O-bla-di, o-bla-da...

Lately I've been thinking that one of the things I like most about the world is that it exists.  I like that this vast planet of diverse locations and cultures exists.  I like that no matter what happens on any given day, and no matter how bad your day might be, life will still go on and there will always be tomorrow.  I've mostly been thinking this because a lot of the students I work with are applying for college and stressing out about their acceptances, worried that their futures might be ruined by the answer that lies in their collegiate stamped envelope.  As much as I understand how important it is to get into college and to finish a degree so that you have the right footing for entering the job market, I still find myself wanting to remind these kids that no matter what school they get into, the point is that they're going to school.  No matter what disappointments lie ahead for them with not getting into their first choice, or not being able to go away when they really wanted to live away from home, or not being able to afford the dream school they might have wanted to go to, the point is that life will go on.  School will still be school, and the point will be that they're going, and they are going to have opportunities open to them regardless of what school they attend.  They should simply be proud of themselves for making the effort to attend in the first place.  When they finish that first semester, it's not going to matter if it was the dream school, or if it was a semester spent living at home or in a dorm.  What's going to matter is that they made it over the hump.  They made it through the challenge of finishing that first semester of college, and it gets easier from there.  Sometimes I just want to remind them that while everyone is telling them that their entire future is on the line, this one decision isn't going to decide their life forever.  They still have choices, they still have options, they still have opportunities.  I just want to tell them to keep calm, and life goes on.

It's Oh So Quiet, It's Oh So Still

Most of the time, my house is busy.  It's full of people, it's full of pets.  Quiet moments in my house are few and far between.  It's made me appreciate stolen moments of quiet in my life.  Every once in a while, I find that I'm the first person up in the morning, and if I leave the dogs locked in the bedroom with Jason, I can steal away downstairs to the living room and enjoy a few minutes of uninterrupted quiet.  Even nicer is when I somehow manage to be the only person in the house still awake in the evening.  Something about being in the house at night, when the whole world is quiet and still makes me feel comforted.  I can just sit in the living room, cloaked in the semi-darkness provided by lighting one single lamp, and enjoy the peace.  I can sip a cup of tea, wrap up in a blanket and know that this short moment of silence and tranquility is mine.  I don't have to share it, I don't have to discuss it with anyone.  I can just listen to it, and appreciate it for the brief span of time that it will last before a dog barks, or someone comes downstairs for a glass of water, or the cats begin chasing one another.  This short time belongs to me, and I can envelope myself in it for as long as I wish.  I like knowing that even in the constant hum of our noisy lives in this house, there are moments that I can carve out just for me.

Betty Freaking Crocker

So if you had asked me 10 years ago what I thought my future hobbies might be, I never would have told you cooking.  I'm the girl who spent most of her life as the pickiest eater on the planet.  If it wasn't chicken fingers or french fries, chances are I wasn't going to touch it.  I've never been a foodie, or someone willing to try new things, and when I moved out of my parents house I knew how to make grilled cheese, boil pasta, and I could make waffles.  That was about it.  I'm not sure when I started being interested in learning to cook, but somewhere along the line I found myself with odd hours of free time when there was nothing on television worth watching and suddenly I was watching hours and hours of Food Network.  Sure, i wouldn't heat about 90% of what they were making on most of those shows, but everything seemed so easy, and when the episode was over, the food looked good.  Almost good enough for me to consider wanting to taste it.  At some point, I decided that I probably could make more than grilled cheese, and when Jason was complaining about being bored with our usual dinner choices, I decided I was going to take a chance and try something totally different.  Since that ended up a success I just kept trying more and more new things.  I decided that if I wasn't afraid of doing it, then the worst that could happen is that I'd waste a bit of flour and move on.

Now, at this point, as much as I might find the act of figuring out what to make for dinner annoying, and as much as I hate having to come home and immediately start dinner, there is something strangely therapeutic about the act of putting together a grouping of simple items and making something that people enjoy.  Chopping vegetables, or boiling pasta, or grilling chicken is mindless.  Simple.  Follow the right steps, you get the right outcome.  I like the predictability of it.  Plus, when not burdened with the task of figuring out meals, I still find myself drawn to the kitchen to bake something.  I like the way dough feels when it's being kneaded.  I like the smell  of it as I shape it out.  I like that my house smells like baking bread.  I like producing cakes, cupcakes, cookies, bread loaves, homemade icing, and having it turn into something that makes people happy, or makes people smile when they come home and find treats.

