Pro Life vs. Anti Abortion?

 I would tell you that I am pro life. I will also tell you that I'm pro woman's rights. Women have the right to determine what they do with their body. So I have an internal conflict. I guess the thing is... I saw a sonogram when I was only about 6 weeks pregnant with my oldest child. She was sucking her thumb and turning somersaults, even though she still had a tail. I believe that precious being was 100% alive. And not just a "fetus" or "fetal tissue." But I also believe that I can't tell another woman that it's going to be worth the 9 months of discomfort and growth and all that jazz if she doesn't want her baby. And I don't even really mean if she "doesn't want her baby." I mean, most women, to some extent ponder their options and to some capacity "want" that baby. But what if this meant never escaping a bad situation? What if it meant she and her baby would both be addicts? What if it meant she was bringing the child into a world where they lived hand to mouth every day? What if she knew she had anger issues? You know.... deep-seated, hateful, hurtful anger issues that make a person see red and do things they didn't even they were capable of doing? What if.... I could fill those in all day long. 

My daughter and I were having a conversation in the car, where most good conversations are born. And this topic came up. And she said "I know you're pro-life, but...." and launched into reasons that she is pro-woman's choice. Her arguments were all things I agree with. 

What I deeply believe is that we cannot really know what is in another person's heart and mind. What pain and agony they live with or are running from. I believe that men have it easy when women get pregnant. And I don't believe the answer is to "even the playing field" by somehow making him miserable. I do mean that he will never know what it is like to carry a child inside his body and to experience the dramatic shifts in hormones that happen during pregnancy. He will never know the emotional ties that woman experiences with a child she has not met. He will never understand that the gender gap is real and how much more she will struggle to make enough to comfortably care for herself and a child. Or let me say, he cannot understand just HOW real it is. And the effect of it. Do I think men can be sympathetic and realize this is a real problem? Yes, I do believe that. I also believe these men are fewer and farther between than I'm comfortable with. I do have A friend who I believe really believes in the rights of women and wants those rights to be catapulted to the same front as men's rights. Rights to choose, rights to make money, rights to express oneself and not be called "hormonal" and "emotional." Men and women are different. Period. And women ARE made to be more emotional and more hormonal. We should not be punished or diminished or thought of as less-than for those things. We should not be shamed. Many women push down their feelings and feel like it's a victory to be as callous as a man in given situations. I think that is discounting some things about women that are fascinating and mystical and magical and should not be discounted. But again, I digress. 

I think women should have the GUILT FREE right to choose her path. Abortion. Adoption. Motherhood. Single parenting. Villages of support. Conservative Christian Values. Wide-open, left-wing values. 

Climbing down off the soapbox for a minute, I will say, I have a mountain of pain from a child I gave birth to and did not raise. I hurt me. I hurt her. I even hurt her father. What I mean by that is that today I can see that it's not necessarily okay to discount the father in the situation as completely as I did. But I was a kid, seventeen. And I did what I thought was right. And I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that that little peanut was alive in there turning somersaults and sucking her thumb and I wouldn't have wanted to end her life. 

But I also know she has lived with an intense sense of abandonment and wondered why I didn't love her. That she will never know how long and hard I thought about my options and wanted the very best for her. It is beyond her comprehension because of her own pain. 

Wouldn't it be great if we all just made responsible life choices to begin with and didn't have to reap what we sow because we are faced with the dilemma of whether or not we can parent this little surprise package? That no women faced being pregnant as a product of rape or incest or incestuous rape? Wouldn't it be great if men didn't feel entitled to take whatever they want by force and women would be seen as the goddesses they are instead of discounted for sexual objects to fulfill male desires and to be discarded at will? Wouldn't it be something if our society met women wherever they are at and offered them help and hope and a place at their table? If women weren't shunned and gossiped about and turned away from the help they need because they were supposed to "get it right" before this? 

We have so much to learn as a society. I feel like I have so much to learn. How do I marry my beliefs if they contradict each other? I don't. Today I just pray about and ask God to make me a kinder, more caring human being. One that fights for other women no matter what. 

Can I get an amen?

Head Games.... just you and me baby, playing head games....

 I hate being an over-thinker. I can overthink anything. But especially relationships. I CAN overthink the color of my hair and the meaning of life and why does it only take 30 days for rabbits to reproduce (?)(gestate) (whatever it is called...). But in relationships, when it really counts, I think things like.... Did he really mean that?! or "is one of those things I should take at face value? Or is there are hidden meaning underneath?" "What is the hidden meaning?" The one that gets under my skin lately is "negative attention is better than no attention. Don't engage...." "Wait. What? You mean send a text message immediately that is full of snark and inuendo? I am ON it!" "Was that meant to be mean and snarky? Or just bitter?" "Oh, I see, I think I hurt his feelings." This one gets me because the truth is, when I feed this line to myself, I am usually excusing bad behavior and thinking it is somehow my fault for being a shitty human. Which I can be sometimes. What's really confusing to me is when I'm told that I'm caring and kind and a good person, but the behavior says, "I'm angry and bitter and you suck...." and is that really the behavior or am I just overthinking things again? Because if I don't analyze the ever-loving hell right out of this situation then I'll never get to the bottom of it and understand what is REALLY being said. 

Right now at this moment I am so beyond fighting for this. You know, part of me wants to make sure I do everything "right" to make sure that if this fails, it isn't because I didn't want it to succeed. But really, tonight, I don't care whose "fault" it is. I just know there's now so much hurt flowing under that bridge that there may not be a "right thing" anymore. I'm at the jumping off place. When I get to this place with life itself, it gives me a moment's pause. What do you mean... stop the ride I wanna get off?! 

I've thought the answers out in my head, and argued over different answers in my heart and thought until my thinker turned blue. But the truth is, I still haven't learned to communicate these thoughts in plain language, in the spoken word. There's the freezing up of the tongue. There's the complete blank out of the brain. There is the voice inside that says, "just because you thought these things were valid 2 minutes ago, does not mean they should be spoken NOW." There is the whole internal conflict and changing what I think I want to say a million times before I attempt to say it. 

And let's face it. This is just the shtuff that is about me. What about how it takes two to tango? I think there are games afoot! Head Games. a mind fuck if you will. yeah, I spit it out. I do NOT think it is all me. There's a lot that is me. But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they are not out to get you. 

The other day I said that nothing is off limits in writing. Well, this kind of was. But tonight I felt a push. a nudge. from the dark side. Saying "just do it already...." and a couple more pushes from the other side that say.... "any attention will do and I'll do anything to get it" and "let's see if I can confuse the hell out of you.... " 

So I wonder (and no, I don't want you to answer my dilemma for me)... is this all part of the game? Just throwing it out there in the writing arena? I imagine it is. I imagine that vomiting these crazy thoughts out here is game playing 201, but isn't keeping it in and pretending it's not bugging the hell out of me kind of the same thing? Head games. Not just for amateurs anymore. 

Laugh Out Loud Moments

 This evening as I was scrolling through my Instagram, which I never do, but another slicer mentioned Instagram and I thought "I really should scroll Instagram for a change," and I found a hilarious post of my tattoo artist dressed up in a playboy bunny outfit posing for a birthday photo. This made me laugh. It gave me pause. When is the last time something absurd made me literally LOL! I don't know, but it felt so good. 

