A Changed Life is Coming...

I am visiting North Carolina this weekend to see my boyfriend who goes to school up here and to visit the school I will be transferring to in the fall semester.

I was on the plane last night, descending into Charlotte around 9:00pm. If you've ever flown with me, you probably know that I will give you my first born and my left shoe just to sit at the window. I love the window. But more than that, I hate being in the aisle. (Center of gravity when turning mid flight, seeing the ground, etc.) I love watching the ground moving slowly below me. At night, my favorite thing about a window seat is the twinkling lights. If I could come back in my next life as a pile of glitter, I probably would. I love anything twinkly or sparkly.

As I was watching the cars creep along the highway, some people rushing to get home because they are hungry, some meandering and just driving as much as it takes for little Johnny to fall asleep, some coming home from work, some going to work, and watching the silent manic police car pull someone over, the entire world just continuing below me as I, the silent plane in the sky, flew right over them. They don't know me. I don't know them. But we could see each other and know, someone is there. Someone is living their hectic life below me... and to me, they're just a cruising ball of light among hundreds. I could feel my world shifting in that moment.

I'm moving hundreds of miles away from a home that I've considered sacred and secure for 22 years to a 2x3ft room with concrete walls and a campus of which I know one person. At once, I was paralyzingly terrified and so excited that I could have peed myself.  So many things are changing within the next 4 months, and when those 4 months are up, I will just be getting started.

I had to center myself when I had this thought because it scared me so much. I thought "Jesus Christ in a Chicken Basket. Millions of people have done what I'm doing and have done far worse. Chill, Erin."

I thought back to a flight I took in December from Jacksonville, FL to Dallas, TX, to Seattle, WA. On my flight from Dallas to Seattle, I sat next to a really nice girl who told me her final destination was Alaska - home. She was a student in Texas and hadn't been home for 4 months. Thinking back to this made me realize how easy this should be... at least I'm not moving across an entire country.

Whether or not I'm ready for this, it's happening. I am going to force myself to go on this amazing adventure because I can only grow and learn from it. There's no going back now.

My life is changing whether I like it or not.

And I think I'll like it.

Why I want to delete my Facebook...

I want to delete my Facebook for so many reasons. I've been toying with the idea lately of just up and leaving it, or at least severely limiting my activity on it.

It's an addiction for most of us in the social media world. We're in fear of being left out, in fear of not knowing what's going on in the world, in our friends' lives, etc. If we really do have "true friends", as cliche as that sounds, we won't need Facebook to keep tabs on them. One of my good friends deleted hers a few months ago, and she keeps saying it was one of the best decisions of her entire adult life.

It's a source of unwarranted jealousy, unnecessary envy, material want, you name it. I will see pictures of my gorgeous friends and think "why can't I be like her?" or "why can't I be as pretty as her?" It's absolutely stupid. I'm judging my entire self based on a decent angle of someone else, as seen through an Instagram filter. I'm comparing my workout schedule to someone who works out for a living. I'm comparing Likes on my pictures to this persons Likes on her pictures, and the people who are Liking the picture.

It's a sick cycle to be drawn into, and it is an absolute confidence crusher. A lot of fights wouldn't have occurred (in my life and others') if Facebook wasn't around.

The reasons why I cannot delete my Facebook are plenty. I have two business pages that I maintain, I have publicity for said businesses on my own personal page, I am a Zumba instructor, so I get invited to all of the latest Zumba parties and workshops to teach. How else will they find out about me or contact me if I'm not on Facebook? What the hell did we do 10 years ago without Facebook?! I can't remember. I literally cannot remember a life without social media. I will admit that one main reason I won't delete it is because I have so many friends all over the world, and have no other way of knowing what's going on in their lives. Like it REALLY matters. Again, if I really wanted to keep in touch with them, we have email, hell we have old fashioned REAL mail.

I love posting these blogs to my Facebook Timeline because how else will people read it? I have 5 followers on the actual blog. Just 5! And with the publicity from Facebook, I have over 1100 views since the beginning.

I check my Facebook almost every time I get into my car. To drive. I think that's worse than texting and driving. I'm not even doing anything productive. I'm looking at a friend's delicious lunch or a baby in a pool. Come ON. I could kill someone or myself by uploading stupid FACEBOOK to just see what my friends are up to at that exact moment. I've really tried my hardest to stop. When I realize what I'm reaching for my phone to do, I drop it and focus on driving. I'm still working on it. But it's ridiculous.

I really want to try and not use Facebook for a whole week. Delete the app from my phone, read before bed instead of scroll through the mundane posts, make a news source my homepage for my internetz, and see what happens. See my life happen. See my time open up. See my productivity skyrocket. See my confidence soar.

I wish I had enough gumption to just up and do it, but I can admit that I don't.

At least I can try and be gumpt.

Mama Bird prepares for an empty nest...

So my baby girl is getting ready to go away to college. I mean REALLY away - like a nine hour drive or a $250 airplane ticket away. She will be in a different zip code, a different area code, heck, even a different climate than I am.

