It's been awhile, since I've blogged.  I felt a nagging urge, a little persistent push from Kevin, my husband.  A lot has happened in the last couple of years.  Anna, my daughter, now 22 and in her 4th year of college.
The 2 year anniversary of losing my stepdad, Keith is here.  So many milestones. 
For Christmas this year we gave Anna a fireproof safe.  Inside that safe were many things.  Things that declared her, as Anna.  Birth certificate, adoption papers, passport, etc.  We also included the 4 journals that Keith had written over the years to her.  They were still wrapped in the same baggies he had kept them in all these years.  This safe represented to me, giving Anna herself.  Now she is officially her own person, responsible for her own things.  Adulting, as she calls it.
I'm so proud of the woman she's become.  We are all proud of her.


I read the journals before I gave them to her, in order.  So many of them such cool Anna-isms.  Moments Keith captured on a simple piece of paper.  All dated....all specific and they all end in we love you.  Before I started, I was curious to see what the last entry read before Keith passed.  It's interesting that it was almost like he knew.  It reads:


07-15-13
"I wish I could be inside that little Bastian (look it up) called Anna.  You are just chugging on through life.  No matter what happens, you're still Anna.  Experiencing sights and sounds that assault your senses (good and bad).  All can do is stand to the side and say "Have a good journey."

Family

Growing up I thought everyone had 8 Aunts and Uncles, 12 cousins and a collage of laughter and fun that never ended.
As I grew up, I realized how different and very special I am to have had all these wonderful people around me.
My Grandma has just turned 80, she still works, she still plays, she still likes you to pop-in at her house and won't hesitate to ask you to help her do something she cannot do.  Every lunch and supper has a dessert attached.  And if she knows your favorite, that's what you're having.  She married young, had 9 kids.  Unfortunately, my Grandpa was in a car accident and died before I was born.  She remarried later and my new Grandpa already had 3 kids.  That is one big family.


Growing up, my generation was born in 2's.  My cousin and I are 3 months apart.  His sister and my brother the same.  Then 2 more, then another, then one after another after another after another.
Most of my aunts and uncles, got divorced and remarried, brought in more kids or had more kids.
I have a LOT of cousins.  This was normal to me until I became an adult and talked to friends about their family gatherings.  They had 1 or 2 cousins.  One aunt, maybe an uncle.  WHOA!!  That's just nuts!  When people meet my family you are greeted with hugs and love and welcomed.  We know we aren't perfect, but we are there for each other.  The uncles are all tight and the aunts are all tight.  They go on weekend trips together for golfing or quilting or whatever suits their fancy.
As I approach an age they were when the divorces started happening and the cousins went off to college and got married, moved away had kids.  We have what we call "Cousin parties"  Now these are just for the cousins.  Not our parents.  We do these at least once a year and get a photo of everyone that can join us as we get older.  This is just our generation, not our kids.  Our kids even have to stay away with our parents.  It's an adult thing. 
I know that our parents did this when we were younger, they had their parties, brother and sister parties, just like our cousin parties.  As cousins, we wonder if they have as much fun.  We imagine so.  As my cousin Lucky and I are the oldest, we make sure to get ourselves together often.
I cannot put into words the comraderie of our Christmases where we actually rent a facility to hold our gathering, and how others would walk in and see this as normal to us.
I cannot imagine growing up only having one cousin. 
My fondest memory growing up was how all of us would play under the giant dining room table while all our parents played cards, for hours and hours.
The family photos on Grandmas front porch swing.  My Grandmas famous lasagna.  The way my Grandma laughs.
It's so very true how the saying goes, your cousins are truly your first and very best friends.
So to all my cousins out there in Florida, Texas, Northern and Southern Indiana, Kentucky, I love each of you and I'm so grateful that we are as close as we are.
Stay real.

