Brag Moment

I have to take a moment and brag on one of my dearest friends. She is like my twin sister from a different mister. We share the same name spelled the same way and we couldn't be more a like in so many ways. The biggest ways is we were single moms for 18 years, we both had one child, a son. We both stayed single a very long time and then dated our current husbands a long time (her 6 years and me 4 1/2 years before getting married). Sadly, we both lost our babies at the young age of 22 years old. While they were lost in different ways, the lost is still very devastating. My baby has been gone almost 11 years and her baby has been gone 3 years. One more thing we will soon have in common is our first and likely only tattoo which are both very personal and precious to us both. I know she wouldn't mind me sharing this here since I know only people who respect and care about me read this so I feel safe sharing. She has his finger prints and will have them in the shape of a heart in a tattoo by the same tattoo artist that did my precious tattoo. I absolutely love her choice. It will be a beautiful tribute and I hope brings her a little piece of happiness and peace to her heart each time she sees it. I love you my dearest friend. I can't wait to share this precious moment with you and honored you want me there with you.

Life Partner

I am no relationship expert by any means. I just want to state that right up front. I have, however, learned after 2 previously failed marriages, learned what not to do. I've also learned after a few birthdays, what is important and what is not so important when it comes to relationships. Some of these learnings can apply to other relationships and not just marriage or your life partner relationships. Is my marriage perfect? No, that would be a lie if anyone tried to claim that, but I do have a great marriage and I feel a very loving marriage. Some of the things I've learned and still learning along the way that I hope will help you along the way or in the future. To give a little background of myself first. I was first married young. My first marriage was when I was twenty years old. I was married for two years when I was fortunate enough to get pregnant with my son. He was a miracle baby for sure and it was a tough pregnancy and throughout the entire nine months we weren't sure I would carry him, but through the grace of God and according to my grandmother, her prayers, I did carry him and delivered him on May 25, 1988. While it was the most amazing day of my life, I also suffered from post-partum depression (although I didn't realize it and people didn't discuss that back then. To add insult to injury, my husband at the time the very day I came home from the hospital was found in the driveway doing drugs. I shut down at that moment. I won't go into the details of what the next 4 years of our "marriage" would involve, but I would tell you from that moment forward I was a single mom and I did endure things no wife should endure. I finally got smart and brave enough to finally leave. You would think I would have learned my lesson, but no. I didn't not allow myself the time to heal from the damage done, instead I ran to the first man that gave me "positive" attention and made me feel "safe" at the time. What I didn't realize at the time is that I had jumped from the pot into the fire. I spent the next ten years in a very mental and emotional abuse. At the end of this marriage when I finally had enough and discovered he was having an affair it was turning physical and I am certain had he not been aware my daddy was on his way he would have hurt me physically. So to say I'm a slow learning when it comes to matters of the heart would be an understatement of the year. I decided after that marriage ended that I was moving to Northwest Arkansas (as I knew he couldn't find me there) and start over. I had a job (so I thought) lined up and just as I arrived, that fell through. So arriving in a new state only knowing my sister and her husband with my 12 year old with me and very little personal belongings we moved into my sister's house and I began to look for a job and figure out how to start a new life. Talk about being terrified. What helped me take each step forward was watching my son come out of his shell and see him flurious outside the stress we were living under. I knew then I needed to give myself permission to let my heart and mind heal and so I did. For four years I did not go on a date or even have lunch with a man. I worked and focused on Chad and family and buying my first home on my own. That was the best decision I could have made not only for me, but for Chad as well and for my current marriage. First and foremost, you cannot go into a new relationship with old baggage from an old relationship, especially where there is hurt (and terrible hurt for sure). You need to give yourself whatever time is needed to give yourself healing