Category Archives: Self awareness

Why We Believe

1. Today my 28-year-old daughter had to verbally take down two men on Facebook that were making harsh comments about sexual assault victims. One of the men was 65 years old.

2. Today I called my 30-year-old daughter because she was going to a concert alone tonight and I had to ask her how she was getting there and how she was getting home. Because women cannot plan an outing alone without worrying what will happen to them. I was relieved that her husband is dropping her off and picking her up and is understanding enough to know that having this experience alone was important to her.

This is what is wrong, this is beyond a mom having to worry about a child’s safety. This is about worrying about a woman you know and love being victimized.

On Twitter the other day Danielle Muscato posed a simple question –
“What would you do if all men had a 9pm curfew?”
The answers were honest and straightforward, the most frequent response and the saddest was – “I would take a walk by myself.” You see, women cannot take a walk by themselves in the evening and be completely relaxed.

Other women said, “I would walk to my car with my keys in my purse and look for them when I got to the car, instead of having them clutched between my fingers as weapons.”

On particularly poignant answer was “I would go to a club and not worry about someone slipping something in my drink when I went to the bathroom.”

All of this right here is why we believe the victims. We know, we know what it is like to worry about your safety every time you are alone, every time you have an opinion, every time you want to live freely.

Never Here, Never Again

I am in my fifties.  I have been out of high school for a long time, but I remember my history lessons.  In high school, college, in books, we learn about the lives of humans and how they lived in the past; the good and the bad.

The awful lessons of history always seem so long ago.  We often tell ourselves never again.  We often ask ourselves, “How could this happen?”.  The atrocities of the past were committed by horrible people, and we could not possibly be so unenlightened that it would happen again.

I will add to this by saying that we know that awful things happen today.  We have instantaneous news.  However, those dreadful things seem to happen far away.  Oppression, extremism, slavery, none of those exist in our clean and whitewashed world.  Right?

In a free and civilized world, slavery will never happen again.  The Holocaust, the Spanish Inquisition, Witches being burned, the Crusades, and the list goes on for as long as man has walked the earth.  We are far too evolved for this.  Right?

I never thought I would see it or say it, but it is happening, and it is happening where I live.  Liberals often say that Conservatives do not care unless it happens to them, I would say that could be said of just about every human.  You could argue with me, and probably come up with many examples, but I could probably counter with twice as many for my point.  I am just saying that I am watching something I never thought I would live to see; the dismantling of my country.

We are quickly rolling downhill and picking up hate and extremism, and distrust, and government oppression as we go.  All of those things from my history lessons, everything from far across the world, all of those horrors are now here.

I said to a very liberal friend the other day that idealism is a loser.  I do not want it to be, but it is.  It causes division and inaction.  If you do not believe and support everything that I do, then I do not want you to win.  If the real enemy wins, too bad, we deserve it because you did not think of everything for everyone.  It is paralyzing.  Our country is being lost to the opposite of idealism; it is being lost to extremists.  Extremists are people who will band together under one banner of hate and certainty that they are right.

I do not have the answer for the way out of this, but I believe that many more people will start to react and stand to oppose the extremism consuming our country.  Many of you will finally respond when it happens on your street, to someone who looks like you or worships like you.  Then, maybe then we will all pour into the streets.  But then, it will be too late.  There will be millions who have already been fighting with hate, and lies, and oppression.  Millions more that already won.

Lady General

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Today is the fourth anniversary of my mothers passing. I miss her every day. When going through some old files a few days ago, I came across this letter that I wrote for my mom for her retirement dinner, many years ago. It is not sophisticated, but it does share just a little of how I feel about her.
Lady General –
Thought a lot about what I was going to talk about tonight. It leads me to a nickname my mom has, that ties together experiences of those who have worked with her over the years and those that she raised, her family.
The nickname “General” was given to my mom. If you know my mom I do not even need to explain it to you, she is in control, running the show, leading the troops, anytime she is involved.
I joke with friends I have met over the years, especially those I have met since living away from home, those who do not know my mom. I joke that even in my forties and several hundred miles from home, she can command my attention and get me to do what she wants.
I titled this little story “Lady General” because for a while that was my mother’s AOL screen name, the one she would send me countless chain emails from, you know the kind that tells you if you do not read it and send it to 2500 of your closest friends that you will get hit by a bus tomorrow.
But I picked the title “Lady General” because despite being the General of the family, my mom was and is always a mom, always a lady. She has worked hard for a lot of years, raising four kids, while keeping all of you in line at Crozer. I said to her just yesterday, I still do not know how she raised us and worked, yet still had dinner on the table, and we all sat down and ate together, most nights. I have been a working mother for almost 20 years now, and gave up on trying to do this and just married a man who could cook and was home more than me.
Sometimes when I remember you being there, I remember you barking out orders and making sure everyone was doing what they were supposed to do (aka what you wanted them to do), that is where the general comes in. I always remember you being there, for events, for dinner, sometimes even when I didn’t want you to be there, for that, I will always see you as a Lady, a mother.
Thanks Mom.

Commitment

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Back at the fitness and weight loss thing again.  I have put on weight that I lost a few years ago.  This irritates me, but of course, I have no one to blame but myself.

I am finding it is not enough to know how to lose weight; you have to want to make the commitment.  Then, once you make it, you have to want to stick to it.  I shared the other day that I am now thinking about weight loss as I thought about giving up smoking.  I have to want to do, for the right reasons.

Beyond wanting to do something, I have to work on wanting to maintain it.  I have not smoked for five years; this does not mean that I do not ever want a cigarette.  I just work through the feeling when I do want to smoke, and it passes, until it comes again, then I do the same.  I repeated this time and time again for the past five years.  I have stayed smoke-free.

