Falling Apart . . . Too Sore To Be Dead

I'm sore

I don't know why

I'm feeling muscles that

I didn't know I had

They're crying, "You

never pay attention to us.

We want to be known!"

And I say, "Not if you're

going to treat me with such

disrespect that I can't get

comfortable.  I don't remember

ever feeling so sore.  Why are

you so against me?"

I don't even know where the

sores came from.  I felt

fine when I left the

pool yesterday.  The pain didn't

start until I stood in line to

get my lunch.  Maybe I just

slept on it wrong.  Maybe

my body just wanted to stay

in the water and was

slow about realizing that

it had been out for some time.

I'm not a graceful ager.  I

hate it.

Living in South Umpqua

        I'm guessing that Tri City gets its name from being in the middle of three other cities.  Myrtle Creek is north of Tri City, Canyonville is to the south and Riddle is to the west.  Though Tri City has its own fire department and water and sanitation source, it does not have its own post office but shares a zip code with Myrtle Creek. 

http://www.myrtlecreekchamber.com/aboutarea.html

        The communities seem supportive of one another and don't have rival cities - which is good.  I enjoy the comradery of living here.

        Though I've written several posts about the libraries here, I'm afraid I haven't done much with them since last summer.  Riddle has full support from their city and has decided to go independent.  Myrtle Creek doesn't have the same city support - pretty much the opposite, and so the system joined forces with Douglas County who is still trying to get back of their (our?) feet.

       Myrtle Creek does a summer program for youth - but interest is only to a certain age.  Teenagers may find more programs geared to their level at the Riddle library - which is where I took Jenna and her friend yesterday.  They are creating a float for the parade that will be held on the 30th of this month.  The librarian wanted to know if Jenna would dress up and ride on the float.  Of course, she will.  Jenna loves to dress up.  You don't have to ask her twice.  She plans on dressing as Little Red Riding Hood.  Tall Red Riding Hood is more like it.

http://www.bookeinstein.com/

        Every time I do something (or we do something) for Riddle, I feel like I'm betraying Myrtle Creek.  Then again, Myrtle Creek doesn't have a teenage program.  The meetings take place on Monday at 5:30 which overall just hasn't been a good time for me.  The few times I have been able to attend, the meeting gets canceled for whatever reason.

        I have already agreed to be Myrtle Creek's story lady.  I forgot to ask what day of the week.  I hope not on Wednesdays. 

Wearing a Winter Coat to Kick off the Summer is so Wrong

       Jenna had planned to kick off her summer by going to the beach.  The temperature had dropped on her last day of school.  It’s been cooler at the beach and raining as well.  The weather has challenged her plans as the temperature has dropped all over the state.  It's also been raining.

      

           Jenna enjoys the rain and thinks she'd be okay at the beach in the rain.  But I don't wish to drive an hour and a half in the rain to go to a cold wet beach.  I will have to take her later. Poor baby.

       She and a friend kicked their summer off at our house playing games.  They would like to go see "The Incredibles" next week.  The theatre is much closer to us than the beach.

From Hornet to Lancer: the Colors are Still the Same

          Jenna has graduated from Middle School.  Her last day was yesterday and there was a promotion celebration last night.    The principal passed out a few awards.  The first one was for perfect attendance.  She and Kylee had both received perfect attendance awards that day.  Jenna had not missed any school - including the Monday after spring break when I told her she could stay home.  Kayla's family didn't leave until about an hour after she returned.

          The promotional award for 100% attendance went to Kylee who had not missed a day in three years.  I don't recall Jenna having ever missed a class in sixth grade, but know she had missed some during seventh grade.  She had missed the last two days when we left Oregon to go back to Utah for Jeanie's funeral.

          The last award given was for special recognition for outstanding student.  The buildup was one who dressed up for every Spirit day, was always kind to everybody, a happy individual, a great example and more.  I could see Jenna's peers telling saying her name and Jenna denying it. But guess what?  It was her!  She was surprised and I was ecstatic!  She deserved that award.

          My baby will be starting high school this fall.  High School!!!  I remember when she was born and I held her in my arms.  She is taller than me now.  I LOVE Jenna so much.  She is awesome!

