Thinking while blogging, people can’t be defined

In thinking of all the ways I classify myself, I also think of how I choose to reveal only certain aspects of who I feel I am to different people. I believe I try to read the person I’m talking to in search of how much they can handle. And then there are situations or places where I put on a certain persona to everyone I see there. The reasons vary from wanting to fit in, ideciding if it’s socially acceptable in the particular environment, sharing my personal life on a need to know basis etc. Even though I may have 15 personas (just a random guess), I like to think that I am not lying to anybody about who I am.

It is all me. Every one of my masks if you will is non-judgemental, compassionate, caring, sensitive, unconfident and spiritual.

People really can’t be defined according to groups they identify with. People are very complex (as we well know). Can we ever really completely know a person? Do we even really completely know ourselves? I think we hope to keep learning ourselves and I know that we are constantly changing according to our experiences and thoughts.

If you like a person, do you like them because of their personal qualities?

non-judgemental, compassionate, caring, sensitive, unconfident and spiritual

Or because of the groups they identify with?

Mother

Wife

Teacher

Christian

Dog Lover

Butterfly collector

Angel Believer

Has danced on a bar table

Donates to many charities

Book lover

Music lover

Has been unfaithful

Is bisexual

Afraid of mice

Likes to Crochet

Likes to Cross-stitch

What if you share 10 of the 15 groups with this friend but then suddenly find out that there are another 5 that you don’t identify with or feel are wrong?

Do you still like this person or does it change your opinion?

For every person, there would be a different answer to this question so I’m not really posing these questions. In fact I really don’t know what my point is…lol…I guess I’m just thinking out loud.

Give me a break-I need it

Last night and this morning I was feeling that “off” feeling that usually starts when I’ve missed some of my meds, but I haven’t. I think it’s just the fact that it’s almost time for Winter Break and even though people think we have way too many vacations, let me just say from experience that…

We Really Need Them

I was feeling this way before Christmas vacation too and then I felt very refreshed upon coming back to work. That feeling has basically lasted up until now so I hope that after this holiday week coming up, I will again be ready with some energy and creativity to put into my work.

Unfortunately (as I had suspected would happen) Kev came home with his first ever spelling test today and he only got 4/10 correct. I got really upset but I didn’t say anything to him right away. I waited until I calmed down. All last week, I made him read the list with me, practice with me. He was annoyed and resisted and didn’t give it his best effort. Last night I even made little flash cards with a little case and on one side I put blanks like hang man to help him practice spelling them by himself. This week I have to get even tougher with him. I started tonight. I made him copy the 6 words he got wrong and I told him if he complained, he’d do them each twice and so on.  Then since he was out yesterday, we had to read a story out of their Reader and she gave a packet of 2 pages about the reading and another 2 pages on telling time. (Holy Crap! First grade is getting hard! My opinion on this another time) I must complain though that this reader was 21 pages long!! Granted there are pictures and stuff but I still think that is a long first grade reading. He was only out of school one day. So we read all 21 pages (he and I taking turns reading) and he did one page of the packet. Then we were both tired and needed a break quite frankly!

if only the rain meant that the flowers were close behind

We have had sooo much rain this Winter. It’s another dreary, wet day. If only it meant that Spring was just around the corner! That would be awesome! But for a NY Winter we still have two more months with good possibilities of snow.

All that being said, the rain has not got me down today. The clouds are smiling at me and the rain isn’t made of tears. I had an awesome sleep last night and my day has been sweet. I was dreading meeting with my Mentor about the observation she did of me last week, because I’m always thinking the worst of myself.  But I couldn’t have been more wrong. She comes across as the “perfect teacher” and many new teachers are intimidated by her, but she had great things to say about me. I know many of you are going to say “I told you so” because you are all so kind and always say that you just “know” I’m a good teacher. For me though, I am always surprised to hear it. No matter how many people say it, I never get used to it. I always feel like “they’re going to find me out” and realize that I’ve been fooling people into thinking I was a good teacher all along.

So I thanked her so much and then I was mentioning what a cool feeling it was to be standing in the very building where I learned to speak Spanish from 9th to 12th grade. Unlike many Spanish teachers, I have no relatives who speak the language nor have I studied abroad.  I am truly a “product” of the school where I now teach and send my children (with of course my college studies). So she came up with a great idea and said I should be a guest speaker at the next Spanish Honor Society Meeting in March. She wants me to tell my story to inspire others. I’ll be very nervous but I’m excited about it as well. I’m going to have to think of a basic speech about what I’d like to say to them.

