So the last time we went to the pool, I was faced with a problem.  Logan loves the pool, and loves making friends.  If there is a kid about his size that makes eye contact with him, he immediately asks their name and if they want to play.  I love his confidence and willingness to just put himself out there.  It took a couple years for him to do that.  He loves to play with others.  So I saw him latch on to a kid, and they followed each other around the slide, and all the water equipment at this particular pool.  At one point, they both came out of the slide about the same time, clutching their heads.  Logan’s lip was starting form a pout and I called him over to me.  I asked what had happened and found out that he was the one who went right after the other child.  He knows better.  I took him to our towels and let him cry a little bit but I also wanted to remind him of the rules, and reinforce that his pain right then was the reason why there are rules.  So he was fine and went back to playing. 

He lost the little boy he had been playing with earlier, so Logan opted for going down the slide a bunch.  Andrew and I sat at the edge of the pool watching him and enjoying the sun, and pretty soon we saw a larger child walking right past the line of kids to the entrance of the slide.  He did it over and over, at times touching on the shoulder whatever child he wanted to get in front of and saying something to them.  I was contemplating what my role might be in this situation.  And then he did it to my own kid.  Logan turned to look at me pathetically, asking for help without talking.  I didn’t know what to do.  The big kid was already heading down the slide, and I was remembering all the times I was taken advantage of and bullied while growing up.  My heart broke because I knew I was on the other end and it was my job to instill in my child a level of confidence most adults lack.  He came to me after coming down the slide.

Logan said nothing, but I asked him what the other kid had told him.  He was reluctant to tell me.  What to say?  “Logan, if he wants to get in line in front of you and asks, it’s okay for you to let him if you want to.  But if you want your turn and you don’t want to let him in front of you, it’s okay for you to say no.”  Logan has always been so polite and hates to disappoint people.  He nodded, and ran back up the stairs.  I watched again as the kid came up, touched Logan on the shoulder, say something to him, then promptly lunge slightly at Logan and stick his tongue out.  He stood in front of Logan, and the look on my son’s face this time enraged me.  I should have expected the kid would do that.  What a horrible experience for my son, to have stood up for himself and receive no gratification.  When he came over this time, I told him that sometimes people still won’t listen to you but that he should still tell them no. 

I don't know how to navigate this.  I was not ready for this part of parenting.  Well that seems stupid to say.  I've not really been ready for any of it.  The other stuff, however, I knew to expect.  I knew to read some books, or talk to other parents beforehand.  This is the first experience he'll have of many that will break my heart.  He will be on his own to deal with it more than any parent would like.  I was there that time, though.

I didn’t ever say anything to the kid.  I did not go over and talk to his mom when I saw him speaking with her before going back up the slide.  Even when he was still acting that way while she was watching.  I am ashamed of myself and I am afraid I sent my son mixed signals, or that he knows I let him down and will not trust me to protect him.  I was not sure what my place was.  I continue to expect other people to be decent human beings and am constantly thwarted in my thinking.  I know I handled it incorrectly.  I will not allow it to happen again.  I am writing this as an apology to my son, to the other kids on that slide who were taken advantage of, and to the child who was bullying because he has not been taught.  I am writing this as a vow that I will no longer stand by when I see injustice.  As a small addition to my last post, wasn't it such a letdown when you discovered just because someone is full grown, it doesn't make them an adult?  I'm trying.

I'm Just Starting

So I sat down this weekend and made a list.  I listed all of the personal things I’d like to do.  I listed all of the friggin things that need to get done around the house on a weekly basis.  I listed all of the exercising I’d like to do in a week. I then assigned a time frame each day, and/or a day of the week to do them all.  I did this because I have, historically, been terrible at managing my time.  Really all that means is that I’m super lazy and would much rather sit on my ass watching the Big Bang Theory, or even just sleeping.  But I have gained weight and I think my son is starting to resent me.  Plus I kind of decided I would become a gardener so I need to be watering and pruning and praying to the gods for a good crop.  So, at present, I have yet to implement said list.  To any degree.  Well that’s not true.  I’m writing right now!  That was one of my goals.  And I put away some dishes yesterday; I also folded one whole basket of laundry.  Of course I didn’t then put the laundry away but I’m told it’s all about the baby steps so I’m not sweating.

