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This Too Shall Pass

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https://sticksandsteel.com/products/this-too-shall-pass

So, I finally made a decision on a tattoo. I had been asking myself this question for several years. I wrote about it in a previous blog What Tattoo Do I Want. I have decided it should say “This Too Shall Pass” because nothing lasts forever. Nothing good, nothing bad, not a job, relationship or life. There will always be an ending even if it feels like it will last forever while we are in the midst of the event. And things can last a very, very long time. It may take a death to end it, but something will eventually change it. This is just the nature of time and humanity.

I have lived most of my life by this mantra. I forget it sometimes and I need to remind myself and others that this is the way things are. I am careful who I say it to and how I say it, because it can sound very cliche and most of the time, people will use it that way. But it is the only words that can get me through the day sometimes. That is why I want it written on my skin so I never forget it.

Life is hard and seems to get harder with each passing day. I am not complaining, just stating facts. There are many around me who are going through much more difficult things than I am right now. But I have had my moments. We all do. None of us have the perfect life. Even if it looks that way from the outside, what happens behind closed doors can be an entirely different reality. I had a very good friend of mine ask me one day (after I spent at least 15 minutes griping about something that I was obviously taking for granted) “Kim, do you have any idea what your life looks like to others on the outside?” Wow! Uhm… nope! I had never considered that perspective before. It seems really simple, doesn’t it? But seriously, how often do we ask ourselves how others perceive our lives and why do they make assumptions? Is it because of what we project? The life we present, the happiness we show the world so they think we have it all together is not real. Because on the inside, we are dying and depressed. Then people wonder why we disappear or shut ourselves away. We are always being the sweet, kind, always smiling person who is there to be a helping hand to everyone else. But then we get pissed off when people assume we are happy and do not have any problems. You only have yourself to blame for their assumptions. You don’t have to tell everyone your problems, but when they genuinely ask if you are ok, don’t lie.

In reality, MOST people do not really want to know your problems. That is why we paint a perfect facade on social media. But what is the truth? Ok, let’s share happy times and keep the negativity off Facebook, but do not get upset when no one reaches out to you when you truly need them. Who do I know I can count on? That number is extremely, EXTREMELY small and when I have needed them, they were there. Then, there are those who say they would be there, but when there is really a crisis, will they be? Not likely. Why am I the one that reaches out to people when I haven’t heard from them? There are a couple who are exempt from this, but really…. why is it almost always me? Because that is who I am and how I am wired. It is appreciated, but not reciprocated. People get caught up in their own, very busy lives and time passes without them realizing it. It wasn’t that they forgot to call you on purpose. But as my hubby puts it, “they didn’t purposely remember you either.” This is a true statement.

Remember…. “this too shall pass” including relationships. There is a season for everything, including people. Remember it with fondness, or don’t. Remember it with guilt, or don’t. Remember it with regret, anger, and resentment, or don’t. The decision is your’s. But nothing on this side of heaven (or hell) lasts forever. And nothing and no one is ever worth your peace!!!

Always protect your peace!

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Only The Good Die Young

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I recently lost a sweet friend to brain cancer. She was only 39 years old and left a 3 yr old baby behind along with a husband of 6 years. I think I haven’t really processed it yet. I was unable to go to the funeral because I live in another state and she passed away in my hometown.

I don’t believe I would have been able to go even if I had been in town. Her body wasn’t there because she was cremated, but I have known her for 20 years.

These are the deaths I don’t understand. These are the ones I can’t get a handle on. The same week she passed, a friend of my brother’s committed suicide. He was only 45.

I’m sad. Just sad…. death is something we will all experience, and it is part of life, but why do the young, strong, and well loved have to be the ones we lose first?

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What Tattoo do I want and where do I want it?? 🤔

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Well… now that is an interesting question and one I have been pondering for a while. I just have a hard time making a lifetime commitment to something on my skin. I never really wanted one before my dad passed away but since then, I have given it more thought.

Truth be told, I am a big baby when it comes to pain and I have heard getting a tattoo is very painful. And once you get started, you can’t exactly quit or change your mind. I guess you can, technically, but then you have something that looks weird. Not that anyone would notice because if I ever did get a tattoo, it would not be in a place where anyone but my husband and I (maybe my doctor) could see it. And I can’t even begin to imagine her thoughts on the subject.

