Fight Like A Girl

This is a copy of my Facebook post from November 16, 2018. More to follow.

At times it feels weird to communicate this way, but it’s time to share what’s been going on in my world. It’s important to me to control the narrative as much as I can, so here it is.

Since last summer I’ve been dealing abnormal mammograms. This isn’t new for me, this one was just more abnormal. So 2 biopsies (not cancer) and an MRI later a decision was made for a partial mastectomy of both breasts in the hopes that the abnormal tissue would be removed. Unfortunately, under that tissue was just more abnormal tissue, some of which had cells with the beginnings of cancer. Combining this with my history and family history, we are looking in a new, aggressive direction. So today I will have a bilateral mastectomy and (if all goes well) reconstruction. I’m not going to lie, it’s not my idea of fun, but ultimately I am grateful. I’m grateful to my amazing radiologist that read my mammogram and called me several times herself to say that she just felt it was something she needed to keep looking into because she felt uneasy about what she found. For my surgeons who have guided me through the process of how to make sure I’m healthy for my girls. For my ESK family who could not have been more supportive. For my parents and brother who have stood by me through every step and not only told me that it was going to be okay but been my rock. For my village (you know who you are) who hold me up time and time again, I can’t thank you enough. And mostly for my girls, who give me the strength to know that not only I will be okay but that they will as well. They have been through so much, but to know that they are strong enough to stand and continue to thrive through this is more than I could ever ask for.

Please keep us all in your prayers. Send good juju for a speedy recovery and continued strength for my family. We’ll face whatever comes with strength and dignity. People have been so kind to ask, so if you want to do something to help send my girls a message and let them know you are thinking about them. Or do one of my favorite things and do something nice for someone who needs it (as I always say if we all did one kind act a day what an amazing world we would live in).

Know that I feel positive about everything. Seriously. (I mean, how many people get to choose new boobs just in time for Christmas? 😉) In fact, in some ways I’ve never felt stronger. I choose to have my thoughts and energy focused in the right way. My mind is in a good space and I honestly have no worries about how this will go. I got this.

Friends, get a mammogram. Have your loved ones get one. It matters. It saved my life. Don’t let the discomfort of 10 minutes keep you from going. Just do it. Love to you all!

I Got You

Before I had kids I used to hate when parents would say to me that I would see things differently when I was a parent. I was wrong. There is nothing, I mean nothing, that is as fierce as the love of a parent and a child. When you see your children suffer it’s the hardest thing you will ever do. Right behind that is watching them make a mistake the you know will be bad and they have to learn that lesson for themselves. Parenting is the toughest job you will never train for. It’s also, by far, the most rewarding thing I will ever do in my life. My kids are my “why” and I will never regret that.

Putting my kids in therapy after their dad died was the smartest thing I did in the aftermath. There was too much for me to mentally deal with and they each needed a safe space to deal with their emotions. I was in a therapy session this week with my youngest. We do joint sessions every now and again to just touch base. I feel strongly that my kids need to have my promise that I will never demand to know what they discuss in therapy. If they want to talk to me, fine. If not, that’s okay too. I trust the therapists I found (this is beyond key) to let me know what I need to know to support my child in this area. I probably talk to my kids more than most parents. I don’t mean that as an accolade, it’s not. It’s just how we are wired. We have to talk on a regular basis to stay even keel. And I don’t mean just how the day was, but actually talk. We discuss the hard stuff. And this week in therapy was hard. It’s hard to hear that your child suffered and there was nothing more you could do. And then of course there is the doubt. Doubt that you really did handle it all the best way you could. And in all honestly, I didn’t always do that. I made mistakes, and ultimately some of those mistakes hurt my children. And that’s a tough pill to swallow.

That’s probably why my invisible tattoo is a mama bear. Looking back and feeling like I didn’t do all I could as a parent is hard. So I likely overcompensate. And sometimes I’m sorry about that. And sometimes I don’t regret one thing I say or do. In my job I work really hard to see the other point of view. To work with parents to help their children be successful has to be a team approach. If I can see where a person is coming from it makes a difference to me. I don’t have to like what you are saying. I don’t have to agree with you. I just need to find your motivation. Your “why”. If I can figure that out I can wrap my head around whatever you may be saying. I’ll take a mama or papa bear in my face about anything if I think the rant is based from concern for their child. I don’t have to like it, but I can accept it. If I can break down the motivation I can work with that. That’s the root. It’s not the grade on a paper. It’s not the fact the kid melted down over homework. It’s not that they failed a test. It’s what’s underneath. It’s the innate need to protect your child and help them be okay. I have people come to me often and say, “Oh you have those parents.” Yup, I do. And that’s fine. That parent just needs to be heard. Needs to let out the frustration of seeing their child suffer. They aren’t really attacking me, or another teacher, or the “stupid” assignment. They are protecting. They have seen their child hurt and they need to be heard. I can do that. Come to me as crazy as you want as long as it’s from a good place and I’ll walk through fire for your kid. Cause I want someone to do that for my kid.