In any case I really do want to get better at managing my time and if that means I have to make a freakin list and follow it, even to just do the things I want to, then that’s what I’ll do.  At 27 maybe I’ll finally become an adult.  You know, one of those mystical creatures you hear of.  ‘Hey!  That guy is 39, he’s an adult!  Never mind that he still lives with his parents and shares a bathroom with his 5 cats.  His job at the Burger King is going to take him places!’  Wasn’t it such a letdown when you realized that just because a person is over the age of 18, it doesn’t really make him an adult?  What is the definition of an adult anyway?  Def # one states: ‘having attained full size and strength; grown up; mature.’  Has everything to do with physical attributes, and nothing to do with mental.  I guess that’s our answer.  Technically you’re an adult once you reach adult size.  Of course that begs the question, what is full size and strength?  Am I to assume then that midgets, based on a technicality, are never adults?  Well that doesn’t quite seem fair.  I guess they can’t ride most rides at theme parks.  Hey!  That constitutes full size.  I think it’s 48 inches, which is only 4’ tall.  Anyway, I digress.  A lot.  I only mean to point out that it takes work to be alive, and to be considered an adult.  As with everything, it doesn’t just happen.

This should be just about the biggest cosmological DUH out there, yet I have met many people who seem to think that the universe just dumps into their lap whatever it wants to.  That there is nothing they themselves can do to change the course of their lives.  I firmly believe everything that happens is a direct result of the choices you’ve made, OR you’ve got a lesson to learn and you had better get on it, or that toe is going to keep getting stubbed, your lawn will keep dying, or you’ll keep seeing that black cat everywhere you go.  The point is you can have a pretty darn good life if you want to and you work at it.  I’ll add, with much snarkiness-that old saying of, nothing worth having comes easy.  Trust me though, I’m not some Buddah who has it all figured out.  If you think I’m not grumbling as I struggle through a minute long plank and hating every millisecond, you’ve lost your marbles and they're being used to freak people out at the end of MIB. 

What is my point?  I suppose what I want to say is simply that you can always improve, and you should.  It's always the right time to figure yourself out and do what you want.  So I am going to just decide to change.  Mostly because I don't yet like well enough the person I've come to be.  Again, though 27 means I've been an adult for years and years because I grew to be the size I am now when I was about 14, I don't have to except that this is just where I am.  I have a choice, and I choose to be better.

It is what it is.

Lately I seem to be having trouble with something that I feel is very fundamental to life.  At one point in my life, I felt the way I wish I could feel again.  Was my life perfect, with everything falling into place to make a utopia?  Not really.  I was coming to the end of the relationship I was in at the time; I could see that the end may be near.  I was in school, and not really loving it.  I wasn't doing well.  My job was somewhat lacking in integrity.

Yet, somehow, I lived for a time in seemingly perfect peace.  I knew I wasn't where I wanted to be.  I knew there was pain in my future.  There were many changes I needed to make.  But I felt suspended in moment.  And I don't mean I felt that way for a short moment.  I'd wager it was a solid month where I knew that despite my current circumstances, everything would be okay.  I felt radiant in this knowledge that no matter what was happening in the world, to me, to those I knew, it would all be okay.  Even if what happened was terrible.  I don't mean to imply I thought my life would be perfect.  I just knew that whether good or bad, whatever was to happen, would come, and I would get through it.  I was strong.  I thought so many things were possible.

Since then, I got pregnant after an indescribably short time with the wrong man.  Immediately before that, I was raped.  I feel mostly past those things.  Though, six years in the past, it will still rock me.  I cannot quite seem to enjoy my formerly favorite time of year.  Right when spring is starting.  Even before the green replenishes.  The sun is coming and there are days of mild cold but with the promise of warmth.  The light at the end of that blasted tunnel.

A cousin of mine died recently.  I did not know him well.  He was older than me and moved away when I was still young.  He was murdered.  I think about it and I become so filled with rage; filled with extreme pain.  At my job I must take claims for those who have passed.  I internalize.  I read the news of girls who are assaulted, then bullied.  No justice is brought for them and they are surrounded by immature people who are so out of tune with what it means to be alive....to just be human.  I become immobilized.  I feel small.  I feel hopeless.  I read of children being killed.  I see on the news parents finding out their child has been killed by watching the others still alive be reunited with their parents and being told there are no more families to be made whole.  I see an entire world of people detached.  Not caring.  'It's not me.'  Either thankful they must not go through it, or remaining naive by just ignoring it.  'It's not me.'

Where is there a sense of community?  A sense of ownership?  I have friends who are with people who treat them like crap.  They don't have the self-esteem to get out and the other doesn't have the guts to just be alone.  They get their kicks out of making others feel small.  Power.  That's what assault is.  That's what staying ignorant is.  Anything to make sure you're more important that someone else.  What about humility?  What about realizing we're all just the same person trying to make it in the world without feeling like dying?  Who can we trust?  There are the corrupt everywhere you turn.  I didn't used to feel this way.  There was a time I knew I could make it.  There was a time I didn't think that everything was going the wrong way.  Was I naive?  Was I ignorant?  Was I just foolishly thinking that though I felt I could handle it, no wrong would ever befall me?  What am I supposed to tell past self?  Do I look at her and scoff at the childish notion, or is it still something to strive for?  How can I get that back when all around me I see things crumbling.

