down with the lawyer and explains, calmly, that she feels she has been passed over for promotions based simply on the fact that she is a woman. The lawyer listens and takes notes, then lays out a plan of action. The plan involves the woman having to, eventually, testify in court about this fact.

The problem is, one woman, on Wal-Mart wages, can't afford to continue on this course of action. For one, she has to work a lot of hours just to scrape by. Second, when she realizes it's just her going up against one of the richest corporations in the world, she gets scared.

But she goes back to work and talks with some other women she knows. As they talk during lunch breaks, the other women realize that they, too, have been the victims of discrimination. They, on their own, decide to visit their own lawyers. At this point, the women are all separately suing a multi-billion dollar company on their own. So a lawyer gets the idea to create a class-action lawsuit. That means, (s)he gathers up all of the defendants together, joins all of their cases and decides to attack Wal-Mart as an organized front.

As I've said before, though, in this country money is politics. Wal-Mart gets wind of this and leans very hard on their lobbyists and political cronies. They convince everyone they need to that it's in everyone's best interest to rule that this is not a class-action lawsuit. In fact, the women are not a homogenous group; they have different mitigating factors surrounding their so-called discrimination. As such, they cannot be considered a class-action suit. So this organized front is now just individual women. There may be a lot of them, but as individuals they have far less power and are much more limited. That doesn't mean, Wal-Mart says slyly, that these same women can't individually sue Wal-Mart. It's their right as Americans to sue (subject for another day--there are no frivolous lawsuits). But they know that the entire building of lawyers they employ will make sure that these women spend years and money they don't have fighting this battle.

And there's the rub. These women have tried to do that, but know that it's an uphill battle if they're on their own. They return to their jobs, shoulders slumped, all the while knowing their male counterparts are snickering at them behind their backs. I am a woman, I am a mother and I am pissed as hell that a corporation that lures other women in it's front doors with low prices would do everything they could to slam the door in the face of women trying to advance in the corporate structure.

My second issue with Wal-Mart is one that has a lot of labor organizations rankled. That is, that they do not use unions to employ their workers. Ms. Ehrenreich states in her book that she witnessed, at the Wal-Mart where she worked, there was some talk of the mechanics unionizing. Her observation was that while management never directly forbade people from having those conversations, they did everything they could to discourage it.

I can say from first-hand knowledge that Hobby Lobby's managerial bible has an entire section about how to discourage unions from forming. It talks about observing people in the lunchrooms and during other activities and making sure that the cry for unions doesn't make it past a whisper. I figure, if Hobby Lobby is Wal-Mart's poor cousin, then Wal-Mart must have one entire 3-inch binder on how to discourage unions from forming.

I worked at Jewel in high school, in the deli department. I had to pay dues every month, whether I wanted to or not. I didn't understand why until my mother (a member of the teacher's union) explained it to me. She told me that the reason I made time and a half on Sundays was because of the union. The reason there were safety standards in place was because of the union. The reason I made more money was because of the union. After that experience, I can understand why Wal-Mart would think unions are so dangerous; it's a very similar argument to that of the class-action lawsuit. If it's just one person asking their manager for a raise, more than likely the manager will laugh them out of the office. If there is a coalesced group of people who demand higher wages, more accessible health care, more safety standards, then Wal-Mart has to listen.

The corollary to that? It will cost them a lot of money. Now, here's where I will digress for a bit. I think capitalism is a fine model, if there are checks and balances. Wal-Marts profits for this years first quarter were 3 billion (with a b) dollars. Yes, billion. I am not saying they shouldn't be in business not to make a profit. What I am saying is, they could still make profits (perhaps only a paltry 3 million) if they unionized, raised the wages their workers make, and lowered the cost of their company-sponsored healthcare.

Yes, these three actions would mean a few less zeros behind their profits, but last time I checked, Forbes reported that six Waltons have more wealth than the bottom 30% of Americans (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/six-waltons-more-wealth-bottom-172819426.html). Six human people have more wealth than 94, 250, 714 other humans combined. (I based my calculations on what the US Government census data shows is currently the population of the United States.) It's staggering, isn't it? I mean, I think it is.

I know there's a lot of discussion about job creators. I would hazard a guess that not all of the Waltons mentioned in this article are involved in day-to-day operations of Wal-Mart. My best guess is that they had the good fortune to be born with the last name Walton. I'm not saying all, I'm saying some. In which case, if they're not in reality creating jobs, why not give up some of that money? Not all, just some. And not through foundations (so they can claim the tax breaks), but really--pay your employees a little more and make healthcare more accessible.

The other issue I have with Wal-Mart is the burden they cause to the municipalities they occupy. The documentary I mention illustrates this the best way, so I'll just share what I learned from that movie. First, Wal-Mart tries to woo the city government with the promise of jobs. This is especially effective in areas where there is a large unemployment rate. It would seem a no-brainer to welcome a company that will put out-of-work people back to work.

They are also successful in areas known as "food deserts." These are areas where there are no other grocery or food-type stores. This typically means it's a poorer, rural or rural-esque demographic. Again, the local government is thrilled! Wow, their citizens will be able to go grocery shopping nearby! They won't have to shop in the next town (or county) over.

Again, it's all wolves in sheep's clothing. Here's why. First of all, as I mentioned before, Wal-Mart does offer healthcare. This is a fact. They are able to offer it to all full-time employees. Here's the trick. They work hard to make sure that employees are not classified as full-time. They will only schedule them for 37 hours instead of 40. They will offer full-time as an incentive--"if you work hard during the holiday season, we'll look at making you full-time," which of course never happens. So they shirk the responsibility by simply not employing full-time workers. Hobby Lobby was also guilty of this and I saw it first-hand. When my manager would create the schedule, he was very mindful about whom should receive what hours. He was expected (because he was salaried and working 80+ hour weeks) to make up the shortfall in staffing versus paying hourly employees.

Ms. Ehrenreich mentions another way Wal-Mart skirts the benefits issue. She noted that there were signs up in the breakroom for county health benefits. In other words, Wal-Mart dangles benefits just out of the reach of it's workers and then says, oh, but the county offers health benefits at discounted prices. So not only is Wal-Mart not footing the bill, they are pushing their employees to become a burden on the taxpayers of the county their store occupies.

Then there is the issue of taxes. After Wal-Mart has wooed the county government, they ask for tax breaks to get the store off the ground. At this point, the county is so turned around they offer the breaks. After all, they think, this is a great opportunity for the county's residents. So Wal-Mart builds a ginormous building to house it's facility with the county footing the bill. A few years later, just as the county is going to finally see a pay-off in it's investment, Wal-Mart decides it's going to move to the next county and build a Super Wal-Mart instead.

And the county is left holding the bill. I have witnessed this first-hand here in Crystal Lake. Wal-Mart was originally located on Route 14, in a strip mall with other small shops and some mid-range shops (Big Lots, Cub Foods). Then it was announced that a Super Wal-Mart was going up at Route 14 and 31. The original location is now a ghost town. Cub Foods had already closed before they moved, but Garden Fresh, another grocery store, had moved in next door and closed before Wal-Mart moved out. The surrounding strip mall is barely occupied. To my knowledge, there is not another business large enough to occupy the space Wal-Mart left behind. There is no money to raze the building and so, even though it's zone for business, it's sitting empty, unable to generate revenue. Wal-Mart's final way to rob the county; leave behind huge, empty eyesores that will probably stay that way for the foreseeable (and not foreseeable future). Counties left holding the bag after having had their downtown areas ravaged by Wal-Mart coming in.

Meanwhile, Wal-Mart boasts about low prices! We will match any competitor's price! Come on in, step right up! But it's like going to see a magic show and, while the show is going on, the magician sends lackeys to rob all of the spectators. The show is magnificent and people enjoy it, but the spectators don't realize they've been robbed until after they get home.

