I don’t always mean to offend people. Sometimes it just happens and I honestly regret it. There are so many really nice people out there and I, unfortunately, am not one of them. I have to work at it. I have to stop and think about it. It just doesn’t come to me naturally. I do come by being rebellious naturally. You say red, I say blue, even if we both know it’s red. But, eventually if I know you’re right, I’ll apologize and say you were right. I’m actually getting better at that.
But, sometimes there is something that I so totally disagree with and I just have to speak up whether someone is offended or not. Whether I offend the person that my comments are directed to does not bother me, but it does bother me when their family is offended because sometimes that person’s family can be some of those really nice poeple and then you have to wonder, how did he or she get such a nice family? And, whether or not people agree with me doesn’t bother me either, because not everyone is going to and not everyone is even going to like me. Hard to believe, I know, but it stands to reason that if I don’t like everyone I come in contact with there are bound to be a few that feel the same way about me. That is life.
Today, Mr. Hess, Superintendent of School District #31, has my attention. I know a few teachers in this school district, both past and present. I read in the Bemidji Pioneer how he was given a substantial raise over the next three years because he has done such a "good job". I wasn’t aware that you couldn’t survive on less than $125,000.00. Where have I been? Kudos to Steve Johnson for speaking the truth. He didn’t get a raise for doing a good job. Did you get a raise this year? Did any of the teachers in the district get a raise for doing such a good job? Did any teacher lose his or her job because of budget cuts? Oops, guess you weren’t doing as good a job as Mr. Hess. Was he really doing a good job? Or, is he really good friends with some of the school board members? Or, did he threaten to quit and they didn’t want to look for a replacement? Mr. Hess is indeed a good speaker, and very good at talking the talk, but in other areas, hmmm, maybe not so much. In this time when ecomomics is the big issue how do you justify one person getting a raise when so many others deserve one as well. And, how do you in good conscience, take that raise when so many good, deserving people that you work with didn’t get one?
Now, Mr. Kusler, on the other hand, is a very nice person (naturally). "Come on Mr. Kusler, please be our new superintendent".
Tags: education, opinion, school
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Posted on 20 May '10 by isurvived, under Uncategorized. No Comments.
Sound a little harsh? Think about that statement before making a judgment call and let me tell you what gives me the right to say it.
I am nigh on 56 years old. I have lived with clinical depression all my life and today was the first day I shared out loud, to my husband of 30+ years, that sometimes I feel like walking out into the woods and blowing my head off, or driving my car right into a tree. Not because I want to die, but because I don’t have the freaking energy to want to live. Most every morning I force myself to get up and put one foot in front of the other and get on with my day.
You might say then, “Why doesn’t she get some help or take medication?” Well, I do. I take an antidepressant every day and I go to therapy when needed and it helps me to not dip below the drowning level. I’ve done that for the past 15 years. So, why do I still get so depressed? I don’t know, maybe I like it. It’s what I know. I think I want to feel better and I think I would like to know what it’s like to be genuinely happy, but in reality, no, I want to stay depressed because that is what I know how to do.
Why, then do I say that depression is not for the weak? Because it takes strength and courage to face each day and do what needs to be done when what you really want to do is stay in bed, or cry, or lay around and watch TV, or play computer games, or drink, or eat, or shop, or whatever else will make you feel a little better while you’re doing it. No matter how many different ways I try to feel better instead of just facing reality I end up doing something that only makes matters worse. Staying in bed only prolongs the inevitable. Crying doesn’t make me feel any better. Laying around watching TV all day loads me with guilt. Computer games become addicting. I drank, but I’m an alcoholic and it just made things worse as well. Eating allowed me to gain 100 pounds and shopping put me in an incredible amount of debt. And where did all that lead to? Depression, which is where it all started to begin with.
Taking medication is a great thing and a necessary thing for me. Therapy is a great thing for me. But both of those, as powerful as they are, is not enough to deal with my depression. Just as an alcoholic says, “but for the grace of God go I”, when they see someone drunk, so does someone with depression when they see someone else struggling. When I hear those commercials that speak of how depression feels they are only scratching the surface. Yeah, it hurts. It hurts like hell and it causes your family and friends pain, anger, confusion and they’re on the same roller coaster with you. What that commercial also needs to tell you is that it doesn’t just go away when you start taking medication. Just like when you quit drinking, you don’t just wake up sober, happy and healthy the next day. It all takes time. In my case, so far, it’s taken 55 years.
