Tag: family

No expiration date

~ K ~ Leave a comment

I should probably do a review of previous blog posts and strike out anything I don’t believe anymore. This blog is 13 years old and I’ve evolved, changed, and grown, especially on the topic of homosexuality.

I started this blog after depression introspection to talk about all things personal. Nonsensical and random, really. Depression introspection focused solely on the topic of mental health. This blog was about me. My thoughts. My feelings. It still IS about me no matter how rarely I use it.

These past few years have been a whirlwind. I’ve blogged about it here and there from time to time, but a full update is overdue.

I have 2 kids: a son and a daughter. My husband and I have been together for almost 19 years. After going through a season of infertility for so long and trying to conceive, it is weird to be in a stage of life where I’m no longer actively pursuing building a family. My family is built. And I feel complete.

I left a job I was at for 5 years to pursue a new opportunity that I thought would help me grow. It did help me grow, and I’m grateful for the experience, but…I didn’t even last a full year at the job. It wasn’t a good fit for me. But I learned new things and expanded my knowledge so I don’t regret my time there.

Now I’m at a new job where I’ve been working for a little over 3 months. I…love it. It has a great work/life balance, I get paid more, and the people I work with (from bottom to top) are completely awesome. I love my boss and his boss and his boss. No one in my department seems too haughty to work with, and I appreciate that people—especially upper management—are available and accessible to everyone. And everyone seems to have a vital role and isn’t just there for the sake of being there.

I mentioned this in early 2020, but we bought a house. It’s open concept and spacious, but it feels kinda small (in terms of bedroom space) ever since the pandemic. My office is open office (like an office setting, I suppose), which doesn’t allow for much privacy. But I make it work somehow.

I’m thinking about getting a dog. My son is deathly afraid of dogs and needs to get over his fear. He is scared to wait at the bus stop because one of the parents of a kid at the bus stop walks their dog at the same time. Of course, the one dog I introduced him to at 3 was not a dog friendly to kids and that has traumatized him ever since.

I just finished potty training my daughter. She still hasn’t gotten the hang of number 2, but she’ll get it in time. I’m never potty training a kid again.

I’m sure there’s more news that I’m not thinking of, but that’s the update on my life. Myself, job, family, and home.

Friends? They’re around somewhere…

Decade of Blogging

~ K ~ Leave a comment

June 29, 2019 marked 10 years of having This Journey Is My Own. I still haven’t bought the domain name. I probably should but I’m rather lazy and I don’t have that much readership.

Over a decade, I’ve blogged about God, Christianity, faith, employment (in general), career, infertility, parenting (after infertility), family, goals, books, Haiti, politics, LGBTQ+ issues, my identity, music, current events, race, and other thoughts. Everything is always random. Nothing makes sense. There is no structure to anything. My views are ever-evolving.

How far back can I go to blogging? Well, I have a LiveJournal that dates back to September 2, 2001 but that’s private and I haven’t touched it since 2012. Public blogging? Depression Introspection was begun on July 21, 2006. Technically, I have almost 20 years of blogging under my belt.

So where do I go from here? What topic is left to explore or re-explore? What pisses me off so much that I want to rant about it again? Nothing right now. I’m not passionate about much right now. I just want to survive. That’s all I’m trying to do these days. Is survive. Between work and my personal life (parenting, new house, commute), I’m just trying to survive. Self-care has gone to the wayside. Survival is my new hobby.

It’s A Wonderful Life

~ K ~ 1 Comment

One of my favorite holiday movies is It’s A Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed. The reason that it’s one of my favorite movies is because of the message it sends to me. Toward the end of the movie, George Bailey is down on his luck and is considering suicide. His guardian angel, Clarence, gives him the rare opportunity to see life as if he’d never been born. The insight George gains is invaluable. He sees the effect his life has on people—things he’d never thought of before. And It’s A Wonderful Life always reminds me that my life is worth something. And that I don’t know how many lives I’ve positively touched or even saved by my very existence.

In the greater scheme of things I can identify with George Bailey in the death of dreams. George’s dream was to travel the world then go off to college. Instead after his father dies, he takes the helm at the community bank his father owned. This reminded me of my dream to be a successful magazine editor in New York City. Instead I got married (a bit like George’s life) and settled in suburban Philadelphia with my husband. George too gets married to Mary and settles in his hometown of Bedford Falls instead of traveling the world. Now, George’s life didn’t turn out bad just like mine has been all right. In the end, George is reminded that family, friends, and love are what will get him through life. I’d make a slight tweak to that: God, family, friends, and love are what will get me through this life. It’s A Wonderful Life reminds me that I truly have a lot to be thankful for.

Mid-July Ramble

~ K ~ 2 Comments

Every time I’m away from a computer (like, oh say, when I’m driving), I begin composing a blog post in my head. Now that I’m actually at a computer, my brain is blank.

