Life lessons from Indiana and givin’ er just one more time - PART II

Get outta the way. I am coming through.

That’s what the next two years felt like.

It took quite a few months before we were finally situated in our own place.

Like I said before, we relied on the kindness of others for a roof over our heads. To them all, I will forever be grateful.

In the meantime, I started cleaning houses wherever I could, and doing yard work for a law professor in Valpo who found every blade of grass that grew between the pebbles that surrounded her rose bushes particularly annoying.

It was my job to get rid of them.

If just so happens she was the soon-to-be new wife of my now ex-boyfriend’s sister’s boss’s ex-husband. (If you can wrap your head around that).

That’s how I got the job. And she took a liking to me. I did everything from house-sit for her to clean her home and garden.

The Lord does indeed work in mysterious ways. But then again, I always thought everything happens for a reason.

I guess I did a good job because after a week of feeling more like a manicurist than a gardener, we sat down to have a little chat.

After hearing my story, she told me I was “overqualified” for my gardening duties and suggested I apply for law school instead.

“Law what?”

“I’m serious. With your previous grades and your life experience, you’re in a good demographic to secure a full scholarship. All you have to do is write a good LSAT.”

Well that’s just a dandy idea, I thought, wondering if I should hug her for suggesting it or tell her she was out of her frakkin’ mind.

“Just think about.” She said.

There was only one problem. I had missed the deadline for application and would have to wait a year to get in - providing of course, I wrote a stellar LSAT. Which is a bitch of an idea in itself since I could barely think straight enough to get through the day, let alone focus on one of the hardest entrance exams on the planet.

But, what the hell. I had nothin' to lose.

I needed a full scholarship and a student visa to keep Ryan here long enough to get him through high school.

Getting a decent job was almost impossible - I needed a visa for that too. And they were handing those out about as often as Bush said, “terrorist activity is way overrated”. Like NEVER.

As for my Education degree? It was useless - a school would have to sponsor me if I wanted to teach in the U.S. And we all know the education budget is as likely to factor in that $3,000 expense as they are to provide a surf n’ turf menu option in the school cafeteria.

Looks like I’m writing the LSAT.

No pressure.

In the meantime, Ryan was entering his Junior year with the resolve of a kid who bore his own version of unreasonable pressure. There were days he felt the way a kid in kindergarten might feel if you told him to explain Einstein’s theory of Relativity and if he failed to do it, he’d never get recess again for the rest of his life.

But he handled it like a champ, because nobody... and I mean NOBODY, wanted it more badly than Ryan.

After a sophomore year learning what all those damn squiggles and lines meant in his play book (he’d never played football before in his life), Ryan was starting to feel his way around the football field with the confidence of someone who was starting to sense the same potential in himself the way God might see in all of us - with unlimited possibilities and unshakeable confidence.

Sure, he might never have played football before and “hut” to him meant a place people lived in a 3rd world country, but I swear, at the same age most babies were learning to walk, he was mastering the triple jump - that’s how coordinated he was.

It was no coincidence that the first time he was sent into the field during his sophomore year, when he got hold of the ball, he ran for a touchdown. The fact that it was called back was irrelevant because Providence had already cracked the door open just enough to reveal what he was capable of.

The tone was set.

The truth of the matter was things behind the scenes were anything but stable.

Finding a way to stay would require a miraculous sequence of events.

But just as the Universe sets us up with what can only be explained as spiritual tests of character, it also plants helpers along the way to see us through.

I was fortunate to have made a friend a year prior when I was enrolled in the Second City Sketch Comedy writing program in Chicago (before the bottom fell out of my life).

L was a freelance writer. When she got swamped with more work than she wanted, (and knowing the pickle I was in), she started to siphon the odd job my way. I became like a ‘ghost writer’ But then again, even a real writer doesn’t get credit when the gig is grade four Social Studies (although I sure know a lot more about the gold rush in California now).

Eventually I wrote some articles on Martin Luther King for another development house. The pay wasn’t very good, but it garnered enough respect to get me an in-house job offer with the same outfit a few weeks later.

Things were looking up.

Now I could properly support myself and Ryan, and secure a visa to stick around. Maybe even get an apartment.