A little blue and nostalgic

I was changing my daughter’s diapers…

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We were singing to Sesame Street songs and watching Barney.

It was her first day of Kindergarten

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I’m kind of emotional tonight. Some of you mothers with teenage daughters might understand. My daughter got to use the “Secret box” I wrote about last year. You know, the one she got after watching the “Special movie” last year with just the girls.

Yup my girl is leaving childhood and beginning adolescense. It doesn’t seem possible.

I’m glad her and I had a special day today. We went out shopping while the guys were off doing something else and went out to lunch. We did lots of giggling today and I played a video game with her after dinner.

Gosh I love her and am looking forward to the years to come but I do already miss those early days. I still have the memories and photos though.

Thoughts for the morning

It’s Saturday morning and I had the pleasure of waking up to an overdue credit card bill (lovely!). So I got up before 9:00 and paid as many bills as my pay check allowed and then brought Marissa to dance. I am looking around at a very dirty house and trying to get motivated to clean it (once again). I love a clean smelling house and I love the way it looks when it’s clean but man it really is such a “Groundhog Day” (the movie) experience. Seems every day I wake up to the same dirty house no matter how much cleaning I do. And the kids always want friends over on the weekends but I certainly don’t feel comfortable letting them have anyone over while their rooms and the rest of the house are disgusting.

Pauly (the small pug) got sick last night in my bed! Yuck! They’re just as bad as my kids (or worse)! Molly (the Boston)really needs a bath too. I didn’t bathe her when I bathed the pugs last and she is just not smelling good. I sometimes have a very sensitive sense of smell, especially when I’m due for my TOM. I think I’m due… I don’t really keep track and am pretty irregular anyway but I don’t have to worry about getting pregnant so I’m not really a “tracker”. However I have been getting a cyst-like sore every month at the time of my period and the sore has arrived.

Me and the kids went to my sister’s and had pizza last night with her before I brought Riss to Teen Town at the school. It was sooo foggy last night. I lucked out in the sense that my husband went to get her at 9:00 and I didn’t have to go back out.

I will be having two observations this week at school so I will be glad when they are over. I know that I don’t really have anything to get nervous about but it still does put a person on edge to have someone observing and critiquing your teaching, especially when I am not a self-confident person (as you all know).

I made an appointment for a consultation about weight loss surgery a few weeks ago and the appointment is Tuesday about 45 mins. away from my house. I’m having doubts about going now for a few reasons and I’m still not sure if I will cancel on Monday or bite the bullet and finish what I started. Obviously my original reasons for wanting to have the Lap-band surgery are that I really need to get my eating and weight under control for health reasons, self-esteem reasons, to be a better parent and a role model to my children and students.

But I really don’t want to take the day off from work when I am just starting to feel comfortable (on a roll) and I’ve already been out quite a few days. And I really don’t want to drive to this unknown town to find this medical facility by myself like I would need to do. Then I was talking to a girl who had the surgery and it got me thinking deeper. She had to be on a liquid diet for a month prior to the surgery and now it has been 3 months since her surgery and she still can’t have any bread, pasta, rice etc.  So I’m thinking to myself first off, if I had faith in myself to be able to go on a liquid diet for a month and then eat no carbs for the next 3-4 months, wouldn’t I lose the weight I needed to anyways? So why go through risky surgery, pain and loss of work time to put myself through the same thing?

I know I have to fix me! But is surgery the best choice and answer for now? Should I give myself another chance to conquer what’s “eating me” without going under a knife? I haven’t been perfect since the New Year but I definitely think I have been pretty good, much better than prior to the New Year. I have been trying to not skip meals (only once did I skip lunch this week). I’ve also been trying to not eat for at least 3 hours before bed since night time snacking has been a big issue with me for a long time. I think I may have broken this rule twice this week but certainly did not gorge myself like I once would have. I haven’t been able to bring myself to exercise yet though. I know this is the biggest step and will make the food part much easier but I just haven’t done it yet.

Does anyone has any book recommendations of the Self- help or diet type that really helped you?

Ironic

Well another work day has come and gone. I slept rather good last night but am feeling rather blah today.

