Grieving

Over ten years ago I started this blog to process the tumultuous nature of the marriage that was ending. Ten years of living side by side with an addict and alcoholic had taken it’s toll on me and I couldn’t live a half life anymore. Ten years of living by someone else’s mood and opinion. Ten years of mental abuse and ridicule. From age 20 to 30 I was in this place of constantly being made to feel less than human. It was where you met me, a shadow of a person. It was hard to let go of the pain, but eventually I did.

From early 2011 to now, I have grown in confidence and self-assurance. I’ve stood up for myself and others. I’ve decided what kind of friends I want to surround myself with and what kind of friends to hold at arms length. I have taken charge of my finances and bought things that I previously thought would never be an option for me. Millennials – even us elder millennials get a bad wrap on perhaps never being able to buy a home of our own – but I did that. All on my own a few years ago. I’ve literally built a life from the ground up that most people would be proud to live. It was hard being homeless and jobless with the boys all those years ago, but it’s still hard, just a different kind of hard. Everyone has their struggles.

My ex struggled with alcohol addiction the most. He had also struggled with other things, but mostly alcohol. At one point in our marriage he could drink a half gallon of vodka in a day…every day. He would quit really good jobs. He would ruin family relationships. He would hurt himself or me. He would apologize and go to treatment, but would always repeat the behavior before too many months had passed.

Part of his story in the last ten years is one of treatment. He sought treatment several months after we returned to Texas in 2011. He lived in a halfway house and went to AA and NA meetings, but not long after moving into an apartment of his own, started drinking again. In 2012, he found a nonprofit operated treatment program that was residential, but struggled with the rules. He left and found a job, but then started drinking again, and he ended up homeless again. By the end of 2012, he found a program that started as a homeless shelter, but then he qualified for an alcohol treatment component so they moved him away from the homeless group into that program. They paid for his life for the whole year of the program. He complained the whole time, but he complied. He did the meetings, he did the work, and he did everything they asked of him. After this program he moved into their long-term living space, he attended school with grant assistance, and after 2 years of classes and 1 year of clinical hours he had almost earned his LCDC (Licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor). This gets us to the end of 2017.

In 2018, he moved into an apartment of his own to finish the second and final year of his clinic work to finally earn the license. He was doing well. He finished school, took the exam, and earned the LCDC before the end of December 2018. That was the last Christmas he spent with the boys. Of all the holidays or celebrations, I always made sure their dad was at Christmas. It is one of those holidays where you are supposed to be with family and throughout the challenge of the years that had passed, he was there. The week before we had picked him up for this holiday he had taken a tumble down the stairs trying to help his neighbor. He shattered 2 ribs and reinjured an ankle that was held together with plates and pins. Rather than going to the hospital he found some pills and a few drinks to stave off the pain. I learned this after he disappeared. Following Christmas we couldn’t find him. He had made plans with the boys and when that weekend rolled around and I was trying to confirm, I couldn’t find him anywhere. I apologized to the kids and said that surely he would call or text. It was a week and a half later that a woman called from my ex’s cell phone to inform me that she had left him at a convenience store in the Dallas area, and had taken his wallet and phone for his own good. He had been on a several weeks long bender. If anyone could find their way to trouble…it was my ex.

As a “solution” to the situation, he checked himself into another rehab center. This one was made to resemble military style training and AA and therapy all in one. He hated it. After 6 months he took the first bus from Dallas and never looked back. He only had a weekend pass and was supposed to go back, but like all things…he gave the thought the finger and found his way to another halfway house in the Houston area. He lasted 2 weeks and ended up homeless again. He begged to stay here with us. That was a non-starter. He called the place where he had lived so long that he accomplished something and they didn’t have any beds in residential, but he could stay with the homeless population for a few days and something should open up. This is where he landed at the end of 2019. He did not spend Christmas with us.

Then came 2020. We all had a shitty 2020. There really isn’t a story here, but for him, he was locked into quarantine in the residential section of this homeless shelter due to covid. We didn’t see him for months. He eventually got a job when they lifted the lockdown at the shelter and he moved into another halfway house. He worked for a month before the company he was working for laid him off due to new covid restrictions. He filed for unemployment. He would spend a few weekends a month with us or asking if he could, but I did not want to spend my every free moment with him…so I worked it out so that he would get to see them about every other weekend. The boys love their dad and they only got to see him in my presence, so we made it work. As time went on, my ex’s anxiety turned to panic attacks which turned to medical episodes and he was given the choice to spend a few months in a different kind of mental hospital for treatment of things other than his addictions. Treating the cause of them. He went. He was in this program until the end of March this year. He was released with the help of a social program that finds homeless apartments and then pays for their livelihoods while they reintegrate into normal.

