Silence, Please! I'm Trying to Make Some Changes!

Sometimes, the changes you make in your own life are not nearly as difficult as getting everyone else to accept how your changes will change their life. I'm embarking on a new adventure, and even though it's taking place in my own home, while I sit behind my own computer, there is a downward shift in the amount of laundry, cooking and cleaning that I'm doing. The rest of the family is supposed to pick up the slack. Old habits die hard but no clean underwear jolts them back to their new reality.

Trying to work while my family carries on around me and without me is tough. I get up for a cup of tea and I'm very surprised that no one else notices that the faucets don't sparkle. Does anyone else care that the sink is full of coffee cups, plates and a knife still sticky with peanut butter? Apparently not. And since I've stopped picking up every single thing that they place on the kitchen counter every single time they walk in the house...car keys, mail, the pizza flyer that was hanging on our doorknob, over the counter sinus meds, the latest issues of Rolling Stone and AARP magazine (we're a diverse household), a Netflix movie that should have been returned 2 weeks ago, an empty gum pack and an empty Starbucks cup...it's beginning to look like a prop house for a bad sitcom.

The Type A voice that's locked inside of me is white knuckled and frantically banging on my brain with clenched fists. "Pick up the clutter, wipe down the counters and polish the faucets!" But that voice that puts my compulsive behavior on overdrive is drowned out by another voice that we all carry within us. It's the one that whispers "You can't!" over and over and over again when we step outside of our comfort zone and strive for bigger, better and not so easily attainable dreams. These two voices are competing for my attention.

I know that the little voice that says "you can't" can be silenced. I also know how hard it is. The voice is part of our survival instinct. It yells when we're too close to the rocky ledge and it persistently murmurs and whispers "stop" when we try to make changes in our life. That little voice loves the status quo.  But, we've got the edge.

The voice may be pesky and repetitive but it's not smart enough to know that some risks are worthwhile. We're the ones who are smart enough to know when to take meaningful risks and it never hurts to remind ourselves of that every day. It's no secret that I'm a big fan of repeating positive thoughts so we can banish the negative. I've been on a status quo life path for quite some time so I know it's going to take a while to shut down the negative voice that tells me that I can't accomplish my goals. Some days I manage to take  little steps and others day I make great big strides but I am expanding the boundaries of my life. My actions are proving that little voice wrong. I can do this.

Laugh Longer, Love Better.

I posed a question to an assortment of people:  my good friends who hold nothing back; acquaintances; the checker at Target who rang up my nail file and the cute pants that were on sale; my husband; my daughter's smitten boyfriend; and a waiter named Amir. The question? Why do couples stay together? God knows there are thousands of opinions on why people break up but I'm intrigued by what binds couples together. Why do they beat the odds when their marriages are shattered by infidelity or mucked up by messy finances that overshadow love  and affection? I'm curious to know why some couples can reignite after months or years of shuffling through cold ashes.

Laughter.
The common thread that stitched together every response was laughter. Even the young checker at Target, who had hair with streaks the color of Peeps, smiled and laughed when she said "men are the devil" but I'm willing to bet, by the time she becomes a blue haired old lady, she'll understand that it's that laughter that can keep a relationship alive.

After shouting and door slamming or agonizing silence and a cold shoulder instead of a warm embrace, laughter can prevail. A little too much insight into my own marriage? Maybe, but I'll let the sentence stand as is because I'm pretty sure most romantic partnerships go through the same thing.  My friend Natalie quotes her own mother when she says "Divorce? No. Murder? Maybe..."  Laughter's good and a morbid sense of humor is underrated.

How do we get to the laughing part? For me, there's something in my brain that eventually kicks in and overwhelms the anger or the complacency or the annoyance. It's like a switch that turns on light and positivity. I've learned to anticipate it and it's never let me down. It doesn't always happen right away but I've found that the lag time is needed to help me sort through the issues and look to my heart for forgiveness or understanding. My friend Stephanie says her husband better worry when, after a disagreement, she passes him in the hallway and she doesn't smile at him. She says she just can't help but smile when she sees him. That must be her own little switch clicking on and signalling that it's all going to be okay. That, and true love.