This morning I found out something pretty ironic. A while ago I wrote about how I felt my purpose at least at work for this year was being revealed to me. I wrote of one girl who had been picked on and bullied and who had also lost her sister in a car accident last year. This girl is the one who gave me a candle for Christmas. I never knew her last name until today when it came up in conversation. When I heard it, I couldn’t believe my ears. Her sister who was killed in a car accident was a student of mine from four years ago at another area school. I blogged about it last year when it happened and I really felt bad over it. I knew her not only through school but she also danced with the same dance company as my daughter. I can’t help but think that maybe this girl and I were supposed to meet.

Today I feel…

Today I feel like my purpose for this school year is being revealed to me. It just kind of all hit me today but it’s actually been happening gradually over the school year.

My favorite part of being a teacher is not necessarily teaching Spanish but being there as a mentor, advocate, adult who cares for my students who really need it. This is what I had been lacking earlier in the year. I really wasn’t feeling the connections like I was making a difference in lives or needed.

Before Christmas break when I attended a seminar on bullying, I met a student who was very shy and picked on and we were in some of the same groups during group activities. At the end of the seminar she was crying and I befriended her. I never imagined that I really made an impact on her, but every since that day she has made a point to come to my classroom before homeroom to say hello. She gave me a candle for Christmas. None of my students did (which is fine, don’t get me wrong) but how nice of her! I had only met her a week previous. Today she confided in me that this was her first Christmas without her sister. Her sister was killed in a car crash last year as a Senior.

Another girl had been out of school for quite a while and I knew that before the absence she had been pretty ill. Diabetes, anxiety, depression, been through a bad break up…just in bad shape. I saw her at a local restaurant this weekend and asked if she was going to be back to school. She said she wasn’t sure if she was staying but would be back this week. She told me she had been in a hospital North of here. I told her that I was really looking forward to seeing her. Her and I had a nice relationship since the beginning of the school year. She has a lot of trouble with the subject and used to come for help after class before I went to the Middle School. Today she came in class late and then while the students were making their shoes for 3 Kings Day , she came to chat with me. She really confided in me: her reasons for being hospitalized, her plans to be emancipated from her Dad because she can’t live with him, that she is staying in a hotel by herself at 15 that her Dad pays for but never comes home to, that she has 3 doctors appointments a week in 2 different towns that she has to walk to. She walks up to a hour and a half each way in the cold to go to her appointments. I talked to her about the importance of staying in school and commended her positive outlook and how hard she was fighting the fight. She really appreciated our talk and said she understood that her diploma would be her “ticket out of here”.

Another student tells me often that there is no or very little food at home, that they are barely getting by, that her Mom left the state again this year and is never around, that her Dad isn’t her real dad but it’s where she lives…She is another one that had been bullied this year and I put a stop to it (at least when I’m around). She’s extremely artistic and always doodling. Today she brought me in a paper folded and real casually said to me “just something I made in art class”. It’s a purple butterfly! How ironic is that!!

I know I’ve written of this before but purple butterflies and white roses are “my sign”. My Mom, sis and I all have the same white rose, butterfly tattoo meaning that for eternity we’ll be together and whenever we see the white rose or purple butterfly, we’re on the right path and everything is o.k.

I believe my purpose is being revealed.

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Be true to yourself and happiness will follow…

 

Be true to yourself…

 

I am really scared to be true to myself…

 

“It takes courage to grow up and be who you really are” (Ralph Emerson)

 

Being true to myself and who I feel I am inside has the potential to change every part of my life and affect every person I am close to.

 

Am I the only one who’s ever had these feelings? These doubts? Hardly! but it doesn’t make it any easier on me.

 

While reflecting on the past year, I learned that I need to invest time in me to find out what makes me happy and also that my kids need for me to be whole. Both of these things have to do with fixing me on the inside and gosh that’s hard. It seems I’ve been trying for all my years.

 

But perhaps it’s precisely the same point that makes being true to myself so important. I’ve never really made any drastic changes in my life. It’s been a long while since I’ve accomplished a personal goal.  Nine years ago I lost 50 pounds. I’d say that was the last personal goal I achieved. Since then I’ve gained all that back plus and since I’ve always had a negative self image, this certainly doesn’t help me to be happy with who I am now. I don’t see myself when I look in the mirror. I avoid mirrors as much as possible. I often avoid eye contact with strangers, fearing in my mind what they may be thinking about how awful I look. It feels even worse when I run into someone I know that I haven’t seen in a while.

 

But this wasn’t about body image. That is not what I was getting at with being true to myself. If anything, I think that my weight issue is a side affect of how I feel on the inside. I really don’t care about myself anymore, but this isn’t what it’s all about either.

