One Word.

12/5/16

#KeepCalmWRITEon Day 5!

(It’s only 10:55 pm---I’m actually writing before midnight!)

Today, I was asked to describe myself in one word.

My first thought--- “One word!? I’m a writer! That’s so hard!”

My second thought --- “There is a literal thesaurus flipping through my brain right now!”

Once the panic subsided, I decided on the word B R A V E.

I am starting to see how this word has described me all along, even though I didn't realize it.  And I'm beginning to see how we are all brave every day.

6th grade confidence booster

I had to be brave and try to make new friends every time my family landed back in Arizona or California after the harvest season ended and it was time to relocate (again).

I had to be brave when I could hear the kids laughing behind my back during 5^th and 6^th grade whenever I made any attempt at anything athletic during PE class.

I had to be brave and go to court when my parents were fighting for custody of my sister and I, and neither one of us really understood why.  (I just had to stay strong for my sister)

I had to be brave in 7^th grade when I had to figure out the whole “switching classrooms every class period” thing, and explain it to my parents (dad---because mom was gone this year), and then explain why I suddenly was struggling with math and had my first “D” grade ever (Algebra was so hard).

Brave was when when my closest “friend” was so threatened by me (I still don't know what I did wrong) that she bullied and harassed me, made me scared to go to school, and effectively convinced several people to unfriend me (Shoutout to Tiffany and Deja, for helping me survive 8^th grade).

I thought I'd be brave and take a chance and enroll at the newest, smallest, private high school in town and then try running on the cross-country team, after everyone said it was crazy, after knowing that I wasn't "built like a runner".

I was brave that whole running season, when I spent every step of every 5k race fighting back the negative voices in my head, I was brave when I traveled 3 hours one way, two nights a week for my basketball games (even though I was far from the best player on the team), and I was brave when I decided to do the unpopular thing and throw the shotput and discus, with only two other girls for support and nobody understood why we took it so seriously.

Brave was my middle name when I refused to sleep with any boys in high school, even though it gave me a reputation for being “stuck up”.

I was brave when the only place I took the car every week was to Sunday Mass (if the van wasn’t in the driveway by 11am, I took Daddy’s Dodge Ram—Mom sold it a couple years ago and I’m still not over it).

I put on the bravest face I could, the night I realized Dad probably wasn’t going to be coming out of the hospital (and I cried for a long time in the shower when I got home).

I was brave when I left on my choir tour that April, even though Grandma was upset that I was leaving town while Dad was sick (“The show must go on…”).

On May 5^th while I was at my track meet 3 hours away from home, I had to be brave when Sister called me and said “He died”.

The next day was Friday, so I had to be brave and go to school anyway.

B R A V E filled the little church and accompanied us to the graveside and filled my mom’s voice while she sang for my dad one last time.

Age 7-ish and 5-ish

B R A V E filled that summer while Mom and I tried to figure out the rest of the “going off to college next year thing” and the “how are going to pay tuition for my last year of private high school thing” and the “what is everybody feeling thing”.

(we’re still working on that last part…)

I was brave when I got so mad and fed up with everyone’s attitudes and drama during my senior year and stopped feeding into it, but instead, started counting down til graduation.

I was brave the day I opened the letter from Bethany that came in the mail, instead of throwing it away like the first one (this one said “Track and Field Scholarship” on the front).

I wanted so badly to feel brave when I told my mom “I think I want to go to Kansas.”

I bravely got on a plane over spring break and visited campus, and took a deep breath before I made the  choice to sign my letter of intent and enroll for classes, all in the same day.

And then 5 months later, the B R A V E broke down while I sat in my childhood bedroom for the last time before getting in the van and beginning the 22-hour drive…and I hugged my mom and cried for a minute, while she spoke the only reassuring words I can remember her ever speaking to me:

“Time will go by fast.”

Fall 2015, starting to tell my stories...

Dear Journal

12/2/16

#keepcalmWRITEon Day 2.

Free write.  Let’s see what comes out. 

I’m challenging myself to write every single day in December.  Every.  Single.  Day.  Why? I think it will be good for me.  I think it will provide some way for me to get my mind to shut off when it’s supposed to, a way for my thoughts to find their way around each other.  I've got a big writing goal with a deadline of about a year and a half from now.  I guess that’s a good chunk of time.  I supposed the last year and half has provided so much life experience, it could be a book all on its own.  I wonder what the next year and a half will bring. 