Make time for each other.
Connie says make time for just the two of you whether it be a walk by a creek or a romantic vacation. I agree. My husband and I decided, before we had children, to put our marriage before everything else. I love my children but without loving my husband I wouldn't make a good parent. We've always parented together and tried to present a united front. That's not always easy because parenting throws some pretty serious curve balls. It also wreaks havoc on romance so we always made sure to use the rare times both children were away to do something together rather than alone. A day on a lake, spent with my husband and an ice cold pitcher of margaritas, is a wonderful problem solver.

Look for perfection.
My daughter's boyfriend says staying together is "simple, just date the perfect girl." There's more to that statement than the idealism of the young. It takes work, but as our relationships age, it's essential to continue to look for the perfect in our partner. It's there-it's just hidden beneath the stress of the work week and the big and little tragedies that we all experience year in and year out.

Keep the bathroom door closed.
Yes, I'm going there. Before we were married we made a pact to keep some things private. I don't care what we're doing in the bathroom-flossing, clipping our toenails or...whatever-keep the door closed. I don't think "familiarity breeds contempt"  was intended for this scenario but it isn't too out of place here. Romance loves a little mystery. That's my deep contribution to this conversation.

Little things shouldn't turn into big things.
One of my dear friends is Vickey and that's her advice. She's a Texan with a heart as big as the state itself and she's an expert at not letting the little things get under her skin. I'm still working on not letting the little pile of dirty socks turn into a Mount Everest of animosity because that anger seeps into other parts of the relationship and before you know it there's a fight and then I'm back to waiting for that positivity switch in my brain to click to the on position. I'm going to make a supreme effort to remember that this week.

Fight for your marriage.
Infidelity. I am always amazed that couples can survive it. For my friends who did they have all said that the years following were tortuous but that they eventually reached a place of deeper understanding and better communication. Admirable and I will be totally honest and say that I'm not sure I could find the forgiveness, and if I did, then I'm not sure I could ever forget and find a place in my heart where love would thrive. Those that have survived tell me that they were able to see where they had both made mistakes before the affair began. They say they survived because one partner ferociously fought a battle to save the marriage and through counseling, prayer, endless nights of talk or whatever they chose as weapons, they were able to slay their demons. They were blessed that their partner was the listening kind because so many are not.
 

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Just about everyone I heard from also said that they wished they had spent more time talking about parenting, household chores and finances before getting married. It seems to be universal to think that love will conquer all when, really, it's good planning that clears the clutter from a relationship and makes room for love to stay.

I love that my friend Melanie contributed her thoughts on what to look for before you get involved. She says that people reveal themselves to be exactly who they are early in the relationship but we do the whole "that's not really who they are thing." She continues by saying "yes, it is. It really, really is. Who people truly are is revealed by their actions." Perhaps I watch too much Dateline or 48 Hours but for every murderous spouse there must have been telltale clues. I'm thinking Melanie would make a great detective.

Robert Browning said "Grow old with me! The best is yet to be." I am forever grateful that I had the sense to stay the few times I wanted to flee. Laughter comes easier the older we get and even though there are times that we can't see the light we know to wait for it.

No Lapse in Faith

I have never lost my faith. I may have, for a while, lost my faith in the brick and mortar churches, but that forfeiture made room in my life for a spiritual journey that I don't regret.

I just stumbled across author and priest Andrew M. Greeley's website and his "Why I'm Still A Catholic" article. I really do believe, even though I haven't attended mass in probably 10 years, that once a Catholic always a Catholic. I have rosaries scattered throughout my home. I sleep with a leather scapular and two of the rosaries hanging from our headboard-one on my side and one on my husband's. During a recent health crisis I prayed to Father Solanus Casey and held close to my heart a bit of cloth that had touched his tomb. Father Casey was known for his miraculous healing and is well on his way to clearing the Vatican's hurdles for sainthood.