Choices vs. consequences--Part 2

There is again...
Choices vs. Consequences.
This targets our children mostly.  Something that I have pounded into Anna's brain more than any other message is that...
"To make good choices."
EVERY choice has a consequence, whether that will effect you or another person, is something you have to think about how that choice comes to fruition.


Here's a good story that proves choices vs. consequences:
We started Anna with a prepaid cell, 6th grade maybe.  For emergencies only.  To call family, in case of emergency.  With this phone came one rule.  I get to see the phone anytime I want.  Year and a half later, another phone upgrade, not a great phone, but she can call her friends, still prepaid, have to be on the same network.  Same rule applies, I ask for the phone, you hand it over.  No foul language, etc.
Freshman year...nice phone, unlimited text, NO DATA, but yes, we are now at texting level.  See she knew from the beginning what the rules were, so we went over it again, but now I gave her the consequence of a bad choice.  I ask for the phone and you hand it over. If I read something I disagree with, I will literally smash the phone with a hammer and she will not get another.   I read whenever I want, I call whoever I want.  My phone, I'm paying the bill.  Never had any problems.  One evening she walked by me texting and I said, gimme.  She handed it right over, as if nothing...WOW.  Bad words, very bad words, lots of them.  The last person she had talked to I told them that her mother had her phone and that Anna would not have a cell phone indefinitely.  The consequence was I walked outside to the garage with that phone and got a hammer.  Flattened that phone.  The more I hit it the more upset I got, because I wanted it to become little pieces.  Cell phones don't do that....they just flatten out.  Finally, my Kevin made me stop (yes, he was laughing).
I took the phone in the house, put it in a ziplock bag and threw it at her and said, "now try to text that language."


When summer came around she asked when she was getting a phone...we did not have a landline anymore.  Why, I asked?  "I'd like to talk to my friends."  So, I got a pad of paper, some envelopes, and stamps and said here ya go.


It was over a year before she got another phone, but I'm pretty sure I made a point.  I still pay her bill, but she is in college and there are more strings that have to be cut from my heart daily.  At 20, she deserves her privacy.  I just hope she remembers to make the right choices.

Depression, what a stigma, right?

"I felt two things immediately when I got the news last night: first that the light had dimmed and, on its heels, a sense that this was inevitable; that Robin had lived for a long time with a darkness at the periphery of his vision.  What must it have been like to be present when he improvised the genie in "Aladdin" or Lovelace in "Happy Feet?" His Texan, his gay stylist, his Soviet comedian, Mrs. Doubtfire…He was a one-man menagerie.  Perhaps, just as we were swept away, so was he.

I remember the small, uncontrollable chuckle that often accompanied his flights of fancy; as if he were as amazed as we were by what was happening to him.

Who can pretend to understand a gift like Robin Williams's? Meteoric, volcanic, fast and furious…Perhaps there is a price for such brilliance.

I'm so sad he's gone and so grateful he left us so much." ~ James Taylor

So, There you have it.  That stigma, that will probably remain with Robin Williams forever, instead of the amazing, hilarious, actor he was.  How many of you remember Mork and Mindy?  Mrs. Doubtfire?  Aladdin, my favorite role EVER!!  He WAS the genie.  Yet inside his mind things weren’t quite right, I would venture to guess that in his constant light it would’ve been too serious for him to be real about it and seek help.

More often than not people tell you that depression is stupid, or not real, or just an excuse.  They tell you that you have everything, that they love you.  But you know these things.  And you know truly that suicide is not good..it's very selfish.  A lot of people with depression walk around with this darkness hiding inside them.  You won't know who they are.  It's probably someone you know very well.  But they won't tell you.  The ones with the worst depression, fake the best.  I'm not talking about seasonal depression.  I'm talking chemical depression.

