A Week In The Life of A Redhead

Brian photo

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 05:17:28 GMT

COMPEXITY

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:00:45 GMT

Picture me, if you will, yelling from the bathroom:

"Brian, why do you leave wet towels on the floor when there is a rack right in front of you and why do you leave dirty clothes on the floor when there is a hamper right next to them...?!"

(Silence)

A cute, boy-head peaks itself around the corner of the bathroom, looks in on me and displays a coy grin ...

"Mom ... I'm a guy. We're complex."

Until next time -

C

http://www.aweekinthelifeofaredhead.com

This is a current post at my blog "A Week In The Life Of A Redhead" at http://www.aweekinthelifeofaredhead.com

C

http://journals.aol.com/rapieress/Aweekinthelife/

I BLOG AT

Fri, 09 May 2008 06:39:28 GMT

MY BLOG IS AT: http://www.aweekinthelifeofaredhead.com

Tags: the redhead blogger

RECONSTRUCTION BEGINS WITH THE BOTTOM FLOOR

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 07:28:29 GMT

I have learned through the many years of my life, that rough times can be overcome. I discover this for the first time when my father is diagnosed with cancer, his eventual death and the year that follows 1978.

During my junior year of high school two girlfriends wake up one day and decide to hate me. I am busy with ballet, ice-skating, homework and helping my mother deal with my fathers increasing disability. I get my braces off, and due to a new hair cut is suddenly the latest interest of boys in school. I remember how difficult the mornings are, as I awake to the sound of my father throwing up in the toilet and then again in the kitchen sink, as he prepares to go out the door to work at 5:00am. The realization of his illness would set in and I'd cover my face in my hands and roll over into my pillow. My alarm goes off at around 6:45am and I wish for a different life. I go to school in a fog, which I come out of each day sometime around 10:00am. So I really wasn't very aware of my environment... let alone these two girlfriends.

On one particular morning, the two girlfriends would not say a word to me. Nothing. It was as if I was invisible. I let it go, as my dearest friend Laura attends school in another city. We see each other everyday, either at ballet or ice-skating. Most weekends she lives at my house. The two girl friends at school I know from years spent in the same school, but it really is not the bond I share with Laura. Laura and I can talk about anything and laugh about everything. She is my friend to this day, and I am quite sure I owe her my life.

After three days of not speaking to me, I confront the two girls. Their response is like ice to my heart. They proceed to tell me they hate me, call me a bitch and say all kinds of terrible things. The tirade goes on for quite some time, until I just turn and walk away. I walk out of school, down the long streets to my home. I am stunned and in shock. No one has ever told me they hate me, and for the life of me I cannot not figure out what I have done. By the time I get home, my mother is there to greet me. We live in such a small town that the school has already called her and told her I was not in class. She was smart enough to figure I am coming home.

I collapse on the couch in a bucket of tears, and my mother is as cool as lead pipe in the frozen tundra. I remember wondering what is wrong with her, as she proceeds to get angry with me. I guess it's a redhead thing. She begins to lecture me on how unimportant these two girls are in the scheme of life and how grateful I should be to them for allowing me to see who they really are. "Now you aren't wasting anymore time!" she yells at me. I remember sitting there in shock as she tells me to wash my face and straighten up - she is taking me back to school. "Missy, this will pass!" she says, handing me a box of Kleenex. She drives my butt back to school.

Looking back, it is a hurtful time due to what is happening at home. However, I do not regret for one minute not having these two girls as friends. My mother was right. Ultimately, in my senior year I end up getting in a physical fight with one of them. It stands as the only fight I have ever been in, and I win. Not only that, because the teachers and administrators like me so much, I do not get in trouble. By now I am involved with my first serious boyfriend, who is three years older, a hockey player and rides a Harley. My parents hate him ... but he teaches me how to fight.

High school passes, just like my mother promises. I face my father's death, fall into a deep, dark depression and climb back out. The pain and anguish that follows comes, and then leaves. I survive. It takes two years. I go on to have fun with college friends and meet Rich at a dance club with my brother. The times with Rich are high times indeed, even though I don't realize it at the time ... silly, silly girl. Over seven years later, we break up over the fact he never wants to marry. Once again, I dive into that place of chaos and heartache. I move out and change jobs - everything is a mess.

