Whatever it is, let it be, let it be

I am burning with anger. It does not happen often where I have an uncontrollable urge to break every dish in the house it's just sometimes parenting can be infuriating. Case in point, we have been home on vacation for the entire week. Child #2 starts having a hard time catching her breath and her heart is beating fast. You are wondering if we made a trip to the emergency room. Not exactly since the panic attack is due in part to the three assignments #2 has to complete for Monday morning and she spent all of 30 minutes on one thing all week. So now you wonder why a responsible parent such as my self was caught unawares. Like most parents, you only know what they tell you. The origin of the panic attack that kept my husband up half the night was only revealed to me at 4pm and I have not been gracious about #2's predicament. When I was a kid you handled your academic problems on your own or, in other words, when you screwed up you stayed up all night and got it done. Nowadays you have to watch your children dilly and dally over every small task. When they are working on the computer, you have to watch that they are not checking YouTube or talking to the "wifey" on AIM. Holy cow! I thought the writing would diffuse the huff I'm in, but it's just making it worse. I see why some parents want to just take the assignment and finish it themselves.

Not in the same league, don't shoot at the same basket...

Two quick random thoughts..
First, congratulations to my fourteen-year-old son. I know I don’t look old enough to have a 14 year old. Anyway he just won his community school basketball championship for the 7th/8th grade league. It's all the local rage in Brockton. The calm Nicole was a darn nervous wreck at the beginning of the game fidgeting and muttering under my breath. My father thought it was hysterical to watch, but I just wanted him to win so bad that I was praying that he would be calm and I was acting foolish. I should not have worried because he and his team did their thing and won handily. Everyone played and everyone got a shot at the basket - an undefeated season. Whoo - hoo!

What else happened to me this week? Oh yeah, I remember. Since I hit 36 (or "Darn near 40" as I like to call it) I surmised that I should be more fit. For the last 30 days I have been waking up between 4:30 am and 5:00 am to do the "New Year, New You" challenge from Exercise TV. They lie. I'm sweating so much that I'm starving and feeding the starvation. I renamed it, “New Year, New Feeble You.” I have been sore, but my rings fit on my finger better. What an accomplishment. My four-year old gave me a hug the other day and said, "Your back is all squishy” like it was something nice. Today I tried to pick up the 7 year old and I told him he was getting too big to lift. He grabbed my arms and said, "That’s how you build these." My kids are so witty. Can't get a break I tell you, but I'm going to keep at it and get down to my fighting weight between after freshman 15 and before baby #2. I was a respectable size then.

Look for the girl with the broken smile

I like being alone. That sounds strange when I uttered the words sitting in my house, alone, listening to the quiet whir of the washing machine in the basement. My life is so noisy and it would be logical for me, with my few hours alone, to catch one of my favorite shows or read a book. Right now I am perfectly content with the silence of my house. The TV is off and so is the cd player. Right now it is the soothing tinkle of the keyboard keys that I love so much. I love that noise because it is creativity at work, the mind exploring different possibilities and watching it unfold on paper. I am thinking of the scripture “be still and know that I am God”. I have to ask, what does it take for us to just be still sometimes with our thoughts? We spend our lives complaining. I complained the entire week (guilty) because I had to return to work. Hello! I have a job that allows me to be off for two weeks with my children while they are out of school. Wait, back up, I'm employed and I like my job. I remember the days of unemployment and under employment in my house. We all experience lean times, you just hope if you go through it once it does not happen again. I feel blessed to be where I am.

My restless feelings are because I do not manage my free time well. Free time is a loose term for me, but my responsibilities are my responsibilities, but if there is something that I want to do (finish that book, lose weight, start running) then I should just do it. If I'm not meeting a goal, but working toward it, I should be okay with that in my mind. It has been a very long period of frustration for me, but it has been self-imposed. At work, I am the easy going one who never really gets too emotional. Secrets, secrets...I get very emotional, I just only show it to a few people.

I was talking to my students about the fact I have never watched the movie E.T. They thought my parents were mean and never took me to the movies (no that was Avalon). Anyway, I told them that I do not like to see "must see" stuff as if I do not like to follow the crowd. The real deal is that I would cry at the end of emotional movies. My girlfriend's parent, our chaperone, would come home and tell my mom about the tears, as if that's cute; "Nicky cried at the end." I'm thinking - do you need to tell all of my business? But I am emotional and I do cry; I cry at TV shows, commercials, a heartfelt prayer, a line in a story – my crying is not limited to movies. I do not like to cry with witnesses. But what's wrong with showing emotion from time to time? Do I need to project this tough as nails exterior to people. I am a softy and I do not like to be hurt. So I do not show hurt. There, I said it and it's out there. No more pretending I do not have any emotions because I have lots of them. See, I'm laughing right now because I am so silly (because the house is making night time noises and being alone is not so cute right now).

If I tell the world, I'll never say enough

So a year ago I started a blog with all types of excitement. I sent an email out to everyone and amassed five followers (my mother not included). What has happened to me in a year? I was really into the posting for a while and then I chickened out because of the self-censoring that needs to happen due to my place of employment. It seems in the education world you do not have a private life. Which makes sense when you try to have an online persona because you have made the private public?

