Influences of a Mother

As I watch my children play with thier friends, I think back to my own childhood, and what a different lifestyle I had. It wasn't good, but I don't suppose it was all bad either, but my point is this, It's amazing the difference between what I have done, and what my own mother did to influence how I lived, and how I influence my children's lives. There was a time, unfortunately, that I almost followed her in her footsteps, but the love I had for my own children brought me back to the way it should be. And it's just a few differences that I made to better influence the lives of my children, and maybe one big difference: Love. I have worried, through the years, if I have been a good mother, worried that my children may resent me, like I resent my mother, worry that I haven't given them everything they need to become good people, honest, hardworking, and loved people. But it's times like these, them playing with friends, smiling, laughing, no worries, that I know for sure that I have done everything in my power to give them the life that every child should have, and all it took was a little love, tenderness, a little heart. I guess, sometimes, I even envy them, but not an angry or vengeful anger, but a wish that I could have had the same kind of loving mother, a mother just like me.

An Unspirited Christmas

I was putting more decorations up in the house, earlier this evening, as I was listening to Bing Crosby, and his rendition of "Frosty the Snowman". My mind started to wonder back to the days of my childhood, with my baby brothers stringing popped corn on thread to wrap around the Christmas tree, and mom and I baking sugar cookies, while dad was outside stringing lights across the eave of the house (cursing every now and then at something that seem to have disturbed him) all the while swaying to sound of Dean Martin and the Rat Pack softly crooning softly traditional christmas songs in the background. I thought of how are spirits were high and our hearts full of love, and how family was what christmas meant to us, and to everyone in those days. I suddenly, was saddened at the world around us now, and how Christmas didn't mean the same to society today, as it did to us back then.
Christmas is commercialized and competitive. Something has happened to our world to take the love out of traditions of old. And it's not just christmas that is upon ruin, it's everyday life that has turned from family oriented, to greed, money, and competitiveness. How much worse is it going to get? How long will we go on degrading ourselves in this manner?
I miss the feeling I got as a child. The love that I felt. The warmth that embraced me and surrounded me with family and good spirits.
Will we ever have those feelings of old again?

Good Friends, Good Times

There are so many things that I miss about the days of old, but I think that what I miss the most is the laughter, plain and simple.
I had a couple of old friends from High School over last night, friends that I hadn't seen in almost 13 years. We laughed, we cried, we laughed until we cried. It was wonderful. I don't think I had smiled that much since we were all kids. It was awesome to see how much each of us had change, but how in some sense, we hadn't changed at all. And though we hadn't seen each other in so long, one thing remained: friendship. We hadn't lost that old familiar feeling, and bond. It's funny, I know, that after so long that we came together as if we had never drifted apart. I thoroughly enjoyed, and know now that this is what had been missing in my life. The bond, the love, the friendship. I love my friends, and hope that we don't wait so long to come together in the future.

Turning Leaves

As we leave high school and some of us go our separate ways, we don't think at the time at some of the changes we are bound to make, or some of the things that may happen between then and what is now. After I turned thirty one, I became somewhat lonely for the people I used to know in highschool, and what used to be simpler times. So, I started reconnecting slowly with some of my friends from that day and age. I saw some who didn't seem to have changed at all, and heard some stories about others that I couldn't find in my searches. The things that I heard were often sad and sometimes maddening. Some of the people that we always thought would become great successes, to our surprise, had made choices that were unbecoming of them, and others, I heard (with tears in my eyes) had passed on at very young ages, from various different reasons. Some had made it to success, when we all really thought, they wouldn't really amount to much, which is very ignorant on our parts for underestimating them. I also looked in our old high school yearbook as I was being caught up on some of our old classmates, and while looking at their pictures and imagining them then, and now, I found a deep emptiness inside of me. I couldn't help but wishing that we could all go back and start all over again, and this time know what we know now. I truly miss those times, and the people we used to be. Some of our stories, were of course, very successful, and some, very sad. If any of them are reading this, that have made it this far, I miss you guys. Maybe, sometime, we can get together, and still have those old memories to hold onto. What's life, just between friends? We can make it, one day at a time, with the friendships we made then. Turning leaves in the fall, always turn back in the spring.

