Well, my beautiful Christmas tree is dead. Like a dried out pokey husk of what it used to be. I finally got to where it made me happy OCD wise, looking at such a beautiful lighted menagerie only to have die on me. The day may have been hard or tiring and I would walk into the dining room and gaze upon it's glittery shining appearance and feel peace and calm. Now I just feel empty. Sure, it is still glittery and shiny but now it is less green and more crusty. Even the wonderful evergreen scent has faded away. It's depressing me.
I am fighting the urge to throw a full grown fit like a three year old complete with alligator tears and throwing myself to the floor......sigh. It just kind of summons up the last few weeks. Blerg.
I was so depressed I forgot what day it was yesterday and didn't write. Now, I feel kinda guilty about that too. Sorry guys.
Some good things this week are my Grandma is supposed to get out of the hospital next Tuesday, finally. She has given us a few scares with her health there, so I can't wait for her to go back home. And, tomorrow is my youngest's birthday so I made homemade chocolate chip cookies for his school for today. I was so stoked that I didn't burn them on the bottom (as I have now discovered the amazing properties of parchment paper). I spent an extra twenty minutes making sure they were all similar sizes. You can't have wonky sized cookies and give them to kids. Then one kid would feel bad and I can't have that. We even gave the bus driver one. I am just secretly praying none of my hair got in the batter. I had it severely plastered back before I cooked just to be sure. I think I need a hair net though. Like for anytime I cook....or go in the kitchen...or maybe just to wear constantly. I think I am shedding or going bald or molting.
The flu is going around and my wonderfully informative news has declared that the flu vaccine doesn't really work for this particular strain. So, there is that terrific bit of news. You're welcome. And supposedly there is also a 14 day stomach virus going around the school. The school bus driver is now wearing a face mask. She said the kids on the bus have been dropping like flies. I am not worried though.....okay that is a complete lie. I am a little concerned. Oh, who am I fooling, I am petrified.
How weird is it when it is 25 degrees outside and you think to yourself, "Huh, It's not that cold out here"?
As someone born and raised in Texas, I am pretty sure this shouldn't be a phrase I should ever be using. Apparently, living up north for the last thirteen years has changed me. I still refuse to completely acclimate to "yankee" (as my southern relatives would call it) traditions. Like eating geotta- yucky- or putting spaghetti noodles in my chili.....what in the hell? I still don't get some of the sayings and traditions. Like, "forgot crapped his pants" if you say you forgot something...I mean what does that even mean? But I guess that is par for the course. I mean, many of these people have never seen cotton fields, wheat fields, and bean fields. They find my accent to be strange and "funny sounding". Sometimes they do not understand my sayings and euphemisms. I don't know anyone from here that has seen a "Mexican jumping bean". Most people that I have met, don't like black eyed peas, or pea salad, or all of the bean laden meals I grew up with. Not a huge number of people have a strong hankering for fried catfish which kinda makes me sad. Even the Mexican food seems kind of off to me here. Of course, it is Mexican food in Ohio, so I guess that makes sense. Everything is pork here which after thirteen years, I still shudder at the thought of pork ribs. Can I not get some decent beef ribs for the love of God!!!???!!! The snow is pretty but I have learned to hate it. It's so cold and it gets ugly and dirty looking after the cars and snow plows run over it. It's slippery and I live in a constant state of fear that I am going to fall. I fell on a bunch of acorns on the side walk on a perfectly clear Fall day, once. True story. So you can see how thrilled I would be to walk on slippery surfaces that appear to be clear but are actually black ice. I think I should by soccer cleats to get to the bus stop safely. That being said, I like it okay here.
I used to dream of becoming a piano bar singer. Is that weird? I wanted to dress up in beautiful dresses and sing Billie Holiday songs in a club. I visualized soft lighting and grand accompaniment. Smoke filled rooms and the gentle clinking of glasses while I belted out my rendition of Gloomy Sunday......Now, I dream of owning a Christmas tree farm where you grow trees and let the families pick them out and cut them down to take home and make them even more beautiful. I would always have that gorgeous smell of evergreen. I would make a Christmas shop in my barn and sell handmade ornaments and decorate trees in different decorations to show how they would look. We could even have a Santa come and take pictures with the kids. It would be wonderful to have that Christmas feeling for a longer period of time and be able to help share it with others. Lights and hot apple cider and red and green mittens and garland made of popcorn... And in the Fall we could grow pumpkins and make corn mazes and have hay rides. And I would drive out to the mailbox on a unpaved driveway in my 1950's old beat up Ford pick up truck that is two toned powder blue and white with scratches on it. I would only go to the mailbox though because I don't see well enough to actually drive. I know this is a lot of work and frankly, I know nothing about farming and this is all a pipe dream but it is my pipe dream dammit. So I can pretend, right? Since it is a pipe dream I could be both a Christmas tree farmer and a piano bar singer. I could sing like Billie in a fancy dress that just happens to smell like one of those little green Christmas tree car air freshners but "fresher". That could work, right?