I realize that my family struggles financially. It would seem to make no sense that I choose not to shop somewhere that has such low prices. There are other things about Wal-Mart that turn my stomach, but these are the chief complaints I have about them. I am not hoping to convince other people not to shop their, but I'm hoping that maybe it gives you pause. I cannot, in good conscience, shop somewhere that treats my fellow human beings so poorly. I also am not going to contribute to a corporation that has the opportunity really make a positive impact and chooses not to. I don't give money to charities right now because I can't; I simply have no extra funds at my disposal. I do, however, give generously of my resources. I have made it a habit of making regular donations of clothing and household items to Goodwill and the like.

If I, who has so little, can pretty easily look around my house and find something to give to someone in need, why can't the Waltons? I'm not asking them to live on the streets or in run-down apartments, like their workers do. I'm just asking them to treat people respectfully. Hire them to do a job that will actually pay the bills and help them get ahead. I guarantee you, if all companies started paying their employees fairly, they would see those investments pay off in dividends. But then, they already have a lot of those, too.

Shoot Your Mouth; Keep Your Gun Holstered

(Please note: I didn't use any of the gunmen's names in this entry. I couldn't remember them and didn't want to look them up on Google. They lost the right to be named when they ended innocent lives.)

I have stayed silent on the recent rash of gun-related violence that's made the news. Then I realized, I'm not being honest about it. I am blogging because I want to get my point of view out there; if I'm not being honest about my point of view, then I'm failing. So here it is. I really hate guns. I have maybe once in my life held a gun. Maybe. They are heavier than what they seem on TV. From what I understand, it takes a lot of physical pressure to pull the trigger on most guns. In my mind, I imagine that in exerting the physical energy to squeeze the trigger, one spends an equal amount of time exerting mental energy deciding if pulling the trigger is necessary.

I am not anti-gun, nor am I an opponent of the second amendment. I do, however, feel that the NRA and other special interest groups misinterpret that amendment in the name of making money. Really, at the bottom of any hot-topic issue in Washington is money. So I'm not an idealist; I get that both sides of the aisle have an equal amount of special interest groups throwing money at politicians to get their legislation passed. It raised a stink in California when some councilmen tried to pass legislation mandating that foods be labeled as genetically modified. Obviously, the makers of sugary, starchy, pre-packaged food items don't want another bullseye on their food that might hurt profits. I get it. USA is a country run by money.

So I'm not naive. I am not sitting here thinking that we need to ban all guns, or that police officers should carry signs that say "stop, thief." I understand that there are people who live off the land. Ranchers need guns  to protect their herds. I eat meat; I get that by doing so, I'm endorsing the murder of animals. My uncle has hunted for years; since he was young. He has always had a number of rifles around his house and, more recently, a high-tech bow and arrow. I've eaten venison; I know the deer aren't lying down saying, "please, kill me, I want your family to eat me."

I was still coming of age when Columbine happened, though. I saw the devastating effects that guns can have on people's lives. Here were two young men, outcasts yes, but really, they were just kids. They plotted something on a scale the likes of which was just unheard of at the time. They had multiple guns, multiple types of guns, and a crazy amount of ammunition. That they purchased from KMart.

And here's where I depart ideologically with pro-gun advocates. I understand going into the woods and sitting with your buddies, drinking a beer and waiting for deer. I wouldn't do it myself, but I get that it happens and could be fun. There's duck-hunting. I get that, too, the idea of being patient and having the marksmanship to hit a moving target. Nobody who hunts, though, would venture into the woods with an automatic or semi-automatic weapon. I think it would be ridiculous to consider hunters pumping so much lead into a deer as to render it unrecognizable. I can't imagine that they'd bring multiple clips for said weapons; firing off just one clip of a weapon of that magnitude would scare off all of the wildlife in the vicinity.

So then, I can't understand why it's okay to sell automatic weapons at all. The mastermind of the Aurora, Colorado, shooting executed a plan he had worked on for months. He purchased his weapons, the ammunition and all of his other supplies legally. He passed a background check. He had everything shipped to his house. He broke no laws preparing for his massacre. I'll type that again. He broke no laws preparing for his massacre. He only started breaking the law as he re-entered the movie theater and started randomly mowing people down.

I don't understand the mindset. There have been a few people in my life I've hated. Stewing in that becomes all-consuming. I have been known to think of non-lethal ways to exact revenge on said people. In instances where I really hate someone, even the mention of their name or sound of their voice will cause my scalp to prickle. I will admit that I have wasted a lot of time on this emotion. It eats me alive while the other person continues to live their life as if nothing is wrong. The best description of this principle is that it's like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. Final analysis demonstrates it's better to just let things go.

Even in my worst moments, when I'm raw with betrayal, when humiliation is draped around my shoulders, I cannot conceive of ending someone else's life. I don't own a gun because even if someone were breaking into my home, threatening my life, I wouldn't want to be responsible for ending theirs. I would hate to be mistaken. There is no way to undo a gunshot wound. I've heard on the news multiple times that the police have killed young men who they believed were armed but weren't. The police are trained for those instances, but I would suspect that years later, those mistakes haunt their dreams.

So I can't, in any realm of existence, understand why someone would plan for months to end the lives of random fellow human beings. We are "why" junkies in this country; we want to know why someone went so far off the reservation. I read an article on MSNBC that this man's parents received death threats from people. They are being held responsible for this young man's actions because everyone wants to believe that this evil came from somewhere. We all want to believe that the people we work next to everyday wear crazy on the outside, in the same way you'd wear a brooch or cufflinks.

I mean, really....we had one guy who tried to set off a bomb that he had hidden in his shoe. One guy. Now, everyone is supposed to take off their shoes. We want to believe that we've got terror and evil figured out, that there's some way to control it. I have never heard the TSA or anyone else report that they have found another shoe bomber.

I don't know why this young man cracked. Who knows if we ever will. Those of his type are usually chatty, or have a long-winded anti-humanity manifesto. Sometimes they have a video with a crazy, winding rant about why they did things. Watching those things, we can understand--"yeah, that guy, he looked crazy." This guy, on the other hand, has been deathly quiet. No one has been able to make heads or tails of his motive.

Crazy is tough to cure. There's no real screening process that's foolproof. It's tough to pass laws about crazy; heck, we can't even pass laws forcing schizophrenics to take their medicine. (I do agree that people shouldn't be forced to take medication, but then I'm kind of nuts about not being forced to choose about things.)

But we can pass tougher gun laws. What conceivable reason is there to manufacture and sell, to the average person, an automatic rifle? I understand that police officers (who have been well-trained and respect the power of the weapons) need a reserve of these weapons. I could argue that countries like England, where the police officers don't even carry guns, seem to have a handle on it. They have much less gun violence there than we do. But I'll concede that there are professionals, who, by the very nature of their job, need to be armed with such a weapon. They have been screened extensively for crazy. They are meticulous and methodical both in the use of and respect for their weapons.

There is no reason this guy should have had access to that kind of weapon. There just isn't. He wasn't trying to form a militia; he was one person. He wasn't trying to defend himself; he went into a sold-out theater and started randomly shooting people. He wasn't being attacked by a tyrannical government; in fact, the government allowed him to become armed.

I saw posts on Facebook that said that the whole thing could have ended if just one other person had a weapon. The logic is faulty; it's like saying, we as a world would survive nuclear war if all countries had nuclear weapons. I can't imagine that the average person, say myself, would have the presence of mind in a noisy, panic-filled theater, to locate the shooter (remember, the patrons said at first they thought the gunfire was a part of the movie itself) and gun him down without missing on the first shot and accidentally hitting someone else.

I will never own a gun. I don't care if someone took me to the shooting range every day and trained me to use it. I don't care if I was like Spiderman and had super-heightened senses. There is no way to prepare to use a weapon under duress. It lends itself to making errors in judgement. I don't want the burden of someone else's life on my shoulders. Eyewitness accounts are often the worst accounts of a situation. Our minds get so overwhelmed with what's happening that it's impossible to make intelligent decisions. Often, the people who have seen the gunman are the worst at describing what (s)he looks like.