Unwanted

I feel like a fat cow! Have you ever felt that way? I was looking at my old high school yearbook, and saw someone I used to know, me. She was beautiful and thin, with flawless skin, a beautiful glow, and a knockout body. Now, look at me. My body is starting to sag, I'm out of shape, and at thirty-one, I'm just starting to have acne problems! What's going on here?!? Life. Life is starting to happen to me, but I can't help but think that I may have gotten a little lazy about taking care of myself, what with the kids, and going back to school, and what have you. Admidst all of this busyness, I have forgotten about myself along the way. Have you done this as well? Surely, it's not just me. I can't seem to find that "happy" median, and balance my schedule out enough to indclude a good workout, and eating right, I need help, and lots of advice, and maybe even a good support group. Can anybody help me? Maybe we can work together, This is killing me! I can't even look in the mirror anymore. Ugh! Do you feel me? Let me hear it.
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And a Child Shall Lead The Way...

He is a small, frail child with freckles spread randomly throughout his heart shaped face. He sits, sometimes, alone and away from the small crowd that gathers in his home, usually friends and sometimes family. He sits,quietly and only speaks when he is spoken to. The various people around him will say hello to him, but then turn their attention to whatever the main event may be for that moment, leaving him with his thoughts, and taking him for granted for the rest of the night. But, I notice him, sitting alone, surrounded in his the world that has pushed its way into his small noggin at the time. I wonder what he is thinking. He smirks and even grins wide, sometimes, at a funny image that has entered his mind, I'm sure. Without, notice, he even gets up and his arm becomes a lethal weapon, and his body, a machine that should not be reckoned with. He positions himself in a stance, mimicking that of a ninja, ready to strike. I giggle at the sight, for he does this without paying any attention to those around him, which it wouldn't matter if he did, cause no one's watching, but me, anyway. This wonderful boy is always full of surprises. He is always full of dreams and schemes. He has a beautiful mind, and I encourage it. He cares not about the simple things in life, nor even the complicated. He has made up his own world; a world without fear, and sadness, ; a world without death and loneliness. He's made up a world with lots of joy, and tons of triumph, where he is the victor, and a friend to all. A world where he is king, and everyone loves and adores him, little does he know how much he is admired, and cared for. Little does he know that he is a king of sorts, in all his uniqueness. He is my life; he is my love; he is my son.

You find out who your friends are.

I've done many things in my life that have led me to acquaint myself with many people, and the one thing I have realized through my experiences is that you truly find out who your friends are. Friends, I have learned, are those who stand behind you to push you forward, who walk beside you for you to lean on, who stand in front of you when signs of danger arise, to protect you. I have a friend, that has done those very things. No matter what bad choices I made in my life he was there to lend an ear, or a helping hand, or to encourage me to do better. By watching him, I realized that a true friend, will be a friend every day, and not at thier convenience. I can count my friends on one hand, how about you?

Racial Ignorance

I was walking down the sidewalk, window shopping, with my two year old niece who just happens to be black and whit mix. We were having a grand old time, laughing, skipping, giggling, when a man, driving by in his car, no less, slows down enough to yell out the window, in front of my niece, (who is very smart, by the way) and yells out "Nigger lover!" I was so shocked that I couldn't even move, and the words I should have said to my niece, just wouldn't come out. She looked sad, and I knew that she knew what he said, and she knew that the word's were meant to be an insult. She's very smart. I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, and lowered her down to the ground from my arms. "Miss Saraya", I said, "Now, don't you go worrying yourself about what that man said." and I'll be a son of a gun if she didn't look right in my eyes and say,"I'm not worried Auntie, I feel bad for him." Wow! Out of the mouths of babes. Why are we still, to this day, stuck in that old, worn out racist society? Where in the world did anyone get the idea from, that we are not all equal? I am saddened, and in dismay over this, this ignorance. Love one another people, there's no reason not too.

