What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger

Ah, yes, I'm jamming to America's first Idol, Kelly Clarkson.  Not a huge fan but this song is just resonates with me right now.  It's got a good beat, I can dance to it and best of all, it speaks the words of my heart right now.  I don't know what's going to come from all of this but blogging was my on my to-do list and thus, a-blogging I will go.
This whole surgery thing has finally got to me.  I didn't want to be that person - I wanted to be tough, like "Look at her getting around."  And to an extent, that was the case.  I was up and about with my pimp cane after spinal fusion way before I should have been.  Now folks, that ain't strength, that's called being blessed.  After a week or so, my hand started to hurt and I noticed on the palm of my left hand there was a  lump growing rather quickly.  All sorts of speculation, zombie? Forgotten twin? Upon real medical opinion ganglion cyst/benign tumor.  Fairly common, no real concern, let's get's this guy out before I return to work.  Heck, I could handle it, right?  I'm tough!  But included in the hand was a nice little surprise- a blood clot.  Scary because we have a genetic factor that allows our bodies to form clots for no reason.  After Hannah was born, my dad had some weird back pain, went to the doctor, and they rushed him downtown with a double pulmonary embolism.  We had a late miscarriage before Hannah and they believe a blood clot was the cause.  After I was done birthing my babies, I just kind of forgot about it.  There's all these rules and it's all complicated and if you read any of my other blogs you know life was ready to become real complicated.
Today I just decided I had it.  I wasn't leaving the house if I didn't want to.  I would stay in pajamas (shower and change) but stay inside in my pajamas.  I refused to call the hematologist - because that would be medical visit number five and because an innocuous doctor visit turns into some complication.  Including the removal of my dressing, all the pretty stitches are falling out and that just doesn't look right.
I just couldn't take it anymore - and then the floodgates opened.  Tears of pain, anxiety, sorrow for pain I'd caused my family.  I know my life isn't bad - but boy, it hurt today.
So what turned it around?  Strange stuff but I busted my laptop open to check my work email due to....well due to a long story.  Anyways, I thought, this is not for the weak - I need to activate Spotify immediately.  And up popped my girl-gal Kelly Clarkson and her first track from her new album.  And I thought, darn, this woman be smart! None of this has killed me, so I must be getting stronger!  Am I healed? No....but you know what, I'm leaving the house tomorrow in regular clothes.  I'm back in pajamas but they're clean and it's after 9:00.  I'm enjoying some of my old favorites on Spotify: Indigo Girls.  And I'm calm.....and stronger.

You is kind. You is smart. You is important.

So I plagiarize - we all know it's from The Help, right?  If not, get thee out and read or see it!  Anyways, without going into the story too much because this train will get derailed rather quickly ~  "The Help" refers to the Southern African American maids during the 60's and the varying relationships amongst them.  One of the young girls who wants to shake things up decides to write a book about "The Help" and thus the story is born.
My title is a quote that one of the maids drums into one of the the white toddlers heads that she is responsible for out of fear that her unloving mother will never teach her child those all important words.
I guess though, for me, I saw more into that quote.  Kind of related it to the whole "Pay it forward" concept - another book/movie combo.
I asked myself - aren't these related? If you is kind, if you is smart and if you is important than you're sure as ants on a log going to pay it forward, right?  However, I've discovered this isn't true.
And here's where I enter a disclaimer, only because a close friend who also blogs seems to have had her hand slapped based on something she put in her blog.  These blogs are not about you!  They are a vehicle to express oneself.  Unless I put your name in this blog and call you out - keep your shackles down.  If you feel I'm speaking to you and it brings out anger - don't read anymore, delete me as your friend or check yourself and move forward.
Alrighty then, back to our regularly scheduled program.  Kind + smart + important = pay it forward?  Nope.  Now what I see is smart = important and charity is something we so when people are looking.  Harsh words.  They apply to me too ~ don't worry.  Kindness and paying it forward are concepts that are easily forgotten.  We desire to move up the corporate ladder, we make impulsive decisions not realizing the ramifications of what we've done, we are focused on the task at hand.  Life is hard, it's busy, it's stressful.  Where went the simplicity of it all?  And whose job is to bring it back?
Well, I will tell you whose job it is ~ it's ours!  By paying it forward (always) we are teaching our children that they are kind, they are smart and heck, they're important.  But by giving, not only are we teaching our children, we're teaching everyone.  Life really is simple, friends.  (Which is a topic made for another day) But I encourage you to spend some time paying it forward.  Someone makes you dinner - return their dish with another meal (or a gift card), a friend makes a comment that just hits you in the right spot - tell them.  Don't walk away and assume they know.You seen someone you don't really care for struggling, paint that smile on and ask what you can do to help.  Greet people by name when you can.  Smile even when it feels like you want to punch everyone in the throat.  If the only way you can reach someone is to facebook or text, then do it.
Please continue to be the kind, smart, and important person I know you can be!

