Don’t Touch The Pain… It’s Still Wet.

All of my life goals may or may not come in the form of Paris Geller Quotes…

Sometimes I compose blog posts about things that I know that I’m not willing to post because the pain is too fresh or the issue is still unresolved. I find that I do my best and most honest writing when I’m in the midst of it, but I’m not willing to share it… at least not at the moment. And so my drafted posts tend to look more like journal entries but every now and again I go back and look at them and decide which ones are still too close to home and which ones are fit to be edited by my current, more emotionally stable, self. This is one such post…

The Anger Of A Broken Heart (aka, what makes me mad at me)

Sometimes things just don’t work out… it happens to everyone, and in a myriad of different ways. So in a way the feeling isn’t anything special or unique, but when you feel it yourself it always feels exceptional. You often feel as though no one has ever felt the way you’re feeling and yet you know that this is only because your heart has officially quit listening to any reason your head might be trying to transmit. I know the feeling, you likely have known the feeling, and most likely everyone who has lived more than a few years on this planet knows the feeling.

I don’t know why but somewhere in the back of my mind I thought I would get better at this as I got older… like somehow maturity would eventually make my heart impervious to pain. But lately I’ve been feeling just the opposite. It’s like a fall that wouldn’t have phased you when your were younger now, as an adult, leaves some serious marks and perhaps makes you take it easy for a while. Instead of your emotions getting more resilient, over time they seem to bruise more easily… or at least mine do.

But let me tell you what I AM better at now than I was when I was younger… I’m an absolute pro at hiding it. I’m a master at telling everyone exactly what I should be feeling. I’m a wizard at hiding any hurt I feel I should have been smart enough to avoid. And when people ask me if I’m OK I can jedi mind-trick them into believing that I am because after all, “these aren’t the emotions you are looking for” . I’m not sure if this is right or even remotely healthy but it’s how I am… and to be honest, my experience in letting others in on what’s going on in my personal life tends to complicate things more than it helps. Being the introvert that I am, I generally know what I need and don’t need any commentary on the situation… this is probably the same reason why I prefer to shop alone. But I digress…

What I really want to talk about is my own tendency, and perhaps one others can relate to, is the anger I feel towards myself when I somehow let my heart get broken. There are so many times where I come across sucky situations and everyone expects me to be devastated over it and yet I’m fine, and this is because I’m pretty good at reading people and I’m rarely taken by surprise. Yes, it sucks that so-and-so did such-and-such but I’m fine because I half expected him/her/them to do it. But what really will get me angry at myself is when I saw it coming and yet I chose to ignore it. No walls, no fortification, no wisdom… just me believing what I wanted to believe regardless of what I knew deep down. That’s what makes me mad at me.

It’s the times where I new that my best qualities weren’t on the list of things he was looking for… but I thought that would change. It’s the times where I opened up to that girl I previously deemed untrustworthy… and she let me down again.

And if you know me and feel that this is something you should know about please don’t worry too much about it because this is just how I am… especially in situations when there is nothing to be done but pick myself up and begin to heal. No condolences necessary because chances are you wont be reading this until I’ve sorted it all out. But even just typing all of this out today has cleared my head a bit and made me realize that I shouldn’t get mad at myself for living life and opening up to people because while the words of Simon & Garfunkel, “A rock feels no pain, and an island never cries” ring true… I don’t want to be a rock, and i don’t want to be an island either. I don’t believe that we were created to function like that and I’m going to avoid that eventuality by being real with myself in the present and hopefully you can do that for yourself as well.

So here’s to looking back and laughing at all of the hours I spent crying to Terrible Love and Sorrow by The National… because no matter how much I identify with the words “I don’t want to get over you” at the moment, the more rational part of my brain knows that that wont always be true. Cheers.

Mile A Day + Charity Miles = Charity A Day

What I want to look like when I run.

What I really look like when I run.

Just a quick update on my Mile A Day resolution… it’s been just over a week and I’m still going strong! Of course a mile is easy but it’s the every day thing that will be a challenge. I mean, I have a hard time managing to do things like pray, brush my hair, and put on a bra everyday so the remaining 357 days in this year will be interesting to say the least.

But more important than my new found resolve I wanted to share this little app I came across called “Charity Miles”. It’s a free app that gives you several popular charity options and all you do is select if you are running, walking, or biking and hit start at the beginning of your route. I love it when compassionate people come up with innovative and brilliant ideas.