Does that mean that I have no hope? Just the opposite. I am still here after 55 years because I didn’t go blow my head off or run my car into a tree. I will tell you though that it would always piss me off when I heard that someone had committed suicide. I wanted to scream at them, “What the hell is wrong with you? If I can’t give into that shit, then neither can you. Get up and fight. Get the hell up and fight to live you son-of-a-bitch. I have to get up every day and deal with it and then you just freaking give up.” Well, there is just a little bit of martyrdom in that reasoning. On my own I have no strength or courage. The reason I haven’t given in or committed suicide is because there is a power greater than me keeping me alive and helping me to find reasons to want to live. For me, that is God. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.
I am not a Christian fanatic and God will attest to that, but it is my faith that keeps me getting up every morning and putting that foot in front of the other. It is faith that allows me to believe that life gets better as you fight to deal with each and every pothole of depression and addiction. Sometimes it feels as though each pothole is a little bit bigger than the last one but maybe it’s God’s way of telling me that I’ve grown enough to deal with it.
I haven’t mastered anything. I would like to think that I will never do anything destructive ever again. I can’t say that I won’t ever drink again, or overeat, or overspend, or play computer games all day, or watch TV all day or lay around all day, but I can be reasonably sure that I won’t today. Therein lies the power of that saying, “One day at a time.” I can be reasonably sure that I won’t tomorrow, but I’m reasonably sure I won’t get hit by a bus. You just never know. I also can’t live my life in fear that I will either so I have to have faith that God will see me through it.
It is a rude awakening to wake up to the fact that I have some changes to make and that I am the one who will make or break my day, not anyone around me, even though I will try my damnedest to blame someone else. I will never be perfect at it. I don’t even want to be. I really just want to be me with all my faults and continue to work on being better. I still have ugly days, but I also have very good days. You see, even with all the years of depression, and even with all the potholes I’ve had to crawl out of so far, it’s all worth it when I hear my family laugh. That to me is the absolute best sound in the whole world and that is when my heart feels true happiness. Every part of my life may be going to hell and then I hear a grandchild laugh. It’s the purest sound there is and I thank God that I am alive to hear it.
My heart wishes that every person who is depressed would find that higher power to have the strength they need to fight. It is my faith in God that makes the medication work, the therapy beneficial and allows me to find some joy in this life. It’s never going to be all peaches and cream. I don’t believe it was meant to be. I believe that every one of us who deal with this big black rain cloud have a core of strength waiting to be tapped, but God has the spigot. We are not weak people and so I say, “depression is not for the weak”.
Tags: courage, depression, Faith, mental health, strength, women
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Posted on 8 May '10 by isurvived, under Uncategorized. 2 Comments.
Sound a little harsh? Think about that statement before making a judgment call and let me tell you what gives me the right to say it.
I am nigh on 56 years old. I have lived with clinical depression all my life and today was the first day I shared out loud, to my husband of 30+ years, that sometimes I feel like walking out into the woods and blowing my head off, or driving my car right into a tree. Not because I want to die, but because I don’t have the freaking energy to want to live. Most every morning I force myself to get up and put one foot in front of the other and get on with my day.
You might say then, “Why doesn’t she get some help or take medication?” Well, I do. I take an antidepressant every day and I go to therapy when needed and it helps me to not dip below the drowning level. I’ve done that for the past 15 years. So, why do I still get so depressed? I don’t know, maybe I like it. It’s what I know. I think I want to feel better and I think I would like to know what it’s like to be genuinely happy, but in reality, no, I want to stay depressed because that is what I know how to do.
Why, then do I say that depression is not for the weak? Because it takes strength and courage to face each day and do what needs to be done when what you really want to do is stay in bed, or cry, or lay around and watch TV, or play computer games, or drink, or eat, or shop, or whatever else will make you feel a little better while you’re doing it. No matter how many different ways I try to feel better instead of just facing reality I end up doing something that only makes matters worse. Staying in bed only prolongs the inevitable. Crying doesn’t make me feel any better. Laying around watching TV all day loads me with guilt. Computer games become addicting. I drank, but I’m an alcoholic and it just made things worse as well. Eating allowed me to gain 100 pounds and shopping put me in an incredible amount of debt. And where did all that lead to? Depression, which is where it all started to begin with.
