Not my people

In our previous home, we went to church with some of the best people on the planet. It took a while to get to know people-it wasn't something that clicked right away. Eventually though, we made friends & to me, it was the only place where I truly felt like I was home. We had a group that started getting together to play games. There were people that came consistently but it was also always open to whoever any of us wanted to invite or anybody we thought could use some friends so it was never exclusive or clique-y. Our friends were aware of my faults & loved & accepted me anyway & I felt that. I would say everybody was middle class but we had to be careful with money. It's a neighborhood where many people could take a trip every year if they saved & planned but it didn't always work out either. Trips weren't flashy but just a chance for the family to get away. It's a neighborhood where when parents let their kids drive at 16 but it's usually the family car they drive until they can save up money for their own car. Everybody was genuine & looking out for their community. We moved almost 5 years ago because we felt like it was right & we kept getting pulled back to certain neighborhoods to find our house. It didn't feel good at first but I know it takes time. I cannot deny that we have a few great friends here that I'm so happy to know! However, I feel more & more often that these are not my people. Lifestyles & values are fundamentally different. People take more trips than anybody can keep track of & most of them are flashy. Everybody buys their kid a car right at 16. With the exception of a couple people, I don't feel accepted as I am & it feels like no matter how hard I try, I never will be accepted by most people here. It often feels like you can put a price tag on acceptance & often times, certain values seem to also come with a price tag. I feel frustrated. I'm not certain of the reason or reasons we were guided here but I sure do miss my people!!!

Wipe out

I always stock up on toilet paper & toothbrushes. I'm not sure why I have such a fear of running out of either of those but we almost ran out of toilet paper last week for the first time in 20 years...money be tight & what not but it felt so good to stock back up.

Looping

What's it like to have a 2nd child of mine attempt suicide? I don't believe there are words for it. I've spent hours wondering where to go from here. In the hospital, they try to make you feel like there's only one path and it's to hospitalize your child. I knew it wasn't right with the first child. 3 years later, taking her home was clearly was the right choice. This time I considered the inpatient option and they tried to get me signed up right away. I asked a lot of questions before I could agree and I found out they only let you see or talk to your child for 1 hour a day. That and a thorough discussion with my kid made me decide I didn't want to do it and then everybody at the hospital who seemed so friendly suddenly treats you differently and tries to "talk you into it" aggressively. I understand that it doesn't look like I can keep my child (or children) safe but I know them. They might not be okay but putting them into that environment would intensify, not solve their problems.

My heart aches for my kids. When will I know that they will be okay? One child got to a healthy place, said she was happy and now forgets to take her meds all the time and doesn't feel very good. If her having a glimpse of feeling good wasn't enough to keep her working hard to hold onto it, what can I do to motivate her to stay on her meds, especially when she lives out on her own? With my next child, he has dealt with intense physical issues for a couple of years and nobody can tell him what's wrong or help him feel physically better and I understand that he feels like it's a lot to handle. He's a master of telling us that he's hanging in there and leaving no signs that he's in crisis and then surprising us with thoughts & attempts of suicide. I don't believe he wants to die. I do strongly believe he'd like to witness an end to his pain and I don't know how to end it. I don't know how to be the right parent for the job and I wish I could be more, do more. I only know that my heart and soul and every moment I can give to these kids is what I will contribute in search of something better for them. I hope it's enough.

Hidden in plain sight

I realized this week that sometimes my judgments keep me from seeing what's really in front of me. I'm sure we all do it but it was a really concrete example of it. Several years ago, I tried my hand at stand up comedy for a while and got to know a lot of local comedians. This week my brother invited me to go to a comedy show. While we were waiting for it to start, I casually observed the surroundings. I saw the comedy club owner and he was rushing around getting things ready to go and I saw this really old guy helping get things ready as well. I thought it was nice that there was something for an old guy who loves comedy to do. He was setting up recording equipment and doing various other tasks. I observed him multiple times doing different things to prepare for the show. The show started. We saw a few different people doing some opening work. They then called a comedian I used to know and I was really looking forward to seeing him after many years of not seeing him. Much to my surprise, up came this "really old guy" that had been helping set up the show. He probably is 20 years older than me but that's not as old as I had perceived this man to be and the thing that bothered me is that I hadn't recognized him. I had watched him several times and never observed his face well enough to know it was him. I just thought it was an old guy and went on about my business. It makes me wonder what I miss out on seeing in other ways. For fun, here is a picture of what he looked like when I knew him better and what he looked like the night of the show.

