The Best Apology of my Life

Angie had hair that was MUCH more 80s than this. 

When I talk about my childhood best friend, I am typically talking about a named Angie. She was and is my forever friend. Yet, when I first moved to Little Rock at the age of 9, Angie couldn’t stand me. I was a loud, obnoxious tomboy; she was a quiet, refined girlie-girl. In fact, she would wish for me to fall on my face every afternoon when I would get off the bus, run across the lawn, and leap off of a small retainer wall. I loved leaping off that thing and I never fell on my face, despite Angie’s wishes.

Where it all began for us. 

Our friendship began with a source of embarrassment for her, but a source of a secret comradely quirkiness. There was a day towards the end of 4^th grade when they combined two bus routes. The only seat left was next to Angie. She spent most of the ride looking out the window, straightening her frilly dress, and adjusting her hair. I was yapping away at anyone who would listen and being generally spastic. The driver would not let me move once some of the kids got off the bus, so we were stuck with each other in that hot, green vinyl seat. I was bored and she was annoyed.

"You're doing it wrong, Angie Dawn!"

All of a sudden, she channeled her inner Mork and started saying, “Neener, neener, neener, neener,” as she peered out the window. Ms. Prim and Proper had intrigued me. I said, “What in the world are you doing?” She blushed and said, “Oh! It is just something that I do sometimes. Try it. It feels neat.” There we were on the bus, in unison, quietly whispering, “Neener, neener, neener, neener.” We have been best friends ever since. We are still complete opposites, but she did teach me how to do my make-up and wear more than jeans and sweatshirts.

However, there is always someone who doesn’t get mentioned in the story of my best friendships or the story of the boys that changed my life.

Scott.

Scott came riding in my life on his bike full of imagination, adventure, and attitude. He sized me up and decided that, despite being a girl, I was a worthy adversary; he made me his partner in crime instead.

He would probably say that I was a part of his Foot Clan.

This kid looks like a wimp compared to Scott. 

We met at a patch of blackberries on my street. He was mouthing off to the nosy neighbor who demanded that he stop eating the blackberries. He demanded that she give her kids decent names (seriously, her kids had awful names). I thought this was a perfect opportunity to demonstrate some 9 year old defiance and joined in to prove how tough I was.

Except we were mini-metal heads

Imagine Veda and Thomas’ friendship with My Girl, but without the wimpiness of Thomas, the morgue in the Veda’s house, and the kiss. We were that close, but not close enough to kiss. That would have been completely incestuous.

We spent our afternoons riding our bikes around the neighborhood behaving as miniature, blonde vigilantes. We even had a secret hiding place for notes under a loose brick on someone’s retaining wall in order to communicate when I was grounded, which was often.

It could happen in Arkansas.

There were numerous adventures that typically ended up in one of us or both us of getting into trouble and always treated as if we were being overly dramatic. For example, we went hiking into the ravine in our neighborhood and thought that wild dogs were chasing us. We ran up the opposite side of the hill, in someone’s back yard, and eventually on a service road. My mother laughed at the wild dog story.

We were also chased my an ax murdered one Halloween. After were were done running for our lives, we discussed that we had proof this time – my pillow case had lost all of its sugary contents because the material had been sliced (by the ax murderer, of course). My mom said that we got worked-out and I must have snagged my pillow case while we were running.

What my former neighbor is probably doing now. 

From my window at night, I could see my neighbor opening his crawl space and dragging out something in a bag that was very heavy. He also had a shovel. He would dig in the dark for a very long time and when he returned his shovel to the crawl space, no heavy bag was returned.

I peddled as fast as I could to meet Scott to discuss this the next Saturday morning. It was obvious that this man was burying a body, right? We went into surveillance mode, but we eventually got bored and went on to play NES. My mom claims that our neighbor was gardening at night because of his work schedule. Uh, huh.

There was another neighbor down the way that looked freakishly like Prince. He would drive his Camaro too fast for our liking. We first noticed where he lived while we were messing with The Old Man’s Koi fish. His tidy, gnome-like house did not match his flashy exterior. There had to be a secret there. 

That "stray dog" must have had opposable thumbs. 