A year and a half ago was………..June 2015.  Where was I in June of 2015?

*******

June 1, 2015

Dear Journal,

It’s been just over 4 months since the Friday night conversation that changed my life. By April, there was no more contact. I’ve lost so much weight already.  I wonder how much more I’ll lose.  I think it’s easier to focus on what I eat and not let myself eat when I feel like this. 

Today was a good day, so I thought I’d try to write a little bit about how I feel.

How do I feel?

I feel like there’s a giant hole inside my body, but I can’t even identify where I feel the hole….it just…is.  Every Wednesday, when I have to drive to Ellsworth for work, I cry.  I’ve taken on a coffee habit.  Every Wednesday on my way out of town, I pull through the North 9^th Street McDonald’s and I get a Large Hot Caramel Mocha.  I have no idea what’s in it, but I get it.  And I sip it while I drive, in between singing as loudly as I can to every Jesus song that comes on the radio.  The ones that don’t make me cry, of course.  (I try to write some of these songs down, because some of them make me feel awesome, and some of them I know are God speaking to me about all this.  Colton Dixon’s “More of You”…Third Day’s “Soul on Fire”… anyway.)  I know something’s different with me, because I survived 4 years of college as a double-major/athlete, while working random shifts at the nursing home---all without touching coffee more than three times that I can remember.  And it was just coffee from the cafeteria.  I wasn’t even one of those cool college hipsters who hung out at coffee shops, with earbuds and wifi, studying ever so intently.  I just poured it into my free mug I got from the Student Activities Board and took it with me to 7:45 am Physics Class, because it seemed like the right thing to do, after I’d had 5:00 am weightlifting. But the only thing that resulted was a huge headache and a newfound determination that coffee in its entirety must make me sick and I would have to figure out a different way to keep my eyes open.

So these days, with my Caramel Mochas…I don’t even know who I am.  At least it’s just on Wednesdays.  I still have too many kids in Ellsworth County for my liking, and work hasn't been able to take me out of that assignment…not that I don’t like the kids, but I just don’t know what’s going to happen now that things have …changed.  How am I supposed to keep setting foot there every week? It’s been so difficult.  I stopped packing hot lunch, weeks ago.  It’s too depressing and anxiety-causing to use the microwave at Kwik Shop.  There’s too many people there.  Too many people who might recognize me, too many strangers-to-me in those khaki uniforms, strangers who know probably way more about me than I know.  I just pack random snacks and eat in my car while I’m parked at the library.  On the days I’m hungry, that is. The library is my safe place.  It’s neutral.

Wednesdays kill me.  I come back to Salina, and I’m an empty shell.  Sometimes I go to the gym, but usually I just put on a happy face for church and go to youth group.  They need me there.

The second job still stands.  It’s been a whirlwind few months.  I’ve been on my schedule there since November, officially.  So, it’s been 7 months of losing sleep a couple nights a week, plus sacrificing my Saturdays.  I know I’m making progress towards my debt-free goals (goal is to pay off my car by December 31^st!), but I get tired.  My coworkers at the main job know I’m exhausted.  They know I’m drained.  I can’t count the times and ways they’ve all shown me support.  I take smoke breaks with them, even though I don’t smoke (LOL).  They let me cry and they don’t judge me.  They’ve analyzed everything with me, from every angle.  All the new, unexpected things that come up---those, too.  It’s been so weird to let them into my life.  I guess I didn’t realize I was keeping them out. 

Church has been good.  I’ve continued to stay involved with the youth group, since I returned to them last fall, about the same time I got the second job.  It’s still crazy to think about how everything got added to my life all at once: the second job, then youth group needed me back...  Sometimes I really struggle with guilt.  How maybe if I hadn’t gotten the second job and maybe if I “hadn’t given up my Saturdays", and maybe if I didn’t want to help with youth group, then maybe things would have turned out differently. 

