Welcome to the Great White North….
"You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, well, you might find you get what you need" -The Rolling Stones
Thanks Tilly Bud! *The SOPA/PIPA Compliant Version of the CoWAbunger Corn Award
The spud’s dad was telling me this story last night.
He’s a history buff, and collects figurines of the American Presidents. He apparently has them all. The spud was looking at them the other day and apparently picked up Obama and said, “Daddy, you know, this President is different from the others.”
He apparently replied, “Yes, yes he is.”
“Daddy, why is he sooooo skinny?”
I’m feeling a little unsettled today.
I got an email from someone at Stickittoyou U yesterday. Apparently they want to interview me about my scholarships and grants.
This year I’m getting in excess of $14,000 of “free” money, meaning I don’t have to pay it back, for tuition and school related expenses. Most are need-based, but some are merit based and have minimum GPA requirements. These funds will cover about 90% of my tuition, books and fees.
Yes, it rocks. Yes, I’m extremely grateful. Yes, I do feel honored and lucky. And yes, I’ve worked very hard to get the best grades I can to be worthy and have applied for up to 50 some scholarships for this year. But, there is a part of me that is also very embarrassed and ashamed to not be able to support myself and my daughter without all this need based funding.
It feels very much like being interviewed and having my story pasted all over the school homepage and “other uses” is trying to make me seem like someone of distinction to be honored and looked up to when I have done nothing but find myself too poor to make my own way in the world and too under-educated to get the good paying jobs (ie, more than minimum wage) that would allow me to live an average middle class life I was accustomed to before “life” happened.
Sure, everyone needs a hand up once and a while and people and organizations who give out scholarship and grant money are trying to acknowledge and help us who are less fortunate better ourselves. But, it seems to me if you have a proper sense of pride, self respect and integrity you should be celebrating the donors, not the people who have done nothing but accept their generosity.
While many people fail to see my side of this issue, awards ceremonies and interviews just drive home my shame in being unable to provide for myself. It feels like celebrating my failure. I have done nothing to deserve to be celebrated, yet. Everyone, in my opinion should strive to better themselves, what I’m doing is not special, or unique. It should be normal, average, and expected.
So, I do thank the donors. It allows me to do what I have to in order to be a better person and one day again be able to provide for myself and my family. But I’m not there yet. Currently I’m a hot mess of stress, frustration, panic, fear, longing, exhaustion, and insecurity. It’s too soon to see beyond the struggle. I am grateful for the help but it’s way too soon to see anything in my situation for praise or admiration and I don’t want to be an object of pity either.
I just want to say a heartfelt thank you and go about my business. Why is that so weird to the world?
Spud: Momma, I’m animating a book.
Me: Oh, that sounds like fun.
Spud: Yeah, I’m still designing the characters, but I’m going to model one after you.
Me: Cool.
Spud: Her name is going to be Advice-Giving Abby. Because she gives lots of advice, just like you.
Me: Oh. Do I give lots of advice?
Spud: Yeah.
Me: Is it good advice?
Spud: Well, yeah, pretty much.
Me: That’s good to know. Don’t Daddy and Stepmom give you advice too?
Spud: Nah. Well, sometimes. But, not so much.
Me: Oh. I see. So, would you say that giving advice is my Momma Super Power?
Spud: *laughing* Yeah! That’s your super power!
Hello all.
I am feeling much better, and even though I’m still clearing out the congestion, overall I consider myself over the cold. Thanks to everyone for the well wishes, I was miserable, and it was nice to have some kind words.
But, before I became ill I had been meaning to share a book referral with you. You see, the Friday before I became so dreadfully sick, I stumbled upon a book. The campus often has these clearance book sales where you can find new books for next to nothing. So, passing by one day I stopped for a quick browse to see what was on offer. And this is what I found:
“A Simple Act of Gratitude: How Learning to Say Thank You Changed My Life” by John Kralik
I don’t know why it caught my eye, except perhaps because I am a thank you letter writer. I always write thank you letters when people send me gifts, and I make my daughter do so, too. Despite my habit, I get very few thank you letters. I remember being a kid and being made to write thank you letters, but the expectation was you only had to write if you weren’t actually handed the present face to face. It was implied you didn’t need a thank you letter if you thanked the person when they handed you the gift. However, as I got older, some times I felt compelled to send thank you notes for things given when it wasn’t my birthday or holiday, regardless of whether I was handed the gift in person. Sometimes I do get angry when I send people things and I don’t get a thank you or any acknowledgement of the receipt of what I sent.
So, it seems in our society today there is a distinct lack of the need or even the duty to say thank you. And, seeing that title perhaps I was curious to know what Mr. Kralik had to say on the subject. I bought the book, which was on sale for less than I pay for a soda at the school store, and read straight through it that Friday night. I found it touching and thoroughly engaging.