It's hopeless.  I don't want to feel this way.  I am responsible for bringing up a child of my own.  How am I supposed to teach him about the world?  How do I teach him humility, and responsibility?  How do I reconcile for him that he should be safe, but that really he isn't?  How do I stop the fear from ruling?  How do I instill in him faith in himself and self-esteem?  How do I make sure he treats others exactly as we all should treat each other-as people just trying to live.  I don't have the answers.  I don't have anything close to an answer.  Yet I'm supposed to be doing this, right now.

I don't know what it was that gave me the clarity I once had.  I wish I could forgive.  Wouldn't that be crazy?  What if I just said-I forgive you Caleb, and really meant it?  Or Ricardo.  I forgive you, too?  What about myself?  For making mistakes.  For bringing myself to where I am?  Boy that would just be the funniest.

Wedding mania

We are pretty much in full planning mode now.  We have the decorations figured out, if not all bought yet.  We have the favors figured out.  I have a dress.  We have an almost finished song list.  Of course now we need to get all of the songs and save them to cd's in the order we want them.  We have the cake and food figured out.  And don't forget booze.  We have a photographer.

Now we need a videographer.  I need to find my accessories. We need to figure out who will marry us...neither one of us is particularly religious.  We still need to find a ring for Andrew.  Need to get an outfit for the dude.

The honeymoon has been booked.  We are going on a cruise that stops at Haiti, Cozumel, Jamaica, and the Caymen islands.  Paying for all of it is going to be a little hard.  Andrew has been saving like crazy.  We have our plane tickets booked and paid for.

My mom is helping us pay for decorations and things for the wedding.  The wedding will be at her house.  I am excited, if not a little freaked out.  Just worried it might get a little tough to stay cordial at best, with all of the junk going on.  It will be okay.  I hope.

We did our save the dates last night, finally.  So now I get to find all the e-mail addresses I need.  Yes, we're being cheap.  But they look nice!

Anyway-the date is August 31st and I can't believe how close it's getting.  Getting everything done without losing it might be hard.  We're having a pretty low-key wedding, considering, yet we still have so much to do. I don't understand.

Have nothing much to say

Nothing the first:  My job.  I really like it.  I talk to people all day, which I like to do.  And in some ways I get to investigate things.  Taking phone calls on a more regular basis now that I'm out of training affirms that I have learned something.  Unfortunately, part of what I've learned is that there are two very big problems with the way things are handled internally.  One may not be a huge issue if the agents and their staff simply accepted it and took two seconds to make a phone call.  The other is not their fault, but rather a large company who for some reason isn't taking advantage of the opportunity to make more money.  Neither really works for me, or seems acceptable.  Both are something I want to be a part of rectifying, I really only see one as being a possibility.  And even then, a long shot.  I have to convince corporate talking heads that what they know is wrong, and what they think is beyond retarded.  Hell, I can't hardly get my own mother to accept that I can make decisions that won't explode in my face, and remember when we are meeting up to do something.

Btw- when you call a center, and the person on the other end is trying to resolve the issue you have, please stop yelling at them at that point.  They probably realize that the way they have to handle things may not be the best.  Someone else might have messed up before you got on the phone with the present person.  I realize you may be miffed beyond belief.  But at a certain point, your venting is just you being a fucking asshole.  So take a breath, calm the fuck down, and let that rep help you.  In a perfect world, everybody will know what they're doing.  But sometimes, somebody is new at their job.  Be patient.  Be kind.  And if you're a bitch to somebody, for the love of God do not be surprised when they come back at you in kind.  If that person somehow manages to keep their cool, and lets you bitch your head off; thank them for listening to you without hanging up, crying, or yelling right back at you.  Just because you can't see them and you don't know each other doesn't mean your yelling doesn't affect them.  

