Wow...I can't believe my 47 day journey is coming to a close...and rapidly. It's been like a whirlwind around here lately. I'm feeling remarkably refreshed even tho my hair has got to be standing on end! I'm nervous, excited, apprehensive, expectant all in ONE. I can't wait and yet, I could, ya know? I'm thru the "scared out of my mind" phase, mostly, and have settled into the "well, if I fail now, it's gonna be a very public fall" phase. Things are starting to come together at lightning speed after a lull that would have had me eating my fingers to the last knuckle if I was a nail biting kinda girl. Thankfully, all my digits are intact. I'm always amazed at people and their willingness to give of their time and resources. For the most part, everyone I've turned to has extended a hand in whatever capacity they were able. I've had a few run in's that were just downright discouraging but thankfully, those were the exceptions and not the rule. I've been getting worked over in my problem areas of insecurity, rejection, and my "run away" syndrome. Typically, when something gets difficult or I get rejected 2 or 3 times, I throw a run away. I say "to heck with it" and just quit. Not an option this time around. See, I opened my big mouth and told everyone what I intended to do so how could I quit when, first rattle out of the box, I hit a big, fat NO to my plans? I couldn't...the prideful parts of me kept me putting one foot in front of the other...even when my head was hung and my tail was tucked. :) I can't wait until it's all over and I can look back and just see how all the pieces came together. Presently, I'm still in a scattered state but I'm trusting I'll have a surge of administrative abilities come Friday morning.
Josh has been great thru all this, an unexpected source of strength really. Money is one of his "issues" and I figured when he realized that, ultimately, the responsibility for all this would fall on our shoulders, I'd have to fight him tooth and nail. Not so. He's been supportive from day one even tho he's gone thru a dicontinued 401k match from his employer and he's no longer guaranteed a paid 40 hour work week. That's quite a lot to be thrown at this very anal and habitual man in a very short period of time. I've held my breath several times, waiting on an explosion but there's a quietness to his temperment lately that blesses me tremendously. Unusual, but I'm hoping it lasts. The older we get, the better we get along. But then again, that could all change tomorrow...
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
A Little of the Story...
I removed my blogger address from Facebook becuz I've decided that I don't want the whole world to know my innermost thoughts. I prefer a selective audience so this post showed up as a note over there:
I set out to end my life the first time in 1990. I was 13. I tried again at 15. I desperately wanted to be dead. I couldn’t find a reason to live but I learned to put on happy faces and pretend everything was ok. I wore many masks back then, changed personalities to fit where I was and who I was around. I learned what to say and how to say it so that no one worried about me. But I was drinking, doing drugs, and doing whatever else would numb the pain and help me forget who I was for awhile. Death consumed my thoughts most days. I remember standing at the bottom of the grain towers in the little town I lived in, looking up and thinking, “If I jump, no one could stop me then.” I walked a dark, dead end road for many years. Hopelessness was killing me.
A couple of years ago, a song playing on the radio caught my attention. Music has been a life line for me for as far back as I can remember. When nothing or no one else can, it consoles the darkest parts of me, the “slums of my soul”. This song was one of those. I felt like it could have been written just for me…I wanted to know who was singing it. I’d never heard of Seventh Day Slumber before but I became a fan that day. So, when I heard they were playing a concert in Broken Bow, I felt almost compelled to be there. The music was awesome but what blew me away was what the lead singer had to say. He stood there on the stage and told his story to a crowd of all ages, a story of a broken home, of being a social outcast, of drug addiction, hopelessness, and attempted suicide. I didn’t expect it and I certainly never expected that this successful musician, this guy who had it all “together”, could have once been as badly screwed up as I was. He was real and I identified with his story in more ways than I cared to admit. The message he brought that night was one of restoration and of hope. It was a message I needed to hear and I left there with a desire for more people to hear it, too.
The more I look around me, the more young people I see with the same hopeless eyes I once had. I guess because I’ve walked that road and I know the pain that is still inside in so many ways, I have such compassion for these kids. I’m troubled by the hurt and the brokenness I see all around me. I’m ready to see a change…I want to see these lives filled with hope, love, and LIFE. And that’s just exactly where the vision began for this Friday night.
By the grace of God, I’m alive and more than that, I’m happy to have LIFE. I have been blessed with three children and ironically, my two oldest are now 13 and 15. I watch them and see the whole world in front of them. They’re just beginning. I wonder how I could have been so convinced I had nothing to live for at such an early age.
The line from the song that stuck in my head and spoke to my heart that day was this one: “I know it seems like there’s no hope for you, but I know your life is worth more than you can see.” I needed to hear that I was WORTH something during those years of my life, that I mattered. And that’s the word of encouragement I want to pass on to anyone in a hopeless state: You’re here on purpose and your life counts, so somehow, make your way to this concert. It’s free…you got nothin’ to lose.
