Naomi's Tiara

I have been captivated by…..........wait for it…Facebook, or crackbook as it has come to be called in some circles. At the ripe age of 52, I find myself checking FB on a pretty regular basis. It started out innocently enough. One of my younger colleagues talked me into putting on a Facebook page a little over a year ago. I posted some family photos and a bit of info about myself but that was pretty much it. My colleague was my only FB friend and how much can you share when you spend 8 hours a day together anyway and you are old enough to be her mother? I checked it maybe twice in the first year that I had it. Then suddenly, at the beginning of January, I started getting “friend” notices in my email for FB. Old friends whom I rarely spoke with had joined the FB community and found me. Now I have 66 friends, more than I have ever had in “real” life and it keeps me busy, let me tell ya.

In one way, I feel kind of like a voyeur, peeping into people’s lives and seeing what they’re up to at any given moment in time. They don’t even have to know I’m checking. And yet, these folks are offering it up, as am I. On the other hand, I am finding a sweet and gentle connection to people who may have just as easily dropped from my life forever never to be heard from again otherwise. I’m thankful for these connections and privileged that they choose to call me a FB friend. I’m also thankful for the opportunity to catch up with the children of my old friends, another significant aspect of FB. Some I knew from church years ago, and others are children of friends that I maintain infrequent contact with, and still others that are nieces and nephews that I barely ever talk to. Before FB, I would hear bits and pieces of their comings and goings, accomplishments and growth. Now, many are my FB friends, a dubious distinction for them – a delight for me. I hear what they’re doing, see their pictures, and converse with them on a limited basis – I don’t want to make a middle-age pest of myself.

I thought about this today after reading a particularly beautiful posting by the daughter of one of my dearest old friends. She contacted me to be a FB friend a few weeks ago which really pleased me. I am a little reticent of asking the younger ones to be FB buddies because I have heard they don’t like the dinosaurs invading their FB space, so I was honored to have her choose me. I haven’t spent much time with this beautiful child in the past 15 or so years. Although my friendship with her mom continues, it is remote because of distance, schedules and interests. I was at the hospital the night this child was born and our tight group of friends spent much time together when she was little. Then, our group began to dissolve with family, children and responsibility taking the forefront of our lives and sending us in separate directions.

You never think when you are young that this will happen with your group of buddies. You see yourselves as forever together, growing old, doing the things you have always done together. Maybe that happens sometimes – I don’t know. I doubt it. Life has a way of altering your plans for you. That is why the FB post put on by my dear friend’s daughter really got me. She talks about sometimes wanting to be a little girl again, and about sometimes…being one. We have all felt that way at one time or another. Her words ring true for childhood, friendships, family and dreams. This is Naomi’s post:

Oh, To Be a Little Girl Again!

"It's a beautiful day today...the sky is blue, spring is in the air, and the sun is shining brightly. I love my "grown up" life immensely--the busy flurry I run around in, the feats I accomplish, the endless striving for success, pushing myself to be better, learning new things, and taking care of business. But sometimes I stop in the midst of my whirl of adulthood and wish with all my heart that I could go back to being a little girl, blissfully ignorant of all the cares of the world, caring only that the sky was blue, the flowers plentiful, and the butterflies light and airy. I miss having the freedom to wear a tiara, to change my clothes six times a day, to splash in puddles, and to sing loudly and badly any little song in my heart. I wish I had more time to explore the woods, to gaze at the clouds, to soak in the moonlight, to twirl in the rays of sunshine. At heart, this is what I am. A little girl. And yes, I still sing the song in my heart, twirl in the sun, stare at the moon, and wear tiaras from time to time. I love my life, this balance of childhood and adulthood. I can't wait to have my own little girls---I'll have a legitimate excuse to giggle all the time!! :)' ~Naomi

To all my friends, FB friends, and family: I love you.

STOP

Yesterday was Valentine’s day. You know – that popular holiday typified by large red hearts, ridiculously expensive gifts and cards, chocolate and all the other frills that can go along with it. But yesterday, the big red heart was replaced by a big red STOP sign in my head. Valentine’s day really doesn’t have much to do with today’s post unless you count the entire box of chocolates I ate yesterday, the effects of which I am still reeling from. STOP could have aptly been applied there. This post just took form on Valentine’s day.