On March 25th is when I got a phone call at 5 in the morning. “Can you please come pick me up?” I was asleep. I didn’t know he had been released from the mental care facility, and I didn’t know where he was. As you can imagine that kind of call, I said I would come after I dropped the boys off at school. Two hours later I arrive at the hospital downtown and he gets in the car. His clothes are covered in mud and blood and he has scratches on his arms and face. He explains that he was walking across the parking lot at the grocery store and had an episode. He further explained that he got really confused, fell down, and someone that had seen him called an ambulance. He didn’t know what happened, he didn’t have keys to his apartment, and he didn’t have his phone or wallet. They must have been taken. He smelled like a distillery and he was shaking like he had been drinking since he was released from the program. He swore he wasn’t. He spent the next four days recovering on our couch where there is no access to alcohol or prescription drugs. We took him and the belongings I had stored for him to his apartment. He gave us the grand tour and found his keys and phone in his apartment. No wallet though.

April 9th he came to stay with us again. That every other week thing was starting over. Arriving Friday and leaving Sunday was fine. He stays in a room of his own and can be helpful. We went to the park and to the Space Center. I took the youngest for a haircut and he freaked out the women in the shop as he lurked…there really isn’t another term for it. He was just waiting on Michael’s haircut so that we could leave, but he lacked patience and ability to sit still. I about lost my temper at that point…but I remained composed. He stayed to Monday so that I could help him buy his replacement drivers license and request a new debit card and make appointments that he had missed the previous week. Fine, whatever, but I made sure he was really going home that night. I had things to do for the job that pays all these bills the next day and he couldn’t be there. He agreed.

I keep playing this next part over and over in my head because it’s the last memory I will ever have of us having any kind of conversation and it sucks. It makes me feel guilty because even after all that he has put us through, I aim to never be rude. I still cared that he knew people cared, but that Monday afternoon, after all that I did, he begged to stay at the house for one more night. When I say begged, he begged to stay and be in our house instead of going back. I stared at him for a moment. “I would prefer you didn’t.” “Please Meg, I will go back tomorrow, I promise.” “I have things that have to get done tomorrow, I can’t help you get back before that tomorrow.” “Please! I will do anything.” I stared. What is the response to someone who doesn’t hear you say no? No matter which way I put it nicely he asked again, trying to wear down my resolve. Eventually, I yelled at him, “This is my place of peace, which I have worked my butt off for and would like to spend a few hours not stressed out before tomorrow. You being here causes me pain. You not hearing me reminds me of all the times you haven’t heard me in the last 20 years. You being here hurts. Do you not understand the effect of our history and how you always wanting to be here makes me feel every time you are here? I make it work, but it is not comfortable or good for me.” He said, “Fine, I’ll go.” We drove him home in silence. That night I apologized to the kids for the outburst, but it needed to be said in the moment because I shouldn’t feel like that in my house. We didn’t hear from Danny again. He didn’t call or text me or the kids at all that week.

Then last Thursday, April 22, I am standing in the loading dock of my office handing out treats for National Volunteers Week when I got an urgent message from the Medical Examiner’s Office. I called back. It was like the floor spun around as I stepped away and redialed the number. Danny died. All the ache and trauma replaced with this hole of grief inside me as I learned the only man I had loved in my adult life was no longer somewhere walking the planet. In so many ways I wanted him to leave us alone, but in every way I wanted him to be successful and have a wonderful life…just not with me in it. It’s hard to reconcile the grief I feel to the pain I felt. Danny was easy to fall in love with. Everyone that has ever met him has talked about how beautiful his soul was and how much he helped them through whatever they were going through, and how he gave the best advice. He was just troubled. He was hard to love because he couldn’t love himself. There is no amount of love and sacrifice that can save another person, believe me before 2011, I tried. As I sit here a week later we don’t know what happened. Eventually there will be a scientific report from the medical examiner that tells us what they determined he died of, but that doesn’t reconcile the loneliness he must have felt those last few days. That doesn’t answer all the questions I have after seeing his apartment, where he was found after having been gone for a few days. Intellectually I know there is nothing else I could have done for him. He had to be willing to do things for himself. That doesn’t make that last conversation replay hurt less.

If you are suffering from an addiction or mental illness, please seek help or treatment. There are programs and treatment centers made for every income or history.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

National Alliance on Mental Illness Hotline

Life is hard. It is a different kind of hard for each person. Get help. Get clean. Spend the future with your friends and family living life to its fullest. You can do this and you can make a difference for others.

If you have been affected by someone with addiction issues, it is also important for you to get help. Creating healthy connections with people is something we have to relearn after the experience. We know how to sacrifice and give everything to others, but who is caring for you? If you are like me, you have to learn that and you have to learn to set boundaries and you have to learn how to be okay with the unknown. We can not save those who will not save themselves.

