...just so I can breathe

The last few days have been such a total train-wreck of my emotions.  My thoughts and feelings have been all over the place, all inward, all selfish, all negative.  I still haven't figured out whether I'm coming or going.  I have pinpointed a lot of things that push me down into this deep darkness of inner turmoil and inflicted pain.  Most days I don't know if I should give up and give in or get up and get out.  I am tired of always meeting my breaking point in a head-on collision with what always follows next.  I get tired of having to clinch my hands together to keep from doing the one thing I wish I could stop doing.  It's so hard to walk away from it when I know I need to do it just one more time, just so I can breathe again.  A loss of control drives me to regain my sense of self, a sense of feeling and a sense of aliveness, a sense of the reality that causes the pain from the start.  Yes it hurts.  Yes I still do it anyway.  It's the one pain that I can control.  It's a release... just so I can breathe again.

#twloha

Zero days without incident

I've been ready for this day to be over for a week.  This day is a stupid damn reminder "hey guess what, your mom, yea, she's still gone."  Gee thanks brain.

After a rushed morning with two children who think I speak a foreign language decided that today would the absolute best day to ignore every word I said, my nerves were shot by evening.  Because really!   After a long day, this evenings smack talk was more than I could bear.  I just wanted to pop him in mouth, I wanted him to hurt the same way he had hurt me.   But I didn't touch him.  I needed to regain my sense of control and my sense of feeling something other than anger.  So I did.

I am far from being freed.  The urge hits so hard... then something has to be done.

#twloha

Without My Mom

It's my 2nd year spending a motherless Mothers Day,  

I may be motherless here in this physical earthly world

 but I have a MOM.

She resides in a realm unseen.

Although I can't go there to see her,

She visits me in my dreams.

In my dreams she is healthy.

She is forever young.

A place where she smiles without a care in the world.

One day your world will change too and everything you know will cease to exist the exact way it had before. I'm here to tell you that it truly sucks.  For those who understand exactly where I come from, I extend my condolences and heartfelt sympathy to you.  To those who don't understand my experience with losing a mom, I pray you never have this kind of life change at such a young age.  I don't like this day anymore.  I don't feel like celebrating.  To some that my sound childish, since I too am a mom and I am "robbing" my children of celebrating "me".  That's not the point.  The point here is that I am just not ready, maybe I'm selfish.  All these stupid moms day cards and greetings and flowers and other crap are just little daggers that pierce every tender piece of my heart.  

So please, PLEASE don't tell me to "celebrate" this gloriously ignorant day until you understand how I feel.  Just let me alone and let me feel what I need to feel to cope with days like this.  If you only understood just how much things changed, you'd be heartbroken and have the same sense of abandonment as I do.  Don't get me wrong, I am so, so very grateful that her suffering has been relieved and her pain is gone and she is rejoicing with our Lord and our Savior.

but I'm still here.  without a mom.

#speakdifferent

We've all heard the saying - "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me."  Bullcrap.

If you're a victim of bullying - Speak up, speak out!  It won't ever end, but we can stop the chaos before the battle scars damage your delicate minds and wreck havoc on your thoughts for the rest of your days.  Words.  Letters arranged to mean something.  When those arranged letters are lobbed at you with malice and ill intent, those letters become daggers, piercing every piece of your soul.  Sowing negative seeds and causing you to develope new and destructive thought patterns, shutting down and blocking out all that you ever believed was good about yourself.  Here's the kicker, it only takes 1 small word to begin this downward decent into an out of control recess of your mind.  It sucks.  Example "fat".  See how much that sucks.

I wish people could fast forward 20 years and get a small glimpse of the effects of the words they use today at the expense of other people.  After that glimpse, we may just speak differently to the other people who are in the same game of life that you're in.

Passion.  No Bullying.  This is one area that I am extremely passionate about.  Like SERIOUSLY passionate about it.  I have a definite calling in this area.  I know that there will be doors opened for me on this path to helping others kids stand up and prevent bullying from happening in their schools, as well as in their lives.  Shoot, even adults are bullied.  Just ask me!   

I have been on the harsh receiving end of this all through school, my freshman year, oh my gosh, it was awful.  I was bullied terribly by a fellow classmate named Chris Cooper.  I wish I would have had the courage to stand up to him - I should have clocked him right in the mouth.  A real jerk and a poor excuse for a human being.  I was taunted daily for being "fat" and "ugly" and "poor", knocking my things off my desk on purpose and whatever other creative ways he could find to take a stab at a 14 year old girl who was scared shitless to stand up for herself.  9th grade was brutal.  Finally I moved away from East Houston on over to Baytown.  I hate to think of the horror that would have kept coming at me for the next 3 years of school.  Ugh.  Disgusting time of my life.

