Have You Considered

I got into a somewhat combustible conversation today. It was about the election (surprise, surprise. Seems to be a lot of that going around). Lots of frustrated words flying and lots of perspectives crossing right past each other, no common ground.

Anyway, then I had this thought. Too long to tweet in one entry, and too important to me to risk the separate tweets not being strung together in the correct order or taken out of context.

So ... here it is:

When you see an article or video that relays something that purportedly was done to, or said to, or said about a woman ... by any candidate, or any member of their staff ...

before you speak your opinion, do you consider what if that woman was YOUR mom/wife/sister/daughter/girlfriend?   Do you think: "If it were someone close to me, would I still take the position I am taking? Would I still say the words I am saying?  Would I still say that woman was acting out of line, inapporpriately, overstepping bounds, asked for it, etc."

If you would ... if you would have the same view whether it was your mom or not, then by all means, carry on with whatever you have to say.

But ... if you would not... if you think to yourself: "if that was MY sister, or MY daughter, I would never say what I have been saying (or was about to say)" ... then perhaps you should pause. Rethink your comment. Because that woman ... EVERY woman ... is someone's mom/sister/wife/daughter. She deserves the same treatment you'd give, and want shown, to your own.

Surprise (Five Minute Friday)

Time to pause for 5 minutes and share ... 5 minutes on SURPRISE.

My girls left last weekend for spring break. 10 days with some combination of daddy, stepmom, grandma, and grandpa... and zero days with mom. 10 days is a long time and I miss them something fierce. Tonight is night 7 and I am thankful that we are almost at the end.

My oldest, S, had run back into the house before we went to school in the morning and then as we walked she made sure to tell me:

S: mom. will you go to the bathroom today?
me: umm, yes. I go every day? Don't you?
S: yes. but mom. you need to go to your bathroom. up all the stairs to your room.
me: why that one?
S: there is a SURPRISE for you mom. On the counter. Make sure to check on the floor in case the kitties moved it
me: ok ...
S: you will see mom. It will be easy to tell.

Dropped the kids off, and then made sure to visit that particular bathroom when I got home. Sure enough, on the counter was her new bracelet - that she'd gotten that week from Nana for a St. Patrick's Day trinket. With it was a note:

dear mom: please wear this bracelet every day we are gone. We will miss you a lot and this way you can remember us every day during spring break. I love you, Love, S

And so, as we approach the end of Day 7, I am thankful for a bright green elephant bracelet, and kids to miss, and that they miss me and make the time to know that this is hard but OK when we are apart.



Linking up with Kate and the Five Minute Friday crowd here. Join us. We'd love to share the community with you.

Share (Five Minute Friday)

(The five minute friday rules: write, unedited, for 5 minutes. link with the group at Kate's place (see bottom), and then read the post before yours and leave some encouragement for a fellow writer. Join us!)

 
Go.
I got some news last week that made me sad. Made my heart hurt. And then later on I read some news articles about the election. And those, too, made my heart hurt. There is a lot of hate and anger and negative energy and name calling happening. I grew up around politics. People used to hold protests in my front yard for crying out loud. The disagreements go back as far as the existence of people really. But I don't recall (granted, I am only 39) this level of flat out ridiculousness.

And so with this week's prompt I am going to share some thoughts.

Just because you and I don't support the same candidate does not make one of us right and the other one wrong. We can disagree and still have a healthy dialogue - about issues, about choices, about candidates, about the direction in which we should go. And at the end of the day , we can still be friends.  Different perspectives is part of what makes the world better. If everyone had the same opinion about everything life would be dreadfully boring. There would be nothing to talk about.

BUT ... talk. Discuss. No need to yell, shout, threaten, and belittle. I am trying to teach my kids to do better with this, and I need to do better with this, and in fact everyone needs to do better with this. You don't need to convince me to join your side. And if you do, or if you even want to try, here's a little hint: yelling at me isn't going to do it.

