Silently Surviving

My whole life is made up of disappointing people. That’s what I do. I guess I’m not an acceptable person, because I never seem to be accepted as I am. I am never good enough. Never. I am only accepted when I pretend to be something I am not. I’m never going to be that person, and I don’t want to be that person. I should stop worrying about being acceptable to other people, and accept that I am not going to be able to be what they want. It is slowly killing me.

I don’t even know who I am anymore. I don’t know if I ever knew, but I am sure I don’t know who I am right now. What do I believe? What do I want? What do I think is important? What gives me purpose? What makes me want to go on? What makes it worthwhile to get out of bed in the morning? What makes it worthwhile to wake up at all? I have no idea anymore.

Since I last blogged…..

• We got another puppy. Dylan’s sister from another litter. Her name is Taylor and she’s adorable!
• My husband and I celebrated 7 years of marriage. Happy Anniversary my love!
• I did get a raise, and official status as Office Manager. Hurray! Finally my resume is looking up. I enjoy my job and the people there, but it’s nice to know that if things should change and I needed to leave, I can show enough experience to possibly get a better job than I could have last year.
• My kids turned 16, 18, and the oldest will be 20 next month. Life moves on and so fast. It’s interesting to note that I’ve known them for more than half their lives now. Eleven years!
• I turned another year older and feel okay about it. The forties are a definite improvement over the thirties. Also, my husband turned 40. Happy Birthday!
• I bought a new laptop. It arrives in two days. I almost could not be more excited about it! A custom gaming platform for my World of Warcraft “addiction”! As it’s essentially my only entertainment outlet and expense, this is a big deal to me. Thanks Honey! Happy Birthday to me!
• I bought a new car. Well, new to me… actually 10 years old, but it looks great and runs great and only has 86,000 miles on it. I’ll see if I can get it together enough to post a picture. I just got it last night. A Toyota Camry LE. I know most people don’t aspire to owning a Camry, but I’ve wanted one for a long time. I was supposed to get one when I bought my Toyota Corolla NINETEEN years ago, but the payments were just a little too high and I went down one car level to the Corolla. You’d never know to look at it now, but it was the “Deluxe” version of an economy-sized car, and it made me very happy at the time and got me over the disappointment of not getting the Camry. But now, that car is 19 years old and feeling it. It’s actually in great shape for a car that old, but things are starting to go south. For instance the windows. All the windows except the driver’s window have difficulty rolling up again if you roll them down. There are no power locks or power windows, and so you must hand crank the windows and now they also require guidance and tugging manually into place. It’s also from the days before air bags became standard equipment, so no air bags. Anyway, it’s very exciting for me to have a new ride!

Apparently I don’t have much to say. Or I have too much and it seems too overwhelming to try and get it all down. One of those. I waffle between the two.

It’s a new year, time for new beginnings, blah blah blah. That’s the deal right? I’ve withdrawn from school, due to finances, mostly accidentally. I withdrew from my classes last term, and this term found out that since I hadn’t gone for a “leave of absence”, and hadn’t been enrolled for two terms (?? may classes or summer classes are a term included in this apparently since I was enrolled and finished Spring term.), so I’ve been re-allocated to withdrawn status. All I have to do to re-enroll is fill out a form for readmission, however, I don’t see being able to take a class this term either, so it seems moot. I may or may not try to re-enroll later, but I’m not sure.

I am working full time again as my supervisor got a new job, and I am now doing her job and mine. I’m crash-course learning accounting on the job. The first question every single person asks me is “So, do you get a raise?” or something along those lines. I agree, that’s my first question too.  When I asked this question of my bosses I got “Oh, hmmm, I hadn’t thought about it yet” from one, and “Not this month, but we’ll talk about it in the beginning of the year” from the other. The fact that I’m learning on the job did allow for my agreement that my regular pay would be sufficient for this month, even though I’m doing two people’s jobs and have vastly increased responsibility. I pointed this out and said that I did feel increased compensation would be necessary if I were to continue in the position.The fact that my company is in financial hardship is noted, but they also just saved a vast amount of money by losing one overpaid office manager / controller and not hiring a new one in her place. My pay is apparently $18k less per year than hers was. I know this since I am now doing the accounting and payroll, and have access to all of our financial information. Give me a break! We’ll see what happens. I’m cautiously optimistic, but more pessimistic about the tendency toward cheapskatedness that’s inherent in my bosses.  Either way, I’m planning to take a couple of short online courses in accounting fundamentals and QuickBooks. It can’t do anything but help, either there or the next job. Since I’ve been there for 6 1/2 years, hopefully it will be there. I like it overall.