"You need to be glad that the door is shut, things are happening like they are supposed to, the pain will teach you something..." I hear variations of this speech from those who care about me.  I’m still not convinced.  I’ve gotten sick like three times since the end of January.  I had gone 4 years without a sinus infection, but as soon as I landed in El Salvador (4 weeks Post-Conversation) -- BAM-- sinus infection and horrible fever.  Then I got one again mid-April.  I’m starting to feel not so great now, and I can’t decide if I’ve just been exercising too much (because exercise numbs my mind) or if this summer weather is messing with my sinuses. 

I’m actually really glad my Saturdays are filled with work at my second job.  I’m on a pretty good routine.  I either stay late and work til like 6 or 7, or if I actually get off at 4, I go straight to the gym.  Sometimes I see Dean there so that can be hard because I wonder what he's thinking or how much he knows about the situation... but I do my workout anyway.

I know I’ve come a long way since February, though.  I don’t cry as much.  I’m starting to socialize more with friends from church.  At least, I think it’s socializing.  Monica and Jennifer have started to force me to watch “classic” movies with them, to culture me, because they found out that I haven't seen a lot of movies.  We watched “A League of Their Own” the other day, and I had them over in my apartment! I was so nervous.  It was only the second time that I’ve had a “group” over to my house, and I’ve lived here three years! We ordered pizza.  I had never ordered pizza to my apartment before, isn’t that crazy?? Anyway the movie was good.

At the end of July, we are taking our youth group kids on a weekend mission trip to Kansas City.  I’m super excited about it! When I focus on things like mission trips and service, I really feel connected to myself and to God, and that gets me through the bad days. 

Debbie’s been so awesome too.  She’s always there when I need to take a break and get a hug! I hope I’m not bothering her when I stop by to say hi.  I try to make up for it by helping her with Salina Shares.  Speaking of which—we are going to do our Disney at Del Rey party next month too! July is going to be busy, but it will be great.  I just have to get through June first. 

Well, I’m going to get to bed, I guess.  I work both jobs tomorrow so I’ll need my energy.  Hopefully write more soon!

******

Nothing to Give

The assignment this week: focus on possessions, giving away 7 items a day for a week straight (I was inspired by the book “7” by Jen Hatmaker).

I really hate this week.

I actually spent most of the week worrying about how to complete the task, thinking to myself, “I have nothing to give.”

In trying to write about it, some memories came out instead:

Once when I was about 9 years old, my dad said we were loading up his truck with all of our old toys, clothes, books, and stuff.  We then drove an hour down the road to some remote little pueblo outside of Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico.  It was December, shortly before Christmas, and we parked the truck in the middle of the road and called out to the people in their houses.  They ran next door to grab their friends, and soon, my younger sister and I were handing our well-loved Barbies to little girls who were very excited to receive them.  I remember one older gentleman asking my dad specifically for a ball cap that I believe was actually a children’s size, but it fit him, so it didn’t matter.

I never looked at a dirt-road, lean-to neighborhood the same way again.
We visited our neighboring border towns quite often, especially since my grandmother lived in one of them, so I did a lot of looking out the window, wondering about people’s lives, asking hard questions, and worrying.  Yes, between the ages of 9 and 14.

I don’t think my dad took us down there that December morning to make us worry incessantly for the rest of our lives.  But I do believe this memory has remained with me for so long because the event stirred something deep inside of me.

Another, earlier, memory is from California, when I was probably about 7 years old. I’ve mentioned before that we were a migrant agricultural family of sorts.  We spent about half the year in Yuma, Arizona, and the rest of the time in Salinas, California.

From what I remember about Salinas, it was a bigger city than Yuma.  There were more freeway on-ramps, and we seemed to use them a lot to get around town.  Because of the nature of my parents’ work, we always had boxes and boxes of fresh or packaged produce and vegetables (they got sent home with the workers sometimes).

So one day, my dad decided we were taking some produce in the car with us.  I remember sitting in the backseat, holding bags of baby carrots in my lap.  Upon reaching one of the stoplights at an on-ramp/overpass/underpass, my dad rolled down the window and began to hand out the bags of vegetables to the man who was standing on the corner holding a cardboard sign.

When my dad reached back to me, I handed him only one of the bags of baby carrots.  My dad corrected me and asked for the other bag as well, and I reluctantly gave it to him. “All yours, buddy,” he said cheerfully to the man.