I was just barely a cradle Catholic. That's church slang for Catholics born and raised in the Church. We went to Mass on most Sundays and I attended CCD (the acronym for Catholic Children's Doctrine), I was baptized, had my First Communion and I was Confirmed. When I was a little girl in the 1960s, women still covered their heads and I had mantillas, the little lace head scarves, in white, pink and black. My mother made sure we dutifully met the guidelines but there was no real appreciation for the Sacraments. There was no family prayer and certainly no talk about what it meant to be a Catholic. My strongest memory of growing up and going to church is getting caught, at 14 years old, swilling strawberry wine in the bushes outside the St. Cecilia church rectory. My father stepped foot in church for weddings only. He would jokingly say the pews were too hard and his wooden leg made it too difficult to stand, kneel, sit and repeat.

I wholeheartedly came to the Church after a divorce. I do realize, considering the Catholic stance on divorce, the humor in that. When I met my second and current husband he was a much more devoted Catholic than I was. That makes it sound as if I'm shopping for number three but we're on year 23 of wedded contentment/conflict/contentment. I knew when we were dating that we would never be married unless I had my first marriage annulled. I won't go into the controversy surrounding annulments but I will say that it was one of the most emotionally cathartic experiences of my life. It made me dissect every aspect of my failed marriage and take a good hard look at every other aspect of my life. The original intent of annulment is to dissolve a marriage that is contrary to Divine Law. I'll spare everyone the icky details but if that's what it takes to qualify for an annulment than my first marriage certainly met the criteria...and then some.

We married and I was very active in my parish. I was president of our women's group, I worked with our Monsignor on community tasks, I cooked casseroles and tossed salads for funerals and anniversaries and I headed up a building fund committee. My children attended the parish school. I hosted rosaries in my home. But all the while I had a nagging, unsettled feeling that just wouldn't go away.

Andrew Greeley says "those who leave the Church because they have discovered how flawed are many leaders, are ignorant of history. Jesus never promised us saints. Nor did he promise that the saints who on occasion might be in charge would be either effective administrators or wise leaders."

Unlike Father Greeley, who has had his own conflict with the Catholic Church, I found it impossible to ignore the blaring headlines that screamed of sex abuse scandals. When grown men molest small children and when those committing the mortal sins of child molestation are shuttled from parish to parish and country to country and protected from the law it makes me sick. It's old news, isn't it? How sad that we are barely even shocked when another scandal arises. It's just more fodder for the late night hosts.

I found it impossible to shake the feeling that it was about big business and that the business was corrupt.  I suppose I could look back at Catholic history and see that the church has always been embroiled in scandals and I could just accept that the scandals were further proof of man's fallibility. But, I didn't accept it. 

On a beautiful Spring day my husband and I attended a funeral. As usual, we sat front and center. We watched the priest preparing the Eucharist.  "This is my body … this is my blood." The Catholic understanding of these words is literal. The word for it is transubstantiation. The Communion bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus Christ. On that day, I felt so many questions bubble to the surface and the most important one was this: How did so many soiled hands perform this beautiful ritual and why would the Church allow it to continue?

"Doubt is part of all religion. All the religious thinkers were doubters." So says Isaac Bashevis Singer.If you're not familiar with Singer, his is an interesting story. He was a Jewish American writer and Nobel Peace Prize winner. I felt as if I had the lion's share of doubt and, for many years after walking away, I was in mourning. I shed tears over my decision. There were lost friendships that accompanied my leaving but the loss I felt most strongly was for the rituals and the beauty of Catholicism and the Mass. To my Catholic friends who didn't abandon me, I say a belated thank you.