I remember sometimes on bad teaching days I would look up Gerry Brooks videos and watch them for hours. Watch and laugh. Watch and laugh. and laugh. Until the bad day wasn't such a big deal anymore. 

Right now I'm watching Reba on hulu and I do laugh at it quite a bit. The other night it was just too frickin' deep though. I cried. And the kid cried. and we had to switch to something else. 

The other thing I used to do was look up videos of Ray Stevens songs. And show them to my kids. 

Or watch the Thanksgiving WKRP "As God as my witness I thought turkeys could fly!"

Nowadays my kid sends me funny animal videos. When I can hear her giggling through a closed door and then my phone pings I know its a good one. 

I like the funny cat videos. 

What do you like to do when you realize you haven't laughed in a long while? 

Genealogy Testing

 I'm thinking about doing a DNA kit/genealogy test. Whatever they are called. Some of my kids just sent theirs off. I have seen just enough crazy stuff on Netflix and the internet to make me a little bit leery. What if I find siblings I didn't want to know I had? I have one child that I'm a little concerned about that she'll find out she has 98 siblings. 

My aunt is heavy into genealogy and there's a part of me that thinks it's a waste of money to send off for one of these tests when my aunt Karen has all the family genealogy mapped out for as far back as she can possibly go. She knows about my Suderman ancestry, Loewen ancestry, Wall Ancestry, Hagen ancestry. And I'm sure much more. These are the surnames I know. 

I do think I'll pull the trigger on this in the future. I would be curious to know what is out there and who I'm related to that I do know about and who I don't know about. It's not some mysterious thing like if I were adopted and don't really know where I came from. 

What are your experiences with this? Have you done it? Was it helpful and informative? I know it's a real thing that people's lives have been ruined through this kind of testing. Life used to be simpler in the fact that if you didn't want the world (or more specifically.... your family) to know your secrets, you could likely bury them deep enough that people wouldn't be able to overturn the soil and expose them. It is both empowering and intimidating to think about the weight of this and devastation that can be reigned down when people have carefully orchestrated fictional pasts. 

I am looking forward to learning about what my daughter's learn. Then I'll decide if I should invest in this for myself and my other two daughters. Happy hunting kids! 

Writing

 If you read my blog you know absolutely everything there is to know about me. From the depths of my soul to the top of my ego. You know what makes me tick, you know what I'm heavily opinionated about, what makes me cry, and that I battle depression on the constant. But one day recently I was talking about how I'm an open book and had blogged that day on a particularly painful subject and I couldn't bring myself to talk about it. Which started me wondering.... why is it that absolutely no topic is off limits in writing and yet some subjects remain taboo in speaking? I will be the first one to tell you I have no secrets and that I'm an open book. So what is different about allowing you into my over-sharing space of blogging and respecting social boundaries of over-sharing in speaking? Maybe it is just that, social boundaries. Or maybe it is that writing is cathartic and a window to the deepest (and shallowest) parts of me. Maybe its an ego thing where I think the whole world is entitled to my deep thoughts and grandiose insights. Maybe it is just that writing is an extension of me that flows freely. I'm not shy, I'm not awkward and easily intimidated when I'm writing. I'm not the weird kid who randomly blurts out unrelated content. I mean I am. I'm often random in my writing. And I change subjects fluidly. But when I go back and re-read them, they seem to flow. At least to my disheveled mind they do. There are plenty of people out there with disorganized brains who can follow what I write. 

My kid says I am a good story teller. So at least some of the writer's brain translates to every day. And as I have been pounding this out on my keyboard I'm coming to realize that I'm glad there's a difference between my speaking self and my writing self. I was once an over-sharer in speaking and I might still be, but not like I am in writing. In writing there's a safe distance. If it makes you uncomfortable for instance, you can stop reading. If I make you uncomfortable in person, we don't always have the option to walk away mid-sentence. I still hold this egotistical belief that what I have to say holds value for other people. That you are somehow better off knowing my intimate thoughts. I think that's not a bad viewpoint as a writer. But I also think it's self-centered and attention seeking at the same time. 

Sometimes I HAVE to write. Sometimes my mind won't allow me to move without a data dump, or an emotion dump. I'm just stuck until I spit it out. On some level I realize that this doesn't always mean someone else NEEDS to read what I wrote. But I almost always publish it anyways. 

Writing. It's freedom. It's it's own entity. It's essential. and I am still of the belief that it is beneficial to other people in some light. 

Hello There.... a new format

 I came across this in my reading last night. A new poem format to use as an introductory post. I thought it looked like fun. I copied down the beginning words for each line and am ready to give it a try! I did not remember to get the name of the person who posted it to give credit. 

Hello There...

I am a middle aged mom who used to teach Kinder and First grades. 

I keep thinking I'll go back to teaching soon, but am starting to realize that it may not be in my fate.

I wish I had more money! (Don't we all?) I would have fewer worries, a nicer house, a truck (essential to farm living), and as many critters as I could manage!

I love baby animals of all kinds. Springtime brings baby chicks, ducklings and this year even goslings to our brood. 

I dance very seldom but it's a favorite. I have come to realize that it's not a competition. In fact, virtually NO ONE at the dance hall is watching me. It just feels so good. 

I sing very well when I'm alone in the shower and no one else can hear me. Ha ha. I love to sing along with the radio! 

I think that thinking is so often overrated. But then again, most impulsive decisions really should have been thought through first. So I think I would benefit from slowing down and thinking things through more often.

I really hate poverty and the mindset this country has about poverty. Most people are working their tails off to do the best they can with what they have to work with and your judgement is not welcome or helpful.

I need a few things in life, like insurance, shelter, transportation, and a little love. 

I should remember to ask God for these things since I know He can provide.

I can choose to pray about life situations and let them go instead of worrying myself to death. Easier said than done though. 

I like a lot of things about my life today. 

I make a wicked tasty pan of enchiladas. Not "authentic" mexican, but even my grandson loves them and he's 1/2 hispanic. 

I always say I love you to my children. You never know when they need to hear it. I have a few "I always" statements. I always fuss and complain first before I remember gratitude, but eventually I always remember to be grateful. 

How about you? How would you fill this out? Take the first two words from each section and make a complete sentence. This was fun and easy and you might even know me better now. 

What is that feeling?

 Today I encountered emotion I haven't seen, felt, embraced for a long time. I realized I was happy. Content. It was a breath of fresh air. 

Chasing disability was so draining and all I longed for was to be able to live guilt free. To navigate my little farm, to have an income (albeit soooo small), to not "should" on myself for sleep, for taking it easy, for not keeping to a time frame set by society. 

When we moved out here to our little slice of paradise, we loved being in the middle of nowhere, absorbing the sunshine and sunsets, enjoying the animals, not guilting ourselves for having four dogs, and embracing the solace. 

Then came the time when I couldn't work and had no income. I sifted through my retirement rather quickly. Like sand sifting through my fingertips. Living on a wing and a prayer. Literally. My blog was a begging tool. Which is a weird kind of humiliation. Like.... there's no shame in finding a way to pay the electric bill. But yet again, there is. 

A saving grace for us was that I'd bought this place outright with cash from the sale of my house in town. And so in the midst of turmoil and chaos, we had this treasure. Our house is not a treasure, the treasure is that we have a place to live and it's all the other stuff.... the serenity, the trees, the chickens, the ducks, and so on. 