Where do I begin?

Is this a triumphant return to blogging or just an outlet I need to make life work for me? I suppose time will tell, but I have missed the creative work of a daily written note and I’ve been listening to old Seth Godin interviews that remind me of the purpose of the activity – whether or not anyone else actually reads it.

A little life update…because it had been years. I firmly chose my career with a great company over anything on my own. It has been both fulfilling and sobering, and I really miss my time at a keyboard doing creative work. However it has afforded me the ability to build a great life for my sons and I. I was able to buy a house in 2019! We have rebounded from the days of our one-bedroom apartment for the 3 of us. It’s not too big and it’s not too small. Like Goldie locks it’s just right. I’m doing what I thought would be my dream job, but covid changed everything including how to do this. We had our first vacation! To New Mexico – so much desert. Beautiful but I still feel like I’m coughing sand. The boys are growing like weeds. When I started this blog they were 0 & 4.5. I now have a 10 & 15 year old who told me he wants to try and get a job next week. (What!?) I’m not old enough to have an almost adult. Time is a wondrous spiral. The longer you live the faster things seem to go.

Sand sledding in southern New Mexico

Today <Saturday>, I am doing a read through for a virtual conference I am hosting next Saturday about confidence. That elusive quality that some people have to always have it together. I want to have it and most of the time I do, but I am still recovering from not having any for so long and some days that girl can still show up when the new confident me is required.

Yesterday <Friday> was one of those days.

I haven’t been to a doctor for me and my health since 2017. I told myself in 2018 I would make an appointment…but I didn’t. At the beginning of 2019, I bought a house and moved across town…mind you Houston is the same size as Connecticut so across town is a long way. Then 2020 struck and I didn’t go anywhere…so here I am almost 4 years later realizing 40 needs a medical team and I make an appointment to see a doctor. Something we can all relate to if we have kept in less than perfect health during our adult years.

I have learned how to do a great many things as an adult, but focusing on me and my health is still a struggle. I can’t do any of the other things without being healthy, but it’s never in my life been allowed to be at the top of the list. Even if every doctor out there is rolling their eyes and groaning. It just hasn’t. Kids, Work, Other Work, Making everything work for all of us…those are the priorities. I am somewhere after that. I think it is this way for many single parents, not just me, so I know a great many of you will understand.

So, 2021, post-pandemic (ehem – mid-pandemic?), time to get me on track…I know there are problems, but I wasn’t able to do before what I can do now, so it’s time.

I ease into it. February, eye doctor…check prescriptions. All is well. Not a real change, but I get new glasses anyway. Scratch resistant lenses that I quickly learn do not hold up to a West Texas Sandstorm.

March I make the next round of appointments after a friend tells me that she was able to speak to this great doctor and they are going to do this or that. In my blissful moment of self reflection that led to making my own appointment with this same doctor, I didn’t consider the extroversion my friend has and perhaps my appointment wouldn’t result in the the same conversation.

Then there was yesterday. As a follow up to the first appointment I made an appointment within the practice for a new family medicine doctor. New to me, not new to the practice. This is the same practice I went to across town, just a new facility. I had stopped going to this practice because they are expensive. More than most and I wanted to find someone that took time to listen to their patients, not get in and out of the office as fast as possible.

I should have listened to myself because I started crying the moment the doctor left the room after a rapid fire series of questions where she talked at me and berated me for not making follow up appointments over the last few years and on and on about conditions and treatments that left me in pain and unable to function 4 years ago. Why did I stop taking that medicine? Because it hurt me more than fixed me. I’m not doing it.

Monday…With a few days and conversations distance I can say that I still don’t appreciate the treatment by that doctor. I still haven’t started her medication list “because I’m 40” without a sign or symptom of what she decided was all my ailments because of my age. I still need to find another doctor in another practice and start these appointments all over again.

Me, now, sitting at my workstation in my living room. Where has time gone?

Daily Dose of Confidence

Daily Dose of Confidence

Note for today from 2014

I logged into WordPress for the first time in several years and found this post that I never published. It is so appropriate for where I’m at now, in 2019.  This year has brought with it home ownership and career growth, but there is still the yearning described below. I feel as though if I am going to make a big change in life or career it needs to happen soon. Romantic love has been elusive, but I’m not sure that’s the thing.

A note from 2014….

As adults we place too much stock in practicality and it drains us. We give practically position over our hearts. We allow our heads to rule all and force our hearts into head-shaped boxes.

I was telling a friend of mine the other day that I don’t know if there is enough of me to do EVERYTHING that I want to do in my lifetime but I intend to try. I feel as though I am catching up to everything that I should have been doing with my life.