I let doubt propel my journey. I have always been uncomfortable with the notion that any one group held the keys to Heaven. Since stepping away from the Catholic Church I have tried on other religions. The Presbyterian services in Texas, where I truly felt a connection to that church home, were a blessing when I first felt adrift.  It was there that I met many other Catholics and one woman who said "I am a Catholic who attends the Presbyterian Church." No wonder I felt at home. When I moved to Los Angeles, the time I spent attending no services at all-just me and God and little talks scattered throughout every day of the week-was spiritually freeing and gave me time to read and explore religious history. Those little talks with God continue. The visit to a non denominational church in a California strip mall where the preacher screamed and told his followers that Jews, Buddhists, Catholics and anyone with different beliefs were destined to Hell was, well, scary as Hell. And if there was a place hotter and lower than Hell he was certain that the entrance was marked for homosexuals. I ran from that place. The churches where the members raised hands and spontaneously proclaimed Hallelujah were joyous but, quite frankly, they startled this lapsed Catholic woman, who was used to quiet sanctuaries.

I'm ready to step into a church community again. I hold my Catholic roots close to my heart but I'm not stepping back in that direction. The term "Cafeteria Catholic" is used to describe a Catholic who picks and chooses, from the list of Church rules, what he or she wants to believe. The Church is filled with Cafeteria Catholics. It can easily be applied to all other religions. I don't want to pick and choose what I will believe. I want to totally immerse myself in spirituality. I want a congregation that shares my belief that good people go to Heaven and that God doesn't discriminate. Is that easily dismissed as simplistic? I think it's one of the hardest things to wrap your brain around. Opening your heart to others and finding the good is actually a great challenge. My religious past has made me who I am. I'm grateful for God's direction on my journey.

Seize The Day

My father was going to retire and then go to Europe. Instead, he retired and then he died.  "Men for the sake of getting a living forget to live." That quote by Margaret Fuller pretty well sums it all up. The only thing you will regret on your deathbed will be the things you didn't get to do. He had made the trip once and very much wanted to go back, free from the time line dictated by the workplace. For my dad, there would not be another stroll through Piccadilly Circus, no cruise along the Seine and no view from the Eiffel Tower. 

I was 24 when he passed away and, even though I wasn't a child, I was certainly in my formative years for learning to become an adult. His death shaped and formed my outlook on work and life and my adamant belief that if I don't get to do something right away I may never get to do it.

My dad, God rest his friendly soul, drove over 90 miles round trip on his commute to his contracts administrator job. East on the flat I-10 from Houston's western suburbs, past the skyscrapers and south on I-45 to the marshy bay area, almost to Galveston, and then back home at 5 o'clock  to our little ranch style house. He ate dinner and watched the news in his burgundy leather chair. He ate an apple and tossed our dachshund the core. He was off to bed by 10:30. It was the nightly routine. 

He was a model employee who sat behind the same gray metal desk for 47 years. His sense of loyalty was born from the fact that his employer hired him when no one else would. He was an amputee who lost his leg to gangrene when he was 12 years old. It was horrible timing; penicillin was discovered a few years after the infection claimed his leg. When he landed his job there were no laws protecting the disabled and I can imagine how grateful he was to be hired.

I think he was happy. I can't imagine doing something you hated, day in and day out, for 47 years. I believe a lot of what kept his pedals to the work a day metal was an abiding fear that he would never find another job. Looking back, I am immensely proud of his dedication. Growing up, I swore I never wanted a life like that.

His death had a profound influence on my own life strategy. I never wanted to put off until tomorrow any experience that I could have today. I'm sure I was deep down worried that my own retirement age may never come or that I would hit 65 and they'd be pulling the sheet over me.  Always, in the back of my mind, was the thought that I had to seize the day and make it all count because my days may be numbered. Henry David Thoreau said "you must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment." 

All children take something from their parents' lives and make it a part of their own. They also refuse to go down certain paths that their parents have paved. That addition and subtraction, the traits embraced and those that are pushed away, make an adult child complete. From a parent's loss, a child can learn.

How Much Do We Tell Our Children?

There is a grove of pines so lanky and tall that each one is trying to outgrow the next to reach their piece of open sky. Below the trees no grass grows and the dirt is carpeted with the pines' discarded needles and cones. The air may be muggy but the grove floor is cool and shaded and attracts a daily pilgrimage of teens who sit in a circle to talk, solve the problems of their world and pass joints 'round and 'round. It's not 2011. It's 1976. Those high school kids are now grown and most are, will, or have been parents to their own teens.

