She is Who She is Who She is........

I heard it said once that "...sometimes what you'll learn will conflict with what you know". I've often found that to be true in everything from religion to motherhood, friendship & finances. Our view of the world is typically shaped by what we're told when we're young. I grew up in church like many of my friends and somehow I came to a different conclusion than most of them on a lot of things people term as "issues" such as abortion, sexual preference, equality and even capital punishment. My parents very seldom told us how to feel about things. We were introduced to ideas more than we were opinions. For instance: When I was around four or five years old a man named Ross, who was a friend of my parents came to our home for Thanksgiving. He came over for parties and sometimes by himself to socialize. This went on for many years and when I was around eight years old I asked my dad why Ross never had a girlfriend? My father cackled a bit and said "Well Heather baby, that's because Ross is gay." I asked what that meant and he said that Ross liked men and that he hadn't had anyone special in his life for a while and that's why he never had a "date" with him. I accepted this information quite easily and pranced on with my life never really having an opinion about other people's sexual preferences. I was given information by my parent rather than his opinion. I try not to worry about what other people do with their lives or their bodies. It is of no consequence to me and even religous preference can be a hot debate. Personally, I could care less about affiliation. I like some more than others and have been to MANY different churches and found people of faith in all of them. We all "buy into" different things, different ideas, different ways of doing things. Religion is no different. It's like choosing a home, a mate, or even a job. You like it, it makes you feel safe and/or comfortable and so you move in, you buy into it. You trust that this is what you're meant to be or do or be a part of. You believe what you're told and move forward in the procession.


I can't say unequivically that the way my parents did things was any better or worse than the way anyone else's parents did things. I know a lot of people who were raised Baptist and now raise their children as Baptists and they go to church every Sunday and Wednesday and they're pro-life, anti same-sex marriage and staunch Republicans. They're no better or worse off than I am for feeling the way I do. I can't pick a church and stick with it to save my life, I don't care who people want to have sex with as long as it's not kids or animals and I think women have a right to decide what to do with their own bodies. Big woop! From here to eternity we won't find out who's right until we get there...

Let it ALL Hang Out!!!

Like most people I have a host of body image issues. At any given moment I can gnit-pick myself to literal pieces. My thighs are too big, my nose is too pudgy, my neck's too long, my legs are too short... the list goes on and on and on. And on a bad day it's frightening what kind of mental meat grinder I can put my body through. On my good days (which fortunately far out number the bad) I simply ignore my negative thoughts. Like most things, with age has come more "I really don't give a damn" and I'm more apt not to wollow in bad body image moods since I have more pressing issues to attend, like being an adult; However they still creep in from time to time. And to this effect comes the mental path my mind walked today as I spent a lovely afternoon in Statesboro with my dear lifelong friend, Sarah. We took her beautiful baby daughter out to exchange a few items and do some minor looking. For both of us I believe it was a break from the mundane, type of excursion. As we made our way in and out of stores I took particular notice of people, their clothes, their bags, their shoes. And I came home and looked through some profiles on Facebook as well. What I've observed has inspired me to continue on toward a better "mental me".


Of course I have friends and see people who I believe to be attractive and well maintained. They look and dress nicely and are active healthy people. Then there are those who just absolutely frighten me with their bleakness. Their hair "roots" are far outgrown and the ends of their wooly shags look as though a dog has chewed them off. I've spotted some women in tiny shirts with bulging muffin tops that almost make me shriek. And then... there are those women who are desperately clinging to the women they once were. You know the ones! They've gained about 75 pounds in the last ten years and wear bows in their pony tails and a track suit (modern day version of the 90's windsuit) pretending, desperately clinging to the mental image they have of themselves before they subconsciously let themselves go. You might catch this woman dropping her daughter off at a dance class or mirroring her little girl's pageant talent routine in the audience of her 150th beauty pageant in 6 years. She seems quite content and happy as she does not utilize full length mirrors any longer. Perhaps she's done the crash diet merry-go-round, eating celery and drinking Tab and eventually she caves (like most of us do) and resorts back to Diet Coke with a #3 at McDonald's. Those women are the saddest to me. Those whose lives are filled with running on junk to fuel their families lives. Women who care so much about how everyone else in their family looks that she cannot see what she's become. She can't see the misery in her clothing or hear her body's desperate cry for help. Doritos and Dr. Pepper are staples in her cabinet and she believes this is alright because her husband is a "meat and potatoes" kind of guy and her kids don't like bananas or broccoli. The dresses they wear to church on Sundays are neat and pressed and pretty so that they might worship their God fashionably. And inside of the bodies God built for them are bulging arteries, swolen joints, escalating blood pressure, suffocating cells and deep self-loathing sadness. This sort of misery is palpable... and toxic.