From the ashes of my life with Rich, a new life emerges working in the heart of San Francisco's Financial District. The sights and sounds are like nothing I have ever experienced in my life. I am wearing two-piece suits, carrying a briefcase and dawn jogging shoes to walk down Montgomery Street. I have morning coffee with the stockbrokers getting their shoes shined in front of the Pacific Stock Exchange. Once again, I recover. I love San Francisco. It feels more like home to me than Santa Rosa. I love the smells, the people, the restaurants, the hustle and bustle and the wonderful bank where I work. If it weren’t for the end of Rich and me - there would be no San Francisco stories. Life has promise.

I meet Terry on a weekend I decide to go out in Santa Rosa for a change. We are married nine months later. What begins as a fun, loving union slowly deteriorates in six years into a hellish angry pit that I must literally claw my way out. Once again I need to reconstruct a new life. But this time it is different, because this time I have a child to think about. It is difficult to rebuild a life within the constraints of what is best for a child. I love him more than I have ever loved anything and would gladly walk to hell and back for him. I am constantly torn between what I would like to do, and what Brian needs ... Brian always wins this mental tug of war. And really, I wouldn't have it any other way.

There are two more new job "discussions" since last week and am trying to figure out where I want to go next. If this is another bottom basement of my life, then I want to make sure the steps I build to get us out, take us to a better place. I certainly don't want to end up like many I have known who marry a second time for convenience and then live in misery for their decision; or those who elevate their lifestyle to a place where only jobs they hate can support them. I see a lot of unhappiness in the lives of others. It is all about choice. We must be careful of our choices.

I do notice one common theme when life has kicked me to the curb and I must pick myself back up: my friends. God love them. They are the most steadfast, there-for-me group of people in the world. There's KB offering suggestions, emailing jobs and ready to give me a rave recommendation. There's Eric with his letter of recommendation and words about his love for me as a best friend. There's Stephanie, determined to have me partner with her so we can take trips to Florida together, and her encouraging stories about single-motherhood and how she made it. There's Junebug with her, "Please tell me if it gets as bad as it was during your marriage so I canhelp you" statements, and her great humor, which always makes me laugh. She hates the fact that at the end of my marriage I counted pennies on my floor to make it, and never told her. I never told anyone - even my own mother. I have this crazy Irish sense of pride. There is the old friend at the beginning of this who brought me a huge box of tampons and groceries, with the comment, "A girl can't ever be out of tampons!" I still laugh at that.

There is my mother, who hides twenty dollar bills in my hair brush drawer, no matter how many times I tell her not to. Laura gives her words of encouragement as she has been dealing with Epstein Barr for six years now, telling me I am the one person she believes in. There's Elisabet who thinks I can do anything and tells me so every chance she gets. She is my cock-eyed optimist, who is dealing with her own stuff these days. There's Leslie who is also an x boss, who calls me once a week to check in and share laughs at our job hunts. She is in the same boat, but as an x president of a bank, her search is more humorous. We both think the interview process is crazy. There's Michele, who emails me her constant support, always wanting to cook me dinner. There's JS with his "Are you writing your book?" and "when are you coming to visit?" comments. Who knows, maybe someday this blog will be that book ... the story of a mother's life as a single mom.

I love all of them. I cannot imagine where my life would be without their constant love and support. With friends like these, how can I fail? They are the ones who get down in this pit with me and help me get back out. They are not afraid to get dirty with me. They understand that reconstruction begins with the bottom floor ... and I can't do it alone.

Years later I run into one of those two girls from high school. She is watching me with a group of college friends. She approaches and I don't recognize her. She looks terrible. She introduces herself and it takes me a few minutes to realize who it is. She apologizes about what happened back in school, so I use themoment to ask her why. She responds, "We didn't have anything else going on in our livesand it was something to do". Good lord I think what a pathetic life! I am thrilled I don't know this girl ... she did me a big favor - my mother was right. I turn to my new friends, thrilled how my life has turned out. Stephanie is convinced I will think the same when Brian is an adult.

Like my mother, I am sure she is right.

Until next time-

KINDRED SPIRITS

Wed, 11 Oct 2006 03:48:02 GMT

Sometimes we meet people of similar nature or character, like a twin, which make us realize we are not alone in our particular set of circumstances. It can be a stranger who shares a story, a family member that confides a secret, or a story we read about where someone is going through our same experience. It can come in an email, or a phone call - often when we least expect. Their twin experience comforts us, and we relax our scolding hold on our own conscience.