Unrelated to politics, but very related to talking: sharing is part of what we are all here for. Grieving: call a friend and share a cry. Get terrific news: call a friend and share your squeals of delight. Have a hard day - don't isolate yourself. There are people who will listen. Whether it's listening to you talk about whatever happened, or listening to you talk about anything but what happened. Or go, sit with someone, cry on their shoulder or get a hug and just sit in silence together. Something. Anything. Find a place to share ... because if you try to walk through life 100% alone, eventually something (big ... or small ... or small but it feels big because you can't see around/past/through it) will hit you that you can't do alone. Can't face alone. Or just can't bear to think about alone. When that time comes, I pray you have someone to share with, or someone to talk too. There's a hotline. There are people ... friends, neighbors. co workers. counselors. family.

Find someone. Share something. Call for help. Someone will be there.

Stop.

Resources for help

Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255

Or go here and click to chat.

Someone is there, ready and waiting to help you.



Sharing as a part of the Five Minute Friday community hosted by Kate. Join us there every week.

Forgiveness

I saw an article today about how Bryce Harper has forgiven Jonathan Papelbon for "the incident", but questioning if the fans have done the same.

I've been wrestling with this for months. Having a player choke another player on the same team (or anyone really ...) is TERRIBLE. Inappropriate, unprofessional, assault ... call it what you want, it's just lousy. The player who was choked said they worked it out and it's ok moving forward. But ... the incident happened in the dugout. And was caught on TV. Not excellent. The fans were in an uproar. Myself included. After all, if I choked someone at work because I was annoyed with something they did, or did not, do, I would be fired in a hot jiffy.  And I was mad the Nationals didn't do the same.

He was suspended (rightly so, in my opinion), and he already had a reputation for being a jerk. There were public incidents towards fans when Papelbon played for the Philadelphia Phillies and whatnot. I was not excited when he came to DC, but I tried hard to give him a clean slate, let him prove that he wasn't the jerk the media made him out to be. And then he confirmed my worst fears when this happened.

Now I had a player on the team - the team my girls and I love - who was a bad example. I know we can't expect people to be perfect. And we can't place athletes on a higher pedestal, because they are just people, after all. So, we had quite a few conversations - my little girls and I.

They included things like "mama, why would Pap hurt Bryce? Is he OK?"

to which I responded "Yes, he is OK, and it is never right to touch someone when you are mad at them."  

Kiddo reply: "Oh, mama, you mean like when we [sisters] fight – how we should use words, not hands?"

Right.  That.  And then later, when Pap made his apology to Bryce (and the article that came from there) ...

"Mama, that was good that Bryce forgave him. Should we do that?"

And I responded that we need to try. That Bryce was setting a good example by forgiving and moving on to the new season. But I didn't try really hard.

And a few weeks later, one asked me "Mom, why is Pap still on our team? He was so mean. Can't we trade him or something? Why are the other guys gone ... like Jordan (Zimmermann) and Desi (Ian Desmond) and Craig (Stammen) but the meany guy is here?"

Setting aside the nuances of free agency and also not the same position / same role ... I didn't have a good answer for that. Frankly I wanted him traded and I didn't care what we had to do in order to make that happen because I was steamed.

Flaming mad, actually, because of this quote "My mistake was doing that in the dugout in front of a camera," (whole article)

But today, I saw the new post. And someone asked "if the players have, why can't the fans?"  And my immediate reaction was that Pap had never apologized to the fans.  Yes, he apologized to Bryce ... but we ALL saw it. The fans in the ballpark; everyone watching on TV; and later everyone with internet access or ESPN or anything ...the clip was everywhere. Choke-holding the MVP doesn't really get by under the radar when it's caught on camera.

Then someone asked if the fans deserved an apology. I don't know that we do. But the quote from above ...  "My mistake was doing that in the dugout in front of a camera" …THAT made me mad. You should be sorry you DID it. Not just sorry that everyone saw it. Not just sorry that it happened on TV. To me, the where was not important, the WHAT is what mattered.

And then I was reminded of my real life. The one outside of baseball. Where I learned that forgiveness is not for the offender ... it is for the one who was wronged. My ex-husband had an affair. I found out. Eventually I told him that I knew. And he told me he was sorry that I found out. To this day, he has not apologized for his actions - for the hurt it caused, for the eventual consequences that we are all still living with. He just said he was sorry that I found out.

We've worked through it; he's moved on - new wife, new family. He's great with my girls and they all love my kiddos a lot. And for a long, long time I wrestled with forgiving him. How could he do that to me? To our kids? To our family? And then eventually I did some soul searching. What was I gaining from still holding a grudge? From still being angry? Nothing, really. I finally reached the conclusion that forgiveness does NOT mean the same thing as forgetting. And it does NOT mean the same thing as condoning the behavior.  It just means that my heart could stop reliving the anger and the frustration every single minute of the day. I could stop spending so much time thinking about someone who was so hurtful. I could start to heal.