4 years ago I was diagnosed with chemical depression and severe anxiety.  I went to my doctor and just admitted it.  My doctor left the practice and referred me to a new doc.  This one said I had to be tested by a psychologist (yay?).  I did it, therefore, diagnosis: Severe depression with anxiety.  At this point I wanted out of my marriage,  I had thought about dying every waking moment.  I was done.  My psychologist continued to see me and my general practitioner gave me different meds to try.  After many different medications and several months of therapy, my therapist said, I think we are good, Are you good?  I wanted to hit him, no I wasn't done.  Made another appointment.  Kevin did what most husbands would never do.  He researched it.  I had every symptom.  The whole time and he never knew it.  It blew him away.  Now how to help?  That was much harder.  He went to the Internet, blogs, etc.  realizing he was doing the opposite of what was supposed to be done.  Then he changed.  Life changed.  Marraige and our family changed.

This was my life, get up, go to work, perfect employee, happy, clean, dressed, groomed, a good dependable functional employee, like  nothing was different.  I went home, went to my room slept until dinner, got up, ate with Kevin and Anna and went back to bed.   Every day for 6 months.  One day Anna was crying and Kevin walked upstairs to wake me up and ask if I knew that she was crying and I told him yes, he asked if I cared.  I said no.  There's the straw.

On a Wednesday at work one day, I had a "trigger" as they call it in the anxiety world, and started crying to the point of unable to stop.  I called Kevin, who at this point had read every book, taken over the household and made sure I was taking my meds.  Who was even counting them to make sure that 1. I was taking them and 2. I wasn't trying to over dose.  He blogged with other husbands, talked to many people he didn't know.  The only hope he had was that I got out of bed to go to work and I was taking my medicine.  When I called him, he said, call the doctor.  So I called the doctor to ask for something different for my anxiety, they asked if I was thinking of hurting myself, this time I was honest.  I was told to go to the ER immediately, do I need an ambulance?  Can I drive myself there?  I was in the ladies room flipping out.  This WAS NOT what I wanted.  Kevin was an hour away and couldn't meet me at the hospital.  He called my mom (needless to say this was the ONLY time, I didn't really want my mom. I only wanted Kevin).  My co-worker, whos also one of my dearest friends asked if I needed a ride and if I'd be ok.  Made me promise to text her when I got there.  I knew what was going to happen.  
I spent 4 weeks in outpatient rehab.  It doesn't go away, and the medications do stop working after awhile, and life sometimes makes it more situational.  But as long as one with depression wants to get better they will.  With the right medications, doctor and supportive family. 


Right now is not my best time of my life, but I have, the right doctor, new medications, and a supportive family.  But most importantly, I do want to get better.  Some days I let the depression win, but most days I fight as hard as I can. 

The real deal.....

Are you the real deal?  

By this I mean, Are you real?

There's been a lot of, what my pastor likes to call "crappies" lately.  As opposed to "happies".  These crappies are mostly happening to my almost 21 year old daughter, however, I can remember not so long ago when these things were happening to me.  If you have followed my blogs you know that Anna's Granpa has died.  They were tight.  The day before the funeral our house sale fell through.  All the while we are trying to figure out whether or not to proceed to move in with family as planned or stay in the house.  Losing a month of pay myself and knowing that I'd left a well paid job for a less stressful one, left us to believe that proceeding with moving in with family was the way to go.  At least showing it was easier.  Thinking Anna would be better after she went to school, we tried to keep her busy.  It was a long break for her.  She couldn't wait to leave.  This semester has thrown some major curve balls at her.  Another class to juggle, boyfriend, grief, etc.  

So before I go any further, are you the real deal?

Anna and I are a lot alike, you ask, we give.  I'd like to think we are the real deal.  We would go to your family's funeral and hold your hand.  We would let you cry for hours then eat pints of ice cream with you.  We would call you and say, what can I do?  And if we didn't know, as some people don't have the ability to be empathetic, we definitely would admit to our short comings and try to put ourselves in your shoes.  At least try to try to care, instead of running away from what is hard to deal with.  We bring you lunch, chocolate, neat things that make us think of you.  We give you things of our own because, why not, you love it more than we do.

So, are you the real deal?