What else? We got snowed in for several days just before Christmas, like much of the rest of the country, and that kind of put the kabosh on any last-minute Christmas shopping. Which, for me, meant NO Christmas Shopping. I had decided in August upon being told I would be working half time for the next month or two (or 10) that Christmas was cancelled. I never did quite get out of that mindset. Oh well. I got a beautiful pair of pj’s and the movie wall-e. That works for me. Although, I do have a hankering for getting things to pamper my puppy and kitty. Like, a big tall cat tree with lots of perches and things to play with. They are so expensive though!! Got my puppy a new bed and a raincoat. Yes, a raincoat. When it rains hard, he gets SOAKING wet and that hair of his just sucks it all in and drying him off is difficult, so…. a raincoat it is!

That’s it for now. I’m happy it’s the weekend. 🙂

The people have spoken and this time there is no doubt what was spoken, unlike in 2000. I felt the wrong decision was made then, but eventually I had to accept it, even through my disagreement and distrust. I’m thrilled to live in a country that gives us the freedom to speak up and out and vote our opinions. I just hope that every person who implied I was unpatriotic to criticize President Bush will reconsider that position when they desire to criticize President Obama. Will they refrain from respect to their stated position that it is unpatriotic to criticize the President? Will they be hypocrits who think that supporting only their desired candidate is patriotic? As if somehow a non-Republican is a non-American. Or, will they possibly consider that it might actually be every citizen’s patriotic duty to pinpoint what they see as wrong, even if it is the President, possibly especially the President, now that it’s not the President they wanted. My hope is that we all see that our duty as citizens is not to blindly support our candidate but to think for ourselves and call out what is good and what is bad in turn, without fear of being thrown in jail or being ostracized as a traitor. Blind obedience is ignorance and ignorance is curable. I can’t help but wonder what would happen if Toby Keith were to make negative, denigrating, anti-Obama comments in another country, after Obama is sworn in as President of the United States. Would his fans and “community” see him as a traitor and un-American a la the Dixie Chicks, or would they cheer him on for speaking aloud to the world the same things that they are thinking? Personally my opinion of The Dixie Chicks went way up for speaking their opinions at a time when the political atmosphere called disagreement unpatriotic. Calling disagreement unpatriotic sounds like fascism to me. Last I checked, the United States was still supposed to be a democracy.

Last night, Tuesday, November 04, 2008, a date that will be noted historically I believe, because momentous history was made… we got lost in the dark.

At 6pm while I was cooking dinner (Pork Chops with Carmelized Onions, oh yeah!), the house went dark. We all paused briefly, waiting for the lights to flicker back on. I stood in the kitchen for a couple of minutes before deciding it was time to light some candles. My husband continued battling on in his online multi-player game, unaware that he was no longer sending a signal to the server and therefore effectively dead in his game. My daughter came out of her room shortly after also, likely taking a couple of minutes to realize that she too was no longer connected in her online game. We lit candles, and waited. My husband took our dog for a walk around the block. He came back confirming our guess that it was our whole neighborhood and not just our cul-de-sac. A street light could be seen on a hill several blocks away, possibly many blocks. It’s hard to tell in the dark. We passed some time, my daughter reading a book, me playing Solitaire via the battery on my laptop, my husband watching The Shield on his Zune.

At 6:45pm we decided that we’d better hit the road for some dinner. Certainly my electric stove and oven weren’t going to deliver anything. (Another good reason for a gas stove!) Traffic was really heavy. The last vestiges of commuter traffic, plus we were guessing people rushing to turn in their ballots before 8pm at the library or city hall. When we got to the restaurant near our house, the parking lot was curiously empty. Daughter and husband thought it was probably normal for a Tuesday night. I didn’t think so. As we got out of our vehicle we could see one of the waiters unlocking the doors inside. It turns out their power went out at 6pm too. If it stayed off until 7:15 they were going to get to leave. At 7:10 the power came back on. I can imagine they weren’t very happy about that. We debated about going home… after all, our power went off at 6pm, so it was surely back on. But, we were hungry and decided it would take a long time to get back home and finish cooking dinner, so we stayed. On the TV in the bar we could see little red and blue states lighting up, but not clearly and we couldn’t hear anything.

At 7:50 we got back in the car to go home. We heard the news that Obama was going to give a speech in about 10 minutes.  We weren’t sure we’d heard correctly. Surely it was too early to call the race. After all, here in Oregon we hadn’t all finished putting our voting ballots in the ballot box. We had until 8pm. (We personally had done ours days earlier.)  They repeated it, Senator Obama was going to give a speech, something about being the President-Elect. We weren’t surprised with the result, but the speed with which it was determined was startling. Really? Could it be over that fast?