The visual sensory overload of the sixties swung back and forth on our black and white TV sets.  The pendulum tick tocked  from Bonanza, The Beverly Hillbillies and The Andy Griffith Show to horrific images of Vietnam, the setbacks and promise of the Civil Rights Movement, Free Love and the tie dyed drug culture of Haight-Ashbury. The young children of the sixties sat cross legged in front of their console TVs and watched it all unfold.

The sixties flowed into the seventies and the teens in my neighborhood, who were raised on that visual feast and famine, had cars and a little too much money. The grove of trees wasn't tucked away and secluded; it was on high school property and the number of students who sat in that circle was way too large for teachers, or the police who parked and watched from a block away, to disperse.

Crazy times. And just how much of your past do you share with your own children? I've told mine my life story. I've doled out information in snippets and parcels in moments that I thought would have the most impact. The piece of information that I have made abundantly clear is that I always had a mooring and a moral compass deep within my soul and that if there was one thing I would wish for them it is that they hold fast to their anchor and follow their own moral compass when life and times get crazy. Not if. When.

I've slogged through some swamps and scaled some proverbial mountains. We all have. My children will, too. I can tell them what may lay ahead but I can't live their lives for them. I can show them the way but I can't go with them. I can share my faults and my transgressions and the impact they had on my own life. I can stand beside them when they falter and celebrate when they're back on their feet. I can help reset their compass and drop their anchor in calmer water.

Hold Your Own Hand

  
"Friendship with oneself is all important because without it one cannot be friends with anybody else in the world."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

What a smart gal that Eleanor was. Of all the things I've tried to teach my own children this quote is at the very heart of my big lesson plan for life. Being your own friend is hard. It means you have to accept your flaws and your quirks and love yourself anyway. You have to know that absolutely no one is perfect, yourself included. You have to take a good hard look at yourself and refuse to look away until you take it all in...and you have to carry that mirror with you all the time. See the faults and imperfections? That's what makes us human and since we're human we have the ability to smooth our rough spots-no matter how long they've been there. Are we going to slip up and screw up time after time? Of course we are.

I'm certainly no psychologist but I like to think I have common sense. As parents, we set the tone for our children's inner monologue.  I've noticed that the people with the harshest inner monologue are the ones who want to look away when faced with the mirror. They have a difficult time keeping and maintaining friendships because they never learned how to be their own friend. Their parents outer monologue, directed at them, became their inner monologue.

"You're fat."
"You're spoiled."
"You're stupid."
"You're trouble."

It sure would be nice to end all that negative dialogue but I'm not Pollyanna enough to believe that it's going to happen. Success would be just one person holding up a mirror and daring to not turn away. Success would be one person shutting off the negative thought stream and learning to hold their own hand.

    

     

     

Not So Secret Admirer

   
     I supposed I fancied myself as some little fairy godmother or a bespectacled guardian angel. Even though my attempts to do good were usually bungled, my motives were sincere. In 1969 I had brown hair and crooked pigtails every day and my closet was full of plaid jumpers that were always paired with pastel blouses that had dainty peter pan collars. I wore brown glasses to correct my amblyopia and the left lens was noticeably thicker than the right. I was a piece of work.

     My 5th grade classmates were the same as 4th, 3rd, 2nd and 1st.  I had gone to school with the same group of kids since kindergarten. There wasn't much change at Bunker Hill Elementary School. Our classes celebrated all the holidays with parties and homemade treats. I don't ever remember peanut allergies or gluten intolerance being an issue, but I do remember the horror of Valentine's Day and how I would feel so sorry for the kids who got fewer cards dropped into their brightly decorated paper bags.

     There was one boy in particular who bore the brunt of most teasing. He was a notorious nose picker and had less fashion sense than me. I never picked on him. I'm not sure where my empathetic gene came from but to this day I am bothered by cruel practical jokes and sarcasm.