Taking medication is a great thing and a necessary thing for me. Therapy is a great thing for me. But both of those, as powerful as they are, is not enough to deal with my depression. Just as an alcoholic says, “but for the grace of God go I”, when they see someone drunk, so does someone with depression when they see someone else struggling. When I hear those commercials that speak of how depression feels they are only scratching the surface. Yeah, it hurts. It hurts like hell and it causes your family and friends pain, anger, confusion and they’re on the same roller coaster with you. What that commercial also needs to tell you is that it doesn’t just go away when you start taking medication. Just like when you quit drinking, you don’t just wake up sober, happy and healthy the next day. It all takes time. In my case, so far, it’s taken 55 years.
Does that mean that I have no hope? Just the opposite. I am still here after 55 years because I didn’t go blow my head off or run my car into a tree. I will tell you though that it would always piss me off when I heard that someone had committed suicide. I wanted to scream at them, “What the hell is wrong with you? If I can’t give into that shit, then neither can you. Get up and fight. Get the hell up and fight to live you son-of-a-bitch. I have to get up every day and deal with it and then you just freaking give up.” Well, there is just a little bit of martyrdom in that reasoning. On my own I have no strength or courage. The reason I haven’t given in or committed suicide is because there is a power greater than me keeping me alive and helping me to find reasons to want to live. For me, that is God. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.
I am not a Christian fanatic and God will attest to that, but it is my faith that keeps me getting up every morning and putting that foot in front of the other. It is faith that allows me to believe that life gets better as you fight to deal with each and every pothole of depression and addiction. Sometimes it feels as though each pothole is a little bit bigger than the last one but maybe it’s God’s way of telling me that I’ve grown enough to deal with it.
I haven’t mastered anything. I would like to think that I will never do anything destructive ever again. I can’t say that I won’t ever drink again, or overeat, or overspend, or play computer games all day, or watch TV all day or lay around all day, but I can be reasonably sure that I won’t today. Therein lies the power of that saying, “One day at a time.” I can be reasonably sure that I won’t tomorrow, but I’m reasonably sure I won’t get hit by a bus. You just never know. I also can’t live my life in fear that I will either so I have to have faith that God will see me through it.
It is a rude awakening to wake up to the fact that I have some changes to make and that I am the one who will make or break my day, not anyone around me, even though I will try my damnedest to blame someone else. I will never be perfect at it. I don’t even want to be. I really just want to be me with all my faults and continue to work on being better. I still have ugly days, but I also have very good days. You see, even with all the years of depression, and even with all the potholes I’ve had to crawl out of so far, it’s all worth it when I hear my family laugh. That to me is the absolute best sound in the whole world and that is when my heart feels true happiness. Every part of my life may be going to hell and then I hear a grandchild laugh. It’s the purest sound there is and I thank God that I am alive to hear it.
My heart wishes that every person who is depressed would find that higher power to have the strength they need to fight. It is my faith in God that makes the medication work, the therapy beneficial and allows me to find some joy in this life. It’s never going to be all peaches and cream. I don’t believe it was meant to be. I believe that every one of us who deal with this big black rain cloud have a core of strength waiting to be tapped, but God has the spigot. We are not weak people and so I say, “depression is not for the weak”.
Tags: courage, depression, Faith, mental health, strength, women
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Posted on 8 May '10 by isurvived, under Uncategorized. No Comments.
When I first started working where I work, over 30 years ago, it was the best place ever. I left a couple of times to pursue other interests but seemed to return because that is what I know how to do, and I think I am pretty damn good at it. Working with the public is what I love to do. You meet the most fancinating people of all shapes and sizes, all financial levels, all different colors and cultures, the supposedly sane and supposedly insane (sometimes its hard to tell the difference), and people who are either genuinely nice or genuinely crabby. That’s why it has always been my dream to own a food wagon and travel to as many county fairs as possible. Actually I would love to just have a "chat" wagon with a big sign; "Come and talk about anything you want, I would just love to listen – Free of charge". Can you imagine?
Back to my place of employment. Everything had been going pretty dang good until they decided they should have an office manager, which by herself is a fine person, but as a manager, maybe not so good. We employees had our system and it was working pretty good until this office manager decided it wasn’t.
We lost one employee because she kept butting heads with her which broke our circle of friends and our system. That was the first chip in the coffee mug. We gained psycho girl who, I’m glad to report, left, but our bosses and office manager blamed us because they couldn’t see she was psycho until she filed for unemployment and presented her case (which I didn’t know that you could file for unemployment if you quit but you can if you feel you are working in a "hostile" environment). We weren’t hostile to her, we were afraid of her and didn’t talk to her unless we had to. That, my friends, is a story onto itself. That lack of faith in us was the second chip in the coffee mug. Now, we have a new girl, who may work out just fine, but I thought psycho girl would too at first, so I’m waiting to see before I put my trust in her. But as the chips fall, the office that we once thought was the best place in the world to work, no longer has our loyalty.