Apparently Mr. Kralik’s story has motivated lots of other people to enter a campaign to write a thank you note every day. While I think it is a little extreme perhaps to write a thank you note to the Starbuck’s clerks, it does bring up the subject of just really recognizing how you affect the world around you. If you notice people and their actions, just maybe they will start paying more attention to you.
Even though I am a very private person and don’t much enjoy living in a crush of other humans with constant companionship every hour of the day (I don’t have Facebook, or Twitter, and most days I don’t bother to turn off the sound on my phone because it’s pretty unusually I get an unexpected call or text) I do still think it is important to have a community of people who you belong to, and who you can count on. As my life has changed over the years I have always felt frustrated that I didn’t feel I fit into the communities I found myself immersed in, and what I think I’m realizing is that there are a lot of phoney people out there. They want you to dote on them but they have absolutely no interest in you or gratitude for your thoughtfulness, or even any knowledge of how much it might cost you emotionally, mentally or spiritually to be there for them.
Sure, I don’t always thank everyone every day. But the communities of people who I do care about most I try to acknowledge their support and what they mean to me as often as I can. Perhaps I should work harder at doing that. But, I might be more inclined if they reciprocated.
Of all the communities I belong to, I have to say the blog community has been one of the most important in my life these last several years. You come back to read my drivel, you leave uplifting comments, and you seem to care for no other reason than you care. And for this I am so grateful and honored.
Perhaps though it is easier to be humbled and grateful to blog friends, people who only see the true self. In my day to day life I end up wearing only certain faces. I build walls to protect myself. I portray qualities and beliefs that will smooth my interactions and limit confrontation and chaos. So, people I see in school see the organized, intelligent, striving, scholarly self, most times masking the panicked, neurotic one-step-away-from-nervous-breakdown self. Closer friends see mostly the panicked, neurotic one-step-away-from-nervous-breakdown self and the fun-loving, snarky, self-confident Janie has been withering away. Or some times I just pull away so they see nothing and there is no pity or disgust over how I’ve changed, because even people you love sometimes get tired of your drama. And, let’s face it, a lot of times that is what dominates the blog as well. But, I can also share more intimate feelings and somehow know even if they aren’t fully understood, I won’t be abandoned or judged.
Well, in any event, there’s some serious food for thought. Writing thank you notes should be a duty, but, what I think we can take away from Mr. Kralik is that if you put just a little effort into going beyond the duty and thinking about that person, thinking about what it means to have people in your life that do actually contribute to your happiness, your health and your well fare, then you should pause and acknowledge that. And, when you do tell someone thank you, even for a little thing, it can mean a whole lot to everyone. When people sense you value them, sometimes that makes people want to continue to feel valued and respected and so they value you back. It can be a wonderful catch 22.
I think there are a lot of things to be grateful for. Although, somewhat shamefully, I must admit, I lose track of them every day, because let’s face it, life is hard. Life is not fair. Life is full of those unexpected events you can’t always be prepared for. But when you have a community around you that notices you and how hard you work, even on the simple things that everyone expects, well, it makes some of those trials just a little easier to face, and it can definitely make the ordinary a little more extraordinary.
So, if you have the opportunity to pick up this book, I would recommend it. It’s a quick read, and a slog through Mr. Kralik’s personal dramas, but as I said above I found it riveting and felt that there was something refreshing in his honesty about his failings and his effort to better himself.
And now my friends, I have to go to school. May you have a good Monday.
Thanks for reading.
*Cartoon by Sandra Boynton
Today is the birthday of Charles Darwin.
In honor of the man, it has also been designated Charles Darwin Day.
In honor of the day, here’s some Darwin Quotes I particularly like:
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.
Freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds which follows from the advance of science.
It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.
I am turned into a sort of machine for observing facts and grinding out conclusions.
A friend sent me this:
I guess not only am I a glass half empty kinda person, but a “I can’t put it down” sort as well….
I have to add though, if your glass is half empty and you’re wandering through the desert, you’ll want to hold that water up as long as possible. My point being, you can ignore dying of thirst in the desert, or you can ignore being broke, but it won’t make it go away. So as clever and as cute as this psychologist is, some kinds of stress you can’t make go away just by ignoring your problems.
I have learned to let a lot go. I’ve put down a a lot of glasses of water. But you can’t let everything go, once you do what’s the point of going forward? Sometimes stress is there to make you want to affect a change.
The key in everything is moderation.
How far will you carry your glass of water before you get where you want to be in life? Or will you just give up and put it down half way there because your arm hurts?
Janie's Place 