Many New Firsts!

I have had an exciting and stressful last few weeks. I had mentioned that I had been applying for positions, and turns out last week I had two second round in-person interviews at two potential employers. I received an offer on Thursday of last week from one and am still waiting to hear back from the other. This is a very exciting and BIG girl step for me in my career! It finally feels like all of the hard work I’ve put in is finally coming full circle. I will be sad to leave my current company and great teammates I’ve made bonded with over the years. I’ve spent nearly the last five years working hard to build a credible, likable, reliable, and hardworking reputation there, so it’s hard to let go of that progress and move on. I so desperately wanted to make it work, but in the end your work has to bring you value and your bosses should make proper attempts to recognize and utilize the talents and assets you bring to the company. I am a woman that strives to be better, learn more, and lead more effectively. I know my worth and I am done settling for less than what I deserve.

In other news, we brought home a new minivan this weekend. I guess I never imagined myself as a “minivan mom,” but here we are. In all honesty, I LOVE it. We ended up getting a 2018 Dodge Grand Caravan and with black leather interior and black carpets. And of course, bucket seats!!

We are super duper excited to take the new girl camping and the size and accessibility is gonna be convenient as the kids grow and get more active. Not to mention, grocery shopping and school drop-offs are so much easier with automatic sliding doors.

Last week I had awful tooth pain come on suddenly in the very back of my upper left jaw. I made an appointment to the dentist and found out that I have a wisdom tooth trying to come down and it’s pressing on the root of my very back molar, causing me extreme pain and infection. The dentist gave me some penicillin and referred me to the oral surgeon to have the back tooth simply removed in hopes that the wisdom tooth could just come down and replace its place. Over the next few days, my mouth swelled up and I could barely open my jaw. The pain was awful, but it turns out I can’t get into the oral surgeon until May 16!! Absolutely crazy to me!! Anyway, after several days of the antibiotic and rotating Tylenol and ibuprofen, my face has finally returned to normal and my mouth has regained nearly all of its range of motion. Thank goodness for that because I was miserable for the better part of a week. Frozen peas were a valued asset to say the least!

Today I made an impulsive decision. This was very unlike me. Last week I took myself out to lunch by myself for the first time ever and it was surprisingly really relaxing and something I will be down to try again in the future. I don’t know what’s gotten in to me lately, but I have really just been making decisions without second guessing myself and it’s really bringing me a new sense of confidence! Today I was walking out of Walmart, got to the car, and decided that Mom was gonna get her hair cut. I pulled right next door to the salon and got right into the chair. The hairdresser cut maybe a bit more than I’d liked, but I was going for a style that was much different than anything I’ve had in a very long time. I took the length down quite a bit, added some layers and curtain bangs, and lightened it up a little. It was a good, quick treat to myself since I finally got out of the house alone.

Hope you all are doing well. I’ll keep you all updated in the coming days on where I end up career-wise!!

Irish Road Bowling & Saint Patrick’s Day fun ☘️

Another weekend has come and gone. Dyl & I finally got a weekend away from the kids and it was nice to spend time together and refresh. We traveled to St Patrick, Missouri and played road bowling, which was something I had never done before. My uncle did it last year and had told me about it, so I told him last year that I had wanted to do it. He invited us on him and his wife’s team, so we had a really great time. Basically, there is a mile and a half stretch right out of town that you roll shot puts down, in attempts to have the least amount of rolls to the finish line. It was really fun because the course opened at 11am and everyone could just kind of go at their own pace whenever they wanted. I

t was a cold 30° day that spit snow off and on, but when we were walking and moving it wasn’t bad. We finished the course in just 23 throws, which seemed to be one of the lowest scores I’d seen. It was fun because people were dressed in all sorts of St Pattys Day costumes and the course was fun because you just shouted “Ball!” before you threw and also had to watch as people rolled their balls down the road from behind you. Apparently, Irish road bowling can be dated back to Ireland in early 1600’s. It’s a pretty fun game and an annual tradition in St Patrick, Missouri. I’m thankful for my uncle, stepmom, and husband. It was great spending time with them! If you ever get the chance to give Irish road bowling a try, I highly recommend giving it a go!!

Me & the hubs 💚

My uncle & his wife in front of the shrine of Saint Patrick

Loved the creativity & spirit here!

The Letter I Never Sent

A few weeks ago, I found myself sitting at my desk in a whirlwind of emotion and in need of letting some things go. I have been physically and emotionally drained for months now. I am partially convinced that this is a normal annual occurrence that normally takes its toll on my body the most intensely around this same time of year every year. By February and March I am usually a bit more irritable, bored out of my mind, and ready for the sun to come and refresh all of the life that just laid dormant for the winter.