A little about your sweet friend Laura

Why blog?  Do I have anything truly interesting to share?  Any skills people can apple to their jobs a la all of the teaching blogs I am addicted to?  Do I have the ability to write - that kind of writing that sucks you in and even after you're done reading, you find yourself pondering how that writing has changed your outlook, your day, your LIFE?  Nope, I've got none of those skills.  Plain and simple, I've created a blog because the television remote fell off the table and in my temporarily handicapped state - I can't reach the darn thing.  Is that the only reason I created this blog ~ truly, no.  I've always loved to write.  Things I wrote in college always were well-received by those pretentious, granola-type, bizarre story-writing professors.  Additionally, anyone who knows me, and now is the time y'all start shaking your heads, knows I spend way too much time inside my own brain.  Finally, after five or six years of life-changing events, the time has come to vomit any and everything that causes me pain.  For those of you who have known me, these events aren't new, my perspective hasn't changed ~ however, I can assure you of two things:  1)all names have been changed to protect the innocent (or not so innocent) and 2) I will not always uses proper punctuation.

So today, oh captive audience, I'm going to give you a brief overview of me.  Waste of time....but I need to start somewhere.  Oh, and you're really not captive so if you don't want to read it - take a hike :)

I'm a simple gal - love puppies, long walks on the beach, children, chocolate, and God (not necessarily in that order)  My God has saved my live countless times and even now as I type this, I feel myself crying.  It is only through Him that anything I've done that's good, cool, rad or awesome has ever been done.  I've been blessed with my soulmate, who is sometimes my hatemate, but will be my forever knight in shining armor.   I also was gifted with two of the most beautiful, creative, intelligent, strong girls that are more than I ever prayed for.  In addition, I have two of the most amazing parents in the world ~ parents who survived the loss of a child way too early(more on that later) and made themselves better people for it.   I teach ~ because I love children.  I love their minds, their smiles, their belief that anything can be fixed with a band-aid or a hug.  I love pretty much everyone despise people who make comments about teachers getting summers off, and any other anti-education political rhetoric IN SPITE OF THE FACT THAT THEY HAVE NEVER SET FOOT IN A CLASSROOM AS AN EDUCATED ADULT.  I  believe in the power of change, that nothing is impossible ~ rather there are impossible people.  I never doubt the power of a smile, a hug and will never leave someone I care about without telling them I love them.  I know too well you may never get the chance to say it again.

I think people are too busy doing what they don't like and not busy enough doing things that make a difference.

In the last six (?) years I lost my only brother, who by that point had become one of my very best friends and I truly believe I will never find another like him.  My favorite, close to the end, memory of him was when he took my oldest who was three at the time to see Robots (the movie).  As the three of us walked out, he carried my sweet baby because in his words, "There were puddles and she was princess and should not ever get her feet wet."  At that moment, I knew my brother would make some woman the happiest person in the world.  Sadly, he never got the chance.  On May 12, 2005, my parents were on vacation and he was watching their dog.  We spoke briefly on the phone ~ just to check in and make sure everything was going well.  At the end of the conversation, I told him I loved him (I believed in never forgetting to say I love you even then.)  He usually grunted in response.  After all, he was a thirty year old man.  Instead, that evening, he said, "You know what Laura, I love you too."  The next day, he died at his desk of dilated cardiomyopathy.  He was so loved by his co-workers that is took three EMS to pull his friend off once they realized it was too late for lifesaving efforts.  Those same co-workers waited for me at the hospital, as I had to identify his body.  Those same co-workers stood with me as I called my parents to tell them something a child should never have to tell their parents.  They stood by me as my father screamed that he had lost his best friend.  At that point some of my co-workers had arrived and didn't wait to be told what to do - they just did.  They watched my babies, they brought food, they helped with funeral arrangements.  

This is an event that has made me ever-resentful.  When friends have these ridiculous fights with their siblings and don't speak for days, weeks, months, years.  This is an event that has made me ever-jealous (against everything in me) because holidays suck.  They just do.  But most of all, this is an event that has made me realize that some of the best things in life are short-lived and you better take everything you can from those moments because you may never get them back.  

I guess the best way to end this entry is to tell you that my brother loved God.  His favorite place to be with God was a creek near our childhood house.  (Of course, he also got in trouble for riding a wooden raft he lit on fire down that same creek - boys will be boys I guess.)  He found biblical parallels in Star Wars long before anyone got past their Ewok Village.  So I know I'm blessed in spite of losing him because I know I WILL see him again.  And somehow, I know he's going to say "Hey Laura, wait until I show you how amazing it is here."