The problem with running a blog like a newspaper column instead of the usual photo album (like my other blog is) is that when you talk about things, you can never really post what you WANT to say. I just spent the last half hour writing a funny, witty little shpeel on an experience I had not too long ago, but couldn’t post it because I was sure the degree of offense would have been severe. This is because 99% of my audience is family and would interpret my writings to be about them.
Ere go, let me preface this blog with a disclaimer. I think a lot of times we might read these things and think “oh my gosh! They wrote that about me!” which then leads to heart warming feelings, feelings of embarrassment or maybe even feelings of anger and resentment. Which is the problem with writing to an audience who knows you. There is no REAL freedom of speech. Haha. Women especially have this problem. I know because….I’m a woman! It’s just what we do. Probably has something to do with the on going belief that the world revolves around us.
Let me just clear up ahead of time that this blog is not about you. Whoever you are, however you are related to me, I’m not talking about anyone. Although it’s a blog about families, these are simply thoughts that have transpired more from too much in-depth thought rather than personal experience. So, back to the show!
In the real, political, business-like world things work a lot more differently than they do with families. We can put our opinions and suggestions out on the table without hurt feelings or tears. “It’s not personal, it’s business,” “Freedom of speech,” all plausible excuses for speaking boldly and to the point of the matter. But you can’t be that way with family. Why? I’ll tell you why in one word…..Emotion.
So the question is, where does freedom of speech go when he runs and hides with any sort of family tie? Ha! I’m gonna put that on a bumper sticker and make millions! “Freedom of speech runs and hides with any sort of family ties.” Brilliant!
The point is, when you invite emotion to come sit down at your honesty table, honesty doesn’t stay for long. If he did, he’d be quickly drop-kicked out the front door by “hurt feelings,” or “offensive!” But what about when there’s something that NEEDS to be said but is hard to say? What if it’s unpleasant? What if there is no easy or delicate way to put it but if you don’t say anything, the silence could be more detrimental? What would you do? Say it and then give a fake grin as you twist your index fingers into your dimples? “Smile! What I just said was hard to take buuuuuuuuut.,,, ‘if you chance to meet a froooown, do not let it staaaaay!” Cause that ALWAYS works for me. Ha! Yeah right.
I’m not speaking as if I stand above this problem. Oooooh no! I do my fair share of fist pounding and feet stomping whenever someone has the courage to say something to me. Ever heard of the “boom heard round the world?” That was my tantrum when someone first told me I didn’t look good in yellow. And why would I do that? NOBODY looks good in yellow! It’s easy to explain actually cause you see, the same button that’s used to make my “wall of defense” shoot up is also connected to my “overreaction button.” Try it and you’ll see what I mean. I get defensive and loud and emotional, all at the same time.
There are times though that I am able to hide my reaction and pass it off like it didn’t matter much but the hurt feelings always rear their ugly heads no matter how hard I try to suppress them. It’s more often than not waaaay past the appropriate time to say something though and my frustrations get taken out on the wrong people, Example:
Matt: “So, do you want cereal or eggs for breakfast?”
Amie: “I LOOK GREAT IN YELLOW!!! ….ahem, excuse me, ummm cereal.”
Matt: “Whoah. Cereal it is then!”
That happens because no one likes a critic. Simply put. No one likes to hear bad things about themselves and when people (mostly family) get close enough to see that we do actually have a bad side it puts everyone between a rock and a hard place. You are wonderfully close and you now know them well enough to recognize that they have problems yet you can’t say anything because….you’re too close! Say for instance your wife snores at night (and no before any of you try and see how my examples are related to me, I don’t snore). Lets say it’s not just any snore either. This is an earth shattering, mind numbing, makes you have bloodshot eyes of insanity at 3 am kind of snoring. There’s a surgery that can be done to fix her, but your afraid in telling her that you’ll hurt her feelings because snoring isn’t normally a womanly feature. What could you do? Your damned if you do and a wired insomniac if you don’t!