After fighting for disability from the date of November 12 (?), 2021, I was elated when I got the notification in March of 2023 that I was going to receive disability. Relief. Freedom. There's really no way to even explain the feeling. That heavy feeling of the unknown washed away by relief and freedom. Floating. 

What I didn't expect to experience was feeling lost. Directionless. Depressed. I'm not well enough to teach. I'm not "sick." I don't really feel "disabled" at this point. I had both of my knees replaced during the time when I had no income. While I was not limber and young again, I could walk without a limp again, I was healing. I wasn't healed. 

I often felt like I was drifting along and without direction. The low level depression started amping up to more. A depressive state. The weepy, crying, dissatisfied kind. The kind that leads to not wanting to push on and wanting to give up. I didn't feel like I could be suicidal, I was necessary to the well-being of my child. But I just didn't desire to live. And this drug out. It seeped into every crevice of life. I became overwhelmed with apathy. I didn't marvel in the sunrises. Or the sunsets. I didn't enjoy taking care of our chickens and ducks. I no longer enjoyed the geese. When we got goats, I was non-plussed. I just didn't care. 

We were not going to get any babies this Spring. I just felt like I didn't have any energy for new life for more time given to the care and growth of birds, goats, dogs, cats. But my depression peaked (?) (dipped?) in December and has been slowly improving since then. 

In the last weeks, I have slowly felt the pull of Springtime in the country and the longing for baby birds, for new life, for longer days filled with sun and springtime breezes. We caved in this past weekend and now have two brooders with baby chicks and baby geese. 

Today, I slept in. I drank my coffee. At my leisure. I went out to let the birds out. I felt the soft breeze. I realized I was happy with my morning, my leisure time, my walk to the barn to let birds out at the time I deemed appropriate, and I felt the corners of my mouth turn up into a smile. I embraced the sensation of happiness that had eluded me so long. 

Read about other slices of life by clicking on the orange slice and scrolling down to the comments and click the links. 

The Loss I Don't Talk About

At the age of 17, I gave a child up for adoption. It was the hardest thing I had done in my life to that point. And at that time, I had no way of knowing how the loss would haunt me like a death. It's like a death. Only you chose it, so do you really "get" to grieve it like a death? 

Everything about this is different from any other loss, relationship, entity I've ever encountered. I can blame the gods, the devil, the ex, my youth, Satan himself, drugs, whatever you can think of. But at some point, I have to look in the mirror and own my choice and own the depth of the loss. Two very separate things. I had a part to play. I also suffered a great chasmic loss like I had only thought I could understand. 

Fast forward 17 or so years. I got a letter in the mail. She wanted to communicate, if only by letter, and get to know me! I was unprepared for this in reality. I had all these fantasies in my head of how this should go and how she'd just know what an agonizing decision I had made and how much I wanted the very best for her. 

I guess to go forward, I have to go back, to the beginning, to my days as a 17 year old, and the process that took me to relinquish my rights. The summer before my senior year of high school, I was obsessively in love with a boy who never wanted to lose me, but also wanted whatever (whoever) else he could get. This threw me into the clutches of some of the bleakest and blackest depression I had known so far in my young life. I couldn't drink it away, I could smoke it away, I couldn't numbify it away. I wanted "the boy" to SEE me, to LOVE me, to SHOW UP. But that wasn't the case. He was out cruising the world for a good time, and I was left crying my lonely eyes out. So one night as he left to hang with his buddies, leaving me in desperation and catastrophic loneliness, I emptied my Mom's pills into my system. Fortunately (?) for me, the contents of her cupboard were not lethal. Mostly I ingested muscle relaxers. And a lot of them. Which made me weak and sleepy. Not dead. Much to my chagrin. But slow. I would say I was moving in slow motion. I spent the better part of the night trying to walk the 5 or 6 short blocks from where my "boyfriend" lived to my parents' house. But I kept falling asleep. I'd wake up minutes and hours later only to be in the same place or to only be a few feet closer to my destination. Boy did I get in a lot of trouble when I finally came stumbling in at 5:30 in the morning.  

In the midst of living like this, I mixed up my birth control pills. I wasn't sure what I had taken and when and finally I just gave up on that, thinking I'd just get my period and start over and all would be well. 

So here I am, the girl who despised her family (take normal teenage angst and multiply it by 10), adored her boyfriend... the boy who ignored her at best and misused her at most opportunities, and extra hormones and not enough responsibility to keep a baby from happening. 

A baby. A new, sweet, little being. Someone who could love me. A friend. Someone to need me. I wouldn't be all alone. And for nine months, I wasn't. I had this little companion growing inside me. Like a cherub. 

Then I started to weigh the relationship I had with my parents. It was disastrous. They didn't believe in me or trust me. Not that I'd given reason to, but at 17, that's not the part I saw. I just saw opposition. And the fight for control. For as long as I could remember I had wrestled with my parents, my mother in particular, to determine who was in control of my life. The harder I fought to control my destiny, the harder she countered me. So if I lived at home, and let's face reality, where else would I live, I would be in constant struggle for the control over my child's life, the decisions about what was best according to me or to my parents. Who would be the author of that story. It looked like a recipe for disaster to me. Hopeless. That's what it looked like. 

I tried to weigh out the possibility of NOT living with my parents. The idea of living on my own, or with "him." And that looked pretty bleak. No skills and talents. No resources for college. What if I managed to get into college, then what? I'd have to work also. So when would I get to see and care for this baby? Between school and work and boy? There's no way to make this work. No money to pay for school, groceries, daycare, etc. No time to study, nurture a child, cook and clean, and live. How would I make it work? 

What if I tried to separate from "the boy?" That's when the nightmares began. The nightmares of him, breaking into my parents house, shooting my parents and stealing my baby. 

I had to protect the baby.

What about parental rights? He told me that he'd get the baby and his sister would help raise it and he'd only have to watch over it til it was like 9 or so and it could take care of itself, just like he did. Part of me knew that he didn't have a snowball's chance to take the baby, but part of me just cringed in fear. 

I read up on potential parents. I specified town size, minimum parental income, parent beliefs and testimonials of faith. I chose carefully. My baby would KNOW that I placed it in the most loving home I could possibly find with the resources at my disposal. 

And so I did. 

Again, flash forward. Seventeen or so years. And my "baby" wanted to ask me questions, talk to me about her life, about my life, to know about life where I was at. I had read about babies given up for adoption and how the placing them from their biological homes to another family left them with intense abandonment issues. How they harbored anger at their parents for not wanting to know them. How they struggled to understand. I had read this stuff. I had heard it and seen it in kids who'd lived it. But I knew. I knew in my heart of hearts that my journey would be different. My baby would know how much I loved her and would adore me and her parents and we'd have this miraculous relationship and the world would be jealous. 

But it didn't play out this way. My daughter, this child, young lady, our relationship would ebb and flow. She'd draw near and then withdraw. She'd tell me about her life and then close me out. She would complain about her parents, but stayed angry with me. I was baffled. Confused. Naive even. 

I had this whole fairytale written out, played out, in my heart and mind. Reality was just not working out the same way. And one time, in the ebb. I retaliated. Said no more. Fuck you very much, but my heart can't take this. Like the spoiled alcoholic princess that I was, I protected my heart in the way I knew how.... nuclear. With as much fall out as possible. For as long as possible. 