Kids that go through trauma and abuse aren’t the same as other kids. The level of anxiety and lack of trust is beyond what you will ever understand. Trust. That’s it. My students need to trust that I believe in them. I need to trust that the parents are coming from a good place. Parents need to be able to trust that teachers will be there to advocate for their students. I don’t mean help them with homework or work on a concept. I mean have that kid’s back. My kids are difficult (not my students, although they are “mine” too 😉). They need people who will support them beyond what the average student needs. Dealing with children with anxiety is tough. They act out. They aren’t good at people skills. They feel alone even when you have tried to reach them. Don’t stop. Even when it’s tough, do it again. They need trust. And mama bears need to know that you will have their kid’s back. I need that.

It’s hard to know I made mistakes. I own them. I tell my children that I’m sorry. They deserve that. I have regrets. But I know that my kids will never doubt that I love them. That I am there for them. That I will always be there, no matter what. And that they can trust that I will be that mama bear. Cause sometimes it all goes back to one thing, and that is trust. I got you, girls. Always.

Climb Ev’ry Mountain

When I graduated high school I was accepted to my state’s university as an accounting major. Yeah, accounting. I had taken an accounting class my senior year of high school, and it seemed like something I could see myself doing, so why not?

I had always babysat and worked lots of camps growing up. I loved kids. They were my happy place. So when a new family in my neighborhood called to ask me to babysit, I was happy to. They came to pick me up, and as I walked to the car to meet the dad his middle school aged son popped out of the other side of the car. He looked at me, smiled a huge grin, and said, “You go home in a car?” I new right away that something wasn’t quite typical. His dad looked at me and said, “I guess I should have mentioned that he has special needs.” I shook my head, said it was fine, and off we went.

I spend the evening with “Josh” and and his 2 siblings. They were all awesome. After that I spent many evening babysitting them, and ended up nannying for the family the rest of the summer. I fell in love with that family, but especially Josh. We went all over town that summer. Played games, swam, movies, Putt-Putt. We did it all. And at the end of the summer as excited as I was to go to college, I knew I would miss my time with them.

I was lucky enough to have a major university in the town I grew up in and ended up attending. I continued to babysit for this family on the weekends. I was weeks into school when I knew I didn’t want to be an accounting major. I changed my major to special education and never looked back.

I love my job. I’m not gonna lie and tell you it’s all magical pony rides, but I love it. It’s my passion. Being around kids and watching them learn and grow feeds my soul. And I worry about them when I’m home. I’m thinking of ways I could help them more. They have no idea of the impact they have made on my life. I wasn’t always the greatest student, and the truth is that makes me a better teacher. I look at each kid as a maze and I want to do all I can to help them get through it. Every kid is different. If a teacher ever tells you they can teach every kid exactly the same they are full of crap. Or lazy. Or both. And the people who learn everything the first time they see it (yeah those people can really suck sometimes) don’t learn important lessons. They don’t always learn how to get past adversity. They don’t always work as hard or know how to be as compassionate. That quirky kid. You know the one. The annoying one that drives the class crazy beacause he can’t hold still and doesn’t  know what everyone else is doing. The one that makes jokes to distract from the fact he’s lost. The girl that hides in the corner so you won’t call on her because she had no idea how to work the problem. Those are my kids. Those are the ones I want. The ones I love. Because if you unlock the door for them they will run through it and take over the world. They want to succeed. They just want someone to believe in them. That’s my kid. My passion. It’s as much a part of me as the air I breathe.

Education is a mess. But it’s my mess. I work in a field that is thought of by many as what you do when you can’t do anything else. The pay is crap. The benefits are worse. And I’ll probably do it until I just can’t physically do it any more. I’ve said this a million times, but just because you know how to do math it doesn’t mean you can teach it, and especially not to the kid that needs you to break it down again and again and again. I’ll do it 7,000 different ways until you get it. Stick with me, we’ll figure it out. And don’t worry if you forget it tomorrow. We’ll start over again. I promise.

One chance meeting. What if I couldn’t babysit that night? What if I didn’t nanny for them? I’m a firm believer in being put in the right path. I was put on this path. I made the choice to stay on it, but I don’t doubt for one minute that I was put here because God had a purpose for me. Working with Josh changed the direction of my entire life, and it’s shaped who I am today.