I hate that one left instead of a right made everything feel like I have been living the wrong life. The only thing that keeps that from being true is knowing at the very center of my core that if I had taken any other path I wouldn’t see the world and experience it as I do now.

I see wonder in everything.

I consciously see the joy.

I look for the positives and try to keep the negatives to myself these days. It takes effort and it seems impractical, but I am finding that doing the impractical fills me with the things I need more than any practical decision I make.

In all of my…let’s call it lifescaping…I have arrived at where all of the things I am supposed to do as an adult are done. I’m working successfully for a global Fortune 200 company, paying all my bills, have a little house and a new car. If you have been reading long you know that this wasn’t always the case, but I still feel (at times) like I am living someone else’s life.

Like I’m not fulfilling my purpose to make the world better.

Does this feeling exist in other people?

It persists like a codependent relationship and at times when I try to do what I am supposed to do instead of what my heart feels is right it is suffocating.

I have a friend. I am lucky to call him a friend. We’ve known each other since I was 16 and email often enough. He saw a need in a country far from his own and went and filled that need. Twenty plus years later he is still doing it. Still loves it, still finds total fulfillment in it. I sent him a rambling email and well…his reply spoke more to practicality than I expected.

Finding one’s exact purpose changes once you have children. You have to continue to provide for them and aid them in fulfilling their dreams as well. You can take selfish time, but in the end your life is lived to make theirs successful.

Every decision you make good or bad is reflected in their life later on and in their reality now.

You can’t just do what you want…or at least I can’t…yet.

Even as I type this I think of the reality of the world. The reality is that the world is changing. We are changing. Life is changing and the old guard isn’t understanding that it is necessary. The world has to change and maybe that is where I find my truest self. I embrace change…it’s easy for me. The decisions of my childhood taught me this practicality.

Everything changes and all you can do is embrace it.

The question for you is how are you making the most of this one journey on Earth?

How do you choose to live no matter who wins tonight?

I sit in physical agony as the last hours of this season come to a close. I hope for a peace tomorrow that is overwhelming and welcoming and an end to the hateful discussions of skin color and class. Wasn’t it just yesterday that I was explaining to my 10 year old that class isn’t something that can’t be overcome with hard work and perseverance? Isn’t that the thing we are taught our whole lives until we are grown? Grit, drive, excellence – these are the things you need to change the world. 

I have seen hatred beyond measure in recent months. Two sides of the equally poor coin pitted one against the other over some fictional divide that says life is too hard for people with the lighter tone to their skin and surely it is the darker person’s fault. Surely it can’t be that we have allowed our political and economic functions to become so polluted that we don’t even remember who made the first mistake. 

The educated among the population swear it wasn’t them, but by experience alone I can tell you that only the educated are placed in positions of authority great enough that they are allowed to make a bad decision that effects more than themselves. The uneducated are too concerned with simple survival to really have time to realize their predicament and they cling to the only candidate who acknowledges their plight. 

I realize of course this plays into the perceived class war, but I don’t know how else to understand what has happened here over these last 18 months. How can folly become even a possible outcome of this season? One man’s whim against the high stakes of a nation. One woman’s elitism against a population of regular people. Both equally guilty of being part of the establishment that they seek to destroy. They call out to our hidden demons and feed fears that don’t exist, we believe them because something inside us is broken. 

We are all inexplicably broken. We’ve had our hope ripped out of us by years of ineffective government and for what? Change? There are changes that were necessary in the last few decades. Changes that brought us to this new information age of glorious human experience, but there is a darker change. As we progress to making education a requirement for all people no matter their location people find their fear. Maybe we aren’t as smart as we thought. Maybe the person who will cure cancer is in an African country that hasn’t built their school yet. Maybe the next great innovator is just waiting for someone to provide him with access to the tools we as Americans take for granted. 

Why can’t we be okay with that? 

Why can’t we use all the money we spend on war, fear, and fame to improve lives? 

How many people in rural states could use real medical care? We do not have to look outside of our borders to see the third world. It exists under our very noses and we grimace and move on because that’s what we have been taught to do. We’ve been taught that no matter where we come from we can be anything, but it’s not that simple. The United States government can’t fix the problem. The United States government can’t fix the brokenness of the people who are creating the problem. 

The problem hasn’t even been addressed because too many people are pointing out their differences. 

We are connected. Each one of us on Earth are connected to each other and we are all dependent on the other to build a fruitful existence. Connection when you don’t understand it is uncomfortable and causes division when division is impossible it causes problems. 

The only one who can correct the problem is each and every one of us. 

Every day you have the opportunity to live in positive response in all interactions. Only we can see someone different but not see them as different. Only we can feed the poor and help the sick. Compassion is what is needed now and that is not a government mandate, that is a soul mandate. That comes from you and from me and can only work if we all make that choice. 

How do you choose to live no matter who wins tonight?