     On this particular Valentine's Day I thought it would be a good idea to make him feel like someone cared. I signed my name to most of the store bought cards but, on his, I used my mom's electric typewriter and wrote the words "From Your Secret Admirer." It was a masterful plan and I was thrilled that my actions would give the boy a smile. Now, I really wasn't his secret admirer. I had no crush on him. I thought his nose picking was disgusting but, ever the wanna be psychologist, I attributed his nasty habit to poor parenting. (I was the child who pored over my sister's college psych books so I could find out what my parents were doing wrong. I like to think I did most of my raising myself.)

     The great flaw in my plan occurred when I neglected to get up from the old IBM Selectric typewriter and I lazily went ahead and typed my name, rather than writing it, onto the remaining couple of Valentine cards. It doesn't take a middle schooler to figure out what happened next. The classroom was on a sugar high. Envelopes were ripped open and thrown to the linoleum floor and each 5th grade recipient eagerly read their cards and turned them over to see who had signed them. In no time at all, the most picked on boy in school was waving his little card from his secret admirer. All the boys and girls buzzed and chattered and tried to figure out who she was.

     I sat proud and smug...until the smartest boy in class opened up his card from me...and I had typed my name.  He was now sitting proud and smug after putting two and two together. As I said, my intentions may have been bungled but they were very, very good. Those good intentions don't mean much during a 5th grade scandal. In no time at all I was known as the girl who had the big crush on the most picked on boy in school. The teasing only lasted a week or so but that wasn't the worst of it. The worst part was a boy finding out that he didn't really have a secret admirer after all.

     Life lessons are hard albeit some can be quite funny in retrospect. I still carry my biggest life lesson from the 5th grade debacle deep within my heart. If I have raised my own children to follow this mantra than I will consider my parenting a success: Never be afraid to publicly declare your support, your love and your compassion for those less fortunate and less understood. When all is said and done you will know that doing the right thing for all to see is always the right action. If only my little 5th grade self had known that.

Life's Quilt

     "When I was a child I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things." I love that passage from Corinthians. Every time I read it I think of the evolution from child to adult and how, even when we become adults, our hearts, our souls and our minds can continue to flourish. Of course, the childish things of our past are not cast out the moment we step into adulthood. Damn, wouldn't that make it easy. Instead, the remnants of our raising are woven so deeply into the quilt of our being that we must learn to stitch those tattered pieces together with new experiences.
     From the sweetness of childhood springs the angst of the teen. Isn't everything bigger than life? And so dramatic? A breakup means you just might die from the sadness. Grounded really does feel like grounded for life. A date to the prom is the best thing ever. If you don't get that car for your sweet sixteen your life will officially be over. And while the rest of your life feels like it passes by in the blink of an eye, the teen years seem to go on forever. The tumult from those years serves a greater purpose as we learn to navigate relationships and process and solve problems. Our life's quilt is getting bigger.
     The twenties. We're adults but our brains are only halfway there. We're expected to earn a living, pay our bills, and live like we're all grown up. The weekends are for partying and our bills haven't piled so high that we feel the strain of debt. For many of us, our parents are alive and kicking and our role as caretaker won't start for years and years. I've probably just managed to depress every twenty-something reader, but my true intent is this: love your life, love your friends, and live your dreams every day. Surround yourself with positivity. If there's a person in your life that makes it hell it's time to reassess. Keep the good, banish the bad.  Make your quilt stronger and more colorful.
     The thirties. We're putting it all together now. Maybe we're feeling a little cocky, too. The career is on track. We're starting a family. I'm still a bit mortified by some of my pit bull actions when I was thirty-something. In the workplace, I didn't take into account how my deeds affected others. Although I've never been to AA I admire their philosophy of going back and setting things right with people from your past. Maybe I should start my list. I should have used my quilt to warm and sustain others but I was pretty stingy with the life I was building.
     The forties can slap you in the face. What a wake up call. Growing kids are expensive and very, very complicated. Houses are money pits. My body ceased to defy gravity. Marriage required more work. Problems that I never saw coming threw us off track and it was harder and harder to steer back to the course. If you get through your forties with the marriage intact and your sanity in place you are blessed with the fifties. That quilt is life size now and the seams are strong from the reinforcing stitches.
     At the mid century mark I've adopted the se la vie attitude. Pick your battles never had more meaning. At this point in time, I've seen the blessings and tragedies of life and I say bring on the blessings because wallowing in the tragedies becomes tiresome and pointless. I love the fifties. My quilt is big enough for my family and friends and I choose to embrace the people that make my life richer.
    