I’ve been feeling overwhelmed lately. I can’t point to any one thing specifically. There seems to be a hodgepodge of circumstances, thoughts and emotions that are roiling around in my mind, making me feel slightly off center. I’m currently going through menopause so I could probably explain away about 90 percent of the crazy with that if I wanted to. But I don’t want to. Sure, I have rapid cycling hot flashes and mood swings that are probably terrifying to those with weaker constitutions, but that's just too easy. I will not be so easily dismissed. I will not go "gently into that dark night” without having my say and making a little commotion as it were.

Now I happen to be fortunate enough to have married a man whom I suppose is a perfect balance for me. While I struggle to remain positive, having been brought up in a pretty negative environment, he remains positive at almost all times. That really is a good thing because Tim, aka Pollyanna, often reminds me to look at the sunny side of life when he sees me spiraling. For this I am very thankful. For this I am also at times annoyed. Sometimes, his "turn that frown upside down" attitude makes me feel even a wee bit irritable.

I’m very busy. Hear me when I say this. I work full time and take care of a home. I pay the bills with a very tight budget, do the grocery shopping, laundry, cook the meals, plan and schedule, birthdays and holidays, shop for said events, troll for jobs in my field…you get the drift, especially if you are a woman reading this. So yesterday, we’re driving to our granddaughter’s basketball game, me and my sweetheart. As I've mentioned, positive thinking is not a natural trait of mine – I really have to work at it and I backslide sometimes. We’re in the car, it’s snowing, we’re late. My honey is driving slower that I would like and slows down even more when he realizes I am staring at the speedometer (he’s a little passive aggressive that way). I forgot to buy candy to take to my little ones for Valentine’s day so we have to stop at the store for that. There’s no windshield washer fluid in my van and there hasn’t been for days so we can’t see out of the windows. In addition, It’s Saturday and I have a laundry list of things that have to be done this weekend just to get us through the next week. You see where this is going right - the inevitable meltdown? It’s all building up inside of me and I open my mouth and say, “I hate being late, we still need windshield washer fluid, I can’t see out the window, I wish I had bought the candy yesterday, stupid drivers! I don't think I even took a breath. My partner responded by rolling his eyes and saying, “that’s right honey, let it all out at once,” in his most acerbic tone. A tiny revolution occurred in my mind at that moment. STOP STOP STOP! Every stop sign I saw was screaming at me. I had tears in my eyes. I had the fight the compulsion to cry for the rest of the day. My sweety never even suspected the mental insurgency that was happening during that ride to the basketball game.

And there it is. We’re all busy. But every woman I know will tell you that women bear the burden of time – or lack of it. And sometimes, we are the ones to blame. We don’t make time for ourselves. I thought it over today. I’ve been on Facebook lately – don’t ask…I’ll save that for another post. I’ve been seeing all of the beautiful youngsters that I knew from birth, all grown up and doing all of these wonderful things. I’m happy for them, I really am. But I'm jealous too. I’m looking at my endless years of childrearing, work, school and my two degrees that seem to mean nothing and wondering where the time went. I feel a sense of urgency that I can’t really explain. It seems that time is short and flying by so quickly. I have so many things that I want to do but not the time or resources to do them and fear that it will all be over before I know it. I love to sing and I’m pretty good. But I didn't do anything with that. I've always wanted to play the piano. I want to go to New York and Italy. I’m artistic and I like to write. I have an inventory that I won’t bore you with people!! I guess we all do. Suffice it to say that there are facets of myself that I don’t know much about and it may be time now for me to check them out.

I started my blog in January with a little post-holiday free time. I enjoy it – I get to say what I think even though I only have an audience of two. I have asked a few of my kids to read the blog and give me opinions but I think I can actually hear their eyes rolling in their heads. I haven’t received one response from them. I realize that they want me to be their mom. They don’t necessarily want to be burdened with the “me” beyond motherhood and grandparenthood. I understand that. I love being a mom and grandmother. But there is more to me and I’m thinking that now is the time time find out what those other parts of me are all about. Some people do that in the teens and 20’s but I was without direction and in the grips of the drug culture in my teens and a mother at the age of 20. Maybe now is my time. I wrote this today when I should be getting household chores done before a meeting that I am attending this afternoon. But the chores will have to wait. I needed to say this. STOP!