The daily four hour commute was not my favourite way to spend idle time, but when my car became unreliable, I rode the South Shore into the city and wore a hat I could pull down over my eyes at 5 am. I got on the train early enough to secure a seat by a window where I could lean my head. My morning snooze was down to a science.

We got our own place, I bought a better car... but just when I thought things were stabilizing:

I lost my job the day before Ryan’s first game in his Senior year.

Like I've said before, sometimes s*** just happens.

In the meantime, after a few months of study, I had indeed written the LSAT and done well on it. But had to wait yet another year to get into law school.

I felt positively cursed. My application had been incomplete because the law school never received the transcript from my old college.

I found out later, the transfer had been withheld due to some $135 in unpaid campus parking tickets. Just another oversight of the ex husband who refused to take care of his own carelessness 5 years back when using a car that was registered in my name.

Unfortunately, it cost me a year of waiting for law school. All their scholarship monies had been dispensed while the registrar’s office was patiently waiting for my papers to arrive.

I was too late.

That’s when I started waitressing. I was grateful for whatever shifts I could get, but I have to admit my first paycheck of $37 just didn’t sit well with me. No offense to the owners - they were great - but I came from a place that paid servers the same as anybody else making minimum wage - I should know, I raised my kids on it.

These days, in our neck of the woods, servers are making almost nine bucks an hour plus tips. And my first few weeks of making tips in Indiana weren’t cutting it - even when the wage was $2.15 an hour, and not $2.13 (as another server cheerily reminded me Appleby’s paid their staff). Holy crap.

Yep, things were looking up alright.

But Ryan was flying on the field, and I was having the time of my life as a football mom.

And there is something to be said for believing that the Universe has a destiny for everyone. So I firmly held to the belief that if we were meant to be there, things were going to work out.

God just doesn’t give someone that kind of talent and then take away their opportunity to shine - especially when they acknowledge every opportunity to play as a blessing.

Without fail, Ryan said his Game Day Prayer every Friday night, asking God to protect the entire team from injury and see them through another ‘best effort’ game.

And sure enough, they did.

In the meantime, through circumstances that can only be described as serendipitous, I secured another job - this time with a trucking company. I stayed with them for a year. Long enough to get Ryan through his Senior year of high school.

But in spite of a football season that can only be described as magical, our struggle began spiralling out of control...

NEXT - PART III - Lessons from Indiana and givin’ er one LAST time

October 3, 2009 - Kicking your shadows, lessons from Indiana and givin’ er just one more time - PART I

When I asked my grade seven class last year how many of them were certain of God’s existence, a few hands went up.

When I asked how many of them tried to bargain favors from God such as “If you get me out of trouble at school, I promise I will NEVER swear again” every single hand went up.

Because we all want to believe that someone who is suppose to have that much power has got our back when we really need it. But if they don’t - for whatever reason - you still have to be okay with it.

In the end, it just doesn’t matter - you gotta go for it anyway.

Kicking shadows is all about figuring out what’s holding you back and then lambasting those negative patterns in the gonads and getting on with life - regardless of what it throws at you.

It’s about finding out the stuff you’re really made of, accessing your core and using it to create an authenticity that cannot be shaken under any circumstances - even those beyond your control.

‘Cuz sometimes, s*** just happens.

Yes, this month is about removing those sinister blocks of self-doubt that plague all human beings (especially when you’ve experienced investing all of your energy into one thing or another - over and over and over again - and it never works out).

I mean, how many times can you give ‘er?

LOTS

Because in the end, it always works out. Just not necessarily the way you imagined.

Just ask any kid who had a stellar high school football career, yet no one picked him up for college because he was “too short” (even though he could bench press more than most guys bigger than him and run the field like he was wearing roller blades).

And when he finally does get to play for a college team (with no scholarship and not for who he imagined), he breaks his foot in the first week of practice. Game over.

Like I said, sometimes, s*** just happens...

...or does it?

I moved to Michigan City, Indiana for love. After a total two year investment, he still couldn't decide whether he wanted me around or not. And that wasn't good enough for me anymore. So I left.

When it didn’t work out, I was broken. I had sacrificed everything to move down there.

I was now also jobless, broke, homeless and had no idea how I was going to make it work. But I had to.

Because my kid was the running back for the Michigan City High School football team.

