Five whole days have blown by and left me in their wake, trying to catch up, clean up, and clear my head of everything those days have filled it up with. It began with my first session as the instructor for the bi-annual babysitter training offered to teens by my department. Well, actually it started with me opening the child care center at 6:45, then working straight through except for my hour lunch with my boys until 4:30, then spending the rest of the evening hosting our department end of the year celebration party. I got to bed that night around 11, utterly exhausted. Sunday brought the teaching of my last Sunday School class for the school year as we take a break in the summer since so many families are away at that time followed by pretty much catching up on sleep and relaxing the rest of the day. Monday began with work again, finishing up the 4 hours of the babysitting class I still had to finish with my 9 students, and it was followed by eating a late lunch since I hadn’t had much breakfast and was starving, and a quiet evening with a friend while the boys read in their room. Tuesday, it was back to work with everyone else, which for me included training our two new “college kid” summer hires and handling questions and gathering documents for our surprise inspectors from our installation military command office in the states. I’ve barely had a moment to breathe or go to the potty, much less keep up with my blog. J So, tonight, it was time to catch up, and this is a good thing since I leave for the states again in a few days. Although I am excited to go back for a break, I am not excited to leave my boys behind this time. Unfortunately, I will have to be away from them for over 6 weeks this time while I spend a couple of weeks planning for the wedding next summer and visiting family without them, and then they take off with their dad and step family for the states right when my fiancé and I are stepping foot back in the islands. The good thing for my writing is, I’ll have more time for it, but I can’t imagine it will be half as exciting without the occasional funny story about my boys or half as rich without the complexities of my personal character development gained through raising them and being with them day in and day out. My family and relationships with them are what makes my life worth living and my writing worth recording, in my opinion.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Friday, June 10, 2011
June 10, 2011- Less about me, more about you…
Tonight, after a day or so of thinking about myself and my worries, I found myself focusing my attention on others instead. I attended our end of the year education department party and then headed down to one of the local hang outs to see my best friend in support of her first night on the job as the sole bartender for the evening. At the first event, I was saddened as we said goodbye to two long term teachers who have been cut for next year due to our ever decreasing company and defense budget, and I felt grateful once again to have a job, a home, and relatively no bills to speak of as I live life on a tropical island free from so many of the every day worries of the world. Then, I headed down to my next stop and talked for a while with another mom, such as myself, about the challenges and concerns of raising children, no matter where you reside, and I laughed at funny stories about other’s lives, where they have been, and what they have experienced, and I realized that joy comes from so many places. You just have to be willing to fill your glass up with it.
In the end, giving your time, energy, and listening ears to others gives back to you tenfold. Giving of your dedication and hard work to making things better in your workplace or community provides you more peace than buying things for yourself. Concentrating less on yourself and more on others enriches our lives and gives us true purpose, so next time I feel down on myself, I’ll take the time to give whatever is needed to someone else and thus, improve not only my own life, but another human being’s life as well.
In the end, giving your time, energy, and listening ears to others gives back to you tenfold. Giving of your dedication and hard work to making things better in your workplace or community provides you more peace than buying things for yourself. Concentrating less on yourself and more on others enriches our lives and gives us true purpose, so next time I feel down on myself, I’ll take the time to give whatever is needed to someone else and thus, improve not only my own life, but another human being’s life as well.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
June 9, 2011- Imperfect Lives, Imperfect Wives
As I look forward to getting married to the love of my life next summer, I can’t help at times but worry about how I will do as a wife. If I am completely, unabashedly honest with you, my readers, I would have to say at this moment in my life, my greatest failure (in my eyes) is the fact that I was not able to raise my boys in one household their entire lives. I grew up from 12 on as a child of divorced parents, and it still pains me (years after my own divorce), that I failed my boys in this way. You read about it all the time (that divorce is never what’s best for the kids-duh, right!), but there are marriages you cannot live in happily and provide a healthy role model for your children, and for their dad and I, we simply weren’t meant to live as one, and we never really did. We had very separate lives and always will, except for our sons.