We should both be well prepared for this transition. Erin stayed at home with me for these extra two years (or is it three?) while she got her AA at Santa Fe College. No need to spend money on an apartment when her classes are about a mile and a half away from home. I have relished this time with her while I watched her friends go away to college and leave mom and home behind. I know it's been a gift of time and I have appreciated it.

I've tried to walk a careful line between being a caring and attentive mother and slowly letting her go.  I backed off on giving her any kind of curfew and we compromised with a 10pm phone call if she was going to be late. (But that still didn't keep me from lying awake in bed until I heard her come through the front door.) When she is  upset about something, I try to keep my mouth shut until she ASKS for help. After all, if she lived on a campus far away, she'd have to work these things out for herself. I never ever want to be a stifling mom, but I also don't want to leave her feeling abandoned either.

As she excitedly talks about the things she'll need and the activities she wants to get involved in at UNC, I am slowly getting my head around the idea that I will be living alone for the first time in my life. Ever. I've always had sisters, roommates, husband, and/or kids in my home with me and I've never spent more than 10 days in a row all by myself.

I look forward to lots of wonderful things about being alone. I can control the tv completely and not have to listen to "Dance Moms" or the latest Kardashian show. I can watch "My Cat From Hell" on the Animal Planet, or "The Property Brothers" on HGTV and no one will roll their eyes at me.

I can clean the house and it will STAY clean. I won't find a pile of eleven pairs of shoes, three sets of flip-flops, two pairs of boots boots, three purses, and five grocery sacks stacked right inside my front door, or face a pile of paint cans, paper, scissors, and glue left over from a camp project all over my dining room table - which will usually stay there for weeks until I complain about it enough.

I can do laundry whenever I want and not have to move a load of jeans, Victoria's Secret undies, or Starbucks aprons out of the washer first.

I will no longer find a leaning tower of dirty dishes in my sink. (Erin is especially skilled at balancing a variety of dishes in a precarious pyramid all the way up to the faucet. So close to the faucet that you can't fit your hand under the stream of water without moving a few glasses, bowls or plates.)

I won't have a steady stream of clean laundry spread out on my living room floor, where Erin sits cross-legged, watching tv while she folds her clothes. The only problem is that some pieces of the clean laundry always, ALWAYS stay behind on the living room floor for days and days until I finally pick them up and toss them on her bed.

My power bill will probably drop by half, if not more. Erin does more laundry than a family of five, and she is infamous for turning on lights all over the house and leaving them on. All of them. She can have the living room tv, her tv, her computer, and my computer on all at the same time and if I try to turn anything off, she says "I was watching that!"

Yeah, there are a lot of things I will look forward to. But I am gonna miss the girl. I am going to miss her blowing through the front door, tossing down her purse and keys, flopping down on the sofa and venting about some awful customer she served today, or something funny that happened in class. I am going to miss the wide variety of projects she takes on, from cooking to painting to jigsaw puzzles to plants. I am going to miss her laughing at me when I misunderstand the lyrics to a Beyoncé song. I am going to miss her help when I am trying to figure out how to reset the garbage disposal, or rearrange the plants on the patio.

I am just plain going to miss her. I am going to miss her energy, her scent, her noise, her voice. She is the kind of vibrant, energetic, and enthusiastic personality that can take all the oxygen out of the room when she walks in. She has a magnetism about her that can both enthrall me and exhaust me at the same time. 

I know this will be an important time for her. She will grow into her own and start taking on more responsibility for herself. She will discover things about herself that will surprise, disappoint and/or thrill her. After all, there are things you can learn only when you are on your own in the world. I have no worries about her or her success. She can do almost anything she wants and make it work. I've never seen anyone with more determination than she has, when she really believes in something. She has more self-awareness and confidence in herself than I had at....well...more than I now have at 56 years of age.

This will be an important time for me, too. For the first time ever, I can direct all my nurturing and mothering energy and use it for myself - take care of myself in a way I've never been free to before. I will have the time and freedom to swim, walk, read, or even do my "Yoga for Fat People" dvd without worrying about anyone walking in on me.  And I will probably discover things about myself that have been completely overshadowed by the kids, finances, worries, noise, and responsibilities I've juggled for the past 28 years.

So, here we go. The Two E's will be turned loose on the world in a way we've never seen before. It might turn into quite a wild ride for everyone. I know we'll have fun, and grow, and learn things, and be scared by things, but we'll make the best of it, as strong women always do.

But I am still gonna miss the girl.

On a More Serious Note...

Today at 2:45pm, Boston became a large-scale crime scene. The Boston Marathon was attacked by two bombs, and possibly a third. Officials claim they do not know whether all three are linked, or a combination of the three, but they went off within seconds of each other.

I saw one article on this tragedy saying the suspect was possibly "a Saudi Arabian man" who was taken to a nearby hospital for his injuries, either from the explosions or from being apprehended.