The Mundane

I’m working three different jobs at the moment and about to lose my mind: the library, proofreading at an ad agency, and editing a book. I’m not used to working three different jobs in 12 hours. It’s actually rather tiring. I need downtime or I get cranky and miserable.

Other thoughts

I’ve accepted that I’m not called to be a parent for a while. It’s a difficult thing, but I’m trying to be okay with it. Especially since it seems like every month that goes by leaves someone else who I know with the happy knowledge of a new addition to the family. I really don’t want to be whining/complaining about this 5 years from now. (Yes, I know I whine and complain about this.)

I’ve decided that God’s basically testing to me to see if I will continue to love Him despite what I can’t get. In my pain and suffering, I can’t see that so much. It just feels like He’s holding out on me. (And I still think that to some extent.) But if I ask my mom for something and she can’t give it to me, I don’t get mad at her and give her the cold shoulder. I get disappointed and grudgingly say “Ok” and move on. My love for my mom isn’t predicated on what she can give me. So why would I treat God like that? Maybe because I know everything is in God’s power so I expect He should do whatever I want? I don’t know; I’m really just typing out loud. (wink)

Family

I’m learning (the hard way really) that just because someone is related to me doesn’t mean they need to/required to love me or care about me. Some do but it’s not necessarily something that everyone in my family holds true to. This knowledge is painful because it forces me to stop seeking love and approval from people I want to care about me. In some ways, it hurts worse than people who aren’t related to me but I have to stop treating certain family members like they should love me just because our parents are related. I need to let go of the hurt and pain I feel from them. I have tried to reach out to them as adults and I can’t break through their clique. It’s about time that I stop trying to fit into a clique. I’ve never been a clique sort of girl—ever—anyway.

—

Life isn’t the worst it’s ever been for me but it’s a very difficult, stressful time right now with a lot of changes occurring. I’m thinking of pursuing another career endeavor in which I could fail spectacularly. (If you’re going to fail, do it with flair, right?) I’m swimming in mounds of debt with the current of people I owe taking me under. I have a lot on my mind. I feel like a failure in a lot of ways. It’s difficult to stay positive and upbeat and believe the future holds better when things, in some respects, look so bleak.

I’m reading Bethenny Frankel’s latest book, A Place of Yes. Say what you want about the Real Housewife/entrepreneur but I love her to pieces. She is a typical New Yorker: frank, no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is, and in-your-face. It’s also the other reason I enjoyed Jillian Michaels’s book, Unlimited. I need reading material that inspires and motivates me without sugar-coating my weaknesses and problems that I create. And right now, I definitely need some of positive motivation.

And don’t get me started on where I’m at in my spiritual life right now…

Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places

~ K ~ 8 Comments

I have tried so hard and so desperately to maintain contact with my paternal cousins. And except for the few that I was able to reconnect with in August, the majority of them don’t seem to want to have anything to do with me.

It’s tough because I’m an only child and since my father passed away in 2001, I’ve desperately wanted to connect with my cousins on an adult level and build a friendship with them. But they are in a totally different place than I am. And being around them feels like being back in high school with the popular cliques.

(Did I mention I hated high school so much I passed up getting a yearbook?)

Unfortunately, the cousins I feel shut out by are the cousins I’m most likely to encounter. I feel like nothing I ever do is right. Nothing I do is ever good enough and by all accounts, I’m a completely loser in their eyes.

I don’t know why I need their approval so much. That’s a lie; I do.

Because if I let the connection with my paternal cousins die, it will force me to accept that the family member who bonded us together is gone.

Because I have this Daddy Complex and I just can’t let my father die. I keep trying to find ways to keep him alive even though December will have been 10 years since he passed away. I’m hoping to reconnect with my last living paternal uncle this summer who was nicknamed after my father. He seems really nice.

Everyone who talks to me knows how miserable I feel around my paternal family. I can’t enjoy weddings. I could go on and on about how my wedding was a hot disaster to my family because I was a strict fundamentalist and wouldn’t pay for other people to have alcohol. I had a DJ and I didn’t even want that. I didn’t get to eat the dinner I paid for that night. The appetizer I did have triggered an allergic reaction that almost made me throw up. I got sick with a bad cold the next morning. My wedding, in my eyes, was a failure and a terrible mess. I barely remember the highlights. (In retrospect, I wished I had hired a videographer because I remember almost nothing from the reception.)

Although I thank GOD that my marriage has turned out to be better than I could have ever dreamed.

I’m caught in this odd place because I want to know how to love my cousins as God would want me to. Does it mean shutting them out of my life by not going to the events they invite me to? I’m not sure. I’ve invited people to visit me but they haven’t. I’ve been to their homes and they’ve never been to mine. I keep wanting to make one last attempt to reach out to them for my 30th birthday party but I probably won’t pay for people to have alcohol there either. (I’m not averse to it anymore, but I’m poor and not well stocked.) And of course, if they’re there, I’ll have more anxiety about impressing them rather than just simply having a good time with people I’m mostly comfortable with. It’s my birthday and for the past several years, I’ve had lousy birthdays. I want this one to be fun and fabulous.