Obviously you have to plug the same principle into a scenario of your own to really see the problem but you understand the predicament. And it extends into all kinds of relationships. Sisters afraid of offending brothers, husbands afraid of hurting wives, parents afraid of driving away their children. Ahhh if only there was a simple solution to the problem. With all the advancements we’ve made in the world with the human psyche, there’s nothing out there that can bring freedom of speech back into families. We can open a man’s brain and make him involuntarily lift his right arm but we can’t tell our brother that he has an addiction problem, our wife that she snores or our children that they are flirting with a line of disaster without emotions creating a divide. Maybe some day, some day we’ll find a way to figure it all out.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
As Good As It Gets
Now I know I talk a lot about my therapist (which btw, I saw him at a church function yesterday and almost called out “Hey Dr. Bean!” Haha!) but he really has some good points. From my last session I was expressing some concern over a certain matter that I have been quite impatient on resolving and he looked at me and said “and what if it doesn’t get resolved? What if THIS is how it is always going to be? For the rest of your life. …..What if this is as good as it gets?”
After getting lost in thought for an embarrassingly long time, I looked up at him and I could tell that he sensed a little bit of my despair. He then added, “if you knew ahead of time that this was going to be the best that it ever would be, would you have tried as hard on YOUR end to resolve the matter?”
The answer of course was no. In a physics class I took back in college (which I LOVED) my professor gave us some good advise along the same lines. It was around finals time and all of us wanted to know exactly what percentage of our overall class grade would fall under this last test. You see, because afterwards we were all going to pull out our calculators simultaneously and calculate (in a worse possible case scenario) how low we could score on the test and still get the final grade we hoped for. He looked back at us and said, “I’m not going to tell you. If I tell you and you calculate that number, that is what you are going to get on the test. I think you will all score higher without that number in your head.”
And so it was in this scenario for me. If I knew or calculated what the outcome would be before hand with this certain relationship, my mind would have relaxed a little bit so to speak and I wouldn’t have tried as hard.
So, I guess it’s good in the end that we aren’t all-knowing, future predicting geniuses. Who can expect more of you if you are trying as hard as you can? It really is a satisfying feeling and has brought much closure for me.
After getting lost in thought for an embarrassingly long time, I looked up at him and I could tell that he sensed a little bit of my despair. He then added, “if you knew ahead of time that this was going to be the best that it ever would be, would you have tried as hard on YOUR end to resolve the matter?”
The answer of course was no. In a physics class I took back in college (which I LOVED) my professor gave us some good advise along the same lines. It was around finals time and all of us wanted to know exactly what percentage of our overall class grade would fall under this last test. You see, because afterwards we were all going to pull out our calculators simultaneously and calculate (in a worse possible case scenario) how low we could score on the test and still get the final grade we hoped for. He looked back at us and said, “I’m not going to tell you. If I tell you and you calculate that number, that is what you are going to get on the test. I think you will all score higher without that number in your head.”
And so it was in this scenario for me. If I knew or calculated what the outcome would be before hand with this certain relationship, my mind would have relaxed a little bit so to speak and I wouldn’t have tried as hard.
So, I guess it’s good in the end that we aren’t all-knowing, future predicting geniuses. Who can expect more of you if you are trying as hard as you can? It really is a satisfying feeling and has brought much closure for me.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Husband Shopping...
So I've been sick as a dog these past couple days. Some sort of stomach thing the doc.s have been trying to figure out for some time now, but can't. Anyway, I've been too sick to do practically anything, including grocery shopping....
Simple right? You give the hubby the list, he gets whats on the list along with a few other things that just "fell" into the cart like Ding Dongs, which haunt me every time I walk by them in the snack isle, and turnips cause I said to buy some vegetables that were on sale and ...they were on sale! This was a much more dangerous trip though because I was too incoherent from pain to even make a list so he was flying solo on this one. dun dun duuuuuuu.
Yes it was a little scary to watch him go out the front door but here's the strange part...I love Matt shopping. Men shop like bachelors. As women we are organized shoppers, we think about what we want to make for dinners for the week and we buy accordingly. More often than not if you're on a budget, like I am, that means you have to pass up a lot of the things you'd like to get even if they aren't considered "junk food." Take for instance blackberries. I looooove blackberries. I love them so much it hurts sometimes when I pass by them in the produce isle and once again cannot touch them because they have a big yellow price tag in front of them that says $4 for 1/4 a pound. This tag of course creates a force field around them that hums with the quiet warning ..."hummmm 1/4 is not enough to satisfy hummmmmm you'll need at least 5 boxes .... and you can't do that if you want to buy boneless skinless chicken breasts hummmmmmm." Damn that force field!