I can't imagine that our forefathers, when framing the Constitution, dreamed that the second amendment would be used by gun manufacturers to defend their right to make and market semi- and fully-automatic weapons. Back then, it took a long time between shots. It's almost comical to think of this guy walking into the theater with a Revolutionary war-era musket and inflicting any kind of damage. The entire crowd would have tackled him before he ever got a second shot off. I think it's time to acknowledge that those who have the most to gain from making these weapons should exercise the most responsibility. Stop selling them to laypeople. Stop making them readily available. Set it up so that there are appointed people from within police departments and military branches (and only them) that have clearance to purchase these weapons.

I don't think that seems like a crazy idea. I know I'm a liberal and the other side of the aisle would say I'm wanting to strip American citizens of their basic rights. Don't you think the victims and their families of the Aurora shooting had rights, too? We're supposed to all have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We can't all have a right to life if there are those among us who have the right to end it with impunity.

I'm So Dizzy....

Can't figure out why I've been so dizzy this past week. I started a new antidepressant on Monday night last week. I am not sure if the dizziness is a side effect of the new medication or a side effect of not being on the old medication.

I am not sure why big pharma hasn't come up with a way to help with depression and weight at the same time. I'm not asking for a weight-loss drug--those have long-term proven detrimental to the heart. I'm saying, you have a huge portion of the population (women) who are struggling with depression. There are many reasons for the struggle. But overall, I would say that if they are struggling with depression, they may also be struggling with their weight. So to treat their depression with a medication that causes them to gain weight seems counter-productive. Maybe that's just me.

I ran my first race in six years yesterday. It went well overall. I finished and ran the whole time, the two things I was hoping to do. It's funny, though, because I was hoping to run with my friends. We all got their together. I had told them, several times, that I am not a fast runner. I ran yesterday 3 (barely) sub 15 minute miles. I'm not ashamed about this, but it is reality.

We were all standing at the start line together and next thing I know, the race starts and my friends disappear! As it was, I enjoyed running without being jostled by people. When I ran the Chicago Marathon in 2004, I kept waiting for a point in the course where there would be less people. It never happened. Yesterday's race, with 500 people, was probably crowded toward the front of the pack. It's one of my favorite benefits of being a back-of-the-pack runner; solitude.

I got cheered on by the course volunteers and a spattering of people who were sitting in their front yards, watching people go by. The beauty of running, for me, is that I'm triumphing by just being out there. The physics of a 290-pound person running is pretty impressive. I'm not ashamed of my weight, I'm just saying, it's an accomplishment that I even tried to run. That I run at all, really.

I had put together a playlist of songs for the race. I wanted to make sure I had some fast-paced music to keep me going. There were a few times I was glad for the music. I know some people run without music, but for me it helps me not focus on the recurrent thought that says, "what, are you crazy? stop running already, we're dying out here." The thought that was running through my mind yesterday was "some days you're the hare, some days you're the tortoise." It's a play on the phrase "some days you're the bug, some days you're the windshield."

That thought spun through my head on repeat. I know it seems like a de-motivating thought, but it's not; it's reality. Even world-class runners have bad days, days when their legs feel like lead and they can't find their rhythm. If it's true for them, then it's true for me and that actually elevates me. I took my friend's advice and didn't worry about who was behind or in front of me. I didn't judge myself harshly if people were walking faster than I was running. I didn't beat myself up for not being able to sprint to the finish.

What I didn't anticipate (and couldn't have, really) was that my ending song choice-Queen's We Will Rock You/We are the Champions would elicit such an emotional response! My brother, who had finished long before I got there, crossed the field to help me run into the finish chute. The two factors together caused a catch in my throat.

I had to will myself not to cry! It is nearly impossible to run and cry at the same time--they both consume a lot of oxygen and I was really at my limit already. I turned the corner to the finish chute and had the same feeling I did when I saw the marathon finish line. I couldn't believe I did it. I couldn't believe I had done spiritual battle consistently for 5 months to train for this race. I couldn't believe I had enough humility to run a 5K when I've run such long distances in the past. And really, I couldn't believe how wonderful it felt, in that moment, to experience a spiritual victory that was a long time coming.

Love in the Time of Smoking

I grew up believing that smoking was bad for you. I have noticed lately that there are PSAs airing on TV that offer a jarring look at the effects of smoking. Those were not around when I was growing up, but I did know that it was not good. My dad smoked, though, and I remember bugging him to quit. I would rifle through his drawers, find them, and confront him about his smoking.

In high school, there were girls on the swim team who smoked. I thought that was kind of contradictory, as you needed good lung capacity to be able to swim well. I would stand near them after practice, waiting to be picked up. I didn't confront them about their smoking; I knew, somewhere in the recesses of my brain, that I should just keep my mouth shut.

I don't know when my curiosity about smoking started. I have always loved movies and I think maybe seeing movies where smoking was heavily featured piqued my interest. The logical part of my brain knew that smoking was wrong, but there was something that also seemed cool. As I struggled with my weight, I noticed that people who smoked were thin. Somewhere in my brain, I made an illogical connection between the two ideas.

I had friends of friends in college who smoked. I had ceased being an athlete at that point, but I still knew it wasn't good. I also knew that my friends wouldn't tolerate my smoking (think Chandler in Friends). I continued to have some curiosity about it, but was able to keep those thoughts at bay.

Then, I got news that my dad's oldest brother, Marco, had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. He was living in Houston at the time. My dad and I took a road trip down to see him.

My dad's whole family are heavy smokers (even Marco, who was a cardiologist and Adolfo, who is a general practitioner). There was never a time that they got together where there wasn't a lot of smoking. It just was part and parcel with the copious amounts of alcohol they consumed. Upon arriving in Houston, we were relieved to see that my uncle was in good shape. It's important to note that he fought the cancer for 10 years before succumbing. It became just a regular family visit, with Spanglish spoken liberally, NBA finals on TV and, of course, lots of alcohol.

It was at the point that I finally succumbed to my curiosity. Marco smoked Benson & Hedges 100s. I am not sure where everyone was the afternoon I first tried a cigarette. I checked around to see where my dad was and when I was certain he wasn't around, I took a cigarette and a lighter, went outside, crouched down beside the air conditioning unit and tried to light up.

Smoking is not comical, but my first attempt at lighting up was. Because I was on my own, I had no one their to coach me on technique. I kept blowing out the flame on the lighter until I realized I had to inhale as I was lighting it. I didn't cough, I didn't get light-headed, I didn't throw up from the taste of tobacco. Unfortunately, my first time smoking was delightful. I felt like a rebel, but because I wasn't really a rebel, I didn't smoke again until after I got home.

My first experience buying cigarettes was pretty funny, too. There seem to be about 100 different types of cigarettes at any given convenience store. I had only smoked Benson & Hedges, but I guess I figured I would buy Marlboro. I am disgusted to think that I smoked Marlboro Reds for a short time. I had to, always, always, always, have a Diet Coke when I smoked a cigarette. I never chewed gum when I smoked. I always took my time with a cigarette. If I didn't have a full 5 minutes to smoke a cigarette, I wouldn't smoke one.

There was a point, shortly after becoming a smoker, where I did finally inhale properly. This elicited some coughing, but overall I adjusted quite well. Over the years, I stayed pretty loyal to Marlboro. I switched to Menthol after a while, but I can't remember when.

Not too long after I started smoking regularly, I was confronted by my friend Joy about the smell in my car. I tried to blame it on the mechanic who had recently fixed my car. She didn't press the issue, but she later told me there is a difference in smell when someone is directly smoking and when they have just been near someone who is smoking.

To my chagrin, smoking didn't really enable more weight loss. That didn't stop me from doing it, though. I absolutely loved everything about it. I enjoyed after-meal cigarettes, that first cigarette in the morning, the just before bed cigarette. I smoked when I drove and on more than one occasion, flicked a lit cigarette butt into my back seat. I am fortunate that I never caused an accident. When I moved to the south side of Chicago with my dad, I mostly smoked between classes. I was afraid of him finding out about my bad habit. I became an RA at Chicago State and had to smoke outside in the back of the building. None of this deterred me or became an impetus to quit.