I am now 'older' and have 2 boys.  I DARE them to be mean to ANYONE!  I would be so upset about that.  Then one day it happened.  My youngest is kind of a headstrong child, he's quite frank with his words, and he was only 9 at the time, but he was just really mean to someone and said some things he can never take back.  So now, I am the bullied mom, with a bullying child.  Then we turned all that around yet again.  

My oldest son has Aspergers - he's a perfect, I mean PERFECT target for being picked on.  He is mild mannered, but he'll show you his teeth when he has too.  He is overweight for his age and height, he's got quite the tummy on him. He acts very goofy and silly at inappropriate times.  Most everyone thinks he's weird.  He doesn't get jokes and doesn't realize he's being made fun of either.  See, easy target.  He jumped into 6th grade like he's been in 6th grade all his life.  Like a fish to water.  I was shocked.  Then it began.

In the 1st 6 weeks of school, we had 3 incidents with him being picked on by different people. One young man (big guy) grabbed my son around the neck and shoved him to the floor.  Then proceeded to taunt him again in the boys restroom asking him if he was ready for some more, so my son then runs into a stall and locks the door.  He escaped from that and told the teacher.  It was kinda scary to listen too.  

The bottom line here is that I hate bullying, passionately.  It should stop.  I understand that bullies probably come from a very unhealthy home life, it's possible that they're being abused as well.  Maybe they're carrying the invisible scars we can't see.  Maybe they feel that in their own life that they've lost control and have the strong urge to take someone else's control away, to render another person powerless.  People who bully others are extremely weak, it makes them feel better to belittle and tear down someone else.  I'm no psychiatrist. Some things I know from many personal experiences. As a result of being bullied not only by schoolmates, but also by the mental and physical abuse from particular family members and those who were close to me - I am a cutter, a self-injurer.  I am the only one in control of my pain from here on out.  That's my coping mechanism.   

As I embark on this journey, I know I will face negativity, criticism and feel defeated.  I know I will have to go back to 9th grade in my world today.  I will be made fun of and called names - because that's what kids do and I'm just an adult in their world.  If it makes the different in one life being spared from the effects of cutting, drug abuse, alcoholism or any other addiction and even worse - suicide - then I'm all in.  This is what I am supposed to do.  

My goal is to speak out about it and the teach the kids to #speakdifferent to each other.  To help them understand how their words IMPACT others lives.  This is a new platform for me, and I am scared and nervous, but all the good that can come of this is well worth the effort.  I'm coming with a message from the heart.  It will take some time to build this ministry.  I am ready.

#speakdifferent

A Room Without A Roof

I am a Christian and I love being a Christ follower. I am also in a world full of enjoyable things and I like some it! That's the hard part, not crossing any certain lines and looking like a hypocrite. Truth is, we're all hypocrites. We say one thing and do another (that's even in scripture). My goal in life is not to live as a person who practices one thing and preaches another. I also don't believe that we are to follow this very strict set of rules and guidelines to be accepted into the Kingdom of God.

This is the worldly me.  Every now and then, maybe more often than that, I say a bad word or 3, or 4.  I like to have an occasional drink of a spirited nature and I don't see a thing wrong with it. I don't have an alcohol problem.  I know many Christians who drink wine, but are totally against alcohol. Ummm, Why?   Isn't wine still alcohol?  Oh that's right, wine is the only one mentioned in the bible and Jesus MADE it... So I suppose if he would have made tequila, it would be okay to drink that right?  Newsflash!  Alcohol by any other name is still alcohol.  

Moving on.  I like, no, I LOVE rock/hard rock/alternative music (Metallica on Saturday night, church on Sunday morning!).  I have a tendency to think things at times that I wish I didn't think, things I wish did not run through my head.  I am not a doormat and I will not tolerate being mistreated, used or abused, nor talked down to or made fun of.  I am passionate about many things of this world we live in.  One does not make it through the things I have in my life without being a bit feisty (I blame this one on my momma). She was a feisty, feisty woman, lots of brass haha.  (My hubby loves this part of me, he thinks I'm totally hot when I get all brassy with someone).  haha!  It's a real challenge to expect respect from others with regards to my spirituality, when I participate in the some things of this world, so I don't expect people to walk on eggshells around me. I am still a human being, doing human things.  I have certain lines that I won't cross, certain situations I will remove myself from if I feel like I shouldn't be there, not judgement on anyone's part, just for my own sake.  I know what my triggers are and I know when I need to bail.  Easy peasy.  