In the last five years I've caught myself a few times letting myself off the hook so-to-speak. I'd move up a pant size and say to myself "...it's ok, it's only one size". And then I'd realize shortly afterword that I'd be saying the same thing to myself this time next year, and the next, and the next. It's a tiny line to cross but it brings a heaping helping of consequences. I struggle mightily to balance the vanity of body image with the desire for better health. I certainly want to look and feel attractive but as the years progress I wave good-bye to bits and pieces of that desire. I've come to see that the world outside my door can be far more distracting and beautiful when I worry less about how I look in it and more about how I feel in it.

Stupid People Bug Me

I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't say it but I'm saying it... Stupid people suck. They're worse than mean people! Stupid people are the only true representation of what is truly wrong with our world today. They CAN be amusing; However we cannot let our amusement cloud our ability to size up a stupid person. For example, there's a *ahem* lady who's friends with a friend of mine on Facebook and she's recently left her husband (father of her 3 children) for a man who's just gotten out of prison. She left her children with her mother *who we lovingly refer to her as "Mama"* who she claims shares a likeness to the Devil himself. Her new ex-convict boyfriend doesn't have a place to live, a job or any real means of support. (Now if I were just guessing I'd say he supports himself as a freelance drug dealer, but I could be completely wrong. I'm NOT, but I could be.) So she lives in whatever shit hole he does while her Devil/mother takes care of her children and their father - soon-to-be trashy girl's ex-husband, lives out the rest of this saga with his new girlfriend in the same trailer park as Mama. I know all of this because they splash it all over the beloved messaging medium we all know as Facebook. While the drama between the adults is amusing, it's also rather disturbing to think of the very real, very pained children in this situation. Speaking from personal experience I can tell you that suviving a normal childhood is difficult enough. I had very loving parents who were always available to me and I still managed to arrive at adulthood with some serious baggage! This poor woman's children have been snatched from their home, placed with their grandmother who is feuding with their mother who is living with a man who's been in prison for several years and now has their mother's name tattooed across his neck!!!
Most children are not extraordinary. I know, I shouldn't say that but I did! Anyway, most children are not extraordinary & react very typically to unhealthy environmental stimuli. A lot of them grow up and mimic the behaviors they saw as children. Some turn to drugs and violence and even sex at an early age. Some abandon their own children when they have them and worse yet, some abuse and neglect them. Very few of them work hard to escape their circumstances, educate themselves and go on to become fantastic people, providers and parents. If you don't believe me, check the stats for yourself. And this is why stupid people bug me. They act out their lives as some ridiculous soap opera & torture their children with the drama and havoc that only being a bad parent can wreak.
This woman found what I refer to as "some good prison sex" and decided it was just the excuse she needed to temporarily (or so she says) abandon her children. And every day she posts how much she misses them and how it breaks her heart not to be with them and she loves them, blah, blah, blaaah! But she's NOT with them, she left them even though there are almost always other options. She left them. OH, and she's pregnant - again!!!

The 'Whatever Mom'

Mother's Day is this Sunday and I've contemplated the day more this year than any other. My guess is that with my children being older & a bit more self sufficient I've had more time for genuine thoughts of my own ;-) When I was younger I never thought that I wanted to be a mother. I never had any particular fondness for children and still don't per say. Becoming a mother has made me more appreciative of children and of mothers as a whole but I don't like children just because they're children. I like them the same as I like all other people. If the child is likable, I like them. If not, I don't... Although I've never been able to decide if I like mine because they're really likable or if I like them just because they're mine. I assume it's a mixture of both because in all honesty, sometimes children just aren't very likable. I would never consent to a friendship with someone whose ass I had to wipe or who felt free to vomit on me and make me clean it up. But there's something in the very nature of motherhood that makes it divine. It's a biological realm of unexplanable goodness. There's the mammal's desire to see her offspring thrive & mother's willingness to eliminate any obstacles in order for them to survive and  then there's the homosapian's need to give, nurture and form life long relationships with her children. It is truly "divine design".


I'd be willing to bet on my life that I love and care for my children just as much as any other mother I know. But my identity has never been encompassed by motherhood. I haven't sacrificed any less because I've refused to identify myself solely as "mother". I haven't missed out on any joys because I don't feel a pressing biological need to continue to reproduce. And I doubt that my children are any more likely to be more mal-adjusted than anyone else's because I worked when they were little and their father did most of the cooking until very recently. I think my kids are going to be just as screwy as anyone else who survives adolesence. And hopefully when they're self supporting with families of their own they'll come to see their parents and welcome visits from the people they've always known us to be. I hope that I'll be just as much "me" then as I am now. I never want my daughter or son to entertain the idea that they stripped me of my life or my identity. I want them to know always that they enriched it and made it more worthwhile. I don't want to be a fragment of myself when they grow up and move away. I want to carry them into every phase of my life as the essential burden that made it so beautiful. Children are in fact a burdenous gift. They are work and hurt to which nothing else can compare. And our primary focus is on that of any other instinctually driven mammal... their survival.

The potent burdens of motherhood is what fuels its complexity and helps to drive me half mad. But its bouquet of pleasantries is a reward worthy of my very life, should I ever be called to give it.