My dad and I made a trip to Mexico one year between Christmas and New Year's. I knew smoking was going to be tricky. Even though everyone smoked like a chimney, there was not going to be many opportunities for me to do it on the sly. I drove into Mexico with my cousin Hector (also a doctor and a smoker) and bummed a couple of smokes off of him. We went up into the mountains that year. It was beautiful; I still remember the views. As our time there wore on, it became more and more apparent that I wasn't going to be able to smoke. There was a carton of Benson & Hedges sitting, opened, on the top of the refrigerator. Where we were staying, though, didn't allow for me to be secretive.

The trip was cut short when I was catapulted off the back of a horse. I had, for many years, been involved in horseback riding. I took lessons, went to summer camps and even worked as a horse wrangler one summer. I loved horses. When I was asked if I wanted to ride a horse through the mountains of Mexico, there was no hesitation in saying yes. I realized right away, though, that I was having issues. I couldn't get settled into the saddle. I got my feet into the stirrups okay, but I couldn't quite sit myself correctly. (Later, I found out that it was a children's saddle; no wonder I couldn't get settled.) The woman who took me out asked if I wanted to run the horses a bit. Although I was apprehensive, I felt I couldn't say no to such a rare opportunity. There was a feeling I remember of freedom, of the wind whipping around me, and terror, because I knew I wasn't really in control of the horse. We made a turn into a more populated area, still running. The horse I was riding ran straight at a tree. The tree and I made contact at my right shoulder. I was immediately thrown off the back of the horse, who was still running. Not only did I have the wind knocked out of me, but I was surrounded by native Spanish-speakers. I couldn't get enough breath to communicate to them in either language the agony that I was experiencing.

I spent New Year's Eve that year lying in bed. I had a sip of champagne, but otherwise I was in too much pain to participate. I spent 8 hours the next day in an ER just over the border in Texas. I was in excruciating pain the whole time. I found out that I hadn't dislocated my shoulder, but the entire upper left quadrant of my torso was black and blue.

Having a cigarette was out of the question. When we got back to Chicago and got settled, though, my first order of business was to get some smokes. I was still convalescing and had hidden my smokes in my car. There was one day that I asked my dad to get something out of the car. He burst back into our apartment, my cigarettes in his hand, asking "what the hell are these?"

My secret was out. I felt ashamed because I knew I was doing something I shouldn't, but at the same time I felt like he couldn't judge me.

I smoked for 4 more years after that. It went from being something I enjoyed to being a compulsion. In 2001, I contracted a bad case of bronchitis. I stayed home a few days from work because I was coughing so violently. Nonetheless, I smoked the whole time. I smoked on my way to work, in my apartment, everywhere. It was around this time that I started walking 30 minutes a day. I would go for my walk, come back home and light up a cigarette. I ran my very first 5K in November of 2002 and twenty minutes after that race was done, I lit up.

Brian quit smoking in October of 2001. We started dating in December of that year. To his credit, he never picked up the habit again (or since). He used to love to watch me smoke, though. He said I made it look really good.

As I became more committed to fitness, it seemed more and more ridiculous to keep smoking. Yet I continued. I remember going to the gym, running on the treadmill, lifting weights, stretching, and then lighting up as soon as I got in the car. I couldn't start getting ready for work in the morning until I had a cigarette, even if I woke up late (which I frequently did). I had a very tight budget at the time (I was paying off some credit card debt and living well below my means), but I still found money for cigarettes.

In November of 2002, Brian and I went to see his aunt and uncle in Springfield. I decided to try to quit that weekend. I knew they wouldn't approve of me smoking and didn't want to deal with the criticism. By the end of the weekend, I was in such a mood that Brian came very close to buying me a pack. I started smoking again, swearing that I would quit when we went to Cancun the next month. He made me promise that I wouldn't.

Early the next year, I decided I had had enough. It was too much money and discomfort and misery to keep smoking. I talked to my doctor, got on Zyban (Wellbutrin), and within 2 weeks, I had no more desire to smoke. Meanwhile, I continued to persevere with my workout routine. I planned, trained for and ran my first half marathon in Highland Park. I am happy to report that I've been quit for over nine years.

I will say this, though. I have quit some stuff in my time, but smoking is one of those things that psychologically still has a hold on me. There are still times I wish I could have a cigarette. In times of stress, or emotional disturbance, there is a part of me that wants to run out and buy a pack. I have had multiple smoking dreams, where I wake up convinced that I've had a cigarette.

Earlier this summer, a friend of mine (from whom I'm now estranged), starting smoking again. There were a few times she invited me over to hang with her and I wasn't able to make it. I am glad, though, that we missed each other because I am not sure I could have resisted the temptation to start smoking again.

I no longer think smoking is cool. I remember smelling my laundry after I'd quit and realizing how awful the smell was. I couldn't believe that Brian had stuck with me through that smell. I get headaches now, migraines, if I'm even in the vicinity of cigarette smoke. I haven't become a militant ex-smoker, but I simply can't tolerate it at all.

I have talked to other ex-smokers and their experience has been the same. They miss it more than it seems logical to do. We will reminisce and wax nostalgic about something that causes multiple types of cancers and other awful diseases. People who have never smoked look at us with horror on their faces. It's inconceivable to them that such an awful habit could be enjoyable. I can't begin to make sense of it, but all the same there's a part of me that still misses it. Go figure.

Paralysis of Perfectionsism

I have heard the phrase "practice makes perfect" more times than I care to mention. I played the viola for many years growing up and I can assure you, this is not true. I swam for many years and had the same experience. I studied diligently and came up short as well. There were external forces pushing me along, but after a while I internalized those forces. First-borns are typically known for their type A personality; hard-driving, outgoing, competitive. Those traits could be considered a checklist for me. 

It was in fifth grade that I really remember this drive betraying me. I loved Mrs. Kanas, my fifth-grade teacher. She had salt-and-pepper hair, glasses and a wonderfully calm spirit. I enjoyed fifth grade and got very good grades. On one of my report cards, though, I received an A-. Up to that point, I had received all A+s. When I saw that I received an A-, I was devastated. I don't mean that I was bummed out and thought, "well, that's okay, I'll try harder next time." I mean, Mrs. Kanas had to take me into the hall because I was inconsolable. I had spilled milk that morning at the breakfast table and my dad had yelled at me. My tears were caused by both incidents, but make no mistake, it was a lot of emotion over such a small thing. 

I measured (measure) my success by my grades. In school, it was the letter grade that drove me. I was fortunate that school came pretty easy to me. I have always had a love of learning that singled me out as a nerd. I wasn't even a cool nerd who ran with other nerds. I was in a small subset of nerds who was smart and enthusiastic about learning. The subset only contained me. I think because school came so easy to me, I hated when I didn't understand something. My junior year in high school, I took a physics class. It was painful. My teacher, Mr. Saiz, was a great man and a wonderful teacher. He was incredibly patient and I spent a lot of time in his office, asking for extra help. I cried a lot that year, both in that classroom and at home. I got so frustrated that I couldn't make sense of the concepts. I struggled to understand things that seemed to come easy to my classmates. The harder I tried, the more baffled I seemed. I think I still managed a B in that class, but only because I did all available extra credit and homework assignment Mr. Saiz gave me. 

I am by nature a creative person. When I go to stores like Michael's and Hobby Lobby, I see lots of potential. In high school, when I started earning my own money, I would go and buy things with the intention of starting a new hobby. I bought beads because I was going to make jewelry. I bought yarn because I was going to knit. I tried my hand at sewing for a bit. Unfortunately, my hobby became collecting unfinished craft projects. You see, I get started on something, try it for a while and then get bored. I started scrapbooking several years with much gusto. I produced a few beautiful scrapbooks, but now mostly everything sits in the office gathering dust. 

So it seems like I'm long on inspiration and short on follow-through. I wouldn't have normally classified this as perfectionism, but I had an epiphany a few years ago. If I stop doing something because I'm worried it might not be perfect, that's perfectionism. If I procrastinate because I know the results aren't what I want them to be, that's perfectionism. I don't scrapbook because other people's work is so much more beautiful. That's perfectionism. I don't try harder at things because what's the point, I won't be perfect.

