Thursday, January 13, 2011
Thursday, January 6, 2011
2011: Here we come
Last year my first journal entry of the new year went like this: "Happy New Year! Today is no only the first day in a new year, but the first this decade. I can officially say I am ready to move on and see what the future holds. After months of drama it seems like life may be able to move on and be on my own terms. I am making commitments to myself that are exciting. As for New Year's Resolutions here are mine:
1. Make Logan and Ben my top priority
2. Spend my money wisely.
3. Work as hard as I can"
On January 1st of last year, I took my wedding ring off. I would like to say this was done with some ceremony, but it was done more as a I am not going to wear you gesture...and I just never wore it again. Even though at that point Micheal and I had been separated over a month, I still felt the need to wear my ring. By taking it off it was like I was saying, "I am finally in control." Now what was I going to do with it? 2010 was not the year I had planned from that first journal entry. But it was a year that I feel like I can look back on and say, "I was happy in some parts, I laughed a lot, I cried a lot, and most importantly...I found me. Someone I needed to be reintroduced to desperately." I am hoping that 2011 will continue my progress in that direction...I know only time will tell.
1. Make Logan and Ben my top priority
2. Spend my money wisely.
3. Work as hard as I can"
On January 1st of last year, I took my wedding ring off. I would like to say this was done with some ceremony, but it was done more as a I am not going to wear you gesture...and I just never wore it again. Even though at that point Micheal and I had been separated over a month, I still felt the need to wear my ring. By taking it off it was like I was saying, "I am finally in control." Now what was I going to do with it? 2010 was not the year I had planned from that first journal entry. But it was a year that I feel like I can look back on and say, "I was happy in some parts, I laughed a lot, I cried a lot, and most importantly...I found me. Someone I needed to be reintroduced to desperately." I am hoping that 2011 will continue my progress in that direction...I know only time will tell.
First Meltdown in the New Year
This morning was when I had planned on releasing my bubbly year in review for 2010 and my hopes and dreams for 2011, but instead I sit here at my computer this morning filled with frustration and tears. I hate Autism or PDD-NOS or whatever label you want to use today. There, I said it. I hate it. It turns my son into the worse version of himself. I don't understand how his body and mind can be fine one day and the next so completely betray him to the point that he can't even manage the simple task for putting a boot on his foot or he stars at the sink in his bathroom like it is a foreign object, because to his mind it is. I want to scream at him and say, "I want my son back! Go away you stupid disorder. Stop making him this way. Bring back my Logan. You can't have him." But I know that screaming only makes the sensory side stand up and get more frustrated and the eye contact which was great yesterday, recede even more. I feel powerless. I am powerless.
How can I be strong when there is no strength to rely on? How do you schedule meltdowns? You can't. In the five years since Logan was diagnosed that has become more and more clear. I guess I should be happy that my bad days are fewer and farther between then my good days, but I just want to scream and cry and curse this horrible disorder. It isn't fair to anyone. After an hour of frustration, he made it to school today fully dressed in his quiet way he gets after one of his meltdowns. I have to say a million times, "I love you Logan." He finally nods and saunters out of my car. So for today I will try to change back into the best version of myself...but for right now...I'm just the mom that cracked...and got frustrated...and cried a little. I'll try to do better tomorrow.
How can I be strong when there is no strength to rely on? How do you schedule meltdowns? You can't. In the five years since Logan was diagnosed that has become more and more clear. I guess I should be happy that my bad days are fewer and farther between then my good days, but I just want to scream and cry and curse this horrible disorder. It isn't fair to anyone. After an hour of frustration, he made it to school today fully dressed in his quiet way he gets after one of his meltdowns. I have to say a million times, "I love you Logan." He finally nods and saunters out of my car. So for today I will try to change back into the best version of myself...but for right now...I'm just the mom that cracked...and got frustrated...and cried a little. I'll try to do better tomorrow.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Interesting Question in the New Year
Is it possible to quit being a Christian, but still believe in Christ? I think this is a very interesting question to pose...and I am sorry if I am opening a can of worms with it, but I am as desperate to know the answer to the question as the next guy on the street.