Co-Parenting : Forgiveness Required

I may need to do a search through all the posts on this blog to find it, but sometime back in 2011 I wrote a piece about forgiveness. The act of forgiveness, how and why and the importance of it all. Four years later I can finally report back.

Four years ago I was still rather bitter about getting divorced. Hurt and angry, but I had decided that maybe forgiveness was the approach for me. So, I took a deep breath, said many prayers and chose to forgive my ex husband for his behavior while we were married.

This was not an easy choice.

There is something that happens in a break up that makes everything seem worse. Everyone you know chooses a side. You may think that I mean his side or my side, but I don’t. They decide how each single parent should co-parent when the other party hasn’t lived up to their end of the bargain during the marriage.

The most popular among my peers was the one that removed my ex-husband from not just the marriage, but from our life. As though POOF I had two kids and POOF I magically get a check every month to help cover their living expenses.

I was so angry at the time that I do have 100% parental custody. I could fly to China tomorrow without my ex-husbands permission and he would just have to deal with it. I won’t…but I have the ability. Anger makes us do so many things.

Then I thought about simply arranging supervised visitation. Only I was so poor. We were barely scraping by so there was no way to cover the cost of providing supervised visitation. I was quite irrational at this point so I maintained our distance. We saw my ex-husband about once every few months and not for very long, a couple of hours at most.

Then something I found sadder than the possibility of having to see my ex-husband on a more regular basis. It was our sons. They didn’t know him.

As a child of a single family home I know what that is like. My father was not a good person, at least as far as his behavior back in 1985, but we were raised by my mother and maternal grandparents. I had a relatively happy childhood. We had our drama, but what family doesn’t? Perhaps we had more drama than average, but I think we are all more interesting to talk to because of it…anyway. That’s a different story. I didn’t know my father. I knew what other people thought of him. I knew where he was from and what I thought of the people from that place. But I didn’t know him and that is a great cloud over the happy times. All of those times I saw my friends with their dads were sad times for me because I had never known what that was like.

As I became an adult I tried looking for my father to no avail. He didn’t want to be found in the digital age and therefore had no digital footprint. That didn’t mean the sadness was gone. “Who was he?” “How was he?” “Did I have other sisters or brothers?” “Did I have a step mom I didn’t know about?” Always having those questions is sad. I didn’t want that for my kids. Who was I to make that choice for them?

That is what I found to be this sad thing. I was an adult who had lived in a set of circumstances that made me mad. So mad that I thought it a good idea to remove the person that held the other half of their DNA in his genes.

But was I so angry that I couldn’t find it within myself to forgive a man for his behavior? How could I call myself a good person if at the first test of faith I proved to have none? It is no secret that I am a Christian, perhaps a different breed than the ones you read about, but I try to have a simple faith, based on love. In our church we are taught to love and forgive.

I was faced with two options.

One my kids didn’t really remember who this guy was that we sometimes saw really was, so we could just gently fade away and he could become a memory.

Two embrace the pain, and allow them to fully know their father and make the decision for themselves.

To do the first would have been the easiest choice for someone as angry as I had been. He didn’t know where we lived, who we hung out with, where I worked, all I would have had to do was change my phone number and we would have been done. Simple. Clean. Heartbreaking for him and for me. I would be setting my kids up for the same thought process I always had. Always wondering why I wasn’t good enough to be loved by the people who are supposed to love you the most.

So I embraced the pain. The hardest and easiest choice on so many levels. The cold aloof anger has been replaced by hesitant resolve. Hesitant because everything we went through leaves a mark on the psyche, but resolve because it has turned out to be the right thing to do. My kids are 4 and 8 now. They know their father. They’ve seen where he sleeps and we know how he lives, where he lives, and why he lives.

Over the last four years we have fought and cried and been angry for past ills all over again, but there has been so much forgiveness and contrition. So much of what we have worked through together has made us better people for our next partners. We know more of how each of us failed the other that we will continue to work hard to not make the same mistake. We know that finding that next perfect person for our new selves will be hard, we each have a longer list of must haves…okay at least I do..but I am optimistic about the prospects.

Forgiving him has taught me more about my faith than any pastor could ever tell me. Forgiveness is not something that you do once and it is done, it is something you do every time you wake up and face the day. It’s choosing who you are and not wavering from that path every single morning. Choosing your words and actions before your emotions, and never letting the bad times get the best of you.

It’s also choosing to put the best choice instead of the popular choice.

Special note…A physically abusive spouse should be handled differently. An alcoholic husband or wife who did not exhibit abusive traits is very different from an abusive spouse. Alcoholics tend to only want to inflict pain on themselves though they learn to manipulate what they want out of people to get what they want. That’s how so many nurturing people become enablers. It’s like they can smell your ability to empathize on your sleeve don’t fall for that either.

