I Dare You

To say I'm competitive is an extreme understatement. As one of seven children, it's no wonder. We always competed...for the last serving of dinner, for our parents' attention, for the best spot in the car. When you are one of so many, you HAD TO fight for your position. To be the first to do anything was like finding the Holy Grail, and we climbed and scraped our way through many a situation to earn our standing amongst the crowd.

To this day, all it takes to make me rise up to a battle is for someone to either tell me I cannot or shouldn't do (insert task here) or to brag that they DID do (insert task here). Heck, even the first kiss with my now husband was based on a dare! We were goofing around, and he told me if I kept it up, he'd kiss me -- thinking it would make me stop whatever it was I was doing to annoy him. Little did he know he was setting himself up for a lifetime of fun...

My freshman year at college, I had a somewhat less than stellar first showing. I'd always earned pretty good grades, skating through high school on minimal effort and staying out of trouble. But at school, away, all on my own, and somehow enrolled in CALCULUS?? I actually failed my first semester. My GPA was...well...1.6. That earned me a big fat "P" on my transcript: PROBATION. Seeing that, and knowing how precious every dollar was spent toward earning that, my father laid it out in plain English at Christmas break.

"You need to come back and live at home and go to Oakland University. You obviously can't keep up there."

COME BACK HOME? Leave U of M for OAKLAND??? He must have been INSANE...no one leaves a Big 10 school for a local university to LIVE AT HOME and share a room with her sister, much less be under the watchful eye of the Big Sicilian. Oh, no, mister...that's all I needed to knuckle down and do better. I'm sure now, looking back, that he did it KNOWING I'd push back against his edict, just to prove him wrong. And I did...not immediately and not drastically, though I did four-point my final two years.

Of course, I had to get through the college boyfriend transferring to U of M and taking classes together, and the inevitable break-up with said boyfriend a few years later. Then my father died suddenly, and I decided many days that simply getting out of bed was asking too much. My grades during those years clearly reflected those occurrences.

Sometimes, the challenge I claim is trivial and means nothing to anyone but me. Many times it focuses on some physical feat I determine must be overcome to prove a point. My daughters' swim coach used to say, " Swim in your own lane!" meaning, "Compete with yourself." That sums me up to a T. I'll hear someone say, "Wow, I just rode X miles on my bike!" so I'll go out and ride X +1 to see if I can. Then I'll do it again but try for a faster time. Or I'll try to do it on a tougher course...anything it takes to "take it up a notch."

That reasoning has led me to do lots of silly things over the years. Told to take it easy during pregnancy meant laughing at concerned warnings from friends. I painted bedrooms even though a co-worker told me not to raise my arms over my head. I shoveled rocks at 38 weeks pregnant because I refused to sit and be a blob or wait for someone else to do it. Granted, I broke my water that night a delivered two weeks early...oops. But two weeks LATER after my post-surgical check-up, I was on my bike riding around the neighborhood because technically I COULD.

I never learn.

When I turned 40, I decided I had to run a mile. I'd had bouts with jogging attempts over the years, but nothing serious and not for any measurable duration. Then I determined that to be a REAL runner, I had to finish a 5K. I started taking our black Lab Truman with me, and we accomplished a mile in fairly short order. I was well on my way to two miles when I developed what I thought was a sore knee. It hadn't occurred to me that at my age, with bad shoes and a dog dragging me along on concrete, I might do some serious damage.

Turns out it was actually a fractured femur starting to splinter off into two other directions. But before we figured that out, I hadn't stopped running because I had to keep competing with that worthy adversary...MYSELF! I'd also trekked through an airport on that leg, climbed flights of stairs daily at school, and chaperoned a trip to our state's capitol. Finally, after x-rays, two MRI's and a frantic phone call from the doctor telling me to GET OFF THAT LEG, I was told to cool it on the training. Two weeks on crutches and stern warnings cured me of running for five years...

Once hobbled, I decided to tackle swimming next. The girls were on the swim team and complaining MIGHTILY about how many laps they had to do each day. No problem, I told them...tell me how many, an I'll do the same in solidarity. "You'll never make it!" they laughed. That's all it took to force me to call their bluff.

