Life Is An Oregon Trail

Hello, everyone...I thought I would drop you all a note, and see if anyone wanted to donate to St. Jude in the month of March. See, I joined the Knit & Fundraise Challenge for St. Jude, and then I realized my life is a smelly dumpster fire at the moment, so I may have overestimated my ability to be a prolific knitter in an allotted time frame.

That, though, is the bad news. 

I mean, there has been a ton of bad news, in my defense. But what I mean is that if I look on the bright side, at least I started to knit, at least I am sharing the fundraiser, and at least the people who know me understand that I am already doing my best. So there is that.

Here is the link to the donation page. If you don't have Facebook, you can always just go here to donate, and there is a spot to put who sent you to their page. You can donate in memory of someone, or in honor of an occasion like, say, Amy Kaspar's Knit & Fundraise Challenge:

https://www.facebook.com/donate/598504321614651/10158923877575474/

For the record, I am doing my part anyway. I am knitting, I am showing you my progress right here and right now, and I am tooting the horn of St. Jude publicly!

See? Here I am at the gym this morning, "representin'," as the cool kids say.

And yesterday, I was sitting at the Avery Coonley School in Downers Grove, waiting for Stanley to be socially evaluated. For those of you who do not know my son, you know how hilarious it is that he needed to be evaluated in the first place when it comes to social skills. The kid has boundaries, but he has no Stranger Danger whatsoever. They were having a Wellness Period while he was there, so when we were leaving, he had to go up to each dog-handler of the three dog visitors and ask them, "Is your dog friendly?" before petting their dogs.

And finally, here is your glimmer of hope for the day. Many knitters look at patterns, browse the internet for inspiration, and even wander the yarn shop with the idea that seeing a finished product will make him, her, or them want to start and finish a project. I, a short-attention-span-knitter, often start projects that take me months because I keep putting them down, in order to be stimulated by a different project. This one, however...just look at it. The project is from Lang Yarns and the yarn, in my stash, is Berroco Lustra (a throwback, for sure...it has probably been discontinued for a decade...but by all means, zoom in on the gorgeousness):

I have had a hard time. Last year was the culmination of a three-year period, where I was trying to hold my marriage together as my husband went down a horrible downward spiral, only to have him seek help and then realize how overwhelming adulthood is (I am simplifying because the details are really nobody's business). The pandemic, which happened to be the same time period, was a horrible time to be a property investor in Chicago. It resulted in me losing $70,000 in one year with no recourse from any relief program out there, and selling a building for the sake of my mental health. I then purchased a wonderful place from a wonderful man out in Rochelle, about sixty miles from my house. The tenants there are like family, just like my building in Westmont. It has not been all gloom and doom, but the bad has far, far outweighed the good.

On Christmas Eve, Erik's kids were visiting us from their mom's house for the holiday. Recently, their household situation had dramatically changed, and Christmas Eve was the first time the kids could finally be honest with us about the horrors they had been subjected to and living with. We had spent the past six years telling them, "Look...we know that's not true. Just tell us the truth instead of lying. You can trust us." Realistically, though, they could not possibly trust adults. At all. We understood this, and we had waited patiently.

So, we spent over an hour hearing about the horrors of all of the stuff we knew, but just needed confirmation. Again, the specific details are nobody's business. But on January 11, I got a call from my husband less than an hour after I arrived to work. He had been contacted by Emergency Services, and was on his way to his former house, where his ex-wife lived.

The kids, fifteen minutes previous to this, had discovered their mom dead in bed. They are eight and thirteen.

I arrived there, did what I had to do to support my husband, and then talked to God a bit about just desserts and karma and other non-religious stuff that fits in the monster-sized "What Goes Around Comes Around" file, because I was assessing the last six years and predicting the next six. My brain goes in weird places when I am the Calm One, and there are some big feelings around me. The kids had already been picked up at this point, but they immediately came to live with us, along with their two not-properly-cared-for cats.

The past two months have been challenging, for both everyone in my household and everyone who encounters us. Trauma, and the processing of trauma - especially when the kids and the husband were never given the tools to process it properly - is like pancake syrup. You see it, you wash it, it looks gone, and then you realize that it was on your fingertips and has stuck to everything you have touched since then.

The kids have outbursts like toddlers, except that they weigh about ninety pounds apiece. I feel overwhelmed but have to take care of more than my share, since I am the most enlightened in the house. Erik is overwhelmed because - let's face it - this is A LOT. Our jobs are affected. The school counselors are working overtime. Money is basically being tossed out the front door to make up for the fact that all essentials and full-time items needed to be purchased, and items on a normal parenting checklist had somehow been recently neglected. Therapists are being recruited. Moments of mistrust are tense. It is hard. 

