relationships, part 2

Kate, "Big" Sister, "Little" Sister, Cielo

Remember this post?

There’s an ugly sequel. Right before Christmas, one of the girls “ran away from home” in a figurative sense. She’s still here, but not. The details aren’t important; actually they’re quite trivial in and of themselves. I think it was the cumulative effect of actions and reactions occurring over a period of years that finally broke the ties. One of them has been re-established, but it’s a slip knot, and the least amount of tugging on that thread will cause it to unravel again.

Big Sister is gone from our house. Kate and Little pulled away from Big after they dared to stand up to her, and were rewarded by a smack on their noses with a rolled up newspaper. Actually, it was more like a concrete pipe, but you get the general idea. Kate and Little have remained close throughout, leaning on each other, helping each other fill the hole that Big left when she bolted. Big and Little reconnected in early January, but that connection is the slip knot. Kate has known Big for over 10 years; her wounds go deeper.

Hubby and I have been Big Sister’s only effective parents since she was about 8, and our parenting evidently hasn’t been all that effective. We are still connected in FB world. Big has been pushing the envelope a bit out there, and has the potential of putting herself in danger of losing her job, among other things. This week she posted something that was inappropriate from a language standpoint: “I’m gonna cuss like a drunken sailor, for all the world to see, because I can. [my translation]” Hubby suggested that she tone it down, citing statistics of employers and prospective employers who regularly check their employees’ social networking sites. Her walls went up. Hubby had “made her feel bad about herself.” (No, sweetheart, you did that yourself.)  A distant relative of Big’s backed Hubby up, saying that Hubby was really trying to look out for her because he cares for her. She said, “Sometimes the people who will tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear, are the ones who care the most about you.” This went back and forth a while, until Big asked the question, “What’s the big deal?”

This morning I found myself writing a message to Big, and I learned something about myself. Yeah, I already knew it, but sometimes we need to remind ourselves exactly who we are, how we got where we are, and most importantly, that we don’t have to stay where we are:

It’s a big deal because, obviously, there are people in your life who love you. Unless you’re omnipotent, you can’t know that anything you say or do is “not offensive to anyone.” Maybe something is offensive to someone, but they don’t tell you because they’re afraid of how you will react. This entire thread is evidence of that.

You’re looking for an “amen corner.” You want everyone to agree with you, all the time, and if they don’t then you interpret that disagreement as disapproval of you as a person. Kate tried to help you, and you struck at her, which caused her to strike at you in self-defense. She is still in self-defense mode. Look at the situation honestly and think about what has happened in the past, every time Kate has disagreed with you over the tiniest thing.

You have been raised as an only child. I know about that. I am an only child; I recognize the behavior patterns in you because I’ve LIVED THEM and continue to try to rise above them, and I’m 51 years old. This is a life-long learning process, and we’ll never get it right. The point is to TRY to listen to the people who truly love you and maybe let a word or two of what they’re saying get into your head and start rolling around. I don’t think I really learned this until I was 40, and it was my mom who pointed it out to me.

I know that, if you do read this, you won’t respond. At some point a decision has to be made, by all of us. I can’t stop loving you, even though I know that you probably wish I could, and would, do just that. I can’t stop loving you any more than I could stop loving Hubby, or Wubby (even though he has gone off in search of his own amen corner), or Kate. I’m sorry that your mom and dad and step-mom have failed you as parents, and they have. I can take some of that pain, help you look at it and understand it until you take a step toward putting it down. But you have to want to look at it honestly and try to understand it. Until you take that first step out of your comfort zone, no one who really loves you will be able to help you. And those folks who are still in your “amen” corner….are the ones who will trap you there, and they don’t even know they’re doing it. You think you have control over them; when you tell them to jump, they say “sure, how high and how far?” But they’re controlling you, because your subsequent behavior is a direct response to their action. Did they jump? Was it high enough, or far enough? Or, heaven forbid, did one of them say, “I don’t feel like jumping today.” Out comes the rolled up newspaper for that one.

I can guarantee you this: you can stay in the corner as long as you want, but eventually the folks that are in the corner with you will get tired of being there and they will move on.

