It's been a bumpy ride

Nine years ago on October 25th at 2:13 p.m. in Enid, Oklahoma, I received the most amazing gift anyone could have ever given me. No, it wasn't on my Christmas list or my birthday list, but sometimes the most unexpected gifts are the best. So now as I sit here nine years later and think of where my life has been and what I have worked through and experienced over the last nine years I can see the growth I have made and the adversity I have overcome. I absolutely love, love, love being a mother, and I pray that one day, in the future, that I can relive the experience of watching a child grow inside of me and know that I am the one nourishing it and helping it thrive.

There is no doubt in my mind that I would not have had nearly all the struggles in my life if there had been someone in my life there by my side helping me along, helping me be a parent. I don't think, though, that not having that counterpart there with me affects me or will affect me as much now as it will impact my daughter in the short years to come. I am fearful of the day when she realizes just how much I have done for her to make her happy and she feels guilty for all that. I don't want her to feel guilty. Raising her alone is something, for the most part, that I chose to do. Everyone has the power to change a bad situation to a good. As much as I don't want her to feel guilty, I also do not want her to carry the same burden of regret that I sometimes carry. There are not too many things in my life that I regret, well, actually, none, because we all learn from our mistakes. Making mistakes is the only way one can truly learn and grow as a person. So, yes, I made mistakes, but nothing I would ever want to change. I maybe shouldn't have pushed so hard. I maybe shouldn't have forced things. I maybe shouldn't have tried to control too much. But who knows? All of this has happened for a reason. I believe that the good lord above has presented me with all these obstacles, frustrations, disappointments, heartbreaks, challenges for a reason.

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. – Galatians 6:9

Frustration runs deep

Why is that dwelling on the past, reliving the past, remembering the past, and whatever else with the past is always easier than focusing on today and anticipating the future? I struggle on a daily basis with these ever-present thoughts of the past instead of living for today, enjoying what I have in the here and now, and just enjoying the moment. Could it be that I constantly surround myself with memorabilia of the time passed? Could it be that I wish I could back in time and right the wrongs I made? Or could it be that the single most precious and valuable thing in my life is a daily reminder of the past? Frustration then stems from not having answers to important questions. Important questions such as "what if?" and "what did I do so wrong?" and "why that one, not this one?". Will I ever have answers? Will I ever be able to forget and just move on? Forgiveness is a difficult thing. I think I have forgiven the people in my life who have done me wrong, but that does not mean that I have forgotten those wrongs. Does that mean I will carry about that baggage of the inability to forget?

the world is filled with excuses

One of my pet peeves, well one of many, is excuses. I am not a perfect person by any means nor do I claim to be, and I have probably been just as guilty as the next person for making excuses for not wanting to do something, but there are certain times and situations where I could really do without the excuses and would prefer the truth.

Students throw excuses at me all the time, most of them are just that - excuses. Very seldom is there a time when what they tell me is actually the truth. Don't get me wrong, not all my students lie and try to get around the truth, but for the most part if homework is not done there is an excuse, if they are late to class there is an excuse, if they fail a quiz there is an excuse. I expect this. It's the nature of the job. Working with teenagers, one comes to learn about excuses and all the different ones kids have.

But where we do not expect excuses to come from is someone we care about whom we think care about us. It's in relationships, especially the beginning stages of relationships, where excuses should be avoided. If we are not interested, if we are too busy, if we are afraid of getting hurt, if we are not ready, say it. Instead of pointing out the flaws, which we all know we have, focus on the excuses that are being thrown around. Focus that energy in making the excuses somewhere else. It takes courage to speak the truth. But as adults, even more, as humans, we are expected to speak the truth and be honest with each other. Honesty is not an easy pill to swallow nor an easy pill to administer, but in the end, it is what everyone wants and deserves.

We all have days where nothing seems to go right. We all have days when we think things cannot get much worse. I have had plenty of those days. But instead of focusing on all the negative, which is so much easier to do, what about the good things we have? What about the amazing child that lights up the room every time he or she walks through the door? What about the roof that is over our heads? What about the amazing people in our lives whom we call our friends? Why not focus on the positive things that God has given us instead of focusing on all the negativity this world embodies?

I am thankful for the life that God has given me. Even though I don't always say thank you and give back as much as I should, I am still grateful. I admit that I am guilty of making excuses; I admit that I have my flaws; I admit that I still carry around thoughts and feelings from the past, but all those things I am working on. My life is a work in progress. No one is perfect. It's hard to see the imperfections in some people, but I am sure they exist. I thank God for each day that I am here and for each day that I am given with my daughter.

I think I have digressed from the intention of this, but sometimes those things happen. Just as in life, the plan we have for ourselves does not always end up where we planned.

My, oh, my.....the life of a teacher!

So I must begin with a funny thing I overheard a student say the other day in class. Let me preface it by saying that my room is being used by another teacher during my plan period so I often stay in my room while she is teaching. The class she is teaching is a group of students who have not yet passed English I, which was to be passed their freshman year. There are several in the class who should technically be juniors by age but are still freshman by credits. Anyways, I don't even know what they were talking about but one student asked the question, "Why did they invent school?" I tried my hardest not to laugh and could only picture our country made up of these types of people who would never ever step foot in a school unless there was some kind of law that made them. Wow, can we say white trash hillbillies taking over the world? There were so many other things I wanted to say to this student, but for a sundry of reasons I kept my mouth shut and continued on with my business.