And then I was able to forgive him. I still have some hurt feelings. I still wonder why he did it. I will never condone the behavior because it's cruel and wrong and I have seen first hand what it did to me and the decisions we have to make with our kids every day. BUT.  I was able to let it go ... even though he never told me he was sorry. Move on. Start a new chapter. Function on my own and not be torn up about it all the time.

My kids ask about their dad and why he doesn't live with us any more.  "Dad made some choices and now our family looks different, but we both still love you with our whole hearts. When you are ready to talk about it more, you can ask daddy."  And we move on, and that works for them. The example is there. The behavior is there. And hopefully we've all grown enough now that the experience helps us make better decisions in the future.

And so, I reflect on that. If I can forgive him ... he who said to me "I am sorry you found out" ... for that personal hurt, then why can't I extend the same forgiveness to a ball player I've never met? Yes, he's on my team. Yes, I disagree with his actions. Yes, I think it stinks that he's apparently (to us) only sorry that we saw it happen.

But. ... the team is ready to move on. So, too, should I.

So, Jonathan ... here I am. Ready to put it behind me. I hope that you choose to act in a way that's better in the future - I would much rather you be an example to my kids this year of "I did wrong but now I am doing right" than to repeat the same mistakes of the past. But, that's for you, not for me.

Forgiven.

Let's play ball!

Present (Five Minute Friday)

It's been nearly a month. I have missed writing. I have had a few Thursdays of crazy, however, every day hasn't been crazy ... so I could have made time. I didn't. Shrug. It happens.

Anyway, I will squeak in just under the deadline here, with last week's post on PRESENT.

(For a refresher, the rules of FMF are
1. Write on the word of the week: 5 minutes, no editing, typos allowed and encouraged
2. Link with the rest of the FMF community over at Kate's place
3. Visit and comment on the post of the one who linked before you. (and if you are an on time poster ... ha, not my strong point, consider coming back later in the week to love on the ones who post late. like me).


PRESENT

Go.
Last week we got hit with a monster snowstorm. Blizzard. Call it whatever you want. We've been in a mess for 6 days now. It started Friday at noon and didn't stop snowing until Saturday after I went to bed. 35 inches later (no, that is not a typo), the big dig out began. School is out. Until next Monday. (my brain cells are diminishing by the day ... we finally managed to get out of the neighborhood today. For the first time in a week).

neighbor 1 and his little playing on our path

In the midst of the storm ... I received 3 lovely presents. The first: a gift from my neighbor on the right. I shoveled before I went to bed Friday, but then while I slept the wind howled and the snow piled up. By Saturday morning, my front door was snowed in. With the storm door, I never would have been able to get out. He graciously came out and while clearing his sidewalk and steps, he came all the way to mine and dug me out. I am so thankful for the time he spent to make sure I could get out safely.

The second: more time from that neighbor AND time from the neighbor 3 doors down. Our townhouses have a yard behind them, and then a garage behind that. The garage door (the car entrance side) opens on to an alley. An alley which didn't get plowed until Tuesday at 10pm. Remember the 35 inches of snow I mentioned?  My wonderful sweet neighbors (after shoveling their own garages out) joined me Sunday afternoon and helped me clear mine. Shoveled right down to the pavement (WOOT!).  That was A LOT of snow to move, but with their help we managed it in just a couple of hours.

The third: my neighbor on the left. He recently had cataract surgery. We all took turns shoveling out his steps and sidewalk since he could not. He came over Monday  afternoon when the roads finally had *a little* progress and asked if we needed anything. What a blessing for him to return with a gallon of milk for us. Could we have survived a few more days without any more milk? Sure. But did it make it a million times easier to have some? Absolutely.

So ... in the midst of the crazy ... I am thankful for the present of wonderful neighbors. Folks who band together and help each other out. Kindness goes a long way.

Stop.