So there you have it…. I’m still unsure about the whole thing but if I ever decide to get one, I’ll let you guys know! 😁

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SCHOOL DAYS (The curse of cursive)

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Seventh Grade

Most of those of you who follow my blog know cursive handwriting when you see it and can even read it. But not many will practice their handwriting to make sure it is legible and looks pretty when signing documents or cards. A lot of people do not even send cards anymore. That is too much trouble and apparently something the younger generation thinks is so antiquated, they do not feel it even necessary.

marvinmeyer unsplash photos

So, we resign ourselves to the technology of today and send greetings via text or email. But I draw the line at some Thank you notes. If you are too busy and it is too much trouble to send a note, at least send a text or email acknowledging the gift. Do not relegate this obligation to a parent!! Afterall, that person has gone out of their way to send you something, it is curtesy and respect to at least let them know you received it.

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This is a bee in my bonnet because I do send graduation gifts, shower gifts and flowers to funerals and I MIGHT get confirmation from a parent or not. Most of the time, I have to ask if it was received, which is awkward and ridiculous and then just pisses me off when they say, “Oh yeah, got that a while back.” Grrr. Would have been nice if someone had told me. I don’t know. Maybe the person who actually received the gift??? The last time I said something to a parent about hearing from her child, whom got a very nice gift from me, she said, “She is just so busy and these kids today barely know how to write. And she doesn’t have your number.” Really? You couldn’t give her my number and tell her to take 2 minutes to send me a text? I blame the parents 100% on that one! And said parent is a SCHOOL TEACHER! Oy!

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I will say I have received cards from families I have sent flowers to. That seems to be something people still do, but I promise those cards are sent by someone over the age of 50, 99% of the time. I still receive some Thank you cards, and they are very nice to get. I give big kudos to the parents who have taught this recognition to their children.

Anyway, I digress. Getting back to cursive writing. When I was in the 7th grade, I had an English teacher who made it her mission to make sure all of her students were going to learn how to write properly in cursive. She gave us an assignment of writing a paper that was approximately 200 words in length. That is about one page on a piece of notebook paper if it is handwritten. However, every single word had to be perfectly written with perfect cursive letters. She would give it back to us with red marks all over it and make us do it again and again until it was correct. I forget how many times I got mine back, but I will say it was at least 5 times. We had to make every letter exactly the way she wanted us to, or else, we had to handwrite the entire thing over. It was all done in ink so there was no way to get around writing the whole document again. I had very good handwriting and I still do. However, I will not attribute this to her because I had started practicing my skills in the first grade. I will doodle my letters to this day.

iStock photos

My mother had beautiful handwriting and I wanted mine to look as pretty as her’s, so this was already something high on my priority list. The students all found this to be a tedious and unhelpful task. Wonder what she would think today? I really felt bad for the boys because she would get on them harder than the girls. Looking back, I think maybe she might have had a bit of a compulsion disorder because this was not the only thing she did. No one liked her and she was a strange lady, but I will forever know how to make my A, B, C’s!

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SHARE YOUR WORLD

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In an effort to write every day, I am trying on new things to make me more accountable to have something to post. There is another blog Pensivity101 that I follow and this is a weekly prompt called Share Your World. I thought I would do that here today. This is in addition to the “School Days” series I am attempting also.

Here are this week’s questions:

Do you own your own home, rent, or something else?

We/the bank and my husband and I own our home which sits in a beautiful wooded subdivision. We have windows on every external wall that looks out on a peaceful scene of trees and deer. We love where we live. ❤

Not my real house 🙂

What is your favorite ‘go to’ food when you’re feeling under par?

It totally depends on what ‘under par’ means. If I am depressed, I have a tendency to eat carbs or snack on whatever happens to be in the house at the time. I try not to have too much junk food in the house so there aren’t a lot of bad choices. But if I am feeling physically bad, chances are I will not eat much. Medicine that I might have to take will zap my appetite.

Do you indulge in retail therapy?

That’s not just a No, that is a HELL NO! I hate to shop to begin with. I am not your typical female where I enjoy going to the mall or shoe shopping when I need to feel better. Nope, I don’t even like going to the grocery store. I have a list and I go in and get what I need and leave. But you would never know that since I tend to be there 3 times a week. I don’t like to buy a month’s worth of groceries though because we try not to freeze meat. I like things fresh.

How many pairs of shoes do you own?

I don’t really know the answer to this question. I think a guesstimate is around 25 pairs, but I have 3 or 4 I wear every day. The others are shoes that go with specific clothing and if I don’t wear that outfit, I don’t wear those shoes. But I take care in the shoes I buy. I will not sacrifice comfort for style. If they do not fit me, I will not buy them.

Gratitude:

Take pride in the person you are, you are unique.