It's a tricky thing, honestly. I have taught myself not to visit craft stores unless I have a clear objective. To my credit, I haven't purchased anything related to scrapbooking in a few years. I was able to make a beautiful Mother's Day album for my mother-in-law two years ago. I was working on one for my mom, but now it's sitting on top of the cabinet in my office, only halfway finished. I was showing Bekah one of my scrapbooks the other day and realized I have not scrapbooked anything about her.

I discovered a website (at the suggestion of a friend) a few years ago. It's www.flylady.net. The author of that site talks about how years of perfectionism prevented her from living a full life. She outlines a program one can use to baby step their way to a clean house and less cluttered life. There is a lot of encouragement on the site for people like me, who think, "well I'll clean tomorrow" or "why should I clean the floor if the kids are just going to walk on it?" I have to admit, I've started her 28-day program in dribs and drabs. And she says that's okay. She says that she doesn't want me to think that I'm behind; just jump in where I'm at.

I want to start her program again. I need the structure. I have struggled this summer to find a rhythm to my daily activities. Admittedly, I've been staying up too late, sleeping too late and generally not taking good care of my house, my body or my family. I have discovered that, as a recovering perfectionist, I need to have a to-do list. I am learning that it's okay to not have everything checked off every day, but at least it's in front of me, ready for me to face it.

I want to start scrapbooking again. I have been paralyzed with the sense that I have to work chronologically. Right now, I've scrapbooked about Jeremy's birth and first bath. He is going to turn 5 in about a month. I can't hope to have every event in his life catalogued by then, but I can start slowly, 15 minutes at a time (FLY Lady's suggestion), to get pictures put onto pages, pages put into albums. It doesn't matter if someone else can do it better; my kids will not be reviewing the scrapbook side-by-side with other scrapbooks. There is not an international judging committee looking over my shoulder.

I want to live in a house that is not so noisy with clutter. I am typing this blog entry while sitting at a desk covered in paper, garbage and randomness (including a tube of chapstick, an outlet cover, a failed craft experiment, an empty Edith Piaf CD case, my phone and Jeremy's evaluation form from preschool. I don't think I need to pass the white-glove test if I'm just sitting here, but there is something to the idea that a neat home promotes harmony.

I am going to do something I wouldn't normally do. I am going to take pictures of my home as it is now and post them on this blog. I am not going to photo shop or otherwise alter them. I am going to show the nitty gritty, the down and dirty truth. Then, I am committing to undertaking a recovery program for my perfectionism. I will, to the best of my ability, follow FLY Lady's program for a month. I will take her suggestions and integrate them into my daily routine. Then, on September 6th, I will take pictures again. We'll see how far I've gotten in breeding harmony at 1749 Copperfield Lane.

My previous attempts at this have failed for many reasons, chief among them that all members of the house do not participate. I will not let that be my stumbling block this time. Regardless of the help I receive, I will take these measures on my own. I am going to do my best. I am not going to fret over the hiccups I have in completing my goal; rather, I'm going to let those hiccups propel me to try again. Cause, really, the phrase should be, "practice makes better." And that's where I'm aiming.

Sin and Redemption, Sue Carbajal Style

I became a Christian at a very young age. I was in kindergarten. The school I attended was housed inside a Baptist church. They were very strict--girls wore skirts to their knees, we weren't allowed to wear shorts, the pews were itchy and the sermons boiled over with brimstone. During Sunday School one week, the teacher asked us to bow our heads and close our eyes. Anyone who wanted to ask Jesus into their heart was supposed to raise their hand. I did, and was escorted out into the hallway to recite a simple prayer. I confessed that I was a sinner and that Jesus died on the cross for me. I asked him to come into my heart. It seems very sweet as I sit and write about it. The humor comes in that I repeated this three weeks in a row. By the last week, the teachers let me know that I only needed to say that prayer one time.

I couldn't begin to theorize about my initial comprehension of the gospel. I think I had a rudimentary understanding about what Christ had accomplished on the cross. I knew that I was disobedient, mean to my brother, snarky with my friends. At the same time, I felt like God had a scorecard. I picture him, now, as an adult, pen poised over paper, watching me like a hawk. That's how I felt as a child, that God was not only expecting me to sin, but he was excited about it and waiting to fill up my score card with negative points. I just sensed his breath on the back of my neck, waiting on me to make one false move, to say the wrong thing, to do something heinous.

The thing is, when one feels that the Almighty is expecting them to screw up, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It got to the point that I didn't even try anymore. I knew that, no matter what, I was going to make mistakes. I figured, if God expected that from me, there was no shock in it actually happening. And so I fumbled through my early years, into pre-adolescence, not really understanding the depths or widths of God's love. I could only see my shortcomings, not his magnificence. This was the perfect breeding ground for low self-esteem. It warped the filter I used to view the world. When people gave me praise, I perceived it as sarcastic. I heard (or imagined) that they couldn't be telling me the truth. When my dad told me I was beautiful, I only saw pudginess, or my lack of coordination, or my plain brown eyes.

Concurrently, I felt that I couldn't praise myself. I couldn't say, I'm a good swimmer, or I read well, or I have a gift with words. If I made these statements, I was bragging. I was unable to distinguish between making truthful declarative sentences and being arrogant. I went for a long period of time not knowing how to talk about myself. I spent a lot of time making demeaning comments about myself. I was either the best or the worst in a group. I was either the most holy or the most sinful. It's a tough way to live, on the outskirts of an imaginary Venn diagram where I am never part of the intersection.

Then there is the issue of sin. I believed for many years, as many of my counterparts did (and do), that there is a hierarchy of sins. On the one end are white lies. Yes, it's lying but it's for the sake of someones feelings. It's a sin but certainly a lowly one. On the other end is brutalization of children, murder, rape, etc. These are the really "bad" sins. The people who perpetrate these crimes are really awful, ugly people. Surely, these are people that God feels have really let Him down.

I will say that I spent a lot of time on the "better" end of the spectrum, looking down my nose at others. I was haughty and self-righteous. I didn't have a great view of myself, but at least I wasn't like the dregs of society. Then I became a dreg of society. I darkened the doorways of places I had no legal business being. I operated a motor vehicle while intoxicated. I lived the life of someone for whom I used to have so much derision. It was a dark, lonely and scary place to live. I already believed I was worthless--what remains below worthless?

I walked away from God during college because I felt like I was too far gone. I compared my insides with other Christ-followers' outsides. I saw them praising God on Sunday mornings and living in a way that was in step with that. I saw the joy on their faces and even though I had a smile on my face, there was a hollowness to my worship. I was the noise, the clanging cymbal Paul writes about. I went through the motions, of saying the right things, of knowing the right scriptures, of singing the right tune. But my heart was heavy and empty. I was no more than flotsam, a piece of toilet paper stuck to someones shoe.

After a while, I found recovery from intoxication and other recreational bad habits. I realized that even though I believed in God, Jesus, the whole ball of wax, I was living my life as if I was God. That's a pretty ridiculous, blasphemous thought, but it was my reality. I was disregarding the rules that God had given me. If I'm not following His rules, I'm following my own, making me the ruler of my life.

Let me assure you, there was never a better time for that ruler to be overthrown. I made a mess out of almost every relationship I had. I was unreliable, as a friend, family member and co-worker. I was someone against whom the UN would have levied heavy sanctions. I was absolutely toxic to myself and anyone who came close to me.

It is at that point; where I was broken, alone and living out of my car, that I finally understood what kind of gift Jesus had given me. He told his followers in Mark 2:15-17 that he didn't come for the healthy but the sick. He defended the woman whom the Pharisees brought to him after catching her in the act of committing adultery. He received Mary Magdalene's anointing not with a scowl but with love. The women He loved were the most broken, I was a broken woman and therefore, He loved me.