During my first marriage, I was a naïve, inexperienced, and imperfect wife and mother and I failed those I loved, including my two beautiful babies, and I have spent the last few years trying to make up for my failures with the boys. Unfortunately, I am still imperfect, and I live an imperfect life, so I don’t always handle every situation between their dad and me in regards to the care of the boys completely rationally or in a manner that is best for all involved or at least for my boys. I say things in frustration I shouldn’t say. I make decisions based on emotions and how I feel rather than what makes the most sense. I allow myself to become “the victim,” blaming my inability to deal with certain issues on him because that’s “easier” than having to confront the situation and resolve it, but the bottom line is, divorce has forever altered not just my reality, but my two incredible sons, my ex-husband’s new wife and child, and my fiancé’s life. And it makes me sad….I never wanted to be a part of the cause of such pain in anyone’s life, but I suppose that’s the way of an imperfect and sinful world and the imperfect and sinful humans who live in it.
I will always be saddened by the reality of the world my children now have to grow up in, going back and forth between their dad’s and mom’s house, adjusting to having two “moms,” and two “dads,” and their varying styles of discipline and expectations for the boys. I will most likely always be jealous of any time their “step mom” spends with them and overly critical of any discipline dished out to them by her or activities engaged in that I might not fully approve of while spending time with their dad and step mom. That’s my possessive mom bone sticking out. I am their mom, their only mom, and I want to be there for every moment of their lives, not just when it’s my time with them. I can never take back my failures in the past. I can never relive my rough days as a mom to them when they were young, and I was not at the most stable point in my life, but I can continue to reflect upon my abilities and decisions now and continue to grow as a dedicated and passionate role model for them in the future.
What I am most thankful for tonight, even as I grieve over the challenges my boys face living in two very different homes, is a second chance to be a good wife. I never would have believed there would be anyone willing to take me on again. I truly feel that I have never been loved by anyone as my fiancé loves me, except maybe by God. J And I have never loved anyone as I love him, except maybe for God. J I am so very grateful for this chance to learn from my past mistakes, to grow in my knowledge of what it takes to make marriage work for a lifetime as it is meant to be (currently, my cousin the minister, has asked us to work our way through 4 books on relationships, money, communication, meeting each other’s needs, etc…). I am grateful for the chance to love my fiancé in all the ways he deserves and needs to be loved. I am only sorry that I have come to him with such baggage already, and that will always be hard for me to accept. It’s not fair for him, and he has been so supportive through all my trials, but the good news for me is, he’s soon to be “stuck” with me forever, so I have plenty of time to be there for him through thick and thin as well and make up for all he’s been through for me and my boys. The world may be imperfect, and I am certainly imperfect, but I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, my upcoming marriage is ordained by God, and so that makes it as “perfect “ as it possibly can be in His eyes. Thank you, God, for forgiveness of our mistakes and for the blessing of second chances.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
June 8, 2011- Snippets in Time…
Today, I picked up my sons’ school yearbooks for the 2010-2011 school year. I spent about 30 minutes this evening just perusing the pages of the Preschool-12th grade “photo album,” which provides snapshots in time of a mere nine months of these kids’ lives. That’s what blogging or journaling is all about too, except using words instead of pictures, recording day to day or week by week moments in time, memories of how you felt, what you were thinking, and of all those fun, challenging, and inspiring events or quotes our family and friends share with us throughout life.
My current job allows me the opportunity to read and record life minute by minute, like when I review observations the teachers have written about 5 minutes or less of the life of a child in their care. I also record moments of the teachers every day jobs and try to draw conclusions about what they need to work on and/or what they are doing well from these brief snapshots of their day. I love reading about what the kids’ say during their imaginary play or something witty they reveal to their teachers as they complete a planned activity. I love recording my own children’s funny sayings or actions in this blog. I disagree though that you can really get a feel for an entire life or how well you perform your job from these small bits of information in yearbooks or gathered through occasional observations. Yearbooks show only the smiling faces of prom or students cutting up in the hallway for the yearbook photographers. Yearbooks don’t show what it feels like to be in high school, the challenges children and teenagers face as they move from sweet, naïve kindergarteners and precocious sixth graders to mature “ready to face to world and conquer it” graduating seniors. Don’t get me wrong, I love having the pictures of each year of my boys’ lives and my own, but I love even more having the words to go along with it. I love writing down the stories of these “snippets in time,” recording not only what was happening in life for those moments, but also what we felt, what we said, who we were. Hopefully, I’ll be able to look back and see the progression of myself and my family through these written musings, see the growth revealed in the words and experiences recorded, making these “snippets in time” more than something to look back on and critique as I am required to do at times through my work observations and turning them into words and memories to treasure and share with my children and their children for a long time to come.
