Tag Archives: women

Forgiving. Forgiven?

11 Sunday Nov 2018

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At the start of every class, my yoga instructor will start by asking us to find our “intention” for our time on our mats. Today’s stretchy version of hell was brought to us by the young gent who all the ladies seem to appreciate and spend extra time prepping themselves, their outfits, and even their bodies for. I personally prefer the Russian woman because she kicks my ass and takes zero prisoners during her class. He….well, he has a more gentle approach. (Probably why his class is always wall to wall sweaty assholes and there’s usually only about 5 of us suckers in her class–I digress)

It was “intention time”. Typically mine land somewhere between “I want to relax” and “I dedicate my practice to finding peace in my heart”. Today, before I gave it any thought…my intention leaped out at me. I had barely bowed by third eye to my fingers and it came screaming into my head at a quiet whisper: forgive.

Who do I need to forgive? I don’t hold onto much anger. At least I didn’t use to. I only held onto it if holding on prevented me from being hurt again. But I wasn’t angry at anyone. I couldn’t think of anyone who had hurt me, was still hurting me.

I’ve been hurting. I’ve been hurting for a long time and I thought I understood why I was hurting and who was hurting me. As I bowed to my hands I began to cry. Right there on my damn mat, in the middle of dimly lit room, filled with sweaty ass strangers, and gentle but quirky modern music set as the backdrop for my mental breakdown.

I need to forgive myself.

I’ve been so angry.

A little over a year ago I found out I was pregnant. I kept it to myself, went to the doctor, took all the tests. I even recorded myself when they called to confirm the news. (Everyone records the dad finding out) I recorded me and my dog finding out. I didn’t tell anyone. I wanted to tell my husband first. I planned how I was going to tell him. I couldn’t believe we were able to get pregnant right away. I bought things, surprises, ways to tell him. I bought my (step) daughter a special gift for when I told her. I way over did it, of course. This was my first rodeo.  Halloween came and went–I didn’t drink because, you know “sober driver” wink wink. My doctor ran more test to be sure.

A little less than a year ago I found out I wasn’t pregnant anymore.

A year ago I found out I most likely never would be again.

I gave away everything I bought. Well, almost everything. I deleted the video. Gave away the books. Donated the life-size teddy bear. Today I realized how angry I’ve been at myself. Today I realized I can’t stretch, run, yoga, travel, drink, work, stress my way back to happiness. I have to find a way to forgive myself for this absolute failure of nature. Forgive myself for the way I planned and executed my life. (And I don’t mean that I would trade my life to do it differently) I need to be forgiven for absolute heart break my own body has caused. The finality of all my unanswered plans and dreams.

So this is where I’ve been, in case you wondered. My life is happy. But this sadness comes in unexpected waves. Sometimes I grant myself total relief from even my own judgement and allow myself to be human and fragile. Its these unexpected waves that run me over.

I know there is so much more to come in this life. I’m doing all the right things to get better. I could write a book on self-love and self-care. I’m not sure how to forgive myself. But I know that my practice today turned into something unexpected. I spent the first 5 minutes crying on my mat among strangers and spent the last 10 minutes the same. They say you should focus on your breathing during yoga. It helps to center you to what your body and soul need. As I sat there, breathing in and out tears, I focused on loving my whole self. After awhile, I was able to open my eyes and stand up.

I don’t know what forgiveness will look or feel like, I just know that if I were trying to forgive someone I love, I would be so much better at it. If a friend came to me I would tell her, “Oh my God, you are not at fault, don’t do this to yourself, you are perfect in this imperfect life!” I’ll let you know when I finally get there with myself. Until then, I’ll keep doing my wine+yoga+travel+work+writing+music+family+running therapy that should eventually lead to forgiven.

And there’s always music when words fail.  Kesha released this song only a couple months before I needed it.

 

Honor her sacrifice

28 Thursday Sep 2017

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Men,

Do you have a woman in your life who loves and protects you? Has she taken on the responsibility of mothering a child that isn’t biologically hers. Does she stay awake at night worrying about how that child will grow up, who they will become. Does she pray for you? Does she exhaust herself taking care of your house? Does she lose what little sleep she use to get putting together fun projects, special lunches, unique ways to show your child how much she loves them? Is she literally the most amazing outcome you could have had to shitty start as a parent?

Do you honor your wife? Do you know what that means?

Your wife is invisible to the rest of the world. She doesn’t count. She’s not a mother, and yet she is responsible for all the mother things. She’s not allowed to have any title attributed to her that the world can nod and say, “oh I know who you are”. She’s not allowed to have a say. She’s not allowed most decisions. She can’t even have something special just between her child and herself.  She gets zero credit from the world. From her child. Are you going out of your way to give her credit? Are you honoring her daily sacrifice? Are you showing her your sacrifice too?

Or do you just take. Do you just accept her hard work as common place and expected? Your child learns from you. They watch you. They see you interrupt her speaking and know she is not of value. Her words are not important. They see you ignore her. They see you lie to her. They see you take her for granted.