In our first year in Indiana, Ryan proved to be a real asset, taking me and the whole town along for the joyous roller coaster ride affectionately known as Friday Night Lights.

I lived for those games.

There’s no feeling quite like watching your kid run a 98 yard touchdown and watch as everyone in the stands goes crazy.

Or ask yourself with amazement what kind of angel floats him through a game to the tune of six touchdowns in one of the toughest conferences in the Midwest.

You see… football had chosen Ryan.

And in Indiana, Hoosiers love football the way a Baptist preacher loves God - with unparalleled enthusiasm. And by association, they love the athlete who gives their team hope.

And they loved Ryan. Everywhere he went, people would shake his hand, and comment on his last game. The stands were full, people were having a good time and suddenly there was a lot at stake.

Whether moving to the states was a poor decision or not, the momentum was building. A college scholarship was a real possibility. An opportunity that comes maybe once in a lifetime was readying itself for proper delivery in just two years. All we had to do was hang in there and survive.

Easier said than done.

Because we were broken. You know that dark night of the soul I talked about in the last couple of entries? This was one of deepest and darkest for both of us. I don’t think anyone knew just how bad, except maybe the blessed souls that took us into their homes that first year while I sorted things out.

But it was one phone call that decided it - come hell or high water, we were going to stick it out.

Ryan was back in Canada visiting family for a couple of weeks and I was staying in Chicago with a friend.

I’ll never forget calling him from her porch and hearing his voice crack with worry. And he was sobbing, though he didn’t want me to know. I could hear his brothers in the background swearing that enough was enough! and it was time to come home.

But this wasn’t their dream, it was his.

“The decision is yours Ryan. But before you make up your mind, take a step back and ask yourself: When I’m eighty and look back at this time in my life, will I have any regrets? Can I live with what if...?

After a long, silent pause he said, “F*** it. I’m coming back.”

“Okay then.”

I hung up the phone and fell apart.

It was now my job to find a way for us to survive.

NEXT PART II: Kicking your shadows, lessons from Indiana and givin’ er just one more time - law school

September 28, 2009 - Kicking shadows, lightening the load and being human.

Ever heard of the ‘dark night of the soul’?

La noche escura de alma

It was a poem originally written by some Spanish dude around the 16th century - another Catholic poet and mystic - St. John of the I-have-to-bear-this-Cross-for-the-rest-of-my-life.

And it has since been coined, written about, analyzed and even turned into few songs by the same title. It’s about loneliness and desolation. Generic translation?

“Where the HELL is God when I need him?”

If you’ve based your whole life on the notion that the Big Guy exists and you’ve basically been a good egg all along, but sometimes it still feels like someone’s been killing chickens and working your look-a-like voodoo doll like it’s a pin cushion, then you too have experienced the dark night of the soul.

And if you haven’t - either you’re in denial or you’re too young. Give it time. No one escapes it.

And get this. The dark night of the soul is suppose to be a blessing in disguise. Uh huh.

And my name’s Mother Teresa.

Speaking of which, MT's letters revealed she had spent the last 49 years of her life, in the dark night of the soul.

That's right. MT had seen so much suffering, she wasn’t sure God even existed. How do you like them apples?

And if He did exist, maybe he wasn’t such a good guy after all. Or maybe he had an evil twin. Or he was on vacation. Oh yeah, Mother Teresa was skating on the thin ice of doubt for a long time.

I think she came around in the end, but then again, there’s an old saying: Nobody dies an atheist.

And why bring this up?

Because as I was reviewing some of the principles contained within this little Six Month Experiment, there is one component I had sorely neglected to address:

In order to make significant changes in your life you have to kick some shadows first.

If you don’t, they will come up and kick you first and usually at the most inopportune time. Like when you get the phone call that might change your life for the better but you’re still in a funk from past issues so you accidentally sabotage a change for the better.

Or when you get into a relationship that is finally right, but because you’re stuck with old patterns of behaviour you can’t believe it’s not going to be different this time so you create the drama that repeats your past.

We are experts at screwing something up so we can remain comfortable struggling - if that’s what we’re used to - because we wear those uncomfortable patterns like an old shoe that finally has a hole in it and makes our bare feet scrape the cement. But it doesn’t matter if it's stupid. It’s what we know.