Men however never seem to have this problem. In fact, they have a whole different strategy. I call it the 2 bite rule. If it can be eaten it in under 2 bites, it's in. So you end up with a bunch of small snacky items like the before mentioned Ding Dongs and turnips (on sale and can devour in one bite). You also get lots of things like potato chips, pizza bagels and poptarts. It's mortifying to my girlish figure! I feel like I've gained 10 pounds just watching him unpack it all! And ya know what.....I love it!
Of course I do! It's the only guilt free way to have these things end up in my cupboards! If I go, theres no way I'm going to get what I want. I get whats "best." But if I send Matt, I'm bound to get everything with a forcefeild and nothing that takes over 2 minutes to heat up in a microwave! You can't live like that all the time, but I say, let the man do the shopping once in a while and give yourself a treat. No lists. Just tell him you need FOOD. He'll get you what you really need.
When I was in collage you know what I did the first time I went grocery shopping for myself? I bought a whole watermelon. I took it home, cut it in half and sat down with a spoon so that for the next 10 minutes I could use that spoon to dig out and devour all the heart of that watermelon. Best watermelon I ever had. I eventually shared the less sweet leftovers with my roommates but for the first time, that melon was mine. ....All ....mine. Bought and paid for with my own money and by gally, I was gonna eat it however I wanted to! Rebellious I know, but those were the collage days...wild and fancy free. I should have put a bumper sticker on my bike that said "I live on the edge, I eat the heart first." Then if the whole world knew Robin Hood Prince of Theives by heart like I do, I'd add "with a spoon... cause it'll hurt more you twit!" Course then it'd be so long it'd be less like a bumper sticker and more like an all over bike decal. Details details.
Anyway, my doc wants to do an ultrasound tomorrow morning to check things out. She told me to eat simple, easy to digest foods until then as to not irritate my tum tum. Hopefully when she spreads that ice cold jelly around with her magic wand and sees those jalapeno stuffed olives, the awkward silence from a patient's total disregard for her doctor's orders won't last too long. After all....it's not ever day that the husband does the shopping.
Monday, June 25, 2007
The Night From H-E-Double Hocky Sticks
Ya know theres nothing in the world like the sound of someone throwing up. It’s basically the only horrible sound in the world that people feel the need to imitate whenever they hear it. Last night I woke up to such a noise. Ahhh the stomach turningness of it all! Jake, my oldest son of 3, woke up last night puking his little brains out. Poor kid. What started out at midnight as hefty chunks every hour continues on this morning as dry heaves every half hour.
So, while Matt stayed with Jake hovering over his porcelain throne, I went to the kitchen to get a rag under the sink. We have some nice size windows in our house during which at night we always close the blinds to keep from being the neighborhood fish bowl. I saw as I came in that the blinds were not down however and I thought about closing them before I turned on the light to walk across the kitchen in my underoos but the sound of Jacobs puking made me irrational and a little panicy so I decided just to flip the switch and make a poor attempt to double over like a 90 year old grandma simultaneously try and shielding my womanly parts with my scrawny arms. Who would be up at midnight anyway? ...Apparently the neighbors across the street and all their friends, that’s who!
Well the puking continued on till 3:00 am which put him in our bed after having exhausted all my fitted sheets and pillow cases from not being able to make it there in time to help him open his half awake eyes and aim for the bowl. While he curled up next to Matt, I decided to make a run to the local gas pump and get some 7UP which I knew probably wouldn’t help anything much but my dad always did that for me when there was nothing more to be done and it always made me feel special if not better.
So I slipped on a pair of warm ups and a sweatshirt, did my best to throw my hair up into a halfway decent ponytail and wipe the mascara out from under my eyes. I took a glance in the mirror to see what the damage was….ha! The clerks were gonna think I was a drug addict on a munchie run. I pretended like I didn’t just get scared by my own reflection and grabbed the car keys.