We had unity before and we thought our employer/employee relationship was also based on friendship. It was always based on respect but we could be ourselves and working was fun. That part of it is gone now and business has become just business. Us girls are still good friends but it’s not really the same and we understand when someone starts looking for other employment. The very sad part of all that is that it won’t make any difference to anyone except fellow employees when one of us decides to leave. And this time when I leave it will be for good and that makes me very sad indeed.
On the bright side however, is working in an assisted living facility part time. How did I ever miss that connection before? These residents are delightful, honest and love having someone pay attention to them and listen to what they have to say. I could create a whole new title, "Listening Person". I love it. I have met the dearest, sweetest people. Some are totally there, some not so much, but it doesn’t matter because every day is a new day! Every day some will say, "You must be new here, what’s your name"? It’s the best. I think I know all their names finally. I get to name my own hours and the people who own it just are fantastic.
Approaching those senior years myself, I have a lot more in common with some of the residents than I do the employees. Those young whippersnappers, like I once was, lack a little wisdom and don’t realize that someday that will be them. I enjoy cleaning the residents rooms and getting to know them and what they like. I enjoy playing games with them. I even enjoy their laughter as I try to exercise with them and as one resident puts it, "Mercy, mercy, mercy, I don’t think she knows what she is doing". It is my stress reliever from my other job.
I hope it never becomes just business.
Tags: senior citizens, workplace
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Posted on 9 January '10 by isurvived, under Uncategorized. No Comments.
I don’t know how some people will take what I am about to say here, but hear me out on this before you make a judgement call. This won’t be pretty.
I have a magnet at work, among several others that I collect, that says, "I’m not gossipping, I’m just networking". It is meant as a joke, but I think there is just a little reality to it. I have two co-workers that I like, but one scares me and the other is just plain annoying. I like them both, which is crazy, because going to work just would not be the same without them there. I don’t talk about them with other co-workers as gossipping, I talk about them because if I said it to their face it would really hurt, plus one would likely kill me and the other would just retaliate by saying something stupid, annoying me even further. I have always been of the philosophy that if you can’t take it then you can’t do it, but if you do it then it always has to be an honest statement. I am aware that people say things about me. I say and do things that cause that to happen. I doesn’t bother me that people talke about me as long as what they say is true. I can be a bitch, I am chunky, I am a drama queen and the list can get lengthy, but if you say something that isn’t true, I’m going to confront you on it.
In saying something to another co-worker about a different co-worker, and one other co-worker and I agree, it is called therapy. You bounce it off each other, you come to no valid conclusion or resolution, but you also don’t say anything to the co-worker driving you crazy things that you will regret. I won’t share the specifics, but just to say that one day when I did say something, I found out that her dog died after I had just dumped all over her. I felt terrible and she felt even worse.
I don’t drink because I am a recovering alcoholic and along with that, because I have an addictive persionality, I have few vices to relieve the frustration with and not wanting to pay someone $200 an hour, plus I couldn’t get in that quickly anyway, it is just as theraputic to bounce it off another person who understands what I am talking about.
I find this blog just a theraputic. I say things whether anyone reads it or agrees with it, but I get things from the inside to the outside and I find that theraputic.
Oh, geez, here comes my husband, who thinks I’m "addicted" to this laptop. Gotta go!
Tags: co-workers, office humor, therapy
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Posted on 9 August '09 by isurvived, under Uncategorized. 1 Comment.
I love to analyze life. My life, your life and their life.
Aging has me perplexed because I am moving into a new phase of my life, plus I see my children and grandchildren moving on in life. I just get comfortable in one phase and then it starts changing.
I thought my job, as a mother, was to teach (give my opinion), guide (boss around) and set an example (my way or the highway). I guess I thought wrong. I think I’ve been given the ol’ heave ho and, at first, I was feeling a bit sorry for myself, but now, I think I’m going to enjoy this next phase. I can let go of making sure everything is right in my kids’ lives (meddling) and just get on with living my own. Who would of thought that was even an option?
I still want to be a part of my kids’ lives, my grandkids’ lives, and visa versa, but I felt that I had to help (force) them to have a better life than my life so they can give their kids a better life than I gave them growing up (guilt, guilt, guilt). It would appear I overdid that part a little.