We watched him for weeks and say no movement. On one of our stakeouts, we noticed an opened parcel with something shiny sticking out. When a “stray dog accidentally” knocked it over, a golden throwing star fell out. HE WAS AN EVIL NINJA!!! Scott and I became heroes that day as were made sure to rid the world of his weapon of mass destruction. I didn’t bother to get my mother’s opinion on this. She would probably have said the “stray dog” wasn’t real and she certainly would have made me search the woods and apologize to Ninja Prince. 

One of our last adventures was in the middle of a fight (he had locked in a playhouse with the most perverted boy that I had every known and after beating the boy up and throwing him out of the playhouse window, I stormed home). Scott rode his bike to my house and declared, “I know we aren’t speaking, but we have until midnight to get to South America or the entire world will explode.”

It was the best apology from a guy that I ever received.

Unavoidably, puberty came and interfered with our adventures. He became friends with the biggest basketball-headed jerk that I had ever met and Angie had begun the process of helping me transition into girlie things. Our adventures were over.

Scott is a part of some of my best childhood memories and I credit him for helping build my imagination. Because of my friendship with him, I knew how to get in the dirt and play imaginative games with my own little boy. The level of silliness shared with the both are priceless.

Some part of me never will. 

Where is Scott now? He lives in the country with his beautiful wife with a family of critters to wrangle with every day. He is a good guy and probably one of the most awesome people that I will ever know.

P.S. Did I mention the time that Angie’s dad, who was a police officer, busted us throwing rocks at cars? I didn’t mention that to Angie or my mother. 

The Best Pope Yet

Before I converted to Catholicism, I had gained a lot of respect for Pope John Paul II.

My opinion of the following Pope was very low. In fact, one of his first acts as Pope was to bless a fleet of Ferraris; shortly there after, he warned us about the evils of consumerism during the Christmas holiday. It never settled with me.

Our current Pope truly has my heart and is inspiring, not only as a Catholic or even a Christian, but simply as a human.

Here is some advice that he has shared about living a happier life. I am so moved by his respect for others and use of common sense that I had to share.

http://thehigherlearning.com/2014/07/31/the-pope-just-released-a-list-of-10-tips-for-becoming-a-happier-person-and-they-are-spot-on/

Until next time,

LIVE LOUDLY!!!

And Then Life Makes a Full Circle

I often refer to the teenage version of myself as a hooligan. I was certainly not the worst of the worst, but I caused a great deal of heartbreak and havoc. Due to a combination of chemical imbalances and childhood traumas mixed with teenage hormones and an inability to express the hurt and anger that I had carried for years, I was a one-girl team of destruction.

This is not a blog about casting blame on anyone, so don’t jump to the conclusion that I may reveal some big answer about why I was so out-of-control. I can’t, and if I could, what purpose would it serve? The most simple and most accountable answer that I can give is that I had pain, and for many years I handled hurt through displays of anger and aggression.

It was the 1990s and I was diagnosed with a myriad of disorders, some of which are no longer recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). There was no place for me and my behavior was becoming increasingly dangerous to myself and others, so I was placed in a variety of residential group homes.

Change in Philosophy

 

I believe in the power of education and the cliché that knowledge is power. A strong education and a good work ethic can help anyone change their situation. When you are a teen, you have a choice to start building the life that you want to have regardless of the life that you were given at birth. Literature was my path, my salvation, my escape, and eventually, my career.

During my fourth year of teaching, I met R. I have had many students who were wards of the state, so when I found out that she was in a group home, I gave her the same speech that I give all the kids in that situation. It is essential, “I have survived the group home circuit. You can make something positive of your life if you chose to do so. I will have high expectations for you during your time here, because that is my teaching style, but if you need additional resources, please let me know.” Other than that and providing occasional supplies, I had not gotten involved in their cases.  

R and I looked similar, had similar literacy (high) and math (low) scores, and a similar sense of humor. I gave her my speech and was going to leave it at that, but she wrote me a letter detailing her life experience so far. She had no one. I wrote back a list of survival rules/pep talk quotes. It was pretty cheesy stuff like, “Sometimes you will feel like you can’t go any further, but you must always put one foot in front of the other and eventually, you will look back and the struggles will be behind you.” I really thought that I was sharing seriously sage advice at the time.

R’s story was so outrageous that I started to suspect that she was manipulating me for some reason. I called her case worker and discovered that the most disturbing things that this young lady had written were true and that she was, indeed, in need of someone to care about her well-being. I decided to be her mentor.