Versus

My Christian life.  I LOVE Jesus and I LOVE God! There's no bones about that!!  I want those 2 loves to show in everything that I do, whether it be a worldly something or a church related something.  I'm not about being a liar or hypocrite, but I am about growing and learning from my experiences and following Gods way as best as I can, and yes I do stray off course sometimes.  I don't believe that ostracizing another human being is going to make them give a dang about the God I claim to love, especially if I am acting in a way that's contrary to what the bible teaches.  I believe that we are to love EVERYONE around us, even the outcasts... and I DO.  Sin is a sin is a sin, no matter the size, so YES, I am definitely a sinner.  I mess up often and do things that are displeasing to God or against his word in scripture.  You can't put a number scale on sin.  It's all the same to God.  Did I mention I love Jesus? Like, crazy much! I truly do. I believe what John 3:16 says. Jesus Icame for all of us (Not budging on that one, not one iota).  No two Christians are ever going to be on exactly the same page regarding everything in the bible. We're never going to agree on every single solitary point.  This is where we all have differences of translation.

Please don't get me wrong here, I'm not trying to wear different hats around different people from the varying aspects of my life, this is a constant battle going on inside of me.  I am the same person in the dark as I am in the light.  Yep, I'm totally flawed.  I'm sure there will be a lot of people who won't agree with everything I say here or everything I do in this life. And that's okay with me. I don't agree with the way everyone else lives their lives, but judging their life is so NOT my place.  

I am called to love, and I do, pretty much everyone. And in that loving, all I want, all I long for, is to be truly HAPPY with my life, truly proud of the person I am, and the experiences that shaped me into the woman I am.  I am a room without a roof, I don't believe in confinement, I don't believe we all fit in this perfect little box. I have plenty of space for growth in an upwardly direction as well as all around me.

#justlovepeople #justacceptpeople

Gentleness - it's not for the faint at heart!

You know, I am not the kind of girl who walks around all meek and woe is me and really not that mysterious either, but I have a little mystery to me.  I'm not the silent type especially around those I know well.  When I am out of my comfort zone, that's when I tend to be quieter and make an attempt not to draw any attention to myself.  Is my lack of gentleness the demise of my parenting skills?  I tend to have a hard time saying ANYTHING nice when I am upset... unless I'm boohooing and then who wants to hear a woman with snot and boogers and tears everywhere.  I can't stand to talk to those kinds of people.  Suck it up!  Tell me what you gotta say or go to the stinking bathroom and pull yourself together, while you're in there, clean up the snot!  Anyway, I digress.

After yesterday's encounter with the whole "i'm going to kill myself" escapade because of a frickin Wii... yea buddy, that's worth taking your life over.  Plastic.  (He's a dramatic 10 year old).  Yea I know, I cant believe I'm not freaking out over those words myself, but I know my son and I know how he is.  All is well.

Anyway, so after that whole shebang I had HIGH HOPES for this new day today.  Afterall, we laid in bed last night and snuggled and tickled and giggled.  Well those high hopes came CRASHING DOWN by 7:30am!  Someone got up with same attitude and loving personality that he displayed yesterday evening.  Lovely.  He's upset because I told him he could not take his vampire teeth to school to show all his friends that he's a real vampire.  I said 'you're not a real vampire, you're a 10 year old boy and you'll end up getting them taken away' wait for it.....  yep the eye-roll, crossed arms and a hummph of groan.  

In my attempt to make this go away - I told him 'fine, take them to school, go get them' which I thought he had done until I returned home to find them sitting in a cold glass of water on the counter (he thinks they're dentures, keeps them in the fridge!).  Which would explain why he wouldn't speak to me all the way to school.  I even asked him if he wanted to pray - he ignored me, as usual.

Those who know me well, know I am kind of a fun girl, I like to laugh, make others laugh, I like warm hugs and hot coffee, have a terrible book fetish, I love long walks on the beach....  LOL  Okay, okay, gentleness. Yea, I'm not exactly cut of that cloth, I'm more a spunky natured person.  Gaining gentleness has been so tough.  It's one of the fruits of the spirit that I don't believe I was born with, wasn't ingrained in my DNA, but it's totally okay, it can be an acquired trait too!

Being gentle when what I really want to do most is lash out - is SOOO hard.  In all honesty, I just want to spank him for the disrespect he is showing me.  I know he is growing up and exercising his independence. My job is to see that he is growing up properly and learning to be responsible and respectful to others.  I always feel like I should fire myself from being a parent.  He makes me feel unloved and like everything I do as his mom, is wrong.  He makes me question ME!

I ain't going down without a fight.  He better get his boots on!

May the 4th be with you

☆★☆ Happy Star Wars Day!
 May the 4th be with you! ★☆★

Had a wonderful day at church and then lunch afterwards with our boys.

Church was fantastic!  Lunch was grand.  It was a blessed Star Wars Day!