Four Areas to Acheive

          I post about my classes as because it is part of my current life.  Although the class was last mod, it still affects me, and I didn't have time to post last month as I may have this month.  I had two classes last mod, but don't generally post about my assignments or discussions in accounting.  They're boring.  Even my instructor said they were boring.  That made me laugh.  The subject of accounting is so one dimensional.  Answers have to be exact.  Everything is black and white.  Blah, blah, blah . . .

          Critical thinking, on the other hand, teaches aspects of human behavior and the way our minds work.  There isn't right and wrong in the same sense as accounting.  Not everything is black and white as with math.  Not only is there a huge variety of grey shades, but huge explosions of many colors.  Perhaps I should have gone into journalism . . .

          I've shared a bit of my assignments and discussions from my critical thinking and feel the desire to share more as there is always more than one side to the story or situation and I need to learn how to accept both (or all) side.

          Roland was getting on my case for not posting to the discussion board first thing on Monday morning, but we had specifically been told NOT to post until after we had received further instructions in the lecture itself.  The first week's discussion was to define critical thinking and include examples of how we think in various settings such as social, political, environmental and religious, which are most important and why.  This is what I posted to my first discussion:

"My husband and I have different opinions on practically everything except possibly religion, and even there we are in two different stages of understanding or development.  Let me give you some examples of how we vary.

"Economically:    When we lived in Salt Lake, we always had a tremendous amount of garbage to fill our cans each week.  The sanitation program in the area had recently sent around flyers to introduce a recycling program, and we could pay to have a recycling can for about the third of another garbage can. 

"I accepted offer believing that I was helping the economy in addition to having more room for whatever I was disposing of.  Problem is the men in my household refused to learn to sort - which is more crucial now that we live in Oregon than we did in Salt Lake.

"I view that recycling helps create jobs;  my husband looks at recycling as more cost to us both financially and time-consuming.

"Politically:         I have always had a problem with the media's interference announcing the outcome of an election before everyone on the west coast has even had a chance to vote;  some voters get cocky thinking their candidate is going to win as it was announced and may not even bother going to the polls.  The media is not always a reliable source and sometimes the cockiness has cost those who didn't vote because they believed they had it in the bag [I think the results of this last Presidential Election for example]

"Socially:   Salt Lake felt like it was all about business and growing.  No one could leave the house without marketing being thrown in our faces.  Life depended on gain.

"Here, in the part of Oregon where I currently reside, they have no clue what marketing is.  They have social events to bring the community together - not necessarily to raise money.  We're a close-knit community. I prefer the simplicity.  My husband likes the complex.  I Hate competition.  He sees it as necessary.

"Religion:    The population of the area I currently reside is less than 3500 and yet there are 17 denominations of faith. It's good to have a place to meet and share Christian beliefs (or what have you) but there are certain sectors that are ousted by others.  For example, we recently asked to use one of the rooms in the LDS church we attend; we needed space to host my daughter's birthday party as there were several friends that she wanted to invite - more than our house would hold;  we needed a larger space but without a large cost.  Some of the kids she had invited couldn't come because their parents didn't want for them to be in an LDS church specifically.

"I think the most important issue to me is how we interact with one another and how we're accepted.  I love the friendships I have made within this community.  I am not suspicious of people as I was in Salt Lake - often wondering what a person wanted from me or what he/she was trying to sell.  I like having friends who are interested in real friendships and not just what I can do for their business or political career."

Medication: Often Trading One Problem for Another

               It's been a year since Jeanie passed - not that I dwell on dates when people died.  Her mom does.  She's always posting the birthdays and death dates of those who have passed on.  Some days are better for her than others.  I think some days may be worse for her than they were for Jeanie.  I can't say for certain since most of the correspondence I've had with them has been through facebook.  I didn't even have that with Jeanie those times that she not only unfriended me but blocked me as well.  Apparently, it was the medication disrupting her otherwise rational mind.  It not only shattered her own emotions, but I had allowed myself to become upset as well.  I may never know the entire scheme of things; I did learn so much more about her at her funeral than I had ever known about her before.

