Row Row Row Your Boat

Wherever the heck you want to!

When life is not taking you in the direction that you need to go and when things are not healthy, it is time to change directions. This past few weeks have been stormy for me with many ups and downs and in betweens.

I quit a job for the first time in my life. I am always hard on myself and I felt bad because I quit. I think sometimes I am my own worst enemy when it comes to my high expectations. I think all the close people around me were suffering because I was suffering and they knew it and I would not allow myself to admit deep down to the fact that things were not getting any better at the workplace, just more pressurized, negative and stressful. I was trying to stick with it for a year, just long enough to change departments but it just became too much. I couldn't handle it any longer and had gone to my limit.

My attitude changed the other night when I had a talk with my Father. He mentioned, if you knew you were going to die at midnight... Would you still be feeling this way? Of course I said No! He was right. I needed to stop focusing on the past and enjoy my right now!!!

I am relieved now and am just taking a little breather before looking for a better opportunity.

P.S. I designed a new banner for the blog with Armando's help. Do you like it? It has a feather on it that I found at Lake Guntersville.

Obstacles

Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.

-Michael Jordan

Learning Flexibility

If you were to look back upon your life and then trace the different pathways that your life has taken through different eras, it is an interesting journey. Isn't it? I was actually thinking about that subject this evening.

I am a planner and usually try to pre-plan for things in life by working toward goals, etc. But, there have been many things that happened in my life that I never could have pre-planned for or even imagined for that matter. Those things ended up playing big parts in my life. Some actually ended up being great blessings in my life!

I guess that is why it is always good to not be a "slave" to your plan but a "master" and remain flexible enough to chart a different course when necessary. It has taken me a while to realize that. I am not always the easiest person to get to change directions when I have my mind set on something. Sometimes it is easy to be blinded when you are focusing on a plan or goal and you tend to lose sight of the fact that sometimes your pre-set destination may not always be the best one for you in the long run! I guess it is called experience and learning flexibility.

Friday Night

November 18, 2006

After getting off work, Armando and I went to eat sushi at Miyako Japanese Restaurant. The sushi was delicious but the restaurant was so busy that it took us quite a while to get sushi. We ate soup while waiting. It was a nice treat. I have been so tired after work that we haven’t went anywhere the past few weeks but I felt good Friday evening.

Afterwards, we went to a Tattoo place and got prices on a new tattoo that Armando would like to get. He wants to find his own design first and then get it done. Right next door to the tattoo store was a "Naughty store" and I couldn't help laughing at some of the shoes on display in the window and outfits. They had some sparkly red Dorothy in the wizard of Oz shoes with huge heels! Hehehe They were hilarious. I wish I had thought to snap a picture of them to show.

Later, we bought a few Christmas gifts. We needed to get them soon to send a package off to Chile before the deadline. Right now, I still have no idea when the Christmas deadline is for mailing packages overseas but hopefully it will be ok. Then, we looked at Best Buy and went to Barnes and Nobles bookstore. I fell asleep on the way home and woke up a few minutes before we turned into the driveway!

At a few stores we looked at the Sansa mp3 player that Armando has been telling me about. I like it a lot. It is really nice because you can watch windows media player videos on it and listen to mp3's. I have wanted something to listen to music at my desk at work when the phone calls slow down. They don't usually slow down that much but now and then they do and it makes me feel happy to listen to some good music lightly during those times I am doing paperwork and orders, etc. Armando has been a sweetheart and allowing me to take his palm to work and listen to music. My palm doesn't have a speaker or way to listen to music.

I have been thinking about that little Sansa too much since we saw it. It sure is cool. Well, we will see...

Sorry I have not posted in so long. I've been at the new job three weeks and everybody tells me it will take me six months to feel comfortable. I am starting to believe them! The new job is stressful and there are many things to learn. I use a lot of programs every day and this is a whole new field for me. The last few weeks have been rough for me and I have been tired and just have not felt like doing much else besides resting when I get home. I worked overtime several days also. I think this job is always going to be stressful because you have many angry customers calling and yelling at you, etc and then you have a lot of multi-tasking to do and you absolutely have to be organized. I have had to learn to not take those customers personally. I am normally a sensitive person so that has been a learning experience.

I have heard a lot of stories about this new job from my co-workers. I've heard that they have a high turnover rate and many people take anti-depressants etc. I am trying to keep positive and motivate myself and find healthy ways to deal with the stress. I don't want to work at a job that makes me be on anti-depressants. If it gets to that point, I will be looking for a new job.