Basking in that acceptance, that fierce, crazy love, is powerfully wonderful and powerfully terrifying. I remember a few years ago a ministry called Prisoner Entrepreneurship Program (or PEP) visited my church. It was a ministry started by a woman aimed at helping prisoners in the Texas prison system. The underlying principle was that a certain segment of the prison population had enjoyed some amount of success as business people. Drug dealers, while they are breaking the law, are excellent at running a lucrative business. She saw this as something that could be redeemed; she could take their brokenness and use in conjunction with the gifts they already had. Now, the ministry itself was something I found incredibly interesting. I feel like prisoners are already so disenfranchised that there is nothing waiting for them at home but the path back to jail. But what occurred to me that Sunday morning is that they and I are the same.

Yes, we are the same. The hierarchical construct I made for rating sin was bogus. God sees sin as a separation from Him. He doesn't have a double-secret book in the Bible that lays out the "good" and "bad" sins. Sin is sin; as such, these hardened criminals and I were the same. We all had sinned. It was a pretty crazy epiphany for me. I spent most of my life thinking I was worse than or better than---how freeing to find I was equal to! It was like God was able to finally flush the crap out of my broken filter. I was able to see myself for what I really was; a child of God. The things I loved about myself, God loves. The things I don't like, God loves them too. I don't need to pretend to be who I'm not. God didn't create drones and I don't believe He wants us all to be the same.

I stayed out of social media vis-a-vis the Chick-Fil-A nightmare. I have discovered, through trial and error, that it's not the best way to relay thoughts or propel change. Here's my two cents, though. First, my job as a Christian is not to judge other people. It's very clear about that in the Bible. The only judge of people is God. Second, I am not furthering the kingdom of Christ if I condemn anyone. Do I agree with abortion? No, not really. It's not a choice I would make for myself, but the beauty of being a Christian is that I get to make all sorts of choices. Why shouldn't every woman have the right to make that choice? I will not worry about the babies because, again, that's God's job. I'm saying that the people who are perpetrating the hate are just as guilty as those whom they hate. I always said to myself, "oh, phew, I've not broken all ten commandments because I've not murdered anyone." Unfortunately, God's take on that sin is that we are murdering someone if we have hate in our hearts for them. Eek. I'm in trouble; 10 for 10.

What I can do is try to teach my kids that love and tolerance is our code. I will not spew hate speech because there will be spittle on my chin, convicting me as much as those whom I hate. I will not decry a social group as sinners because that posits that there is a social group without sinners. We are all broken. We all fall short. The beauty is that we are infinitely and fiercely loved in our brokenness. We are not expected to become whole to become worthy of God's love; it's because of His love that we are wholly worthy. I refuse to be the one to strip someone else of their right to His grace.

Adventures in Shouldville

I do not want to write today. I took a long nap punctuated by strange dreams. I got a few things done today, but overall I've been working hardest at keeping the couch on the ground. In that respect, I've been very successful. Hopefully, the rest today will gear me up for a lot of writing tomorrow.

Snark Tales

I have been, from an early age, blessed and cursed by the same gift: my quick wit. For reasons I don't understand, I am able to extemporaneously fire off comic missiles. A lot of it has to do with the way my brain works. I have a tendency to freely associate when I think. People may start talking to me about plans for next week and by the time it's my turn to talk, I'm asking them who comes first in the Brady Bunch theme song. It doesn't make sense to most, but I can't explain every step in the thought process. I also think and speak very quickly. I was constantly getting feedback from my speech teacher that I should slow down. I once had someone tell me that listening to me talk was like listening to a Ramones album. There is something that happens, both when I speak and when I write, that just causes words to tumble forth.

I wish I could say they tumbled forth in a crisp, clean way a la Gabby Douglas. More often than not, they are like awkward teenagers, all akimbo, awkward, angular and uncomfortable. Growing up, I couldn't fling insults back at people quickly enough. I would lie in bed at night forming the perfect response to being called Big Bertha or some other permutation of fat. I also tried too hard; if I get a laugh for telling a joke once, I just kept telling it. I failed to realize that humor is about timing and is susceptible to the law of diminishing returns. I am, to my husband's chagrin, immensely amused by puns and elementary-school types of jokes (Where does a snowman keep his money? In the snow bank.). I guffaw at any play on words; I am not sure why they tickle my funny bone, but they do. I am a very kinesthetic laugher, too. This I attribute to my father. I remember, going back to a young age, sitting two floors down from him and hearing him pound his feet on the floor and laugh. I was the one at slumber parties that had to be shushed. I laugh as much as I cry--for those of you who know me well, that's quite a bit.

My kids and I have been watching Despicable Me a lot lately. There is a scene where the girls deliver cookies to Vector. They have an exchange with him about his wardrobe. The girls are convinced that he is wearing pajamas; he tells them, incredulously, "these are not pajamas, this is a warm-up suit." I don't know why, but Bekah, Jeremy and I have been performing that scene of the movie multiple times over the past week. I am not sure if I am laughing because Jeremy has even perfected the noises Vector makes, or if I am laughing because Jeremy and Bekah can do the scene together so perfectly or if it's really the first time we've all together performed a scene together. In any case, I am still giggling about the scene in the movie and their rendition of it.

Brian and I have also, since we met, laughed a lot together. He is a ham who loves to have people laugh at him. One of the first things about him to which I was attracted was his sense of humor. There is a lot of joke recycling that goes on; this was not covered in the terms of our marriage agreement. I can now make most of his jokes for him before he does. He covers a lot of ground about daily activities and sex. For example, if I say I'm going to put a load of laundry in the washer, he'll say "I'll put a load in." Ditto for the dishwasher. If I say I'm going downstairs to get water, would he like some, his response is, "oh, I'll go down." And on and on, just like that. Someone like me, who is comforted by routine, appreciates that I can set my watch by the jokes I know he'll tell.

We also have this (I believe) unique ability to joke even when we're fighting. A few weeks ago, we were having a heated argument over something--probably money or family, two of our heavily repeated fights. It escalated back and forth with various accusations of asshole versus bitch. The climax is, of course, him threatening to leave. I will say, as an aside, that I used to get panicked about this threat. Time has shown me it's not something over which I should lose sleep. I should also mention that Brian loves cough drops. He has had several sinus infections over the past year and owing to his voice being used so much for work, they are indispensable to him. So we're having this fight, about God knows what, and he threatens to leave. I am following him to the door to continue to hurl words at him when he stops, turns and heads for the cabinet where he keeps his cough drops. I am still furious, but it tickles me. If he were really serious about leaving, he would have stormed out, gone to CVS and bought more. That's just a no-brainer. I decide to call his bluff; I know, in his youth, he threatened to and did run away from home. In those instances, he collected his few prized possessions in a blanket and walked out. And that's the thought I have as he goes for the cough drops. I make the observation that he should pack a little blanket and put a stick through it. The image of that coupled with his age and stature make me giggle. Let it be known that we are both stubborn and obsessed with being right and/or winning arguments. We will frequently augment reality just to stick to a point we refuse to concede is incorrect. That being said, he was not going to stop his course of action. He absolutely was going to storm out of the house.

Weeks later, we can laugh about that. There is also a time where I was leaving and I asked him to hand me my purse. He was about ten steps away from me and threw it at me. As God as my witness, the purse sailed, completely upright toward me, hit the wall next to me and fell on it's bottom. I couldn't replicate that for the life of me, but we still giggle about that. I even remember lying on the couch in our condo, shouting insults at him and just starting to laugh as I heard how ridiculous we sounded. This ability to laugh at things over which others would cry is a wonderful thing.

There, is, however, a dark side to this gift. I am also able to tear people to shreds with my words. I have the unique ability to sense something about which a person is vulnerable and then eviscerate them, leaving their fears hanging outside of them like entrails. I have reduced people to tears. I have said ugly, ugly things to people I love the most. There is something infinitely satisfying about turning on my heel and walking away from someone licking their wounds. I enjoy the fact that I can construct sentences out of thin air. My wheels are always turning, even when I'm asleep. I wake up with a bitter taste in my mouth, the result of a venomous dream evaporating in my mind. It is an ugly black cloud of hate that swirls out of me and there have been many times I wished I could suck it all back in.