I believe that God put that child in my life. I wanted to stop her road of destruction and hurt. I wanted to help her realize that she was just as valuable as every other person breathing air and that she had every reason to love herself. Maybe I was trying to save myself or right the wrongs of my personal history through sharing my experience as a teen with someone else. I don’t know, but as time goes on, it is reaffirmed that R was put in my life for a purpose. I hope that I am serving a purpose in her life, but that is not my story to tell.

I failed miserably at being a mentor. I could not simply give her advice that she would follow; I could not fathom why she would not accept what I said and just do what I suggested. For a long time, I was temporary to her.  Naturally, being failed by everyone else in her life, she looked at me as another person who was going to let her down and make her feel inadequate. I understood it, but I couldn't stop it.

Eventually, she left my town for another placement. 

I maintained contact with her caseworker and would hear from R every few months. For awhile, she stabilized and was thriving in a new foster home. Still, like most teenagers and like all children who have suffered in life, she started to push boundaries, made some mistakes, and had to leave the foster home for a group home.

This particular group home was the last one that I was in as a teen. It was 1996 and I was 17. I did not give a single damn about working any aspect of the therapy and was simply buying my time. After six months, the program informed my parents that I was not going to be successful in the program. I left there and didn’t really look back too often.

I wasn’t successful there at all, but I did learn a lot about myself and there were words that rang in my ears years later from three very dedicated and hardworking professionals there (H, A, and E). The first time that I drove to this facility to pick up R for a visit, I became very saddened and angered. I have cried every time that I have dropped her off at the facility. I have cried for her and her lack of options right now and I have cried for my younger self.

I am not nearly as glamorous as Brittney when I cry and drive

I finally understood tonight.

R has become a part of our family over the course of our journey. She has made some mistakes along the way, but we have watched her struggle, grow, and change. We see the good in her and believe that she can succeed. She still cannot see that in herself, aside from moments of sheer defiance to prove all the people who didn’t believe in her ability. Because she has been systematically failed her whole life, it is hard for her to trust that people will be there for her no matter what. Sometimes, she pushes people away as a method of self-preservation. You know, the whole, “I will hurt you before you hurt me” bit.

Tonight was one of those nights. She felt inadequate and frustrated. She was tired of living in a group home instead of a real home. She wanted normal teenage freedom and felt like all of her work has been fruitless.

Again, I understood all of her points.

She started to tell me that she didn’t want to go on passes anymore because she didn’t want to let me down and she didn’t want her counselor to say that she was co-dependent on anyone. She eventually calmed down as I listened and I explained that it wasn’t necessary for her to push because after all this time, I was not going to bail.

And then I said, “If you think I’m giving up on you, you’re crazy.”

There it was. 

My dark shadow of unresolved lingerings that will never be answered and healed.

During my stay at this same group home almost twenty years ago, my biological father sent me a letter. I had not heard much from him during my time in group homes. In fact, the last time that I had seen him, I had severed our relationship in an attempt to gain a solution that I thought would fix all of my hurt.

My parents had me when they were very young and they divorced before my first memory. My father was immature and emotionally distant, but there were things that I look back on in life that tell me that he loved me. There are songs, places, and memories of things like dancing on his feet that bring tears to my eyes. In fact, the best summer of my life was spent with him in Savannah, GA. He was a park ranger at Fort Pulaski, and on his days off we would go to Tybee Island and play at the beach.

Things change.

My mother, step-father (whom I typically refer to as Daddy), and I moved 8 hours away. I began to convert from a tomboy to a girlie-girl and this was completely alien to my dirt-digging  (archaeologist) father. His way of handling all things uncomfortable was to shut-down, cut-down, or make a joke. We were losing the frayed strings that held us together. He also married my step-mother, who hates me to this day (to her credit, I was such a terror to her from 12-15 years old during a total of three visitations that she has never been able to recovered).

This picture is for satire only. My step-mother is a blonde. 

On a side note, his daughter is more than a sister. She is one of my best friends. We developed a secret relationship over six years ago because she was warned by her mother about me. I never turned my sister into a devil-worshipper nor did I try to sacrifice her to the underlords. Plus, she is an adult now so we don’t have to hide the fact that we have talked three to five times a week since she was 15.