I am now in weight loss mode now.  Like before, when I lost 50-pounds, I know how to lose the weight.  If I eat right and exercise, the weight will come off, steadily.  The problem the last time is that unlike with smoking, I did not fight through my cravings every time they happened.  I slowly started giving in to them until they just became a habit again.  So, here I am all of the weight gained back.

I am in my second week; I started with Weight Watchers again.  The first week, I did not lose any weight, I simply started tracking and did not change anything.  This week, I have done better; I walked several days this week, and I ate better.  I do know that I am down at least a few pounds.

Here is the tricky part.  Unlike smoking, I cannot just stop eating cold turkey; I still have to eat, I just have to eat better.  There are ways to stop eating certain foods cold turkey.  Some say that this is a good way to diet, detox your body and all of that.  I am considering that just not there quite yet.

Let’s just say, so far, so good.  But taking it in steps.  Step one, lose the weight, step two keep it off by working through each desire to slide back to old habits.

I Have Been Here Before

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Five years ago yesterday I quit smoking; this was a significant life event for me.  I started smoking when I was seventeen; I was forty-eight when I quit.  I had stopped a few other times in my life but always went back to smoking within a year.  Hitting my five-year quit anniversary is exciting!  Quitting is not easy and maintaining it is hard work; it does get easier over time but is still difficult.

Right around the time I quit smoking I also started eating better and exercising; starting this healthier lifestyle, I lost nearly 50-pounds.  It is the first time in my life I lost that much weight without the assistance of weight loss medications or a frozen food plan program.  I simply changed my eating habits and started to exercise.  Like anyone who has been on this journey I was excited and convinced that this was it, I would never gain the weight back.  Looking back on my five-year quit smoking anniversary, I realize that I was very wrong.

I did lose a lot of weight, and I did it the correct way, using food and exercise.  I maintained the weight for maybe a year, and then it slowly started to creep up again.  I am now at the same weight I was before my first journey.  This is disheartening and hard to accept.  I mean I can take it because the scale tells me that I have to accept, but it makes me sad.  Today I was reflecting on being a non-smoker and how happy that makes me.  That is when it clicked, weight loss, like smoking cessation may not be a one-time journey.  I have to try again.  I have to look back on what I did right and where I failed and begin again.

Also, I have to be ready.  I was ready to quit smoking.  I was not just stopping because it was expensive, or because of my health.  I wanted to stop because it was annoying to me, it was getting in the way of what I wanted to do.  I wanted to stop smelling; I wanted to exercise more, I wanted to feel better, I wanted to have more time in my day, and so many other things.

Now, I am ready to lose weight.  Just because I failed once, it does not mean that I will fail this time.  If I do fail this time, it does not mean that I will fail the next.  We have to continue to try; we have to find THAT time, the time that is right for us.   I believe that this time exists and that this is the time for me.

Back to School Part 2

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Going to school now actually is realizing a dream for me, going for something that will allow me to change careers and reach my goals.

I mentioned in my post the other day that looking for a school to attend that is 100% online is not for the faint of heart, it is a jungle out there and you need to bring some equipment on your journey.  More on that in my next post, for now, I will just tell you that I have decided to seek my degree by attending Tiffin University.  Tiffin University is in Ohio; they are a private school that has been around since the late 1800s.  So far Tiffin has been attentive and helpful without acting like telemarketers on the last day of the month that are trying to reach their goal (no offense to folks in that line of work, I have done it).

My daughter received her graduate degree from Tiffin University, and she had a good experience and now has a degree from a reputable school.  My daughter was my best reference, and not that I do not trust her, but I did do some of my own research, more on that at a later date.  Like a suspense novel right?

I am seeking a degree in Healthcare Administration; this may not seem terribly exciting to some, but it is for me as it allows me to make a career change and meet my long-term goals.   In about five years or so I want to move back to the east coast, near a beach.  The area I am considering does not have a lot of large business, which is necessary for my current career.  However, this area does have a large health care presence.  With twenty years of management and my newly earned degree, I am hoping to be able to make this move and earn a good living.  Bonus, I will be living near the beach and not need to move when I retire.  Great plan right?

 

Back to School

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In my ever changing quest to find myself, I have decided to go back to school.  Well, decided, enrolled, and start class tomorrow.  I am going 100% online, so technically I have already begun my work because they load it ahead of time.

The decision to go back to school was not a hard one, deciding what I wanted to do, and where to get my degree, that was the hard part.  Searching for an online university is not for the faint of heart, you have to have a keen sense of bullshit, and a willingness to say no thank you.  Being a Baby Boomer, I am very skeptical about getting an online degree, but with my job and obligations, this is my only choice if I am going to do this.  When I first started looking, I was naive and ended up having to talk to a lot of people, some less scrupulous than others.

For those who do not know if you go out to the great big world of the internet and search what you are looking to do, not every site has the best intentions.  I found a site that seemed good and the site wanted me to tell it what I was looking to study, how I wanted to study, etc.  I filled this out, and mistakenly gave my contact information I am not exaggerating when I say more than seven schools called me within 10 minutes.  Most of these schools were what many like to call diploma mills; others were reputable.  All were too fast, and it was overwhelming.

I took a step back and decided to search without giving anyone any information until I was ready to apply.  After more than a month of weeding out many, it came down to two different colleges.  Both not for profit and both had physical locations that have existed for almost 100 years.  I finally narrowed down my major and made my choice.

Because I do not have enough school work to do (this is a lie) I will come back and tell you all where I am going and what I decided to study and why.  For now, though, class starts tomorrow, and I have about 32,076 hours of school work to do before next Sunday.