My experience on Pioneer Trek

Now that we've been home from trek for a week, I'm ready to kind of give a run-down of our experience. Pioneer trek is an activity (often attended by church groups) where you bring very basic supplies, get sorted into a "family", load your supplies into a handcart, and pull the handcart to various places for several days along a rocky dirt path, setting up camps each night to rest. This gives you the slightest glimpse of what the pioneers went through to get here and settle our state. We only went for 4 days and 3 nights and we went during the summer, with plenty of clothing and food and water to get through. Pioneers would have gone in all kinds of weather and been at it for months at a time while struggling to be adequately clothed or fed or hydrated. Many died along the way. The hubbie and I were a "ma" and "pa" and we were given 7 "children" for the week, 3 girls and 4 boys.

I should say that I've wanted to go so badly since I was 13 years old. My church group was going that year but you had to be 14 to go so I missed the chance. I love physical challenges (that seem within my ability to accomplish). My little bro & his wife went and had a great experience as a ma & pa and I wanted that, too. We were not originally selected to go and I felt heartbroken but we campaigned and were asked eventually to do it and I felt like all my dreams were coming true.

I did all the preparations that were suggested (other than reading all the books on the list because we were called to the task too late to have enough time for that). I did all the physical activity required to prepare and wrote a personal history and learned songs and engaged in many pioneer activities and research. We left on a Wednesday. The Sunday before, my ears were really plugged up. On Monday they started ringing nonstop. It continued on Tuesday. I did everything I could possibly learn of to try to get them back to normal. Nothing made a difference. On Wednesday morning, my ears were still ringing. I was very frustrated. We met our "kids" and had breakfast together. There were a few hundred people in the room and it was noisy as can be and my ears were very plugged and very ring-y so it was hard for me to enjoy introductions with the kids. We got on a bus and headed out. Somewhere along the way, the ringing stopped and my ears became unplugged. I was incredibly grateful for this one little difference so once we arrived, I could actually hear properly.

The first day was our longest and we walked 9.4 miles. I was excited for it but didn't realize that more of our kids would try to get out of helping than not so much of the weight of getting our cart where we needed fell to Preston & I. I have no problem walking long distances. Walking long distances while pulling a handcart...very different experience. It was exhausting. We had one kid though that really carried the group. I saw him get exhausted and that just made his determination and commitment grow. He was a workhorse! We got to our camp for the night and still had to set up camp. We had a tent for the girls and homemade tarp structure for the boys. We had a very nice, fairly new tent. It had been fine the last time we used it but when we went to set it up, a part was broken. Luckily in modern day, we have duct tape so we were able to tape it up to make it usable. Two of our girls just immediately went to sleep in the tent instead of really interacting. We were supposed to have kind of a spiritual discussion with our kids but they were all so worn out that I don't think any of them were really open to it so that didn't go over that well. Everybody went to bed for the night. My body ached in crazy ways and I couldn't get comfortable so I didn't sleep well at all. I realized that I was raised very differently than these kids. When I grew up and went to Girls Camp and things like that, we were told to pack as little as possible so it was always just a sleeping bag. I had only packed a sleeping bag. Every single kid had packed some kind of padding. Some weren't too big but some were very big and bulky and I could tell that we were raised very differently. We woke up the next day and got going. I was more nervous about the day because I was starting out unrested and very sore. I was also sick about doing a woman's pull later in the day. That would be where the men went up ahead and the women would be responsible for pushing the carts up a challenging hill alone. This was to teach us the strength that was required from women alone when the men died or were away doing other necessary tasks and couldn't be with the women yet so many pioneer women continued anyway. I didn't feel like my 3 daughters and I could get our cart up a challenging hill with just us yet I was the adult so I felt a great responsibility to making it work. Taking down camp and re-packing the wagon proved to be a tricky thing but we got it done. We actually were the first family of 22 to be ready to go. Day 2 was to be 7.4 miles in total and after breakfast, we were on our way.