Nature wins over Nurture 

My father and I speak once or twice a year. When he does call, he says, “Jaimie, this is your father.” His formality is so reminiscent of Darth Vader that it is funny, but otherwise, it hurts. When I was a struggling teen, I didn’t want to leave my mother, but a part of me wanted my father to save me. He probably couldn’t have because many people tried and no one could stop me from destroying myself except for me. I spent many years in the confinements of whatever facility that I was in thinking that he was going to come “rescue” me.

I understand why he didn’t. I was uncontrollable and he had small children at the time to protect; my mom was in that same boat. Having a small child of my own made me understand how precious those early years are and how vital it is to protect them from hurt, abuse, and confusion. This was something that I didn’t understand until I became a parent myself.

He wrote me once. The letter came during my stay at R’s current placement. I remember two things: he told me that as I get older, more doors closed and he told me to listen to “Just Wait” by Blues Travelers.

Without a second thought, I quoted a line from that song to R tonight.

I have rarely listened to it over the years because I argued with it (or rather argued with my father’s intent on sending it). At the time, the lyrics offended and hurt me. “If you think I’ve given up on you, you’re crazy. If you think I don’t love you, then you’re just wrong, “ is sung softly in the song. I would hear those lines and think, “Really? Why didn’t you come get me? You haven’t loved me in years.” And so the negative thoughts would roll.

I have softened quite a bit towards my father since the passing of my grandmother, our only real connection during my adult life. Yet, we don’t have a relationship. I forgave him years ago for not “saving” me or making me feel loved enough to counteract the burdens that I had carried.

But, tonight, I understood him differently than before. It is one of the hardest things to watch someone you love start to self-destruct and not be able to do anything to save them other than say, “eventually you will stop hurting yourself.”

There are no real answers in life and one thing that my father has always said is, “Your mother and I did the best we could with what we had at the time.” I am doing just that with R – trying the best I can with what I have.

So, I sit here with an ache in my heart for the hurt and helplessness that parents (my father, my mom, and my daddy) felt. I ache in my heart with a new-found empathy that I have for their situation so many years ago. Not being able to help someone that you so desperately want to reach is devastating. 

But most of all, I ache in my heart for R because she has yet to understand all the beautiful things that can come from an ugly life.

So, like my father, all I can think to do at this point is to write and tell her to, “Just Wait.”

Until next time,

LIVE LOUDLY!!!

Blogging is for the Bats

I love to write. 

I am in no way a novelist or a poet; in fact, my writing is full of grammatical errors like comma splices and pronoun-antecedent agreement problems. I know this about myself. As an English teacher, it is a source of great shame; as an English major, I am content with my extreme love of literature being enough. I am not one for quality rhetoric.

Nonetheless, I like to write and share my ideas.

I have been writing all of my life, aside from traditional academics. I used to create little picture book stories. My second grade teacher was very impressed. I created a story for her called “Ms. June Bug.” She said that I would be an author one day and a part of me always clung to that idea.

My next venture in book making was in third grade when I wrote “Frosty the Ax Murderer”, a tale of a snowman who vowed revenge for the children allowing him to melt away. Needless to say, this deeply disturbed my mother.

This idea is apparently not unique, even though it was to my mom in 1986. 

There was a time in college when I was told that I was a good poet. Upon reflection and maturity, I realized that I am a horrendous poet.  Most teenagers are, in my opinion. I have only known three people who were capable of writing poetry worth reading as teens and young adults: Sarah, Brad, and Neal. Everyone else was/is producing the same trite couplets that all forlorn and angst-ridden teens has written over the decades.

They were really wanna-be Beatniks, which turned into Hipsters. 

I love reading, analyzing, and discussing poetry. It is one of my strengths. Despite my knowledge of the technical aspects of poetry, it is far from my gift. In my early twenties, I realized that the wanna-be beat-niks who gave my poetry any ounce of admiration were actually only trying to advance their access to a (probably not-so-poetic) encounter with me. It never worked.

I had one glimmering moment of success with a short story and it is an idea that I play with to this day. I needed a scholarship and the prompt was so easily manipulated for the audience that within a few hours, I produced a piece that tugged at their heartstrings. It served a purpose and met the needs of the intended audience to get the scholarship. Although the piece had my voice all through it, it was underdeveloped and it was my sad attempt to be the next Flannery O’Connor. They say that you write what you know and what I know is Southern culture and the complexities of crazy, Southern women and the odd dynamics that are shared between them.

Still, I am no writer.

I eventually found my best form of creating when I became a teacher. I took great pride in myself for writing some of the best lesson plans out there. Maybe I am simply full of a false bravado in this department, but I own it for now.  