15 year old life lessons

Before being placed in an acute care unit with coma patients, I had never been exposed to coma patients before. I was fifteen years old. I was there because I needed critical care and this was the only unit in the Rehabilitation hospital that provided critical care.

I have to admit at first I was very scared by everything. I cried a lot because I was young and just realizing that my situation was permanent and I was in a rehab hospital several hours away from my home and not allowed to have visitors at all for a few weeks. The hospital called it an “adjustment period” but it felt like punishment because I was used to my Mom visiting me every day and to be cut off from her and my family for a few weeks was very difficult and being in a new place surrounded by new people… I was so lonely and sad and scared. Of course I adjusted in time and realized that I had to work very hard to get out of this place and to get my life back. (I did not realize at the time that it would be two years I had to stay at that rehab hospital!)

In retrospect I think that was probably the best place for me to be at the time to adjust to being a newly paralyzed person because I saw people around me who had lost everything and I was so focused on them and their families that being a new paraplegic seemed minor in comparison.

You come into all kinds of situations in life and you learn from them. You learn that
you are really blessed every day that you can breathe and talk and express yourself.

Carlton

I remember when I saw him
For the very first time
His hair was golden like sunlight

He had chubby angelic cheeks
With a rounded little chin
He looked so perfect when he grinned

I remember seeing his family
They came to the hospital often to visit
The nurses said he was in a bad accident

Somehow he had fell into a pool
Something had gone wrong
Had been underwater too long

Had lost too much oxygen
It caused him to go into a coma
His brain was damaged then

I remember I was so sad for this family
I knew they must be heartbroken
To see their little angel looking perfect
Yet, unconscious and in coma

His sister was just a little girl
I would entertain her so her parents could visit their baby
I really tried to help the little girl be more relaxed

Later, I read books to little Carlton
They said it might be good for him
I don’t know if he heard me...
but there was always a chance

I wanted to make it all better, take away the unhappiness
It just seemed such a tragedy to see so much sadness
I would have fixed this with a solution if I had it

It was so sad the night little Carlton “coded”
The nurses rushed around and I was so distressed that night
He was just a baby and was not supposed to die

Sometimes life hands you hardest lessons in life
You have to learn to value each moment
Because tragedy can strike at any time

-----

There were other young children like Carlton.

There was Chris who came out of his coma but was never the same again. He called me on the telephone after returning home to Tennessee but all he could say was "hamburger, hamburger".

There was a little blonde haired child named Stacy. There was a little Canadian boy named Andrew. There was the young man who got shot... There was the girl with dark hair who I have forgotten her name but will always remember her face. There were so many young children in comas.

I won’t ever forget that time in my life. It was a turning point for me. I gained a lot of inner strength and I learned many life lessons that are still with me today. I met some wonderful people at that hospital that helped me including a doctor and physical therapist who are dear friends today.

-Michelle

Curve Balls and Such...

Sometimes life can take away your happy smile and make you forget all the beautiful things in the world and send your mood straight into the gutter! It can send ya things, oftentimes MANY things that you surely did not bargain for. Little situations that creep up on you before you are prepared for them or those little roadblocks that are waiting for you around the corner when you are feeling so “untouchable”.

I have often wondered what life would be like without life throwing all the little curve balls that it does. I mean, come on, let’s be honest with ourselves, do we REALLY need constant tests of our strength? Do you think you are stronger for having bypassed or overcame situations like that? I think I am. Do you wish they would stop coming so frequently? Sometimes I do. I have totally gone past the point of asking, why is this happening to me? Have I broke any mirrors lately or done something in to bring me so much bad karma? (laugh)

Actually, things happened so frequently at one period of my life and then set off a domino effect of “bad events” that I rather became used to bad things happening to me and I just got into this hunker down and brace mode. I was constantly ready to adapt to the next disaster. It took a lot of “learning”. You know, the kind of learning one only gets from going through bad stuff. The kind of learning that gives you silly little phrases to help you through like: No pain, No Gain! A winner never quits and a Quitter never wins! Grin and Bear it! You reap what you sow!

On the other hand, if I did not have frequent struggles, maybe I would think the next “big one” was coming and would totally screw my life up and that could be a weight I am unwilling to bear. I think when all is said and done, I grow stronger in adversity and the little battles I have won have made me who I am today and have gave me a sense of compassion for those facing struggles in their life.