“Esta pensando en todos los demas,” my mom said to my dad with quiet, marked realization.

“She’s thinking of all the others.”

I remember knowing, just KNOWING, that I had seen other men like this one, and that they were hungry too, and now I had nothing left to give to any of them.

We went along our way that day, but I remember being a little confused and maybe even a little
angry. Why hadn’t we saved some vegetables (there was celery, too) for other men? Why couldn’t we share more, why couldn’t we help everyone?

I think one of the many lessons my dad was trying to teach me that day was that even when I get this crazy overwhelming feeling, be it guilt, or worry, or panic, or sorrow, it can never cancel out the good deed I am doing right then and there, right in that moment.  And to never let the fear of not being able to fix the whole problem, keep me from taking a stab at the need right in front of me.

To always give what you can, even if it’s a humble bag of vegetables. To never become blind to my blessings, and to always keep unwrapping and rearranging life’s little “extras” and presents, until I find a way to use them to bless somebody else.

Even when the last bag of baby carrots is gone, there is never nothing to give.

Food Warmup

The truth is, we never went hungry in our house growing up.  I now know how fortunate we truly were.  We weren't wealthy either, though.  Not that we knew how much money our parents made, because it wasn't talked about, perhaps exactly the way it should be with children.

I will tell you that the only "restaurant" food I knew in my early childhood was McDonald's, but not in the way you might think, in the stereotypical way we've come to think of families gorging themselves on junk on a nightly basis, with parents who are too "lazy" to cook.

No, McDonald's was a very special occasion, but mainly, a road food.  We were a road family.  I may have mentioned before that we were a migrant farm worker family of sorts, so we traveled long distances between California and Arizona on a regular basis.

During a normal week, our parents cooked.  Just simple food.  I come from a Mexican background, and friends often ask me for "recipes".  The truth is, my parents just cooked food they remembered from their own childhoods.  Yes, there are staples -- chicken, pinto beans, rice, tomato sauce, corn tortillas -- but really everything is just very.... RUSTIC, is always the word I've used to describe it.  However, English is my second language, so if that doesn't make sense to you, please forgive me.  :)

Once in middle school, I had a couple of friends over after school, both girls.  As we rummaged through the walk-in pantry, one of them made the comment, "Everything you have is stuff you have to MAKE, isn't it?"  Most of it was, I suppose, but I didn't know any different.  There had been a period there, after all, during the custody battle, during which my dad fed us lots of Honey Buns, Snickers Bars, frozen chicken nuggets, and introduced us to Frozen TV Dinners (we were ages 10-12).

I didn't drink "dark" soda until 6th grade, when I was introduced to Dr. Pepper by a friend.  I gave it up cold turkey as a freshman in high school, when my cross-country coach told me it was bad for me.  (It may have re-entered the picture in small amounts during/after college...)

Anyway, as an adult now, it's so interesting to think about the different ways I have seen or known food throughout my life.

I've been thinking LOTS about food lately, and what role it plays in my life.  I've got lots to say about it, but I'm not a data analyst or a research scientist; everything I've got to say is emotion and reflection, observations, and lots of questions.

I believe the way to do anything is to start from the bottom and work your way up.  The way I write my "blog" is mainly by studying myself: my history, my habits, my memories.  Then I try to piece them all together to help me understand my present-day beliefs.

So, while every post may not be terribly exciting, it's still a piece of the story.  My story.  And once in a while, it comes out powerfully and loudly.
I think I'm warming up my vocal chords with this one.  

Shamrock Born, Shamrock Bred

12-27-2013

This week, I learned that I lost one of my high school teammates.  

My coach “didn’t have details”...but he hinted at the cause of death.  The teammates I talked to also “didn’t have details”...but had received hints at the cause of death.

She died suddenly on December 20th, 2013.  The day before my birthday.

Regardless of the cause or time of death, the pain came for those of us who learned of the loss.

As I allowed myself to reflect on the situation, I realized that this girl was my teammate year-round; three sports; for four years.  Cross-country, basketball, and track and field.  I tried in vain to calculate the hours I spent in training with her, the miles I ran by her side; the hours I spent in 12-passenger vans and busses with her, the post-game meals I shared with her; the tears we shed in locker rooms after heartwrenching losses, the laughs and jokes we shared on long runs.  