At 8pm we pulled into our neighborhood, fully expecting to turn on the TV to watch History being made. But it was not to be. The lights were still off everywhere we could see. At that moment I was more concerned with the food that was still on my stove (I had of course turned the stove off), the dog that had been left in the dark, the mess on the floor from said dog getting into the garbage in my daughter’s room, and the election receded in my mind. We spent the next couple of hours continuing our earlier pursuits of reading, puzzling, and watching old tv episodes via Zune. And of course, we decided it would be prudent to have some of the Pumpkin Ice Cream Pie that was in the freezer. After all, it would probably melt!

At 10:30 we decided it was time to call it a night. Just as we were getting into bed, at 10:38, BLING, all the lights came on. This was a relief since we had to get up in the morning and relying on my cell phone alarm seemed a bit risky.

This morning we realized more fully that we had missed history in the making. Most everyone else I know was probably watching the results on tv, was listening to Obama claim victory and McCain concede the race, and watching those little blue and red states light up, from 1 and 2 states to all 50.  My husband and I are both sad that we missed out on an event that will likely be a cultural benchmark in this country, the event of a lifetime! What a bummer!

My 17 year old stepson moved out this weekend, back to his mother’s house. I haven’t blogged about it at all because I haven’t really figured out what I think. For me personally and selfishly it’s a good thing. Having him here has been stressful for me from the day he moved in. He’s not an awful kid by any means, but he’s not one that goes out of his way to do anything for anyone else in this family.  He has seemingly intentionally divorced himself from this family, and when he goes to his mom’s house, he interacts and is actually helpful and does nice things sometimes. Therefore, the decision was made that he would move back to his mom’s house before the school year started. The school district where we live is one of the best, if not the best, districts in the state. The school district where he is moving is one of the worst academically.  He didn’t want to move because he wanted to stay in our school system. Yet, when given the opportunity to do something to try to stay in it, he never engaged. It seems to me that he was more willing to move than to discuss what he could do differently and then follow through.  When he was packing up his stuff into his mom’s van, and my husband was sort of helping, they didn’t talk.  I think neither one of them knew what to say or how to say anything. The whole scenario made me cry. I could see my husband was mad, I could see my stepson seemed apathetic, but I wasn’t sure what he was feeling. I felt like saying to both of them “STOP!! Just get over the awkwardness and say something real. Say something that you really feel. Tell him you love him. Tell him you’re sorry. Tell him you want to rebuild your relationship. Don’t just let each other walk away.”  My husband did end up going outside just before they left and talking to him for a few minutes, saying some heartfelt words, promising to try to make things better in the future. I found myself sobbing about it. Not because he was moving out, but in the same way I would cry if I was watching a movie and seeing this scene play itself out: A quiet father and a quiet son don’t know how to talk, don’t know how to be friends, don’t necessarily like each other even, and they are letting each other go without really trying to fix it, and you know what the future will bring for them… nothing.

There are some silver linings however. I no longer have to worry about whether my door is closed when i’m changing clothes. I can walk into the laundry room (aka garage) in any state of dress or undress to get something from the dryer or the hanging rod there. I can get in the hot tub buck nekkid without wondering if I can be seen from inside the house. I can come home and find my kitchen counters still clean (hopefully). I won’t find a week’s worth of dishes suddenly in the sink after being piled up in a bedroom with food still in them, crusting on and molding. (UGH) We can buy enough food for 3 normal sized appetites instead of 5 because we don’t have one person eating enough for 2. We do have to pay child support, but hopefully no more than what we will save by not feeding him. Clearly due to my sudden economic downturn this is important.

So, my stress level went way down on Saturday, only to be lifted high on Tuesday with the news about my job. I stayed home today to rest. I feel much more relaxed now. And, knowing that my son won’t walk in the room ignoring me completely does kind of help.  Speaking of stress relief, it’s time to take my puppy for a walk. 🙂 If only kids stayed as affectionate as puppies. Oh well, at least they grow up and support themselves someday.

I wrote this as a comment on Steal The Crumb’s blog, but it became long enough that I felt it should probably just be its own entry. There are some basic assumptions in this that one has already read his take on what the Bible has to say about homosexuality. You may want to read it first.

I disagree with the “Christian” argument against homosexuality. I didn’t grow up Christian, therefore didn’t have the religious angle thrown into my view of it. I did however grow up Unitarian which embraces everyone’s worth as a human, and homosexuality as an aspect of many people’s humanity.

