Can we just learn to make it work!

Everyone is posting about how 2016 was not so great in politics or deaths but what about our daily lives?

In January I personally began the year with a new teaching position. I had high hopes to do well, be accepted, appreciated for my trade and experience, and enjoy my surroundings. I left a family that was slowly disseminating and I refused to stay and be a prat of the destruction. In the teaching world much like any corporation, you have leaders and sub-leaders and you collaborate and create ideas then act upon them. I wanted that and I sought it out 35 miles south.

And I flourished, I enjoyed every day teaching and getting to know new colleagues. Aside from one minor colleague/friendship gone awry; okay it was nearing a fatal attraction! I survived and learned and moved on with a good taste in my mind and mouth.

But then I got a bug up my ass! Thinking can be dangerous, hahaha.

I'm going to be 60 years young this coming new year and my experience is important enough to share with new minds. Plus it allows me to change course and slow down a bit... Hard to do.
I worked hard to get this interview, I was ready to take the teaching world on with my experience, my personality, my game was on. Their leadership was not so on top of things, but I assessed that was due to the summer break.......think again.
It did not completely turn out that way though. Oh, I'm still there, working at my best, giving of my experience in teaching, I know what I'm doing, and how to do it. Just talk to me, relate to me, respect me......

Sadly, we are coming into an era, or maybe it's me leaving an era, either way I see some horrible behaviors in the professional environment taking place. I refuse to gossip, instead I want to collaborate. I refuse to climb an invisible ladder, instead let's respect one another's ideas and place them on the table not act as if they never happened.

In summary, I don't care who thought of the great idea, let's just do it. We are the 5th largest school district and we are failing....now as I'm in a TOSA position, I see what I assumed is sadly, true.

I may have written about this illness before, it's called lacking communication. Can we find the cure, it's out there, we just need to administer it.

Actually it is Great!

So here we are 50 plus years in. Some of us are caregivers not to our adult children but to our parents. God bless us, I say. After all, our parents brought us into this crazy mixed up world, the least we can do is aid them in comfort and see them to their final curtain.
I'm reflecting on death today because after 10 years of being without my parents and now 10 months without my brother, I must reflect.
Why? because that is what life allows us to do. As a teen and young adult, I was too busy playing with life, actually I still am playing, and enjoying every second, but in reflecting about life I see the great things in people. I do also see the great things in myself. What kind of person I have been and where I am in my divorced, single-life with great adult kids and amazing grandkids.
I also am able to set aside my ignorance as well as others; colleagues, friends, family members, me! But as you get older you realize what a waste of time it is to revenge, to feel sour, pissed off, angry, it's all unnecessarily a part of life.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I will be the first to holler back, flip you off, get the steam out. Nature calls for our bodies to get it out, but ultimately, someone can be educated to change, to develop other or better skills. I know I have and continue to do so all in the name of living, growing, experiencing.
That brings me to health. I want to keep my health, not in an obsessive manner, but in a natural manner. Our bodies cry when we over-work it, under feed it, or incorrectly feed it. I can feel the balance between hard work and hard work-out. Ahhhhh, that's the life I love to be a part of. So I'm keeping busy, hiking, joining exercise Yoga, Pilates type classes now and again.
And most importantly, the opposite of death is LIFE. So I continue to Meetup.com for my sanity and insanity, fun meeting all levels of people, fun to have choices to attend events or not, no pressure to meet people, just the purpose to live to relate to enjoy our moments until our last breath.
Finding the good in myself has been such an awesome adventure, I thank Mike Christensen for letting me go and for Kyle and Heather for letting me seek out myself so I could feel better about being a great mom at times to you both. My only purpose in life was to know you two. I'm enjoying every day with you all. I thank my mother for being a fun mom, beauty was within you and my dad for meeting her and coming together for all of us; Cindy, Debbi, Tim, Jody, me. I get it, I get what life is all about!
So actually life is great and continues to be. And whatever you do is a part of life's pattern, be good, be real, redeem, have fun...Don't give up because tomorrow is going to be so different. You'll see!

Compassion, Camaraderie, Kindred ship

You live life in a bubble, you take one step at a time and many of those steps are arduous and you think you'll never see the next day, but you do.

This endurance is what life is, people! You struggle and you get to see the other side. It builds character, it builds strength within us.

I have had the privilege to be given the opportunity to find myself, support myself, and renew my compassion to find camaraderie and kindred ship.

Making a connection whether it is with the opposite gender or parallel kindred ships, life is taking the time to breathe, know, love, feel, experience, suffer, flourish, revel, sorrow, happiness, regret, stupidity, all of it.

If you do not experience any of these in a one year's time, you need to.
Take the time to step out of the box, out of the bubble, seek the stage.

I just had dinner with a woman friend I hadn't seen in 9 years. We only communicated just to feel alive. And as we grew we realized every person who stays in our life is our compassionate, comrade. Because we need each other, set aside your bullshit and love yourself so you can love your friends, your family. Hell even a smile can go along way no matter who you're in front of.

What we realized is as a woman we have been hidden, set aside, put out, second in command and we take it, we accept it, we accommodate it for the good of the moment. Cuz that's what we do.

Because of this, women are developing more than statute, we are developing power that we know how to handle. Yeah, one day there will be more women running the world if not America solely based on our compassion, camaraderie, and kindred ship.

The women who can manage~not control others, are the leaders America needs, if not the world. We are out there, we don't need to scream, throw a tantrum, we are true leaders because we have made a connection, we have been hidden, set aside, and put out by our own accord and through that we have crawled out and are more of society than any other human species.

Not superior, we love to nurture, we want to give and take and debate, and learn and grow.
I have met so many wonderful female friends in the past 5 years, I am so grateful that I am a woman and I can relate to so many others' like me. Can I relate to a man, I'm not one, however, I can show empathy, sympathy, understanding, and control.

Woman to woman, you can talk, laugh, giggle, tell stories, keep secrets, share ideas, and come home feeling full, confident, ready to take on the world. I know, there are some awesome men who accommodate this trait, but very few. Love that you can be that man, but you're rare. Can you pass your greatness around to other men?

I told my long time friend as she asked, "How do you get out and meet people?" I said, "You go out thinking, I want to be like this and you act like that." Life is a stage.... happy, content...are you faking, uh., haven't we been known for faking it over the years? So this is not new, All people are set for the stage, perform and you will believe. Remember Santa Claus, believe and he will deliver.

This is not to say be fake to harm, this is to react to your negative, introverted, scared self and help yourself become the woman you have always wanted to be.

I have yet to meet a man who can show me compassion, camaraderie, and kindred ship without faltering, without becoming weak, not vulnerable, I love a vulnerable man, I'm talking about your "manhood", whoever made that shit up, wasn't a real man!
I am looking to men who are confident without control to others, compassionate without excuse, kindred without apology.

Because when both genders of our world meet with this compassion, camaraderie, and kindred ship, I can imagine a world so ripe, so bold and yet, tender, so real and open, so peaceful.
I love you man, I love you woman. I love you person.