Obviously, this is an over simplification. Told from my perspective only and even at that, every single part seems over-simplified here. 

But once you burn those bridges, then what? Ten years, twenty years, however many years later, when time and distance have allowed for some growth and introspection, then how does one deal with this loss. The loss that hurt twice. or actually more than that. But twice I made a choice to live without my child. And I don't feel like I "deserve" to grieve the loss. The devastation is still there. Whether I earned the right to feel it or not. 

What Would You Do?

 

I'm obsessed with watching ABC's What Would You Do? I love how it takes on the issues of the day. Many of which shouldn't be issues anymore. Like inter-racial dating or racism. These are things that those of us who are inundated with privilege that we deny we have (you know, white, middle class, and so on...) don't even acknowledge. But the truth is, as much as things have changed, they have stayed astonishingly much the same. 

So what would I do if I were faced with some of the situations they bring up? I don't know honestly. So I hope I would be outspoken and stand up for what's right. But I do live in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the country in the middle of Kansas. It could be really hard to stand up. I don't know. I'm not exactly known for my tame tongue. I guess I'd probably secure my rank in society as a loud-mouth weirdo. 

What are your hot-buttons? Racism? Poverty? Work Ethic? Sexuality? Sensuality? Spay/Neuter Animal programs? What makes you hot under the collar? 

I jump on the Poverty soap box pretty quickly. Because this country is ridiculous in their views of what poverty is, how much control over circumstances that those in poverty actually have, and the cost of living in America today. Inflation is real. And the cost of meeting your basic needs is increasing at an alarming rate while wages are not increasing. 

Please, whatever your hot-button is, whatever issues you take issue with, stand up for them. Intelligently. Indulge yourself in research. Don't stand up ignorantly. But arm yourself with facts and what the right thing is, and stand your ground.

To read about other people's Slice of Life today, click on the orange slice, scroll down to the comments and click on the links to read.

Springtime on the Farm

 This past year has been plagued with depression. So much so that I told my daughter that I didn't want to raise any baby animals this spring. But in the last few weeks, I've been longing for eggs in the incubator, babies in the brooder, and new life all around. It's the essence of farm life. Each week I have felt the pull just a little stronger and a little stronger. 

The other day at Atwood's farm store we discussed the guineas. We kind of decided we might get a few. We are down to only two and they are definitely interesting birds, to say the least. Yesterday we went into Atwood's to get some supplies for the goats. They had goslings! We sold our geese because they just weren't what we had hoped for with them. We were counseled not to snuggle them, not to befriend them, not to buddy up with them. So we didn't. But as we've raised flocks of birds and read more and learned more, we realized we can have geese that are friendly and loving. So we took our geese to auction and decided we'd try again.... one day. Apparently yesterday was that day. We came home with two white goslings (well, you know, they are fluffy little yellow babies right now) and two that we think might be Toulouse, their down is yellow and brownish grey. They are adorable y'all! I haven't named my Toulouse goose yet, but the white ones are Marshmallow and Ghost. 

We also got four guineas and four bantams. Of the bantams, we only chose feathered footed birds and we're hoping for silkies or cochins. We are super excited. The guineas are all brown. Baby guineas are so, so cute. Even though the grown birds are just, well, interesting. They're a little ugly, they're loud, they're feisty and obnoxious. But they're also funny and make me laugh. And they eat ticks. Lots and lots of ticks. Which makes them a blessing. Not very intelligent, but a blessing. 

We got two bantams that are black and yellow and one that is yellow (white), and one that is a golden color, more orange-ish and golden yellow. In the past when we've gotten black and white babies we've named them for the black and white coloring (Panda and Penguin), but when they were grown they were solid black. We named one Ash, like fireplace ash, and haven't named the other black and yellow/white one yet. The one that is going to be white we named Biscuit and the golden one we named Honey. 

Now. Now it feels like Spring on the Hippie Chick Farm. Last night I found a duck egg in the silkie pen and my silkie named Apricot is setting on it. She's broody as heck. All the time! Silkies are infamous for going broody. I decided to let her keep the duck egg. We'll see if she hatches it. I imagine she will. 

Springtime on the farm has arrived. New life everywhere! 

Look at these little faces! Our goslings!

The bantam and guinea chicks/keets.

Baby Guineas are so cute!

If you are interested in reading other blogger's Slice of Life posts for today, click the orange slice and scroll down to the comments, click on the links! Happy Slicing!

Forgiveness

Lately I touched on the abuse I lived with in childhood. But when I think about this, I have to think about forgiveness. It's taken a lot of years to understand that forgiveness is a choice, that it doesn't always FEEL like forgiveness. In the last couple weeks I've been struggling through some anger. And it doesn't feel loving or kind. One of the things I get angry about is that hurt people hurt people. I hurt people. And now I am the one begging for forgiveness. And hating myself for being an angry person, a person who hurts people. 

Not being a secret keeper anymore (anymore? I never really was... I'm not good a keeping secrets), it is like the secret shame of sins no one speaks of, it splatters. It is messy and ugly too. I started not keeping the secrets out of desperation. A desperation for something to change, for life to change, for my heart to change. Not caring who it hurt or how the refusal to keep the family secrets would hurt other people. Now I'm able to see the hurt. It sucks too. But not enough to pretend and keep the secrets. My children have decided not to pass on the generational "sins" as they may be called. They have decided not to reproduce. This hurts my heart and soul. It also brings a strange sort of relief. Like I'd give anything not to pass on to my children the violence. But I've already done my part to pass it on. Inflicted it. And we all know. If you have abuse in your life, you know, that physically inappropriate touch (hitting, slapping, spanking) is only a small little piece of the violence. There's the words.... cutting, hurtful, and painful. There is intimidation and threats. The threat of violence, and a violent presence. And mind games and strategic emotional chess matches. 

I always said I wouldn't be like my parents. And mostly, I blamed my mom for the things I didn't want to pass on to my kids but didn't seem to have control over. My head knows that there were so many dynamics at play that caused my mother to be overwhelmed and to lose control. I can put myself in her shoes to some extent. And yet, I really can't fathom everything she went through holding our family together. Sometimes by one thin thread. And when I learned to pray for forgiveness, speak forgiveness, and act with compassion, I began to feel the freedom of forgiveness. 

Every day doesn't feel like freedom. And sometimes my quest for freedom from my demons hurts others. But today I can own that and acknowledge that this trying to heal thing is messy and painful and eradicating generational curses is a scary thing that splatters. And I'm sorry about that. But not sorry enough to pretend I grew up in paradise and not enough to pretend I didn't hurt my children. It was painful and real and I have to face it. I may not break all the curses handed to me, but I have broken some. I've broken the bond of secrecy. And of pride. I'm not proud of my mistakes and I've apologized to my children. I'll spend the rest of my life trying to make amends for my angry, violent past. 

To read other slice of life blog posts, click on the orange slice.

Love, Narcissism, and Manipulation.... what is the difference?

Everyone knows I'm more than a little bit jaded. I used to think that fairy tales were real. Or maybe I just hoped they were. Because I wanted the fairy tale. I wanted someone to come sweeping in and rescue me. I thought I wanted someone to provide, to do things for me, to kiss me anytime he wanted to and all that jazz. But I have always been drawn to bad boys. And bad boys have the manipulation tactics down. Gaslighting too. They are schooled in those. And they will educate. I didn't know that I was crazy before I got married. Okay, yes I did. I was accustomed to manipulation and gaslighting as a kid. But I still thought the fairy tale was out there. 