I replayed the silly costumes for Halloween Spirit Weeks at school, the picture-perfect moments in different states for all of our competitions--the Grand Canyon, Southern California.  I recalled our week-long cross-country camp in the summer of 2005, in the mountains of Utah, just two months after my dad died. She was one of many supportive teammates.  I replayed every lap I watched her run in the 3200m run every spring.  I re-cheered her on.  I recalled the way she carried her body while she ran, saw the twinkle in her eyes when she laughed.

I tried to count the days, the hours, the minutes I spent by her side.

And I realized I was too late.

I realized that I started counting the moments too late in the game.  I realized that I didn’t do a good enough job of keeping in touch, of asking her how her life was, of offering support, or even acknowledging and offering thanks for the four years during which she was such an integral part of my inner circle.

In high school, every team I was on was so loyal to each other.  We were the first to respond to each other’s needs, the first to notice if something had gone amiss.  We were study buddies, pushers, encouragers, and distracters when need be.  We refused to listen to each other talk badly about ourselves; we always had a positive word to cancel out any negative thoughts.

How does someone go from being an immediate part of your daily life, to being just a face you see once in a while, while mindlessly scrolling down your Facebook Newsfeed?

It doesn’t matter that 7 and a half years have gone by since high school graduation.  That’s just time.  When I spoke with some of my teammates on the phone regarding the news, we expressed our love for one another--girls I hadn’t spoken to on the phone in years. Time is just an illusion.  These girls are forever a part of my soul.

The life lessons I learned from my hours, days, weeks, and months of training and competition alongside these ladies shaped me for the rest of my life.  I didn’t have much of a traditional “social circle” in high school; my life revolved around these girls.  They colored my days and brightened the few nights we were allowed to stay out later than normal when we didn’t have to worry about an early morning practice or bus ride to a competition.  They shared in birthday parties and attended my father’s funeral.

How can I give so little attention to the girls who stood by me when the rest of the world wanted nothing to do with me?  How can I not offer thanks for the human spirits who encouraged me and looked the other way when I did make mistakes--maybe caused a turnover in our basketball game, or dropped the shot-put at a bad angle and didn’t win us as many points as I should have?

This moment in time is both an offering of thanks, and one of profound guilt and apology. It is both a goodbye and renewal of dedication.

The beautiful bonds I formed with all my high school teammates are ones I truly cannot separate myself from, ever.

Thank you, ladies, for never letting me down.  Thank you for sharing your courage with me.  Thank you for your beautiful, generous spirits. I promise to give each and every one of you more time and attention, and I vow to stand by you in times of need. I cherish each and every one of you.

To Sarah--see ya again soon, and then maybe we can make up for lost time.

Shamrock born, Shamrock bred.

My First Thanksgiving

11-27-2013

Today is Thanksgiving, a major American holiday.

I was thinking earlier that I don't seem to make as big a deal out of holidays as everyone around me.  Don't get me wrong, I don't think holidays are bad. 

But, in processing my thoughts and feelings about holidays, I realize that I really had no family structure growing up to show me the "American Way" or "how holidays are supposed to be done".  That's just a fact.  I am a first-generation Hispanic-American.

 A.K.A. --- my family is from Mexico, and my parents had no idea how to do things "the American Way."

I realize that this has made my experience a bit different from that of my friends and other loved ones in my life.

The first Thanksgiving we celebrated as a family was when I was in 5th grade.  It consisted of my sister, my father, and myself.

Basically, what happened was that my sister and I had spent enough years in elementary school, surrounded by children whose family structure was more traditional than ours.  We saw them and heard them every year talking about all the holidays, so of course, after a while we started asking questions---and telling our dad how it was "supposed to be".

So, in 5th grade, I told my dad, "We need to buy a turkey.  We need to cook a Thanksgiving dinner.  We are supposed to make something called stuffing.  And mashed potatoes."

My dad wanted to do anything that would make his girls happy, so went to the store and bought a turkey, a box of stuffing (don't know how I figured out what it looked like), and a box of instant mashed potatoes.