Yes, I know it’s only .25 per mile for runners but by the end of the year that means $91.25 that will go to a charity of my choice for doing something that I would have already been doing, and that’s $91.25 more than I would have given otherwise. It’s a great concept really… I mean, people have been showing up to do marathons, half marathons, and (if you’re like me) 5K’s to support good causes for a long time but this makes it apart of your everyday life.

I love it when people get creative with giving back to others!

To Resolute Or Not To Resolute… That Is The Question

Highlights of 2012!

I’ve always been slightly opposed to New Years Resolutions (NYR’s) … I’m even more opposed to sharing them with other people.

However, I read an interesting article the other day which stated that 87% of Americans make NYR’s and about 46% who have achieved their goals and/or are still maintaining them 6 months into the year. Personally I think that 46% is a little on the optimistic side but if it’s true then I’m all for it. So this is the first year that I’ve actually decided on some resolutions. After all, the way I see it is my chances of succeeding is higher if I set goals than if I don’t!

According to the same article some of the top NYR’s are: Have more fun, relax/reduce stress, spend more time with family, eat better/exercise more/lose weight, and Reduce spending/debt. All of these are good goals to have, but I feel that I really don’t need a new year to put these in place since I am either already working on these aspects (like saving money) or I’ve got it covered (like spending time with family!)

Of course you want your resolutions to be all creative and meaningful and sh** but trendiness has no place in setting goals in your life. So since I’ve been racking my brain for something that would make a good resolution(s) I decided I should share the guidelines I came up with for setting my own resolutions:

1. Do It For Yourself!
I think this is the number one mistake that people make when setting goals, be it a NYR or not. I’m not saying that all goals must be selfish but your focus needs to be right. A lot of the typical goals that people set are great and all but most of the time they’re just not going to work in the long run if it isn’t something that you want for yourself. If you want to lose weight that’s fine, but it needs to be for yourself and not for some guy or to look great at one particular event or because someone made some cruel remark. No matter what your goal is I say the number one key to success is setting the right ones and that starts with being honest with yourself and what it is you truly want!

2. Try to set goals that have little to no reliance on outside forces.
Frankly, there is only so much in life that you can control. I’m one of the bossiest people you’ll ever meet (I blame it on being first born) but even I admit that there are some things outside of my control. Yes, be proactive and don’t just let life happen to you. But try to set goals and not hopes… goals you can achieve, hopes you just have to wait around on.

3. Pick something with a timeline and/or quantifiable results.Don’t be afraid of being specific when it comes to setting goals. Don’t say, “In 2013 I’m going to eat healthier” say, “In 2013 I’m going to quit drinking soda” or instead of saying, “I’m going to save more money” say, “By the end of 2013 I’m going to have $10,000 in savings”. It’s also helpful to create a timeline with benchmarks so you can make sure you monitor your progress as the year goes by. I know this sounds like smug advice coming from a girl who sleeps on a bed piled with cloths 90% of the time but I promise you that there are many aspects of my life that are organized to the extreme and I rarely set a goal I don’t meet.

4. Don’t Be Afraid To Think Small
This is and especially important one if you feel like you have a bad track record when it comes to achieving goals and resolutions. The saying, “Shoot for the moon, even if you miss you’ll land among the stars.” is very poetic but I really don’t see the reality of that in my own life and the lives of others. More often I see people who burn themselves out on their own goals because they set a standard for themselves that was too high to maintain. If you think that setting an impossibly lofty goal will land you among the stars then go for it… but for my self and many others the goal is totally kaput before we even leave the hemisphere.

So with that being said I’ve decided to take on a few self-improvment challenges this year:
1. I intend to take up a “Mile A Day Challenge” where I run a mile each day (six days a week)
2. Stick with a single writing project and make notable progress instead of starting up a million different projects as usual.
3. Be a better friend. i.e. initiate conversations and keep up with people instead of waiting for them to call me.

Wish me luck!!!

Who Is In Control?

So sorry that all of my “Things My Parents Really Did Right” posts just stopped abruptly… life happens and I refuse to beat myself up about it. I plan on continuing with the series whenever life decides to give me a bit of a break!

Thought for the day:

I’ve noticed that I tend to give God credit (at least in my head) for every little thing that happens to me. Part of me wonders if this is actually true because does God really care that I’m lazy and never get gas when I should and thus he miraculously allows me to get to work on the fumes? Does God really orchestrate my wanting to try out a new burger place on the very day that they’re giving all of their food away for free?