All the wonders

Twelve months have gone by in a quick succession of rapid fire days and short blissful pauses. January turned to March which turned to November before I knew is it was today. Saturday…the last Saturday in December 2014.

How did this happen? What happened to my sense of time that it feels as thought it should still be January. Not January now, but January 2014.

This year has been so joyous and hopeful that it is a wonder I have survived with my head clear and mind in one piece. Peace.

Peace seems to be an ever changing anomaly. The busier I got this year the clearer my mind got and in turn the clearer my goals became. Some goals…not all. I’m still unclear as to my professional direction in a business with endless possibilities. If only I could be a normal person who didn’t dream dreams the size of Texas and have expectations of a life bigger than it is. However I also want a small life. If that makes sense. I want to do gargantuan amounts of good, but live a life of simplicity.

Dreams of bigger houses aren’t what I want.

Dreams of bringing shelter to the homeless, food to the insecure, selfish dreams of changing lives are purely selfish as much as they are altruistic. I wouldn’t want to do it if it didn’t give me and the person in receipt of the help a smile. If it didn’t make me feel whole. It’s what I dream of though in the quiet moments and loud.

I would also choose a small life in a tiny apartment in the city. Just big enough to have friends over for coffee and muffins or family over for a Sunday dinner. Close to shops so I wouldn’t have to drive and parks so that I could walk around in the grass.

I’m closer at the end of 2014 to seeing these dreams become real. I have gotten to meet like-minded people during the last 12 months. People who want to create a place of peace and community. A sheltering tribe of new friends and colleagues. People who want to see us all reach our potential and see the limitless potential of possibility. I’ve been more active in the community. More excited about the prospects of what is to come.

Beginning in 2015, I will be a steering committee member for my companies non-profit and I will be continuing my role with TEDxYouth@Houston. I had so much fun with each group in 2014 that I can’t wait to see what we do in 2015. I got to do arts and crafts at a group home with some colleagues and help organize the big event for the youth in November. I’m excited.

I took some small advice to heart last year and it helped make it a splendid experience.

If you stop limiting yourself, you can do so much more. You will do things you dreamed because you aren’t holding yourself back because you don’t think you are qualified or you don’t think what you want is valid. Hogwash. It is valid and you can do it.

Repeatedly throughout the years I’ve heard that what you put out into the universe is what you get back. I try to live this way. I try to live better because of past missteps and errors in judgement. I try to see the joy in each moment because at any moment we could be gone. I work each problem as it comes up because if I don’t there is no super hero who will do it for me and the problem will only persist and/or grow.

2014 has been full of wonder.

2015 promises to have just a bit more.

I hope you get to hold the joy of this year’s end near, and embrace the future with an open heart and a clear mind.

Galveston Beach – Sunset September 29, 2013

Responses to a Candidate Questionnaire

This November 4, in voting booths across the state you will decide who will make your governing decisions. In order for various lobbying organizations to determine who to support they send these long questionnaires to tell you who to vote for based on a variety of answers.

Below is my answers to questionnaire received from an organization that shall remain nameless. Answers are long form because these should not be multiple choice.

For each question the responses available were
A) Strongly Agree
B) Agree
C) Neutral
D) Disagree
E) Strongly disagree
F) No answer

Think about that as you read through. If your replies differ please feel free to discuss in the comments.

1. It is the government’s responsibility to be sure children are properly educated. Public

The job of the government is to ensure the future of society. It also functions on behalf of society. While it may not be the governments responsibility, a society can not function with out an education. Until there is something better it is the governments duty and our duty to support the education of the next generation.

2. Any teaching to children on sex education in public schools must include all contraceptive methods, and should not show preference to abstinence.

It’s imperative to teach sex education and all of the methods of contraception, but not to simply tell hormone raging teenagers to abstain. That’s not facing reality. We give them the facts and they make the choice. Then they have to live with the consequences.

3. Marriage is a union of one man and one woman. No government has the authority to alter this definition.

Marriage is a legal contract, though it is and can be so much more. This should be available to all whether it’s how I would choose to engage or not. I should not limit someone else’s right to happiness because of syntax.

4. Biology textbooks which do not teach both the scientific strengths and weaknesses of the theory of evolution should be rejected. Public

Science books teach theory and fact. This question though is based on a creationist belief that evolution is wrong and has no place in education. There are weaknesses to every discovery and yes evolution is just a theory, but there is so much evidence and information to support it that I don’t understand how people can say it’s untrue.

I’m a Christian and I don’t believe in that the world is 6,000 years old. That’s ridiculous. I do not support teaching this to children either. If it comes up as a discussion topic that’s fine but it SHOULD not be taught in a public school. This is a religious view of one religion. It has no place in a public state sponsored system.