I never expected that this is what I would turn to as a hobby, or something I do when I want to relax and not think about much.  When life is complicated, cooking doesn't have to be.  You mix the right ingredients, and you get the right outcome.  You can always adjust to make it just right.  There's comfort in the predictability.  There's comfort in knowing that a little more flour will fix a sticky situation, and if you make a mistake, it's not so hard to start over again.  I like that in as little as 30 minutes, I can make someone's day better just by feeding them.  Sure, I still don't eat beef, or tomatoes, or a ton of other things, but what I do eat I can cook pretty darn well, and there's comfort in that.

Reflections On A Year Past

Last year I wrote this not-so-inspiring list of resolutions for myself in 2012.  I probably should have included surviving the predicted end of the world on that list.  I did survive the predicted end of the world, by the way.  In case anyone was worried.  Looking back at last January and the goals that I set, I find that while I was more successful in some areas than others, the biggest things that were nagging at me as 2011 ended are no longer issues this year as I find 2012 coming to a close.  I think that, more than anything, I've been able to make peace with myself over this past year.  Not one of those super awesome inner peace feelings where you're suddenly super confident and know what to do in all situations, but the kind that at least makes you realize that being yourself isn't as bad as you've been led to believe.  I realized this year that I've spent a lot of time allowing others to dictate my self-worth for me.  I took their poor behavior and mistreatment of me as a sign that I was somehow broken, or wrong, or ill fitted for the world I was living in, and it made me feel terrible.  I let myself believe that when others were bad friends who simply stopped speaking to me for months at a time, or when my values were criticized, or when my world outlook didn't fit what someone else thought it should be, that the problem was rooted somewhere deep within myself, and I was in the wrong.  I never allowed myself to think that someone being a terrible friend was perhaps their fault, or that my values not fitting what someone else believed they should be was a problem they had with my value system, not an actual problem with me.  I had gone so long believing that I wasn't worthy of anything good, that I think I stopped looking for anything good to happen, or for anyone to treat me as a true friend instead of someone they needed to "fix" or change.  I am not broken.  I. Am. Not. Broken.

Making that journey this year has been terrifying and liberating.  It has given me the strength to remove those who do not deserve a place in my life, no matter how close they were to my heart at one time.  It has given me the strength to stand up for myself, to refuse to be bullied, and to refuse to constantly bend and reshape to be who someone else thinks I should be, because it is easier for them.  It has also opened my eyes to some really wonderful people who have never asked me to be anything more or less than what I am, and that removing someone bad doesn't mean that no one else will fill the hole.  I realize now that those who truly care about you are those you know are there in a pinch, who share your joys and your sorrows, your ups and downs, and if there is someone out there who does not fulfill that then it's ok to move on and find others who will.

This year has, without a doubt, been a struggle.  My family has been slandered, ridiculed, betrayed, mistreated and hurt beyond measure.  Wounds have been open that I'm not sure will ever really heal, and there are voids in our lives that are not easily filled.  I miss our work with the drama department daily, and I love those children as much as I possibly can, but I'm slowly accepting that there are things that will never be changed, no matter how unjust they are.  It's a hard pill to swallow, but it's the only one we're being prescribed lately so I feel like I either have to accept it or go mad.  This incident coupled with struggles at work, which have led to struggles at home has made me open my arms to a new year and a fresh start, and a new hope that just as the rug has been so swiftly pulled out from under us in the past, it can just as swiftly be replaced with a newer, better rug that sticks around for a good long time.