Knowing this may seem like just another detail about me, and it is. But what you don’t see yet is how my passion impacted who I am and the decisions I’ve made throughout my life. Both good and bad, much of me is wrapped up in this.

Fight Song

I love music. Music makes me happy. I’m not overpoweringly musical, but I’m deeply tied to the emotions of music. For me, it’s therapeutic.

I was lucky enough to teach at the same school that one of my children went to. While that was a blessing in so very many ways, it was especially fun to get to watch her grow from the sidelines. We also spent a lot of time together going back and forth to school. Many a morning we would sit in the parking lot at school, blast out a song on the car radio, and sing at the top of our lungs. Now that she is older I drive up to school by myself and the singing doesn’t have the same impact. It was sharing the experience that made it special.

I, being a child of the 80’s, did my due diligence and made sure my children were exposed to “good” music. Soundtracks from important movies like The Breakfast Club, Top Gun, Footloose and more. Tears for Fears is a family favorite. At a young age my kids were belting out, “Everybody wants to rule the world” from the back seat. My youngest just the other day said that “Love Shack” is the song that reminds her of summer. Clearly, I have aced the importance of teaching my children great music. 80’s music was fun. It wasn’t so angsty, at least not what I listened to. I’ve been 4 times to see Duran Duran in concert and I love hearing them every time. It’s fun music. It makes me happy when I’m done. It brings back happy memories of when I was a kid. When the phone would ring, my parents would hear a scream, and I would bound down the stairs and flip on MTV to see a Duran Duran video. (Yeah, I was pre-YouTube. You had to get it when you could).

Years ago I stopped buying as many “things” for my children for holidays. We started opting for experiences. I mean, who really needed one more Barbie or movie? So we looked for alternatives. One year my youngest got ice skating lessons. She ended up continuing skating for years. I took my oldest to important concerts like The Cheetah Girls and Miley Cyrus/Jonas Brothers. One Christmas present of One Direction tickets involved an all nighter because I had to go to camp the next day with 150 students and the drive took most of the night to get home. Last summer was Panic at the Disco, and last year for my birthday I got me and my girls tickets to Maroon 5. This year we went to see the play Waitress and my kids are going to Book of Mormon for my youngest’s 16th Birthday. And we look back and talk about these experiences fondly. I have no idea which Barbie doll my child got for her 5th birthday, but standing on the floor on the 14th row at the Miley Cyrus concert with them is something I will never forget. Not just because my back hurt from having to carry my youngest the whole time so that she could see over everyone standing, but because we laughed together. We had fun. Silly, goofy, sing at the top of your lungs fun. And that’s what I want to hold on to. 

Last, music empowers me. I look for songs that make me feel good because there are enough ugly things in the world. I could feed into them forever. I’m choosing not to. I want to feel positive. Feel strong. So when I’m feeling down it’s music I often go to. Fight Song by Rachel Platten was on repeat on my phone for the entire summer of 2015. Life was pretty uncertain for me at that point, but I knew what I had to do for my kids. This song gave me strength. Cheesy? Maybe. But as I tell my students if there is something that you do that makes you feel you learn better, do it. Lie on the floor to study. Listen to music. Draw pictures while you listen in class. Chew gum. I don’t care. If it works and you do better, do it again. At some point the psychological game becomes reality. You are doing better. You feel better. And it doesn’t hurt anyone or yourself. This seems like a no brainer to me. 

So today, go find a song. A song that every time you hear it you smile. That brings up a good memory. That makes you feel stronger. Happier. Then turn it up loud and dance to it. See, you feel better already. Don’t you? 😘

I Brought You a Gift

I have 4 animals in my house. 2 cats and 2 dogs. And I’m not gonna lie, I was the pushover. I’m the one that let them in to my bedroom at night. And once you start something it’s tough to stop. So I often wake to 4 furry friends perched in various places in my room. And they are loud sometimes because, well, that’s what animals do.

This morning just before sunrise I could hear one of the cats. Jumping. Chasing. Pouncing. I called out to tell him/her to stop, but no luck. I sat up and saw Lacy staring under my dresser. My cats have a fun habit of bringing me various things from around my house and leaving them just outside my door. I’ve had buttons, toy crowns, soda bottle caps, and at Christmas any ornament they are drawn to wait for me when I wake up. I make sure I check before I step out of my room in the mornings because I’ve learned the hard way there is no telling what I’m going to step on if I don’t. 😖

So I sat up to try to figure out what Lacy had. It was still somewhat dark, so I could only see a shadow. I grabbed my cell phone and flipped on the flashlight. And the sinking feeling hit. There sat Lacy so incredibly proud of her morning gift. It was a small, black mouse. This is the second time she has brought me one in the last year. We have a finished basement that we repeatedly try to find and patch where they are coming in, but clearly it’s not working. Lacy was so proud. And she waited for her praise. And I had no praise. And she was not happy with me.