A couple of years ago, a song playing on the radio caught my attention. Music has been a life line for me for as far back as I can remember. When nothing or no one else can, it consoles the darkest parts of me, the “slums of my soul”. This song was one of those. I felt like it could have been written just for me…I wanted to know who was singing it. I’d never heard of Seventh Day Slumber before but I became a fan that day. So, when I heard they were playing a concert in Broken Bow, I felt almost compelled to be there. The music was awesome but what blew me away was what the lead singer had to say. He stood there on the stage and told his story to a crowd of all ages, a story of a broken home, of being a social outcast, of drug addiction, hopelessness, and attempted suicide. I didn’t expect it and I certainly never expected that this successful musician, this guy who had it all “together”, could have once been as badly screwed up as I was. He was real and I identified with his story in more ways than I cared to admit. The message he brought that night was one of restoration and of hope. It was a message I needed to hear and I left there with a desire for more people to hear it, too.
The more I look around me, the more young people I see with the same hopeless eyes I once had. I guess because I’ve walked that road and I know the pain that is still inside in so many ways, I have such compassion for these kids. I’m troubled by the hurt and the brokenness I see all around me. I’m ready to see a change…I want to see these lives filled with hope, love, and LIFE. And that’s just exactly where the vision began for this Friday night.
By the grace of God, I’m alive and more than that, I’m happy to have LIFE. I have been blessed with three children and ironically, my two oldest are now 13 and 15. I watch them and see the whole world in front of them. They’re just beginning. I wonder how I could have been so convinced I had nothing to live for at such an early age.
The line from the song that stuck in my head and spoke to my heart that day was this one: “I know it seems like there’s no hope for you, but I know your life is worth more than you can see.” I needed to hear that I was WORTH something during those years of my life, that I mattered. And that’s the word of encouragement I want to pass on to anyone in a hopeless state: You’re here on purpose and your life counts, so somehow, make your way to this concert. It’s free…you got nothin’ to lose.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
It' s amazing anymore how fast time is flying by. I mean, I know time has always seemed to get away from me but this is just flat ridiculous! Taylor said to me the other day, "Gosh, Mom, my freshman year is almost over...that went by FAST." I thought, now wait a minute....NO one's torturous freshman year is allowed to just be over that fast...that was the ONE year in my life I wouldn't repeat for any amount of fortune and fame and it seemed to last three lifetimes. No FAIR! But that's just it...life IS flying by and even my slightly self absorbed child is noticing. Oh well, reckon I haven't much choice but to hang on to what I can. You know it's bad when I'm thrilled to get 20 minutes of free time and I choose to use it scrubbing the bath tub...oh, it's SO bad!
I thought I may have killed the slightly self absorbed child Sunday....have I mentioned I'm a bit of a drama queen tho? Taylor came to me with a headache and asked me for Tylenol...I told her my purse was in the car and to go see. Now, a little fleeting thought came into my mind at this point that perhaps, I should have her bring me the bottle but, I was otherwise engaged and dismissed the thought almost immediately. About an hour later, I asked her how her head was. When she looked at me, she didn't look quite right and she said, "It's worse and I'm dizzy. Mom, where did you get that blue and white Tylenol? I've never seen any like that before." Well, I had to swallow my heart back down into my chest....I suddenly remembered my "secret"stash of three diet pills at the bottom of a bottle of ibuprofen. I asked her, "WHAT??? Taylor, were there no orange pills in that bottle??? You took a diet pill!!" She said no, no orange pills and the panic must have been pretty clear in my eyes because at that point, she began to cry. Oh, I felt like such a lousy mom! "What are they going to DO to me?", she asked. My head was racing and I couldn't think clearly...I truly had NO idea what they would do to her. It was at this point that she informed me she'd taken TWO of the pills. After all, she takes two Tylenol at a time. I could have died. I almost cried. The triage nurse on duty at the hospital I called was really helpful...after I explained the situation to her, her earth shattering response to me was, "You need to call a pediatrician." If they come out with an iPhone that has an application for slapping the absolute crap out of the person on the other end...I'm havin one. These are the days when I wonder how we ever made it without Google and the world wide web and smart phones. My common sense began to return to me after skimming thru several web articles on overdosing on amphetamines. It's sad, sad that I can recount experiences where I overdosed on PURPOSE when I was even younger than Taylor is now. But, fact is, I did, I took a whole lot more than Taylor had taken and, I lived. I knew she was going to be okay but that didn't make me feel any better about the whole thing.
Needless to say, she was higher than a kite for a few hours and sleep was pretty much nonexistent for her Sunday night and she was still incessantly licking at her lips yesterday afternoon (I thought she may well eat them off her face) but, she's alive. And the two of us have learned some valuable lessons. I need to be a somewhat more alert mother and we've decided that proper labeling is really important and Taylor has decided that she never EVER wants to take a diet pill again. Thank goodness...I'd rather her not battle like I have. "WHY would anyone want to feel this way on PURPOSE??", she asked. Why, indeed.
Less than two weeks to go til SDS plays in Poteau. I'm finally moving to the relaxed end of stressed and enjoying myself...but that could change in a second. Especially if my stage happens to fall through! I'm hoping this is enough of a pleasant experience that I'll wanna do it once a year. We'll see how the world looks on April 24th.
I'm still fighting food...not as aggressively but it's still a war, nevertheless. I win some days, go down in shame and defeat others, but the good news is, I still rise again the next morning! I figure I'm doin pretty good.
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