To be truthful though, despite the struggles and despite the discontent that has hovered at the edge of our lives throughout this past year, there have been some very beautiful bright spots.  The addition of Jasmine to our family has been one of my favorite things about this past year.  She made a transition into our lives as seamlessly as if she was meant to be there all along.  She plays the roles of daughter, sister, and friend every day, and she fills our lives with her eternal optimism and her cheerful nature.  I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want her around all the time.  She brings light wherever she goes.  I  am so glad we have been able to help her along her journey into adulthood.  With Jasmine we have also added this quirky group to our lives that are like a second family.  We have taken a house and made it a home with the addition of people to our lives that have been around a long time, but now suddenly feel permanent and make us feel whole.  We now have former students who are just as dear to us as our own relatives, and it's really quite an amazing feeling.  Beyond that, we have been able to enjoy time with friends and family more this year than usual, since we're not constantly busy working on a show for someone else.  We have been able to expand our theater company, and perform more shows than expected.  We have been able to travel a little, and share our home with so many people who just needed a safe haven for a little while.  And movie club, which is awesome.  These bright points in a year that has felt dismal are really what has kept me going, and kept me moving forward toward something better, something happier, something that is out there waiting to be found.  I hope we find it.

Karma, Karma, Karma, Karma, Karma Chamelion

Sometimes I wonder if I believe in Karma.  Mostly, I have a hard time with it because I really want to believe that if you put enough good out into the world, you will receive good in return, but if you look at the big picture that is never what seems to happen.  I think the question we have to ask is who out there is deciding that something is "good" and once they do, how much good is "enough"?  It's a hard question to answer.  I know that this blog ventures into the realm of whining most of the time, but I find myself often asking "When the hell will I get a break?"  If I believed in Karma, I'd just sit and wait for the universe to give some of that "good" back to me, but the problem with that is that waiting really really sucks.  Plus, you never know when that return is going to happen, or if what you thought was "good" really wasn't good to the universe and therefore I've been thinking I'm building up all of this good karma for myself when in fact all I've been doing is a lot of "good deeds" that don't truly amount to much.  See the dilemma?  Karma, if it exists, is a real bitch.

None of this is to say that doing those good deeds is somehow being done with the intention of getting a payoff later.  I'm just saying that if the universe wanted to slip me a bone, I wouldn't say no.  I like to think that all of the volunteer work, and opening my home to wayward souls, and giving people a sense of family that they may not otherwise have is all good karma building stuff, but the truth of the matter is that I simply don't know what it is, other than good deeds.  I do it because I like to.  I am the constant fixer, I have to fix everyone and make everyone happy, and if I can't then I sort of start to feel like I have no worth.  So maybe that's my karma?  Feeling like I am worth something.  I don't know.  All I know is that as of late I've felt a whole lot like I've been getting kicked in the teeth by the universe, and I wouldn't mind getting some payback on that good karma sometime soon.

It's a Fine, Fine Line...

...between love, and a waste of your time.  This song lyric has been bouncing around in my head a lot this past week.  Production week of the play is yet another reminder of the insult and injury we have suffered at the hands of a very bitter, petty little man.  Maybe it would be easier if we were fully removed, but with a kid in the department, everything filters back home to us.  I can't help being furious when I hear about parents who have been around for literally years without ever lending a hand to any of the work that needed to be done suddenly showing up to help him out because he got rid of the people who knew what they were doing.  I'm angry that parents who I thought I had this great working relationship with, who told us how much they appreciated us and our work, are now working for him.  Yes.  I know that there's the argument that they're just doing what's best for their kids, and I can't fault anyone for that, but it would have been nice to have any of them stand up for us after all the work we've done for their children.  We've put in countless unpaid hours to make sure that department ran smoothly.  We protected their students from situations that they shouldn't have had to suffer.  We oversaw details that he ignored.  We smoothed over conflicts.  We made it easier for kids to be there.  We kept some of these exact same parents from clawing the walls and spending their time in a fury over things that happened to their kids.  But when the chips were down, and when it really came down to it, none of them stood up for us.  Not one.  No one said "You don't get to slander these good people".  When I think about it, I want to cry.

And that leaves me here, wondering if it's just that they believe everything that's been said.  That after all of our selfless actions, and our devotion to their children, they still believe that we are liars, thieves, underhanded individuals, or people who are only out for our own interests.  After I thought that some of these people were friends, and after I've reached out and offered support to some of them when they needed it personally, they still think that in the big scheme of things, we're actually what we have been painted to be by people who have no right to say a word about us.  That instead of truly considering the people we have proven ourselves to be over the years, they just blindly followed the person who had the power.  No one defended us.  No one stood up and said they wanted us back to work with their kids.  They just let us fall into disgrace and suffer.  And what's worse, they flocked to him as if he had done nothing wrong.