Holy crap...it was A LOT of laps...but if they could do it, I had to. I started with two laps...then four...then ten. Slowly I built up to a mile by the end of that summer and repeated it for the next two summers just to see if I still could.
Last summer, I finally scheduled a surgery I'd put off longer than necessary. For years, a female issue had plagued me, and I'd finally reached my breaking point. After the first few horrific days at Camp Beaumont (where I was humbled by pain and the extensive nature of the surgery), I was allowed to walk "small distances" but NOTHING ELSE. PSHAW! In the hospital, I'd been doing wall push-ups in the shower (where I couldn't get caught), and then started a strict walking program at home. I'd time myself and measure my distance using a program on my iPhone, and then beat each previous day's efforts. At my two-week check-up, I proudly shared my progress and asked for clearance for swimming, biking, tennis...all denied. And I was soundly reprimanded for the walking regimen.

That obviously made me up the challenge...didn't that doctor know who she was dealing with??? By fall, I was walking my typical three miles and had even worked my thrice sliced and decimated core muscles up to a full minute in plank.
The latest accomplishment has been to revisit that 5K dream. I'd toyed with it a few times over the past five years, only to give in to temporary issues like shin splints, excess weight or laziness. But it never left me, that desire to reach the elusive milestone. I'd see other friends, neighbors or random strangers doing the same...some much older, heavier, riddled with health issues. Surely I COULD do it. I even dreamed of running...vivid dreams where I'd run great lengths for no reason. So in March I looked up the Cool Running Couch to 5K program once again, and hit the treadmill.

By the end of June, I'd run my first REAL 5K, but only after a trial attempt alone on a local track. I had to do it for myself before I did it in front of others...and then when I ran the public race, I had to beat my solo time.

I never know what the next challenge will be. And sometimes I'll think about it for years before diving in and conquering it. Other times, it's a random statement from someone else that throws the proverbial gauntlet down at my feet. That person may never know what they've forced me to do! But if you are reading this now, you have a powerful secret to get me to try something.

Just don't dare me. I might not be able to help myself.

Letdown

The year leading up to my wedding was an incredibly busy and exciting one. I had just started my first full-time teaching job in a Catholic school after spending the past two years working four part-time jobs simultaneously. I knew NOTHING about running a classroom or teaching curriculum beyond what I'd been told by the best principal I ever had. I asked what exactly I was to teach.

Sister Gloria Jean handed me the English and American history textbooks and said, "Teach this."

So I did...in addition to religion, art, handwriting and spelling. It was A LOT of work...and I got only two precious breaks all week while the kids went to computers and gym.

We also were charged with getting those sixty eighth-graders ready for Confirmation and graduation -- two huge events that took place within the last month or two of school. My wedding date was a mere two weeks AFTER the end of the year. So by May, I could hardly think straight. I often look back on that year and those kids and wish for a do-over so I could tell them, "Hey! I really AM a good teacher! I really DO know what I'm doing!" But whatever...such is life...it is what it is...blah blah blah. Somehow I made it through, the year ended, and I got married.

We left for the honeymoon vacation of a lifetime.

And then I was back home in my new apartment while my husband went back to work. There was little else for me to do but write thank you notes and make dinner.

I was bored.

I wandered around the (little) apartment looking for something...ANYTHING...to occupy my time.

I shopped a bit...but what could I possibly need after a wedding??? Our possessions hardly fit in the apartment as it was.

I finally found the pool and spent long afternoons there reading trash novels. My husband would come home in time for dinner, whipped from a long day, and have me pounce on him to go do something...ANYTHING...to entertain me. To say he was irritated is an understatement.

It was just that post-wedding, post-school year letdown. I had been riding a wave of adrenalin for so long that my body didn't know how to sit still. I craved activity, excitement, ANYTHING more than what I had.

You know where this is leading, right?

Fast forward...this past school year was perhaps the busiest yet. I worked harder this year than ever before, both academically and administratively. We have an incredibly diverse study body with specialized needs for whom we plan individual lessons, and we're going through accreditation. A teacher will read that and shudder. Everyone else can just assume that it's TERRIBLE. And I was put in charge of THE DOCUMENT. Committees worked and reported and drafted their piece, gave them to me, I edited, revised and entered the information. It's over 100 pages long...and I sat on/wrote for two committees myself.

And then there was this little matter of community activism. Since the day after the November elections last fall, I have been 110% consumed with helping save my library. I stepped off a cliff and into the political arena, and life will never be the same.

Oh, and I was incredibly lucky to be able to start freelance writing IN MY SPARE TIME. Ha!