The longer I live the more I learn that everything, and I mean everything, is intertwined. What kind of man I meet, interact with, what have you, and my childhood interactions with a controlling, emotionally and physically abusive Mom, my relationship with my Dad and his womanizing tendencies and twisted views of women and love, and situations that I was either put in or put myself in as a young woman that were not emotionally or physically safe. It all morphs together into a big, steaming pile of mistrust and cycle of abuse. 

I seem to think that muddling through my part in all of this will somehow set me free and one day I'll be "normal" and know how to have a relationship with a man. But I kind of doubt it. The pendulum does swing. From chasing after the adrenaline rush in what I call a mixing up of the run-like-hell warning bell with the gee-that-looks-like-fun bell and embracing recklessness and chaos to the swing in the opposite direction of one who is emotionally, physically (sexually) shut down and embracing the shutdown and the rage and defensiveness and self-protective cocoon that separates me from those who I either am in relationship with or want to be in relationship with. At this end of the pendulum, there's emptiness and loneliness and mistrust. And they are my friends. I don't feel like fighting for "normal." In fact, it feels like manipulation. Which it might be. But I have no interest in hacking through the bullshit and waste to try to find what is real and genuine. Everything feels like head games and mind fucks. And I don't know if I have what it takes to pursue a 50/50 relationship. This isn't necessarily wrong, I have a right to take care of me and a genuine obligation to myself to heal from the trauma that is my past. But it's also not right of me to drag someone else through the muck and the mire of my journey. What am I doing? 

I am a warrior and if you wrong my kids, my friends, my family.... I will make sure there's hell to pay. But when it comes to me, it is so difficult to sort out what I feel, what is real, what is really worth fighting for, that I never know when you'll be hit with defensiveness you don't deserve, apathy that should have been rage, or apathy that you had no part in developing.... you just had to endure the hailstorm that was my emotion because you are a living, breathing human, not because you had a hand in creating what I was fighting against. 

So this is the conundrum. There is no way to learn to navigate this battlefield without participating in the battle. In other words, I can't "learn" to have a relationship with a man, a significant other, without jumping into the relationship game. I can't learn how to date if I don't date. But it's messy and ugly and a whole lot of "not fair" to all involved. 

Currently I keep navigating. But the day may come (and it may come soon, I don't know) when I choose not to keep navigating this path that I call romance. And I also look for that to be a sweet relief, even though in the past, the loneliness made it a special form of hell. 

So this is today's slice of the crazy train tour that is my life. If you want to read about other author's Slice of Life today, click on the orange slice. 

Slicing my Life Away....

 Tonight I can't seem to find words to type out on the screen. I'm frustrated that I haven't been able to blog at an earlier time and get it posted. It's an ego thing really. I like looking to see how many people read what I wrote. But the last couple of days I've posted late and then when my post goes to spam as it has been doing, it doesn't get moved right away and I just get discouraged. 

What I love about "Slice of Life" month is that I have to write every day. At least half the time I can't figure out what to write about because there are so many options swirling around in our head. The other half the time I can't figure out what to write about because I get writer's block. I have a lot twirling around up there all the time. There's going to come a day when I tackle the depth of my crazy upbringing and the trauma I call childhood. But that is super scary. And really, really big. 

I also love how I contemplate writing all day long. I think "this might make for a great read...." and I tend to have blogs composed in my head about half the time. Do you do that? As you're driving down the road, you're composing a blog in your head about something you thought might make a good blog post today? I could compose posts about every single thing every day. Did you see those cows in that field? I wonder what they think about during the day.... I bet I could post about that! Oh my Gooosssshhhhhh! I love my ducks! Maybe I should write about them. And how Apollo is my girl and my oldest duck.... I could probably hold people's interest when I write about it. I love my little farm. I could write about that. I could portray how I feel about my farm. People would get it. I love that part. 

I like how contemplating what I'm going to write about shapes my day and makes me more conscious of the life I'm living in each moment. It makes my outlook on life better and it makes me look through a lens of gratitude. 

What I don't like so much about the month of March and daily Slicing is that there's a constant pressure. And more than half the time I don't know in the world I am going to write about. So there's that. But for the most part, the pros outweigh the cons. The truth is, I love Slice of Life month. I'll take those cons any day.

To read what everyone is "slicing" about, click on the orange slice. Scroll down to the comments and click on the link to read each person's post. 

  

My Farm Cats

 I broke my streak. I didn't get anything posted yesterday and up until then, I hadn't missed a day in March. Shucks. 

I've been thinking about all my critters. In particular, the outside cats. We have roughly 5 outdoor cats. One is a feral tomcat who lives in the garage, and we also adopted Smokie, the feral little female who has tamed down considerably since she's been here. She's been letting me pet her for quite some time while she eats. At first it was only if she didn't look at me, she'd let me pet her while she snarfed down food like she might never get to eat again. And she'd arch her back and make happy cat noises as I ran my hand down her back. But as soon as she saw my hand she would bolt off the table where the cats eat and wait for me to leave. She knows my voice and likes it, she will talk to me and the sound of her meow goes from angry/anguished to softer, friendlier in response to my "Hi Smokie kitty, it's just me girl...." For a couple of weeks now I've been purposely putting my hand by her face so she sees it's me petting her and so my scent fills her nostrils and she can associate the smell with the strokes she likes so much. For weeks I've thought, "I wonder if she'll ever let me pet her when she isn't eating or if she'll always have some distrust and disdain and stay just a little wild forever?" And today the magic happened. I got to pet her. A lot. My mouth formed a wide O shape as I stroked her with disbelief that she was actually letting me touch her! Without food as a distraction. It felt like real progress. 

Our other female kitty that lives outside is Sapphire. She is a bonus cat also. She just showed up in the garage. She started letting the handyman pet her. And his helper. And other workers we had out. Men. She started out by warming up to men who came on our place. Then one day, out of the blue, she decided to jump in my lap and snuggle with me. And she has been super tame ever since then. It was never a long, drawn out ordeal like it's been with Smokie. We've been here 3 1/2 years now, and Sapphire showed up the first winter. She she's been here, and all lovey-dovey for three years already. 

We have a cat named Basil, a big, neutered tabby boy. Basil was one of the kittens our other momma cat had. For awhile we had a LOT of outdoor cats. I think nine. But we gave some to another farm and we were down to three: Sapphire, Basil, and Pumpkin. Then the feral tabbies started hanging around. I don't suppose that we'll ever tame the big tomcat. Partly because I have no interest in taming him down. I still tell him that he doesn't live here and to leave my cats alone, and he still waits until I've gone inside for the night to come and eat. 

And then there's Pumpkin, who I still call "Big Daddy Pumpkin" even though he's been neutered for a year now. He's gotten fuller, and bigger since he's been fixed, and he was a big boy when he was still a tom. But he was coming home all beat up and injured all too often. So he's fixed now and living the good life. Pumpkin is, of course, an orange tabby. He has gorgeous blue/green eyes and a while groucho marx style mustache. Today my Big-Daddy-Pumpkin (yes, I usually say it like it's all one word) isn't home. He didn't come home last night and hasn't been home today. I'm super worried about him. Since he's been neutered, he doesn't go out cattin' around for days on end and he hasn't really been gone.... at all. When he hears my car come down the road, he comes running. He'd never miss a meal. So I'm really worried. Him and the big feral tom are both gone. I'm worried the coyotes or owls got them. They might be too big for the owls, they are some big boys. 

