Gratitude is all about your Attitude

Ashlee posted about Thanksgiving and gratitude today. Since I am a copy cat I want to talk about what I am grateful for too. I spend a lot of time, probably too much, thinking about what is wrong or bad about my life. It is high time I count my blessings.

I am grateful for my husband and daughter. They are two of the best, most fun, and wonderful blessings in my life. I love being a part of this family. I love being the mama and I love leaning on my husband. In many real ways he is my rock and I know I am his too.

I am thankful for my job. It would be insane of me not to be in this economy. It is not my dream job, whatever that is, and I really struggle with certain aspects of it sometimes, but I am grateful I am employed. I also get to use my brain more than my back and having been raised by someone that wore their body out at work I appreciate that. I also get insurance with my job and they pay for it 100% for me and for my husband and daughter. That is rare and precious.

I am grateful for my friends. I don't have a ton of them but there are some people in my life who are truly wonderful and make what might otherwise be a dull existence very funny.

I am thankful for my home. I could write a whole post about the drawbacks of this apartment but it is doing its duty as shelter tonight. I can hear the wind howling and I am very happy to be inside.

I am thankful for my religion. I find great comfort in it. I feel very close to God sometimes, mostly when I make an effort, and I love that. I love what I get to learn.

I am grateful for my body. I haven't been overly good to it over the years but it is still working pretty well. I am trying to get into better shape. It is an amazing machine and I am amazed sometimes by how well it works and does the things I need it to do. This is never more apparent to me than when I look at TLP and think, I GREW THIS CHILD. Sometimes she'll lay on my lap, with her legs dangling down and I'll marvel that she ever fit inside of me.

There is probably a zillion other things but that will do for now. I hope you have something to be grateful for too.

Thinking about Kathleen

I came back after my stupid last post that I should just delete. The new Jane talks about things. Being the new Jane bites sometimes.

I have a lot of things bothering me right now but one thing in particular I want to talk about.

I keep monitoring the news for word on my friend Kathleen McBroom. The Anchorage Daily News ran this story today.

Basically it describes the situation and current status. No knows anything really and it makes me want to howl in frustration.

I tend to over-identify with people I meet online sometimes. I read what they say and I think I understand them, I think they are like me.

So when someone asked me if I thought Kathleen could have killed herself I said yes. When I first heard where she went missing I imagined her going over the edge. I can imagine myself doing it, so it isn't a huge leap to imagine someone else I identify with doing it.

I am not saying she did. I am saying she could have.

Kathleen was a sweetheart. She tried to help others, to see the beauty in every day things, and she spent a lot of time pondering stuff in her writing.

She had a history of bad stuff in her past, she had been raped, she was in a horrible work situation where she was being treated like garbage (her words), and she felt desperate.

She had a high energy period lately when she was posting a lot, which means she had been thinking a lot. Sometimes her posts were longer than I could get through. I suspect she was bipolar and with highs also come lows.

After the rape she would have been traumatized. Being bullied at work can also be traumatic. I don't know. Too much points to her just having lost it.

Her two daughters had run away in the past and been missing for 3 weeks. I simply cannot imagine Beany running away. It hurt her so much. I can't see her being somewhere safe and letting her family worry.

I can imagine her driving to work and feeling that desperation. Feeling trapped. Maybe the thought came to her suddenly to just end it all. She tests her courage a little by swerving towards the guardrail.

She can't take one more day and there is no way to not go to work. As someone who has considered breaking her own arm as a way to gracefully avoid a bad work situation, it doesn't seem that far fetched to me.

The trooper shows up and she talks to him. She says she is tired. The key to lying effectively about something is to tell part of the truth. She is tired. She is going to rest. She probably felt pretty calm at that point.

She waited until it was clear, then locked the truck, and stepped off. The end. No reprieve and hopefully no time to regret her decision during those last seconds.

That is what I imagined with tears streaming down my face one day last week. Nothing has come up since then to show that anything else happened.

I feel discouraged and damaged. I can't imagine how her family feels. I pray for them and I pity them. The hardest part is that we may never know what really happened to her.

I am so so sorry. I miss her kindness.

I want to run away

I am forcing myself to post today. I started crying before I even got out of bed.

I've been having dark thoughts and bad dreams. I wish I could be eloquent about it but I can't right now.

The good thing is that it is coming into that time of year when I have lots of days off due to holidays. If I can just hang on I'll get a break and rest.

I feel like a complete wreck. Sorry this is such a downer post.

Get your Obama On

I don't even know what that means, but it is a good blog title. My Mom texted me today in ALL CAPS:

MY CANDIDATE WON! GOD BLESS AMERICA, I AM SO HAPPY THAT THIS HAPPENED IN MY LIFETIME!