There is an emotion that coincides with the connection to the vulnerability of another person's truth, which matches our own. It hits us in our hearts and we are forever connected. It is as if somewhere in our soul we recognize a 'kindred spirit'. There is a sense of relief that overtakes us. It feels like home.

I was cautioned when starting this blog, that it can have far-reaching implications. There are those bloggers who have been fired for their posts, and sued for content. There is a risk of opening up a part of ones life for the "raw" public. There are future employers scouting the Internet for web pages by interviewees. Bloggers run the risk of not being hired by conservative employers.

But all I know is many years ago when I was 18, I had an English teacher in college who required her English students to keep journals, which we turned into her every Friday. My father died at the end of August that summer. I entered her class fresh with a broken, aching heart. I was an avid writer growing up, keeping a trunk full of stories, poems and diaries. I wrote about everything and everyone, but I never wrote about my father's cancer. I ignored it, as if by not acknowledging what was happening, it would go away and everything would return to what it once was.

My first entries in this college English journal were awkward. I was still in shock and numb from the experience of watching a man I treasured die a slow and agonizing death over five years. The teacher kept telling me to write ANYTHING even if it was just the word, "blah". So I began to write, "Dear Journal. Love Catherine". The English teacher would comment under my seven entries of "Dear Journal, Love Catherine". She would write clever comments in red like, "Good week!" "Tough decision!". They would make me laugh and slowly I began to write my thoughts for her to read.

I don't know when it exactly happened, but one day I found myself angry at the bizarre nature of funerals and death in America. I poured out my heart describing the ritual of picking out my father's coffin. I saw the irony and the humor. The following Monday when she returned my journal, she wrote, "I have never read anything that touched me like this story. I sobbed through the whole journal entry. You have a gift, please share it." And that was it. Words began to gush, revealing my anger, bitterness, sadness and loneliness onto the lined pages of my English journal.

Then my mother and I had a fight. The kind of fight two heart broken females have when one is a teenager and the other is the parent. I moved out in one day. I packed everything into my car and just drove off. I burned the journal and stopped writing.

I stopped writing for 18 years.

Fast forward to 1997 (yes my mother and I long ago made up and she forgave my brattiness) when a funny thing happened at work. I was given a laptop computer and access to the Internet. I was to test software and how a loan officer might use the Internet. Once home, like a chocolate addict given the keys to Sees, I used my computer as a magic carpet and flew all over the world exploring events and cultures I only imagined. (Who cares what a loan officer uses it for...!). One night, while quietly reading about Ireland and Gaelic language, my very first Instant message popped up on the computer screen. It made this great little sound ... like a bird whistling. I almost dropped the laptop, as it startled me so.

Suddenly there I was, from my lap in our little cottage home ... writing. I love the back and forth banter between two people in an instant message. Truly this is a writer's paradise. We are most at home when typing a conversation, rather than delivering it in person. The ability to write to new found friends over the Internet gave me the strength to leave an unhappy marriage. I became fascinated with the written word and adored my new by-coastal friendships.

Meanwhile, I was dealing with corporate America, with all the acquisitions and mergers watching job after job disappear to the East Coast, the Southwest and then to India. Throughout this, my online friends encouraged me. Each new company gave me a new laptop and my Internet skills grew along with the number of online acquaintances. My magic carpet was now a turbo jet.

I became sick with Hashimoto's somewhere around 2002 and went through a particularly rough period in my life. One day, while lying in bed I came across the opportunity to begin this blog. I had so many thoughts running through my head which were screaming at me to be written down. Without even thinking, I naturally followed the steps to create a blog and dove head first into writing. I was back. It was very difficult at first, like stretching a new muscle. But over time it evolved into the flow of a person's life story. Maybe not everything, but an idea of what my life is like.

Then the emails began. People writing to me about their thyroid problems, opening up and sharing very private, painful experiences. Experiences I can all too well relate. Suddenly I am surrounded by kindred spirits.

The most recent surprise is from an old friend who helped me through my divorce. A wonderful, kind man who now lives on the East Coast. In his email he confides his own personal thyroid hell. He has suffered in silence these many years we have known each other. How interesting that we end up with the same health issue. Through reading my blog it allows him the opportunity to share his story - one very much like my own.

I am pretty much ok with my own story until I read it through someone else's words. When I read their suffering, my heart aches because I know exactly how they feel. It is a painful truth how many doctors out there allow thyroid patients to suffer chronically without lifting a finger to help them. And now I can share my experience with him and help him find a way to feel good again. Such a tall, handsome man should feel better and be able to enjoy his fascinating life to its fullest ... my kindred spirit.