Those damn owls. That's another story. If you've read my blog, you know about Maddie and the owl(s). I used to think owls were majestic and magical and mystical. Now I just call them "those damn owls." I am not in love with them anymore. 

Click here to read other Slices of Life for today, 3-12-24. Scroll down to the comments and choose a link. Happy Reading! 

Pumpkin

Smokie

Clockwise: Sapphire (12 o'clock), Basil (3 o'clock), Smokie (6 o'clock)

 I wish I had been able to capture better images, but these are photos I took one day recently thinking I'd get a better shot soon! 

Grateful Today

 Some things I'm grateful for today.... 

1. Chickens. They are mixed blessing. Some days I curse the overwhelming number of eggs we get. There's only two of us here. But we're getting 11-15 eggs a day. But here's the thing, the eggs we get, they are gorgeous. Different shades of brown, brown-speckled, light brown-- almost pink, greens, robin's egg blue. Just lovely. And the chickens make me laugh. Have you ever watched a chicken run? They are hilarious. 

2. Country Life. Sometimes I forget how peaceful it is out here. Then I come home from literally anywhere and it's so quiet out here. Another slicer reminded me of the night sky and how beautiful the stars are. Stars are always a masterpiece. But out here, you can really see what the night sky has on display. 

3. Family. My family struggles. My relatives, my family of origin, is crazy. Driven to the brinks. But my kids, they pay the price. For my crazy. For the crazy of those who've gone before. And they are struggling. Some of us struggle with what I call "underlying depression." A low(ish)-level depression that is just always there. I have that. My children also have suicidal ideation. One kiddo almost successfully offed herself a few years ago. She seems to have found some inner strength and resolve that gives her a resilience I can only marvel at. One kiddo wasn't answering her phone this weekend when I called. She text back and said, "I'm alive. I just don't have energy to talk on the phone." Another kiddo is finally in a stage of life where she has more days she doesn't feel suicidal than days that she does, but the last five years have been a constant struggle. And then one kiddo was estranged from me for years and we've slowly been re-building our relationship. We never talk about suicide. But she faces it with her own children as I do with mine. We talk about how life is hard to the point of being really difficult to function these days. This family. These kids. I am grateful for them. I am grateful for restored relationships. I am grateful that my children are alive. I am glad they have ebb and flow to their pain and that it isn't constant. They are my heart and soul.

4. Forgiveness. I have failed this family so, so much. Big and small. Old and new. Some of this pain they live through is by my hand. Because hurt people hurt people. And then I loath myself and bottle up the pain and eventually strike out sideways somewhere, some way. But I can humble myself and pray and ask God to forgive me and change my ways and make me someone I don't hate today. I can actively seek forgiveness from the people I've wronged. And I can make different life choices today to make my life a living amends for wrongs I've done. 

My heart is full of gratitude tonight. My children are alive. My farm brings me daily blessings. My family is loving and kind to me today. I am grateful for forgiveness... from God, from others, for myself. Maybe not from myself. Not yet. But I'm still working on that. 

Read about everyone's Slice of Life story at Two Writing Teacher's Blog. Find the links in the comments.

Call it Camp Crazy

My family is a wreck. A train wreck. I don't know how to even process. I am super overwhelmed and want to write about it, but then I just get overwhelmed. So here goes.... 

My Dad was a womanizer, my mom a control freak and cheater and physically and emotionally abusive to my sister and I. My exhusband was, well, list anything bad and crazy and manipulative and narcissistic and it describes him and how he treated me. But it gets better. My mom put my dad through living hell for his affairs, some of them after her affair, the one where she slept with another married man and maintained a friendship with their family for years, to the point where later on, my family took the other family's son under their wing and looked after his family and would check on him and take care of his children. When said son got sober they made a point on checking in on him 2-3 times a week. That "son" became my husband. Which is how we all found out about my Mom's affair with my boyfriend's (soon to be husband) father years before, an effort to break us up before we wed. Which drove us together. For me it was a sick, twisted desire to control my own destiny and not let anyone else tell me what was right or wrong for me. But I'm found out 20+ years later that there were probably even more dark and sinister motives on the part of my ex that would have made our marriage appealing to him. 

Mom's Birthday Celebration and the shadows that lurk....

 Today was a marathon, not a sprint. But I'll just dwell on the thoughts that were most powerful and overbearing. Today we celebrated my Mom's birthday, which is actually coming up on Tuesday. We didn't mention, although it was heavy on my heart, that tomorrow is my Dad's death day anniversary. And mixed in with these two things is the sad fact that my best friend in the whole wide world lost her Dad yesterday.

Amidst all the rushing of things I committed (over-committed?) to do for Mom's birthday celebration, were the swirling thoughts of the devastation that was March 10, 2020. And how my best friend was there for me. Every step of the way. Because she knows me. She knows my family. She knows every little crook and crazy cranny there is to our family. The good, the bad and the really ugly. She walked it with me, she lived it, she submerged herself in it. And I how when she text me and told me that her dad died, I stopped what I was doing and called. No answer. Just a message that said, "too tired and drained to talk." And I feel like a terrible friend. Inadequate. We have messaged a little more about it and the strangeness of it and how it doesn't feel real. But I don't feel like I'm kicking ass and taking names in the best friend department. I feel like a dismal failure. She has something I don't. A spouse. So I suppose she has someone to lean on in a way that I didn't. And I don't need that today. I'm so used to being just me. There are very few days, moments, seconds in time, when I long for a shoulder to lay my head on, for that intimate voice to whisper, "I'm here, I've got you, it's going to be all right." Usually I say it to myself and that's enough. And sometimes my higher power whispers to me. Either way, I don't really miss having a spouse these days. But on that day four years ago, I do remember how utterly exhausted I felt, and defeated. How I longed for someone to stroke my hair and let me know I wasn't alone. So where I needed my bestie to show up and hug me for real and be the angel with skin on, maybe my bestie is covered in that department. 

I feel like it's important to celebrate Mom. Especially since Dad left just two days before her birthday. I imagine that her birthday and the celebratory part is forever altered for her. I can only imagine how the sorrow of "death day" rolls over her birthday like a steam roller. How after fifty-six years of marriage, her honey will never again surprise her for her birthday or take her out to dinner or tell her how happy she makes him or thank her for staying married when the road got rough. Not that she could never find another. She could. She's right spry for her age. But 56 years is a long time. There will never be another like that one. So we had dinner at my sisters and celebrated Mom. And I wasn't sure I'd be able to keep my sorrow from sliding down my face, but I did. And there was a lot of joy and laughter tonight. I'm so grateful for that. 

Happy Birthday Mom!

To read other Slice of Life Challenge Posts, click on the orange slice and scroll down to the comments! 

Goats are never boring

 As I retold this story yesterday, the comment back was, "Yeah, but it's a good story to tell!" And I decided "Why not?" And here we go.... 