(Photos from the crazy).

not the final measurement. GOOD GRIEF

streets were untouched for days

the picket fence down the block (Saturday night)

my garage Sunday (before)

neighbor  2 helping

the garage AFTER (neighbor 1 and both his littles)

the pharmacy parking lot . we walked and then climbed it 

we also built snowmen. Life sized for all of us.

and we made a dugout with the help of another neighbor

and played snow baseball. because ... 21 days until pitchers and catchers, my friends!

WAIT (a year in review)

This is the 4^th year I’ve chosen the path of OneWord365 instead of New Year’s resolutions. One word to focus on throughout the year.

If you know me at all, you know I am a planner. (Some might say an over planner). I do it all day every day for my job and I also find that it makes my household run somewhat smoother. The kids like having a schedule. And I like having one, too. There’s something to be said for knowing what is coming. Yes, spontaneity is fun and there’s a time and place for it, but it’s not my preference. (ok, I admit it. Surprises are fun but totally unplanned events / happenings make me VERY, VERY nervous.)

Waiting doesn’t have to equate to not planning, but I interpreted it that way, purposely. I tried not to plan everything as soon as an idea popped into my head.  I tried to let ideas simmer more and to weigh them as options in their high level form before getting mired in the details of potential execution. It was hard.

As I look forward to 2016 I see a lot of changes on the horizon for us. Honestly, I saw them coming earlier this year – wanted some of them to happen sooner – but couldn’t see a path for how to get them rolling. So I waited. Hoped. Anticipated. Tried to put them out of my mind, instead of planning a way to make them get here.

Lots of late night discussions with some very important people and many, many hours spent praying for a path or direction, still nothing. Just waiting. I could see the destination and could not see the path. Not even the first step. Wait. Wait. Wait.

I didn’t like it at all. I spent many a night fretting and many a night in tears with my frustration. However, as the year came to a close, a lot of other things have changed. Circumstances beyond my control and things completely unexpected have all set in motion. The path I could not even imagine less than 6 months ago is emerging right before my eyes. Decisions I thought would be hard won’t even have to be made because other people have made some choices and set the stones into place. Now all I have to do is follow the path, one step at a time.

My usual method of plan and execute was put to the test with a mission to wait and see. The waiting yielded the direction and also the confirmation I needed that these are the next right steps for us.

And so 2015 comes to a close, the waiting nearly complete. Timing of life with kids is such that there is a little more waiting to be done, but now there is a healthy, refreshing dose of planning to go with it. And as the start of 2016 stands before us tonight, the year of PURSUE begins.

 

**You can read more about the One Word 365 Community here**

 

Surprise!

I'm from a small town in New Jersey. (note this is not really a SMALL TOWN as some others would describe their towns. But felt small to me. Everyone knew each other mostly and that was good). In High School I joined the marching band and met a girl. She and I hit it off right away and became fast friends. Best friends. She was a senior and I was a freshman. She was as much as big sister as she was a friend. We made lots of fun memories for the whole year. And the summer after. And then she went away to college. Not very far, but I could not drive and she didn't come home every weekend (which was good. because you're supposed to go away and find yourself or something).

So, because this was back in the dark ages of no cell phones and long distance phone bills and NO EMAIL (heavens this makes me sound old.) ...we wrote. Long, long letters and some short ones. Cards and pictures and more letters. Some weeks we wrote every day and some weeks we skipped but there were shoe boxes full of letters before we were done.

And there was the ball. The friendship ball. It was a silver ball, about the size of one of those Christmas balls you can buy in the shiny colors. It was hinged, and had a reddish tassel on it. (I didn't remember the tassel at first.).  I had read a story somewhere, or maybe my friend had.  In one of those Chicken Soup for the Soul books. You know, the ones that make you laugh, and weep? The feel good and sometimes heartbreaking ones? Yeah. Those.

So, the idea with the ball is that one friend would tuck a surprise into it, and mail it to the other one. And then eventually the recipient would find a something and send it back to the first. We passed that ball back and forth a lot. Little candies and some notes and pins and I forget what all went in there. Not with every letter, but just sometimes. Sometimes for Christmas, and sometimes for birthdays. And sometimes just because. That ball went back and forth for years.

Eventually I went away to college, too. Farther than where she had gone. And then she got a job in a small town in Delaware, which was still closer to home than I was, but not really home. And then as things go, I met a boy. I got married. She was my maid of honor. I've never been happier to have her standing beside me. I moved away, because that is what an Army wife does.  We wrote, but less often now, as life got in the way. My fault, really ... I let things slide. The ball ... well that stopped showing up eventually, but we still wrote. A few times a year plus Christmas cards.