My dad helped me soak the turkey overnight in Sunny Delight orange juice.  Yes, really.
I cooked the rest of the meal.  Yup, as a 5th grader.  Not because my dad couldn't cook, and he did help a little, but because I watched lots of Food Network cooking shows at this point and also could read the English directions on the boxes.  :)

We have Polaroid pictures of the meal. 

I knew we were supposed to dress up, so I put on my favorite dress.  I knew we were supposed to pray, and I knew how to say the Our Father because I was taking Catholic CCD classes (a story all on its own--another instance of me saying, "Daddy, we are supposed to be doing this by now..."), so I made us all hold hands and I said the prayer.

I don't remember any other specific Thanksgivings in our household growing up.  I'm sure there were one or two more until I graduated from high school.  Maybe it's because Mexican families are bigger on Christmas, and this was when my grandmother would visit and we would do all of our big cooking (read: TAMALES!).

Seven of the eight Thanksgivings in my early adulthood have been celebrated with a meal and with a group of people.  I have spent time with different friends, seeing how different people celebrate the same holiday.  It's been a learning experience.  The family unit always amazes me.  It's astounding to show up as a guest to a dinner and have my friend tell me, "I'm related to every single person in this room."  I have never known anything like that.

I didn't grow up with a big family--just my mom, dad, sister, and I.  My maternal grandmother, aunt, uncle, and younger cousin lived in Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico--an hour away from my hometown in Arizona.  We visited them often, but that's as big as my family got.  I have never met any of my dad's side of the family.  They are deep down in Mexico, and I've never been.  (Yes, this is a project on my Near Future List)

I guess in telling my story, I hope to encourage people to remember that there are individuals out there who truly don't know what a family or a family gathering is "supposed to look like", and for different reasons.  I want people to remember that we're all different.  I want people to remember that not everyone has experienced everything we think they have experienced, or everything we think they "should have experienced by now".  I want us to stop putting each other in boxes.  I want us to start embracing other people's stories and backgrounds, not just pretend to understand.  I want us to not feel sorry for people like me: "Oh, poor her! She never had pumpkin pie as a child!"  It's not the end of the world.  Not everyone grows up the same way. 

We all end up on the same journey.

Earth Wanderer

11-15-2013

I grew up on the road, kind of.  My parents worked for a big-name agriculture company out West, and we followed the harvest.  During the summers and fall, we were in Salinas, California; winters and springs were in Yuma, Arizona.  The drive time between the two cities is somewhere between 8 and 11 hours.

I learned to be a very calm road-trippin’ child.  Packing up the car every season became a familiar ritual.

I remember staring out the window a lot.  I used to play a game with the rain drops on the windows, watching them to see which one would “win the race” to the bottom of the window.  I read every road sign: those about mileage, tourist traps, construction zones, speed limits – all of them. 

I memorized the places we stopped along the way, our familiar “rest areas”; the Mcdonald’s just outside L.A., that giant tree somewhere near Paso Robles, nestled amidst the rolling hills of what must be equivalent to prairies out West.

I drank in scenery from all of our family drives: the rows of lettuce fields on the way out to my dad’s “office”, the city parks, the trees along the freeway.  My favorites were the drives up to Monterey, Watsonville, Castroville, and Santa Cruz.  I now know these drives were essentially out to and up the California coast. 

In California, I learned to love the ocean.  I learned to recognize the feeling of the almost-too-cool breeze up on the rocks.  I memorized what the sun felt like beating down on my bare skin on warm days down in the sand. 

In Arizona, I learned to watch sunsets.  I became familiar with people of all different skin tones and cultures.  I was accustomed to hearing at least two languages everywhere I went, sometimes sprinkled with some Korean or some Middle-Eastern dialect. 

The music and food I grew up with were reflective of the cultural whirlpool I grew up in. 

I always used to hear my mother say she was “ready to go somewhere exciting” or “wanting to see something different”. 

I was used to being on the move, and to being around different kinds of people and culture.

I think this was how my peculiar sense of wanderlust started.  It started very small, very innocently, and then it grew.

It turned into wanting to be in Times Square, waving up at the TRL studios, instead of watching MTV from the living room television.

It turned into wishing with all my being to be out on the dude ranch with Mary-Kate and Ashley, and then go with them to see Paris.  And then London, and then Rome, and then Australia.