And your corner will be empty, except for you. That, my darling girl, is NOT life. It is closer to death. I’m speaking from experience here, and it’s ugly, damned ugly. If you stay there long enough, death will start looking pretty good. And those thoughts are NOT acceptable in the eyes of God and the Universe and the people who continue to love you in spite of yourself and your actions toward them.

As I think about what I’m writing, I realize that I’m not talking to you at all; I’m talking to ME. I have my own thinking and accepting and moving out of the corner to do.

Someone said, “Unless you’ve had your heart broken, you don’t really know about love.” There’s truth in that statement.

I love you.

And my heart is broken for you.

Glory Days

I was never a Bruce Springsteen fan. However, I continue to find the song “Glory Days” to be very relevant in a number of ways to a number of people, including myself.

For example, there’s the mysterious fairy-tale writer who keeps telling the same story over and over and over and over and….is very entertaining because, for some reason unknown to me, said writer actually believes in the credibility of his/her writing. Go figure.

Then there’s this guy I know. Don’t know him very well, but he entered my life as the product of decisions made by another member of my family. He’s a bit older than me, sports one helluva mullet-looking hairdo, and is so stuck in the past, and in such denial about it, that it’s actually funny.

In a very sad sort of way.

For example, he loves to drop names of “famous” people he hung out with back in the day, while simultaneously ragging on people who drop names. Hello? (Hey, guess what? I met Bob Barker in 1978. Aren’t you impressed? I know you are. Heh.) Evidently he was, and perhaps still is, a talented technician. He worked for about 20 years as a technician, says he was pulling in a six figure income, which is hard to do as a technician in these parts. The northeast corridor, we are NOT.  The problem: those glory days weren’t spent being a technician, they were spent in a commune, being an “artist”, basking in the glow of a very famous, now deceased, artist whose name he loves to drop while waxing poetic about how obnoxious name-droppers are.

Funny story: way back in the 90s there was a weekly summer concert series around here, every Wednesday at noon. Hubby and I both worked downtown and would meet at the park for lunch and whatever entertainment happened to show up. Sometimes it was great: Matt Kendrick. (If you’re from around here and know anything about the local jazz scene, then you know Matt.) Other times, well, not so much. One Wednesday we got a student from the local arts college. It was surreal, kinda beatnik. He would strum non-chords on an un-tuned guitar while reciting poetry that went something like this: “I am an art-TIST. I go to professional art SCHOOL. I am totally COOL, because I’m an art-TIST.” It was hilarious, great satire.

But I digress.

So, back to the future, here’s this guy, with a family, living on unemployment because the Lord says he’s really an artist, not a technician, going around saying stuff like “I’m so stoked about the gig tonight”. I’m telling you, Bob Barker NEVER said that! I had a chance to observe him practicing his art, and while I can’t work in his preferred medium, I can recognize talent. Or lack thereof, if you get my drift. And he gets a lot of sympathy from a lot of people because his talent isn’t recognized, dare I say, perhaps because it isn’t there? The problem is that there is no sympathy from the one person he’s really looking for sympathy from: dear old dad.

I sit back and observe this ongoing drama, and drama it most certainly is, and I wonder: if you’re a good technician, and you believe that God made you what you are, might it perhaps be true that God made you to be a GREAT TECHNICIAN? Just a thought.

But, what do I know? I’m just a frustrated artist who used to be a great technician, who is now neither one. Who is now, essentially, not much of anything. If Obamacare were fully implemented, I’d probably be on the short list for “end of life counseling” because hey, let’s face it, I’m not a contributing member of society. (In other words, I’m not contributing to the country’s revenue. That’s not 100% accurate because I am a tax-paying citizen, just not paying my fair share right now. Or is that, “I’m not doing my patriotic duty”? I forget what the proper verbiage is these days, and it’s always changing so who cares, right?)

As some character in one of my favorite movies EVER (If You Could See What I Hear) said: Well, who really gives a DAMN? (That was his way of saying “Wassup?”)

I wish I could say that the answer to that question is: me. I give a damn. I want to, I really do. For all its annoying politics, boring meetings, long hours, trying to do the impossible and sometimes succeeding, but mostly not, I miss being a technician. I was good. I was efficient. I could explain technical issues in non-technical terms to people who needed to hear technical issues explained in non-technical terms.  But, like the “late to the party pony”, my tack just got too heavy and now I’m a swayback pony, mostly good for being a companion pony to some other pony who needs a companion.