I am making a stop sign to remind myself that there is more to life than just our responsibilities. I am reminding myself to delegate more and work a little less. To stop and smell the roses sometimes. To spend a little time getting to know me. When I'm feeling crazy and overwhelmed, it will give me permission to just stop taking care of everyone and everything else and take some time for myself. That other stuff will be there when I'm done.

American Dream

I grew up in a tough neighborhood on the east side of Detroit. We moved there from another Detroit neighborhood in 1960 when I was 4 years old, a result of my parents search for a nicer home and better environment. At the time, the new neighborhood was a lower middle class assortment of Italian and Polish immigrants – mostly Catholic, peppered with a few black families and those like mine; a mixture of a Scottish Irish immigrant mother and a father from the South. It was a fun and interesting amalgamation of ethnicity and cultural traditions that, at the same time, challenged and enveloped the “American dream.” Let me add, the American dream is and remains in a constant state of transition and redefinition.

In a few short years the neighborhood began a tumultuous freefall that started with the entrance of the typical elements of urban sprawl; the drug culture, which introduced crime, which brought in white flight, lower property values and ultimately, the lethal state of urban decay that resulted in whole neighborhoods of empty fields dotted with abandoned and burnt out houses used for drug deals and worse. By the time I was a young teenager the American dream had become a nightmare for those unfortunate enough to call the area home.

I went to Catholic school. St. Ambrose, the church I was baptized in, was a mere two blocks from my home. It lay on the border between Detroit and Grosse Point Park, off of Alter Rd. The elementary school, new at the time, was on the Detroit side of Alter Rd. and the high school was on the Grosse Point side. That Alter Road dividing line literally separated heaven (Grosse Point) and hell (Detroit). I know….real dramatic. But ask anyone who lived on either side and they’ll tell you. The difference in two blocks is as day and night.

School was an assorted mixture of Detroit and Grosse Point kids. It wasn’t a problem unless you considered the way the GP kids dressed, or at least that was the view of my cohorts and I. We had ambiguous opinions on the GP kids and looked down on them amongst ourselves. I'm sure they did the same. By the time we hit 6th or 7th grade, we were pretty much separated into groups by zip code. I don’t know if we understood that. It was never really put into words. It wasn't a bitter rivalry or anything like that. In fact, in school, we all got along okay. We could work on projects with them and make fun of teachers with them. It was outside of school on the grounds and in our groups that the we were separate. We were worlds apart and somehow we knew it although if you had asked us, we would have just said they were snobs, dressed weird and were spoiled rich kids. It was that simple. I guess I don’t really know what they said about us. In fact, I never really thought about it. But to this day, I can spot a Grosse Pointer at 100 yards.

My posse and I came from dysfunctional families to say the least. Each of the five of us had a story, with family issues, reckless conduct, close calls and tragedies. One of us did not survive. The rest have struggled, made gains, had losses, and have lost touch. In recent years, I thought perhaps this is the legacy of the urban landscape but I have come to realize how shortsighted that frame of thought is. To be sure, I have run into GP alum from St. Ambrose who have done exceedingly well, attending elite colleges and landing in well heeled professions. They’ve continued on in the traditions of their families. With time, I’ve overcome my blind prejudice and come to see those as good things, not something to be minimized. I've found that dysfunction knows no class or gender and visits and perpetrates its misery on the haves and have nots alike if conditions are right. But likewise, neither do hopes and dreams belong to one specific group. We all want our children to do better than we did and we hope we can provide that opportunity for them. Those hopes and dreams belong to everyone regardless of zip code. While its true that paucity often times lends itself to sad results down the line, that is not always the case. There are success stories; those who defy the odds and overcome their harsh environment, either through supportive family and friends, sheer determination of will, or, maybe a little of both.

I’m thankful that I survived my youth. It was not an easy time, and there was precious little guidance from anywhere. But I made it. I have raised two children of my own through some pretty hard times but they are both fine upstanding people. And I hope for them, the things that all parents who love their children hope.