Yesterday was a trying time for me, in more ways than one. But at the end of the day, I spent it with my children whom I hadn't seen in a week (not my choice).

My youngest was her usual mean self, very distant, very nasty, very disrespectful in a humorous, doubting kind of way (just like her dad). It is like you don't know if they are being vicious or not...

She tried several times yesterday to get out of staying with me but I wouldn't budge. After dinner we had to take her sister to cheerleading practice. I took them, and told her we would do something together while the oldest was at practice. She would have no part of it, because her dad was coming to practice to drop something off.

As her dad came, she wouldn't leave him...and I was getting frustrated..not angry but just plain frustrated. Why did I have to continue to beg the people I love to be around me?

I told her 'let's go' and I walked to the car...she wasn't behind me. I waited and waited in the car, the whole time talking myself 'out of just leaving them there'. I wanted to leave and make a statement and just leave them there. Fine if you don't want to be with me fine, don't.

I talked myself out of it, and got out of the car, and walked over to her and her dad. Hey, 'let's go', I said. She didn't say anything just continued to 'love on' her dad.

I went back to my car and waited...talking to myself...'don't leave it will be worse'. 'What would BFF do?'...contemplating that.

Then I simply walked back to the practice field where her dad was actually leaving her...I looked her right in the eyes and I said "Don't ask me for anything."

Then I proceeded to sit down in the front of the cheerleading squade and the inexperienced team mom's, and watch practice.

She came over to me, her dad had left as I heard him say, 'you brought this upon yourself' and he left her.

She was upset, and was sheding some odd tears (for her). She came over to me and said, "let's go, I'm ready".

I refused to look at her and never spoke one word to her. She kept asking me to if she could do things, 'can I do this', 'can i go here..' but I wouldn't answer her and I expected her to go do it anyways...but she didn't...

She sat herself down next to me and proceeded to try and get my attention, which I knowingly did not give to her.

This lasted the whole practice....

Then when practice was over, I grabbed the oldest and said, 'time to go' and went towards the car...not even looking back where the other one was...

tough love I guess

She got in the car and took them home and I never said a word to her after that. Especially not even eye contact.

The next day I picked up 2 happy beautiful children, speaking very respectful to me. We had an awesome dinner and taught then the value of not getting upset over dinner and 'uncooked food' especially to a waitress who has nothing to do with the 'food'.

My youngest had chicken and it was clearly not cooked well. She asked me hesitantly, 'do you think this is cooked'. I looked and said, 'no it isn't'. I calmly waited for the waitress to come back as she ate the potatoe.

The waitress came and I pleasently said, 'her chicken needs a couple more minutes in the micro, if you don't mind, please.' She immediately apologized and said, I will fix this and bring the manager back...I said, 'oh no need for the manager, that's not necessary, just a microwave will do...LOL'.. ..

My kids looked at me in shock and smiled and said, 'some people would have yelled at her when its not even her fault...' I said, 'I know, it's fine, they'll bring it back cooked.

The manager came back with a whole new plate of food with chicken and another baked potatoe...

I contemplated their comment and remembered....'their dad' is 'some people'... he's so picky and every meal he gets he sends back complaining....they seemed a bit relieved!

I know it won't last forever but I thank God for my 'moments' of being able to just be 'me' with them. My BFF has always told me to teach them 'by example' and his words continue to shine through to me at these very trying moments...when I realize, just DO, no need to 'speak'. That's when they get it the most...when I DO what I tell them to do!

I also thank God for the calm loving times that my children give me when they put their 'walls down'!

God knows how much I despise the walls!

When our 'walls are up' because we have been hurt, they are up for everyone around us. So when ANYONE tries to get in, we won't let them because of the walls. The walls shield us from the pain, but shield us from experiencing any kind of love others are trying to give us. It protects us from the 'whole outside world'....be it good or bad.

Thank you God for helping her to look over her wall where she can at least 'peak at me' and 'see me' and 'feel the love I have for her' no matter how much she tries to hurt me, I love her anyways!

I love her because I love her. How cool that must be to be her. I love her for no other reason, than, she is who she is. No matter who she decides to be, how she decides to act...I will love her...

That's how God love's us. He loves us because he made us...simply that. He loves us. We can screw up, we can yell and treat Him meanly, but no matter what, He loves us. He's the best Dad ever!