I am certainly a unique person as my friends and family will testify to. I also have unique friends. I am also grateful and blessed for the people who choose to be a part of my life! There is no such thing as a normal person anymore though. How boring!!

iStock by Getty Image

Y’all have a great one!!! ❤

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SCHOOL DAYS (Talk, talk, talk)

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Grade 6

Going into 6th grade meant going to Middle School which was just across the street. What is also meant, was, no more recess. Boo! Now we had P.E. and music. It also meant changing classes every period. This was sort of new. We changed classes last year for English, Math and Social Studies, but we did everything else in our homeroom.

Now, we had a homeroom teacher, and every other class was something new. I was fortunate enough to have the same teacher for a couple of my classes which meant I didn’t have to leave between classes, but I always did. Who wouldn’t want to take a break and go get a drink of water, talk to your friends or go to the restroom? Which always made me late going back to class of course!

My homeroom teacher was young. I believe she was only in her late 20s or early 30s. I was fortunate enough to be able to go back to her class for Social Studies. This was not a favorite subject of mine because memorizing dates and places was not my strong suit. Which is hilarious because any of my friends now will tell you now, I am the one to call if you need to know a date or birthday!!

My grades began to slide a little bit also. I would make some A’s, B’s and C’s but this time, it was not in Conduct. That was not really a problem. But staying on task and getting things done was an issue. I had a hard time paying attention. We now know that it was ADHD/ADD (depending on who you talk to) Because I was not really hyper or “busy” as my grandmother used to say. I just didn’t pay attention in class as well.

I still got into trouble for talking. I was always in trouble for that. Back in that generation, corporal punishment was still around. How in the world I got all the way through 12 years of school without a paddling is a small miracle, but I wish I had a nickel for every sentence I wrote. Because I think I wrote somewhere north of a million over the years. There were times when we (because there was always someone else involved) had a choice. We could either take licks or write sentences. I always wrote sentences!

Many, many, many sentences! And my teachers didn’t give you small ones. Oh no! None of that “I will not talk in class” crap. My teachers gave us sentences that had at least 10 to 15 words in them, depending on the offence. Which was almost always talking! I did get into trouble for being late to class on a somewhat regular basis but that was due to time management and something I struggle with to this day. My husband can attest to that.

I liked school. I had friends but I think I can safely say that I was just doing the minimum to get by. I did not go out of my way for high grades or doing anything extra. I did join the band. I do not remember that being MY idea, but I’m not quite sure. More on that later…

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Should I stay or should I go?

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PHOTO PROMPT © Dale Rogerson

Kris held her breath as her hand hovered over the door knocker. It’d been five years since she had been here and she knew her presence would come as a shock.

The door opened and a boy with blond hair and green eyes looked up at her, Kris thought she had knocked on the wrong door. She stepped back and looked at the house number, it was the correct house. She looked down again at the child who still hadn’t spoken. “Uhm, hi there. Who might you be?”

The boy turned and ran, “Grandma! Some lady is at the door!”

This is my entry for Friday Fictioneers June 30, 2023 hosted by our lovely Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. It is a wonderful challenge. Please follow the link to give it a try!

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SCHOOL DAYS (New School)

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5th Grade

Have you ever been the new kid? That is what I was in the 5th grade. It was a school in the same county, it was just on the other side of town. At that time, there were 3 different county schools, including high schools. The powers that be were able to fight to prevent one huge county school from being built for many years. However, once the good old boys club was replaced in the city government, that fight was well and truly lost. There is only one county high school now, but the three county systems are still in place for elementary and middle schools. But I digress….

When I started the 5th grade, we moved to an apartment which was a temporary residence until our house was built. We lived there about 6 months I believe and then we moved into our new house.

I had never lived in a house before that my parents owned. A couple of rental properties when I was younger were houses but we mostly lived in house trailers. The smallest was a stream air which looked like a silver twinkie to me. But it was ok. I was so small I didn’t care. And that was with husband #2. My mom had moved on to a car salesman. She met him when she went to buy a new car.

Anyway, I loved my new school and I made friends pretty quickly. I am not a shy person and I generally got along with most everyone. There was this one boy (looking back, I’m sure he had a crush on me) who used to tease me about my name or my legs or my hair or something new all the time. I just laughed at him, found something to make fun of right back and then he finally left me alone. Boys can be so stupid when it comes to girls (that doesn’t really change much).  I was fortunate enough to have never been bullied. But I was not one to back down from a fight either. I never had to fight with anyone, but if I was teased, I threw words back just as fast and that was enough to get kids to leave me alone.