A Thief in the Night

I try to go to sleep, and my mind starts to race in many directions, and it's very hard to keep up with the thought that I want to stay focused on. This lasts for a little more than several hours, and I have to get up every now and then to light up a cigarette, go back to bed, and try my best to rest my weary eyes.
Just when I start to doze off, the alarm starts ringing, and that's when the day heads south. I let out a half-whispered curse word, and stumble to the kitchen to start the coffee pot. Already, I hate the day, and probably (no one's up yet) everyone that's around me. I can feel it coming. I feel the hatred pulsating through my veins, and I'm not sure why, but I'm starting to talk to the air around me, muttering hateful things. I yell for the kids to get their hind ends up, that it's time to get ready for school. Poor babies, I think to myself, they're gonna have a hell of a morning to wake up to. Why do I continue with this attitude, knowing what my kids are going to have to go through? I hate myself. I get the kids off to school, and a sigh of relief comes out of me, not because I don't want my kids around, but I know if they are not around me on days like this, the less bullcrap they'll have to see and go through, and listen to. Poor, Poor babies.
My husband gets up, and I'm not so lenient on him, and not sure why cause I love him just as much as I do the Kids, but I'm almost willing for him to see the bad side of me, almost like I'm wanting him to understand it, as much as I want to. I'm hateful to him. Oh, God, here we go. The fights on. The meaner I get, the meaner he gets. But, I won't give up. Now, I start to scream, and throw things and say the most hateful, cruel, and inhumane things to my husband, and no man, woman, or child should ever have to hear it. But, now it's to the point of no return. I am hearing myself, but it's not me, I'm seeing myself, but it's not me. Who the hell is that that has taken over my body and words? The same person who took over my mind the night before? A thief, and a good one. Now, I'm scaring myself. The voices start to take over. Telling me to leave the man that I love more than life itself, telling me that I can make it on my own. The same voice that tells me that I'm not crazy, and that I don't need this stinking medicine. I yell some more, but not at my husband, at the voice. I grab my own head, and fall to my knees. Help me! I scream to my husband. Make it stop! I cry, I sob, I feel like I'm dying, I want to die. Thank God, my kids are not here. If I can control this long enough for my kids to get ready for school and leave to get on the bus, why do I let go so fast after they are gone? Because, when they are here, or someone else is around and I don't want them to see, I still feel like I'm going to explode, but thank god, I can fight it just long enough to wait til they are gone. This is usually what happens when I don't take my medicine. I may not be explaining it to the full extent, and emotional level that actually takes place, but I assure you that it is awful, and it is only one type of thing that I have to go through without my medicine, thank God, that I have a husband who loves me for who I am, and doesn't want me any other way. Thank God, for my medicine.

Unforgettable

Sometimes, I will run into the people I used to hang out with, and when I say people, I mean the people of my partying and raising hell days. When I see these people, I guess they assume that I am still the person I was back then, without my medicine, which sometimes was a bad thing. I hurt a lot of people back then, with my words, the things I did and what not. Sometimes, the people whom I met later, after I had settled down, and got "right", will just assume that I am the person they heard I was before still, Does that make any sense? Anyway, it hurts and it's hard to try to explain to people that you aren't the same as you were. They won't let you forget. People in this town look at me funny, when I tell them I am trying to get my teaching degree, as if they are afraid to let thier children around such a person as me. Why can't people understand, that a person can change? A person can see the other side of the fence and step over it? I don't know. Maybe, it's just my own guilty feelings, maybe, it's me who can't forget. Either way, it really bothers me and at times, is really embarrassing, especially when I have a person I used to do bad things with on one side of me, and a person who knows this side of me,.standing on the other side of me. That's really awkward. Do you ever feel like people won't let you forget?

Look Around

I look around at all the wonders of nature, and what do I see?
Well, at first I didn't see anything, unusual.
But, when I shut my mouth, and opened my ears, I heard beautiful sounds, sounds like I forgot even existed. I was out in my own back yard, in the wee hours of the mornin'. Drinkin' a cup of coffee, by myself, sittin' on the picnic bench. How beautiful "silence" sounded. No hustle and bustle of everyone gettin' ready for work this mornin'. (not this early anyway) No noisy engines, and squallin' tires out of the driveways and into the roads. How beautiful it is! I'm lovin' it. The sad thing is, why can't I see, smell, and hear all this every mornin'? Cause I'm just like everyone else. I've gotten caught up in the busy, go go go kind of lifestyle that has swept through the country in the past decade. You'd be amazed at how refreshed I felt when I left the back yard, and I didn't feel a need to rush throught the day. I was relaxed, and less worried about the next minute of the day. Maybe we should all do this, at least once a week. It would do us some good. Why are we in such a hurry anyway? We rush and rush until we've lost everything that meant anything to us, sometimes. Ya know what I mean? Does anyone else see what this hustle and bustle is doing to us, and what it is that we are taking for granted, let me know what you think?