Never a bridesmaid...

For those of you who don't know me in real life, this will come as a suprise. I am a fat. Not husky, not overweight, not burlesque, or volvuptious, but just fat. I have been for the majority of my life and it is not that I haven't tried to diet. You name it and I've been tried it; for a while it works and then life gets stressful and I slip in a chocolate covered puddle. I'm not happy with my weight. I realize that it is destroying my health. However, it is the way I am right now and so I have to deal with it.

My best friend is getting married. I am not a bridesmaid. With some reluctance, she asked me to read a poem. Her sister and her nieces are her bridesmaids and I have not problem with that. Her Maid of Honor I struggle with a bit, since Jen was banned from her wedding, but Heather is thin and beautiful. Jen loves me. She is my cousin as well as my friend and so I have known her throughout her entire life. We've been best friends for the last 10 years. She doesn't mean to hurt my feelings. She wants me to play the role of maid of honor, she just doesn't want me to mess up the photograph. I was thinking about all of this and that made me think about online classes and I realized that the fact that you can't see me might be the reason I like them so much. People get to know me for who I am as a person through my writing. Unless, I make a concious choice, the majority of you who read this will never know what I look like. When I write, I feel like I can truly be the person that I am.

Okay. Done.

Daddies

There was a theme about my day and I thought I would share. I work at Sylvan Learning Center as well as at the high school and today was my day to administer test. I had the privledge of working with a beautiful, funny, smart little girl for two hours. Her dad brought her in, a little nervous and little more than unsure. You could see an aura of protection emitting from him the whole time. He had brought her with a bag of doughnut holes and with her hair in pigtails and leaving her was the last thing he wanted to do. He shared with me that he is her biological dad but she lives with her mom and stepdad. He didn't know some information that I could tell he thought he should have and he felt guilty...but he did know that she loves "High School Musical" :) When he picked her up, he asked how he would recieve progress reports since he wouldn't be at the meetings..could he have them e-mailed or faxed or a phone call. How would he know? He walked outside with her, kissed her, picked her up (even though she is in second grade) and carried her to the car. My co-worker was watching this with me and commented on how sweet but sad this moment was. It made me miss my dad and the days when he could pick me up and make the problems of the world disappear.

I came home and was writng "Twisted" by Laurie Halse Anderson and was amazed at the father/son relationship in the story. A dad who roared and bellowed and loved..but didn't know how to show it. It talked about how a parent can kill their child without ever laying a hand on them and the things we should learn from our parent's mistakes. I cried again.

I moved down to the computer to check facebook and all things important and saw that there was a new message on my buddy Mike's blog. The story of baby Mia and the fight she and her parents are in seemed to fit in so perfectly with my day to remind me that I should be thankful for the life I life. Thankful for stinky teenagers with more issues than "The New Yorker". Thankful for my mother and the problems that she feels willing to talk to me about. Thankful for a best friend to be mad at..thankful.

I added Mike's blog so you can check out Baby Mia and the pictures he took of her and her family. God is good.

http://mikesteelman.com/blog/

Forget what I said earlier

I just need a snow day. Maybe two.

It's 7 A.M. and here I am..

At school in a room full of teenagers with glazed over eyes who are trying to earn credits taht they missed because they slept through class...the things I do for an extra $20. I was here last night until 9 up to my elbows in essays and make up work and only a few short hours and I'm back. Don't get me wrong--I love my job--but sometimes Spring Break looks better than others. Today, I guess my life is pretty ordinary but it's only 8:00.