As I look forward to my 30th birthday coming up in February, I want to work on two things:

  1. Obsessing less about what people (who don’t care about me) think
  2. Eliminating energy-sucking people and their negative attitudes from my life

For me, my cousins are energy suckers and they don’t even know they’re doing this to me. I’m not sure I can broach the subject with them without sounding like a whiny child. The fault doesn’t lie entirely with them though, of course; I let them do this to me.

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. —Eleanor Roosevelt

My maternal female cousin (and Maid of Honor) challenged me to cut them out of my life as much as I could. And after giving it some thought, I agree with her. I get such agita when I think of being at a function with all of them. (Except for the one that’s coming up in the summer since it involves the paternal cousins I like.) It’s time for me to stop waiting for an excuse to land in my lap and start learning to say no right now.

It’s also probably worth mentioning that these particular cousins and I have next to nothing in common other than being related. As far as I know, they’re not practicing Christians; they’re single; frown upon brothas and sistas dating Caucasians; love to go to bars and clubs; drink tons of alcohol; and are into entertainment, fashion, and pop culture trends.

I’m an evangelical (mostly orthodox) Christian; married to a white guy; feel out of place at bars and clubs; drink beer or wine once a week; and is lucky to even know who Snooki is. I’m boring: I read books, write blog posts, revise a novel, listen to music, like board games, and have an occasional beer or wine. I don’t watch TV (or have cable anymore) and watch movies rarely (although this action-packed blockbuster summer might throw me for a few migraine doozies).

I just keep looking for love in all the wrong places.

Thoughts on He Talk Like A White Boy

~ K ~ Leave a comment

I recently completed reading Joseph C. Phillips’s book, He Talk Like A White Boy. You may best remember Mr. Phillips as Lt. Martin Kendall, Denise’s husband, on The Cosby Show.

Now, I gotta be honest. I picked up the book for two reasons:

  1. He was one of few black men I always thought looked handsome (even as a kid!).
  2. The title.

I don’t remember how I initially happened upon it but a few years back, I stumbled across the book, saw the title, and thought to myself, This is on my must-read list before I die. I’m glad to say I wasn’t disappointed.

The title of He Talk Like A White Boy juxtaposed with the image of a black man resonated a chord with me. I instantly thought, I have got to read this. Black people have told me all my life that I talk like a white person. I can identify with this.

And identify I did.

Although 20 years of age separate us, it’s amazing how he was able to relate his experiences from things that occurred in the 60s and 70s, only for me to identify with much of it having grown up in the 80s and 90s.

The book seems to be a collection of essays that he’s written in the last decade (the book was published in 2006) so it was divided up into five primary sections:

  1. Character
  2. Family
  3. Faith
  4. Idealism
  5. Identity

But before I even cracked open the book, I read the book jacket. Apart from acting, Phillips also works as a conservative commentator and was a heavy supporter of George W. Bush. Knowing that made me cringe. (If I’m honest, I still do.) But I determined that I would give Phillips a chance to speak to me on politics. Even though I’m not wholly a conservative, I feel that black conservatives are some of the most disdained members in the political arena. Keeping this in mind, I decided to be, you know, tolerant.

While I enjoyed reading the first three sections, I most enjoyed the latter two. (Although, admittedly, the book got progressively better going through each section.)

Once I stumbled upon the essay Black Conservatism, Black Pride at the beginning of the Idealism section, I took a deep breath before I began. Be tolerant and open-minded, I told myself. You never know what you might learn.

I indeed learned quite a bit. Despite the fact that I am not a Dubya fan, I am willing to give credit where credit is due. Phillips pointed out that Bush II had the most racially diverse presidential administration in the nation’s history up until the Obama administration. And despite all cries that Dubya was a committed racist, he consistently had a black Secretary of State during each term he held. (He could have easily replaced a white person in Colin Powell’s spot after Mr. Powell resigned.) So I’ll give Dubya credit for having the most diverse administration of his day.

Phillips also goes on to speak about Dubya’s journey to Africa and the money he pledged to fight HIV/AIDS and terrorism in the country. For a president who many cried were racist (especially as a result of Katrina), Bush II appeared to be more of a friend to black people than he is given credit for.

*Discuss Black Conservatism, Black Pride – how he could not be a Republican back in the civil rights era, how it’s okay for blacks to believe whatever they want on the political spectrum (my view)

*Discuss Reparations, Affirmative Action, how he attacks inherent racism in Hollywood and liberals

*Then speak of identity – how it impacted me and how I was able to relate to it: Black & White, especially.