I know this is something we will probably never know for sure… so in light of that is it better to assume that God does it all just in case?

Also, if I were to verbalize my thanks to God for all of the little things around me would this be a turn off to others around me who are less religious or even non-religious?

I want your thoughts so let the comments begin!

Things My Parents Really Did Right #6

6. Nothing Can Replace Consistent Quality Time

Growing up we rarely did any sort of “big vacations”. There was a combination of reasons such as money, time, our various ages, and the fact that our family usually included a newborn, etc. But we were kings of the day trip… there isn’t a place within a few hours drive of Houston that provides free and/or cheap entertainment that I haven’t been to. Like any typical American family the weekdays were full of school, work, chores, commitments but my parents were great about not letting the weekends get too filled up… because that was family time, no doubt about it.

This seems like a no brainer and I know how hard it is to find family time… but one thing that I think my parents really did right was focusing on having family time on a consistent basis even if it only meant an day or an afternoon rather than try to make up for lost time by cramming in a two week+ vacation once a year. Of course there’s nothing wrong with a two week vacation if you can make that happen but as far as quality time goes I think that it reaches it’s family benefit cap at around 3 days. At work we say that we need to have some sort of event or get together at least once a month even if it’s not some huge thing… which makes sense in a lot of ways, yet we somehow think that the standard is lower for our families? I say that at least once a month you need to have some sort of trip/activity that will be result in some sort of story and/or memory. And believe me, if there is some sort of behavioral issue that needs to be addressed you’re certainly going to notice it after a day or two with the entire family!

Once your kids become teenagers their schedules, on top of yours, become more hectic and it’s harder to make any sort of trip happen, and that’s why I think it’s very important when you have kids between the ages of 4-12 to take as many short weekend trips as possible… this is one area where I think quantity ranks above quality. Now the baby of the family is 15 and those in school, those working, and those who travel 6+ months of the year, it’s hard to get everyone to the same dinner much less together for a whole day… but if these sort of weekend excursions are built into the framework of your family then you’d be surprised how hard everyone is willing to work to make it happen.

As I mentioned earlier, my family is practically pro-status day/weekend trippers…. no need for vacation time or lots of money just pile into the suburban and pray it’ll get us where we want to go. I really think that this is one of the reasons we’re so close and can manage to travel with each other to this day. Wen planning these sort of things you need to be wise and consider the cost of the trip versus the memories it’s likely to produce. In the summer of last year we decided to take a whopping three day vacation and the whole family plus my brother’s girlfriend Madeline flew out to Disney Land… and it was one of the best trips ever. The trip was a stretch for us financially but we only do something like this once in a decade or so and we knew that the memories would be worth every penny. It was full of the usual DuPree family fun such as evading hotel staff so they wont know that we’re sleeping WAY too many people in one hotel room but it was also full of Disney magic. We were only there for a day but it truly was one of the most perfect days and I know none of us will ever forget it.

The term “quality time” is a no brainer… but be sure that you’re not skipping out on “time” and using the lack of “quality” as an excuse. I believe that the more time you spend together will result in quality. Not every trip is Disney Land but I’m sure Disney Land wouldn’t have been nearly as perfect as it was if it wasn’t for all of the time we spend with each other doing the little stuff!

Things My Parents Really Did Right #5

5. The Benefits Of Trust

The virtue of honesty regardless of any cost or inconvenience is something that is, like most things, very important to instill in your kids at an early age. I know how easy it is to dismiss a child’s feeble lie when he or she knows they will be in trouble, because generally when you ask, “Did you do that?” you’re almost expecting them to twist the story. But the truth of the matter is that by allowing any sort of falsehood or half-truth you’re telling your kid that it’s ok to lie. If your toddler pushes another kid there should be a form of punishment, but if he or she lies about it then there should be two. As a child I always knew that lying about something would get me in far more trouble than if I came straight out with it.

Like most children the only true motivation I had to do what was right simply to avoid punishment, but as I got older I realized there could be a lot of perks of always telling the truth. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, my parents always made sure to trust us and give us more freedom whenever they could as long as we didn’t do anything to break their trust. As your kids get older it’s important to not only find ways to let them know that you trust them, but to show them that there are benefits of being trustworthy.

