Coastal Depression

Just now I read my last two posts. I thought it would provide inspiration for writing today if I reread them, but reading them only made my depressed mood, moody.

Unhappiness is...well, sad. Physically tiring, there is head knowledge that if one sits long enough circumstances will not get better, and still, I sit.

My part time job with the schools recently has kept me busy. It's a good job and the pay is not bad, although the check won't come until the job is finished. A bit of a stretch on the budget to make it until that paycheck arrives. Perhaps a partial reason for the recent depression, budget issues heighten my anxieties.

Yesterday, something happened that I recognized as familiar. Before I retired in 2007, I was beginning to show signs of burnout and depression. Since the school was only a few blocks from my house, I took advantage on a regular basis to go home for lunch just to remove myself from the surroundings. Before those last three years at the neighborhood school, I often drove to a nearby Dairy Queen or McDonald's for a Coke just to leave the campus where I was teaching. Yesterday, as I was giving tests at a school, I had an overwhelming need to leave the building. During a midday break, I drove the 10 or so minutes back home eating the sandwich I'd packed that morning for my lunch. I considered not returning for the day, but I knew I had to finish giving the tests. My actions were so familiar and a little disturbing at the same time.

After driving all the way back home for a short break in the day yesterday, I decided to stay home today. Since it is not a job where I have classes of students waiting on my arrival, no sub is necessary and I am free to amend my schedule.The room where I administer tests is not available on Wednesdays which provided a good excuse for pulling a Ferris Bueller. Not all I had hoped it would be, I am home "working", blogging, checking Facebook, email and watching my cats come and go to the backyard. I should have driven to La' Madeline's in Rice Village or a bar in Houston! I'm still considering my options.

Not one bit of real work has been done since I woke up. I attempted to write this blog entry three different times. Being a public blog, I am aware that people will read and think I am not happy. Well, that is not far from truth, but I'm really okay. Today is a moody day. This month has been a moody month. That's all.

The sun is finally shining. That is a start and that little mockingbird is trying his darnest to make me happier. My next move will be to shower, get dressed and grade some of those tests I gave this week.  Or maybe I will skip the shower and go to the DQ for take out & back to the house. I'd love to run away to a beach house for a day, but I can't. So...

Tomorrow I will return to the school and continue doing my job. Some days life is not as great as all that, but it is better than the alternative.  Blessings!

Family: Life Companions

Me at age 4, Port Neches, TX.

When I was a little girl in Port Neches, TX, my daily joy was dressing up and pretending to be a mom. High heels several sizes too big, one of my mom's hats on my head and a purse on my arm, I'd wrap up my Tiny Tears doll in a blanket and go off to imitate mommy tasks as only a young 4 year old mind can perceive. Usually, that involved putting my doll in a buggy and strolling along the sidewalks or my driveway to places unknown. Playing with my dolls and pretending to be a mommy was a daily game of mine.  I do not recall ever having a husband in these games for it seemed to me that moms did it all.  Walking the baby in it's stroller, feeding the kids, changing their clothes, bathing them and putting them to bed were all the mommy jobs in my game of Life As Mommy.

Today there are many fathers doing a fine job of parenting their children. My own sons do as much as any woman of my mother's day with their children, shopping for groceries, cooking, cleaning, washing clothes and diapering dirty bottoms are regular tasks. They share the job of raising their children with their spouse and help in the daily tasks of housekeeping.  To say I am proud of my sons' willing participation as a husband and parent would be an understatement.  Bravo to young dads!

While my own father did not do a lot of cooking, he could fry up an egg with bacon and toast for breakfast which I do believe was the extent of his cooking. A blessing for us all!  Instead of being a cook, my dad was a fixer of all things broken around our house as well as other people's houses. If the bathroom sink dripped, the toilet didn't flush or the car was coughing, my daddy could fix it. I rarely ever saw a repairman working around our house in 17 years I lived at home. It was only when vehicles were loaded with more electrical parts than Dad knew what to do with, did my he discontinue working on cars. Not only was he a plumber and mechanic in his spare time, he was also a house painter, carpenter and could lay a cement driveway or sidewalk with the skill of any craftsman. A man of all trades, he worked full time hours at a refinery and prepared taxes to pay for my brother and I to attend college.

My dad was a hard worker providing for his family and he managed to find time to play with my brother and I when he could. Dad played softball with us, helped me swim, and made rope swings for me in the large oak trees in our backyard. I spent many hours swinging back and forth in my homemade swings, watching the tree branches draw close to my toes. Singing as many tunes as I could remember, those were some very happy, safe and contented times in my life. No problems were too big for my daddy to handle. He was also a capable counselor and teacher as he spent hours with me on the floor of our living room struggling to help me read. We memorized words, the order of the books of the Bible and even learned to tie shoes on that floor. He encouraged me when I cried thinking the tasks too difficult for me to learn. Daddy taught me to love people, caring for those without the means to help themselves. He worked on the houses of more than one widow and would often keep a watchful eye on their pending needs.