Nothing the 2nd: I really have tried to be better with my mom.  I know that I have been.  I upset her this past weekend and went to apologize and we had a good conversation and got past it.  I was sorry I upset her.  It made me sad to see her so hurt.  A year or so ago, that would not have been the case.  I feel like we have come really far.  She is offering to pay for, honestly, most of the wedding and that is amazing.  What I haven't been able to get out of my head is the fact that she has my clarinet.  It got stolen my senior year of high school, about three weeks before I graduated.  I was devastated.  Almost exactly a year later, it was found.  I didn't end up playing much because I was new to college, had a full time job, and new boyfriend.  I also moved out of my parents house for the first time.  I then got pregnant and my whole life changed.  I didn't play much.  My mom came into hard times and decided she might sell it.  At this point that still has not happened, and the things she buys and the way she spends her money lead me to believe only one thing.  She is not so hard up that she still needs a thousand dollars right this second.  Not only that, but she then wanted to sell it to pay for dental cleaning for myself, and a bed for Andrew and I.  With my new job, I have dental insurance, and Andrew has been saving up for a bed.  Her needs/desires to sell the clarinet are now moot.  Yet when I brought it up the last time, pointing some of these things out, it was clear she would not discuss it with me.

I don't know what to do.  I have writing as an outlet, but I have to think about what i'm about to create.  With my clarinet, I just play.  My fingers remember a rift as I see it on the page.  I can play scales on a whim.  And I really love the sound.  I love producing music.  I love being by myself with it.  And I miss it.  I miss it and I want to play, and there's a part of me that feels my mother could care less about me and my happiness to not even consider letting me have it back.  

Nothing the 3rd: I feel really dumb feeling upset about these things when I really have a lot to be happy about.  I have a job that pays better than anything I've had to this point.  I have benefits and regular hours.  I get to see Logan all the time.  And my fiance just came in to the bedroom, playing a game I begged him to buy last weekend so we could play together.  

Nothing the 4th: This time of year always reminds me of the worst part of my life.  The time I was with Caleb. It was the most terrible time of my life.  I cant't help but think about the uneasiness and unhappiness that comes with March.  There are several things; most of which I don't feel like I can share on here.  Not yet.  

.....I mostly just needed to vent.  I am sorry that none of this was very happy.  But it's what I'm thinking about.  And if it's vague, it's because i'm thinking about it but can't bring myself to go that far right now.  I've already cried really hard once tonight.  I can wait until tomorrow to do it again.

Meditation, Reading, Writing, Exercise and Happiness

With the oncoming stable job hours, I will be able to set a routine for myself.  No more getting up at 4 or 5 occasionally for work, or staying until nine, ten, or 11 at night.  No more weekends.  I have decided that with Logan, I will try to come up with an activity we can do each night.  Some craft, or working on numbers or whatever.  Maybe playing a game.  After he goes to bed, I will spend the rest of my night either reading or writing until half an hour before I want to sleep.  At that time I'm going to meditate. 

I found a place that sells meditation pyramids...pyramids are supposed to be powerful energy conduits.  For those reading this, I don't know how you feel about this kind of thing.  I may be going into cool territory, or make you think I'm one of those wackos.  Oh well.  In any case, I think it's possible to astral project, to slowly heal yourself or others, and calm your emotions, as well as affect yourself in almost every way possible with enough positive concentration and energy put into something.  I looked up a website that talks about all the different crystals, and the properties believed to be attached to them.  This pyramid I found can be taken down and put up anywhere, allowing for space anyway.  When the weather turns warmer I'm going to put it outside.  I want to start and end my day with meditation.  We'll see what ends up happening. 

The other good thing about my work schedule being set is that, at least for training, I will get out at 4:15 every day.  My gym is just down the street and I plan on going at least 3 times a week before I get Logan from daycare.  Yay. 

And the weekends.  Ah, the glorious weekends that will again be mine.  Two full days with my guys to do whatever we want.  Yes. 

2012-Bring it on.  I'm going to get married this year and work on myself and my family.  It's going to be awesome.

2012

So the New Year hasn't started yet, and there is a lot of exciting stuff left in the next week and a half, but 2012 is going to be an amazing year and I am excited to start it.

Andrew and I settled on a cruise, and once we book it we can let everyone know our wedding date.  Late August, people...

I will be hearing from State Farm by the end of this week for my final offer to work there.  Going through background checks.  I had an interview and they called me late one night to let me know they wanted me on board.  I have three weeks left at King Soopers and I am so happy.  I can't wait to start there.  I don't know if I'm more stoked about the money or the stability of hours.  Logan need the consistency too.  He hasn't been dealing well lately with having some days at home, and some days at daycare.  He gets upset when I take him there half the time.

Andrew and I have been talking a lot about our future, and this year is going to be the start of all of it.  Everything is looking up.  With a stable job I can start planning doing things.  I don't have to worry about working things around a job.  I am very excited about what this means.  When things come together better, I will share more information.

For this year though, I get to make Christmas dinner.  We have lots of presents to share and I am happy to be able to have a nice schedule to enjoy Christmas.  I get to see lots of family. 

WOOO