I don't find a need to use this dark side very often. I do, though, struggle with keeping it in check. I believe that every joke has some basis in reality. I do have an uncanny knack for reading people's weaknesses, and luckily the censors in my brain are constantly working overtime. I have a smart remark ready for almost every instance, but I am grateful that I sometimes bypass that for a more empathic one. It's a tough thing, sometimes, because it's a way of righting wrongs for me. I fight much better with words than with fists. It does seem odd that someone like me, who has experienced the full force of a verbal evisceration, would be so good at it herself. I will chalk it up to being a tool of self-preservation.

I am glad that, despite the turmoil and tribulations my family has been wading through, we are a family that laughs out loud together. My hope is that when my kids grow up, they'll only remember the laughter.

From Victim to Victorious...Several Years Later

I do not get anxious about writing. I get anxious about calling people on the phone I've never met. I get anxious when someone is mad at me. I get frequently anxious about what might happen if we lose our home. I do not get anxious about writing. I am anxious, however, to write about this topic. I come from a tradition of keeping secrets. This relationship, the one I'm about to talk about in front of everyone, is still not talked about. I will say that I do not harbor resentments against my parents about what happened. There was a lot I kept from them. There was a lot I kept from everyone. I spent a lot of time in therapy talking about this relationship; it's only been recently I've had an epiphany about the nature of the relationship. 

I was in an emotionally abusive relationship. I will not divulge the abuser's name because this is not his story, it's mine. I will call this person Bob. I will share aspects of our relationship I've never shared. Some of it will be graphic. My hope is two pronged. One, I hope it untangles me internally. Two, I hope helps someone else untangle. 

I will start at the beginning. I met Bob in the neighborhood when my family first moved to Streamwood. I don't remember why, but one of the first times we met, I punched him in the stomach. I was such a tomboy--I know that doesn't explain my behavior, but it's the only explanation I have. 

Bob and I were in orchestra together, and that started in fourth grade. He played the bass, I played the viola. We also played soccer together. I did not develop a crush on him, really, but he quickly became one of my best friends. We talked on the phone all the time. I can still remember his phone number, I'm not sure why. I did everything I could to stay up late talking to him. 

At school, it was different. A lot of girls thought he was cute. He never really wanted for attention from girls. I, on the other hand, was obsessed with boys but never could get their attention. I would talk with him about boys I was crushing on and he even tried to help me out. He would try to get the boy I liked to talk to me. I would always screw it up. 

I will take a minute to say that I have always been a dreamer. I grew up watching romantic comedies. Even in grade school, my ideas about love and dating were heavily colored by Hollywood. This is not good for someone living in Streamwood because none of the boys there received a memo about it. I expected way more from them than they would have ever been able to deliver. 

I should also mention that, in elementary school, I regularly met with the school social worker. My teachers realized, perhaps before anyone else, that I was a little bit different. I was labeled "sensitive." I reacted to things (positive and negative) with more gusto than my peers. It was helpful to talk to Mr. Copeland, but made me stick out like a sore thumb. My peers knew I was talking to him. They were not cruel about it, but they knew. Then, in sixth grade, I wrote a heavily detailed suicide note. That earned me a month-long trip to Forrest Hospital, a behavioral health hospital in Des Plaines. People were all very kind to me when I returned to class, but again, it was something everyone (including Bob) knew. 

I did have a smattering of girlfriends in grade school. They knew about Bob. I constantly talked about him. We rode the bus together to orchestra practice. We played video games together. There was nothing untoward about our relationship. We were simply two people of the opposite sex who were also best friends. 

Middle school changed things a bit. He started "going out" with girls. I started obsessing about his best friend. This was beyond just a crush. I was full-blown, over the moon about this guy. And about five other guys. And I was still very socially awkward about the opposite sex. I wanted guys to be bold about how they felt about me, my spazziness acted like a forcefield of sorts. It allowed information to go out, but repelled people away from me. 

Bob was going out with one girl in particular for most of middle school. I would hang out with them sometimes, but I hated being the third wheel. It was during his relationship with her, though, that our relationship shifted. It was a subtle shift. I don't recall exactly when it happened, although I think it coincided with me getting a phone in my room. 

Bob knew that there were four main guys I had a crush on. At the end of our phone conversations (sometimes hours past when I should have been on the phone), he would tell me a "story" about one of the guys. That's what we called it, but in reality it was a sexual fantasy. It became my treat from him. I grew up in a house where we went to church and espoused the value of purity. I never told anyone about these phone calls. Not my pastor, my therapist, girlfriends, anyone. I locked this up and put it somewhere no one would ever see. 

Eighth grade was one of my favorite years of school. I was still pretty awkward, still boy crazy (all of it unrequited) and still a spaz. I had a lot of friends in different circles. I don't know why, but things just clicked for me and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Halfway through eighth grade, though, my family moved from Streamwood to Elgin. My mom drove me to middle school every day so that I wouldn't have to switch schools mid-year. The long-term impact was that I would not be attending the same high school as most of my close friends. I would be attending Elgin High instead of Streamwood High. It was crushing and disappointing and tough to process. 

Bob and I kept in touch via the phone. He would still, from time to time, tell me a "story."

Freshman year was rough, I'll say that. I was on the swim team, I did well academically, but I really had no friends. Meanwhile, the church I had been attending for many years (since we had moved to Streamwood) closed. My family embarked on a journey to find a new church. The problem was that every youth group I visited, those kids had known each other for years. I was the outsider. It was awkward and difficult to form new friendships. I felt like I was trying to add a wedge to a Trivial Pursuit piece. There's only room for six wedges; there's no physical way to add more. At these different churches, I felt like the seventh wedge piece. There was no way I was ever going to fit. I floundered. I had always found solace at church. There were always friends and friendly faces there. I became vocal enough about my fundamentalist beliefs in high school to ostracize myself even from the nerds. There was absolutely no where in my life where I felt like I belonged.

Enter Kip*. He was in my freshman biology class. He was good-looking, funny and sweet. His friend, Don*, and I hung out some outside of class. I started to get to know him better and it turned out he liked me back. I asked him to Turnabout and that was my first and last good, fun time at a high school dance. I was on cloud nine. He was a sweetie and a gentleman, but he was also a high school boy. My expectations of him were so high that he was never in danger of meeting them. 

As my relationship with him blossomed, I started telling Bob about him. I gushed about the dance, the silly exchanges we had, everything. Please remember, I had no real feelings for Bob. There was a part of me that felt like a relationship with him would be a natural outgrowth, but I never verbalized that to him or anyone. I had long believed that the door in that relationship that led from "friend" to "more than friend" was firmly closed and nailed shut. I didn't think anything of talking incessantly about Kip with him because we were just friends. He was not as excited to hear about me dating someone as I had hoped. 

Instead, he dropped a bombshell on me. He told me that he had been in love with me since sixth grade. He used that word, love. He hadn't told me for this reason or that, but it was true. When he made his male best friend (the one with whom I had been obsessed) give me gifts, those were really from Bob. 

For a girl with Hollywood in her heart, this was (I thought) what I had been looking for. A guy loved me. Finally! It was what I had been hoping for and dreaming about  I fabricated some reason to break up with Kip and Bob and I started going out. 

Here is what I have now realized. Bob and I went to different high schools. We didn't have the same friends. We didn't share the same social circles, go to the same house of worship, etc. It was incredibly easy for him to keep me a secret from his friends. Mine didn't exist, so while I talked a lot about a boyfriend, he could have very well been a figment of my imagination as far as anyone knew. Our "relationship" consisted of him coming over to my house and us hanging out in my room with the door closed. My parents suspected nothing awry; I had known this guy since forever. They knew nothing of the burgeoning sexual aspect of our relationship. In their minds, we were just two friends hanging out together. I had been too embarrassed to talk to my parents about dating Kip, so when I dumped him, there was nothing to report. I certainly wasn't going to tell them about what Bob had said, how he told me he loved me, how he had been sharing sexual fantasies with me for years.