I guess I'm just left here wondering why I ever bothered.  Was everything that was previously said about us being great people, and about their kids being better off for having known us all just a bunch of crap?  Was that 6 years of my life wasted?  Did I pass up job opportunities, and the chance to have a family of my own so that I could do what I thought was making a huge difference to a good deal of people, for nothing?  Did I do things out of love that were truly just a waste of my time?  It's hard to reconcile.  It's hard to look at the situation and see what has happened and feel like anything I did mattered.  It's hard to look those parents in the face and not feel angry at them for not being braver.  For not doing the right thing, or standing up for people they claimed to appreciate.  It's hard to feel like everything they said before wasn't just a load of lies. 

It's hard to hear the students melt down to us over text message, or the phone, or in our living room and talk about how much they hate that man, and how they hate being in his department, and then hear that they are giving heartfelt senior speeches about how much he means to them.  I can't help but think that everyone out there has two faces, and I can't really trust either of them.  They're children, he's the adult and I get that they're intimidated by him, or that they are nostalgic because they're leaving.  I get it.  But on some level, I wish they'd tell him that they hate him as much as they tell me that they hate him.  Or maybe they're just lying to me.  I don't know anymore.  And I hate not knowing.

In the end, it's hard not to feel utterly betrayed.  It's hard not to feel like there's no one you can trust.  It's hard not to feel that your sacrifice went unnoticed and unappreciated.  The funny thing is, we never asked for praise or recognition, because we were never in it to get some sort of personal glory.  We never publicized or pushed our good deeds.  We never asked for anything in return for the work we did.  I just assumed that in the long run, we'd know we had done something good and the people we helped would know too.  I was blind to assume anyone would show us any loyalty when we were slandered.  I can't say it doesn't hurt.  It's like a razor sharp pain every day, and there is literally nothing I can do to change it.  And no one cares.

New Holiday Traditions

Now that we're past Halloween and building into the full swing of the impending Holiday season, I find that my mood is changing.  I'm one of those sappy people who has always loved the holidays.  I love everything about them.  I love the baking, the family dinners, the decorations, the shopping, the gift wrapping, the holiday movies, the anticipation of Christmas morning, the holiday songs, the general sense of goodwill that people have for those few short weeks in November and December.  I'm a sap and I love all of it.  Part of this stems from when I was little and the holidays were the only time that I got to see certain family members because everyone was always so busy.  It was when I got to see aunts and uncles I hadn't seen in a long time, or got to play with some of my cousins that I didn't see often.  It was the time of year where I could follow my older cousins around like a lost puppy, desperately hoping for their approval because they were so much older and cooler than I was.  In a family that was sometimes distant, or fractured, the holidays were the time that we would all get together and pretend the problems didn't exist.

In recent years, holidays have become more difficult.  We split each holiday between my family and Jason's, and coordinating everyone is difficult.  Plus there's an issue with everyone being at different houses and arguing over who should host, or who should cook, and in the long run it becomes more stressful than it needs to be.  If we throw in any friends from out of town, it's a full blown nightmare.  In the end, it makes me kind of sad.  I'm not sure why everyone has to have their own agenda during the holidays, and why it's about what one person wants as opposed to what the group as a whole wants, and the past few years have left me frustrated by the time we hit Black Friday.  This year, however, feels different.  This year in addition to our traditional families, we get to celebrate with our own quirky little family of hodge podge members.  It's no secret that we don't currently have children, aside from our psudo-child teenager who we care about as if she were our own, so I've never experienced that small unit family togetherness that parents feel.  We are in no way replacement parents for her, but through her we do get to have that experience for the first time this year.  One more person to go along when we pick out the tree, one more person to help decorate, one more person to enjoy presents with on Christmas morning.  Plus, we've inherited her boyfriend, who has become a part of our strange family unit, and a graduate from the theatre program who we have kind of adopted as "cool niece".  All of these new and wonderful people in our lives seem to make the squabbling matter less.  Regardless of who does or doesn't want to host dinner, or whose house we end up at, we will come home to our cozy house with our weird little family, drink hot chocolate, and have a lovely holiday.  The rest of the world's problems don't matter when you can close the door and love where you are.  We'll be in our kitchen, creating new traditions.  This Christmas will be filled with cookies, cocoa, pine scent, twinkling lights and love.  I'm not sure what more I could want.