The Pheonix Will Rise

So, major changes have happened in my life and with that came the consequences. I honestly cannot think of another word that is seemingly more appropriate. Mainly, it has simply left me once again, dissappointed in people. I quit Verizon after 6 years and I feel more myself than I have in a long time. I feel free, my kids and I have deeper relationships, and my husband and I have grown that much more strong. Downside is.......so broke it isn't funny. We expected this though and are doing ok. Both of us have lived low income lifestyles before and while it isn't my preference of choice, it something I do not fear. What disturbs me more than any hour cutting coupons is the reactions I have received from many people close to me.

There are a handful of people, including my husband, who have supported me through every step, in a multitude of ways, and for them I am grateful. Without that, I could not have found the strength to make change happen for myself at all. Majority however have told me it was a stupid move on my part and have expected me to fail and, in my opinion, even want to see me punished for commiting such a rash financial suicide. Coming from the people I love who love me, that puts a real sharp stab in my heart. When I tell complete strangers, even the woman in HR as I was leaving the company, that I wanted to stay at home with my children and go back to school for an MBA, I get an enthusiastic "Good for you" that comes with a basic understanding of what I am trying to accomplish. But I dont want that from strangers. I want that same approval from my family that has eluded me since as far back as I can remember.

What is so hard or complicated about telling someone you love, whom has made a drastic lifestyle change " Good luck and we will help in any way we can."? Am I asking too much to have people whom have known me my whole life support me and want the best for me even when they don't agree with what I am doing? Sure I have made mistakes along the way, but everyone has. I am totally aware of all the ones I have made but what do they or I gain from having them thrown back at me? What positive outcome could possibly come from my metaphoric downfall followed by a bunch of "I told you so's"? I myself have watched friends and family make plenty of mistakes, many worse than mine. I simply said I disagree and afterwards I tried to simply be there and continue my role as a supportive aspect in their lives. That is all I want from the people on mine, but it isn't going to happen. What I really don't get is what they have to lose by just being supportive to me at all. Cutting them out of my life completely isn't an option, so if you were me, what would you do?

CH CH CH Changes....

For so long I have been stuck in a holding pattern. It drove me crazy, quite literally. I was so unhappy because I desperately wanted change but I wanted positive change and was frozen in fear of making the the wrong choices that would make everything so much worse. But doing nothing instead made it all so much worse and started my downwards spiral into a self destructive black hole. I drank myself into oblivion and it cost me too much that I never want to remember. I took pills, lots of pills and drank with those. I hurt the people around me that love me most and focused more on the people who never cared about me at all. My fear was slowly strangling me and it was only recently I decided enough was enough.

So I actively initiated change and I hope to God, it was the right path to take. I started small and decided to redecorate. My patchwork colored living room now blends in a color called Jungle Chamelion. My pictures on the wall now make a little more sense. From there, I decided a long term goal was needed. My husband is getting his online degree with the University of Pheonix. So I decided to do the same and became a Pheonix. I start next week on my MBA and am scared to death because no one has ever thought of me as a scholar, mostly me, but here I am going for a graduate degree.

So at this point I have painted over the past, literally. I have tried to open doors for my future. But my biggest obstacle seems to be the present. I have been unhappy in my job for years and against the advice and wishes of most of my family, the decline of job opportunities, and our non existant bank account, I quit Verizon after 6 years. In the time I had off from work, I felt more like me than I have in a while. My relationships with my husband and children flourished.
I went back to work and it all went away and I regressed back into my misery. So now I am free to feel ok again except for I am not completely ok. I need a part time job and one that fits the schedule I need. I dont have that. I hope I can get that doing something other than waiting tables, which I suck at, or working some retail job alongside 15 yr olds. I want something I can be somewhat proud of with a decent wage that I can enjoy and that is asking a lot. I apply every day and never hear much back. It puts me in a very defeatist mood and I dont know what to do. So, if I have any readers at all, what do I do?

Religion?? Me???

For those of you that know me, you know that religion is something I am usually more against than for. I find most religious sorts to be fanatical at times and for the most part hypocrites. Like most things, I think the idea is nice and all but really doesnt play out very well in reality. Most of the bloodshed of the world happened because of religion. People do many crazy things in its name and twist the Bible to say what they want it to. However, let us not confuse religion with faith.