Here is the analyzing part. I was a young mom; 16 when my first daughter was born. I am now 55, she is 38. We are closing that age gap and are starting to be in the same age bracket which feels weird. The mother/daughter thing gets a little mixed up as we start facing similar health and "female" issues and having adult children. I work with people her age who are good friends. People can’t believe I have nine grandchildren. My oldest granddaughter, my oldest daughter’s first child, is 21 and has been married for a year. That could put me into a whole new catagory soon, great grandmotherhood, and then my daughter and I would be sharing the role of grandmother. I think the word "grandmother" creates a perception of an old woman with white hair, plump and cuddly, wearing an apron and retired. OK, my hair is gray under this fantastic hair coloring and I am plump and cuddly, but I’ve never worn an apron and I can’t retire until I’m dead because as that little ditty goes, "I owe, I owe, so off to work I go!" I still have so much living to do and there isn’t enough of me to spread around as my family keeps growing no matter how plump and cuddly I am.
I have to, out of necessity and sanity, let my kids raise their kids and take their turn at mucking things up and making apologies, and then, just move on, like me, and let the generations just keep on moving on.
Tags: Aging, family, Humor
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Posted on 6 August '09 by isurvived, under Uncategorized. No Comments.
I have always felt that to deal with the present you have to unravel the past. It seemed to me that the past is a part of who you have become and so in order to understand yourself you need to understand your past. Well, I have spent a good many years trying to unravel the past and I am coming up tired and empty.
After a little "slap" in the face of reality from one of my daughters, even though I am still not sure the facts she presented are accurate, it did make me rethink my course and I would rather spend my days enjoying today and looking forward to tomorrow, no matter what it brings my way.
Although it may be true that what has happened in the past has something to do with how I perceive, react or even act on certain things, if I continue to keep digging up the past, then today becomes the past and all I am doing is living in the past. I’m over half way through my life, do I really want to keep missing out on the joys of today? No. I am what I am, whatever caused it, so, my new take on life is:
"Do not waste your time digging up and regretting the past, but make the time to change the future."
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Posted on 16 June '09 by isurvived, under Uncategorized. No Comments.
I am a hands on, visual, self learner. Show me how, I can do it. Tell me how, probably won’t do much good. Read how, its not going to happen. If something needs to be put together I have to lay it all out, study it for a minute or so, then put it together. If I read the instructions, I am lost.
So it is with computers. Through out the years I have actually become fairly computer savvy. I may have lost a few things here and there but I also learned how to retrieve them. Well, some of them. At work I am the one who sets up our technology. I love computers and all they can do. At first, I hated VISTA too, but now I’m getting to kind of like it.
We only have two computers at work. The main one has the Internet. The one I use, as a transcriptionist, does not. But, I would like it to because then I can quickly look up the spelling of medical terms and drugs. I have the books but its quicker on the Internet so whenever I want a term I quick pull up the site I need in favorites, look for my word, etc.
One day it hit me that I could get a wireless router and "wha-la", I would be hooked up to the Internet too. I get the wireless router, on sale I might add, and I start to put it all together. First of all, I started to hook it up to the computer that DIDN’T have the Internet, and yes, I had it all set up and couldn’t figure out why it kept saying, "this computer does not have a wireless adapter". As I pondered the situation, I was hit again, "You idiot, you need the computer that has the Internet!" Savvy just went out the window.
I start all over, get everything set up on the right computer and click the "e". The browser comes up but no Internet. I’m searching, I’m clicking, I’m redoing, and finally, I call our Internet provider. I tell her how frustrated I am and the first thing she says to me is, "check our modem and see if the lights are on". My eyes dart to the Internet modem and the first thing I see is that it is NOT plugged in. Yep. "Here’s my sign".
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Posted on 20 February '09 by isurvived, under Uncategorized. No Comments.
Perhaps I am getting a little wiser but I am not totally there yet. I am trying to tame my rebellious nature by at least giving some thought to what is going to roll out of my mouth before it actually hits the air. I have been told that it isn’t the content but the delivery.
Sometimes there is just no time to ponder a response and there it goes pelting my target like little BB pellets. For a moment I am content that have hit my target with such accuracy. At times there are no regrets but, at other times, I have caused too much pain and even though I can apologize, the memory remains. At least it does for me and I think that is a good thing because to remember helps to tame the beast within.
Now road rage, that’s another story…
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Posted on 30 December '08 by isurvived, under Uncategorized. 4 Comments.