Don't we wish all children had fathers who provided for their physical, mental and emotional needs?  Fathers play an important role in their children's lives alongside their mothers.  Mothers today have so much to accomplish in a day when  74% of them work 40 hour weeks in offices, department stores, construction sites, schools and many other places where they earn salaries equal to or more than their husbands' paychecks. Fewer and fewer woman are stay-at-home moms, venturing into the workforce providing as much as any man to the family budget. Partners for life, husbands and wives work in tandem to provide and nurture their children as they grow into productive citizens. If only...from my viewpoint, families who love and work with one another while thinking more of each other than they do themselves, are more likely to stay together.

As for my own life, I grew up to marry a good man and together we raised three sons. In adult life, I wore my own high heels into the real world, doing all the things my childhood games taught me. Except when I pushed my babies' strollers, I took them to day care centers or trusted sitters who cared for their daily needs. As a professional school teacher, I was fortunate enough to have time off during the year, spending every summer with my boys. An alternate balance to a working/stay-at-home mom, we played, laughed, argued, cried and learned a lot about life from each other. Their dad taught them how to love and care for a wife and family. Our story is still being written and lessons learned as we experience grandchildren in our lives today.

To all the moms and dads today, I pray for you to be all you can to your children. To those without children, love your spouse as your family. They are your partner and provider of your needs. Women, it's okay to lean on your husbands, it won't make you weak. There will be equal opportunity for your husbands to lean on you too. God gave us each other to help survive life on earth. As you have likely noticed, life is not a picnic. Be thankful for your husbands. Especially now that our children no longer live at home I look to my husband for confirmation of place in this house. He is the person I most look forward to seeing and talking to every single day. We care with love for each other and will continue to be family until the day we die.

The family unit should not to be taken lightly. As the years have gone by, all of my grandparents, Mom and Dad, a brother and sister-in-law, along with aunts and uncles have passed away from this life. Sometimes, thinking about my family and the way we could laugh at an inside joke or just be with each other so naturally, sends my spirits into depression, and I miss them so much. Then, I have only to see my sons with their wives and our grandchildren, Kim's brothers, sister, parents with their families to know I am not alone. Even though celebrations do not involve my own cousins or my surviving brother, sister-in-law or uncles and aunt often enough, I know that I still have a family. Families transition through deaths, births, and marriages causing the make up of the family to evolve in a continuum of familial relationships through future generations. Love them while you can, participate in their lives, tell them how important they are to you and never take them for granted.

To my husband: I love you, Kim Martin. Thank you for being my husband, loving father and example to our boys, my partner and friend in this ever changing life. May we live to be 100 together continuing to walk hand in hand through whatever happens here on earth. Then, on that spectacular day, when we walk through heaven's gates, we will sing with the heavenly hosts and together with our family, sing, "Glory to God on the highest, peace and goodwill to all men"!

My Resolve in 2012

My mind ran through many themes for a blog entry making it difficult deciding where to land on this first post of 2012.  However, there was one reoccurring thought that kept revolving back to mind and it seemed destiny predicted I would write on life’s unknown. One day in January I was packing away Christmas ornaments and I was struck with the realization that unknown things were going to happen in the New Year. That is inevitable and a thing out of my control. It also occurred to me that of the uncontrollable things happening that some would cause happiness and others would not. It is those unknown others that frighten and worry me the most about the next 12 months.   

In 2011, the event that affected me more than any was the unexpected passing of my oldest brother, Johnny. The first of my siblings to pass away after our parents, his death seemed to heighten my worrisome nature. Having hip surgery back in October of 2010 and surviving months of recovery, Johnny was finally back on the job. Coworkers said of that dreadful day that he grasped his chest, gasped his last breath and collapsed. The day was June 20 when my other brother called me in Sugar Land to tell me our brother was unconscious and paramedics had not been able to resuscitate him. Kim and I were in Sugar Land that day to help our son, Kyle, pack his home and family for a move almost 400 miles away. Kyle, wife, Amanda and our sweet granddaughter, Olivia were on their way to live in Abilene. Personally, their move was the second most affective thing that happened in my life in 2011. Taking a close third was our youngest son losing his teaching job in Baytown, ending a 2-year teaching position in a junior high school theater class. All of those incidents left me wondering, as I placed green and gold tree ornaments in boxes, of what unsettling events would affect my life in this New Year.

Unfortunately, my natural tendency is see the glass half empty. I’m working on it and attempting to learn from people who appear to see the glass half full. My brother's passing, while terribly sad, brought our family back together for a memorial. As these sorts of events draw relatives distanced by life's changes, we were able to remember Johnny's life and renew familial relationships. Kyle and Amanda have settled into their new jobs. While I still wish they lived closer to us, we reveled in a long visit with them and Olivia over the holidays here in our house. As for our youngest son, Ryan, he is working for a friend, content and perhaps glad he is not teaching school.

So, why must I anguish over things out of my control doing nothing to prevent the inevitable depressed wave of emotion? As the Father of creation, God knows his children. He knows me. He pleads for us to cast our eyes on the cross and the One who can guide us through the valleys of this life. In 2012 my resolve is to trust in God’s promises to prevent worry of the unknowns. There will likely be blessings as well as sadness in 2012. My hope is in God with whom all things are possible. 

As for me, I call to God, and the LORD saves me: Psalm 55:16