The walk was grueling. The hills were difficult and the physical toll was undeniable. We got to a point where the women's pull was to be and much to my relief, it was designed for success. The boys split up into different groups and pulled several of the handcarts up to the finish. The girls were grouped up so that each cart had 5-7 girls on it. No cart had to make due with just 4 people, which I had feared. It was challenging and felt long but it was doable. I felt very emotional and humbled by the experience. As we finally made it up the end of the hill, many men had their hats off and were singing to us. I have never felt respect as such a tangible thing as it was in that moment and it felt incredible. Logically, I knew that the men didn't just take it easy while we worked. They worked to prepare the way for us but we still got the experience of knowing how tough it would have been to pull just as women. Some men were crying and saying encouraging things to us. My husband, who knew how worried I was about this, came to check on me and seemed deeply concerned and that was a beautiful moment for me. We spread out a blanket and had a picnic lunch with our family. Our workhorse son had pushed & pushed & pushed himself and went to stand up but couldn't feel his legs and fell on top or our youngest son. He cried and was taken to medical people to get monitored. Our workhorse son put so much blame on himself and couldn't be comforted, even though the only reason he even fell was because of how hard he pushed in every moment, never allowing himself proper time and care to recover. My heart really ached for him. The younger son ended up being okay and we packed up and kept walking. We got to camp about 2:30. We set up and again two of our daughters just curled up to sleep immediately. About 4:00, everybody was required to attend a hoe-down. I had gone to a hoe-down a month before the trek and had the time of my life but after logging nearly 17 miles with a handcart across rough paths, my feet were not cheering for the experience. We had to bother and bother and bother our girls to get them up and over to the hoe down and then we found out they hadn't really participated once it started anyway.

I'm not going to lie-my feet never did delight in this hoe-down but I still had fun and enjoyed the music. We had dinner and then held a devotional with our kids. This time our approach was even more casual and much to my surprise, the kids were not only open to it, we introduced ideas and it was our kids that carried the conversations and engaged. I loved that experience. One of the girls in our group that was always sleeping said her biggest struggle was mental illness and she talked a little bit about it. She has a crazy schedule at home, usually getting up at 4 a.m. each day and go-go-going until 11 or so every single night so it's impossible not to feel sympathetic toward her decision to just constantly climb in the tent and sleep as often as possible. I felt proud of our kids for the ways they started to open up. We went to sleep. I was literally right on a huge rocky lump from my shoulder to my hips. I didn't realize until everybody was going to sleep so I didn't have many options. I was so tired that I opted to just make the best of it and while I didn't sleep wonderfully, I did sleep a bit, more than the night before.

On the 3rd day, it was more of a recovery day and we only had to go shy of 4 miles. It was still challenging though. Just before we headed out, we were given a list of challenges to give our family. One person had to carry a 10 lb. (flour) "baby." One person had to have their arm in a sling. Once person had to wear an eye patch. One person couldn't speak English. One person couldn't help in any way. In spite of the challenges, we got to camp early and had lunch. I told my husband not to set up the tent. He & I had done much of the work alone (except for our workhorse son) and once the tent was up, 2 of our girls would just go hibernate anyway. I said if they wanted to sleep so much, maybe they should help set up the tent. It worked like a charm. It wasn't long before they were pulling the tent out and getting it almost all set up on their own-they really were motivated! Later, everybody was supposed to attend 11 game stations. I tried getting the girls up to go but they weren't interested at all. With them not being our own kids, I had an issue with boundaries. The only way we could get them there would be to drag them out of the tent in their sleeping bags and that seemed to me like overstepping. We just let them stay and sleep. We caught a lot of crap for not having our whole family with us. I know that this is where I felt most rebellious. For some kids, they could do all this physical stuff and still go play games like champions and that's great. For some kids (and me), the physical challenges had been great and playing games just felt like too much. I wish this would have been more optional. Once the games were over, there were so many kids that kept playing that I think they still would have gotten plenty of participation even if it wasn't mandatory. The other thing I felt was that there was a big division between the kids who're athletic and the kids who aren't so much that. I felt torn about this. I felt like an outsider. I know at least one of our sons did, too, and didn't want to participate. One of our daughters that didn't sleep, participated in this stick-pulling game and beat person after person after person.