Did you hold her hand at the funeral?

Did you listen to what your buddies said about another's marriage rather than keeping to yourself, or did you judge?

Did you eat a pint of ice cream with Anna while she cried?

Were you supportive?  Send a card, maybe some flowers?  Or even acknowledge ones existence.

This is definitely a very huge valley we are going through as a family.  All for different reasons.  My husbands friends no longer call him because he works new hours, he got a promotion today,  after one year.  These friends probably don't even know the name of where he works.  They think they knew about our troubles, but they were ours.  In our walls, in our home.  They dislike me, such a shame.  Like Anna I'd give you the shirt off my back.

Anna's boyfriend cheated on her, his reason, she was mean to him after Christmas break.  So lame.

I looked at her today and said that she had a lot of grown up decisions to make.  She agreed and said I know and I can't stop crying.  Keep praying Anna.  We will make it.  It's a valley of many we will go through and God is walking right beside us the whole way.  When we get to the end, He will still be there.  Never depend on people, they will always let you down, God will not.

I ask again, Are YOU THE REAL DEAL?

A New Decade

As I approach the age of 40, a lot of things come to my mind.  At 19 I had my daughter.  I went from high school to being a mom.  My daughter is now in college.  A few months ago, I changed my career/job drastically.  I went from healthcare for a period of 13 years to a simple tax secretary at a locally owned family tax preparation office.  Most days I find my self wandering around in my head where I'm supposed to be at this point in my life.  Aren't most people still raising young children?  Or in the middle of this amazing career that they spent years studying for and climbing up the corporate ladder?
Recently, losing my stepfather at the young age of 61 I wonder, what have I done with myself or for myself that shows my identity.  In high school I was (insert name here)'s boyfriend.  After that I was Anna's mom, then ..............................................blank...I am April?  Who's April?
Well, this is what I have so far:
My bucket list consists of 2 items, own a Harley, and open my own business.
What I REALLY have is faith in God.  An amazing husband, a beautiful daughter and a mother that has walked right beside every step of my life.  Even the ugly ones.
I suppose this is 'my' decade, goodness knows I wouldn't want to relive any other one.  I get one shot right?  That's the most troubling part, how do I start?  Where do I go?  What do I do?  How do I get to know myself?  And is it really and truly relevant that I know who I am, if I am to live a Godly life?  And give myself fully to Him?


On another note, I have to admit I'm slightly jealous that my first best friend/cousin is only a couple months older than me and has found himself.  He knows exactly who he is.  He has a confidence that exudes from just the way he interacts with others.  He's an amazing man.  We are approaching this milestone together, yet worlds apart.  I can only hope to find a world of my own soon.  But until then, Michael, I love you so much my heart squooshes.  I miss you and I'm so happy that I get to follow your love of who you are and embrace all of your tenderness, kindness, hospitality and even accept your own faults.  I learn more and more from you every day.  You will always be my very bestest friend.  I just am super lucky that we share the same blood.

Tuesdays.....

Never was a fan of Tuesdays.  People always asked me why....well...
Monday---its a great opportunity to have a new week, a better week, a better weekend, think of it like a new years day?  right?
Wed--You are half way there, to the weekend.  Hopefully the better week has happened.  Maybe you have something to look forward to on Wednesdays'....a club, bible study, visit with family. 
Thurs--well, we all know that Thursday is the day that big things happen.  you have to end the week with a big mark.  So you push yourself, knowing that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, you did nothing to change a life, change your life, or make a difference.  Thursday is your chance.
Friday....IT'S FRIDAY!!!  which is great if you are a Mon-Fri worker, but all the action is on Friday and Saturday, Friends, Family, Church, naps, extra time.


What's Tuesday?  Just an extra 24 hours stuck in the front of the week, that you should have used to do something productive, but did you?  NOPE!!


Keith died on a Tuesday.  I will probably never be productive in the sense that 'productive' means, but I will always grieve his loss more on a Tuesday.