So if you had told me a year ago -- when I had just had major surgery and was happy to be able to walk across a room without vicodin -- that I would help start a grassroots coalition, speak multiple times to audiences greater than 100, be a panelist on a televised town hall, talk on radio with a progressive warrior, record a robo-call and CHANGE THE WORLD in my little city, I'd have LAUGHED AT YOU.

Not a day has gone by in those nine months that I haven't had a full e-mail inbox, multiple FB messages, texts and phone calls galore. Not a day has gone by that I haven't been fully engaged with a plan of attack for my hours. Not a week has gone by that I didn't have somewhere to be nearly every night.

Until this week.

Letdown.

I don't know what to do with myself. I'm bored...despondent, nearly! All my politicos are back to work. My husband is dreadfully busy and battle weary at his job. My kids sleep all morning and are too old to be interested in mommy's adventures ("What makes you think I WANT to wash the car???" spit my 15 year old at me yesterday...), and the things I SHOULD do lack excitement.

I mean...come on...appear on TV or scrub a toilet? Can you blame me??? I'm lucky to shower before dinner, and that's only because I had (thankfully!) two good reasons to be somewhere the last two nights.

Even then, it took me an inordinate amount of time to put together an agenda for a board I chair...an agenda that should have taken ten minutes to formulate. I think I spent over two hours of staring at the computer...trying to remember what to do...looking for e-mails with snippets of details for the meeting.

Oh, and refreshing my e-mail and key websites to see if there was any news, information, contact regarding the library issue.

At one point, I almost called my husband to ask if our network was down.

Refresh...sigh.
Refresh...sigh.
Refresh...WAHHH!!!

The greatest irony is that in a week or two, I'll find my rhythm again. School will ramp-up, the push for November elections will be under way, and I'll be crying uncle at the heap of business on my plate.

But until then...you'll find me wandering the house, staring into space, idly refreshing tabs on my computer browser.

What I Didn't Do Today

First, I'll tell you what I DID do today:

-- checked e-mail about 1,000 times...read, responded to and archived most of today's crop
-- wrote a letter to an editor
-- tried to fun a 5K; instead ran a 2.5K and rode my bike about 5K to and from a local park
-- met my husband for Friday lunch date
-- scrubbed shower grout with a toothbrush
-- scrubbed two toilets
-- folded two loads of laundry
-- shopped for groceries
-- got the oil changed in my hoopty mom van
-- delivered 3 lawn signs for the library campaign
-- made dinner
-- had three separate and engaging phone conversations with the same person for approx. 90 combined minutes
-- ordered my children around so they could do two loads of their own laundry
-- shopped for a Bat Mitzvah gift and card
-- purchased a Father's Day gift
-- engaged in a spirited online debate over reckless youth and their stupid antics
-- ate some java chip ice cream

Did you notice I said scrubbed shower grout with a toothbrush and scrubbed two toilets???

That right there should have been the only clue anyone needed to figure out that what I ACTUALLY did all day consisted of one thing...and one thing only:

I PROCRASTINATED.

I did all of that today to avoid doing the only thing I really should have gotten done today.

And I'm not sorry.

Tuesday TMI

I feel like I've finally lost enough weight that I would consider wearing a bikini again.

But only at a nude beach.

Work Smarter Not Harder?

When I was in elementary and middle school, we heard tales of a paper-free society because of the efficiency of technology and computers. Judging by the MOUNDS of filing I was paid to do in college at the world headquarters of a renowned staffing agency, that prediction wasn't coming to fruition anytime soon.

As more people embraced e-mail, word came down once again. E-mails would eliminate the need for paper letters and memos. That is, of course, unless you wanted to PRINT all those e-mailed jokes, recipes, love letters and very important communications.

More recently, smartphones hinted at a total meshing of all communications media into one neat little package in our hip pockets. How SIMPLE that would make life!!

Looking at my desk right now? I'm not seeing it at all.

For one thing, my life is one big avalanche of paper. At any given time, I have stacks of papers organized by priority of importance.



To the left of my laptop is the HOT pile. Those items needed to be addressed YESTERDAY, and I look at them every time I sit down to check e-mail and get to work. To the right is next in line and/or long-term storage for ongoing issues. I may not have to return to them right away, but they need to stay parked for now. Both pull-out ledges stacked with projects also in progress, but of an ongoing nature. Stuff will get put there every day or so, worked on, removed and ledges returned to their proper and retracted position.