Email existed by then... but somehow with us, email just didn't work. It didn't feel the same. Years and years of pen on paper felt stale to me when seen on a screen. I labored over those letters and the time spent writing with a pen ... finding just the right card to say I miss you or whatnot ... that meant more to me than typing.  So the letters were fewer, but the Christmas cards still happened. Then she met a boy. He's a gem.  And she got married. I was delighted to be in her wedding. That was a fun day. A fun weekend. Every time we got together, it was like we were never apart, though we saw each other so seldom those years. That weekend was hot and sticky and we stayed up oh-so-late icing the wedding cake together. and laughing until we cried. That's my favorite part - how we laughed so hard together. EVERY SINGLE TIME WE WERE TOGETHER.

The wedding was lovely and the groom - that guy is so very good to her, and for her and I am glad to call him a part of the family. I moved closer - but not really close enough to visit and life was still in the way. I had a couple of kids. And life was busy. My marriage fell apart... eventually I wrote to tell her what was happening but it was hard. Sharing makes it real and I didn't want to admit it was real for a very long time.

She and her husband became foster parents. And then there were so many kids - so many wonderful kids. He's on facebook (hello facebook, thank you for the connection) so now I could see pictures of all those sweet girls.  And I wrote once in a while, and she did too. But still not as often as I would have wanted. And the phone - we just didn't call. By now we certainly could, but we didn't. The letters held me together all those years.

And then one Christmas when I didn't have my girls, I stopped to say hello. We visited for the first time since her wedding I think. I hugged those kids and hugged her neck and we cried. and laughed. We had a great visit and I promised to stop again soon. But life.  So I did not.

And then she had one of those milestone birthdays.  (The one I will have next year). And her husband threw her a surprise party. He invited me and I went. WOO WOO! Drove up. Couldn't stay as long as I wanted, but got to go and hug her neck and meet the next crowd of darling little girls. And we visited. Chatted. Caught up. Felt like no time had passed even though it had been way too many years. And then I headed home. With promises that we would keep in touch better. Except we didn't.  Christmas cards were about all we managed. A note in the cards, but that's all.

And then a few weeks ago I was out. And I saw this card. I was shopping for something else but I saw the card and I thought of her and I missed her hard. My heart hurt with how much I missed her. So I bought the card. I wrote a note. Stuck it in the mail before life  got in the way again.

And then today.  Today I found a shoe box on my doorstep. Mailed from her house. And inside it was a letter like the old days. 4 long front and back pages. I had asked her to tell me all about her 4 darling girls. And she obliged. And now I know them a teensy bit better.  Now when I see the photos on the facebook page I can imagine what it took to get them ... how they would have assembled themselves or why #3 would be doing something so very different in the same picture when the rest of them are all focused on one thing. I read the letter twice. And then I realized it had come in a shoe box. Hello. a letter fits in an envelope. Why the box?

There was tissue paper and newspaper crumpled up in it. I pulled the first few pieces out, smoothing them to make sure there wasn't some point I was missing with the paper patterns. And then it hit me like a flash. The long forgotten friendship ball. IT WAS IN THE BOX.  I dug it out. And I cried. Happy tears with lots of memories.  My 10 year old was watching me ... "mom, what IS that?" So I told her the story of how we passed it back and forth over the years.  How long, mom?  I stopped to think... We've been passing that ball back and forth since roughly 1991. So 24 plus years that ball has been moved.  It's been dormant a LOT of years.  But tonight all the memories poured right out and filled my heart up.  And when we opened it, inside were 3 beautiful bead necklaces.  That her girls had carefully made - one for each of us. My 7 year old asked about keeping the ball - and we filled her in on the story.  Oh, mom! Then we must send it back!!

And tonight my girls drifted off to sleep dreaming of treasures for us to send to the 4 little girls in her house. Daughters of their mama's best friend.  The ball is now tarnished and worn ... the tassel is thinner than I remember it.  Faded but not whitewashed.  Ours is a friendship that has faltered ... but not failed. And tonight- is a little bit stronger than yesterday.

the friendship ball

necklaces for all of us