Earlier this year, Vampire Writer Anne Rice announced that she was done with Christianity. On her facebook page, she said: "I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being 'Christian' or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to 'belong' to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen."
Rice has been outspoken about her faith in the past. In 1998 she had returned to Catholicism saying she wanted to glorify God in her writing and she stopped writing her vampire novels. I can relate to Rice's predicament, sometimes churches can be a hotbeds of intolerance and cruel condemnation. Unfortunately, these condemning Christians can outweigh the good ones.
Rice is quick to point out that she isn't abandoning religion, just that her commitment to God is as firm as ever. "I want to keep that commitment front and center in my life. But I have to walk away from the churches. The anger and frustration becomes so toxic that you have to conclude this is coming between me and God, and I can't let that happen. I can't follow his followers." Rice says.
So here you go, I agree with this. My anger and frustrations over Christians and their views of how I was living my life cannot and will not interfere with my relationship with God. And that is what it comes down to. I don't want to be part of a world that assumes they know what is going on without any facts to back it up....How does one know the story just by looking at a picture? I am a strong independent woman that loves my children and does everything I can to provide for them. Unless you walk in my shoes, how can you make judgement in the name of God against me...God loves me, why is it so hard for you? Just because I am open to new ideas and like to investigate things, doesn't mean that I don't believe in what the bible says. If educations means not believing in God, then I would hate to believe that God wants us to be ignorant. I have no place for ignorant people in my world.
This is reminiscent of what Mahatma Gandhi once said: "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." Or, in the words of another famous Christian, U2 frontman Bono, who said: "Religion can be the enemy of God. It's often what happens when God, like Elvis, has left the building. A list of instructions where there was once conviction; dogma where once people just did it; a congregation led by a man where once they were led by the Holy Spirit."
Earlier this year, Vampire Writer Anne Rice announced that she was done with Christianity. On her facebook page, she said: "I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being 'Christian' or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to 'belong' to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen."
Rice has been outspoken about her faith in the past. In 1998 she had returned to Catholicism saying she wanted to glorify God in her writing and she stopped writing her vampire novels. I can relate to Rice's predicament, sometimes churches can be a hotbeds of intolerance and cruel condemnation. Unfortunately, these condemning Christians can outweigh the good ones.
Rice is quick to point out that she isn't abandoning religion, just that her commitment to God is as firm as ever. "I want to keep that commitment front and center in my life. But I have to walk away from the churches. The anger and frustration becomes so toxic that you have to conclude this is coming between me and God, and I can't let that happen. I can't follow his followers." Rice says.
So here you go, I agree with this. My anger and frustrations over Christians and their views of how I was living my life cannot and will not interfere with my relationship with God. And that is what it comes down to. I don't want to be part of a world that assumes they know what is going on without any facts to back it up....How does one know the story just by looking at a picture? I am a strong independent woman that loves my children and does everything I can to provide for them. Unless you walk in my shoes, how can you make judgement in the name of God against me...God loves me, why is it so hard for you? Just because I am open to new ideas and like to investigate things, doesn't mean that I don't believe in what the bible says. If educations means not believing in God, then I would hate to believe that God wants us to be ignorant. I have no place for ignorant people in my world.
This is reminiscent of what Mahatma Gandhi once said: "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." Or, in the words of another famous Christian, U2 frontman Bono, who said: "Religion can be the enemy of God. It's often what happens when God, like Elvis, has left the building. A list of instructions where there was once conviction; dogma where once people just did it; a congregation led by a man where once they were led by the Holy Spirit."