As I opened the door to the mini mart I tried to push out the background music playing in my head of an old western scene where the dusty streets are deserted and two blockheads are about to do pistols at dawn. Ooooo eee oooo eeee ooooooooooo, wa WA waaaaa. Not a sole in sight, not even the old bar keep. I got what I needed and sat at the counter for a few minutes before starting to make those gestures. You know, the ones you know have to be done to get someone’s attention, but once they go past your lips they make you feel a little silly? Like, “ heeeeleeeooooo?” sometimes I do mine in a British accent “eny won hoooome?” I was there for so long making these silly noises that I finally decided just to leave my dollar on the counter and go home when suddenly an old crusty woman emerged from the back looking a little off and shaken. Mid-day I wouldn’t have thought twice about it but something just felt a little out of place so I asked her "Are you okay?" to which she replied "I am now." Weird I thought.
When I got back into the car my imagination took over and I thought of a series of possible events which could explain the odd feeling I got from the whole situation. Maybe she was being held hostage! Maybe the robbers were in the back and hopped that I would just leave my money and move along, trying to be kind and generous robbers, but I stood there singing greetings for so long they decided to send her out to take care of me. Ooooor!, Maybe she was a drug addict who was shooting up in the back and was so out of it that it took her a while to realized that the ringing in her ears wasn’t a side effect from the drugs, it was ME out front trying to get her attention so that she could take my stupid 99 cents and I could get back to my puking son! ...or she could have just been taking a smoke break and didn’t hear me come in the door. All A+ possibilities. I was leaning more towards the robber situation though so when I got home I made a quick jingle to the police to send some officers over there to check on her.
Anyway it all made out to be a very strange night. Strange indeed. Things are almost back to normal today. Although I’m a little ashamed to admit that as I took the trash out to the alleyway this morning I was halfway hoping to see the Exon station tapped off with yellow caution tape and investigators scouring the perimeter just so I would feel better about my wild imagination. No such luck. It may just be a cold hard fact of life that I’ve been blessed with an overactive imagination that is amplified when I’m awake after 3am. *Sigh*
As for Jake, he is feeling much better. Still a little weak but he’s content for now to encourage his little brother to stick his finger up my right nostril as I type so they can throw back their heads and laugh historically. Yup... back to normal.
So, while Matt stayed with Jake hovering over his porcelain throne, I went to the kitchen to get a rag under the sink. We have some nice size windows in our house during which at night we always close the blinds to keep from being the neighborhood fish bowl. I saw as I came in that the blinds were not down however and I thought about closing them before I turned on the light to walk across the kitchen in my underoos but the sound of Jacobs puking made me irrational and a little panicy so I decided just to flip the switch and make a poor attempt to double over like a 90 year old grandma simultaneously try and shielding my womanly parts with my scrawny arms. Who would be up at midnight anyway? ...Apparently the neighbors across the street and all their friends, that’s who!
Well the puking continued on till 3:00 am which put him in our bed after having exhausted all my fitted sheets and pillow cases from not being able to make it there in time to help him open his half awake eyes and aim for the bowl. While he curled up next to Matt, I decided to make a run to the local gas pump and get some 7UP which I knew probably wouldn’t help anything much but my dad always did that for me when there was nothing more to be done and it always made me feel special if not better.
So I slipped on a pair of warm ups and a sweatshirt, did my best to throw my hair up into a halfway decent ponytail and wipe the mascara out from under my eyes. I took a glance in the mirror to see what the damage was….ha! The clerks were gonna think I was a drug addict on a munchie run. I pretended like I didn’t just get scared by my own reflection and grabbed the car keys.
As I opened the door to the mini mart I tried to push out the background music playing in my head of an old western scene where the dusty streets are deserted and two blockheads are about to do pistols at dawn. Ooooo eee oooo eeee ooooooooooo, wa WA waaaaa. Not a sole in sight, not even the old bar keep. I got what I needed and sat at the counter for a few minutes before starting to make those gestures. You know, the ones you know have to be done to get someone’s attention, but once they go past your lips they make you feel a little silly? Like, “ heeeeleeeooooo?” sometimes I do mine in a British accent “eny won hoooome?” I was there for so long making these silly noises that I finally decided just to leave my dollar on the counter and go home when suddenly an old crusty woman emerged from the back looking a little off and shaken. Mid-day I wouldn’t have thought twice about it but something just felt a little out of place so I asked her "Are you okay?" to which she replied "I am now." Weird I thought.