My current job allows me the opportunity to read and record life minute by minute, like when I review observations the teachers have written about 5 minutes or less of the life of a child in their care. I also record moments of the teachers every day jobs and try to draw conclusions about what they need to work on and/or what they are doing well from these brief snapshots of their day. I love reading about what the kids’ say during their imaginary play or something witty they reveal to their teachers as they complete a planned activity. I love recording my own children’s funny sayings or actions in this blog. I disagree though that you can really get a feel for an entire life or how well you perform your job from these small bits of information in yearbooks or gathered through occasional observations. Yearbooks show only the smiling faces of prom or students cutting up in the hallway for the yearbook photographers. Yearbooks don’t show what it feels like to be in high school, the challenges children and teenagers face as they move from sweet, naïve kindergarteners and precocious sixth graders to mature “ready to face to world and conquer it” graduating seniors. Don’t get me wrong, I love having the pictures of each year of my boys’ lives and my own, but I love even more having the words to go along with it. I love writing down the stories of these “snippets in time,” recording not only what was happening in life for those moments, but also what we felt, what we said, who we were. Hopefully, I’ll be able to look back and see the progression of myself and my family through these written musings, see the growth revealed in the words and experiences recorded, making these “snippets in time” more than something to look back on and critique as I am required to do at times through my work observations and turning them into words and memories to treasure and share with my children and their children for a long time to come.
Monday, June 6, 2011
June 7, 2011- Making a comeback…
Okay, so yesterday, I spent almost the entire day with my nose stuffed in a book. I started it first thing in the morning after breakfast, took a break for lunch and cleaning up at the beach shack, then read again in the sun, and finally on the plane back to Kwaj and until bed time, which I knew would be when I finished my reading. I haven’t read a book in one day in a very long time. Mostly, I don’t have the opportunity to do so, but it’s also very rare that I find a book that holds my attention that strongly that I cannot put it down for a day or two until I have more time to focus on it. The book is called, “Sarah’s Key,” and it is a fictional story based around the historical event of the French “roundup” of Jewish families during WWII, whole families who were taken to a concentration camp briefly and at which time children were separated from their parents, then after a couple of weeks, all of them were taken to a death camp in Poland, with only those who actually escaped the camps surviving. I’ve read stories of WWII many times before, but this one took me totally into another world and touched me deeply as I read. It linked the world of a journalist in this decade to a one of the survivors of the roundup in 1942, and it made me want to write again.
I am not very good at writing fiction, but if I could write like the author I read all day yesterday, I would be doing so now. I do love to write, almost more than anything else in the world, but it is a tough business. I have never been able to find a way in for myself, but it does not lessen my desire to continue writing, even if it’s just for me. I don’t know for sure if my passion for writing has any true purpose or will ever be anything other than a “blog,” which is nothing more than my thoughts day in and day out, certainly not anything all that profound or interesting to most, but if I ever had the opportunity to effect some sort of positive change in the world or even in the personal life of a everyday woman, man, or child like myself, I would take it in a second, and it would be worth every word and every minute spent agonizing over those words to get them just right. Words are in my blood. Writing is my lifeline. I don’t know where I’d be without it, and reading a book like the one yesterday that can hold me attention all day right up until the end, inspires me to keep going, to keep doing what I love, even if it never amounts to anything more than it is now…just one blog out of a million. Thanks for reading…
I am not very good at writing fiction, but if I could write like the author I read all day yesterday, I would be doing so now. I do love to write, almost more than anything else in the world, but it is a tough business. I have never been able to find a way in for myself, but it does not lessen my desire to continue writing, even if it’s just for me. I don’t know for sure if my passion for writing has any true purpose or will ever be anything other than a “blog,” which is nothing more than my thoughts day in and day out, certainly not anything all that profound or interesting to most, but if I ever had the opportunity to effect some sort of positive change in the world or even in the personal life of a everyday woman, man, or child like myself, I would take it in a second, and it would be worth every word and every minute spent agonizing over those words to get them just right. Words are in my blood. Writing is my lifeline. I don’t know where I’d be without it, and reading a book like the one yesterday that can hold me attention all day right up until the end, inspires me to keep going, to keep doing what I love, even if it never amounts to anything more than it is now…just one blog out of a million. Thanks for reading…
June 4-6, 2011 My Roi Resort
I know I’ve said it before, but I love Roi. I am merely a “tourist” there, so because of that it has never lost its appeal to me in any way, shape, or form. Roi is my safe place, my haven of precious memories and experiences with my darling and my boys. Once we leave here, Roi-Namur will forever hold a very sacred spot in my heart and mind in a way that Kwajalein never will. It is not perfect, not by a long shot, but my times there are full of laughter, love, spiritual growth, healing, and plain ‘ole good memories to treasure for a lifetime. I believe my boys feel the same way, at least to a certain child like extent.
