Holy Hannah! It has been over a month since I posted, but not without great reason. Life has been happening people, lots and lots of life. I have been taking online courses to further my education at work. They aren't official classes in the sense I get credit for them, but what does that matter anyway if I learn and retain the knowledge? Does it only count if I have a piece of paper? Wouldn't it count more if I could actually use the knowledge at work and share it with others?
I am still running, or what I call running, despite a few muscle strains. I run when I tell myself I can't. I run when I want to and when I need to. I don't go more than 2 miles most of the time, but each time I run more of that 2 miles is running rather than walking which I find to be an accomplishment.
We have been having dog problems of the worst kind. Diarrhea in the house...repeatedly, which leads to anger which leads to the ugliest part of me pushing to the surface. It really has showed me how easy it is to lose my compassion in the face of samsara. I can hear myself yelling over things the dog cannot control. I feel myself have guilt, but still not shut my mouth. I had to go running the one day to think about things. Marshall was abandoned and then imprisoned and we saved him. It took him a long time to really trust that we were going to keep him. It took a long time to show the physical extent of his separation anxiety which in the beginning was howling and a bit of pacing. It is now full on loss of bodily functions. Part of me wanted to take the easy road and take him back to the pound. The other part of me understands what it is like to be abandoned and yelled at all the time for things you don't understand. All he knows is that we are his pack and he is lonely when we aren't here. I get that. I am lonely when my family isn't around either. So, we (more me) have come up with a plan: more activity, probiotics, and less vocalization one way or the other about good and bad. Bad attention is still attention as far as he is concerned. It has been a journey...a messy, stinky journey.
I have been filling my life with work and sewing and reading and crafts. It seems like there is not enough time in the day to squeeze all this life in. In addition to that I am still trying to be a great girlfriend and a great mom. I'm trying to not burn out at work, but feeling less successful at that then all the rest. I have been doing the same thing for the last 8 years with the only change being it is getting busier and more stressful. People are leaving and moving on. I just don't want to get bitter in my job. I love what I do, it is just overwhelming most of the time.
Which brings me to the topic of conversation....teenage daughter. I have to tell you that through all the years I have heard mothers bitch about teenagers and how horrible it is to parent them. I tried my best when I was a teenager to be good. I am sure I added a few gray hairs to my mother's head, but for the most part I was good. I worked, got good grades, didn't drink or do drugs, was involved in plays and choirs and sports, and I did volunteer work. I had a messy room, but I did chores and at one point was a caregiver to my infirmed mother at the age of 14 when no one else would help. In essence, I didn't have time to be a teenager. I went from kid to adult, but it suited me for the most part. I was always older and quieter in my heart.
I have spent all of Chloe's life trying to raise her with respect, honesty, kindness, and individuality. These were things not given to me as a child. I was given fear, authority, loneliness, and a be like everyone else attitude. I never had a voice or an opinion. Chloe is different from the other kids at school. She knows she is and in the beginning I thought she may have had a social disorder. She had all the signs on paper, but in the end it was a case of late blooming. She is turning into this wonderful young lady who is respectful, kind, smart, funny, and sometimes eager to move on to bigger and better things. Michael has been a great influence on the shaping of my little girl. He was and always will be the "cool kid" that I never was and has such a way of presenting the world that makes Chloe take notice. She looks up to him and I love that.
I love this time in her life where she is blooming and growing and discovering what it is she wants out of life when she leaves here. In history class, she has to pick current event topics and the things she chooses makes me proud...makes me know that she is listening when we have our dinner talks about what is going on in the world. Most of all I am happy that she loves talking to me and sharing her world with me honestly and openly. She gives me the opportunity to share my life experiences with her in a way that might influence how she makes decisions for her own future. I have always been brutally honest with her and in my heart I feel like she respects me for that.
In a time when so many of my friends are having horror stories to share about their teenagers, I feel lucky and blessed and so happy that I made the choices I did when she was younger. It is always a risk. You never know if how your captain the ship will end in stormy weather or not. I hope we stay the course and keep moving forward in positive ways. Life isn't perfect and she makes mistakes, but I always tell her that it is the mistakes we make that give us the best opportunity to learn if we have the courage to look at it that way. We are not perfect. That is such an unattainable idea, but we do have in us the ability to give the best we can do right now. Life is an ever changing journey. There is a rotation between ups and downs and we have to not get too lost in either of them so that we see the wonder there is in both.
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