   

ADDled Mom

My son has ADD. For the parents out there who do not have a child with ADD I'm sure what I'm about to write will sound like I spent my early parenting years riding the train to crazy town. I'll happily give away the ending and tell you that he is now 21, creative and perfect. We both survived and he gave me approval to write about him. I have a pivotal point in time that I will never, ever forget. It is the moment I realized I had completely lost control of my own reactions to the nightly homework battles and the never ending calls from teachers.

The doorbell rings at 7 pm. That's the witching hour for parents of kids with ADD. Dinner is over, bedtime is soon and the space between the two seems way too short to complete the piles of homework, get the going to bed rituals finished and make sure everything is organized for tomorrow's school day. Some of the hallmarks of ADD are a lack of focus, fidgeting, under performing and no sense of time. It would drive a normal parent mad but for a Type A, anal, over programmed and detail oriented nut case like me it was pure torture.The ADD child wants to make the right decisions but their hard wiring is routed wrong. And the Type A mom always thinks she's making the right decisions.

On this particular night I am drained. The crazy train is speeding to insanity and I'm too tired to get the damn thing to stop. I answer the door and find a friend standing on the threshold with papers for the next night's PTA meeting.She looks cute, and perky, and very, very relaxed. She has no idea that she has entered Hell.

Unaware, she steps into the madness...I mean the foyer.  It only takes a moment for her to realize that she would rather be anywhere but here. I am hoarse from yelling, my cheeks are red, the tears are flowing and she thinks someone has died. I picture my hair standing on end but I'm pretty sure that's only in my imagination. I am so caught up in the drama that I think it's perfectly normal to scream these next words..."HE HASN'T EVEN STARTED ON THE MATH HOMEWORK!" What? Math homework? I know she's thinking "who in their right mind gets this upset about math homework?" She could have turned tail and run but like a true friend she calmed me down and then sat for awhile and listened.

Parenting a child with ADD can make you crazy. It makes you crazy that even though it is such a common diagnosis, there are few teachers and counselors who really know how to deal with it. You get crazy when your child tells you the night before that he has a paper due the next day...and that it needs to be 15 pages with footnotes and a bibliography. It makes you crazy when he says it's really no problem, he'll just sit down and start writing. Is delusional part of ADD? Oh right, that's the no concept of time symptom! It makes you crazy that even though you try and stay on top of all assignments some slip through the cracks and you know you'll be up until 1:00 am scrambling to finish his paper. Yes. I know that is enabling. You get crazy when you get the one teacher who does understand all the idiosyncrasies of ADD and then you realize that she will only be the teacher for one year and the next year you have to start all over with a teacher who doesn't get it. It makes you crazy when the clueless teachers tell you to punish him by taking him out of all sports and forcing him to concentrate on school. Offense intended when I tell them you do not want that boy in your class; ice hockey and baseball were the outlets that made him manageable.

After the night of the meltdown, I had a serious talk with myself. I was over the edge and plummeting fast and if I didn't pull the rip cord now I would wallow in pain and regret. Overly dramatic? Probably. Is it what I was feeling at the time? Without a doubt.

I decided that I had to keep things in perspective. Would not finishing the math homework in 6th grade make him a terrible adult? No. Would getting a C on a paper keep him from growing up healthy and sane? No, but my constant over reaction certainly would. Through years of cajoling and prodding I believed that if he just tried harder and if I just pushed harder then this would all go away. I was wrong. I finally accepted that my creative and smart son had an abundance of wonderful traits that were being overlooked. I decided that the A Honor Roll was not the goal; the goal was to raise a son to become a wonderful adult.