Lucky for me, I do have a companion pony. Actually, I have several companion ponies, but only one that lives in my pasture. (NO, no THAT kind of companion pony in someone else’s pasture…shame on you!) This week my pony learned that the workload at his barn is drying up, and some of the ponies have been sold, and unless something changes, he might be headed to the stockyard for auction as well.

So, where do we got from here? Can a swayback pony be rehabilitated? After you’ve been a dressage pony for 20 years, very precise, very controlled, able to change course at the tiniest signal from my rider, can I learn to be a western pony and sort of lope around? Sounds easy, but old habits are hard to break. Is it hard to teach a smart pony dumb tricks? Beats me, I’ve never tried it until now. But, if I take my observations of mullet-guy and apply them to myself, then it is more than likely true that God made me to be a technician too, not an artist. And if I could adapt to change before, than isn’t it possible that I can adapt again? I have to believe that if it weren’t possible, then the time and money I’m spending on retraining myself from dressage to western is a wasted effort.

I do know this: I don’t wanna grow a mullet and sit around musing about the good old days, before I was a technician myself, wishing I could go back and re-capture something I never really had to begin with: real talent. Skill, yes. Talent, not so much. I don’t want to be a mediocre artist who complains because my talent is not recognized. Who recognizes mediocre anyway?

But, oh how I miss being a mediocre artist as well as being a great technician.

And so, here I am, sporting my mullet and musing over the glory days that really weren’t so glorious after all.

Here’s to talent….two pieces that I played, with mediocrity, in recital–played here with genius:

Sigh.

What does it mean when you want to be, NEED to be, just mediocre at something? At ANYTHING?

Sand and Water

Dear Daddy,

Remember when we all went to Fancy Gap for a pig-picking after David’s wedding? You and Ray were sitting at a picnic table, reminiscing about how fast David had grown up, and about where the tine had gone. I heard you tell Ray, “You know, I’ll be fifty this year, but I  don’t feel it inside. I look in the mirror and see myself and say ‘Yep, you sure do look like fifty’, but I don’t FEEL it. I feel 18.” I remember thinking about how ridiculous that sounded, and that of course you had to “feel” your age.

Well Daddy, you were a wise man.I always thought, even after you got sick, that we’d have more time, that you’d be here to see Wubby grow up. He is so like me, which means we are like oil and water together. But he’s also so like you, kind and gentle to a fault, never met an enemy, always looking for ways to make other people feel better. I wish you could see that.

I wish you could see your granddaughter and her horse. They have come so far from those little shows we used to have at the barn. Remember that “pokey kid” who took first place from those other riders whose coach stood and the rail and yelled at her students, “Pass that pokey kid!”? Well, she’s not pokey now. She’s fearless on a horse. They are amazing together. I wish you could have seen that.

But here’s the real thing, Daddy. I turned 50 this year, and I’m starting to get what you told Ray all those years ago. I don’t feel 50, but I don’t feel 18 either. Right now I just don’t feel. Anything. Except the pain that never goes away, my constant companion fibro. And maybe anger. I’m angry that our little family is alone in the world. The family ties don’t really bind all that much anymore. The kids miss their grandparents, ALL of them. And we miss our parents, ALL of them. Hubby misses his sister and his brothers, who are now spread out all over the place and busy with their own lives. Isolation could be a good thing if the conditions were right, but these aren’t optimal conditions for living the self-sustaining lifestyle.

I wish you were still here. I need to talk to you. I need to know some things. I need to know that I’m doing at least one thing right, that my life hasn’t been an entire screw-up, or if it has, I guess I need to know that too so I can maybe fix some things before it’s too late.

Please talk to me, Daddy. Somehow, some way, I need to hear your voice just once more. Tell me it’s going to be ok, that there’s nothing to be afraid of, that there’s still time to make a difference in this world, knowing full well that I could never come close to what you did.

When I was little you let me sit in your lap while you watch Walter Cronkite, and it was the safest place in the world. I need a safe place. Please tell me where to find one. Show me the way home.

All my love,

Your baby girl.

what the heck happened?

Captain Phil Harris said, and I quote (edited for PG audience, that is): “Sometimes you make things happen; sometimes you watch things happen; and sometimes you wonder what the heck happened!”