Moreover, all this technology has not made my life simpler at all; it's made it far more complicated. There are e-mails on several different accounts to read daily and 'file,' there are FB accounts and group pages to moderate and keep up with, there are cell phone texts and voice mails, and landline voice mails -- though I have a special tool to help with the landline messages. When the blinking light of waiting messages gets to be overwhelming, I simply cover it up with a little knit thingy my daughter made me.

No see blinky, no worry about blinky.

(Anyone who REALLY needs me calls the cell anyway. And that's on vibrate so often I don't even notice, so it can't bother me too much, either. Heh.)

People like me are definitely working smarter with technology. But it has also made us work harder...to keep up, to keep informed, and to keep in touch all the time.

Except, of course, when your voice mail is being ignored.

Haunted

I remember every moment of my early days of teaching. The faces of my kids, the lessons, the parents…all burned in my memory for various reasons. But in the dark recesses of my mind, what are the memories that haunt me? Who do I remember MOST vividly?

The students I failed…failed miserably, even. Twenty years later, I can go back to a moment and feel tremendous regret that I quite possibly destroyed someone’s self-esteem and spirit.

One boy in particular weighs heavily on my heart. I can still feel the heat of a June day as I stood in the back of the church at graduation practice. This boy was on my LAST NERVE…and I was wound tight. Just finishing my last year of my first full-time position, I was just barely holding it together. I had only sort of figured out what to do every day, had gotten these kids through the school year and their Confirmation preparation and mass, was closing in on my first graduating class from the Catholic K-8, and was planning my wedding.

(What young woman doesn’t lose her mind while planning a wedding???)

By the way, that wedding? It was scheduled for two weeks after the last day of school. TWO WEEKS! To say that I was overwhelmed and stressed is a huge understatement. Much of the time, I had NO IDEA what I was doing, and losing control of my class was one of my biggest fears. I felt the need to assert myself at every opportunity, and I was desperate to keep a handle on everyone and everything.

So…back to that moment at church. It was the end of a long hot day…the end of the school year for the 8^th grade…the last chance I had to create a lasting impression. And this boy was doing the unthinkable – HAVING FUN. That’s right…he was cracking jokes, smiling, distracting his friends…all while I was frantically trying to line them up in order from shortest to tallest so we could practice processing into church.

I lost my mind. I dragged him out of line by the arm, pulled him to the back of linw, and spoke through clenched teeth in irrational anger.

“I don’t want to HEAR YOU, I don’t want to SEE YOU, I don’t want to SENSE YOU IN MY AURA! You are a DISAPPOINTMENT, and I’m ASHAMED to know you!”

Ouch.

You read that correctly. I told him I was ashamed of him…for what? Talking out of turn?? Are you kidding me? Today, if one of my kids was guilty of the same, I’d probably walk up to him/her and mock swat him upside the head, Leroy Jethro Gibbs style (NCIS reference). I’d glare menacingly, then crack up in laughter, unable to pretend that I was truly angry.

But back then? I was young. Stupid. Insecure enough that I thought exercising my authority over a 14 year old boy was going to establish me as his superior in all ways…that I would be defined by my ultimate power over him.

It makes me a little bit sick to think I did that.

Today, I rarely lose my temper. And when I do…my kids know they’ve really stepped in it.

I have also established a favorite kind of boy to teach. They are the ones just like that boy from so long ago…the ones who are a little bit out of line…a little too spirited…too unmotivated to do what they’re told. Ultimately, they are the ones who have some burden on their soul, something that they’re compensating for with the humor and ‘bad’ behavior. I want to help them…bring them to the fullest of their potential.

I want to erase the damage I did to the boy from twenty years ago. I wish I could take it back. It’s on my mind more often than seems reasonable, especially at this time of year when we trek over to a similar church to practice a similar ceremony. I wonder what happened to him…if he remembers that moment, too, and hates me for it.

I remember everything. And I hope I’m forgiven for the worst of it.

I Knew It Would Come Back to Me...

The other day, a friend posted this status on Facebook:

Life is what you make it.

It confirmed something I've long been fearing: there really isn't anyone else to blame.

Rats.

Just Write It

I've always had the intent to be a great writer...but when it comes down to it, I'm not sure I have the patience and fortitude to be truly great. And why should I be? Millions seem to be made from just average effort. For instance, when I read some of the popular chick-lit novels of today, I think, "I could do that in my sleep!" The stories seem so predictable, the characters barely more than two-dimensional stereotypes, and the settings nearly interchangeable. Who couldn't just bang one out, send it to a publisher, and get rich overnight, right???