A very good friend of mine believes in God wholeheartedly and through the years we have pretty much come to the understanding that it is a subject we don't discuss because it can only go in one bad direction. This weekend she gave me a gift. It was a personalized Bible with a journal to jot down thoughts in when I felt so inclined. Normally I would have politely taken it and said my thank you's in a moment that had me feeling awkward and it would have ended up buried in a drawer with a bunch of other stuff that never sees the light of day. Instead I felt nothing but love and was extremely grateful for it. No one has ever given me a Bible before and the fact that it came from her meant everything. I guess you could say I felt loved. We may not always agree on the subject but it is one she holds dear and believes in wholeheartedly. The fact that she believes it helped her and loved me enough to want to extend the help to me was enough to make a little book seem very special.

Right now, I need all the help I can get. She knows this and if there is a God, whether he cares or not, it could not have escaped his attention. So, every night I will simply open it and read something. Call it an experiment if you will. Maybe it will help, maybe I will learn something, who knows. Worse case scenario, I miss 3 minutes out of my day and I know I have wasted a lot more time on a lot less. So starts night one of my religious experiment.

Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself

Fear...it is the one emotion that can infiltrate itself at any time under any circumstance in any situation. It can consume a person and is a powerful drive behind a great many actions. It is mainly an individual and often personal feeling, but why? Why is my irrational fear of cocroaches not universal and why is it mine? I know it is just a stupid bug that is actually harmless but that doesn't stop me from jumping on the nearest piece of furnature and screaming for someone to kill it. Even more pertinent of a question is, why is the person on the floor below me, crunching the dastardly thing with their shoe looking at me like I am insane? Is there even such a thing as a universal fear?

The saying goes that there is nothing to fear but fear itself. I say that is slightly incorrect. If there is a fear that encompasses all of us, it is that we fear ourselves. Fear, I believe is based on all the insecurities of a person. Courage only can come when we challenge the fears and meet them head on. Much easier said than done though. In order to even begin to accomplish this feat you have to first, just like an alcoholic, admit that you have a problem with your fear.

For me, there is nothing to fear but failure itself. You would think, having accomplished the art of failing numerous times, that given the sheer numbers, I would be immune to such a thing by now, but sadly that is not the case. Everything about me, scares me. Rarely do I live up to other people's expectations and standards and while some would say, set your own and live up to those, that is only easy if you live in your own bubble. Lately though, every decision I make seems to be the wrong one. Perhaps I just am going about things all wrong. So today I am writing to ask how other people judge their decisions and their actions. When faced with a challenge, how do you know which path to chose and how do you come to that decision?

Summertime Memories

So this may take some time for me to type since I am in a similar predicament as I found myself in at the age of 13 with a broken left arm entering into summertime. Just like then, I absolutely hate it because I have already found myself staring at the ocean and unable to embrace it, watching water sports and wishing it was me. Sand castles beckon and swimming pools taunt me and the bright sun will not allow me to bask in its warmth, rather, it makes me hot and sticky and itching inside my plaster prison.

Since I cannot, write, play music, or ride for the time being, I am left with time on my hands and part of that is spent remembering how magical summer used to be for me. It was a time when my academic education ended and many different learning experiences awaited me. My fondest have to be my days in Elkton. During those summers I visited my great grandparents. I would fall asleep to the sounds of the breeze through the trees and the barges coming in from the Chesapeake Bay. We ate dinners of fresh shucked corn and crab and caught fireflies after dinner.

Beach bonfires next to the pier taught me how to make the best smores and how to kill chiggers.
Before bed, we would tend to the sunburn and sore throat from consuming too much river water that we had tried to ignore for the sake of more fun. During the day, we were forever on the water.

I got my Maryland boating license and my cousin Jeff would take me sailing. We almost never went with my Papa due to the fact that he would inevitably lose the wind in front of an oncoming freighter ship and we would narrowly escape death. My favorite Yacht club parties were held on an island with a pool and a small rideable train and endless soda.

Tubing, water skiing, and boat rides were things that never got tiring. Every Sunday we would drive into North East and attend St. Mary Anne's with the promise of ice cream down the street afterwards which was an excellent bribe.

My first taste of what love was happened in this same spot too. Chris Talley was a friend of my cousins and a year and a half older than me with a black Jeep Wrangler. All it took was a boat ride and him trying to playfully drown me in the Elk River and I was smitten. I think I would literally light up like a Christmas tree when he came over and soon he started coming over not to see my cousin John, but to see me. We would take long walks around and look at the old CJ7 in the barn down the dirt road. One particularly enchanted evening we took a walk at twilight down a forest laden path, fireflies twinkling, to the Turkey Point Lighthouse where I received my first highly romantic kiss. Then he turned around and started dating someone else and I was brokenhearted. He pretty much set the trend for the next decade. But we stayed in touch up until I graduated from college.