Or something like that. It made me smile. I had no idea who she was voting for and she was obviously really excited.

I am so happy it is over! No, the person I voted for didn't win. Yes, bloggie friends, I voted for McCain.

I wasn't thrilled with either candidate but I chose McCain for some very specific reasons that I don't need to go into.

There are certain things I don't like about Barack Obama. He is pretty smooth; he reminds me of Slick Willie. I think it is the 'lawyer' in them. I don't like that.

I don't think, like a family member of Thad's, that he is the anti-Christ. I don't think he is a Muslim, or a bad person, or whatever has been spouted on TV. I just couldn't choose him.

So this is the day after. A lot of disappointed people out there. I hate that. I know a lot of people are trying to reconcile the outcome with what they wanted. Or they are just moaning about it.

Unfortunately I've heard some ugly stuff and it is only day one. A waitress in the coffee shop this morning related an ignorant comment one of her patrons made this morning, something about 'nappy headed kids in the White House'.

That seriously ticked me off. Stupid jerk.

Maybe you don't agree with Obama but leave the kids out of it. If you want to hate Obama hate him for what he has said, or done, not for the color of his skin or the texture of his hair.

Later in the day I was wool gathering and I thought about that remark and it brought up a very specific memory.

When I was a young lass I worked for three years as a nanny. When I came to live with the family Jacob was 4 and his little brother was 8 months old.

I grew to love them both though Jacob was sometimes harder to love. He had that typical bitterness over being supplanted by a younger sibling. Or at least I think it felt like he was being replaced.

Jacob's father is black and his mother is white. It was harder than I imagined to deal with some of the issues this brought up.

Once when Jacob was about five I bought him the Neverending Story movie. I had loved it as a child. He LOVED it and watched it constantly.

One day after he watched it he crawled onto my lap and said, "I wish I looked like Atreyu.". My heart fell through my toes. I don't remember what I said exactly. I vividly remember stroking his curly hair and saying something about how handsome and wonderful I thought he was and that it was okay that he didn't look like Atreyu. I don't know if that was the right thing.

That memory came back to me so strongly today. I thought about what little Jacob, who actually is now nearly 18, would think of having Barack Obama as his president. It feels nice.

I hope Obama does what he said he would and that he behaves honorably. He needs to be more than a good president, he needs to be a good example.

So if anyone reading didn't get their way, just give it a chance. He may not have been your first choice, but that doesn't mean he won't do good things for our country. It does not mean we are going to hell in a handbasket. So, chill folks.

In the dark and cloudy day

I have a lot of thoughts popping through my head tonight but I keep thinking of this Houseman poem, particularly this part:

Therefore, since the world has still
Much good, but much less good than ill,
And while the sun and moon endure
Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure,
I’d face it as a wise man would,
And train for ill and not for good.
Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale
Is not so brisk a brew as ale:
Out of a stem that scored the hand
I wrung it in a weary land.
But take it: if the smack is sour,
The better for the embittered hour;
It should do good to heart and head
When your soul is in my soul’s stead;
And I will friend you, if I may,
In the dark and cloudy day.

It is very stoic and suits my temperment. The language is lovely and stark.

I've been thinking of the election tonight, among other things. My grandfather uses to say, when presented with rice with dinner, "One billion Chinese can't be wrong." Then he would chuckle and eat.

I can't get over knowing that tomorrow night around this time a lot of people are going to be very diappointed and a larger number will be very happy. It doesn't seem fair that some will feel cheated, that they chose wrong or that the 'other guy' chose wrong. Everyone should be happy with the outcome, or at least content.

I am content, but mostly because I don't think it matters much in the long term who wins the election. I know someone that would cry foul at that and she would say everything, EVERYTHING hinges on this moment in history. Codswallop. (Lovely British word.)

In the short term it is easy to be passionate, that is almost the lazy way, the long term view is more perilous to consider. It is so unknown, unreachable, not to mention wholly unpopular.

Someone will win. That someone will not meet all their campaign promises. He will make mistakes. It will be discovered that he was overly optimistic in his projections, a little elastic in his conjectures. He will do good stuff too. Some good things will happen. He'll run for election again and maybe win maybe not and then it will be someone else's turn. On and on and on, grinding inexorably towards the future.

I am confident that would be the case no matter which candidate wins. We will all move on, pick up the pieces, try to keep our jobs, do our best.

We will return to our normal commercials so we can once again be swayed from one brand of deoderant to another. Thank goodness.

Some of you stink.