I love BFF that way as well. I love him because he is simply BFF. No matter what he chooses to do or be in life, I simply love him. I don't need his love back to love him, I just love him.

To me that is awesome! That truely is unconditional love which I have finally realized I am capable of!!!

Thank you Lord, continue to be with all of us and make us your ever lasting servants of 'love'!

I feel the need to write again, although, I am afraid of experiencing the pain...I'll write anyways...

I have been very busy at work due to the fact that we had a 'death in the family' (Benefits adminsitration) and a 'birth in the family' (payroll had a baby and on maternity leave) not to mention my very demanding job with our customer and to top it all off, we are moving to a new location and I am not only part of the move team, but part of IT as well.

I thrive on the pressure I am experiencing actually, because it has always offered me a chance to be able to show my true abilities that are so very diverse in their capabilities and it offers me an opportunity to demonstrate my 'true need' at my company. It also offers me a sense of 'self' gratification, being able to accomplish so many tasks, not allowing anything to 'fall through the cracks'.

My sense of job security has always been the very situation that I am in right now, and the people who it matters to the most, are the only ones who are witnessing it right now, and that's ok. It does remind me of the reasons these same people stick up for me now continually where others just don't realize my value, because they haven't been able to experience it. So in many ways, it is helping me achieve a level of success I haven't been able to experience since the last 'crisis'. It has also provided to me a sense of 'proof' of my 'self worth' to a company I have been so dedicated to since I started working for it.

That is part of my background of what is going on right now. The painfull part I need to talk about right now, despite my reservations due to its pain, is my children.

My children try to come up with every excuse in the book not to 'exercise my right to visitation' with them. I have always believed that their dad had a serious hand in them calling me not wanting to come with me, but over the last few weeks I have wondered and contemplated, how much of that IS really their feeling?

I decided to 'test' it, as any other 'woman' would, and play a game of 'let's see if you really care about me, or do you really not...'

I was suppose to see my kids last night and after the weekend I had with them, one of them trying her hardest not to come with me, I was exhausted and not up for the 'fight' when my oldest daughter called to ask for me not to come and get them....

I had so much work to do, I could just stay at work, so I decided not to argue and just 'grant her the wish' she so strategically implemented. But then I had to go home....

It was ok to deal with that moment and stay at work, but eventually I had to go home...even though I did everything I could not to go there too soon....3:00am would have been too soon because I hate facing that reality of going home to no one waiting for me and wanting me there...

One thing I can say about marriage is that someone is always home 'waiting for you to come there'....for some reason or another... In my life, no one waits for me, I just continue to wait.

Anyways, that was yesterday...then today...I felt an immature need to retaliate...FINE, (typical torn woman vocabulary), FINE, if you don't want to be with me, then I won't want to see you either....

So I called my children today, still very busy at work...and talked to my oldest only 1/2 hour before I was to pick them up, and told her for the first time...."I'm not coming to get you tonight"!!!
I thought.."There, how do YOU like it!"

But then, as usuall, it didn't go my way...and my daughter said to me in a very monitone voice, "OK". I said, "OK, talk to you later" and then instead of asking me any question showing concern or anything she just simply said, "OK", a second time, and we hung up. Not even an "I love you" from her, and she is the one that at least says it to me!!

Oh, well, 'OK, then!' I played my game and it hurt me. Probably why I avoid playing games altogether...I guess I just thought for once, for one time they would argue to WANT to be with me.

I give them everything when I am with them. Everything! All my heart, all my love, all my money can afford to them that they want...all my time and attention when they are with me, all my effort in my thoughts to help them, in my thoughts to 'do for them', countless counseling sessions for me to continue to overlook their disrespectfull behavior and continue to not hold them 'personally' responisble for their own actions they put upon me...because when the day is over...it really was ME, I really am the one that put us ALL in this situation and I guess I am receiving the consequences to my selfish behavior that I expressed YEARS before.

I am here to ask the world...when do I stop paying the price for choosing my own happiness and stability and leaving MY HUSBAND (NOT my CHILDREN)...when will my punishment be over???

I guess it will never 'really' be over, until my children have either experienced what I have and eventually come to 'understand it', or until their father offers his hand in order to make 'peace'! NOT!!!! LOL (I am a comedian my nature obviously..)

