flawed but authentic

Thanks so much for your support of our Flawed But Authentic blog. We hope you have a wonderful 2009 and beyond.

Warm regards,
FBA Team

When it came time to potty train her daughter, Mrs. G. went to the library and read all the books. She tried gentle guidance, positive reinforcement, and dramatic reenactments. She created incentive charts with shiny gold stars and succumbed to the parental degradation of bribery-Skittles for number one, Jolly Ranchers for number two. Mrs. G’s daughter would beg for Beauty and the Beast big girl panties and then promptly pee in them when she got home. Nothing worked. Until one night, as she pulled the last Pull-Up out of its bag, Mrs. G, crocodile tears in her eyes, looked soulfully at her daughter and said I don’t know how to tell you this, but this is it. This is the last Pull-Up. The last Pull-Up left in the entire world. The company has gone out of business. Her daughter looked fearful and distressed as she wiggled herself into the last Pull-Up. The last Pull-Up on the planet. The next morning, Mrs. G’s daughter woke up resigned and heavy hearted. She walked into the bathroom and forlornly threw the Pull-Up into the wastebasket. She walked away, shaking her head slowly, as if to say well that’s that. And it was.

Why are we going to bed when it’s still light outside? asked Mrs. G’s children when she was tucking them in. The sun is still shining and kids are still playing outside! Mrs. G. would shrug her shoulders and show them her watch which she had set forward an hour ahead and say I don’t know what to tell you, but look it’s 8:00. It says so right here. Both of her children looked skeptical as they crawled under their blankets, so Mrs. G. avoided direct eye contact and kissed them goodnight. Then she went upstairs and made herself a gin and tonic.

These are GIRL pajamas!!!! screamed Mrs. G’s four-year-old son when she handed them to him to put on. Maybe in this country, countered Mrs. G. in an effort to keep the hand-me-down train rolling, but in European countries, pink is considered a powerful and lucky color for everyone. German kings wore pink; it was the color of royalty. Are you sure? Mrs. G’s son asked. Absolutely! I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Now hop into these bad boys, brush your teeth and let’s get you to bed.

BUT IT’S NOT EVEN DARK OUTSIDE!!

I know what I’m talking about here, and you will not stand out. Every kid at art camp will totally have lentil soup in a Nancy’s yogurt container for lunch. Sandwiches are out. Bean soup is in. Trust me.

I promise this is not the bad stuff. This is the good stuff. It tastes exactly like fresh oranges. Just like an orange Popsicle. No, I swear, just like orange sorbet.

Sweetie, your glasses were super expensive, so I bought this pretty little chain for you to hook onto them, so you won’t accidentally lose them. Look at the pretty beads. All the elderly librarians kids are wearing them now. Oh, honey, look at me. You look fabulous. No, they certainly do not look weird. Take my word for it. You’ll be seeing these on more people in no time. You’re a trendsetter!
 

Reader, what lies have you told your children?

My friend Kerry related a story to me about something painful she learned when dealing with students. It isn’t easy doing this job as educators and we make many mistakes. Well, let’s face it. I make lots of mistakes. There have been times when I’ve said something to a student and instantly regretted it. There have been other times when I’ve said something and didn’t think anything of it until much later.

I have always preferred instant regret.

Kerry had a difficult student who had gotten into trouble many times before. She had a rap sheet quite long and had previously irritated many adults before. This girl came with a reputation and lived up to it. It seems that many people, in dealing with her, warned her about where she was headed. It’s what we do. We try, sometimes to no avail, to let students know what’s in store for them if they don’t straighten up and fly right. It’s a bad, bad habit and can go awry.

When Kerry was at her wit’s end she said, “You know, if you keep acting this way you’re going to end up at the alternative school!”

My friend didn’t expect the reply she got.

“I know how to get there. Everyone has always told me how to get there! What I want to know if how to get to that college I’ve seen on the tv. Can you tell me what I need to do to get there?”

Damn. Those lessons we learn as the adults in schools are sometimes really hard to learn.

One time my mom asked me how I could remember the Latin names of plants so well. I said “Well, plants are like my friends and I don’t forget the names of my friends.”

And I had someone say “When I am driving, I always see you walking to work in the morning.”

I said, “That’s funny. I never see you.”

They said “I think it is because you are always looking at plants.”

Probably true.

I tend to think of plants as people and grieve when they die. Even killing weeds is hard for me. The plants so obviously want to live - sometimes in the most impossible places, but they give it their all! That’s my excuse for the way my yard looks, anyway.