Do kids today not realize that without an education they are going nowhere? I guess maybe drug dealers or meth manufacturers wouldn't need a high school diploma, but how would they know how much of each substance to measure out, or how much change to give back to a buyer? I am amazed still at the number of kids who think floating through high school without so much as raising a finger or even minutely working is going to get them somewhere. I will admit that school is not for everyone, but what I think that means is school after high school is not for everyone. College is not for everyone is what I mean. This is not the problem I have with the kids I see walk the halls in our school today. The problem I see is apathy. But how can I change a person's attitude and make them care? That is next to impossible. Either we care or we don't. Is there a gray area there? I am positive they care about their cars, money, clothes, friends, having a good time on the weekends, but when it comes to school, that caring is nowhere to be found. So how do we change that?

I am scared for my daughter to grow up in this world. I don't want her to be pulled down by all the negativity around her. I want to shelter her from all the harm and evil the world has to offer. Let me deal with it; Let me face it; Let me take the brunt of the pain for her.

I will save the rest of my rant for another time.
-Jocelyn :)

In and Out of Time

In and Out of Time
by Maya Angelou

The sun has come
the mists have gone
we see in the distance
our long way home

I was always yours to have
you were always mine
we have loved each other
in and out of time

When the first stone looked up at the blazing sun
and the first tree struggled up from the forest floor
I have always loved you more

You freed your braids
gave your hair to the breeze
it hung like a hive of honey bees

I reached in the mass
for the sweet honeycomb there
Hah
God how I loved your hair

You saw me bludgened by circumstance
lost, injured, hurt by chance

I screamed to the Heavens
loudly screamed
trying to change our nightmares
into dreams

The sun has come
the mists have gone
we see in the distance
our long way home

I was yours to have
and you were always mine
we loved each other
in and out, in and out, in and out of time

Is it easier to forgive or to forget?

Tis' easier to forgive than to forget, tis' not? Well, really, I have no idea because I can't seem to do either one of those for some things that have happened in my life. By no means have I had a terrible upbringing that left me with so many emotional scars that I can hardly function, but I have faced some bumps in the road that I need to just plow down so I can lay some new foundation on those spots in my soul.

Last night I sat down to do my nightly reading in one of the three books I am currently trying to simultaneously complete in order to give me some direction in life and help me find some answers to many of tricky scenarios that life throws at each of us, but anyways, the chapter was about getting rid of the junk in your trunk. Now, first off, that phrase still makes me laugh as it did the author too. I won't digress and explain the meaning of what it is to have junk in the trunk (if you don't know then I suggest you go to urbandictionary.com and take a gander), but the meaning of it in this particular book is getting rid of all those things in our lives that seem to be weighing us down making it difficult to move on from those emotional scars that were made so long ago. Needless to say, this was a chapter where I highlighted a number of passages that "spoke" to me. I have junk in my trunk. In order to move on to and give myself to another person I have to unload all that junk so I am fully ready to replace it with new memories, new love, and focus on being a new me.

So that is why I ask if it is harder to forgive or to forget, or are those one in the same? I started a list last night after my reading of some of the "junk" I still carry with me. On this list I included several things that make it hard for me to trust another person, things that make it hard for me to fully internalize that I am worthy of having all that I deserve and what God wants to me have, things that make it difficult for me to look at myself and know that I am a good person. I know all that junk is there, but I need to find a place to unload it. I have already been guilty of unloading some of that junk onto someone else who doesn't deserve to punished for things that happened in my past.

Forgiveness, to me, is a work in progress and does nothing for the person whom I am forgiving. So I am working on forgiveness. I should have done it a long time ago, but I am at a crossroads in my life and starting to realize I can't live with the weight of this "junk" and the hurt that someone caused so long ago. I am not getting any younger, and I don't want to spend the next thirty years of my life with a heavy heart that might stand in the way of ever being able to fully commit to someone. I don't know if it is ever possible to forget, but forgiveness is something I need to make happen in order to get that junk out of my trunk.

The Invitation....a powerful poem

The Invitation By Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for,
And if you dare to dream of meeting
Your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
For love, for your dream,
For the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon.
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow,
If you have been opened by life's betrayals,
Or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain,
Mine or your own,
Without moving
To hide it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy,
Mine or your own,If you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
Without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true.

I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself,
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.
I want to know if you can be faithless and therefore be trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty
Even when it is not pretty every day,
And if you can source your life From its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure,
Yours and mine,
And still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the full moon,
"Yes!"

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair,
Weary and bruised to the bone,
And do what needs to be done for the children.

It doesn't interest me who you are, how you came to be here.I
want to know if you will stand In the center of the fire with me
And not shrink back.
It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
From the inside
When all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
With yourself,
And if you truly like the company you keep In the empty moments.