She hadn't been helping much with the cart and I let her know that now we could see how strong she was and we would expect more from her the next day with the cart. All the kids got letters from home and some time to read them. One of our sons, who's friend had tagged along with our family a lot, really began to open up and I had a great time chatting the night away with them. The time for spiritual pursuits was spent in a large group and we found out that our 2 daughters who had slept alot hadn't felt physically challenged. We decided the last day would really be up to our kids to pull more of the weight. Preston & I didn't touch the cart for as long as possible on our final day, which was 6.2 miles. Our 3 girls ended up doing awesome pulling the cart, even though the daughter who had won stick-pulling said she regretted letting us know she was strong. One of the girls stepped in a deep hole and twisted her ankle too bad to go on though so she was out. One of our sons, who had struggled just to walk the entire trip, continued to struggle. Preston was the first to help with the cart and eventually, I felt like they needed me so I did step in and end up helping after all but our kids did more than they had and I felt like we had done all we could to make sure they had experienced challenges. Our workhorse son hit a point where he said he couldn't go on. For him to admit this must have meant he was so far past his limit but the kid who struggled just to walk said he couldn't go on either and our workhorse dug deep, put one arm around the other son, put his other hand on the bar to pull and pep-talked the other kid the rest of the way, probably 1-1 1/2 more miles. That was an inspiring event to witness. One of our sons who took it a little easy here and there early on really stepped up the more we gave him the chance to and he said he wasn't ready to go home yet. We made it to the buses, ate lunch, and got on the bus together. We were reunited with our injured daughter, who was given crutches and soda pop. Most of the kids slept on the way home. I wanted to but our bus driver drove horrible and kept almost falling asleep so I obsessed about keeping a watch on him. It was a scary ride! We got back to a parking lot. Everybody retrieved their items and headed home with their real families. We have plans to get together in a few weeks and I hope our kids choose to stay in touch longer. I can't believe how much love I feel for them after just a few days. I didn't like trek as a whole and found the physical toll it took to be miserable but when I think about all the little beautiful moments and experiences we had, I love it so much. Combined, I'm glad I got to go but I'm also glad it's over.

One last little note: We wanted to give our kids our contact information and knew they wouldn't have much room but also thought if we gave them a little paper, it would get lost. I had the idea of using empty prescription bottles. This also allowed us to give them a few little treats as well. When we handed them to our kids the last morning, they started bragging to other families: "Our parents gave us drugs!" I knew we were meant to be together because they had been naming the birds around our camp things like "Heroin" and "Methamphetamine." We were destined to be in a group together.

Homeopathy

A friend of mine took me to a documentary last year about homeopathy. I had heard the word homeopathy but didn't really know what it was. I really liked the show about it and learned new things. I'm somewhat open to alternative medicine. After the movie, there was a guy that's a homeopath that talked a little. He has a store and does appointments for anybody that wants to see him and it's less than our co-pay to see a doctor.

I don't trust people usually and I trusted him right away. I went home and looked up his store and kept a bookmark but I needed time before I was ready to really go. Now that we're to May, I finally talked myself into taking my boys in. I have a son that's been on Zyrtec for allergies for too many years now and Dave, the homeopath, was great with him. He talked about a lot of details about his personality and I couldn't believe how good he was at getting it right.

My other son has been throwing up for months and is sick all the time. I've recently watched him struggle more than I can handle. He's been to the doctor, been to a specialist, had a scope done with anesthesia, been put on different medications. Nothing seemed to help or explain the problems or why they're getting worse and the doctors just keep doing ineffective things while our medical bills are mounting. My son throws up so much and his whole life is affected all the time and nobody can give me any answers. That's what made me finally call Dave. He was brilliant. The appointment was about 15 minutes and he said, "You've got a parasite in your large intestine" and gave us some treatments we can use to get rid of the problem, which will take about 6 weeks to be certain.

I didn't know what to think but decided we'll try the treatments. It's far less money for them than we've been spending. When I told my husband the diagnosis, he said that makes a lot of sense. He had a friend with the same problem and he just kept getting really sick. Parasites weren't on the doctors' radars but I read up on it and it does make sense. It seems a little crazy to me that we spend months seeing medical professionals and they just draw a blank but we see this guy for 15 minutes, he never even touches my son, and figures out the problem. Because of such a good experience with both boys, I had to come back the next day for something and called to see if they had an appointment for me to see Dave. I've been wanting to and they did. At my boys' appointments, he talked a little about personality but it was more medical. For my appointment, he figured out early on that it's my gallbladder that's the problem.