God give me strength not to give up, becuase I am ready to, it's too hard to continue and continue with very little satisfaction 'in between' the gunshots!!!!

But it's even harder not to continue...

I met with Polyanna tonight. She really is such a delight!
I know sometimes she doesn't want me to leave, but sometimes, I don't want to leave either.

I built up a lot of memories over the last week. I do believe life it about a lot of things, but one of them, is building memories. Those that last long after we are gone from this earth.

I attended a funeral mass this morning for a co-worker, who over the years, had become a very natural existence in my every work day life. Today, after the mass, I went to work and realized she wouldn't be back. I passed by the copy machine and encountered a memory...

I was about to go on vacation and we needed to wrap up somethings before I left. I had tried to meet with her earlier that day, but her job and mine, kept us both busy. She apologized to me at the end of the day for not getting to me. It didn't bother me at all, because I was just as busy. We ended up standing at the copy machine, and I didn't know at the time why, but I know now, that my moment with her at the copy machine would prove to be very significant...it was the last time we actually 'worked' together.

That was 7 weeks ago...

I went on vacation and while I was gone, she had a pain in her back. She felt it was from pulling something from moving things at her mother's house. Her mother passed away in April. After getting test after test done, she ended up in the hospital, trying to figure it all out.

By the time I was back from vacation for a week, they figured it out it was cancer.

She passed away 6 weeks later, and although I did get to see her while she was ill, I never did quite see her the way I did that day at the copy machine, healthy and very much alive. As I visited her after that, she looked like a dying woman with cancer.

I went on vacation again for my second month of vacation with my children, and while I was away, she died.

I had never witnessed before anyone failing illness so fast and her attitude changed as her diagnoses became more fatal. Her attitude changed though, with acceptance. She accepted her illness as her fate, and died willingly giving herself to God. She told a priest who had visited her for her last rights, that she was not afraid to die and had accepted her destination, and that she knew that her mother had prepared the way for her and that she would be there ready to greet her. This gave her much comfort and peace.

It really does take an exceptional person to do that and mean it. As she was. I know some difficulty we had over this past year, must have been contributed to what was going on with her physically. It was obvious to me that something was different about her, not actually being her 'self'. I thought it was the change of life...perhaps it was the 'change of life', but the change from this life to the next!

At her mass today during the eulogy, it was said that she was the definition of love. So they stated the definition of love: to be totally giving of oneself without any expectation of anything in return.

Part of life is death. Part of those that are left behind to deal with the death, to me, is a reminder to us all of our immortality. So I pondered...if I die tomorrow...had I loved according to the definition? What would they say about me when I passed?? Would they be at a loss for words...or would they actually have something worth saying about me? Did I love?

I thought...well...

I try to do that always, and know that I am capable of loving someone that way because I do that now. I love without expectation...I love because I love them. Regardless of what is brought forth upon me, I still love. My children don't always cooperate and show love, but I love them anyways. The situation I am in, is not always ideal, but I love anyways, because plain and simply I love them.

One of the things I received from Eevee's eulogy was that she always said, "get over it". I recognized this about her. It was true, she did say that, even to me. The last sentences that her children asked was that we remember their mother for 3 things....

1. get over it
2. teach by example
3. love without expecting reward

God Bless you Eevee and may your soul rest in peace and may perpetual light shine upon you!

These last couple days have been a strange walk down my own personal life's path. I ran into several people from my past and usually I would wonder, 'am I dying soon', but today I wonder, 'what is God trying to communicate to me'.

He is spelling it out so simply. For some reason, again, He wants me to examine my past. But why? I wonder, why does he want me to examine my past?

As my BFF would point out to me, 'you can learn so much from history'.....perhaps he is right, [as usual].

Maybe God wants me to learn something from what I've experienced the last couple of days...

I met up with a friend from high school who contacted me through classmates.com. It appears, in my reunion case anyways, that the only way you will know about our reunion is through classmates.com.

Anyways, I met up with him yesterday at a local pub near our old school. It was so very nice to see him again. I was curious to see if his long, 'ramones' style hair had turn to boldness, or just cut short...or even remained long. I was happy to see that he still had his hair, just cut much shorter.