First of all, I know on some level that I'm weird. But I swear, all us small-time pet-farm people are a little left of center. Seriously. But I always talk to the animals. Whoever talks to me first when I come out the door is who I talk back to. So as I walk out to feed my animals the other night, I am greeted by the "mmmmaaaaaaahhhh" of the goats as I open the door, and I automatically respond in kind. And I look up, I see the neighbor in the yard looking strangely at me. Turns out, our neighbors were over to work on a fence they are building us (out of the goodness of their hearts I might add). I was surprised and a little bit embarrassed, but I cheerfully say, "Hey there, How's it going?" The other neighbor says, "terrible.... I mean, the fence is going good, but the goats took the keys to our little buggy and we can't find them!" "The goats did what?!" I say. So he explains that the keys to their utv little 4 wheel vehicle were in the ignition and now they are missing. I start to panic. 1) goats eat everything, and 2) we have a particular goat that is the poster child for sentiment number 1. She eats EVERYTHING. And she'll pester you to death for whatever is in your hands. I have started to feed her the junk mail just to keep the rest of the mail (and my shirt) safe until we get inside! The kiddo is napping inside so I call her and tell her to come help look as we wander around the yard looking for these keys, all I keep thinking is, "How will we even find them? Do they poop them out? Goats poop pellets, will we have to get her x-rayed? Will she need surgery?" I bring it up to the neighbor... "she really might have eaten them" and we keep walking and looking at the ground. Finally, the sleepyhead emerges from the house. She chuckles at the thought of the goats stealing the keys. I am not chuckling at this moment. I am thinking.... "someday we'll look back on this and laugh" I just didn't know it would be in the direct/near future. Kiddo has only been outside for a minute or two and she yells, "Found them!" and sure enough, she found them. They were behind the seat in the vehicle. Whew! I exhale a big sigh of relief. 

About now the ducks yell at me, " 'wack, 'wack, 'wack, 'wack...." (They usually drop the Q part of the qu sound when they talk to me). So I respond back in kind. Don't we all do that? 

This is a utv I found on the internet. It's not exactly what the neighbors is like, but it gives a general idea of what I am talking about. 

If you want to read more "Slices of Life", click on the orange slice. The Slice of Life Challenge happens every March and the challenge is to blog everyday and post it to the Two Writing Teachers daily Slice of Life post in the comment section. Enjoy! 

Slice of Life, Day 7

 Every day I don't know what to write. Either I have too many ideas in my head or I have complete writer's block, just blank. Daily slices of my life include animal antics, thoughts and reflections on animals, thoughts about social injustices, righteous indignation about abuse and mistreatment of humans. Maybe that's odd. That world injustices plague my thoughts on a daily basis. 

This morning we had a thunder storm. My dog, Maddie, is scared of storms. She shakes violently and sits on me. Like if I were sleeping or attempting to sleep she sits up on my body and stares at my face. And shakes. My job is try to comfort her. She resists being comforted though. Thunder storms are exhausting for both of us. This morning's storm brought Maddie to the front of my thoughts. And to reflect on how important this little fuzz-ball is in my life. She is my soul mate. My ride or die. My "favorite child." Maddie has been picked up by an owl twice now in the 3 1/2 years I've lived out here in the country. The first time was the night we celebrated Christmas with my Mom and we got home late.... like midnight or 12:30. When we got home, all the dogs came running.... this was when we still left them out sometimes when we were gone. We had the three indoor dogs and Sunnie, the outside dog. All dogs ran in the house and suddenly I couldn't find Maddie. I could hear her whining. But she was in J's room, all bloody and in obvious pain. We found 3 big puncture wounds. Like a bird of prey had grabbed her with its taloned feet. We called the emergency vet line and cleaned her up the best we could and took her in to the vet the following morning. By the time we went in to the vet, her whole underside was bruising already. Ugly, purple and blue and red all along her underbelly. She and I became inseparable. And slowly, she healed. At first, she didn't want to go out to go potty by herself. I would go out and stand with her. She eventually felt safe enough to go with the other dogs without a human going out with her. And she started to gain her ferociousness back. Maddie is a Shih tzu. Not particularly ferocious. But she loves to bark. Bark at the neighbors dogs, bark at coyotes, bark at skunks, at squirrels, at 'possums, and everything else out there. 

This year in January the dogs were out one night, doing their thing and then they started barking. And barking and barking. Then I realized that Maddie was not barking. I became alarmed immediately. She loves to bark! Where is she? What is she doing? So I put on shoes and ran out and tried to find her. I ran out to the underground fence line, she usually goes clear out to the farthest corner and barks at the unknown. But all I saw was a little, crumpled shaped slumped on the ground. It was her. My Maddie. I called to her. Nothing. I touched her. She was stiff. I was sure she was dead. Then she breathed just a little and moved her head. I scooped her up. I had already called back to the house and I had said to J, "they killed her, Maddie's dead!" I am walking back to the house and J comes out of house. So I tell J, "she's not quite dead. But I can't find any injuries."  Eventually I found puncture wounds, talon punctures! Around her neck and throat area. And I held her. After about an hour, her breathing returned to near normal. She was still in an obvious amount of pain. But we were, once again, inseperable. 

                    

Please excuse the very bad Mom-haircut. This is my Maddie. In desperate need of a haircut, and hoping we can swing a grooming service haircut. But if not, she doomed to another Mom haircut

To read about other people's slice of life, click on the orange slice. 

And it Builds, that raw emotion

This morning I was kicking around the idea of writing poetry. But the day just slipped away and here it is almost time to go to bed and I haven't written today. But I've been watching crazy documentaries. Tonight I'm watching The Program: Cons, Cults and Kidnapping. It's devastating to watch. A lot of the expertise is from people who were held in this place and the raw emotion is overwhelming. It brings a lot of unhealed emotion to surface. And I'm raw and weeping again. Why was it so very hard to live when I was young? And why has it followed me my whole life? Why am I plagued by thoughts of death? By unspeakable sorrow? By brokenness? 

And It Builds

I'm feel my pulse

racing through my body

and pounding through my veins.

I hear the blood 

pulsing in my ears. 

I feel the sorrow 

welling up from deep, deep down.

It builds,

it swells, 

it crashes.

And here I am 

alone,

in deafening silence.

My thoughts, 

my feelings

and me.

And it pulses

and builds, 

and ebbs and flows. 

I'm relieved 

as the feelings,

the raw, unrefined feelings,

retreat. 

And leave me 

alone

with only the roar

of silence.

-Carrie Horn

To read other what others contribute in the Slice of Life challenge, click on the orange slice.

... Just like that

 Just like that my hopes are flared and the fire is stoked. I got an email this morning that I have received my standard substitute license. Valid til 2029. And a lead came on a long-term sub position, and I have started the process of reaching out. Now the panic sets in... What about my disability? What about insurance? What if I don't like it? What happens if I work and then don't get a permanent job? What if they don't like me? What if.... What if.... 

So now that I have had a big adrenaline rush, now I'm coming down hard. And reality is sort of setting in. But hard. You know.... reality with a good hard kick of paranoia and fear attached. A bad case of "what if's" that take those necessary questions to the next level. The crazy level. 

Oh Lord, I'm exhausted, and I don't even know if they are going to call me for an interview?! 