So the dark night of the soul, as uncomfortable as it is, can be a blessing in disguise. It depends on how you take it and what you do with it.

Wallow in it if you must - that in itself holds the comfort of justifying hot baths, eating chocolate until you break out and watching escapist movies - but it won’t get you anywhere.

Mystics thought the dark night of the soul was man’s perfect opportunity to show the stuff he was really made of.

It’s easy to be kind to people when you’re in a good mood, (or where there is recognition) or be virtuous when you think there are heavenly rewards, or write when you know someone is paying you to do it.

But if the quality of your existence remains regardless of your guarantees (or lack of them) then on some level, you’re in the same head space as Mother Theresa was when she spent almost fifty years helping the poor and depraved when the bottom was falling out of her devotional mindset.

She no longer performed tasks on behalf of God, but on behalf of herself in her attempt to ease the suffering of other human beings - with no condo or time share in paradise to look forward to.

And that, is how it should be...

NEXT: October is for kicking shadows.

I love my mother. And I know she loves me. But she's the one person who taught me more than anyone about how I never wanted to be.

The woman never liked me.

She can't help it. It's not a travesty, but it is a fact.

Oh sure, she has in bits n' pieces for maybe... a few months at a time, (liked me that is) but then whatever relationship I thought I was beginning to develop with her would be gone in a flash for no reason, no warning, whatsoever.

Like the time she sent me a letter when I lived in the U.S.

We had been getting along, talking on the phone and writing amiably, for almost a year (a welcome miracle).

Then one day, a large envelope came in the mail...

In it was a magazine article on the Taliban that she had clipped out and highlighted just where she wanted to emphasize THE EXTENT OF MY EVIL AS ONE OF THEM.

She had linked me with the Taliban organization and somewhere in the mix managed to throw in the fact that I had slept with her counsellor.

It was a helluva conspiracy, only I couldn't get a handle on WHAT.

At the end of her note, crookedly written, she had scrawled the words:

I CURSE YOU

...across the page in big letters.

Great. My own mother just cursed me. Like I didn't have enough problems.

To this day I still don't know what triggered it and I'll be damned if I know who that counsellor was (except I heard he was a soft-spoken, kind man from India - poor bastard).

My brother seems to think it all started when I was about twelve.

Before that, it was him she couldn't stand. But when I hit puberty, a switch went on. And I'm not talking my hormones, I mean in her. She made 'Mommy Dearest' look like the good fairy in Cinderella.

And if you think I'm kidding, fast forward 30 plus years to a lunch my brother and I were invited to in her apartment long after my parents got divorced. She was in good state then but with her you never knew because whatever it was that lay beneath was only dormant. Could be the nuts in the torte she bought for dessert that brought it out.

She was impossible to predict.

So when she put our plates down, smiled, and turned back to the kitchen to procure the other dishes, my brother looked at me and said:

"Go ahead. You try it first."

"Like hell I am!" I whispered, "You go first. She hasn't liked me in twenty years. Chances are your food's okay."

He just shook his head. We both looked at her plate, looked at each other knowing we had the same idea and just as I was reaching to switch my plate with hers, she turned back from the kitchen to sit down and my plan was foiled.

Thankfully she got up again, but only to get the salt and pepper shakers this time. All we could do, was wait for her to take the first bite.

"You don't have to wait for me." she said, smiling sweetly and plunking the salt n' pepper in the middle of the table.

I said a Hail Mary and dug in.

Now I have to admit, the scenario played out more like an Elvis n' Costello bit as my brother and I slapped each other on the arm when the giggles started in case she caught us poking fun at her, but the truth of the matter is, the only reason we would even harbor the notion that she was capable of such madness is because on some level, she was.

When she switches from her jovial self to that other person, it makes the goosebumps on your arm so big they look like ski moguls if only you could add snow.

Put it this way: my mom would scare the crap out of Jack Nicholson in The Shining.

My mom wasn't just manic depressive, she was also delusional and MEANT IT.

The police called my house one day to check if I was alive because she had told them I was the dead, unidentified prostitute on the front page of the local paper. When I chuckled and said:

"Uh, no. I'm not dead and I'm not a prostitute. I'm in school though. Is that close?"