I have two problems with this, as I'm sure many others do as well.

1. Why did he have to be Saudi Arabian? If it was a white man, they wouldn't say "white man" unless he was on the loose. Even when it was official, it would be something along the lines of "John Doe, a Boston local, was apprehended and charged on the accounts of blah blah blah blah..." but they don't usually say white. If he was on the loose, that would have been different, he would have been labeled as "Caucasian male. Brown jacket, gray hair, etc." This guy isn't even charged yet, he's just a suspicion and they still say "Saudi Arabian man". But since this man was born in a different country, he's more likely to be the perpetrator, right?

We are feeding false fear into hungry minds. Stating that he was of a different race means that those words pose a significance. It means that we should be afraid, or at least aware that he is a different color, he prays to a different God than we do. This doesn't change the fact that he detonated bombs in large crowds. Now when people see the words "Saudi Arabian", they may think twice if they are gullible. Didn't America used to be a safe-haven, a growth opportunity for foreigners? Now we're afraid of all of them because a few people from different countries ended up killing Americans on American soil. I'm sure that if we moved to Japan and there happened to be a white guy who had too much Saki with his anti-depressants and went on a shooting rampage, we would be viewed differently as Americans, and as a whole. This is what we're doing with these beautiful countries in the Middle East. We're now afraid of all the people who come from these places. It's not necessarily our fault. Blame the media.

2. My second issue with this is simply that people need to stop killing people. This world is going (even deeper) in the shitter if we don't do something about the increasing large-scale violence. Victims from the Newtown shootings have barely had time to cope with their changed life, and not even 6 months later, we're faced with a new tragedy that we have to deal with as a nation. I read that there was a section of Newtown bystanders/supporters of the Marathon, and happened to be some of the closest to the first explosion. I would be afraid to go anywhere if that was me. I just couldn't imagine what's going on in their minds right now.

And the kicker? If the suspect is in fact Saudi Arabian, he will be targeted and labeled as a terrorist or Islamic Extremist. The shooters of the Colorado movie theater and the Newtown Elementary School were "disturbed" or "mentally imbalanced". Because apparently Middle Easterners cannot be mentally imbalanced; they're terrorists. Which, in case you were wondering, are not the same thing. Not all mentally imbalanced people are terrorists. I would argue that all terrorists are mentally imbalanced. But again, because this guy might have a different nationality, he is not labeled initially as mentally imbalanced. It will be "the Saudi Arabian terrorist (or) extremist".

My heart weeps for these victims, and even though there are only two reported dead, that's still two fewer people in the world from a stupid and unnecessary crime. Over 40 people's lives have now been changed from injury, and many more from emotional injury. I read that at least 10 people are now amputees because of their extensive injuries, and the rest have injuries that may or may not affect the rest of their life.

You can find the developing story here.

Stay safe, stay sane, and stay positive, my friends.

E

Ladybugs and Chai Tea Lattes

I stopped editing to write this post because it's just something I have to put out there before life snaps me back to reality.

After a rough morning with my car and waking up sicker than yesterday, and after taking my mom back to work so I could have her car - mine decided to be stupid and go to the car hospital - I stopped by a small coffee shop to grab a cuppa. I planned to sit outside on this gorgeous day to get some fresh pollen-filled air and edit a batch of super late pictures with my old geezer puppy. (shown below)

I sit down, ready to tackle the pictures at hand, and I just can't get motivated to do them. I'm thinking about an extra credit paper I wasn't able to do, how I'm going to pay for this car repair when I have two plane tickets I need to buy soon, how I'm going to tell my new job that I have to take off a month for my other job, when I'll be able to work out again, etc. Pretty much just thinking about life and how to live it.

After untangling my dog for the 538th time from his own leash, I sat back down to continue attempting to edit, and a ladybug landed on my leg. I have always thought that when a ladybug lands on someone, it means good luck is coming your way. With me being an animal and critter lover (except for the roach the size of my left foot that was in my sock drawer last night... he can go DIAF. Except he can't. Because he's a roach.) I coaxed the little lady onto my hand and let it crawl around for a little while.

While looking at this beautiful little beetle, I realized that this was my sign from the universe to just stop. Stop worrying about stuff I can't control, about the inevitable and the unknown. It's not worth it.

Typically, a ladybug landing on someone isn't that special because the minute you realize what on you is in fact not a flying spider (because we all think that's what landed on us when we feel a bug on our arm. Admit it.), it flies away. It is something special or at least noteworthy when it won't leave. I write this sentence at 1:59pm, and it landed on me around 12:30pm. It's crawled all over my computer, on my cup, on my hand, on my phone, and now it sits... chillin' like a villain. And every time I think it finally flew away, it reappears.


It's the little things, people. Sometimes all it takes to snap you out of your stupor is something that is smaller than your pinky nail.


Meanwhile, my deaf and toothless dog can't figure out how to eat a complementary milk bone...