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
My Life in C.H.A.O.S
Wow, it seems like 2010 has just begun and we are already starting 2011. This fast pace lifestyle that has been ushered in only means ones thing in my house: Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome or Chaos. I want to take a moment to examine a certain injustice that is taking place in households across the country. It involves one much hated word…housework. It is very important that I explain something here. I have a four bedroom/ 2 living area house that is home to 1 adults, 2 children, two dogs, and one turtle. There is always an ongoing battle to defeat the ever present dust bunny, monster pile of laundry, and the waste land that is known as the playroom. A very wise man once said, “Housework is what a woman does that nobody notices unless she hasn't done it.” To that comment I say, “Preach on brother.” Another comment comes to mind. If a woman cleans a house and nobody sees it, was it really ever clean? This predicament is a conflict of how do I be a good mother, wife, friend, newspaper editor, marketing director, clubwoman, and all around person in this state of CHAOS?
When I have the answer to that question I will be sure to let you know. I know one thing for sure, getting out of CHAOS doesn’t happen overnight, it takes baby steps, and it also takes the realization that being all the above named things is WAY more important than my house looking like Martha Stewart lives there. I can tell you that this is something that my little organized heart has to take a deep breath over daily.
A very good friend of mine in San Angelo was known for her scatterbrained ways, and most of all the disarray of her home, partially because she had five children all under the age of six. She was an integral part of a ministry I was involved in and she actually wrote a column one time titled, “A friend loveth at all times, except when her house isn’t clean.” She struggled constantly with the idea that she didn’t feel like she could have people over to her home because of the chaos that was always found there. Her dust bunnies weren’t just bunnies, they were things that ate bunnies for breakfast, think full-blown dust wolves.
Her approach to the situation was to take each day as it came and find other ways to minister to people than have them at her home. She didn’t stress over the state of her home, and she was still able to be a good leader.
Now you would think that God in his infinite wisdom would have thought about things like cleaning, but I guess it doesn’t say in the Bible that on the third day God created dirt or the vacuum cleaner. After giving this much thought and contemplation, I figured that the only solution was to move to a completely sterile environment, like one of those white rooms that you see on futuristic movies. There would be no dirt and maybe we could all wear disposable clothing that we could just throw away after we wear them….one can only dream. But until I find that great clean home with no dirt and no chores like laundry, dishes, or horror-of-all-horrors toilet bowls to clean, I will be content to blare my favorite Sheryl Crow CD, pull back my hair and go bunny hunting. Don’t call me a housewife, I prefer Domestic Goddess.
When I have the answer to that question I will be sure to let you know. I know one thing for sure, getting out of CHAOS doesn’t happen overnight, it takes baby steps, and it also takes the realization that being all the above named things is WAY more important than my house looking like Martha Stewart lives there. I can tell you that this is something that my little organized heart has to take a deep breath over daily.
A very good friend of mine in San Angelo was known for her scatterbrained ways, and most of all the disarray of her home, partially because she had five children all under the age of six. She was an integral part of a ministry I was involved in and she actually wrote a column one time titled, “A friend loveth at all times, except when her house isn’t clean.” She struggled constantly with the idea that she didn’t feel like she could have people over to her home because of the chaos that was always found there. Her dust bunnies weren’t just bunnies, they were things that ate bunnies for breakfast, think full-blown dust wolves.
Her approach to the situation was to take each day as it came and find other ways to minister to people than have them at her home. She didn’t stress over the state of her home, and she was still able to be a good leader.
Now you would think that God in his infinite wisdom would have thought about things like cleaning, but I guess it doesn’t say in the Bible that on the third day God created dirt or the vacuum cleaner. After giving this much thought and contemplation, I figured that the only solution was to move to a completely sterile environment, like one of those white rooms that you see on futuristic movies. There would be no dirt and maybe we could all wear disposable clothing that we could just throw away after we wear them….one can only dream. But until I find that great clean home with no dirt and no chores like laundry, dishes, or horror-of-all-horrors toilet bowls to clean, I will be content to blare my favorite Sheryl Crow CD, pull back my hair and go bunny hunting. Don’t call me a housewife, I prefer Domestic Goddess.
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