When I got back into the car my imagination took over and I thought of a series of possible events which could explain the odd feeling I got from the whole situation. Maybe she was being held hostage! Maybe the robbers were in the back and hopped that I would just leave my money and move along, trying to be kind and generous robbers, but I stood there singing greetings for so long they decided to send her out to take care of me. Ooooor!, Maybe she was a drug addict who was shooting up in the back and was so out of it that it took her a while to realized that the ringing in her ears wasn’t a side effect from the drugs, it was ME out front trying to get her attention so that she could take my stupid 99 cents and I could get back to my puking son! ...or she could have just been taking a smoke break and didn’t hear me come in the door. All A+ possibilities. I was leaning more towards the robber situation though so when I got home I made a quick jingle to the police to send some officers over there to check on her.
Anyway it all made out to be a very strange night. Strange indeed. Things are almost back to normal today. Although I’m a little ashamed to admit that as I took the trash out to the alleyway this morning I was halfway hoping to see the Exon station tapped off with yellow caution tape and investigators scouring the perimeter just so I would feel better about my wild imagination. No such luck. It may just be a cold hard fact of life that I’ve been blessed with an overactive imagination that is amplified when I’m awake after 3am. *Sigh*
As for Jake, he is feeling much better. Still a little weak but he’s content for now to encourage his little brother to stick his finger up my right nostril as I type so they can throw back their heads and laugh historically. Yup... back to normal.
Dr. Bean
My therapist looks strangely similar to Mr. Bean which is a little distracting to me when we are in session. I am able to concentrate when he is speaking to me but when I am speaking and he is listening it's amazingly difficult to keep from laughing because he puts his hand to his chin and gets an intensely pensive look on his face. When I'm done talking I almost halfway expect him to stand up and do a small skit using no words but only body language to tell me what I should do with my life. I tell ya what, the imaginations of my mind make it incredibly hard to concentrate sometimes on matters at hand.
Take for instance a hypothetical situation. Say for example a friend comes to me and starts telling me about her cat. Cats automatically make me think of one cat in my childhood that was such a sickly cat who had diarrhea all the time. We used to call her Lady Bain the Poop Stain. Now the poor kitty's condition wasn't very funny but the name was hilarious! So while my friend is just finishing telling me how her cat recently died, I'm still giggling a little about Lady Bain! See what I mean!!? My mind is against me I'm telling you!
Anyway one of these days my therapist is going to be sitting there telling me I have a rare form of dementia and I won't be able to stop laughing because sometime during that speech he's gonna make this face....
Take for instance a hypothetical situation. Say for example a friend comes to me and starts telling me about her cat. Cats automatically make me think of one cat in my childhood that was such a sickly cat who had diarrhea all the time. We used to call her Lady Bain the Poop Stain. Now the poor kitty's condition wasn't very funny but the name was hilarious! So while my friend is just finishing telling me how her cat recently died, I'm still giggling a little about Lady Bain! See what I mean!!? My mind is against me I'm telling you!
Anyway one of these days my therapist is going to be sitting there telling me I have a rare form of dementia and I won't be able to stop laughing because sometime during that speech he's gonna make this face....
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Whats all the halabalou about?
This is a blog dedicated entirely to the whims, wants, and desires of my very own heart. Therefore it's hard to categorize it into a stereotype, for instance: this is a blog for mom's, this is a blog for fishermen, or this is a blog for the boogie man, who we all know lives under the bridge on Dehsea Rd where I grew up. Nope, there is no rhyme, reason or regularity to these rants. I simply discovered one day after the loss of a very good computer friend that I miss so very much the creative writing and debating I used to do.