I even opted for books that were set in different places.  I loved the “Drina the Ballerina” series, and being a part of tea time or the metro rides in London.  I traveled to Stoneybrook, Connecticut (a fictional city) and sometimes New York with my friends in The Babysitter’s Club.

In the spring of 7^th grade, when we went back to California as a family for the first time in 4 and a half years, I held on with every heartstring to the reliving of my childhood travels.

In high school, I got to travel all over Arizona and Southern California for my athletic competitions.  The hours on the bus?  Bliss.

And then, I moved halfway across the country for college, and have traveled around the Midwest for my track and field career out here. 

I have traveled to Bolivia and Grenada for volunteer trips, neither one of them long enough, each time falling in love with the native people and connecting with my soul in a way I did not know to be possible.

I don’t think this really boils down to never being happy with where I’m at.  I think some sort of a gypsy soul or spirit was instilled in me a long time ago. 

Today, my love of travel and culture largely encompasses my being.  I have travel plans, wishes, hopes, and dreams.  They are not really tourist destinations, so much as places I want to go to connect with people who carry within them a part of humanity’s history.  I long to breathe the air my ancestors have breathed, and experience the emotions of trial and triumphs from before my time.  I am a lifelong learner, and a lover of all that is human.  I want to understand the connection that Earth has had with its inhabitants over the centuries. 

Some people are content never stepping beyond their front porch.  Not me.

“And miles to go before I sleep; and miles to go before I sleep.” –Robert Frost

Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child

October 30, 2013 
This month, my mother celebrated her 50th birthday.

I didn’t get to see her on her special day, because I live halfway across the country, and don’t have the resources or the time off work to be able to go home to Arizona this calendar year.  My sister wants to plan something big to celebrate my mom’s birthday later on, perhaps next summer, when we can all be together.
My mother lives at home with our youngest sister, who is 9.  Sometimes I wonder if my mother gets lonely.  She tells me stories of how my little sister says, “When I grow up, Mommy, I will never leave you.”

That makes me feel guilty sometimes.  I have been away from home for 7 years now, and three years ago when I graduated from college, my mother was ready for me to move back.

I, however, was not.

Most people are in a hurry to move back home; they sense a piece of themselves is always missing until they are back in the familiarity of their hometown.  I did not turn out that way.  I have actually found myself by moving away, and the staying away part was never a question, really.  I never had any desire to move back home.

Part of that had to do with the not-so-fuzzy relationship I had/have with my mother.  My mother is a very complicated, broken person.  Over the years she has manipulated, emotionally abused, and done her best to try to break me as well.  A couple of times she has really succeeded.

But, today isn’t to write about the brokenness; I will save that for another time.

Today is to celebrate the beauty within the brokenness.

You see, I’ve been learning a lot about gratitude and abundance over the past year.  I have been learning how to give thanks for the ugly, the seemingly mundane, and the broken.

So I’ve challenged myself to think through the broken pieces of my relationship with my mother, and to identify glimpses of hope within them.

Even though my mother may not have been the best example to me or the best friend I ever had, and even though I still resent that sometimes, I know there are a few things she taught me that are apparent in my character today.  Most seem like small, trivial things, but they make me smile, and they make me thankful, and that's the whole point.

1) My handwriting.  I always get compliments on my handwriting and how neat it is.  This always takes me back to my schoolgirl days when my mother would compare my handwriting to hers (and almost admire mine).  She would spend lots of time practicing cursive with me, back in the day.
2) My driving.  My mother was the one who played Teacher in most of my lessons. Or, she was in the passenger's seat while I was behind the wheel.  During the time that I was learning to drive, she was pregnant with my youngest sister, and the baby doctor she went to was in California, an hour away.  I drove her to many of those appointments, and although she was very critical and overly explanatory of each detail that she felt I needed to learn, I know that my driving skills are results of listening to those details and the hours of practice she gave me.  I also really, strangely, LOVE to drive long distances.  Tell me I get to drive for 6 hours and I jump with excitement.  In college, it was never a question of who would be the designated driver--whether there was alcohol involved or not--because everyone knew my obsession with driving.  The long-distance driving thing comes from my mom; she basically learned to drive by following my dad on the freeway between Yuma, AZ and Salinas, CA every season for work.
3)Doing Laundry.  Now, I know this one sounds sillier than the rest.  But from my mother I learned how to wash whites in order to get them radiant!Also, given a choice, I would rather hang clothes on a clothesline outside than use a dryer--another little quirk from my mother.
4)Housecleaning.  My mother is a BEAST when it comes to housecleaning.  She hates clutter, and takes pride in how well she can clean.  We're talking scrubbing tubs and toilets and mopping floors. And ripping blinds down and sticking them in the tub to clean with a broom and soap and water. Not only am I now good at it all, I LOVE to do it.  I've got to say, this one definitely comes in handy.