          Biff had tried to explain it to Roland who either misunderstood Biff or perhaps Biff hadn't explained it well enough or really hadn't understood it himself.  By the time it got to me,  there were things lost in translation or miscommunications and until the day of her funeral, I did not know, wasn't aware, hadn't understood that Jeanie had been molested as a child. 

          One of her brothers had announced it over the pulpit.  It was shocking and seemed out of place for a speaker to make that the topic of discourse at a funeral - and yet I understood his emotions and the pain of the entire family.  Jeanie had been traumatized.  It left some thick emotional scars that still have not healed.  It was both disturbing and extraordinary at the same time - not the topic itself but for the love and concern that the speaker not only had for his sister but several generations of children and adults who have also been traumatized by one they should have been able to trust.  A person who should have been there to protect her and care for her.  It was sickening and so much of what he said had a profound ring.  I wondered if their other sister had been molested as well.

          Jenna had chosen to assist in the nursery, which I was truly grateful for as the subject was uncomfortable to me - I knew it would be for her as well.  And yet his talk was truly from the heart.  It was still disconcerting to learn what had happened and his plea to talk about it.  

          I knew Jeanie had been seeing a psychiatrist.  I knew it was for some kind of abuse - though I had thought it had been inflicted on by her ex-husband.  He was never even mentioned. I didn't realize it had stemmed all the way back to when she was five.  A time of innocence that she had attempted to live out again.  How difficult it must have been for the family when she would ask why her parents looked so old.  And where were her siblings?  And who was the stranger named Biff?  And where did the baby come from?  Of course, if she thought she was only five, she wasn't going to believe that Biff was her husband or that she had given birth to the baby girl.  Two of her sibs had already passed on before her and the other two were living in other states.

          We had a few family get-togethers when we would see Jeanie. Twice I remember her feeling flushed and excusing herself.  Two other times I remembered when she genuinely seemed happy. That is who she really was.  Happy.  Full of life.  Unfortunately, we didn't get to know that person.   She would cancel appointments with us.  Sometimes Biff would show up by himself.  He wasn't allowed to take Ally her first year.  Jeanie was quite possessive of Ally.  She would get verbally abusive towards Biff and her mom.  That was the person I saw.  The one that was sick.  The one that had become violent through medication.  I think when she realized who she had become, it wasn't worth taking the medication.  And so she chose to suffer as silently as she could and tried hard not to upset the rest of the family.

          I was included in that "rest of the family" and did not understand what demons she'd been dealing with. I was aware that there had been demon's in Biff's life but did not know to what extent.  I admire Biff so much for putting up with it.  He knew that the outbreaks were not her fault.  He stayed with her and blamed himself for not being there to catch her when she fell.  It wasn't his fault.  It wasn't medicine's fault.  We don't know if it was her death that caused the fall or if she died when she landed or on the way down.  The autopsy revealed that there were seven clots in her lung. 

          Some days her mom is accepting and knows that Jeanie is better off in another world where she doesn't have to take medicine to overcome emotional or physical pain.  She is free.  And she is with a brother and their sister.  But there is still a hole.  A void.  A longing.  An emptiness.

          Biff moved on with his life.  He moved in with Claire and they are raising Ally together, although Jeanie's mom would still like to be involved.  She remains in touch with Roland's sister who is a retired nurse and has been in contact and has had a better handle of the situation than either Roland or I.  Jeanie may not have unfriended or blocked Roland's sister.  They stayed in touch. 

          Our youngest son recently texted a family photo or all three boys and their families.  They are with Roland's sister and her husband and two youngest children.  Even after Biff's outbursts with behavior at times and seemingly lack of gratitude,  I was taken aback to hear that it was Jeanie's parents that were providing room and board for Roland's sister and family as my own boys were unable to make room for them.  (Randy lives in the largest space of the three - our old house in WV - which is teeny) I'm happy to hear that they are well liked and that bridges may be mended.  

        For family home evening the other night, we wrote letters to each of the boys.  I finished my thoughts yesterday and mailed the letters along with Jenna's most recent photo from school.  I am so happy to see all of my boys together again.  Jenna's been a little sad that she is not sharing their lives in person.  I guess we all are.  If only we could get all of them to come to Oregon.