This weekend, as my baby and I went diving and relaxed at his beach shack, I realized that it was to me very similar to the place my mom recently sold in Gulf Shores, my home away from home. It is a place that is full of peace and positive experiences, my hiding place away from the troubles of my small world, but also a place of quiet, where my mind could reflect upon life’s challenges and decide how to attack them in productive ways. Away from the responsibilities of work, cleaning my home, washing and folding laundry, attending work or island events with the boys, I could escape into a book or write until my heart’s content, not having anything else to pull me away. There, I take the time I never take here, to feel the warm sun on my face, to dive into the depths of the sea, to warm my toes by a campfire, and to tell stories and family history with my sons. The jungles of Roi-Namur, the crumbling historic structures, the palm frond strewn cracking asphalt roads, the long stretches of beach, all of which are non existent on Kwaj, make Roi seem more like a true island paradise, away from the hustle and bustle of the “downtown” atoll where I reside during the week. I will never regret one moment spent there, one payment made to the company to house my boys and I there, one rough plane ride or one rainy weekend cooping us up inside because of the joy being there surrounded by peace and each other.
This weekend, as my baby and I went diving and relaxed at his beach shack, I realized that it was to me very similar to the place my mom recently sold in Gulf Shores, my home away from home. It is a place that is full of peace and positive experiences, my hiding place away from the troubles of my small world, but also a place of quiet, where my mind could reflect upon life’s challenges and decide how to attack them in productive ways. Away from the responsibilities of work, cleaning my home, washing and folding laundry, attending work or island events with the boys, I could escape into a book or write until my heart’s content, not having anything else to pull me away. There, I take the time I never take here, to feel the warm sun on my face, to dive into the depths of the sea, to warm my toes by a campfire, and to tell stories and family history with my sons. The jungles of Roi-Namur, the crumbling historic structures, the palm frond strewn cracking asphalt roads, the long stretches of beach, all of which are non existent on Kwaj, make Roi seem more like a true island paradise, away from the hustle and bustle of the “downtown” atoll where I reside during the week. I will never regret one moment spent there, one payment made to the company to house my boys and I there, one rough plane ride or one rainy weekend cooping us up inside because of the joy being there surrounded by peace and each other.
May 31-June 4, 2011- Another week closer…
The three-day weekend was nice, but it threw me off my schedule all week! I kept thinking I was a day ahead and then a day behind…I was so messed up! At any rate, because it was only a 4 day work week, it moved along rather quickly and here I am on the weekend once again and no blogs for the week! I must get back into it. I am starting to miss my daily reflection time, and I have been waking up with a sore jaw, which usually means I’m clenching my teeth in my sleep (as a result of some underlying stress I’m carrying around). I think getting back into my writing routine will help alleviate this a bit. I ‘m not sure what I’m stressed about, unless it’s just the upcoming summer, not having any finalized plans for the boys’ summer with their dad yet, heading out on my own short trip with my fiancé in an attempt to settle some of our wedding plans for next summer, and/or the general daily stress of work and never seeming to get quite enough sleep or exercise or proper nutrition as I would like to, etc…At least I can say I am now one week closer. One week closer to the end of another school year for my babies. One week closer to my wedding day and the joy of walking through life with my soul mate. One week closer to heaven. One week closer to new adventures off of the atoll. One week closer….to getting my writing life back on track and recognizing how important it is to reflect upon everything daily, so that I am not focused merely on the future and looking forward to it, but also enjoying the present and making memories to last forever.
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