Growing up in Berkeley and San Francisco, I would have to say I have known a very large number of gays and lesbians (Berkeley being the supposed lesbian capital of the world with more lesbians per capita than anywhere else, at least back then, and the same with San Francisco and gays). Some of the lesbians I have known made a conscious choice to seek out other women (largely due to abuse at the hands of men), but none of the gays I knew had made a conscious choice to seek out other men instead of women. They simply found women completely non-sexually. A *few* in college had made the choice to “try it out”, hence their temporary labels as bisexual, but I never saw anyone continue that over the long term.  Most of the lesbians and all of the gays I have known saw their sexual selection as something that they did not choose and most as something they would not choose due to the harsh life that came with that selection. Simply choosing to go against their innate choice for same sex selection put them into states of misery, living lies and hiding secrets, but being allowed to live lives that were outwardly acceptable. Choosing to go with their innate choice of same sex selection allowed them to live lives of inner honesty and integrity, but put them into positions of living lives full of discrimination and rejection because they were outwardly unacceptable. Why would someone choose a life that resulted in rejection by their families and most of society unless they were unable to live authentic lives any other way?

My view today mixes these views together with my standing as a believer in God, and comes out thus: I believe people are born with one sexual orientation. They can choose to go with it or against it. Some people will be able to live authentic lives either way, some will not. I believe that God creates us and knows us and that we are exactly who we are meant to be. If God is infallible, and creates some of us with same-sex orientation, than that is who we are meant to be, there is no mistake, and going against that orientation is NOT what God intended. Those people who choose to go against their innate orientation are the only ones choosing to live lives differently than God’s intentions. And, frankly, if they are able to live those lives and not feel that they are living lies, than perhaps God’s intentions were for them to choose. I still believe in the innate worth of every human being, that we are all connected, and that what we do affects everyone around us, in a ripple effect.  Choosing to hate people based on their sexual orientation smacks of hypocrisy to me. Are we not to love everyone as ourselves? Choosing to hate the behavior of same-sex orientation also smacks of hypocrisy to me. Do we not want people to live the lives that God intended for them? Who are WE to make that judgment as to what God intended? We are no one, we have no authority, we have no ability to know God’s mind or his intentions, so we must live and let live.

I do understand that some people are not comfortable accepting gay and lesbian behavior, but being uncomfortable about someone’s same-sex orientation and behavior is the only true reaction that makes sense to me. That’s authentic, because it is based on one’s own feelings. But there is no need to spew that uncomfortableness about. Other people could care less about gay and lesbian behavior, it has no affect on them. That is also an authentic reaction. I guess that’s all I care about… that people live authentically.

Yesterday my boss pulled me and my supervisor aside and said “starting Sept. 1, we are going to have to cut each of your hours down, probably to 3 days a week. Whatever amount allows you to keep your benefits intact. You two can work it out between you how you want to do that, either working 3 days, or working a few hours each day. We hope this will only be for a month, but it could be 2. We don’t think it will be more than that, but we cannot promise anything.”

This came two days after I posted about doing hard things, doing things that don’t come easily. It also came within a week after I was actually talking to God about how much I would love a 4 day work week. Apparently I wasn’t specific enough…. I was hoping for 4 10-hour days, not 3 8-hour days.  I don’t want to talk salaries too much here, but this will be a significant monetary issue for us. A 40% pay cut isn’t gonna be good for anyone! I will be looking for part-time work if possible to tide us over. I will be looking for full-time work in the knowledge that this could very, very easily last longer than 1-2 months. In my heart of hearts I want my husband to say “It’s okay, we can make it on you working 3 days a week. This will give you 2 days a week to take care of things, cook meals to freeze (cutting down on lunches and dinners eaten out), and de-stress.” (Being highly-sensitive puts me in a near-constant state of overload and overwhelm, even with anti-anxiety / anti-depression medications, and the need to find ways to de-stress is constant.) But I know that he can’t say that! Not unless we want to lose our house. And, you know, stop eating. Little things like that.

So what is doing the hard thing? Is it battening down the hatches and holding tight to weather the storm? Is it looking for a new job (which I sincerely do not want to do!)? Is it giving it up to God and not worrying about it? That last one makes me laugh at the imagined sheer impossibility of me doing that! Forget HARD! So, that probably is doing the hard thing…. doing nothing for now. Not trying to be in control and not trying to fix the problem. Sometimes I am a control freak. I need to let things be a little loosey-goosey and give things time to work out. For me, that’s the hardest thing I can do.

Anyway…. be careful what you ask for!! You might get the opportunity to put your money where your mouth is sooner than you think!

I’d just ask everyone to be remembering us in their prayers, and count your blessings! I’m certainly giving thanks for you all.