How can it be said that blogging is unwise? To open up part of ones life to the world in the hopes it helps another find peace within their own is a selfless gift. It is a gift that we writers share with the world. It is who we are. How else can we bring the world together in a common bond? I remember when online dating and meeting others online was thought to be insane by the general public. Look at it now ... it seems odd when people don't meet via the computer.

I can't worry about corporate America anymore. I haven't found it to be a place that has the employees best interests at heart. If the company stocks go down, you could be the best thing since the computer chip, but you will still find your butt in an unemployment line. It no longer matters how much education you possess ... it is all about the price of the stock. You are just a dollar number of some accountants excell spreadsheet... and you cost too much.

But blogging and writing... I do know there are writers out there telling their stories and changing people's lives. No amount of stock climbs and crashes will change what we write. I'd rather fall on the side of writers and search for more kindred spirits. And leave corporate America to chew up and spit out someone else.

Until next time-

CEAD MILE FAILTE

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 17:20:59 GMT

Hail! Hail!
My beautiful Red
My beautiful, beautiful Irish Red.
Hail! Hail!
My sweet lil’ Red
None can compare to my Irish Red.

Can’t say no
What you make me do?
Is All day long I wait for you
I’d walk for you
Y’know it’s true
From Caherciveen to Killarney

Hail! Hail!
My beautiful Red
My beautiful, beautiful Irish Red.
Hail! Hail!
My sweet lil’ Red
None can compare to my Irish Red.

Caramel kiss
With mild bitterness
you to my lips is saintly bliss!
I’d sing for you
Y’know it’s true
From Inchinveema to Gortlatlea

Hail! Hail!
My beautiful Red
My beautiful, beautiful Irish Red.
Hail! Hail!
My sweet lil’ Red
None can compare to my Irish Red.

Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Daoibh...

Until next time-

OF MICE AND MEN AND MOTHERS

Fri, 24 Feb 2006 06:37:36 GMT

I love being a mom, I mean, I really do. Like Charlotte, the brunette character in Sex and The City, once I hit age 26 I wanted a husband, a mortgage, kids and pets. I wanted baseball games, brownies, untied tiny tennis shoes, the pitter-patter of little feet and rooms to paint. I wanted to come home to the same man every night, make love, laugh and discuss our day spent apart. I wanted to live this life plan rambling around in my head.

The best laid plans of Mice and Men...

It didn't exactly go as hoped... so here I am.

Today, I took paintbrushes in hand and went to Art Docent training at my son's school. I love his teacher and ironically worked with her when I was at ATG. This is my time to be that school mom for my son. By God, if I didn't exactly get the married family life I dreamed of I damn well can attempt to be that PTA mom ... even if I am the redhead with the big tits!

KB would chime in with "Bless your big heart- you go girl!" right about now.

I also love art.

My mother thinks I should be a kindergarten teacher and is forever supporting my endeavors in dealing with the public school system. Hey - maybe in training adults in corporate American I really did teach kindergartners, and teaching them software - it may as well been Picasso flowers.

I sign in at the office and proudly follow a group of mothers to room 28 for our Art Docent training. I am the only mother with cleavage. It isn't my intent; just that I have 6 inches of cleavage and hate button front shirts ... a little cleavage always shows. But I am wickedly creative so don't underestimate me. I do notice I am the only mom with frayed bell-bottom jeans, high black leather platform shoes and a New York style black leather jacket. I feel like My Cousin Vinney.

Before too long I am deep in training and creating Monet flowers. These kind women suddenly look at my flowers and decide I am the funky artist type, which makes me an interesting kind of mom - maybe I sleep with a 23 year old who manages a rock band. I can see their minds working, as they discuss their stucco homes and Girl Scout meetings. I am thinking this whole scene could use KB, wine and some talk about the last time they all had an orgasm.

There has to be more interesting conversations than this. LADIES.

By the end of the Art Docent training we are a bonded group. I let my guard down. This is never good when you are the Erin Brokovich of the group trying to be Mary Poppins ...

The subject of ADD\ADHD comes up .. probably started by me. Some of you know the book I am slowly writing... so out pops from my mouth "I have an issue with teaching our kids to just say no to drugs, but the 'system' wants the children who don't fit in the box to go on drugs to control the classroom. I want to tell these kids stories."