Have you ever been sitting in a completely quiet and empty room and found yourself lost in wonder and contemplation? I mean, lost so deep that it feels like life is so raw and intense and full of ways to break your spirit? I probably sat there for a long while just letting my mind wander before I snapped back to reality. I was looking out the window – perhaps I was wallowing, or perhaps I was just relishing in sane human emotion after heartbreak – but I kept feeling this deep pit in my stomach telling me to just let it all out. I sit at my desk all day on the computer, so instead I pulled out a piece of paper and a pen, and I started writing to my mom in prison. The letter sat on my desk under a pile of other papers for a couple weeks before I finally decided to toss it in the trash.

When I write these letters, I never really feel like I am writing to my Mom. Our relationship is so estranged that the word ‘Mom’ feels like it has a different meaning. Like, I understand what the word means to other people, and I know that I am an absolutely wonderful mother to my own children, but as it relates to the woman that birthed me, I identify with it differently. Mom feels like a label. Like it’s her name.

What else am I supposed to call her?

But it doesn’t feel like a term of endearment, nor do I see her as the same kind of person as several of the amazing Moms that I have had the pleasure of looking up to throughout my short time on this planet. When I write these letters, it feels like I am writing a letter to the person that caused me pain and changed my life indefinitely, but not to a person that I know. I am going to be 27 years old this October. I was taken from my mother at the age of 7. Let’s put that into perspective. At this point in my life, nearly 75% of my life has been spent without my mother. When I say without, I mean no calls, no texts, no visits, nothing. Poof. Like she didn’t even exist, yet I knew of her absence and the pain it carried. And the one quarter of my life that I did spend with her, I was from the ages of 0-7… so you tell me, how much of that time frame in your life do you remember? Because I remember some good times, and some bad times… but mostly I remember the LACK of times we shared together. I remember all of the times she wasn’t there. My childhood is tainted by flashbacks of being so sick from missing her on holidays that I’d have to lay in bed most of the day. I remember scanning bleachers of basketball games looking for a face that never came. No documentation ever came forward with her making any effort to get me back or to even set up visitations.

Growing up, I felt like I was the only kid experiencing what it was like to have their mother in prison. And in my case – my mother was a single parent, so I had to be placed in a completely different home altogether. I didn’t know anybody like me. My best friend all throughout Junior High had happily married parents that went on ornate family vacations every summer, and my other girlfriend lived on a farm with happily married parents who owned horses and a brick fire oven on their back patio. They could offer their deepest regards to my pain and emotions as we matured, but ultimately, no one I knew had a home life that seemed anything other than perfect in my eyes. And no one was ever really able to offer me the deep understanding and empathy that I felt like I needed as a young girl making her way through life. Not that that burden was ever to be beared by my friends, but it just led me down a path of extreme loneliness and separation from my peers that I still struggle with today. I had to grow up a lot faster than anyone around me and I had to pave my own path to success and family that is often much more easily reached by someone with a supportive and loving home life. My aunt and uncle did what they could at the time to give us everything we needed, but there is never a replacement for a mother. It is just different when you have got that bird in your ear reminding you that you have been neglected and rejected by the one woman you want the most. Sometimes the pain is too much to bear, but I suppose it’s never really too much – because here I stand. Fighting my way to every inch I have ever gained.

I was doing some research on this to gain some background on how common it is for a child to have an incarcerated parent and just how it affects the child of the offender. I think one of the most surprising facts about this is that it’s reeeally not that uncommon at all.

Today in Illinois, nearly 200,000 children—or one in every 20—have
had a parent in jail or prison.

Task Force on Children of Incarcerated Parents, December 2020

It is estimated that 5 million U.S. children have experienced the incarceration of a parent – with the average age of 8 years old. Children of incarcerated parents are more likely to experience poor health and unmet health care needs, greater exposure to mental health symptomatology such as anxiety, PTSD, and depression. They are more susceptible to lower educational attainment, higher rates of aggression, substance abuse, justice system involvement, and more likely to disenfranchise from civic and political participation (Task Force on Children of Incarcerated Parents: Final Report and Recommendations).

The affects that the incarceration of a parent can have on a child is insurmountable. I have experienced hurdles in all of the aforementioned categories and was never offered mental or emotional rehabilitation or counseling to help me cope. If we want to change the direction of society and fill it with children that grow up to be dependable, happy, healthy, and innocuous adults, we must do something about the care that we offer to the families affected by the judicial system. There is responsibility to be placed on offenders, but we cannot forget about the people that their decisions directly impact. I was a child, lost and lonely. I overcame the statistics that are made out of people from families like mine.

I guess my main point is this: If you are struggling with an addiction or a decision that keeps you from offering the love to the children you created, just stop. There is no excuse you could offer that will console or mend whatever destruction your situation is causing. I still feel an immense sense of disassociation with reality and division between myself and those that have never felt rejection, abandonment, and loneliness to this level. I aim for a world where no child ever has to wonder if their mother cares about them, for it is a lonely and desolate journey forward.

