Easier Than Staying Home

Well, I started my new job today. Although I appreciate the great mother's hours that will not threaten to disrupt the family, I cannot impress enough how absolutely bored I was all day. Technically I am supposed to be managing the front office, but after 1/2 hour of organizing the office and preparing the files for the day, I was done. I mean completely done. I spent the rest of the time getting to know patients and literally snooping around the office looking for something to fix or do. Everytime my boss came into the room (which was often) I felt enormously guilty for doing nothing. The weirdest thing was that my boss was thrilled at my so-called help -- I'm not really sure what that was, but OK.

My Thoughts

I've been thinking lately about community. I grew up in New England where the norm is to live your life separately from those around you. Now as a new "southener" I feel like I am more able to be the social person I was created to be. I've always felt that whomever has been placed into my tiny sphere of this earth is someone that God wants me to reach out to. As a result of that philosophy I have made semi-friendships with people that I normally would not be comfortable with. And although I realize that there needs to be a separation of God's children so that we do not become like the world, I fully envelop the idea that we are in the world to reach out to it.

This morning in church the message was about letting the holy spirit enable you to reach out -- to befriend the "gentiles" as the preacher put it - to allow ourselves to be stretched out of our small group of comfortable friendships and actually allow God to penetrate beyond. I've been really disturbed by this separation that we have created. It seems that so often the people who do not profess to be religious are so much more friendly and fun to be around than those of us who say we are Christians. We have become competitive and critical within our little group to the point that when an outsider looks at us, they truly think that our exclusivity is undesirable. Isn't the entire point of our life on earth to guide those around us to this wonderful thing that we have? Or is it some country club where only the elite belong and occasionally we allow a stranger or two in if they don't disrupt our comfortable vibe?

And though I need to work on being more assertive, to protect my family and to say "no" when appropriate, I refuse to embrace my upbringing to be hermit-like. I truly want to make a difference in this world and I believe I do not need to travel half-way across the world to do it. Sometimes it takes watching someone's children when it's inconvenient, bringing cookies to the grumpy always-miserable neighbors (which I have been inspired to do), and smiling to create a friendly environment no matter where I am. Call me an idealist, but I'm still under the impression that people can change.

Ambush

Oh forgot to mention that not only did the ex-neighbor ambush me with the kids, she also deposited several large trash bags of clothing directly in front of the door. You see, the neighbor girls are 14, 13 and 12 years old and when they grow out of their clothes they tend to hand them off to me. On occasion I'll keep an item or two and then drop the rest off at the local goodwill. Anyway, I was trying on a pair of shorts this morning that would be cute on a 12 year old but definitely not for a 30 something with 3 kids kind of woman and amazingly enough I discovered a dollar in the pocket! So I'm not sure if I should be annoyed that they handed off clothes that they didn't even have the decency to wash first or that I should be elated that I received some kind of indirect compensation -- not enough to erase my annoyance however.

Good News/Bad News

So the good news is that I feel tons better, but here's the bad news: when I was sick I avoided the phone as I previously noted. However, my ex-neighbor was scared that they could not get ahold of me and decided to just show up yesterday. Of course, the well-wishes were short-lived as she came in, stated that I need to answer my phone and "oh yeah, I need you to watch the kids today so I can get something done at the house." Well, I'm generally very accomodating, but this time I was on the verge of protest when she simply flew out of the house leaving 5 running-screaming-arguing kids at my disposal. (This is in addition to my own 3)

I guess the lesson in all this is either answer my phone regularly or make sure I'm out of the house when I've chosen to ignore it for a period of time.

No Expectations

Since I have spent more than half this day toting around an empty trash bin in the event I start unmercifully dry heaving again, I am informing everyone that I will not be doing any of the following today:

* Brushing my hair
* Scooping the cat litter
* Housework of any kind
* Babysitting any other people's kids
* Answering the phone -- and for goodness sake, if you are one of the people who are ringing me every 6 minutes, I beg of you: please stop immediately. In the event that you are calling to tell me you are coming over to whisk away my children so I can rest peacefully for an entire hour, then you are more than welcome to simply show up!

What to do?

This morning I was stopped at a red light while I observed a woman having what looked like a nervous breakdown. She was jumping up and down, waving arms wildly about and screaming so loudly I could hear her rants above my fully blowing car ac with my windows closed tight. The oddest thing was that there was not another soul in sight nearby her and she was definitely not on the phone. It was disturbing but slightly entertaining, and I even considered pulling in to see if I could be of any help. Of course, my old New England "don't get involved" ways kicked in and I sped away as soon as my light turned green. Now however, I feel somewhat guilty...maybe I could have at least helped this woman preserve a small sliver of her dignity or maybe she was in desperate need of someone to show that they care. So once again I'm feeling that "should have done something" guilt. Oh well -- too late now.

Psych 101

Well, it's that time again. You know, the time when my parents have finally pulled out of the driveway after a visit and I finally feel like I can let out my breath again. Let's see, this time the food actually was not the big issue amazingly enough. No, this time was filled with other frustrations that were far too similar to my childhood than I care to remember.

Between arriving 21 hours late (yes that's almost a complete day late) with my oldest son in tow to ruining my cousin's life, I am all too happy to see this time come to an end.

Let me explain: first there was a lot of bickering between grandparents as to who could have my son when he was visiting the north. The entire time, gagknee & I were plagued with angry grammys spouting that they were the only good influence and that they deserved to have him rather than share him. However we finally convinced my parents to actually return my son after I threatened to make the trip up myself. Of course, every excuse came out of the book when they actually got on the road and, even though some of them sounded slightly convincing, I am not swayed from my understanding that the delayed arrival was simply because my mother was not happy about me asserting my parental rights about returning my child.

Anyway, the second incident came only a few hours after arrival when my mother indirectly "shared" some juicy family gossip that has been kept secret for 38 years thereby destroying my cousin's emotional state and beginning an avalanche of problems that will not be quickly fixed. To make it worse, since this happened my mother has been insistent on rationalizing what she said to the point of blaming the whole thing on everyone except herself.

So truly this has been a trying weekend that I'm more than happy to be over with. Oh and I just found a bag full of stuff that I am convinced I threw away yesterday. Just another one of my mother's specialties: picking stuff out of the trash bin...