 

I’m not confident in my abilities in general or career wise. I struggle with deciding to continue or pursue a different career, but yet again this is not what I mean about being true to myself. All this I’ve already admitted, but deep down I think that all of these other things are side affects of denying who I am. Still trying to fit somebody else’s mold for me. Whatever a good Mom, Daughter, Wife, Teacher does is what I try to be even if some parts feel so foreign and uncomfortable to me. I’m a people pleaser. If only I had the courage to be a me pleaser, but I want less to rock boats than to take that chance, just get out of the boat and swim!

 

Sink or Swim?

 

How often I’ve heard that phrase and so often it’s true. Back in the day I always swam- upstream! I resisted peer pressure, survived bullies, made good grades, pleased my teachers, pleased my parents, baby sat my sister… I was afraid to go to college but I did it anyway. I was scared that I would never come back from Spain (afraid to fly) but I went anyway. I was scared to speak publicly but I did it anyways.  And I’m not saying that these were poor choices, because I don’t believe they were but they weren’t my choices. I pushed through each of my fears and did things that weren’t a part of my heart so that I could please someone else. Ironically I think I’ve always been looking for unconditional love but going about it in all the wrong ways- by living up to every one of their conditions.  Even at seventeen I remember liking the country song with the lyrics “You can’t please everyone so you’ve got to please yourself.” If only I really believed those words enough to act on them.

 I really want to feel what life would be like when I accept me for me, being true to myself. Yes there will be change and with change comes hurt but also growth. I’m afraid of making a mistake but staying still and feeling like my heart is in a cage has made me sick through the years. One problem I have is changing my mind. Not just on the little decisions like chicken or beef, but on the big decisions in life as well. I think part of it is that I don’t trust my own judgment and another part being that I don’t want to hurt my children, husband, parents or grandparents and disappoint them. But the biggest reason I change my mind is fear. “Courage is being afraid and doing it anyway.” (can’t remember author) I’m like the cowardly lion when it comes to thinking and acting on my own. Like a puppet waiting for someone to pull my strings…praying for Jesus to take the wheel…and yet… Deep down I really want to stand up tall and make my own decisions and feel confident that I’m making the best decision I can at the time.

5 on Friday Meme

Reflections on 2007
1. List five happy memories of 2007.
1) Christmas morning
2) trip to Lake Placid
3) trip to Florida
4) going to the indoor water park
5) going out with the girls in August

2. Describe four things you’ve learned this year.
1) Vacation does a lot for a tired body and soul.
2) I must believe in myself.
3) I must invest time in learning what makes me truly happy.
4) My kids need me to be whole.

3. Which three relationships in your life have changed the most this year?
1) My daughter and I
2) My Mom and I
3) My husband and I (or at least I thought until recently)

4. Name two new places you went this year.
1) Winterhaven , Fla
2) Lake Placid, NY

5. What one thing you’ve done this year are you most proud of?
Improved my relationship with my daughter.

Another day passed?

I sure am glad I got all these new PJ’s for Christmas. I’ve been living in them! Today I only changed from one pair to another after my shower! LOL That’s the life of a teacher/mom on vacation! I did some more organizing of my new office upstairs. Marissa had one friend leave and another come over LOL.

My husband will be working late so it’s just us tonight. My sister just called from her inlaws house. She needs me to go over and try to let her cat in who was out when she left today.

I’ve been reading lots of peoples’ New Year’s Resolutions and it’s got me thinking of my own, but I’m not sure if I’m going to make any or not yet. You know the usual reasons, afraid that I’m setting myself up for failure.

Something else has been getting my attention lately, like a sign or something. I keep seeing and find the words lingering in my head of “Be true to yourself.” With the internal conflicts I have, I sometimes wonder if I’m being true to myslef. But you know, I think too much!

Another random thought- I came across a blog today and I was going to comment on how awesome the information I found in it was, but I clicked on a link from the blog and never could find it when I came back. But anyways, if you know who you are- I thank you for posting Soul Healing (or something like that) from beliefnet.com

I read through all 8 and think they’re each worth a journal entry. Maybe not a blog, because they are very personal. I think this year I may start a written journal again. But then again, I wish I had ink that only I could see LOL. My thoughts are too personal for anyone’s eyes… I’m even afraid to read what I may write LOL

Ok enough rambling for now.

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