Life is what you make of it...

This afternoon I took the kids to see the movie "Inside Out".  Now if you don't want any movie spoilers, stop reading because I'll give you a few.  I was crying 5 minutes into the movie.  The basis of the movie is the emotions and memories of a child.  Now, it doesn't seem like a kid's movie but holy whoa my kids TOTALLY got it.  PLUS this mom totally bawled her eyes out.

The movie separates out all of a child's emotions.  Joy, sadness, fear, disgust and anger.  Combined these make up the child's life, the decisions they make and the memories they keep to shape the type of person they are as they grow up and become an adult.  WOW, deep right?  They showed the little girl at the beginning having memories of being a goofball walking around with underwear on her head, and memories of disgust because she didn't want broccoli for supper and then anger when she learned she wouldn't get dessert if she didn't eat her supper.  Memories of joy when she played sports and memories of her past friendships as she grew up...  now you see why I was bawling throughout the movie?

Memories have always been important to me.  My memories of growing up have stayed with me, I live them out and remember them a lot.  Some of them weren't happy, but the ones that were good were some of the best times of my life.  I can remember things way back to when I was four or five years old and that is the complete truth.  We lived on the farm back then.  Sure, this wasn't our family's happy ending but we did have some happy memories there.  That is what makes up our lives though, and that's what this movie was about!  All of the combined emotions and memories that make up our lives and shape us into the person that we are today.  I truly believe that we file some of those bad memories away, and forget about them because we just don't want to remember.  I don't remember a lot about living in Salt Lake City.  I didn't like it there.  I missed living in Nebraska.  I felt very much the same as the little girl in the movie did, alone and sad.  I went to 7 --  SEVEN -- different schools growing up.  It was tough.  People wonder why I am insecure with friendships sometimes...  well, it was tough to make new friends all of the time.  Most of my time was spent at Wood River and I think that is why I will always call Wood River my home.  I feel you all accepted me the most there...  my happy memories were there...

So now we move on to parenthood.  As a parent, we all want the best for our kids right?  This is SOOO going to make me start crying again.  I try every single day to make the best memories for my kids, either we make supper together or go swimming or watch a funny TV show.  Something.  Every once in a while we do that special something that they will always remember.  They'll never ever forget that.  Last year when Leon bought me the Todd Helton Retirement Game tickets for Valentine's Day I had no idea what an impact it would make to take Lawrence to that game.  I was crying as they retired his number and revealed it on the side of the stadium.  I looked at him and said, "Lawrence, when you grow up and we bring your kids here, you'll be able to tell your kids that you were here the day that Todd Helton's number was retired.  You'll be able to tell them all about how you used to come and watch him play on this very field."  These memories.  These memories are the ones that I strive for with my kids.  They didn't have to cost a lot.  If you go to a baseball game at Coors Field the right way, you can take in a cooler with food and water and buy cheap seats.  You can drive up and back in a day and have a pretty inexpensive memory.

 This is what we do.  We're a family, we make memories.  I hope and pray that one day they will be blessed to have the friendships that I had growing up at Wood River.  Joy and Happiness weren't always there, of course I had sadness and anger.  What teenager doesn't right?  What matters most is that the good outweighed the bad and that ALL of that combined shaped me to be the person that I am today.  To raise my kids with the good morals and ethics that I learned from my parents and from my church family and community there.  We were all a family.  We all contribute to each other's lives.  If you haven't seen this movie yet, it was a GREAT family movie.  My kids learned so much from it.  I learned from it, you definitely should make it a point to see it.  You'll see life from a whole different point of view...

Where does your book begin?

I've been listening to a song a lot lately, over and over and over again trying to work up the nerve to get up in front of the Open Mic Night crowd.  I'm working on two songs that both have meaning in words, but this one just really has brought up a lot with the things our little family of four has been dealing with the past month or so.

As much as many of you would like me to divulge all of those details to you, this must be something that is ours.  Something that we are keeping to ourselves and giving our struggling family time to deal with and heal.  One of the biggest lines in the song that SO relates to ALL of us in our family right now was, "We've been conditioned to not make mistakes, but I can't live that way."  How many of us expect perfection?  We expect it out of our kids daily.  In sports, in school.  I hear it all summer long on the ball fields.  Don't let that ball get past you, you have to swing at those, you should have caught that!  We're conditioning them to not make mistakes.  The same rings true for my Miss K.  I try my hardest to make her not different from the rest, but she IS.  I cannot help that, she cannot help that.  We have to take the time to recognize it and help her.  Her transitions are different than others, she's smart as ever but emotionally different than any other child.  SHE will get through life as long as we do not condition her to not make mistakes.

I feel like I fell under this microscope myself this past year.  I conditioned myself to not mistakes.  I could NOT fail in school.  I expected so much of myself.  I refused to hand in a quiz that was not an A+.  I would take it 10 times until it was perfect.  I worked on papers for 14 hours at a time to ensure the most possible points that I could get.  I wanted the best score.  There was no room for mistakes.  I certainly don't blame my parents for this.  I blame myself and my work history.  The past two and a half years of work were miserable.  I couldn't even take too long to go to the bathroom without making a mistake.  I couldn't push the hold button right on the phone.  It was miserable, a blood curdling inhumane place to work.

So, we move on.  Life is our canvas.  Life is our BOOK!  Here's another line..."I'm just beginning, the pen's in my hand, ending unplanned."  So I've been moping around here like a puppy.  Times have been tough.  We got hit hard with some unexpected crap, I had some spats with some friends, my parents moved away and it hurt.  All of it hurt.  You just have to get up, wipe off the dust and move on.  Talk it out, fight it out, work it out the best way you know how and write a new chapter.  It's your book.  YOU are writing it.  No one else can do it for you, you can't wait around for someone else to fix your problems.  Today after about 4 hours back and forth chatting with a friend, and being mad at the world again for someone else's problems the song came on in the car.  I was reminded that it's my blank page.  OUR blank page.

I have one semester of school left.  I've already been called and approached for opportunities that are amazing.  I've got dreams that are sky high.  Can I achieve them?  You bet I can.  Especially when I have my husband who listens to me cry when I have no one else who will listen.  He lets me yell at him when it's never his fault.  I laugh at him when he falls down the stairs or trips over the water meter in the front yard lighting off a firework and he doesn't get mad or smack me around.  He loves me and supports me and my dreams.  That is a lot, that is more than most women in this world have. My kids they tell me that I can do it.  They dream about moving out in the country and having a fence where the dogs can run, and a driveway where we can play basketball after school and a big yard for a trampoline.  They wonder if we will move to California and live by the beach, they're ready to start their stories too.  My friends.  Some I consider brothers or sisters they are so close.  Some I have hurt in the past.  They let me bash them and still listened to what I had to say because they love me and knew that deep down my hurt was more than what showed on the cover.  The words to the song stung harder than ever tonight,  "I break tradition, sometimes my tries are outside the lines."  They support me like I've never stopped supporting them.  We're all writing our own books, some are moving on and away, new stories and chapters.  New places for us to visit!  Vacations will never be the same.

So, has anyone figured out the song yet?  Since I've recited most of it, I hope that I work up the guts soon enough to do it.  Our little family will be writing a lot of chapters to our book this month.  Please think of us as we go through the trial and error in helping Kherington with her troubles.  At the end of the month we will also make the trip again to Shriner's to hopefully get some answers from the doctors.  We have a long list of questions and will be looking for their guidance.  Until then, we work hard to remember..  "Today is where your book begins... the rest is still unwritten."