I have to give all the credit for this ability to the influence of my professors (Dr. Y, Dr. V, and Dr. L) and my 1^st year mentor because they all challenged me to go with “thinking outside of the box” while meeting the requirements that are set for educators. It could be that I came in at a time when many people in my profession were suffering from burn-out and had resorted to not “recreating the wheel” by utilizing online-resources. Some call that “working smarter and not harder.” I don’t have an opinion on it, either way. I wanted to create lesson plans that were true to my identity as a teacher and that I felt would be most effective for my students. I could find great ideas in other resources and through collaboration, but I still had to create what was me and was good for my students.

Yet, with the impending threat of a state-takeover and the ever-present, profiting-making corporate educational programs in our nation’s public schools, my ability to write an amazing and innovative lesson has been trampled and degraded because it did not fit the format of the corporations that is infiltrating schools across this country. I have been tied down to becoming a “YES” woman and have had all creativity stripped from me, as deviating one bit is taken as an act of insubordination instead of an act of trying to reach my particular set of students. There seemed to be no value in the success that I was producing in the classroom, or so I felt in that time and space. I, with my very vocal determination to do what is best for students, became a sitting duck that was quickly used as an “example.” With each defense that I provided, each attempt to not be bullied or wrongly accused, each attempt to keep the instruction true to the needs of the students, I became more and more of a target. I had not mastered handling these situations with grace and professionalism. I resigned myself to what I viewed as submission, but may make me a stronger educator.

I have spent my entire summer reconciling myself to the fact that I am not to be a “trailblazer” in education, but rather a “puppet.” Does this mean that I will give my students less? Absolutely not. I will continue to walk into my classroom everyday and teach each child as much as a I can with what I am told to do. I do this for me and my students – no one else. It does mean that I, like so many teachers across this country, have to face the fact that we are now merely a part of the political and corporate game that has become education.

I was very close to leaving the field, yet this was not fathomable to me. Teaching has been my dream profession since I was very young. God calls me to teach. In fact, I feel called to teach at a school that many people locally judge rather unfairly and harshly, despite the fact that we have a great amount of wonderful students who achieve great things in life and a large amount of staff with the heart and knowledge that surpasses most. I teach every child that walks through my door with all that I have because that is what every student deserves. That is the level that I choose to challenge myself to achieve every day.

Per usual, I digress.

                   

I wanted an outlet for my thoughts and opinions. I would get into these social media rants and debates. I have opinions that I want to share and discuss. The limited character space on social media makes it difficult to express it all and the unchecked emotions that come from an immediate type and click often detract from the validity of any point that is being made.

A secondary draw to blogging is that I like to talk about a wide-range of things: Pinterest fails, the crazy situations that I get into, life as a reformed hooligan, being a mom, a wife, an ex-wife, and so forth. It isn’t that I think the world cares, but, like with teaching, it is worth the work to reach just one person.

I very stupidly believed that blogging would come easily to me. I type exceptionally fast and I run my mouth constantly (hence, the title of my page).

Yet, it didn't. 

I went stale right out of the gate. I continued to make lists of things that I wanted to discuss, but did not find the time or momentum to put it down on paper.

I have two friends that are actual authors (Check them out because they are both amazingly gifted people Celia Anderson and Brad Carter). They are very different writers, but both are passionate about what they create and dedicate themselves to their craft. In fact, they have had that drive since high school.

I have lacked the dedication to even write my little rants and raves about life. Anyone who is invested in a venture professionally or personally has to create a certain amount of time and effort for their projects and goals. I spent the first half of summer moping over the last school year. After reflecting about what I needed to do to remain a teacher (which felt like a ritualistic sacrifice akin to a scene of out Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom), I began working on improving my outlook on my personal and professional life. I had to cut out a lot of negativity with myself, my environment, and my associates.

I am still more misanthropic than Polly-Anna, so don’t let any positive spin confuse you.

Yet, being able to have dreams and to survive suffering the bumps and bruises of recognizing my shortcomings, being shoved into metaphorical boxes, and learning that my spur-of-the-moment efforts are not going to cut it in life is freeing.

Being transparent and raw, is not good for the ego, but it does seem to soothe the soul and provide hope that I can still be me without all of the battles that I either create or in which I willingly engage.

Until next time,

LIVE LOUDLY!!!