I think I’m in the middle of all three phases with Wubby. I wish I knew where he is, metaphorically speaking that is. I know where he is…I think. I think he’s between classes on the next to last day of what looks to be the divorce of Wubby from college.

It’s absolutely pouring rain right now, which is appropriate. If I can’t cry, then at least the sky can do it for me.

The rain comes in waves. One minute it pours; the next minute it quits. Then it drizzles like it can’t make up its mind about what to do with itself.

That’s Wubby. When he started college he was 25 miles away, living on campus. He was also seriously involved with his much younger girlfriend, spent as much time here at home as he did at school, and it lasted one semester.

Then he came home, signed up at the local community college, continued with the girlfriend and bombed that semester as well. He took last summer off, came back to it last fall and produced a 4.0 average.

This semester has been a roller coaster. Started out high. Then the break-up with the girl. He got a job right before the holidays and has continued working, picking up a second job recently. He found some old friends from high school and earlier and has been spending time with them. Lots of time. As in coming home in the wee hours the night before an 8:00 AM class. Doesn’t work.

I asked him recently if he’d been doing his best this semester. No. Agreed. I asked him why. Interesting answer, something about the freedom of not having girlfriend, combined with lack of motivation because his dad and I told him to get his act together, find an art school or some other appropriate institution, and get busy because we were through with paying for failing grades at community college. In other words, it’s our fault. It’s my fault.

I’m wondering why it matters so much to me, when it doesn’t appear to matter to Wubby. Maybe it will matter to Wubby in time; he just needs to come to the realization himself that he is almost 21 and needs to become self-sufficient.

All I know is that I look at my baby boy, marvel at the artistic and musical talent God gave him, watch him struggle, and turn on the tape recorder inside my head that repeats “It’s your fault. You are the one who is failing him. You are the one who has failed, again. You were not good enough for him. Not good enough. Not good enough.”

I don’t know what to say to Wubby. We’ve told both of our kids that, no matter what the problem is, the best course of action is to tell us what’s going on and not to hide it. I know it’s counter-intuitive to the nature of a teenager, but still. I’d rather hear it from the horse’s mouth instead of from the gossip vine at the racetrack.

This semester ends Wednesday. Saturday we are leaving for a week at the beach, which was scheduled to coincide with the week between semesters. Guess that wasn’t all that important after all. But we all need a break from the grind.

Proverbs 22:6, from the Message: “Point your kids in the right direction—when they’re old they won’t be lost.”

OK then.

my friend, the house

(Yes, the girls are home. Yes, the girls had fun. Yes, there will be blogging about the trip when the road stops rushing by.)

Someone new found my blog while I was out with the girls. She read the “what is a house” post and made a very nice comment, and I remembered that I haven’t finished the story.

We sold the house to the guy who made the offer, the first-and-only-showing guy. Only we didn’t close on June 30. As often happens, things didn’t go quite as smoothly with the sale of his house as had been anticipated, so closing was delayed until July 20. Three extra weeks of nail-chewing.

Within the first week, all of the remaining landscaping, with the exception of two trees, one hydrangea bush, and a few hostas, was gone.

The old basement door and front door were replaced.

The porch and deck have since been rebuilt.

He’s started a retaining wall at the end of the driveway.

Everything is very pretty now, as opposed to the remaining shabbiness we left behind.

I still drive through the neighborhood on a fairly regular basis, picking up and delivering kids for riding lessons and church.

In one way, I feel like I’m looking at Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree, after Linus says, “All it needed was a little love.”, wraps his blanket around it, and proceeds to decorate it with the lights from Snoopy’s doghouse.

And I feel guilty about how I treated my friend, the house.

(Darned tears…makes it hard to see the computer.)

But then, I remembered.

The new owner of my friend, the house, had to sell his old friend, his house, because of a divorce. I don’t know if he has children or not, but suspect that may be the case because of his desire to find a house with three bedrooms in the same area. His old house was only a mile away, in the opposite direction from the house we live in now.

He may very well be hurting, badly, separated from the children he loves. So, he loves the house instead.

And we loved it too. It might not have showed as much on the outside as it should have. But it was there, on the inside.

