Sell me in a garage sale.

Today was garage sale day and to say the least, it was enlightening.  The garage sale culture is one where daughters ask mothers for a $3.00 item for their thirteenth birthday present and mom actually hemmed and hawed over such a request, even after the daughter offered to do chores.  Garage sales are the only place in "sales" if you want to call it that, where someone will actually ask you if you'll take 20 cents for a frame already marked down to a quarter.  This truly happened to me and I profited 40 cents on two frames that probably retailed for a total of $15.  Granted, they were several years old and dinged up, but still... 20 cents.

Max watching his friend drive away.

People literally want something for nothing.  Well not all people... today I was graced by this amazing elderly lady, 82 years old, driven around by her son, in an ancient truck that was barely running.  She was an angel in disguise, who deserved to be pampered, but instead chose to collect the ingredients for terminal patient's care packages.  When I tried to give her items for free, she insisted on paying for them.  (So I dropped my prices 95% and in garage sale speak that means pricing things for mere cents instead of dollars.)  I was in love.  So was Max.  Their friendship was sealed when she gave him a 5 cent tip, a "token in appreciation" as she called it.  She truly put my whole day into perspective.      

Life is somewhat similar to a garage sale, where not just items, but people become old hat and their worth fades to almost nothing in the eyes of others.  Then, just when you least expect it, angels come along and see value, giving an item, or a person, new life.
 

Friendly Strangers

I am making a goal, to write a blog a day for a month.  As those of you who read my blog know, my siblings and I no longer have contact with our biological father.  This honestly isn't our choice, but his.  We all hope deep down to have some sort of communication with him, but as of now that isn't possible.  So my way of coping is to look at the blessings from my father and four of them truly have saved my life at different points.  My siblings.  We may talk daily, weekly or sometimes monthly, but no matter, our hearts are always connected.  I once described the love between my all of us (including my mom)  as a root system that is so gnarled and interconnected that you can't pry it apart, it's unbreakable. 

My siblings are my support system and they have been pressuring me to write more and even publish.  I think they know me better than myself and have helped to plant the seeds of a long time dream of mine to write a book and possibly include some of my photography.  I am not sure when or if that will happen, but in the mean time I need to at least make the commitment to try.  So this goal, a blog a day is for them.  I love you all so much!

This first blog is dedicated to my family and to a new member of the club that we all belong to, called the I don't know a stranger, club.  Personally I can talk to the wall or just about anyone you put in front of me (my husband can attest to this) and apparently, my son Max is following in his momma's footsteps.  

Max and his new friend at the girl's soccer game.

Today we were checking out at Target. Max was just sitting there and out of the blue pointed to the sales lady at the next counter and said, "thats my friend."  She glanced our way, looking surprised at this declaration, but soon played along and acted as if they knew each other well.  As we were leaving they said their good-byes, but he wasn't done making friends.  At his cajoling, we stopped at  Starbucks on our way out to get him a milk.  As we were paying he turned to the couple behind us and said, "those are my friends."  They too looked caught off guard, but also quickly played along and asked him about the car he was holding.  He made sure to inform them it was "an ambulance."  Both of them laughed and asked him how old he was.  "Two," he proudly informed his new "friends."  They commented to me how smart he seemed, I smiled and took the compliment.  

I agree with them, he is smart and not just because he knows his shapes, how to count and that a truck just isn't truck, but an ambulance.  Max is smart because he knows one simple, yet very important thing, life is much better if you are friendly and treat others kindly, no matter who they are.  Unfortunately I, like many, have had to deal with my share of bullies, people just so miserable that they can't be anything but mean and judgmental.  It's been a process to realize I can't change these people, but I can hopefully raise my children to be the opposite of them; friendly, kind and not afraid to call complete strangers, friends.

One additional side comment about my biological father.  He too is a writer, a genius with his words, using them both to eloquently bolster and demolish a person's psyche.  As I have dealt with the negative people in my life who continue to try and damage my spirit, I have been tempted to share this in order to bring light to their true nature.  However, while that day may come, I am a beacon for my children and an example of how to not only act, but also react to the way others treat me.  As my husband has said more than once, just because they say it, doesn't make it true.  I will take my father's love for writing as a blessing and leave his injurious words (as well as other's) behind.  This is my story and only I can truly narrate the path I have taken as well as the journey yet ahead.      

Judgement

Judgement, we are all guilty of it. We meet someone, we hear about somebody's crazy story, relationships, choices and we pass on our own set of judgements.

"Walk a mile in my shoes..." Have a conversation with me. Talk to me. Ask me questions. I'll answer. If you have the courage to speak before judgement or in the face of it, I'll give you the promise if an honest reply.

Ask about my past. It doesn't define me, but it helped to create the person I am today. I'm not perfect. Perfection is a lie upon which people stand because they can't be honest with themselves. If you can't be honest with yourself, deal with the rawness of your true self, then no one will be able to know the true you.