But I digress, well my life happened. I took my first class at Harvard which was very exciting because I still have it - I got an A. sorry, an "A-" but Nicole the Nerd is back. I tried to do the novel contest again, but pressures at home caught my short about 40k short of the 50k goal. But good news kids, I picked up my book from last November to work on the editing. I recently heard a story about Toni Morrison keeping her novel Beloved in a box for years before getting it published. I'm not getting any younger so I decided to rescue my book from the dust mites under my bed and get out my teacher pen. It's not too bad. Should I publicly say I will post some excerpts? Don't know yet.

Work is okay and busy. At the start of the school year I had the 5 year itch. This is my sixth year teaching - the longest I have been in one job. I think we may have a career folks at least until I decide to be a writer for real. I was sitting in bed last night having my back to school anxiety attack because I have not graded one paper since I have been home. That's a lot to do in a home and a vacation should be that - a break from the work life. There are still four kids and no more on the way! What I do have is a full-fledged teenager. I mean Avalon is going to be fourteen. What the heck am I going to do now? I already talked about the armpit hair and the calling me "Mom" stuff (and now the 7 year old is calling me that too). My daughter got her hair pressed and while that may sound like nothing to you- she looks like a young woman. And my youngest is about 9 months away from kindergarten. Hallelujah no more daycare payments, but sadness for the end of innocence. So on my pre-anniversary I would like to thank my five followers and my mom for supporting me. I will be back more frequently until school kicks my butt, but I vow to be more frequent. My fans are waiting.

Happy New Year!

..baby girl flossing, lipgloss is shining

This morning I was thinking about my silver bangles. Currently I wear a cheap set I bought at Burlington Coat Factory that jingle when I move my arm and remind me that I am doing the jewelry thing. One broke; popped at the place where it’s lightly welded. However, my silver bracelets, the ones from childhood that every young West Indian son and daughter must wear - I want those back. They don’t go out of style and they do not break. My mom has a picture displayed at her house of me as an infant with a yellow-checkered dress, a smock front with flowers and my gold bangle prominently displayed. Don't know where they are now and if I ask my mother for them, she will tell me how much they cost, how hard they are to get, et cetera. They used to irritate me because in school the teachers would ask me to take them off during gym and for track meets. They don't come off easily – these bangles are not meant to come off. So this morning while my fake diamond bracelet and cheap silver one where clanging together on the way to work I thought about my bangles - my West Indian bangles. How did they come off?

Lost and insecure..you found me

So I have been challenged to post. When I started reading over my blog, I was surprised to find that I have not written a thing since July. There's that commitment thing again. Let me tell you what I have committed to lately.

Earrings...oddly enough, my mom believes that you are not dressed unless you are wearing earrings. My friend Ditzah has been all over me this summer for being half done. My hair and make-up were done; I would put on decent clothes and a necklace, but forget the important earrings. So since the start of school I have worn earrings every (almost) day! I have committed to that one simple thing.

What else? - National Novel Writing Month is coming up in November. I have verbally committed to doing it again. I did it last year - 50k words in 30 some odd days and I was completely blown away that I did it. Since I am not in school this semester - to discuss later - I have to do this novel writing contest.

Is that all I have committed to? That may be it for right now but seeing how I have been lately that's not too bad.

Oh - and I am committed to my marriage. We just passed the ten-year mark. It goes by fast and I feel like I have been married an eternity. The other day I thought about how next September 2010 I will have known my husband for half of my life. What? That's just crazy, deranged. No, seriously, it's a big thing and I can barely wrap my head around the idea.

Oh and I have been reading at night, every night. I have a hard time reading for pleasure during the school year because you read papers, and articles and the like and it just gets to be too much. I read some woman's blog where she reads over 100 books a year. I thought I loved to read, but wow. I did commit to the entire Twilight series. I'm just a commitment fanatic.

So I have posted to my blog, writing this entry in ten minutes in response to pressure from my good friend (and blog follower), Rach. Thanks, Ray-Ray.

That's the way, that's the way, that's the way

Okay so let me tell you about today. Nicole gets an idea. Nicole tries to follow through with said idea - oops - wrench in the works. Just spent time writing here preparing a post about commitment because I have not committed to keep up with my blog posts, my exercise, my healthy living. So I write the darn thing, get ready to edit and I have deleted it somehow. What the heck? I mean I wrote some good stuff, right. Or maybe it was crap and my cinco followers would know (one, that I'm looking for more followers) that I am cuckoo for coco puffs right now.

So let me give you the highlights of my last post....I cannot maintain friendships because I have a fear of commitment or an inability to stay faithful to friendships, hairdressers, healthy living plans (banning the word diet from my vocabulary), careers (writing is my first love) and a bunch of other things that I have forgotten because I can't even commit things to memory. I do remember from my long lost, well-written post, that I did not have an answer for my conundrum (nor do I want one). I am willing to forge forward with my new revelation and wait for God to tell me to stop whining. Most of the time I know exactly what I need to do and how to go about it, but I give myself reasons to not do it.

So what am I going to do about this friend thing? Let's see - I have a wide circle of friends. The thing I was commenting on was my lack of intimate friendships. You know the kind that five of you have - people you know you better than you know yourself. People who are willing to tell you difficult things even though they may get more than they bargained for in return. I don't know that I have that in my life right now, or if I am that for others.