Even though they are small things, and as I look through them, seem almost like little obsessive quirks or complexes, they are my memories and my traits.  Perhaps I created these habits in myself, because I was so desperate to have something in common with my mother, to feel like she had taught me or nurtured me in some way, that I convinced myself to develop them.  That is a topic for further personal exploration.

For now, I see them as gems of humorous wisdom from my mother's 50 years of life.

Maybe in the next 50 years, I will find more.

*also, the title of this post is in reference to an old song title*

#eatINsept

 

Saturday, September 28, 2013

 

Today is the twenty-eighth day in a row that I only eat what I can cook at home. 

 

“Eat IN September” was born out of the blue for me.  I just wanted to challenge myself to go a whole month without eating outside the home.  (I think in the back of my mind, I wanted to save some money, but this was not the driving thought.)

 

Then my friend Maggie decided she wanted to join me.  I didn’t ask her to, beg her to because, “I just can’t do this by myself, I need someone to keep me accountable!”

 

Nope, it just happened. 

 

Even though the concept came seemingly “out of the blue”, I now believe that there was a reason for it.  There was a reason I chose this particular month, in this particular year, in this particular season of my life.  I’ve had some changes at work that require me to drive more, and had I not sacrificed eating outside the home, I may have found myself in the red financially this month.  I’m also trying to pay for my trip to Orlando in December, for a national talent showcase that I’ve been invited to participate in.  The money I’ve saved from eating IN will help me pay for that trip.  I realize now that it was not an accident that this idea dawned on me this particular month.

 

It was also not an accident that Maggie decided to join.  I believe she’s learned a lot about herself this month too, and has also opened her eyes to some things in her budget that she may not have seen before. 

 

I think it’s most of all been empowering.  I really DON’T have to let the machine of consumerism control me! I really CAN step out and CHOOSE to do something different, small a thing as it may be.  This month has shown me that I still have that willpower I remember having in my teenage years, before jobs and incomes and stress and work and freedom. 

 

One of the coolest moments that happened this month was with my friend Jodi.  She lives in a tiny town about an hour and half’s drive away, where she teaches music.  She and I had been trying to schedule a Friday night/Saturday for me to come visit her for about a YEAR now!   Well, this month, I finally made it happen, because I wanted to make it happen before the weather changed and then I had THAT excuse as to why I couldn’t make time to go see my friend. 

 

Well, in scheduling my visit, I said, “So, the thing is, Jodi, I can’t eat out this month.  I’m doing a month-long challenge and I can only eat what I buy in the grocery store.  So…we may have to get creative.”

 

Her response? 

 

“Oh, okay! I have tons of food!  Will you want dinner when you get here? We can figure it out!”

 

We then proceeded to plan how we would shop for the makings of a picnic lunch on that Saturday morning.  Which we did.  And where did we picnic? IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE.  On her family’s farmland.  Surrounded by fields and nothing else, with the sun warming our backs, and the bugs trying to share our food. 

 

It was awesome.

 

What was more awesome was the fact that Jodi said, “I’m so glad you did this no-eat-out thing; I’ve never been on a picnic before in my whole life, and I wouldn’t have been able to today, if we could have just gone to a restaurant for lunch!”

 

Epic win.

 

I took video.  It was that exciting. 

 

It was a first for me, too.  Eating in the middle of nowhere, that is. 

 

This month also went by really fast.  After the first week and a half, it was already a habit to just cook at home, pack lunch, eat before I leave the house, take a snack.  I can’t believe I only have 2 and a half days left! 

 

I may end up carrying on with this.  Maybe I can finish out 2013 eating at home. 

 

Dare me?