Geeze, what did I write? This post is so all over the place. I guess it is just one of those days where I don't have anything really important to say so I say whatever pops into my head....lol. Makes me sound kind of neurotic....
Anyway enough of this babbling, I will post again on Tuesday. Hope you all have an amazing weekend.
Neurotic Nelly
Showing posts with label Texas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Texas. Show all posts
Friday, December 12, 2014
Sunday, April 13, 2014
What If We Could...
I was thinking the other day. I know scary right?
I am a lot of things. A woman. A red head. A mother. A wife. But first and foremost, I am a Texan. It's not my fault that I place being a Texan as my identity. It ,like so many of us children born and raised in Texas, has been ingrained in me since my very first days. Even in school we were taught for the first five years in history class all about Texas. Until we all knew everything about Texas's past and it becomes a sense of belonging, a sense of pride. It is almost a brain washing to some extent. Want proof?
Ask a Texan, any Texan, what the state flower is, the state bird, the first and only president of Texas, and or the state capital. They can name them off from memory without hesitation. Start to sing "Deep in the heart of Texas" out loud in Texas and watch how everyone stops and finishes it with you regardless of what they were doing before you started singing it. Ask what the state rose is or how long their family has been in Texas. All of us know when our families first became Texans. My family has been in Texas for almost two hundred years. Yea, really, I am just that Texan. ( Except I moved and married a wonderful but ever deemed "Yankee" so my children are only half Texan even though they have never set foot in that state) It is treated as not just a place but also a pedigree.And even though we have a pride of being from the deep south we have even more pride of being specifically from Texas. We have to be, it was taught to us to be that way from our parents, and them from theirs, and so on and so on. It becomes more than just a place that we are from and becomes part of who we are.
Ask a Texan what is the greatest state in America. Ask a Texan if they are a Texan ( HINT: you wont have to, we tell everyone we are a Texan in the first five seconds of any conversation when we are out of state) And even though we have many military members that serve America you can bet that most of them identify as being Texan before they identify as being American. Not that they don't love America with every waking breath, it's just that they love Texas more. We are a proud people and that is why every ten years or so there is the same talk of succession. Not that it will ever happen, not even sure we actually want it to, but we Texans just like to get all riled up at the possibility. It was taught to us to love God first, Texas second, and then America. That may seem wrong in some people's eyes but it is a tradition that has been passed down for hundreds of years and will probably continue for hundreds more.
It becomes something to belong to. If I see a license plate of Texas where I live, I feel the need to wave to the driver. Because even though I do not know them personally, I feel as if we are some how connected. Like we have something very important in common. We are Texans and we are brethren. Not from genetics but from location. We are tied together from our experience of simply being from the great state of Texas.
Now you may say, we get it Nelly, you love Texas but what the hell does this have to do with mental illness?
So glad you asked.
It got me thinking. The reason we are so proud of Texas is because it was ingrained in us to believe such. What if we took that same teaching methods and turned it to a belief system that is positive for future generations. What if we taught small children that beautiful doesn't have a size or a color or a religion? What if we taught that beauty is on the inside? What if we could give these children a reason to feel that they are worthy ,beautiful, important individuals that belong in our society? Would fourteen year old girls that weigh eighty five pounds still post selfies on facebook claiming that they look fat? I mean if they believe that weight doesn't depict beauty, would they be so hard on themselves? Would at risk youths still join gangs because they want to belong to something other than the only painful existence that they have ever known, if they already felt they had a place in today's society to belong to that didn't end up in violence, prison, or premature death? Would there be so much bullying if children were reinforced with the idea that different is a good thing and not everyone should try and be similar? Would there be so many suicides if people that suffer or feel lost and hopeless felt that they were not alone and that what they felt and had to say was valid to the rest of the world?
Would people like us, that suffer from mental illness have to be afraid of stigma if stigma was erased and replaced by compassion? What if we could eradicate discrimination in all of it's forms?
After all children are born free of such things. Stigma discrimination, self hate, and even pride are things that are taught and learned not genetically predisposed.
What if we could somehow take all of the things that make us broken adults and teach our children and their children that it doesn't have to viewed in a negative way? That people are human first and individuals second. That we all fundamentally desire the same things. Love, acceptance, respect, hope, friendship, and happiness. What if we could give them the sense that they belong to this world no matter what life has burdened them with, no matter what they look like, what family situation the are in, what belief system they have, the color of their skin, or the struggles they may encounter? That they are beautiful unique worthy beings that have the power to change the world with one simple sentence, "I love you."