And he is a wonderful adult. He has amazing powers of concentration when the task is something that interests him. The first day he picked up a guitar he was determined to be the best. Today, he is a musician who spends hours playing. He loves history. He seeks knowledge on his own. He is incredibly well read on current events and world history. He understands business and excels in those college courses. Most of all, he's a nice guy with a great group friends and he has his own plans for the future. Those plans may not have been the ones we had for him but they are so much sweeter because they are his own.

Yes, it's a good future. We're living it now.

Down the Rabbit Hole

     

     Kids are funny. I was funnier than most. And by funny… I really mean odd. My parents were older and my brother was off to college by the time I was six. My sister left when I was 10. Before they moved out they were busy with the things that teens are busy with and that left me to ride in the car with my mother as she went about her “Welcome Wagon” duties. Yes, she was a Welcome Wagon lady. I learned to read street numbers and maps before I learned to read a book.  I knew evens were on the left and odds were on the right and just because a street looked like it ended it may just jog a bit to the right or the left once you passed the cross street at the end of the block. I knew how to put together the big packets of coupons that we would drop off at the newcomers’ homes.  The local heating and air conditioning company always printed their coupon on an 8 x 10 sheet and that was the one we used to wrap around the others. They were all bound together with one of those big, fat, brown rubber bands. I loved putting those packets together. Other little girls wanted to grow up and be teachers or dancers or nurses. I wanted to be a business woman.

     When I was 7 or 8 I would load up a wagon with goods from our garage. Rocks, dusty directories with yellowed pages and worn covers, soft drinks from the cases my dad always stacked against the sheet rock wall, little plastic prescription bottles that had been converted into screw and nail containers were all good enough for my resale ambition. I’d pull the wagon and ring as many doorbells as I could before the neighbors would call my house and let my parents know that I was at it again. At least one or two would buy what I was selling.

     For most of my childhood there was a vacant lot at the end of the street. It was a woodsy heaven for all the neighborhood kids. One night I was late coming home. I must have been in kindergarten. This was back when children of all ages were gone from morning until dusk and no one thought anything of it. I walked into the house, covered with mud. The real truth was that I had broken the rule about not leaving our street and I had traveled one block over and slipped into the big deep ditch that lined one side of the road. It was like quick sand and one of my brother’s friends heard my screams and plucked me from the muck. I ran home and immediately proclaimed that I had fallen into…a rabbit hole. I built on that lie and told them that the rabbit hole was in the vacant lot. No way could they know I had left the block. My mother, my aunt, my father, my uncle, and at least two neighbors all set out, like an army search party, to find this rabbit hole that was sucking in small children. And, when the rabbit hole was nowhere to be found, I was forced to come clean and tell the truth.

     I was a nervy little kid and that’s why, when the for sale sign appeared in that vacant lot, I didn’t hesitate to call the number and ask the price. I thought it would be a great place to build my little resale business. Keep in mind that I was no older than 9 years old. I’m not sure why the Realtor took my call and I really can’t imagine why she spent the time to tell me that I would need to call the city and have the lot rezoned from residential to business use. She even gave me the number to call. Another adult spent 15 minutes with me explaining the process. It never occurred to me that I didn’t have the money to actually buy the lot. And I really can’t believe that it never occurred to the adults that they were speaking to a little girl. I thought I’d make the money in sales. What were they thinking?

     I did grow up to be a business woman for part of my life.  A Realtor, as a matter of fact, and although I never fielded calls from little girls aspiring to be business women, I would have gladly taken their calls. I do still have penchant for office supplies and I’d rather spend an hour in Staples than trying on shoes.  

     I was riding in the car with my daughter last week. She was driving and looking for an address. She asked me how I knew all the things I knew about maps and roads and business and…well, all the little things I take for granted that I’ve known most of my life. It made me remember some funny and good parts of my childhood that I usually overlook. It’s pretty easy to get caught up in all the negative childhood stuff that’s usually at the forefront of most middle aged baby boomer memories. Sometimes you’ve just got to set aside the bad and remember the good stuff. And be thankful for the little lessons learned.