Love and then forgive and then move on.

Be yourself. Stand up for yourself. Don't allow others define who you are by their twisted and unhealthy perceptions.

Don't tolerate manipulation, it's a form of abuse.

Be grateful for friendship. I have been amazingly blessed by many angels who have walked through my life and literally stood by my side in my darkest hours.

Cherish family. My gorgeous, perfectly imperfect family. I love you and the unconditional love you have given to me time and time again.

My babies. I love you. I promise to never judge you, but instead, appreciate you in your most beautiful light.

Judgement. I won't tolerate it. Life is too short and I'm tired of a mis drawn conclusion without reading the whole story.

Remember... Things aren't always what they seem or how you perceive them to be.

I miss you. I love you. I wish you were here.

Dear Savannah and Sam,

It's late, 1:31 am to be exact, but you are heavy on my mind and so I am typing this instead of sleeping. Jerry understands, he has been up with me, listening to me tell him how much I miss you.  I am blessed to have such an amazing, loving and supportive partner who knows what you mean to me.

I just wanted you to know how much I miss you, how very deeply I love you and how desperately  I want for you to be here with me.  It's no secret, I know your dad knows it because he watched me carry you, give birth to you, raise you and love you.  He knows what you mean to me.

Today we went to the zoo and it made me think of you and miss you at the same time.  As soon as we arrived, there was a peacock there to greet us and it made me think of you Savannah and the time we came and he or she followed you all the way to the entrance.  I knew you would have laughed at how Max called it a "tu-tock."  Sam, I thought of you when we went by the tigers and how he came right up to the glass and you held Max to show it to him.  You were and are so sweet.  

Right when you turned four.
At the Albuquerque zoo.
The Polar Bear exhibit
is in the background.

Savannah, I realized today why you love Polar Bears so much.  When you were little, we had a season pass to the Albuquerque zoo.  I used to take you, Sam, Sage and Saxton all the time.  You could be free there, run around and play.  We knew every square inch of the zoo and always spent a lot of time at the Polar Bears.  When Sage and Saxton were newborns, I used to go in the darker area where you could watch them swim under water to nurse.  You and Sam would stand at the glass and just watch them play in the water.  You were so cute.  Sam used to wear himself out to the point that he would always fall asleep on the way home and I still remember lifting him out of his carseat and he'd snuggle, still sleepy, on my shoulder.


I remember when you were three and Sam was just one, taking you both on Mother's Day to the zoo by myself.  We had such a great day and I have a picture somewhere of all three of us that a stranger offered to take.  I was so proud to be your mom.  You are my greatest accomplishments.

I think of you all the time, as soon as I wake up and as I'm drifting off to sleep.  I worry about you and wonder how you're doing.  We talk, Skype, FaceTime, text and even snap chat, but that's not the same.

Divorce sucks!  I am sorry that you had to go through all that you did.  I too felt fear and heartbreak as a child and it was my biggest hope to shelter you from that and  I am sorry that I wasn't able to.  My wish is for your happiness now and in the future, you deserve that so much.  I wanted to break the cycle and unfortunately there is no perfect guidebook to that.

To be honest, I never imagined that we'd be apart this long, never in my wildest dream or worse nightmare.  As the days pass and weeks go by, my missing you doesn't fade, it only grows stronger.  People say that technology is breaking people apart, I say they're crazy!  Technology keeps me sane.  Every little message, phone call or picture I get brings me closer to you.  It's pure gold to me.

I believe in God and I have faith in him that he is listening to my prayers.  I can not wait to see you again and I want you to know that I love you!  I love you to the moon and stars and moon and stars and back again!  Good-night my babies, sweet dreams.  

Death by Divorce

Tonight my husband and I were playing around on Google Earth and I decided to show him my bike route from my house in Fort Collins to Colorado State.  My last semester before I graduated, I made a vow not to drive my car to class and to ride instead.  Thinking back over that I time, I remembered how much I loved those rides.  The path was beautiful and it allowed me a fresh start in the morning and a stress-decompression time in the afternoon.  Recalling memories from this time in my life, is almost like recalling a dream.  I haven't been back to Fort Collins since I moved.  This isn't because I didn't like it there, I did.  I think it is more because I needed time to lick my wounds and heal from my divorce and the pain I went through leading up to that point.

Until last June, I also had not been back to the Midwest since my last visit there with my Ex to baptize Sage and Saxton.  It was there and then that he told me he wanted a divorce.  The act of going back and reliving those, as well as other painful memories of the past was not easy.  It was as if I was dealing with the death of part of me, years of my life lost in a void of space and time.