5. It is the government’s responsibility to properly distribute income and wealth. Public

No, but at the same there should be some system of checks and balances that makes it function better. There is no right answer to this question though. Because none of us wants to give up anything that we have earned and built.

6. The more people live by Judeo-Christian values, the less government is needed. Public

People should live with values. Whether you should characterize them as Judeo-Christian is a horrible divisive statement. Less government is important and vital, but driving division points based on mine or anyone else’s religion is uncalled for.

7. Efforts to bring Islamic law (shariah) to America do not pose a threat to our country and its Constitution. Public

Divisive question that only seeks to divide and exclude. If enough people will show up at voting booths and vote it will never be a threat to anyone. If people don’t remember they have a voice anything is possible.

8. Free enterprise and the right to private property turn mankind’s natural self interest into the fairest and most productive economic system there is, and are the key to national prosperity. Public

Not always.

9. The Ten Commandments should not be displayed in public school buildings. Public

Are we teaching religion or are we educating? If you want a school that displays the 10 commandments on the wall – there is a school for that. If you want to participate in public school realize that it is open and inclusive of all religious beliefs.

10. More restrictive gun control laws are needed now to protect the public.

No. We need to educate more people on mental illness and treat mental illness. Gun control laws only work for the people who see value in the law. If a person thinks themselves above the law it won’t matter what you put on the books.

11. The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) should be repealed by Congress. Public

I’ve seen it work, and I’ve seen it fail. In the end it’s doing more good than bad even if my premiums are through the roof. That’s more a private business reaction to something they don’t want to embrace because it takes from their profits. So they up my premiums. It’s price gouging.

12. Students should not be taught about intelligent design. Public

I don’t support this theory, but I’m not opposed to it’s discussion.

13. Religious freedom is our most foundational freedom and deserves added protection in our state and federal constitutions. Public

As part of the whole of the freedoms characterized in the first amendment it is important, but not as important as freedom of speech. My beliefs should have no effect on your religion and like-wise yours on mine. I should make logical, moral decisions, not decisions based on my religion. If it is part of who I am, the answer that is chosen will reflect what I believe. We do not need further protections we just need to remove restrictions.

14. Free market competition for education dollars, rather than a government monopoly, would create a better education for all students. Public

There is no correct answer to this question. It assumes we are all On the same financial playing field and would all have the same choices available to us. We just don’t and we do not. At the moment a reevaluation of spending is important, but so is rational thinking that says an educated society is better than a return to another time.

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As always, please share thoughts in the comments

Feel like a phony?

Last week I had dinner with a friend and he felt the need to point out that I belong. I constantly second guess myself and any abilities that I do or don’t have which may be why I start a lot of things and don’t finish them all or I do some things really well, but the little bits that would make the completed project perfect are crap.

Maybe I do this to prove to myself that I am a phony.

Some times

Really I just feel like a phony a lot and never quite feel worthy of the things that I have worked for and the accomplishments that I have earned. I’m a mish mash of ideas and thoughts and theories that make an interesting person who doesn’t want to talk about them so when they come out on paper they make me sound mad.

I can talk shop with anyone…to a point. I don’t share my best ideas and I often hold back from the conversation all together. If I talk to you with any depth it’s because I’ve decided your trustworthy. But I still don’t share. Not vocally.

I share here, but even there I haven’t shared much in the last year and a half. I have plenty going on I just don’t want to sound showy or “Hey, hey, look at me now!” So many of the bloggers that I connected with at the inception of this blogging journey are still struggling with their finances and lifestyles. I’m not. Sure I have problems, but they are nothing when compared to the stories that I read and the struggles that I have faced and I feel like a phony finding a complaint. Clearly this isn’t a humor blog. I don’t do obvious humor.

I feel it is now my mission to not dawdle in the past strife, but to build up others as much as possible. How can I share a piece of the good word, a good idea, a good thought that may make a day brighter. Likewise I share stories of others that need to be shared because it’s news that you won’t see unless you’re looking. That takes a lot less space, so it’s all on Twitter or Facebook (Friend me I will accept).

Often I feel like a phony, an imposter, a person who does not deserve all this goodness. I feel the past follows me like a cloak waiting to wrap itself around me in a swift wind. Not that it warms me, but it makes me cold. The emotions of the craziness that didn’t feel crazy until I stepped away and looked back. I feel like someone somewhere is just waiting to throw the cloak on me even though I’ve grown up, I’ve changed, and there is so little of that person remaining. That sad girl who wanted so much to feel the warmth of love and being needed that she clung to the first person who passed her way. I still haven’t figured that out. Why did the thing that damages have to be the thing that stuck for so long?

That may be a question I can never answer.