Here are some friends I met in Washington, D.C. at the Smithsonian Institution:

So, I’m coming up on 36 here pretty soon. In the blogosphere that makes me one of the older more senior bloggers. I also am on Day 12 of coming off Effexor. From what I gather, this makes me normaler than someone…say, with an addiction to peanut M&M’s.

And now, having glanced at my chest in my newest bathing suit cover-up, “wear around the house thingy” (’cuz the good Lord knows I won’t be walking outside with it on), I see that I’m getting age spots, or splotches, or uneven skin tone, or whatever else the media calls it in order to make us hate ourselves.

And you know what?
I don’t.

I don’t hate myself.
TAKE THAT!

My thighs jiggle, my heels crack, my biceps wave, my chin is not as taunt, my get-up-and-go is sitting still, and I’ve found a few wrinkles in areas I didn’t know wrinkled, BUT life is good.

Life.Is.Good.

The world? It bites.
My life in it? Is good.

I can still stand up and sing.
I can still shout for joy.
I can still worship and praise!
I can still make sweet, sweet love.

Spots and all.
Today is awesome.

I’d dip some in a jar for safekeeping, except tomorrow?

It might just be better.

I cannot be all the things everyone wants me to be and I am learning to be ok with that.

No one can control my thoughts. Though they may pontificate and judge my actions, but my thoughts are my own.

I am raw and tender and sick to death of everyone expecting more from me because “I know better”. Sometimes, I want to just do what I want because I want to do it. No explanation required.

I am mired in a swirls of secrets that I keep and because I do, I am weary. But I am letting them go a little at a time. Not all at once. They are too much and some are not mine to tell.

Once, I heard it said that “everybody needs a sanctuary from the storm” and that is so right. I have built something of my own and made it mine and don’t want to apologize for it’s extravagance. It is because I say it is, I want because I choose to want.

There is no pretending that I have come to this sanctuary a flawed and hurt person, but I am a widow of depression and I would not chosen to come here this way.

But the space is here and the timing is now and who am I to tell it to go away and leave me be?

My secrets I will keep and my life will be doled out in pieces that I chose to share and if that makes me flawed beyond compare I must wonder: am I the only one who feels this way?

Certainly not. But this sanctuary space is mine and I will cherish it for the time I have with it. How can I ever hope to make a difference with my life if I don’t cherish. Cherishing is my hope.

*these are merely thought pieces I’ve written in my offline diary and a narrative, I think, would detract from the raw feelings I hope to have presented here*

There was time Mrs. G. was reading when she heard a loud THUMP. Her son was napping on his top bunk bed, so she immediately suspected that something was not right. The ensuing screaming of oww my head! oww my head! confirmed her initial suspicion. Mrs. G. is so afraid of blood that she freezes and nearly faints when she comes into contact with it. Mrs. G, ran down the hall toward her son’s cries and stood outside his door. Son, are you o.k. she asked as he continued to cry owww my head! oww my head! Son, are you, um, bleeding? Mrs. G. asked, her feet frozen to the floor. Noooo…it was only then, after at least 96 seconds of child abuse and overt medical neglect, that Mrs G. busted into his room and rushed to hug and comfort him and check his pupils for signs of concussion. Mrs. G’s children experienced this delayed response to emergencies so often that in a attempt to survive the skinned knees and rusty nails of childhood, they learned to yell Mom I hurt myself but I’m not bleeding in order to receive boo-boo healing kisses or any medical attention that required a Band aid or a spritz of Bactine.

In 2001, one of Mrs. G’s students came up to her after class and asked her if she had read the bestselling book called Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand. He told her it was about this amazing true story about a thoroughbred that became a symbol of hope to many Americans during the Great Depression. Mrs. G. was so swept up that one of her students was using the phrase symbol of hope and referencing the Great Depression, that she didn’t bat an eye when he went on to earnestly tell her that the most inspirational part of this book was the fact that Seabiscuit had only three legs… that he was a three-legged race horse.

So, naturally, Mrs. G. went home and relayed the story to her family at dinner. When she got to the part about Seabiscuit having only three legs, the silence was deafening. Mrs. G. would like to point out that when she is not cooking and cleaning and educating her two kids, she spends a good portion of her week educating other people’s children and reminding them for the 2,345th time the difference between there, their and they’re and that ’cause is not a word. Yes, it would be hard to gallop with only three legs, but cut her some slack. And that student that punk’d her with this false information? She failed his ass. She didn’t really, but she wanted to.