So I put on my big girl panties, took a deep breath, and found a plastic bag to scoop the mouse up in. As I walked closer it suddenly dawned on me that maybe the mouse was not dead yet, but just laying there in hopes Lacy would leave it alone and it could escape. In my infinite wisdom I think I should poke at it before I reach for it, because I darn well know if I reach for that mouse and it starts to move I’m dropping that sucker and screaming like noybody’s business. As I’m contemplating what to poke it with, I look up and see 4 sets of eyes watching me intently. 2 cats. 2 dogs. Lacy just looks annoyed that I was taking her gift away, but the rest of them are just staring at me trying to figure out why I woke them all up. I literally stop, look at them, and out loud say, “It wasn’t me, blame her.” Like they have a freaking clue what I’m saying...🙄

So now I’m back to checking to see if the mouse is indeed dead. I step closer, shake the bag over the mouse, and it is dead. At least there’s that. I pull all of my adulting skills from my toolbox and reach down for the mouse, still being watched intently by 4 animals. I’m able to scoop it up and flip it in the bag. I’m pretty impressed with myself at this point. I walk down the hall and to the stairs followed by both dogs. Lacy has wondered off to sulk and Rascal (cat 2) crawled back on his King of Sheba velvet pillow he “stole” from me to go back to sleep (I’ll explain that someday). The dogs supervise me going out to the garage and I toss it in the trash. Now, of course, the dogs are ready to start the day. So the day starts before 7 am on a Saturday morning. Lovely.

It’s days like this it really sucks being the only adult in the house. I’m not gonna lie, I would have passed off that job in a heartbeat if there was someone else to give it to. On the other hand, figuring out how to lean on myself more is just what I need. After my husband died I desperately wanted to just have a “Jesus Take the Wheel” moment and turn it all over to someone else. But now I don’t. Now I’m the one that deals with it. And it’s not that I don’t have an awesome support group, because if you know me at all you know that my village is the most amazing group of people anywhere. This summer, for the first time in 3 years, I feel more like me than ever before. More in control. And I crave control now. Like I’m obsessed with it sometimes. But the fact that I’ll face a dead mouse in the dark of the night and go on with my day may seem like nothing to some, but for me it’s kind of cathartic. Kind of like me saying, “It’s all you now. Get your crap in gear and take care of it. You got this.” And maybe that’s what the cat really brought me this morning. A reminder that I “got this” and I’m okay. And that, actually, is quite a gift.

Hello. It’s me.

When I was in the 8th grade my Language Arts teacher made us sit in alphabetic order by last name. The boy who sat behind me was the most obnoxious person I had ever met. I mean like he bugged the crap out of me. He never shut up. Always had an opinion to share. It was absolutely mind boggling how much I dreaded going to that class every day.

One thing I can say is he was persistent. He never stopped trying to get my attention. Wrote me notes. Tracked down my phone number. It was something. As time went on we forged an understanding. And he grew on me. I admit, at first, like a fungus. But things changed. We slowly became friends.

After years of asking I finally agreed to go out with him the summer before our senior year. I wasn’t looking for anything much, he was much like a bulldozer. Like in everything he did he came at it full force. I got to know him. Really know who was under all that noise. And that’s when things changed.

I’ll fill in more over time, but jumping ahead we were married after college. Had 2 kids. Dogs. Cats. The usual. Until it wasn’t.

The day after Christmas I got the call. The call no one wants to get. He had been in a car accident. There is nothing like seeing it. I still see the images. Things I’ll talk about later, but for now just know it’s things you don’t ever want in your head.

After a nearly a month in the hospital he lost his battle to survive. Again, as I go forward I’ll explain more. It was at this point my life changed in ways I never saw coming. It was the most difficult experience of my life, and I am beyond blessed to have had the support of people who picked me up and carried me when I couldn’t get through it myself.

After 3+ years I’m here. I’m someone else, and then again, I’m more me than ever. This is where I’m putting my thoughts. How I got through. How I continue to move forward. My mistakes, and there were (and are) plenty. And hopefully some things I do right too.

Thanks for indulging me. If you want to comment, feel free. If you want to judge, please don’t. You don’t have to agree with my decisions. And all my decisions weren’t always perfect. Sometimes we just do the best we can in the moment. You have no idea what you’ll do until you live it. Some of this will be raw. Some will be cheesy. And some might give you a little insight. For me it’s a place to sort through my “crazy” and look forward. Baby steps...

With kindness and peace,

E