I feel like a phony to have bigger dreams. To want to be and do more in this world. All the dreams I write about on this blog…I want to see them realized, but that cloak of doubt keeps the fear inside me. I don’t deserve my dreams to become reality because I didn’t do this or that, or I don’t look a certain way.

Why is that? How many of you feel this way? How many of you hold yourselves back because you don’t feel worthy?

Damn it – FEEL WORTHY!

I say this to myself as much as I say it to you.

We belong. We have earned it. We fight for it daily.

The things we have accomplished are worth talking about. Every day little wins are worth sharing. Letting people know that this day is an awesome day because you woke up and set out to conquer the day is worth being said!

Don’t be afraid. You are not a phony.

Surround yourself with positive reinforcement and bring light to the world.

When you see that light in someone else – that kinship – reach out to them!

It’s only by building ourselves and others up that we finally begin to feel worthy.

For a bit of inspiration tonight watch:

Why Not Overestimate What You Can Do?

This afternoon I had every intention of coming home at the end of the day and posting a blog reworking day one of The Purpose Driven Life. Well…crap…life happens and things change…so I don’t get to write that post because there is other stuff going on.

Life…the eternal brevity of life.

We are all here forever in our minds. Our days become months that turn into years that form our lives. We don’t know why we are here in the grand scheme of things and where are we going?? Only time will tell us.

But we are here and we are intelligent and for better or worse we will make it work.

There was a quote that I shared once on people overestimating what they can do in a day, but underestimating what they can do in a life. What can we do? What can we change? How can we live to our potential in the quick succession of our many days?

Is it even important that we change the world to effect change on the world?

I don’t think so.

We can change the entire future of our planet by simply changing how we relate to it. We need to realize our power is not in the halls of government or the corner offices of commerce, but in how we live out each and every one of our days.

Today several things have happened that I think will have an impact on me for a while. First, something as simple as a book club. This book club was not just a small group of girls gathering to read fiction. This book club is at my office. I now work for a Fortune 100 (plus a few) company. We are a STEM company and are trying to stay the leading company in our field. The book we are reading is Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg.

Here’s the thing. Our industry is traditionally dominated by men. They are the great builders, engineers and designers…at least in theory. But our office has something special that I don’t think many of the women (several thousand) understand the value of – we have a female chief operating officer running our campus.

Our big cheese is a woman!

This is abundantly important for us as women!

I am not going to look up the exact statistic now, but the ratio of female to male COOs of companies our size is miniscule! Then considering our industry…I was shocked that there weren’t more women at book club! I don’t think we would have had this book club if it wasn’t for her belief in possibility.

I have heard so many times women complain that they do all the work but never get the reward. The men get to have all the glory, but the women are the one holding it all together. Head down, pencil to paper, getting shit done.

Simple truth is – if your head is always in the muck – it will only ever see more muck.

How many women are so wrapped in their work that they don’t look up and see the opportunity? How many are concentrating so hard on what is that they don’t see the possibility of what could be? I am just getting into the book, but I challenge women to stand up, find their power, show up to the meetings, be heard. Make a difference!

So much happens when we are present, not just in body, but in mind and awareness.

Second thing that happened today…an awareness of self, not self-awareness, but an awareness that if I just keep working, growing, learning, and pushing that I will be where I always thought I would. It may not be the exact place or thing that was in my mind, but it is working out exactly how God made it.

This reminded me that we each on a different path and that there are no shortcuts to ease the pain. The pain is there to make you stronger. The hardships we face are intolerable when they happen, but when we finally taste success the result is sweeter because we can acknowledge the pain of the past.

Finally, TED. Dear sweet, amazing TED. This week is TED active and my inbox has exploded with massive amounts of info-porn. Seriously. My favorite week’s are TED week’s because the ideas and information that come out of them are transformational for each of us individually and all of us globally. So many things that changed as a result of putting these ideas into ACTIONS.

What is an idea if it can’t be put into action?!

A waste of freaking time!!!

I love the philanthropic, socially aware, more political ideological discussions, and today was mind-blowing. I am still watching, because I was late to the party, but it is all on video. I highly suggest you all watch it.

Here’s what ties the day’s events together. When we look up from the day-to-day and we see the possibility of what could be it is up to us to grab it, to hold it, to nurture it into existence. We must breathe the life into the thing that gives us purpose, that gives us life.

If your thing is simply living life as joyfully as possible and showing that joy to everyone you meet then do it. Your smile and easy laughter will change hearts and won’t cost a dime. If you are Bill and Melinda Gates and your thing is creating a planet that sees the best possible future in vaccinations and education improvements for children. Then do that!

We are each blessed with different gifts, scopes, and thought processes. The important thing is that you do it.

Please watch the evenings TED events here. TED2014: The Next Chapter
http://conferences.ted.com/TED2014/