That wasn't on my radar but I read about it afterward and once again, it would put all the pieces together and make the most sense. However, Dave brushed that aside relatively quickly and wanted to talk more about emotional health. It's probably what I wanted (not so much from him but just in general) and what I needed but I wasn't expecting it and found it quite embarrassing. I'd barely sat down with this guy and he just knew personal things about me.

He asked if I'm a people pleaser and then started going into great detail as to how I function in life. I wasn't prepared for it! I felt really uncomfortable but that was yesterday and as I digest it, he's right about most of what he said and I want to take the treatments and see what happens. He's giving me something for my gallbladder issues and something else for my emotional issues. He told me to warn my husband that I will be changing a lot in the next few weeks. It seems crazy to me but kind of exciting as well. This is all new & drastically different and it seems to be impressively effective but time will tell. This is the start of our journey toward more enjoyable health.

Down the Toilet

I faced a difficult modern challenge this week that involves mourning the loss of all the items I had saved electronically over the last 20 years. I was starting to not trust my computer so much 2 years ago so I got an external hard drive (because it was WAY more affordable than a new computer) & transferred everything to it since it was a TB: pictures, journals, all of my music, and I had started writing a book I kept on there, the book I've been wanting to write for years. I'm not sure why I didn't keep my files on both the computer and the external hard drive. No explanation is good enough now but I guess part of the reason is that I'd never lost electronic information before so I didn't realize just how devastating it could be. I didn't think of it as a likely problem. I downloaded a few high-rated recovery programs & got nothing. I took the drive to Best Buy-couldn't fix it. I found a high-rated affordable place in California to send it and they said it was over their capabilities but referred me to another place that is crazy amazing. I had to spend $300 for damaged parts for them to try but ultimately, nothing could be recovered and I'm out of options. I found out the final call yesterday. This process took months and I didn't allow myself to think much about losing everything. I clung to a kernel of hope until now there is none. I can't even describe how upset I am.

I keep relatively detailed journals that I referred to for a variety of things over the years. Family would sometimes ask when certain things occurred and I could go back & find accurate answers. The last journal I printed was halfway through 2009 so 10 years of details is gone.

Pictures from the last 20 years are gone.

I keep wanting to hear songs, some of them a little obscure, and all of my music files are gone. I have accumulated a good deal of free music, when what I want is available through the library free downloads but over the years, I've probably spent a few hundred dollars on mp3s that are gone.

Starting over feels daunting. There's a part of me now that thinks, "Why put in the effort? It could just disappear for good anyway." The part of me that realizes that life must go on sees it a little bit another way. I try to be clean and organized but life gets crazy and stuff gets scrambled and sometimes I think I'm not doing as good as I'd like with getting rid of as much as I should. However, if there were some kind of emergency and our home or stuff got ruined, it would be hard but it would also be a clean slate. I guess I should think of electronics the same way. I just electronically got a clean slate. The little thing that upsets me most though is that I don't think I was sold a legitimate product in the first place. It was a Seagate brand drive. I ordered it off Amazon and made sure to buy it directly from the real company itself. I thought this was how to make sure I got the product I thought I was getting. I got the product & used it and everything was working for a while. There were no red flags that there was a problem. I never opened the enclosure to the drive, just for kicks or anything like that. I had never opened one before & didn't believe I had any reason to. When communicating with recovery companies, they asked for the serial number & then sent me pictures of the serial number sticker on the same kind of external hard drives but mine had none whatsoever and had never had one while in my possession. Also as recovery professionals handled the drive, they found it had been opened aggressively & they found fingerprints all over it.

I hadn't even ever opened the enclosure before it crashed so clearly, I would not have handled it in a way that would have resulted in fingerprints. It was past the warranty period so I didn't have that on my side but I contacted Seagate because I believed they had sold me a product that had been compromised from the beginning. Contacting them was a nightmare, especially since the most efficient method required me to put in the serial number, which was missing from my product so I could never complete that method. They just sent me some generic e-mail about sorry for my experiences. We learn from our mistakes faster than our successes & I can promise I won't make the same mistake again. It's just felt like a very big loss to me, so much of the details of my life have just been flushed away.