And we brought it here.

so, anyway

As of yesterday we’re a home school. Little girl has hated high school since she started last year. As summer started winding down and 10th grade loomed imminent, her mood started tanking. So we downloaded the official form, gave our home school a very pretentious-sounding name, dug up my college transcript to prove I grad-yee-ated 6th grade just like Jethro Bodine, and mailed everything off. It took less than a week to get it back. Amazed. It usually takes any government agency, federal, state or local, a month of Sundays to do anything. Heck, I’ve had Medicare as a secondary insurer for almost 2 years and they still haven’t paid any co-pays they’re supposed to, so don’t talk to me about how everyone who has Medicare loves it. Everyone I know who has Medicare thinks a bit less highly of it than I do.

But I digress.

Yesterday we dropped by the high school to officially withdraw and thumb our nose at it, just a little, then grabbed a celebratory McGriddle (not me, just her) and headed off to the local used bookstores in search of stuff. We found some stuff and brought it home. She had one homework assignment to complete, and voila! we’re done. Her homework was to write something. Anything. Without thinking about rules, grammar, spelling, whatever. Just write.

Physician, heal thyself.

——————————

My mom sent me this email yesterday. Doesn’t matter if it’s a true story or not; the principle is dead on as far as I’m concerned.

Effort and Reward

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before but had once failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan”. All grades would be veraged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.

The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

Could not be any simpler than that.

Do I believe there’s a professor somewhere who never failed a single student? Maybe, maybe not.

Whoever wrote this used Obama’s name, but in my estimation it’s not a criticism aimed directly at President Obama; it’s a criticism of the fundamental flaw inherent in socialism. It’s a wonderful concept; there’s just one problem with it: pesky human nature.

It’s the same problem I always had in school, and at work, with group projects. I wound up doing the work because I was not willing to take the lower grade, or create a less than acceptable product, because of everyone else’s lack of participation.

Pesky human nature.

What is a house anyway?

Went definition hunting and found these:

House: a dwelling that serves as living quarters for one or more families; a building in which something is sheltered or located

Home: an environment offering affection and security; family: a social unit living together

Each of these definitions can be found for either term.

One of my pet peeves has to do with the interchangeability of the words “house” and “home”. When I was a  kid, we’d go out for a Sunday drive, or to visit family / friends. If my mom or dad saw a house that was particularly appealing,  I would hear, “What a lovely home.”

No, it might have been a lovely house, depending on your architectural preferences, but it may or may not have been a lovely home.

Home has further implications. Home is about more than the structure in and of itself.

Is it a home if no one lives in it, or is it just a house? If the people living in the house are having difficulties with relationships, do we say it’s an “unhappy house situation?”  Don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say, “He comes from a broken house.”

So what?

We’ve been talking to real estate agents since the beginning of May about putting our house on the market. Makes sense; we don’t live in it, but we’re still paying the mortgage. The general consensus among the different agents was that it would sell eventually, but it would sell quicker if we put some work into it. Paint every wall “safe beige”, (don’t you love that phrase?), replace the porch railings, replace the deck, fix up the landscaping. Last year we gave the house a new roof, new siding, new windows and new garage doors. We are out of “fixing up the house” money.

We talked to contractors, got estimates on the suggested improvements, thinking that maybe we could do one or two small things.  Still couldn’t afford to do the work, and afraid to put the house on the market unless we did.

Last week we took a deep breath and, Thursday night, listed our house. The real estate industry is almost exclusively internet-driven these days. The listing goes into some magic database and voila! Overnight it’s visible to every prospective home-buyer in the civilized world.

See that: I said “home” buyer, not “house” buyer.

There were four or five hits on our listing over the weekend. No big deal.

Monday afternoon I got a call from an agent, requesting permission to show the house Tuesday afternoon between 4 and 5. “Of course, go ahead, it’s vacant.”, I said, while my brain was screaming in terror at the thought of someone looking at the ratty deck, the walls in desperate need of paint, “safe beige” or otherwise, the outdated bathroom fixtures.

Tuesday night I got a call from our listing agent. We had an offer on the house, a serious offer, from the guy that looked at it the day before. The very first person to look at it. Buyer has sold his house, closing the 29th, and wants to close on buying our house on the 30th.

Of June.

So, last night we signed the seller’s contract documents.