When I was a teenager I, unlike many teenagers (not to mention a lot of my own friends), didn’t lie to my parents. Not gonna lie (pun intended), there were times that it sucked because when they asked “What are you guys going to be doing?” telling the truth could very well turn “yes” into a “no”. But there were many times that I found myself in situations where it was imperative that my parents trust that I was telling the truth or that I would keep my word. And of course the perks grew along with me… by the time I was 16 and had my license I was the only one of my friends without a curfew, could go to which ever New Years Eve parties I wanted, and my account of events was the one trusted by not only my own parents but by other parents as well… these privileges were so important to me that I wouldn’t have done anything to jeopardize them. The motto around the house was always, “Say what you mean and mean what you say.” From what I’ve seen and heard, part of the dread that parents feel when approaching the teenage years is this idea that your kid is going to start lying to you, but the reality is that the likely hood of that happening is based on whether or not they’re already lying you you, the only difference will be that it’ll now be about the really big things.

Of course my blathering on and on about this is all fine and dandy but there is one more ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL ELEMENT of trust that I want to cover… and that is that trust has to go both ways. So parents, this means you can’t make idle threats, you can’t flake out on what you say you’re going to do, and you may have to say things that are easier left unsaid, but that’s the opportunity cost of having a trusting relationship with your kids. For me, there are certain things in life that I don’t question such as the sun rising in the East, me crying when Sam thinks Frodo is dead, and the fact that my parents will never lie to me.

Now… I’m not going to hate on parents who do the whole Santa thing because the truth is it’s fun, but the fact that we didn’t do it is a testament to how seriously my parents were about never lying to us. I remember when I was pretty young my parents explained the whole story behind why some kids believe in Santa and they told us that we could leave cookies out and pretend he was real if he wanted but that they didn’t want to lie to us even if it was just for fun. It’s true that most kids don’t experience tremendous emotional trauma when they find out that it has all been a lie, but I’ve know some who are so shaken by it that they actually go through a time of questioning everything about their life… but regardless of potential reactions it was a great way to make me understand at a young age how seriously my parents took telling the truth. This whole concept may seem a little overboard to some, but as a child it solidified in my mind the fact that my parents weren’t going to lie to me even if it was just for fun, or just because other parents did. And believe me, there have been times in my life where being able to trust my parents has been just as important as them trusting me!

Things My Parents Really Did Right #4

4. Everything I Need To Know About Being An Adult I Learned As A Child

I’ve never quite understood why some parents are willing to talk out every behavioral problem with their toddler yet decide to change tactics and come down hard on every little thing when their kids become teenagers. Of course there is a time and a place for “the rules are the rules and you don’t get a say in it” but I’ve seen far too many parents get the timing wrong and it can lead to a lot of behavioral and relational issues later on down the child-rearing road.

Growing up I remember that doing what you were told the first time you were told to do it was just something you knew was expected of you. The same went for my brothers of course and being the oldest allowed me to witness first hand how having very specific behavioral expectations, such as respect, obedience, politeness, and thankfulness, from children at a young age tends to give them more confidence and security than I saw in children who had no such structure. And as each of us got older we were gradually allowed more choices, more discussion, and more resp0nsibility. This sort of thing is easy to make sense of when you put it down in words but I understand that the execution of it can be very tiresome, especially for parents with strong willed children.

Believe me, I might have been a fairly mild tempered child but all five of us certainly weren’t. With several of my brothers my parents would often come across whole days, weeks, or even months where it seemed like they were forced to dole out spankings over and over for the same exact behavior. I remember at one point actually feeling worse for my poor worn out mother than I did the brother getting spanked. But looking back I truly think that the level of obedience and respect that was required 100% of the time regardless of mood or circumstance was key in how my parents and I were able to communicate and resolve issues as I got older.

To be clear, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t explain and/or discuss expected behavior and rules with your kids when they’re younger, but I do believe that immediate obedience should be required and then it can be discussed later if necessary. At a young age this not only has an impact on their behavior later in life it’s a safety issue too. If you tell your child to come here in the grocery store and he or she runs away from you it may not seem like a big deal, but that same lack of obedience in a parking lot could mean your kid’s life. Since the attitudes behind that sort of behavioral response carries over into adolescent decision making it’s no wonder that so many teens tend to be defiant. .

So all in all I would say that any behavior you allow your two year old is the sort of behavior you can expect from your sixteen year old. But believe me, my work with youth has shown me that a 16 year old’s rebellious attitude is far more alarming, and comes with far more serious consequences, than a two year old’s will. And it’s this very principle that makes me thankful that my parents set the bar so high for my behavior when I was little!

Discipline and structure = happy children… the proof is in the picture.