I learned how to play Jacks! Wow! That was a lot of fun. I venture to say that I could still do it today. During recess there was always a Jacks tournament and I usually won. My eye-hand coordination was pretty good, and I used to practice at home. I don’t think anyone else was doing that. I didn’t have anyone else I could practice with, so I sat in the kitchen floor for hours. I also made better grades but there wasn’t a “Conduct” grade. I seemed to be able to find my groove with all my new teachers. Life at school was pretty good! 🙂

The other thing going on at this same time was that my mom had gotten pregnant with my little brother. He is approximately eleven years younger than I am. So I got to play with my very own living doll. I got to rock him to sleep, feed him, change him, and hold him as much as I wanted. He was awesome (Still is!) As he got older, I took him everywhere with me. He had blond hair and blue eyes and I packed him around on my hip as much as my mother did. I felt like his other mommy. When we were out in public, some morons thought he was my son. Geez! Are people really that stupid? I mean, I know it was KY but come on!

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SCHOOL DAYS (PART 4)

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4TH GRADE

Have you ever had one of those teachers that you just didn’t like and they didn’t like you? This was obvious the very first day of school with Mrs. Gustafson. (I can talk about these people because they are long dead)

This woman was a hag. She wore her hair up in a bouffant do and always had on a dress that looked like it was straight out of a 50s TV ad. But she was truly mean. And not just to me, I don’t think she liked children at all. Why she was a teacher was beyond me.

I still had my issues of not being able to sit still and I was constantly late for school or coming back to class after going to the restroom or something. I got good grades, except for Conduct. There was actually a grade for that on our report cards back then. I was a straight A student with a C in Conduct, every single report card. Which, back then, was every 6 weeks. This was also true in First, Second and Third grade. I think I got Bs in the Third grade because for some reason, Mrs. Atwood liked me, and I wasn’t as busy and talkative in her class. I think that had something to do with the amount of energy I expended on the playground during recess (3rd Grade).

Mrs. G brought my mother in for yet another parent/teacher conference and told my mom she was a bad mother who could not control her child. She made my mother cry.

My mom considered pulling me out of that school to go somewhere else, but that wasn’t really an option because I rode the bus every day, and she would have to take me to school if I went somewhere else. She practically took me to school every day anyway, so I don’t know what would change.

I constantly missed the bus, which is why I was always late to school. My mom made me walk to school one day. She was so mad at me. I didn’t miss the bus again for a long time after that.

Missing the bus was something that continued through my high school days. I did everything at the last minute and had my mornings timed to the millisecond of when I had to get out of bed and how long it took to get ready. If I overslept 5 minutes, it was a disaster. Sidenote-if you have ADHD, time management is a real problem. This would be the last year I would be at that particular school because of my mother’s new business. More to come on that…..

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SCHOOL DAYS #3

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Grade 3

I loved my 3rd grade teacher. I was in Mrs. Atwood’s class and the cool thing about her room was there was a door that went outside off the back of the class. The lockers lined up on the wall perpendicular to the door. When you went out that door, it took you directly to the front playground. Now that we were “big kids”, we got to go to the front playground where all of the really cool swings, slides and monkey bars were. You know, all the things that are outlawed on playgrounds now?

The slides were metal and would burn your leg on your way down on a hot day. Kids either stayed off the slide on those days or we just made sure to stay in the middle. I was one of those (I suppose I still am) that was always up for a challenge. I paid the price of course. I got a nice long red mark all the way down the left side of my leg. Yep! It hurt like crazy, but I was ok. My teacher took me to the office and I got some ointment and went back to class. No one called my mother, no one got sued and the world went right on spinning. My mother saw it when I got home and asked me what happened. I told her and her response was, “Why in the world would you get on a hot slide?” I shrugged my shoulders and just told her I wanted to because no one else would. She also put some ointment on it and said to stay off of it on hot days. I said I would and that was that. I didn’t have any blisters or open wounds and it healed just find. Lesson learned.

Sometimes, my friends and I would run directly to the swings and stay on them the entire time we were at recess. We would swing as high as we could to see who could touch the tree limbs first. It varied depending on who got to swinging first. But we would also sing “Joy to the World” by Three Dog Night to the top of our lungs! I knew every verse (and I still do) and taught my friends. It is one of my fondest memories of third grade.

In my life at home, things were just as weird. My mother had a new boyfriend and I never liked him. They got married in the summer after 3rd grade in Atlanta, GA (or so we were told) Enter, new (step) brother and sister. We had all gone to Six Flags near there for a “family vacation” while my mother worked at the retail market buying clothing for the boutique where she worked. She eventually opened her own store.

Are you keeping count??? That would be husband #3 and I am only 9 years old at this point! 🤦‍♀️