So I remind myself of "deep thoughts" from those who've been around the sun a few more times than I have. And my favorite quote keeps coming to mind... "God took care of my dumb ass when I was out there drinking, what makes me think He won't take of me now?!" RIP Gene, you were one of kind my friend. 

This was my "Slice of Life" today. To read other blogger's who've joined this writing challenge (write everyday for the month of March and publish to Two Writing Teachers "Slice of Life" challenge posts), click on the orange slice. It should direct you to today's post, scroll down to the comments and choose a link, read and enjoy.

Instigating Chaos and the Illusion of Control

 "Don't sabotage your peace just because chaos is familiar." I ran across this quote somewhere on social media. It was not attributed to anyone, so I cannot give the credit it is due. But it takes me back to a conversation I had recently with a friend. I had been craving a drink. And I have a little time between me and bottle now, so while it's not the end of the world to have a craving, it is something to sit up and take note of. Maybe make a few changes in my daily routine and habits to fill my life with more things that bring me contentment, not restlessness and discontent. What we spoke of was that I was craving chaos. I said I wanted a chaos that I created, that I controlled, instead of the chaos of the unknown. I was craving sex, drugs, and rock and roll. To oversimplify. 

Isn't it funny (ironic funny, not so much ha-ha funny) how my desire for control would lead me to an act of loss of control and chaos? 

Don't we all desire to control our destiny? If you study the cycle of abuse, the abused sometimes provokes the abuser to end the constant fear of never knowing what is coming next. Provoke it and you'll know what is next. Violence.

Right now I have a home life situation that causes me resentment. And I feel like I can't control it.... the situation or that I feel resentful. But if I instigate conflict, I can feel justified in my anger and less like a heel for holding onto this grudge so tightly. Sometimes I provoke an argument. Then I feel vindicated in my seething rage. Yuck. Not a pretty thing to look at. But it drives home to me that yes, I really do crave that control over my life and the unknown. I want to know what is unknown and I want to control that which I cannot control. Even if it is self-inflicted chaos. 

So I'll sit with this. And I'll mull it over. And I'll pray it over. And maybe, just maybe, I gain the courage to release the need to feel in control and trust God to take care of me, once again, as He always does. 

The Slice of Life challenge: write every day for each day in the month of March and post your writing on the Two Writing Teachers page in the comments for each day. Click the orange slice to read everyone's slice for today. 

What Does Love Look Like?

 I have come to a place in my life where I consider myself more of a spiritual person and less of someone following a set of religious rules. Ironically enough, the longer I pursue God in light of this freedom from rules, the more I have seen my gravitation toward the God of my youth, the God of the Bible. I still hold a giant grudge against so called Christians, and as I learn to pray more, I realize I have to pray about this because this giant boulder on my shoulder ain't goin' away without some divine intervention. You know, we have all been hurt in life. No one gets out of this journey unscathed. Ultimately, no gets out alive. 

I've come to realize that believing in God and even the God of the Bible is very different that swallowing the fundamentalism bullshit that has been served to me over the years. 

God is love. And as such, God desires good for everyone. Another blogger wrote yesterday about kindness and how kindness has essentially bit them in the ass. And not to expect kindness from them any longer. I am a big proponent of kindness. As I am of love. Agape love. All we need is love. Love is the answer, what was the question? Love, love, love. More love, less hate. Hate is too great of a burden to bear, I will choose love. Love is patient. Love is kind. 

But I think we've taken the Kindness Revolution and the Love Wins ideal too far. When do we count? How can we be kind all time and still "win" (for lack of a better term)? Sometimes I think we have to choose what kind of love and what kind of kindness we will pursue. Appearing kind in a world of hate is admirable, but if it allows others to manipulate us and trample us, what is the point? We must be kind and loving to ourselves first. And that doesn't always look like love, peace, kindness to the outside world. Or even to ourselves. Because we've been shamed into believing we must not hurt anyone else even if it means we are withering and dying inside and our souls are screaming that love is a lie and begging to be saved. This is when we are the only ones who can save us. God made us intelligent. God made us empathetic. But God (the crazy, unorthodox God I've come to know) never intended for us to lay and down and be trampled by people because we "love" them. Sometimes love looks like a mental wrestling match where we triumph over our own crippling thoughts and misconceptions and find the truth of self-love. Love and Kindness aren't always easy and the waters aren't always tame, sometimes it's a stormy sea of violent weather that sets us free. And this is also love. 

To read other Slices of Life, click on the orange slice. Hundreds of educators all over the world choose to write every day for the month of March and post it for the world to see. 

The Crazy Merri-go-Round Ride of Disability

 The ride that is disability. I was diagnosed with menopausal osteo-arthritis in my knees. My life changed drastically in what seems like a few days. I was walking 5 miles a day, three or four times a week and suddenly my knees were giving me pain and they were swollen and I felt crippled. I was very quickly only able to do my daily walking required by my job. Which wasn't nothing, but the walking for my health after work came to grinding halt. The following school year, with the help of steroid injections I was barely able to do the required walking that goes with teaching. I decided not to teach the following year. And I was able to get a job, one I was probably not as able to carry out as I implied when I was hired, but I got a job nonetheless. Through unrelated circumstances though, I was forced to abandon this job for the sake of my family. Now, however, my knees were bad enough that I couldn't fool my way into another job. So I filed for disability and fought for an agonizingly long 15 months to get approved. During this time, I burned through my KPERS (my retirement), and relied on the kindness of others to pay my Electric bill every month. I learned that it's possible to live on nothing. Fortunately, my house was paid for, I was only neglecting my taxes and home owners insurance. 

During this unsettled time, I had both of my knees replaced. Total knee replacement surgery first in the left knee and then six months later, in the right knee. The right has always been the easy one. It healed fast, it has better flexibility and mobility range. The left one I've fallen on twice. It swells, it gets tight, it is hard to lift my left leg without pain. I am, to my dismay, disabled. A fall risk. 

Some days are better than others, but the truth is, it's a merri-go-round ride. It will come around to the pain and swelling again without a doubt. I find myself once again in physical therapy. My therapist is a miracle worker and simply amazing. I must admit that. But here's what I'm seeing.... 

When I work too hard in pt, I have pain and swelling, making me inactive and sitting around with hot packs on my knees and this crazy nerve on the left side that sends pain pulsing down my hip, thigh, knee, calf to my ankle. But being less active flairs the pain again, making me less flexible, less adapted to a life resembling normalcy, and more likely to sit, sit, sit. Which in turn increases my fall risk, my inability to gain more flexibility and long-term mobility. I feel trapped in a very real, very unnerving (har-har) cycle. More movement = more swelling, pain, and "tightness." More tightness and pain = less movement. Less movement makes it so that when I do stretch, do PT exercises, work to strengthen and lengthen, I face soreness, tightness, and swelling. Forcing me to slow down again. Making me admit, that in this moment, I am, truly, disabled. I may not be forever, that is my hope, my prayer. But my current status not just a title, but reality.

See the cycle. It drives my mind into insanity, thinking perhaps I'll never be able to return to my passion... teaching. Will I be strong enough to maybe substitute teach a couple times a week? Currently this is my prayer. But I have these hopes and aspirations that I'll be able to teach full time again. That one day I'll have the strength and stamina to submerge myself into the chaos that is teaching again. But for now, I keep riding the merri-go-round. I keep fighting the pain and swelling. I keep hoping. Keep going with the ebb and flow that is disability.