The Give and the Get

It's been almost a month since my last post, and what a crazy month it has been. My baby graduated high school and left immediately on a choir tour through Philadelphia, PA, and returned to start working her first job. My oldest started a new job and a new relationship, and I, myself, am rehearsing for a show. Life has been hectic to put it mildly! I don't think I'm alone when I say that when our lives are rushed we tend to be a little more stressed. We're rushed from here to there. We don't take any time for ourselves, and the end result, for me, anyway, is irritability, and, frankly, I get bitchy with most of the people around me. I mentioned that my youngest graduated high school. This was certainly a happy event in our lives and cause for celebration, but it also brought with it anxiety. I have known this day was coming, and have dreaded it because along with her graduation from high school came the end of her child support down to the fact that the last payment for June was prorated because she graduated 3 days before the middle of the month. Forget the fact that she still lives with me. She will be living with me as she pursues an education in the fall. I would never kick her or her sister out of my house. But the law says 18, so in their father's eyes, his responsibility has ended. This is not a diatribe about the much needed reformation of child support laws. I only pointed that out to paint the picture of the mood I have been in for the last month. I have really been down, for lack of a better word. I saw something today on social media that really made me take a step back. Briefly, it shows a young man asking people in a pizza place for a slice of pizza because he is hungry. He's not dressed particularly shabbily. He just looks like a regular kid. I will say he's a little abrupt in the way he asks, and the two people they show that he approaches tell him , "No." The next part of the video shows two other young men approach a homeless man on the street and present him with a full pizza. He thanks them, and they move on. The same young man from the restaurant then approaches the homeless man and, again, asks for a slice of pizza. The homeless man shares a slice with him without hesitation. He truthfully has NOTHING except the clothes on his back, and he shares with a total stranger expecting NOTHING in return. Two statements are superimposed over the video, "We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give." Seeing a man who had NOTHING  give so freely really made me re-evaluate the way I look at things. I often think I barely have enough money to pay my bills and eat. How can I give what I don't have? Now, I am not one to compare suffering. I think it's wrong. Suffering is relative. If you are hungry and have nothing to eat because you didn't grocery shop this week, it does not make you less hungry because I remind you that there are people who are starving and have no money to buy food. It may make you feel bad about complaining, but it does not change the fact that you are hungry. Seeing this video didn't change the fact that I am struggling financially and wish there was a way to crawl out from under bills. It did however make me see my struggle in a different light. It made me appreciate the countless times I have been helped by family and friends and even strangers. It made me realize that it isn't always about running around and working myself to death for the getting. LIFE is about the giving. I guess you could say that my financial life is a struggle because I did make my life about giving. I am sure there are a lot of people who would look at my life on paper and see that I have been single for 16 years and think, surely you should have been able to "move up" in those sixteen years so that life at 50 would not be a struggle. And.....if I had made my life about getting for those 16 years, I probably would be at least comfortable right now, if not a little ahead of the game, but I didn't. I made a commitment to giving my time, as much as I could, to my children. That meant taking the jobs where I didn't have to work nights, the jobs where I was off in the summer with them, neither of which pay a very big salary. And what have I gotten in return? A LIFE! A life full of love and beautiful relationships with both of my daughters who have grown up to be amazing young women, something I'm not sure would have happened if I had spent all of my time getting instead of giving. It's just like the story of the butterfly. Without the struggle, the beauty never materializes. Did I like struggling? No. Am I glad I struggled? Yes.