Anyways, our brief encounter left me feeling a bit miss-balanced between what was 'then' and what is 'now'. My friend and I were always just friends, so that is not what I mean at all, but my miss-balance was from how long ago it 'was', and what exactly had 'changed' in myself, and what was still the same. I got the feeling he was struggling with the same concept, although we didn't mention it.

I believe this is what God is trying to teach me. Learning from history sort of thing...but also...seeing the progress from it.

When we walk and work through life, it is difficult to see our own progress....but when we see people we haven't seen in 20 years...yes 20 years...it is very evident from both sides, what has progressed forward and what is still there.

From viewing my friends growth, it was easy for me to see from my end. Leaving him at graduation so to speak, then 20 years goes by, and listening to what happened to him after it. I struggled during the whole time I was 'listening to him' to actually see 'my friend', the one I hadn't seen for 20 years....I kept looking for 'him'. Where was he? Then I realized, he had 'grown up'!

Funny, he was still there, but in a much more mature fashion. He was still the person I knew back then, but after accomplishing much growth! I was so glad for his sake that he become someone that had experienced 'growth'. So many of his own personal friends that I knew he commented on, 'still the same', 'never grew up'...still struggling with the same old addictions, the same old mind set that we had back then.

I always reached out to the quiet ones in school. Trying to get them to talk. If no one else could get them to talk, I remember feeling it was my mission to get them to talk. As I witnessed 20 years pass us by, I saw a man come from the boy I knew. He was talking very openly...He mentioned how there were very few people back then he would open up to, and I did remember that...but he was different now. He was talking and trying to get 'me' to talk this time...I was more reluctant to respond! Why, I don't really know... perhaps I thought it was because I should have become someone I didn't become.

I was nominated and in the running for 'most likely to succeed'. I remember being in the running for this title and I wanted it so much. I didn't win in the end...and I was thinking now...did I own up to the expectations of my clas...had I become 'successfull?'

I guess if you consider I hadn't jumped into a moving train, or off my balcony or ramed my car into a telephone pole, that I was successfull, because I survived life's dissappointments.

I am tired of surviving...my whole life has been that of survival...why can't I just be, and not survive it...why can't I just have it?

I remembered him cheating on my paper in English, but I didn't remember him getting honors in Geometry because I wasn't in his class. I remembered him getting high in the morning, but I never saw him struggling every morning with his friend [whom I knew] from his sczhophrenia every weekend. There is so much we think we know, and so much that goes unseen.

I know that of me. My fellow classmates have no idea what struggles I had when I was in high school. I had quite challenging moments in my house with my parents, things I dealt with 'after school'. Things that made me grow up before I was expected to.

What I did learn from talking to him and remembering 'me', was that if you 'deal' with those issues, if you go 'through' the issues, they no longer become issues.

His issues and mine, although painful, have been dealt with. Both of us are stronger for having dealt with the issues and gone through the trauma....but we went 'through' it after we last saw each other.

So was I so different to him from the inside?? I don't really know. I know from the outside, he told me 'time had been good to me'. I looked the same since I left school. But as I told my girlfriend...yeah, but he didn't see me through those 20 years...we dyed my hair, black, platinum, blonde highlights, short, super short and now it is no longer dyed and all natural long brown hair....just like I left school. I told her, if I go to my reunion they'll think I kept this hair style for the last 20 years, not knowing all the transformations it went through...

After I made that statement to her it occurred to me...maybe that is what God is telling me. I have made so many transformations on the inside, though on the surface, I am still the same old ME. I was kind and loving and giving back then, and I am still that today... If you read my 9th grade book, it would read: "To a really sweet and super pretty and smart girl, let's just say you have a lot going for you! Stay the way you are!" I read over that book, and for the most part they all said the same thing, I was smart, I had a great smile, I was fun, I was loveable....I am loveable???? If people were telling me that since the 9th grade, and they are still saying that...why can't I believe it??? I should believe it by now don't you think? I have alot going for me....I did then and I do now! I do now!

I'm glad most people from my past remember my smile and my heart as they all say...those have not changed...perhaps, my smile is just brighter and my heart is just bigger than it use to be knowing what I know now!

I am thankful God gave me a trip down my life road...and the most memorable moment, was my DeJaVu I had with my BFF today. So I guess God is telling me something...I came from somewhere and I am going somewhere...and ALL of it I am suppose to do...I know it because I had a DEJAVU!

Past or Present...it's all a gift to me! Thank You God!