What if we could teach love and a sense of belonging the way Texas teaches it's children to love and feel a sense of belonging to Texas? How different would our world be? How different would our children's lives be? Could we make our fractured children become whole if they were taught to love rather than ostracize? Have compassion instead of annoyance? To believe that they are worth more than what ridiculous unrealistic magazine articles and misguided self beliefs say they are? To believe that they matter because every person in this world matters and has the right to know that they do. They belong, you belong, I belong, we all belong and we are all important.
Just a thought....
Neurotic Nelly
I am a lot of things. A woman. A red head. A mother. A wife. But first and foremost, I am a Texan. It's not my fault that I place being a Texan as my identity. It ,like so many of us children born and raised in Texas, has been ingrained in me since my very first days. Even in school we were taught for the first five years in history class all about Texas. Until we all knew everything about Texas's past and it becomes a sense of belonging, a sense of pride. It is almost a brain washing to some extent. Want proof?
Ask a Texan, any Texan, what the state flower is, the state bird, the first and only president of Texas, and or the state capital. They can name them off from memory without hesitation. Start to sing "Deep in the heart of Texas" out loud in Texas and watch how everyone stops and finishes it with you regardless of what they were doing before you started singing it. Ask what the state rose is or how long their family has been in Texas. All of us know when our families first became Texans. My family has been in Texas for almost two hundred years. Yea, really, I am just that Texan. ( Except I moved and married a wonderful but ever deemed "Yankee" so my children are only half Texan even though they have never set foot in that state) It is treated as not just a place but also a pedigree.And even though we have a pride of being from the deep south we have even more pride of being specifically from Texas. We have to be, it was taught to us to be that way from our parents, and them from theirs, and so on and so on. It becomes more than just a place that we are from and becomes part of who we are.
Ask a Texan what is the greatest state in America. Ask a Texan if they are a Texan ( HINT: you wont have to, we tell everyone we are a Texan in the first five seconds of any conversation when we are out of state) And even though we have many military members that serve America you can bet that most of them identify as being Texan before they identify as being American. Not that they don't love America with every waking breath, it's just that they love Texas more. We are a proud people and that is why every ten years or so there is the same talk of succession. Not that it will ever happen, not even sure we actually want it to, but we Texans just like to get all riled up at the possibility. It was taught to us to love God first, Texas second, and then America. That may seem wrong in some people's eyes but it is a tradition that has been passed down for hundreds of years and will probably continue for hundreds more.
It becomes something to belong to. If I see a license plate of Texas where I live, I feel the need to wave to the driver. Because even though I do not know them personally, I feel as if we are some how connected. Like we have something very important in common. We are Texans and we are brethren. Not from genetics but from location. We are tied together from our experience of simply being from the great state of Texas.
Now you may say, we get it Nelly, you love Texas but what the hell does this have to do with mental illness?
So glad you asked.
It got me thinking. The reason we are so proud of Texas is because it was ingrained in us to believe such. What if we took that same teaching methods and turned it to a belief system that is positive for future generations. What if we taught small children that beautiful doesn't have a size or a color or a religion? What if we taught that beauty is on the inside? What if we could give these children a reason to feel that they are worthy ,beautiful, important individuals that belong in our society? Would fourteen year old girls that weigh eighty five pounds still post selfies on facebook claiming that they look fat? I mean if they believe that weight doesn't depict beauty, would they be so hard on themselves? Would at risk youths still join gangs because they want to belong to something other than the only painful existence that they have ever known, if they already felt they had a place in today's society to belong to that didn't end up in violence, prison, or premature death? Would there be so much bullying if children were reinforced with the idea that different is a good thing and not everyone should try and be similar? Would there be so many suicides if people that suffer or feel lost and hopeless felt that they were not alone and that what they felt and had to say was valid to the rest of the world?
Would people like us, that suffer from mental illness have to be afraid of stigma if stigma was erased and replaced by compassion? What if we could eradicate discrimination in all of it's forms?
After all children are born free of such things. Stigma discrimination, self hate, and even pride are things that are taught and learned not genetically predisposed.
What if we could somehow take all of the things that make us broken adults and teach our children and their children that it doesn't have to viewed in a negative way? That people are human first and individuals second. That we all fundamentally desire the same things. Love, acceptance, respect, hope, friendship, and happiness. What if we could give them the sense that they belong to this world no matter what life has burdened them with, no matter what they look like, what family situation the are in, what belief system they have, the color of their skin, or the struggles they may encounter? That they are beautiful unique worthy beings that have the power to change the world with one simple sentence, "I love you."
What if we could teach love and a sense of belonging the way Texas teaches it's children to love and feel a sense of belonging to Texas? How different would our world be? How different would our children's lives be? Could we make our fractured children become whole if they were taught to love rather than ostracize? Have compassion instead of annoyance? To believe that they are worth more than what ridiculous unrealistic magazine articles and misguided self beliefs say they are? To believe that they matter because every person in this world matters and has the right to know that they do. They belong, you belong, I belong, we all belong and we are all important.
Just a thought....
Neurotic Nelly
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