I know the butterflies won’t go away until everything is completed, so I’m remaining calm about it. Really, I am. There’s still the inspection to be done, and I’m sure we’ll have to fix or negotiate some things. We had already dropped the price to compensate for deck and porch, but it ain’t over til it’s over. However, the thought of not having a mortgage, in light of current economy and future economic trends, is almost incomprehensible in appeal right now. I should be thrilled at the prospect.

I mean, it’s just a house, right? An empty house.

This morning I had Wubby go over and move the remaining stuff stored in the basement away from the walls so the home inspector can get to them, just in case we can’t get the 1-800-GotJunk people to come before the inspection. (Why do we call them home inspectors? They don’t inspect the intangibles that make “house” become “home”; they inspect structural issues.)

And I started thinking.

We bought that house 20 years ago, when I was pregnant with Wubby. We were so excited to have bought our first house that we spent the first night there sleeping on the living room floor in sleeping bags! One of the things we liked about the house was that one of the rooms was already painted as a nursery, with big stenciled teddy bears on the walls. Yeah, we painted over them once Wubby left baby-hood. The house also had 2 working fireplaces, one in the living room and one in the basement. One day we were going to finish that basement room and make it a library / office / whatever. Never got around to it, though. Little girl came along, work got complicated, being “sandwiched” between our kids’ needs and our parents’ needs got very complicated. My health got very, very complicated.

In other words, life happened while we were thinking about those plans to finish the basement, rebuild the deck, paint the walls.

As we signed the contract last night, it occurred to me that we closed the deal when we bought the house on June 30, 1989. And exactly 20 years later, crossing my fingers as I type this (which is quite a talent if you think about it), we will close another deal on that house, and it will belong to someone else.

And the tears won’t stop.

I’ve lived in that house longer than in any other dwelling in my entire life. For the 28 years prior to buying that house, I lived in 11 other dwellings. Never stayed in one long enough to get emotionally attached to it.

Until now.

It feels like I’m losing a dear friend. I’ll still see the house almost every day; it’s only a mile away. But we won’t be friends any more.

Maybe it’s because that house is the only one that intersected with my life for more than a few years, or months even.

Maybe it’s the 20-year thing. For a generation, I had a house that was mine, love it or hate it. And I did both.

Maybe it’s because it was my kids’ first house, and they actually lived in it long enough so that, when they go off to live their own lives, they will remember that house as the one “where they grew up.”

Maybe it’s some weird mid-life issue. I seem to being having quite a few of those right now.

I can’t really explain it. I just know that, when I think about it all, I tear up and get all stuffy-nosed. Kids think I’m having terrible allergies.

So, this friend I’m leaving behind, was it just a house or was it a home?

Yes.

the Freedom project

So, I haven’t been around here for a couple of weeks…mostly because of pain issues.

But, to be honest, I don’t feel much like writing.

Every day I see the changes taking place and I wonder, what happened to America?

If this is the “change” everyone was sooooo excited about, then count me out, not that I was “in” in the first place. I didn’t vote for this; I didn’t ask for this.

Government taking over private industry? Banks? Telling me I have to suffer while Congress gets its yearly pay increase, and the new White House having Wednesday evening “cocktail parties”? Government giving money that we don’t have to people who are responsible for screwing things up, and telling them to “fix it”? FIX IT?? They can’t FIX IT, because they SCREWED IT UP IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!!!!!!

Back in my career days I had a small part in the process of outsourcing my own job to overseas contractors. Some of my co-workers were doing nothing BUT training contractors to take their jobs. It was not fun. We, the employees, kept asking anyone who would listen, “What makes you think a contractor can learn this stuff any faster than we did?”, because the truth was that they couldn’t; they didn’t. The project of outsourcing our system maintenance was planned to take 3 months. In 3 months the contractors said they would be able to maintain and sundown an entire insurance policy administration system. I was good, really good, at my job; it took me about a year to become adequately sufficient at working on this system with any level of confidence. After that year I was mentoring and training people who had been there longer than me. We were smart. What made the contractors more capable than us??

Nothing. They weren’t smarter, or more capable.

They were CHEAPER.

This was one of the company’s “freedom” projects. If they could just get free of having to pay us our exorbitant salaries and benefits, and just pay a pittance to the contractors, then the bottom line wouldn’t suffer.