EOD Thoughts: 03.09.2023

Tonight I am a little anxious and a little excited.

I am currently completing a mentorship program at work. It is one you must apply and selected for, and the company matches you with a mentor to assist with personal and professional development. I met with my mentor a few weeks ago and spoke with her about my career plans and how to move forward as I approach finishing my degree. She told me that I could start applying for jobs for after graduation, so I immediately started putting in for jobs that I have never previously been able to apply for!

The first question I got from one of these companies was:

Do you have a Bachelor’s degree?

To which, I could FINALLY answer Yes (come May)!

He responded that the May timeline would work perfectly for them. I then completed a few tests and now have a phone interview for tomorrow. I am really trying not to get my hopes up, but I am mainly more excited that all of the hard work and dedication and planning and late nights and goal setting is finally feeling like it is paying off. Throughout my years in college I have completed a military contract, gotten married, had two amazing children, and built a career. I have worked hard to get here. To even have someone interested makes me feel excited and like I finally have a path and direction for my future. This potential job would be a salary job working directly with my surrounding communities and people in need of resources. This is what I have been working towards. This is my goal. My dream.

What I could never put into words is finally becoming clear. It took me several years and a degree change before choosing Public Administration as my career path, but in my heart I know that I find great joy in educating others, serving my community, and meeting new and different people.

I am excited for this new journey that I am about to begin. I will be very sad to leave the current company that I have called home for nearly five years, but this new path feels more like me. More like it’s where I belong.

I am ready for new, I think. Even though it is scary.

A New Battle

A few weeks ago I was really struggling with a heavy chest and not being able to catch a full breath of air. I could not get a yawn to catch, and just felt like an elephant was sitting right atop my breasts. This pursued for several days, leaving me exasperated and irritated. One night I sat on the edge of the bed while my heart nearly beat out of my chest. I was up and down out of bed for several hours and even worried if I should call the hubby home from work. I was petrified that I was having a real health concern, so I decided to get into my PCP – just hoping that it was due to anxiety.

Luckily, my PCP was very friendly, listened intently, and even ran tests on my heart and blood to confirm that the heavy chest wasn’t due to my heart or lungs. Labs came back good, so that was a relief. She put me on anxiety meds, gave me an inhaler because of my history of asthma, and sent me on my way. A few days passed and much to my relief, my heavy chest went away.

Now, this was probably going on three weeks ago. So I have been taking this anxiety medication for a few weeks now, and this is a journey that I new to. I am not ashamed to be on this medication, but I have never really been on any medications before, so it is something that I am going to continue to monitor and talk with my healthcare professionals about. I have had a lot of emotional strain and work stress lately, along with raising two kiddos, running a home, and finishing my final semester of my degree. I am excited to say, though, that the medication is seemingly making me less irritable with the kids and also allows me to fall asleep rather quickly – as opposed to lying in bed for hours worrying before finally falling asleep. The doc said it could be 4-6 weeks before I really notice the medication doing much, but I think the heavy chest and panic attack relief was enough for me to buy-in to the process and keep my mental health on the foreground. I think that this was a real wake-up call for me, because I had never had anxiety present itself in my body in such a drastic way to where it paralyzed me, made it hard to breathe, and increased my heart rate. I was miserable for several days while my attack pursued, so I can truly relate to anyone that battles anxiety or depression that leaves them physically altered and distressed. I considered going to the Emergency Room a few times simply because my heart was racing, I couldn’t catch a breath, and nothing I did seemed to help. The stress of not being able to breathe only exacerbated my fear and stress, so it was an endless cycle until I got the medication which allowed me to relax, gain my breath, and fulfill the long-awaited yawns that I had been chasing for several days.

I am glad I took the leap. It is going to hopefully help my behavior as a mother and wife be more patient and less irritable, and allow me to lead a more regular life without always stressing and worrying about what is next. These two small pills have provided me relief and hope for a brighter future. I probably should have been medicated long ago, but for now I will venture into this new part of my life and shift more focus on maintaining and healthy mental status for myself and my family.

Six Years on WP!

Today marks my six year anniversary on WordPress. This site was my beginning journey into sharing my writing and life experience with the world. Since then my content has been viewed in countries across the world tens of thousands of times.

I’m thankful for my blog friends here & the journeys we have shared together. Some of the darkest moments of my life are reflected in the poetry and writings that I upload here. It’s a very personal and honest reflection of my life that I will leave behind for my children and possible descendants to dig out. I’m currently writing a book about my family’s lineage that I hope to print and give to my siblings for Christmas to be passed to do future generations.

Not only do I share my poetry and creative writing here, WP is also my outlet to photography, gardening, vent sessions, personal interests, and self-reflection.

It’s really a catch-all.

So I appreciate the follow & engagement. Drop some love in the comments!

Thanks for a great SIX years. Here’s to another!