Gander

For someone who has for over 30 years thrived on conflict, I have found in the last few years that when I feel angry or sad or scared, that reading just a few pages in a Buddhist book makes me automatically see things in a better light. I have no idea why, but it does, every time. I instantly become nicer to everybody around me, if even just for the rest of the day.

I smile at somebody random on the street corner.
I let 4 cars go in front of me leaving the pick up line at school.I see the humor in the ketchup/salsa stained shirt Bec has on that looks like he just ate a kitten.

I don't know why, but just reading kind words works for me. Something else works for you. Somebody else was born being nice to everybody and never says a bad word about anybody.

I have yet to meet that person.

She may not exist.

I am not Buddhist, but I try to follow a Buddhist philosophy. I am thankful that I have discovered an outlook on life that makes sense to me and helps me be a better person.

I used to be defensive when people questioned me on religion. Recently though, it has failed to really get my gander up. You do whatever you need to do to live your life as a decent human and I'll do the same.

Wonderful Imperfection

I truly wish I found it easier to look at each new day as an adventure rather than a chore. Who really wants to look back at their life and realize that it all just seemed like work? I don't want to feel like this but I do.

I know I will regret the day when all my kids are grown and gone (which will still be forever, I know). When I look at Jack now with his pride over his three armpit hairs and think to myself that in a just a few years he'll be graduating from high school, I want to hug him and hold his hand and tell him that when he was a baby, we babied him just as we are doing Maeve.

No one but me and my good friend, Marzi, will ever take notice if my floors are unswept. Who gives a you-know-what that my neighbors can see the Lookout Mountain sized laundry pile growing on the couch?

I want to make a better effort to make eye contact with my kids regardless of my exhaustion level, so they will be sure I am actually listening to them. If they grow up feeling that they got shafted because I selfishly wanted five kids, I think my heart my break.

I realize I am harder on myself than anyone else could ever be. I can't be the "perfect" mother. No mother is. Everbody's baby shoots a mustard cannon up the back at some point.

I'm thinking that maybe being a perfect mother means striving to be imperfect.

Tie One On McClendon

I realized this weekend that I am Ole. That's what my Uncle June used to call Old. I was a little kid but I believe he meant that Ole was older than Old. And Ole is what I feel like. I went to a bar with Heather "tie one on" McClendon on Saturday night to drink for disaster relief. She is from Ringgold and a downtown pub pledged to give part of it's proceeds to benefit Ringgold tornado victims. I love to drink for a good cause, you know.

So, Heather was hell-bent to tie one on and she took me down with her. But let me tell you, I now hate bars. I cannot believe I am saying that, but this ole party-girl is just that, Ole. The smoke. The friggin'-A loud music. I have enough loudness in my life with the kids to want to go have my eardrums blow up.

So, I think the next day-Mother's Day-that I am ole, and a tad hungover, that I am okay being ole. I am GLAD to be Ole. I would much rather sit in the yard drinking a Newcastle (which is less than $6 bucks a pop) and be able to watch the offspring and hear my friends rather than wake up with smoky-black boogers the next day.