time before allowing yourself to open your heart again to allow someone else in. It's truly not fair to the other person, but more than that, it's not fair to you to rush into a relationship without first healing hurts from the past. I've learned there should never been any tit for tat. In other words, don't keep score in a relationship. I've seen more times than I would like to count where one spouse says, well, my spouse had a night out with friends so now it's my turn. NO! Or, well, my spouse got a new (fill in the blank) so I'm going to buy a (fill in the blank). NO! That's not how this works. Also, once your are married or in a committed relationship and living together. It's no longer mine, it should be our. That drives me crazy. I hear it all the time. As far as finances goes. That has to be an individual decision. I understand each household can be different based on circumstances, but for us personally, we believe once you are married you should combine your account. There shouldn't be mine, his, etc. It's our account, our money. Regardless if one or both work, it should be our not one or the other. You can't always have division in a relationship and be at one together at the same time. It just doesn't work that way. If you are in a relationship that is not fulfilling you regardless what that might be and you discuss it with your partner and that partner is unwilling to change or at least give every effort to work on it and change then you are in the wrong relationship. If your partner truly loves you and is in love with you, they will do whatever they can to make sure you are happy and fulfilled. There is a difference in loving someone and being in love. Loving someone is an affection, a feeling and it fades. Being in love is an action, yearning for someone and a deep desire for someone. That is real and that lasts when things get tough. Life is messy, hard, unpredictable and unpleasant, but it can be wonderful with the right partner. I'm very lucky to have finally found that partner. It did take two failed marriages and 4 years of being along and then 4 1/2 years of dating him prior to getting married, but once we got married I knew we had a strong marriage. Is it perfect? No. Is it strong? Yes. We could not have gone through the death of Chad and still making it almost 11 years later if it wasn't strong. We are currently building our first house together and we are experiencing some challenges and frustrations on each of our sides that we are navigating through. We are getting there, but we are also learning as we go. We have and are still getting through the COVID pandemic together and come Oct. 1st we will go through me returning to the office again for the first time since March of 2020. That will be a huge adjustment for me and I'm guessing it will be for him as well as I am sure I will struggle on many levels. I am certain we will make it through it, but to say I'm not having some anxiety about it would be a lie. As far as partners and relationships, you will face trials and tribulations and if you don't have that mutual love and respect for each other and aren't truly in love with each other you will struggle more than you will ever imagine. Love will fade like infatuation, but truly being in love will stand firm. You have to be sure that you are truly in love and that your partner is truly in love with you and once you have established that you will know how to proceed. If you have established that you and your partner are not truly in love with each other then you have a big decision to make. You can either agree accept life as it is and keep it like that and that means you don't get to complain about it or bring it up to your partner any longer, because it's obvious it isn't going to change or you make the decision to leave. Either decision would be hard. If you have exhausted all other avenues like counseling, talking with your partner (likely mulitple times) or maybe even tried separation before and none of which have worked, then that is your answer. If you haven't tried some of those options, maybe it's time if you are in love with your partner and maybe your partner isn't sure or thinks they are in love with you, but doesn't know how to show it. It is very difficult for me to verbalize my feelings (which is why I write here) and I do have issues I need to talk to Tebo about and hopefully the timing works out for me to do just that this weekend. It's nothing earth shattering, but it is something I need to get off my chest. I hiope I get the chance to do that this weekend and if not I will have another chance, but in the meantime I will continue to love him and respect him until we get a chance to have our chat. My hope for you is that if you don't have the love of your life that is fulfilling you that you find that. If you do have that, I'm so glad you do and I hope that you continue to live your best life and continue to grow your love and life.