Let me start out by describing a bit of myself for those of you who don't know me or perhaps even those who think they may know me yet have much to discover. Why, I had an eyeopening experience on the subject of defining myself just the other day! It came when my husband and I were watching the series Scrubs. As we sat there enjoying the wit and humor of hospital colleagues working together with long-winded outbursts, comical embarrassments, and romance, we decided to try and determine which character was most like ourselves. My husband of course was the main character J.D. A smart, slender yet toned, tall handsome intern who has a little bit of a geeky side. Mine on the other hand was a little harder to find.
*Enter Jordan* And there she was... I was horrified! Every time I try and describe Jordan she comes out sounding extremely mean and selfish with an outspokenness that zeros in on the insecurities people wear on their sleeves....and I'm not going to willingly own up to THAT! All I can say is if you want to get a glimpse into Amie Post's head go rent an episode of Scrubs and see Jordan in all her sarcastic glory. The best way I can think to describe it to you is this way.....have you ever walked away from a debate or argument and spent the next 2-3 hours dreaming up all the wonderful words and phrases that would have slammed your opponent so hard you're sure it would have sent them running home to Mommy? And ooooh how you wish you could have thought of those catchy one liners hours ago when you where still in the debate? Yeah.... I'm not one of those people and neither is Jordan.
Unfortunately we both have been blessed with the instant ability to say whatever on our mind and, more often than not, with a bit of a sting. The difference between Jordan and I though is that Jordan's character says these things right out loud and I, on the other hand, am still mastering the ability to not even think them at all! I really honestly and truly want to be a sweet, kind, sensitive person that believes theres good in everyone but that Jordan in me is a hard woman to stifle! It's a work in progress.
I should probably note however that the 24 years practice I've had thus far on this particular problem has given some improvement. On the whole I really am a cheerful person. I enjoy doing things for other people, taking long bike rides with my kids, eating green apples and sitting in the sun. Jordan really only comes out to play if A.) you annoy me or B.) you make me mad. Aside from that however, I have absolutely no problem being Amie and tying and gagging Jordan. If God has blessed you with a nasally voice however or you do NOT believe in the existence of a watermelon heart, chances are you'll meet Jordan first.
Let me start out by describing a bit of myself for those of you who don't know me or perhaps even those who think they may know me yet have much to discover. Why, I had an eyeopening experience on the subject of defining myself just the other day! It came when my husband and I were watching the series Scrubs. As we sat there enjoying the wit and humor of hospital colleagues working together with long-winded outbursts, comical embarrassments, and romance, we decided to try and determine which character was most like ourselves. My husband of course was the main character J.D. A smart, slender yet toned, tall handsome intern who has a little bit of a geeky side. Mine on the other hand was a little harder to find.
*Enter Jordan* And there she was... I was horrified! Every time I try and describe Jordan she comes out sounding extremely mean and selfish with an outspokenness that zeros in on the insecurities people wear on their sleeves....and I'm not going to willingly own up to THAT! All I can say is if you want to get a glimpse into Amie Post's head go rent an episode of Scrubs and see Jordan in all her sarcastic glory. The best way I can think to describe it to you is this way.....have you ever walked away from a debate or argument and spent the next 2-3 hours dreaming up all the wonderful words and phrases that would have slammed your opponent so hard you're sure it would have sent them running home to Mommy? And ooooh how you wish you could have thought of those catchy one liners hours ago when you where still in the debate? Yeah.... I'm not one of those people and neither is Jordan.
Unfortunately we both have been blessed with the instant ability to say whatever on our mind and, more often than not, with a bit of a sting. The difference between Jordan and I though is that Jordan's character says these things right out loud and I, on the other hand, am still mastering the ability to not even think them at all! I really honestly and truly want to be a sweet, kind, sensitive person that believes theres good in everyone but that Jordan in me is a hard woman to stifle! It's a work in progress.
I should probably note however that the 24 years practice I've had thus far on this particular problem has given some improvement. On the whole I really am a cheerful person. I enjoy doing things for other people, taking long bike rides with my kids, eating green apples and sitting in the sun. Jordan really only comes out to play if A.) you annoy me or B.) you make me mad. Aside from that however, I have absolutely no problem being Amie and tying and gagging Jordan. If God has blessed you with a nasally voice however or you do NOT believe in the existence of a watermelon heart, chances are you'll meet Jordan first.
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