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How Did You Cope?
Three times a week, I pour out my emotions on this blog and I tell the world exactly what’s on my mind. Last year, I got a lot of texts/calls/emails from friends and family after certain blog posts. But lately, I’ve started to hear more from people I don’t know. I get messages from people who’ve read my articles and found my blog and want to connect. Sometimes I write back, and sometimes I don’t. (If you want to know who I don’t write back to, let me say this: my blog is not a dating site. Please do not write me and ask me to go on a date…
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The Oklahoma Clarks
I was upstairs packing last week, and I could hear Austin talking with a friend downstairs. “I can’t come over tomorrow because we’re going to see our cousins. We’re flying on a plane to Oklahoma!” Technically, we were traveling to see his second cousins. My cousin, Ellen, had moved with her family to Oklahoma a number of years ago and I’d never been to visit even though Ellen and I have always been really close. “Oklahoma?” everyone asked with skepticism when I mentioned I was going there. “What are you going to do there?” “I’m going to see my family,” I said. Was any other explanation needed? Everyone who has…
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Unaffected
Workplaces love surveys, don’t they? My school is a great place to work. As I’ve written about before, I get constant support from my colleagues, administrators and parents. I know I’m lucky to have this. So, recently, when I received a “employee satisfaction survey” I was happy to take it. I marked a lot of “extremely satisfied” and “definitely yes” answers. But then I got to this question, and I paused: “Are you able to present yourself each day in a way that is seen by our students as consistent and reliable (i.e., unaffected by outside-of-school problems)?” I didn’t have a hard time with the first part of the question,…
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Asparagus Cures Cancer
A few weeks ago, I got a private message on my blog. It was a letter from a reader who wanted me to know that she had used a special herbal remedy to cure her sister’s cancer, and it had worked. She implored me to spread the word about this herbal remedy since my own husband had died of cancer. Well, DAMN, I thought. Why didn’t I think of that? Herbs! I even have my own garden. And I actually grow herbs! Why didn’t I get Shawn to eat more of them? I posted this to Twitter and got a lot of responses. Oh, yes, there are many things other…
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Tommy’s Bike Ride
“I want to be a part of Austin’s game!” Tommy has been saying this phrase to me for weeks. “Okay, baby,” I’d say back to him. I never inquired about what game he wanted to play or why he wanted to play it. Maybe he meant basketball or capture the flag? I didn’t know. All I knew was that Tommy was usually too little to keep up with Austin and his friends and it was frustrating to him. So when he came to me a few weeks ago and told me he wanted to learn to “ride the red bike” I decided to let him try. The “red bike” is…
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“It Hurt for Me”
I see my therapist once a week. We talk about my life and how to reframe things that are difficult for me. I like my therapist. But an hour a week is really not enough to help me. I think I’d probably need to see her every single day for the amount of therapy I need. Since I can’t do that, I often end up relying on my friends. Last week, I had a particularly difficult day. I think it was because I was thinking a lot about Mother’s Day (why are holidays still SO difficult?) and trying to deal with the logistics of school winding down. It was just…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