But you know what? This knitting project represents progress. We have all come a long way in a very short time, and we are starting to come together as a beautiful unit. If details are what you want, reach out to me privately and I will decide if you are worthy or entitled to them. Other than that, though, I ask for both your donations to St. Jude, and your prayers. They don't have to be to God (the prayers, I mean). If you are the kind of person who talks to the ashes of your dead cat, then just know I totally get that. You do you, and thank you.

Do The Kindest Thing

Good morning, everyone...I am surrounded by a buffet of knitting projects that, while I have been making an effort to finish, I cannot talk about all of them. One is for an afghan pattern that I am designing, that will be entered into a contest, and another is a shawl pattern that I can't decide if I should submit or self-publish. Any and all suggestions welcome.

There are also two St. Baldrick's hats and two baby hats here. The baby hats are gifts, and the St. Baldrick's hats are for me. I am shaving my head for St. Baldrick's on Sunday, and of course March is still in like a lion so my head will be cold. More on that later.

I told myself I would not write unless I had something to say, and if you read this post and disagree, then I apologize. However, I feel the lesson of always doing the kindest thing has been lost in my life lately, so I wanted to bring it out in the open and maybe encourage others to look in the mirror and do a self-check. I haven't written in nine months because everything I have had to say, has gone straight to an individual and did not necessarily benefit the masses. But here I am, and all I can think about is an impact an individual can have if they choose the kind path over the unkind one.

Sometimes, shit just happens. It does. Pets die. Neighbors get robbed. You get a flat tire. Someone called you a name or took your baseball cards or said mean things about family members or destroyed your book on purpose. There is always, always someone who has it worse than you do, but then again, things can always get better.

That said, I am not a parent. I am an accessory who spends quite a bit of time with two kids in particular. I feel my job as an accessory is to show them what happiness and integrity looks like, above all. Happiness and integrity are intertwined, and both are necessary if you want to be a good grownup. So when something bad happens, neither extreme can be an acceptable approach; there is no winning in playing the "Pssht...you think that is bad!" game, and there is no winning in playing the "Suck it up, buttercup!" game. You need to find balance. Yes, see how it can be worse so you know how fortunate you are that you are not dead, and find a solution to make things better so you feel how fortunate you are that you are not dead. You cannot find this balance without looking upon both the fortune and the misfortune of others.

This is where kindness comes into play. Kindness is economic; sometimes you have a little extra to give, and sometimes you need a little extra to get by. If you live in the mindset that you never, ever have enough in your life to be happy, you will not be kind because you will constantly be taking from others. If you live in the mindset that you have enough to be happy, but that you can be happier, you will find yourself with more than enough to give others. Seriously! You don't have to have everything in order to ask yourself what you can do to help someone in need. You need just enough, plus a little bit. That's it.

After the seven-year-old ran into a situation which had him in tears, his dad and I tried to think of a way to show him that he can turn lemonade from lemons. In the past, he has dropped off food at a food pantry, raised money for the American Heart Association, enjoys doing chores when he feels like he is contributing to the house (and they are not just jobs so he can get his allowance), and asked me all sorts of questions about why I give blood every couple of months. He wants to help. We decided to hold a St. Baldrick's event to raise money for childhood cancer research. Here is the link to the event:

https://www.stbaldricks.org/events/mypage/12964/2017

We are encouraging people to donate five bucks by skipping their lattes once this week, as every dollar makes a difference. Kids had a 20% chance of survival from cancer fifty years ago, and now they have a 20% chance of dying. In other words, their survival is now 80%, compared to 20% fifty years ago. All because of donations for grants that help find kid cancer cures.

Kindness does not have to be money. None of us know what someone else is feeling, even if it is our best friend and they have rehashed the situation ad nauseum on our messenger windows for days. We never truly know. But what we do know is that everyone is going through something, and that they are feeling something. Ask yourself what you can do to make someone's day better. It very, very rarely backfires.

Donate to a charity where you know the money goes to something you believe is good. Buy a coffee for the person behind you in line at Starbucks. Go through your closet and donate a bag of stuff to a thrift store. Organize a prayer circle at your church. Write an "I'm thinking of you!" postcard every week and mail it. Surprise your spouse by washing his or her car, taking out the trash, or something they generally do for you on a daily basis. Knock on a neighbor's door with a plate of cookies and say, "I just wanted to see how you were doing." Walk dogs at the local pet shelter for a few hours. Knit a hat for a NICU baby. Offer the crying stranger on the train a side-hug and a Kleenex. Read a book out loud in the activities room at a nursing home.