The step mom of your child committed to sacrifice so many things; her ego, her everyday decision making freedom, her time, her tears, her strength, her sanity, her damn freedom! What have you sacrificed for her? What end of your bargain are you holding up? When you look around, did you get all the benefits of having a child, but none of the responsibility?

Have you left your partner alone to suffer and struggle while you kick your feet up and occasionally say thank you?

You must try harder than most men. You must be more than most men. You do not get to sluff off the responsibility of being an engaged, thoughtful, aware parent because you found a woman willing to do it with you. She said she would do it with you. What did you hear in that promise? Did she say SHE would do it for you?

Your wife is not your child’s mother. Your wife is not YOUR mother.

Are you honoring her sacrifice, or are you just like the rest of the world allowing her to go on invisible?

 

In here, at least, I am not invisible.

Damn Sales People! :)

02 Wednesday Aug 2017

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Thought you would appreciate this, but I’m not certain which Cialdini practice this falls under.

Magazine subscriptions- auto renewal. I get it. People forget to cancel a subscription that they never wanted and actually may never have signed up for. However, the magazine sends you a notice saying you are on auto renewal and your subscription will automatically renew so that you don’t “Suffer the inconvenience of a missed month of women’s health” (Insert dramatic eye roll). Of course in really tiny print they say, contact this # to cancel your auto renewal.
I understand most people probably don’t cancel it. They think, oh I will read it at some point, it has articles, etc etc etc. I’m in grad school. My stack of HBR and Simple are getting to be a mile tall WITHOUT me adding Women’s Health and Harpo magazines to the pile. (Whoever the hell signed me up for Oprah is dead to me).
Anyway, I emailed (so I had a paper trail) to cancel my auto-renewal about 2 months prior to the due date so that they had no argument to continue sending them to me. These mother flowers continued to send me the magazine….they even tracked me down when we bought our new home and updated (NOT forwarded) our address!! Then they started sending the “bill” saying I was enrolled in auto-renewal.
Well, since we are finally on a break from school and I have time to catch up with all these important things in my life like Women’s-freakin-Health, I decided to arm myself and call the sales rep over at WH. Surprisingly, as I printed out my sent email cancellation, the guy was pretty nice about it. He said he didn’t know why it never got cancelled, but I should expect to see nothing more from them. (This I doubt, I’m sure I will get “great deals” sent to me).
But it got me thinking. They were nice. They didn’t bully me. They didn’t force me to prove I cancelled it. So is it all a ploy? Does everyone who cancels still receive the magazine for quite some time until they finally call and cancel again, or WORSE, feel such remorse for having read the damn thing for free for 5 months that they just send a check to pay for that year? And thus the cycle of swindling continues????
Well, Harpo and Women’s Health didn’t factor in this customer’s tendency to be ever controlling. I brought a spreadsheet to my last car purchase for God’s sake! Don’t think after my Sales class with Milovic, that I’m gonna be swindled!
Happy Wednesday! 🙂

Someday

04 Saturday Feb 2017

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Someday I hope you know all those times you saw me crying, I was trying to show you there is strength in your emotions, and there’s no shame in your tears.

Someday I hope you know, all those times I told you not to cry, I was trying to help build your strength and confidence, and sometimes I contradict myself as a mother.

Someday I hope you know, all those times you rolled your eyes when I said I had to study, I was showing you the value of education. I wanted you to know you can be anything in this world.

Someday I hope you know all those times Daddy and I argued in front of you, I wanted you to know what a healthy relationship looked like. I wanted you to see me stand up for myself as much as I wanted you to see Daddy stand up for himself. I hope you learned how to behave in a healthy relationship.

Someday I hope you know, you never needed those sparkly pants on New year’s, I wanted you to be surprised for once by me.

Someday I hope you know, I didn’t give you gifts every day to show you I loved you, I wanted you to understand the value of money and be grateful for what you had.

Someday I hope you know, I interrupted you interrupting me to tell you interrupting isn’t nice. Sometimes moms aren’t perfect.

Someday I hope you know, when I was gone for weeks at a time, I prayed someday you would understand the value of a woman’s career as well as her family.

Someday I hope you know, how many times I bit my tongue because I love you.

Someday I hope you know, I didn’t bite my tongue just as often, because I love you.

Someday I hope you know, I made you cover your butt and not wear just leggings to help you learn to respect yourself and your body.

Someday I hope you know, I worried and overanalyzed if that might give you an unhealthy perception of your body when you were older, when you are already perfect.

Someday I hope you know, I ran every day to show your health is important, and so is sanity.

Someday I hope you know, I wished you would run with me.

Someday I hope you know, even though sometimes I was very sad for long amounts of time, I never gave up on you or Daddy, and I valued every hug you offered.

Someday I hope you know, I could be jealous. I struggled not to be, to show you acceptance is kind and there is plenty of love to go around.

Someday I hope you know, I’ve done the best I could to be the best I am for you.

Someday I hope you know you can be just like me, but I hope you are just like you.