Confusion

To say there is so much confusion, not only with me, but in this world would be a huge understatement. You name it, politics, COVID, the anniversary of 9/11, vaccines, etc. There seems to be so much division and confusion going on in the world today and it is not just dividing political parties, but it is dividing friendships and sadly, families. All I can do is speak for myself personally. So that's what I will do. Personally it makes me really sad that so many things are no considered "political". COVID is killing so many people and now we have to include children and I've heard as young as 1 year old and some unborn babies as many pregnant women are losing their battle with COVID and yet there are so many out there refusing to get the vaccine, because they believe they are being forced by the government. Well, I don't know if we are being "forced" or not, but what I do know is that the vaccine is saving lives and I do believe that is the only way we are going to gain control over this pandemic. This stupid division over the whether to get the vaccine or not is literally driving families and friends apart and that is the saddest part of all of this outside the loss of life. I don't care what party you associate with, I do care if you get sick and die or someone you love does. There are so many "versions" of the truth about vaccines and the virus out there and yes, you have to decide for yourself what you shoudl or shouldn't do, but stop blaming the government. For years there have been vaccine mandages in place. Most of us had to be vaccinated to go to school and most of us had to have our children vaccinated before they could go to school and if you ever served or are serving in the military you were vaccinated with all sorts of things and trust me, you had/have no idea what they injected you with. That's the part I truly do not understand, there is so much opposition to this vaccination, but honestly, this vaccine has been developed and researched for years. We just had no reason to know about it because there were no cases out there. It's no different than when small pox was going around, people had to rush to get vaccinated because we were in a pandemic then and folks weren't resisting then, they wanted to make sure they didn't get infected so they got vaccinated. I've heard many people, family included, stating they didn't trust the vaccine because it was "rushed". Well, it was only rushed through the processed because we are in a pandemic. Would you rather continue to see people die and stay in a lock-down across the country or would you like to see our scientist work with all the government resources and push through the system to provide vaccine options to slow the spread of the virus? You can certainly choose. No one is telling you that you HAVE to get the vaccine. They might be telling you that you cannot work at a certain employer if you aren't vaccinated or eat at a certain restaurant if you aren't vaccinated or show proof of a recent negative COVID test. If that's what you choose, that's your option. If that's what you choose, then you can't be pissed that you get fired and can't draw unemployment or you get turned away from an eating establishment because you expressed your right not to get vaccinated or didn't get tested prior to showing up. That's actually what the mandate states. If you listen carefully rather than getting mad and already preparing your response before getting all the facts you would understand a bit more and maybe, just maybe, be a bit more informed. You might still choose not to get vaccinated, but maybe you wouldn't be so angry with everyone else that tends to agree with the mandage. Just a little food for thought. Another issue that has been weighing on me is the Afghanistan debacle. I've written about it before, but I don't think I could write about it enough. You know, the current president and his administration wants to blame everyone else, including the former president, for how things went down. Well, this is my personal opinion on this matter (again, my personal opinion and I don't expect anyone to agree). Whatever happened in the last administration was wiped away when the new administration took office. That's the way it has always been and always will be. It's no different than when a football team gets a new coach. They usually replace all the assistan coaches with their set of assistant coaches. No different in a company when they get a new CEO, they replace their SVPs and VPs and down the line with their own team. Well, that's what happens when we get a new President of the United States. They bring with them their own Vice President and then they clean house and start replacing those people with the folks they want in their place. Right? Of course they do. Every President has done that and this current administration is no different. Okay, well, if that is the case (and it is), then how wasn't the withdraw from Afghanistan "plan" not Biden's instead of Trump's? I am certain Biden is NOT running the country using Trump's playbook. I feel certain he entered this job with his own agenda. That being said, the plan to withdraw from Afghanistan was all President Biden's plan and direction and had nothing to do with former President Trump's previous plan. Once Biden took office all Trump's previous plans were trashed and Biden's plans took over. I get so sick of hearing this administration blaming everything on the previous administration. What makes me even sicker is all the "Americans" doing the same things. They go on social media and they are being so disrespectful to the President of the United States of America and voicing their opinions like it is the gospil and in ways that are so distasteful. Yes, everyone has a right to their opinion and freedom of speech, that's why I can write my blog and air my feelings here. However, what ever happened to respect and there is this one little thing of living what you preach. Let me explain... If you proclaim that you are a Christian, how can you be so distasteful on social media and disrespect people in ways that your children and people of the church will see that can potentially harm your testimony? That's a very slippery slope in my opinion (again, just mine). Trust me, I did not vote for Biden, I do not like Biden, I do not agree with most of what Biden stands for and I really do not agree with how he handled Afghanistan and how he is running this country. I do, however, respect the position of President of the United States. I love our country and most importantly, I want to set a good example and never intentionally say or post something that would in some way appear that I am setting a bad example for my kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews or great nephew. Adults, I beg you to think about that before you post the next social media post. Just saying. The final thought for the day is just remembering 9/11. It's hard for me to believe it's been 20 years since that faithful day. My precious son was 13 years old on 9/11 and I was at work at a doctor's office when the first tower was hit and I immediately thought, oh my God, I need to get to him. No one knew what was going on or who or what would be hit next. I just knew I needed to know that my son was safe. I called my sister and she went to the school and picked him up until I could get off work. Fast forward to Oct. 2007 and my son would enlist into the United States Marine Corps. He would serve almost his full 4 years until 5 weeks into his final deployment in Afghanistan when he stepped on an IED and was killed in action. So to say 9/11 has a particular impact on me (as most Americans) is an understatement so I was very emotional a bit more this year for whatever reason. Maybe it was due to all the division I see in this country and even with family and friends. Regardless the reason, it was a sad weekend to say the very least and that date also signifies 80 days until my son will be gone from this earth 11 years. On top of all of the above, we had just come off Labor Day weekend which marked 25 years since my precious niece had been diagnosed with brain cancer, which was the first time our family was rocked to it's core. We just didnt realize that would be the first of several times we would be rocked/tested in a major way. We, as a family, have proven to be pretty resilient, but it has shown that we are definitely fractured as a family as well. That part makes me sad, but I also understand that is to be expected I suppose. I know there will come a day when things will just come together as they are supposed to be, but I often find myself wondering when that time might be. I guess only time will tell. Until that time comes or the time comes that I find true peace, I will just continue to exist in this world and pray for the Lord to bring peace and togetherness to this country and most importantly to our families and friends as they should be. I love all my family and I miss the closeness we all once had and would love nothing more than to keep the promise I made daddy in his last days, but I also know I can only do so much and the rest has to be made by others. I will continue to do my part and pray the others will do their part at some point. All my love to my family and friends and all my peace and prayers to those I don't know that might, by chance, be reading this.