I was educated about sex through the mandatory Health Ed class at school and through books. My mom gave me a book to read and told me to come to her with any questions. I knew that premarital sex was against the rules. I had plans to be abstinent. I had no plan whatsoever to talk about sex with my mom. I could not plan for the impact hormones would have on me. We never talked about sex, or hormones, or any of that stuff in my house. I no longer had girlfriends to talk to; they all had gone to Streamwood High and we had lost touch with one another. I wasn't going to talk about feeling horny with my new friends at church and I certainly was not going to talk with any pastor about it. 

Bob and I made out behind closed doors. It felt good. I had no idea that doing something against God's law would feel good. But I at least had my wits about me. We always kept our clothes on. Always. Kissing turned into heavy petting, but always with clothes on. It was a weird quirk of self-preservation, I think, that caused me to make and keep that rule. 

But Bob and I never went out in public together. I would try to make plans with him to go to the mall together, to go out to dinner, to go somewhere, occupy the same space together in a public area. I wanted to show everyone that we were boyfriend and girlfriend, but something always came up. If I pushed too hard, he would get pissed and give me the silent treatment. For someone like me, that was a fate worse than death. So I would back down. I would stop asking, even though I secretly yearned for him to make some public acknowledgement of our relationship. 

The summer after Freshman year, I was very busy and travelled a lot. I went to Mexico to be in my cousin's quinceñera, I had swim team and I worked a bit at summer camp. I tried to call Bob and chat with him, but he was very distant. He felt marginalized (not his words) about all of my activity and how I didn't have time for him. I'm not kidding, that's what he told me. I was dumbfounded. The person who was unwilling to acknowledge me in public was pissed that I had a life. I didn't see that as an earmark of emotional abuse, but it is. He dumped me and I was convinced I had done something wrong. 

I started my sophomore year with lots of promise. I started having feelings for a guy and although they were unrequited, it was fun to flirt. I shined academically; I got straight As both semesters. I did well with the viola and also qualified for Conference swimming the 100M Breaststroke. I started seeing a therapist who helped me work through my break-up with Bob. I was on sure footing. 

Then, weeks before Junior year started, my phone rang and it was Bob. He told me he had been lying in a hospital bed with a collapsed lung. He thought about his life and knew he wanted, needed, to set things right with me. If I could time travel, that's the day I would visit. I would shout at my younger self, "slam down that receiver and never talk to him again. Run away from that relationship as fast as you can."

Alas, though, Hollywood was still in my heart. He sounded reticent and I opened the door to him again. This time, though, we would keep the door to my bedroom open. That way, things would stay calmer, boundaries wouldn't be crossed. I have since learned never to underestimate two horny teenagers who have already gone down a road. I have also learned to have grace for those who return to their abusers. Here is a guy who treated me horribly. I was completely at his mercy; his feelings were my feelings, his thoughts were my thoughts. I knew, in my gut, that something wasn't right. I returned to him because it was comfortable. I returned to him because I believed he had changed. 

We really (again) just got together to make out. I still didn't have anyone to help me process this. I knew I wanted to be spending time doing things other than making out. I would beg with him, plead really, that we go to the mall. I wanted someone, somewhere to know we were dating. But it was the same as it had ever been. If I pushed too hard, he would shut down, shut me out. He had me trained to believe that I should be grateful for what we had together (which, really, was not a lot). 

It was inevitable that we were going to get caught making out. Unfortunately, it was at the most in-opportune moment. We had progressed to dry-humping (actually, at the time I didn't know it had a name--it's not been until the last several years that I heard about that phrase). My dad came out of his room and saw Bob on top of me. He and I locked eyes and the shame was immediate. To his credit, he walked downstairs rather than coming into my room, pulling Bob off of me and throwing him down the stairs. He called Bob's mom to come and pick him up. Just before Bob left, he shoved my hand down his pants. It was unexpected and it caught me off guard. 

After he left, my parents convened a meeting and, with solemn faces told me Bob's mom told them she didn't even know we were dating. She thought he was dating another girl. They also, with disappointment twisted around their expression and words, told me that I should only be doing what I had been doing with my husband. I was so flustered that I couldn't even explain that we weren't having sex. I felt crumpled up and dirty, a discarded piece of notebook paper with a hapless doodle on it. It was as if someone had sucked the air right out of my soul.

The death knell was when I called Bob. He didn't apologize. He didn't have a good reason why his mom didn't know we were dating. He didn't try to comfort me or call his mom crazy or anything. 

Now, I understand that he was a teenage boy not capable of Hollywood chivalry. I get that he had been caught red-handed and was probably a bit embarrassed. I think there is something to that, but I don't believe that was all of it. He never hit me or threatened me with violence. He never made me go sexually beyond where I wanted to go, but there was still abuse. 

I was the week wildebeest. I had emotional issues, I was unstable, had low self-esteem. All of these things made me especially vulnerable to emotional abuse. I had no real support system. He became my whole world because he knew me so well. I got cut off from forming any other close friendships. He never wanted us to be seen in public. When I tried to push the issue, he cut me off emotionally. I had no one else to go to, so I would kowtow to him. It wasn't a day or age when emotional abuse was talked about. I heard a bit about physical and sexual abuse, but he wasn't like that. The haunting refrain of "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" convinced me that the damage couldn't be permanent. 

I can tell you, though, that it spun the floor right away from me. I was in a carnival ride, spinning around and around, unable to gain my footing as I slipped toward the ground. My grades dropped, I gained a bunch of weight, I was weepy. These are things you could dismiss as "normal" teenage things, but I'm telling you now that it wasn't normal. I carried shame around for years. I felt like, if only I had done something different, maybe he wouldn't have done that. It changed my entire outlook on myself and on life. 

This is a story I've never told from beginning to end. I am ashamed to say that, over the years, I would miss him and re-establish contact. It always ended the same way. We would talk for a few days, we'd get together to make out and then he would avoid me like the plague. I didn't date anyone else in high school and only briefly dated someone in college. 

I would love to say that this ugliness is all behind me, but it's not. I still doubt myself and my abilities. I am a beautiful woman. Yes, I am overweight, but I am a child of the King. I am royalty by birth. I am smart, caring, compassionate, funny, hard-working and passionate. I have a wonderful, handsome husband and three beautiful children. My husband thinks I'm sexy. The voice in my head, though, is still sometimes Bob's voice. It tells me I am not beautiful. It tells me I'm worthless. It's a loud voice sometimes but other times it's just a whisper. 

I still know his number by heart. I've looked him up on Facebook. He is married with two kids and seems successful. He married his high school sweetheart and it makes me sick to think he was dating her and fooling around with me. 

There is so much insight in hindsight. I was taught about how to deal with external peer pressure, how to say no, all of that. What they didn't teach me about was internal peer pressure. I didn't understand that this kind of peer pressure is so much more powerful. I didn't say no to Bob, or demand better treatment or tell him to fuck off because I was so desperate to fit in somewhere, with someone. I didn't go to parties in high school because I was afraid someone would pass me a beer, but I didn't have the courage or belief in myself to stay away from Bob. I don't know if any of this could have been prevented. I believe I'm walking a path now that's the right path. My past is in the past, but it has shaped today's path. If I just disavow that this relationship happened, I am changing the course of my life now. It happened and it was unfortunate. I am sad that I gave Bob so much power. The odd thing is, for a girl who was such a Christ-follower, I sure followed Bob a lot more. 

I hope that, when Bekah starts dating, I can be more vigilant. I think every generation improves. I am praying that she becomes a Proverbs 31 woman, someone who is beautiful inside and out and who's feet and heart are planted in God's promises, not in the world's lies. I think romantic comedies have their place, but I hope that she sees puppy love and teenage love for what they are; just a small peek into the love the Lord has for us. 

As for Bob...well, I wanted to draw and quarter him. I was angry at him, then at myself, then at the world. I am grateful that God's love redeems. I am grateful to be raising my hand with God's in victory over this awful experience. I am glad, finally, that I had the courage to tell the story from beginning to end. And I am glad that at the end, there is always a new beginning.