I know I have talked about kindness a ton here over the past several years, but it really is that important. Some people you perceive as the worst people in the world will benefit from you being kind to them, even if they are assholes back to you for it. Don't let one unappreciative person cloud all of the times you did something nice, and the other person was grateful. Keep at it.

Kindness also does not have to be outward. If you are listening to someone talk, and all you can think of to say is, "Shut up, you money-grubbing, fake little bitch!" then the kindest thing might be to just smile. If you see someone bleeding, the kindest thing is not to preach to the person who hit them. It might just be to tend to the victim somehow.

I would love for you to use the Comments area for suggestions on little things human beings can do to be kind. The recent presidential election has brought out quite a bit of anger in us, not to mention the trials of our own lives. Channel your Inner Mister Rogers and just ask yourself a few times a day, "Who can I help right now, and how?" Yet another benefit of being kindness:  that anger dissipates at a pretty direct ratio to how much you return kindness to the world. At the very least, it will not hurt.

Are You Happy?

Good morning, everyone...I am sitting at a Starbucks (not the one where I sling lattes), taking a break from getting about sixteen-hundred bits of paper together. I need a break, or I can already tell I am going to start filing things in the wrong place. That said, something has been on my mind for about a week, and I wanted to share my thoughts on it. Seems silly, but I want to talk about happiness.

My stepmom called me last Thursday, and to tell you how rare this is unless it is a federal holiday of some sort, my first thought was, "Crap...now who died?" My stepmom is excellent at actively loving her family in the truest sense of love, but correspondence just is not her thing. Knowing this, I call her every two weeks or so, and we catch up on each other's gossip and any events that are worth noting.

So, after establishing that I was me and she was herself, she said, "Greg has asked me to marry him." I took a breath and started to freak out on her behalf, because that's what girls do, repeating "Omigod omigod omigod..." over and over again until both of us stopped giggling. We talked about how some people have expressed concern...or, at least that is how she interprets it...regarding her and Greg moving faster than they think is appropriate, or that she isn't thinking things through, or being irrational, or whatever.

"But you know what? I'm happy." Meg's words should slap every naysayer in the face.

She started dating him around Thanksgiving last year. He moved into her house shortly after that, and they talk on the phone often when not next to each other, and they tell each other everything. In fact, they have been like that pretty much since they met. I saw them in August, and they sat on the same side of the table at a restaurant, ordering one meal and splitting it down the middle. They did that the next morning as well.

So I ask you...the next time someone says anything along the lines of "Are you sure this is the right decision?" remind yourself of two things:  they probably actually do mean well, and they do not determine your happiness. You do.
So, if someone feels the right to question you on something that makes you happy, then ask yourself if you are truly happy. My guess is that most people do not know the difference between forced and true happiness, until they have had an event or period in their life where they can look back and realize that their happiness was forced. Also, the ones who are asking may also have never felt true happiness. I am not saying their concern is unjustified; just know that true happiness is more rare than we give it credit. Look at anyone's facebook page for proof of this. How many times do we see someone smiling in a single photograph, but we know the history behind the smile plastered on his or her face? We are all guilty of it.

I am truly happy. I have work to do, decisions to make, and will always have the typical stressors in my life like never-ending bills, but I do know the difference between truly happy and manufacturing something I want people to see. Happiness is relatively easy, and when you have to work at it, you enjoy working at it. Happiness feels relieving, peaceful, and genuine. Forced happiness feels more like a balance sheet, where we take stock of our problems and our good qualities, and justify having 50.00001% good in our lives.

When I get questioned about me being happy, especially regarding my relationship, the questions are pretty typical:  How can you be in love with someone almost twelve years younger than you? But...what about his kids...have you thought about that? Are you sure you want to get married after how the last marriage ended? Do you really think a year is long enough before you know if you want to be with him? Don't you think you should live together first? How do you know he is not after your money? You know that his ex-wife and mother are part of the package, right?

Because when you are truly happy, you know the difference. Of course there are always compromises, negotiations, details to work out. But another major component of happiness is the ability to communicate, and the two concepts (communication and happiness) are absolutely intrinsically related. There is an incredible amount of contentment that comes with knowing I can say anything at all to him, and there will be a discussion but no irrational yelling or accusing. We talk. A lot. About a lot of different sides of the same issue. And we figure out what is worth continuing and what is worth dropping as a two-person unit.

With regard to all of the questions above, my response in my head (and sometimes out of my mouth) is, "Why does it matter to you?" Otherwise, it is not really anyone's business. If I say I am happy, and I seem happy, and most importantly, if you can tell the difference in how I am when I'm happy and how I am when I'm not, then just wish the best and move on. And I will wish the best for you, whether or not I understand it.

Sometimes I fail at that. But I try. Because everyone...everyone...should find happiness, no matter what.