Well, admittedly, it is a bit more complicated than that. For one thing, you have to actually put the words down on paper. Most of my writing is done in my head while I'm driving, in the shower, or otherwise occupied with something to which I should be giving my 100% attention. And because I have a habit of taking on more than I can realistically handle, I rarely have uninterrupted time to just sit and write. When I finally get to the keyboard, I am so tired I tend to sit and stare at the screen for frustratingly long moments. I'll see something out of the corner of my eye that causes me to move or make a noise, and that usually leads to a dog barking to be let out. Or another tab on my browser will update with a Facebook notification or an e-mail that I simply MUST check before I go on. At that moment, a child will come in and tell me that the other one just ate her granola bar that was meant for school lunches and HOW DARE SHE and can't I go yell at her RIGHT NOW for this grievous injustice???

As you can see it's a little difficult to dedicate time and effort to writing in my typical environment and state of mind.

If I'm lucky, I'll have jotted down a quick idea in a meeting, at church, while at school...anywhere my mind starts to wander. I have started carrying a Moleskin journal in each purse so that I can be ready when that inspiration strikes. In fact, I seem to have no shortage of great first lines and titles. Surely those will carry a full story line through to completion someday. After all, if a two minute Saturday Night Live skit can carry a two- hour movie, why couldn't my pithy penciled observations result in a two hundred page novel on the "Buy One, Get One Half-Off" table at Borders?

Until then, I tend to write brief essays in frenetic spurts of inspiration. When the mood strikes, I find I have to get the words out as quickly as possible before I lose that thought or get dragged away. It's not uncommon for me to have a document open and to be hopping up and down to stir dinner, bark orders at a kid, or to let a dog in or out before running back in to finish a sentence. I often have a list at the bottom of the document that is just a strings of words to remember to address in case I get called away completely. Blogging seems to be the happy medium for a writer like me. No deadlines, no standard word limits, no required commitment. Win, win, win!

And it's a good thing; as I get older, I am beginning to suspect that I have also lived most of my adult life in a state of undiagnosed ADHD. If the idea isn't written down, it's gone forever. If I get stopped mid-essay, it often is left open on the desktop until a forced reboot causes it to be lost in data-space. I've made hypothetical millions off unfulfilled good intentions.

Someday, you might get to purchase my first novel at deep-discount prices. Until then, you can find me here when I feel like it writing what I think is interesting as quickly as I can before someone eats a granola bar.

Mental Vomit

I used to keep a blog.

It was borne out of a need to be a lemming -- at the time, "mommy bloggers" were just coming into being, and many of my friends started blogs. Not wanting to be left out, I started one, too. We all shared our blogs, followed our blogs and commented on our blogs. They became repositories of life and times of stay-at-home-moms who were both frustrated and defined by a life of...well...staying at home raising kids. They were our -- if you'll pardon the crass reference -- mental vomit of whatever happened that day. It all just came out in technicolor; the good, the bad and the it-might-make-you-cringe account of life in suburbia.

Then times changed. Kids grew up. I went back to teaching out of a need to both earn money and to return to feeling like I had a purpose. It's not that being a mommy was purposeful; don't get me wrong. I loved that time of life where my biggest concern was what to make for dinner or who was covering the PTO meeting.

But teaching has been not just what I used to do...but who I used to be. And I wanted to do and be that again. Almost as soon as the idea hit me, I found a job. A random posting that was supposed to have expired appeared, I applied, and soon I found myself back in a Catholic school classroom teaching middle school language arts.

Somewhere along the way I got involved in local politics and issues. I've suddenly found myself writing and pontificating on topics on which I was previously both oblivious and unconcerned. A frequent contributor to a local blog, I've written more in the last six months than in the last...well...ever. And I love it.

And that's where I remain today... part-time teacher...full-time mom, wife and force of nature...full of random thoughts and entertaining (if not embarrassing) mental vomit.

Some of you are privy to the holiday collection of thoughts.

Now you can all see what goes on in my head on a daily basis. Stick around if you like...comment as you wish.

I don't promise great writing. Just an honest and frank viewpoint and perspective. And hey, maybe it'll make you laugh once in a while.

Because if we can't laugh about this crazy life...what's the point?