The First of the Lasts

I have decided to write this blog post today because I can cry at home without attracting too much attention. Just kidding! Not really. I have already started, and I'm only 5 sentences in. Tomorrow, September 3, 2013, my youngest, my baby, will begin her senior year in high school. For this household, it will be our last ever first day of school. I cannot believe that I have watched her do this for 13 years already. I can still remember exactly what she was wearing her first day of Kindergarten, a little jeans jumper and a striped purple shirt, and no I didn't have to search through pictures to recall. She had a little bob haircut, a style in later years she told me she disliked greatly. That wouldn't be the last opinion she would share through her school years as she definitely speaks her mind. :) I walked her and her sister down to the bus top and cried just like I am now, and I am sure there will be many tears shed this year as I watch this beautiful young woman experience all the things that have to do with your final year in school knowing it's the last bit of childhood I have to hold onto. If you read this blog at all or if you know me personally, you know that our life has been a struggle. She has grown up without a father as a daily presence in her life as her father and I separated when she was 2. Some would say, "Well that's all she has ever known, so it probably wasn't that bad," and that argument has valid points. How can you miss what you never had? But on the other hand, you don't even have the memories of what it is to be daddy's little girl. Thank God for my father as he took over that role for both of my girls but especially my youngest. They shared lots of time together as we lived with my parents for her preschool years and beyond. Her older sister was already in school so that made for lots of quality time spent with my dad as he was retired and her primary caregiver for most of the day. If you asked her she would say that I have been all she has ever needed, but it's really the other way around. My children were my saviors. I pulled myself up because of them. That little girl in the jeans jumper has lifted my spirits more than she will ever know with her wisdom far beyond her years. Her depth of compassion is staggering! I know that tomorrow will carry with it bittersweet feelings as we experience the first of many lasts this year together. Bitter, well for obvious reasons as I have already gone through three tissues typing this and sweet because I am so proud of the young woman she has become. I know every parent says that about their kid, but for this one, there's something more, something none of us will ever know. Every person she comes in contact with will be touched in some way by her humor, her compassion, her honesty, and it will change them. I know she has changed me, and at the risk of her reading this, and saying, "Mom, that's so cheesy!" I will close with these lyrics: Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
                                                        But because I knew you,
                                                        I have been changed for good.
Go change the world, sweet girl! I love you!

I Get the Message!

Isn't it funny when something speaks to you that you seem to see that same running theme everywhere? It's kind of like when you buy a new car in a color that seems unique at the time, and then every car you see on the road is that same color, the one you thought was so exclusive just a day ago. Lately it seems I am surrounded by people who are going through challenges, and it made me think of the challenges in my own life. More importantly, it made me reflect on how I handled and continue to handle them. I have never been a wallower ( I'm pretty sure that's not a word), but meaning I have never been one when faced with a particular problem, trial, challenge, whatever you want to call it that I sit and wallow and lament my situation. In fact, I think sometimes people think I'm a little callous or unfeeling because my attitude is not "Why, Why, Why?" It's "This sucks!, but how are we going to deal with it?" This is not to say that I think no one should be able to be sad or emotional when they get slammed with this wonderful thing called life. Believe me, I have done my share of crying, but it's the letting those circumstances bog you down, control you, guide your every move and thought that I'm condemning. My daughter wrote her own blog post today dealing with this same subject. My other daughter was dealing with some issues of her own surrounding, again, this same subject. Today as I read one's blog and talked with the other as she helped a friend, I couldn't help but be proud and in awe of what awesome women they have become. Neither one is a stranger to struggle or adversity. As I have shared in this blog many times before they both had a hard blow dealt them when they were very young. Struggle has been more the norm than the occasional occurrence, and yet they have persevered and become stronger for it. At the risk of crossing the line into "patting myself on the back" territory, I think a lot of how they deal with life came from the fact that I have never sugar-coated anything! I always tell the truth, even when it's not so easy to hear. I have encouraged them, and I am always in their corner, but I have never given them false hope about any situation. I have never been the mom that when my kid came home from preschool with a picture they colored entirely brown to say, "Oh, Honey, That's beautiful!" rather I would question, "Why didn't you use any other colors?"  Some would think me awful for that, but my honesty opens a dialogue about color and feelings and all sorts of things. What is fair in encouraging anyone to do something they really have no talent for? If you are not honest with your child about their abilities or lack of, in some cases, and you constantly tell them that they are good or, worse yet, the best at something, they will believe you, and someday someone will deliver the crushing blow that they really have no talent at all, and they are left questioning why you lied to them all of those years. I'm rambling, but the basic thought is this. Life is hard! People make mistakes. You can't always be the best. Sometimes things don't work out. The triumph is not in winning but surviving and becoming stronger when you lose.