Summers now are much different. I have a man who kissed me and didn't give up on me to be with anyone else. My kids now consume my days instead of the beckoning waters, but they always call to me. Responsibilities have replaced that carefree teenage spirit but every now and again, when I close my eyes, I can recapture all the memories again, and smile.

Twists and Turns in Friendship

So maybe you were one of those people who exchanged bracelets or kept half a BFF heart and gave the other to your very best friend when you were young. I did. But now I am 30 and I dont need a bracelet or a charm to outwardly signify that I care about someone or that they are supposed to care about me. Honestly, there are a select few that will never leave my heart and I will never leave theirs. We may go for months without talking or years without seeing each other but I also know that is a part of growing up and living your life. When we talk or are around each other, the comfort and caring all returns. If I ever needed them, I know they would be in my corner without question. Then again, there are some people in life, I am learning, that need to be kept at a distance or weeded out completely, simply because,their lifestyle can be detrimental to yours or you have just grown too far apart on too many levels. This becomes increasingly harder as you get older because you no longer have school to throw you together in the social sense and there is so much time and effort put behind a friendship, that to sever it seems almost a waste, no matter what the reason.

I recently went to visit a friend that I had not seen in a year, since her wedding. It was only for an hour or 2 but from the second I walked back in the door of the house she grew up in, it was if nothing had changed. Sure, we had husbands and kids now, but the atmoshere and feeling was the same as it had been since middle school. As soon as I felt it I missed being surrounded by that again. But the curious thing was that it apparently passed to our children as her son greeted mine at the door by exclaiming "Let my friend in!" The entire time they were inseperable.

There are others however whom you look at and wonder where it all went wrong. A friend I had since the 5th grade, I never hear from since she visited and during that visit, alcoholism pushed our friendship to a breaking point. Not unsalvagable, mind you, but enough so that 6 years later, we still have yet to have a real conversation. Two of my college buddies it would seem, have gotten a new set of friends who are so much different than me. This one is tough because I feel replaced, like I was never good enough. These new people start playing all the roles I always thought I was meant to play. Fighting it is useless because I will never, nor would I ever want to change into those kinds of people, especially to please someone else. So what do you do? Walk away? Get angry? Move on?
I really don't have the answer. What I tend to do is put a whole lotta distance there. Maybe my friends will come back to me since those people are generally fleeting, and maybe not. In the meantime, how do you make lasting friends with your kind of people in life after school?

Part of a Pack

done a lot of traveling lately. been to upstate NY, Canada, Philly and this weekend, I conquered the Midwest. My sister lives in St. Louis and the plan was to see her before she was deployed overseas. I am able to be the most frank and honest when I am around her and can tell her anything. The past 24 hours though, I have simply observed and in doing so, answered a few questions of my own.

She and are of the same cloth in the sense that we are complete pack animals. We are content not being alpha but are happiest as part of a team or community. This may be the key to my recent funk. In high school I had Michelle and Gina and we formed our sisterhood. As long as I had them, I could make it through anything. We did everything together. In college it was the fab 5. We did everything together too and I felt loved and accepted and happy with them. The only thing missing then was a decent romantic relationship. I thought once I found that then I would be all set and 100% complete.

Fast forward to now. These members of the pack have moved on to different places and while the love is still there, we aren't, in the literal physical sense. I have the romantic relationship with a good man but for me, it isn't enough. I need to run with the pack again. I thought having my husband and kids would be all the pack I need but it isn't. Even wolves have to be surrounded not only by their relatives, but their chosen other pack members too. Maybe this need makes me dysfunctional but I can't be the only one out there that doesn't just want to find their niche and a group. To call it a want is an understatement. For me, it is an imperative need in order to feel like I am a well rounded balanced individual.

My sister has not one, but several packs. She is the playful pup in the group and while it may not define her, it makes her socially happy. I watched her care less about social stigmas and simply enjoy who she was while she was around people that accepted her in the most profoundly simple ways. Today I sit, waiting for her rugby game to start and see her have passion, and comradery,not being the lone wolf and in the process, making life happen. I am in awe and achingly want that for myself.