You know you could have heard a pin drop, as I finished this sentence with a brush stroke and looked up to see them all looking at me.

OH OH.

(Sometimes when you resemble a slot machine and someone pulls your arm, thoughts roll around and around in your head, and you should just deliver a 'no match' rather than let your opinion roll out like coin from your mouth.)

JACKPOT.

Turns out all the mothers in the room have their kids on drugs. Yep, parents of ‘special needs’ kids who can’t sit still or focus surrounded me. That coin once dispensed cannot roll back up into my mouth ... it just lays there all over the floor. Parents of kids on Ritalin surround me.

Can we say "Back pedal"?

Suddenly these women are on the defensive, defending the benefit of the drugs and what the drugs have done for their children's grades. They are conforming. I can't help but wonder where we would all be if Thomas Edison took Ritalin. Would we still be sitting in the dark? I say nothing, as the LAST thing I ever want to do is make a parent feel bad for making a choice out of love for their child.

They have no idea of what I have been through with Brian, the research and the hours spent pouring through medical books, library books, web sites, Drs books, countless tests and interviews with medical professionals. I am a research hound and made a different choice for my son. I want more choices for these amazing kids too, not just the choice to drug or not to drug. I want more choices for these parents and I want the world talking about this very subject.

I take drugs for my thyroid. I know first hand what drugs can and cannot do. They are not the complete answer to everything. They are difficult to modify for each individual,because everyone on this planet is different. As we all know, I have my good days and really bad days. I worry a lot about the quality of my future life and whether a man will someday come along and love me, even though I am sick and take tiny pills every day just to get out of bed. I know first hand how fragile this makes a person feel and how little perfectly healthy people understand what living like this is like. It must be so hard on a child to have to take a drug, and incredibly strong parents who go down this road with them.

But I was not about to say all this. I already felt bad that I had made them feel defensive. I obviously hit a nerve. Leave it to me ... oiy. I am so different from the typical Leave it To Beaver moms; yet I create a home life few could even begin to touch. I know how to create happiness, love and beauty in a home. Brian and I live in such peace and a quiet, simple life. It was all I wanted for us after my divorce.

Maybe I am like the soldier who has returned from battle who feels forever changed by what he has seen. But I am like these women - more like them then they realize. I am fighting their same fight, just from a different hill.

I am just fighting it in black leather while they do it in matching gym outfits.

Until next time-

" Someday, we're going to have us a little house and a couple of acres, a cow, a pig..."

THE MEDIUM OF EXPERIENCES PAST

Wed, 19 Apr 2006 18:50:20 GMT

Memories have a way of coming up in our present life experience and knocking us to the floor when we least expect it.

I went to the Rosary for Mr. McNeany. It was a beautiful sunny evening, so perfect for a man who created so much sun in the lives of those he touched. Joe, one of his youngest sons (who looks just like his dad) was at the door to the Chapel greeting everyone and thanking us for coming. It was just like something his father would do.

Upon seeing Joe in his suit and shaking everyone's hands my heart fills with sadness like slow molasses over a heavy pancake. Unexpectedly, I want someone to hold my hand and tell me everything is going to be fine ... I was about to relive my own father's death ... twenty eight years later. I am ill prepared for where my emotions are about to take me. Suddenly I feel very alone, just like I did at my own father's Rosary. I don't know why I didn't ask someone to come with me.

Why do I have to pretend to be so strong?

When I am not.

http://www.aweekinthelifeofaredhead.com

ILLUSION

Fri, 26 May 2006 05:54:57 GMT

Magic can be defined as something that seems to cast a spell. I am spellbound by what is unfolding before me in my life - pure magic.

After such a long arduous journey, I suddenly find myself basking in the sunlight again. It is so bright, in fact, that I must put my hand above my forhead to filter the happiness that is reigning down on me. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to focus, let alone breathe.

McYummy and I have chatted almost every day and I find him quite facinating ... almost the male version of me ... yet strong in the areas I am weak. I know God brought him into my life - I feel it in my bones. Now if I can only remember to breathe when he is around. That's all I need is to pass out and hit my head on a chair as I fall to the floor...

Side bar: Old friends are coming to work with me and suddenly I am finding I am accidently starting a small Mortgage Company. How did THAT happen?

Maybe they all want to rescue me from having to be around my x husband ... a buffer.

They are very positive, spiritual people. Wow...to work around people that are happy all the time ... what a concept.

Of course, they in turn, are forced to be around the redhead...