Yeah, right. Like we, a handful of programmers and systems analysts, could bankrupt a company affiliated with one of the largest corporations in the world.

Had the contracting company been able to actually deliver on its commitment of taking over in 3 months, the company would have saved a boatload of money by getting rid of us and using them.

But, they couldn’t deliver because they weren’t any better than us. Just cheaper.

So, for 3 years after I left, the company was still trying to get those contractors up to speed. That system was scheduled to sundown within 5 years of the beginning of the outsourcing project. Three years in, no closer to sundown, but lots of money spent paying contractors AND employees.

We knew this would happen; we told them it would happen.This “freedom” project wound up costing the company 3 years of paying our salaries AND the contractors’ salaries as well.

How many times has anyone actually gotten MORE than what they paid for on anything? When something sounds too good to be true, there’s a reason: it IS.

So, what does this have to do with anything, with what’s going on in our country?

This.

At work, we knew that project was going to fail. We said so. When it did fail, we said, “Told you!”

But, until the failure was complete, we felt as if we had no voice, because, well, we had no voice.

I see what’s happening now and say, “Told you!”

But, I feel like I have no voice, because,well, I don’t. We have a new senator here in NC, a freshman Democrat. She announced over the weekend that she had “serious issues” with this president’s new budget plan. I have “serious issues” with it too. Everyone I know has issues with it.

Will she actually vote against it? Probably not, because, well, she’s a freshman Democrat.

Does this mean that we’re going to have to wait for the entire “project” to fail before anyone with any power admits that we were right?

I hope not, because that “project”, flawed though it may be, is still the best thing going on this planet.

America, the freedom project. Please don’t let it fail.

Is anyone listening?

connections

My mom got married yesterday, in a private ceremony at her new husband’s church. They exchanged their vows in a prayer chapel adorned with his woodwork. I haven’t seen it yet, but it sounds beautiful.

And seems to be a very appropriate place.

Daddy was a craftsman with wood, and glass. He re-worked all of the pew racks in their home church. He built a “treasure box” that the church uses when collecting special offerrings. He built a lectern used by Ruth Graham Lotz. His equipment has been here since he died, but is now on its way to one of my new step-brothers, also a woodworker.

I’m learning, in bits and pieces, about my new family. We seem to have a great deal in common: music, ministry, backgrounds in computers and technology. Next Saturday we’ll all meet for the first time. I’ve been getting to know a couple of my new ‘steps’ via e-mail and Facebook. Connecting through technology.

But, the thought of making new connections the old-fashioned way, in person, is a bit scary. Here I sit, smack dab in the middle of mid-life, having been an only brat until now and, suddenly, I have 5 step-siblings. And their children. And their children’s children. For the first time in my entire life, I have to share my mom with siblings. It feels strange somehow, and at the same time, appropriate, if that makes any sense.

We’ll all meet next weekend, an early Thanksgiving. And there’s a lot to be thankful for.

Life and love.

Family, old and new.

Connections.

I have to admit that the thought of meeting a houseful of new people scares me. Although no one I say this to actually believes me, I am a shy person by nature. I remember admitting that a couple of years ago, at Thanksgiving actually, and seeing my mom’s surprised reaction. Meeting new people has always been problematic, probably stemming from being the ‘new kid in the class’ more than a few times. New kids are sort of like substitute teachers: they’re not treated very well at first, but the ones that stick around eventually make a place for themselves.

Thank heavens for computers and Facebook. I’m slowly but surely making connections, putting faces to names, making tentative advances to some of these people I’ve not yet met but have something so significant in common with.

It’s strange for me to think of my mom, married to someone else. it took a great deal of faith and courage for her to take baby steps toward making new connections, and those steps have brought her to a new family. She’s connected to a new world.

And, so am I.

focus?

I can’t.

Focus, that is.

ADHD must feel like this. I’m constantly looking for my keys, glasses, cell phone, whatever, when I know I just had the whatever 2 seconds ago.

Usually my glasses are on my head, keys or cellphone in pocket of last jacket I wore.

And it’s REALLY hard to focus on packing for the move.

There’s 20 years of stuff in here that need to be sifted, sorted, boxed, bagged, stuffed and hauled. Where on earth do I start?