Maybe my experience is unique in the fact that I did move so far away at the very moment that one part of my life ended and another began.  Not only that, I moved to a place where no one knew me.  They didn't know what I had been through, who my friends were, anything about the journey I had been on with my four oldest children.  It was like starting my life completely over, a clean slate.  However, it also meant the near death of my past, both good and bad, including memories of my life with my Ex and our experiences with our four children, family and friends.  You could liken it to the act of getting rid of a tumor, where sometimes you have to lose good tissue and healthy parts of yourself in order to get rid of the bad.

This "death" is hard sometimes.  I often wish to bridge the gap between my two worlds and allow some of the good to come over into my new life.  Most importantly, I don't want my children to lose their memories because of the association with the negative.  They experienced their childhood during those times and deserve to cherish special memories, as well as feel free to talk about them.  As an example, my Ex and I took several cross country road trips, spanning several states.  These unique trips are still priceless to me as I recall introducing my children to the ocean for the first time, the mountains, great cities and spectacular monuments of our country.  These are the moments that deserve to live.

Our bodies and minds are amazing things.  When we are injured, broken, our body knows to shut down and only run the most important functions in order to heal.  People who have grave brain injuries often go into comas in order to allow for this necessary healing.  I think painful emotional experiences result in a similar phenomenon.   We shut down and only deal with what we have to until we are better.  Then, as we "awake" again, we might feel pain, and have to conceptualize our injury, but hopefully we have had enough healing time in order to deal with it.

I still have rough days as a result of what I have been through and continue to go through,  but thankfully the good far outweigh the bad.  I am finally able to begin to look back and bring life to those memories.  I believe this is all part of the healing process and hopefully someday I can permanently bridge the gap between my pre-divorce and after life.  Until then, I'll liken the process to my rides back in Colorado, and I'll remember the joy of the experience instead of the dips in the road.

Are we trying to "Catfish" our Facebook Friends?

Photograph taken by me!

Catfish is a new show on MTV about people who initiate relationships with someone they met online.  The premise of the television show is that after some time has gone by, either months or even years, one of those in this unique tryst wants to meet this love of their technological life.  This is where Nev Schulman, Max and his crew come in.  They go through the process of interviewing the interested partner and then researching their cyber romance to see if they really are who they say.  Spoiler alert, for the most part, they're not!  Sometimes they're not even the same sex that they claimed to be.

The responses from this revelation are widely varied, and for the most part, the interested party feels a combination of anger and hurt.  The person they thought was a famous, rich model (for example) is actually just some average joe living at home struggling to get by like most people.  In the end, love is sometimes found and sometimes lost.  It just depends on the extent of the deceit and the ability of the jaded to forgive and understand.

What fascinates and draws me into this show, is how relatable the whole concept truly is.  At first, the deceiver might seem crazy and the deceived naive and gullible.  However, as I have continued to watch the show and really meditate on the idea of a "catfish,"  I realized that most of us are guilty of this very simple act of manipulating ourselves in a way that might seem attractive to others.  Maybe we don't go to the extreme that we might see on the television show, but we still deceive, even if they're the smallest "catfish" lies.

To prove my point, I am going to use Facebook as an example.  How many have profile pictures that are hideous?  Not many.  Instead, people make sure to pick just the right one, even if it is several years old or tweaked beyond recognition.  Moving beyond the "face" of Facebook, think of how we now pose for pictures or untag ourselves if we are not satisfied with what we look like.  I admit I am guilty of such things.

As I watched the show I thought of my own life.  I thought of my previous marriage and how what I chose to portray to the outside world was much different than what was actually going on.  After all, who wants to write on their Facebook status, "last night was miserable..." or, "found out my significant other is having a Cyber affair with someone on Facebook."  I chose to instead post pictures of my two youngest daughter's baptism and of our "happy" family.

The ironic thing about the show, is how often the people might have been deceiving about their physical self, but not their emotional one.  Because they felt comfortable with the look they chose to portray, it allowed them to be confident enough to let the true colors of their heart shine through.  (This was not always the case in Catfish episodes, but more common than not.)  There is something safe about the lack of actual face time and instead pouring out your soul over the anonymity of text messages and telephone calls.

My current husband and I started our relationship like that.  We met in person briefly, but the majority of our friendship grew through phone calls and text messages.  After pondering the motives of those on the Catfish episodes, I realized they just wanted to be heard and to have someone care about them.  They were lonely and looking for simple companionship, even if they went about it in a complex way.   I imagined they found the same comfort I did in having someone on the other line who actually cared about what I said, what I was going through and reciprocated by sharing their own thoughts and feelings.

No one is perfect.  I think that is the main point and premise of the show and of life.  However, if we feel we need to portray a spotless image in order to have friends and/or a romance, shows like Catfish will continue for years to come.  Since I have been divorced, I have made a concerted effort to lay it all out there.  Do I hold back details?  Absolutely and for good reasons.  However, this blog has given me an outlet to express my true feelings and to slowly tell the real story of my life.  Try it!  Put your catfishing aside and allow people a window into your world.  If people don't like your true "Face" then they can always de-friend you.  

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