"I take it your dad is not part of some... prostitution ring?" they asked almost embarassed.

"Not the last I heard."

And that was the end of that.

But the worst part is she made no bones about the fact that she never wanted kids.

She would have preferred to remain single like her sisters because as she would tell us, they have no responsibilities and no one to answer to, and can do what they want, when they want.

Now I'm not saying she doesn't have her good points.

She's highly intelligent - she reads psych journals like some people read the paper - and she's got pretty much everyone she's every known pegged as falling under some really twisted psychological condition which must make her conversations with other residents at her assisted living housing really interesting.

Except she doesn't talk to any of them. She's alienated everyone she knows with her standards.

The last time I saw her there it was the day after Christmas and she was sitting at a table by herself facing the wall and eating alone while everyone else kept each other company (for the most part).

Peasants no doubt.

But she was all dressed up from head to toe in her finest jewels, silk stockings, high heeled shoes and hair done up. And she's 83.

That's my mom. She could speak three languages, play the piano like a champ, is an avid reader, but was also an alcoholic, manic depressive, delusional, suicidal and mean as a snake when the mood hit her.

Sometimes her meds work and sometimes they don't.

But there is one thing my mom has that I (and my kids) admire.

Energy

You'd have to have lots of it to spend most of your time as an angry person whose pastime is to wreak havoc on people's lives and seek vengeance for all the wrong everyone has ever done to you (or think they've done to you)... and alienate every friend you ever had in the process.

But I get her. And I'm going to use my hero Cesar Millan's (The Dog Whisperer) philosophy to peg her problem.

My mom is like a pit bull that doesn't get exercised on a daily basis, and doesn't have boundaries or have a good pack leader to follow.

Or like an Australian shepherd that doesn't get to embrace his true nature and herd sheep with his energy.

Or like a spaniel that has been denied his tracking and bird retrieving skills and is stuck inside all the time and so displays destructive behaviour.

So her anger is simply hiding the frustration of not having done what she wanted with her life. She never accessed her true nature.

To go to school and excel. To use her intelligence to be somebody. And whatever respect and fame that would bring her.

The thing is, she could have.

But two things prevented her.

1. She has spent most of her life clinically depressed. But staying on the right pills and having a program of therapy would have helped her tremendously.

2. She's lazy. By her own admittance.

She told me the reason she doesn't exercise is because it's too much work. The reason she didn't go back to school is because it would have been too much work. The reason she didn't like having children is because they were too much work. Same with marriage, cooking, you name it. She hated all of it.

Everything you really want in life requires structure, sacrifice and vulnerability - as you will be subject to the expectations and judgment of others.

It meant she had to make a commitment to be healthy. She chose not to. It meant she had to answer to someone else who would judge her essays and give her a grade. She chose against being evaluated. It meant she would have to open her heart to children in whom an emotional investment never guarantees a return...

Life involves risk, guts, sacrifice, committment and vulnerability.

Everything worthy in life, does.

And for all her energy, intelligence and potential, she was not willing to give up any of those things.

Somewhere along the way, I decided that I was.

Like I said, almost everything I learned in life about what not to be, I learned from her. And for those of you who think it's all very sad, I just want you to know, that I don't.

It simply is what it is. What you do with the hand that is dealt you, is what separates people.

As the saying goes:

No man is my friend, no man is my enemy, every man is my teacher.

That is, if you choose it to be so...

NEXT - Kicking shadows and lightening the load

September 24 - Everyone should live life “as if”

I realize this is not always feasible, as daily implementation of the “as if” philosophy can easily lead one down the prickly road of denial.

But for the most part... it ROCKS IF you apply the practical aspects required to make your dream life a reality.

Jack Canfield (of “Success Principles” and Chicken Soup For the Soul phenomenon) explains an activity that gives people the opportunity to feel what it would be like if they had actually accomplished all of their dreams and then some.

He suggests you throw an “as if” party with your closest friends and everyone must show up donning the persona they have become five years from now assuming their ‘best case scenario’ for the fruition of all their hopes and dreams.

The only rule is you must stay in character for the duration of the party. Which means you must speak to others as the success they envision themselves to be and also dress, act, and most of all exude the confidence you would possess in your most ideal state.

Just thinking about it makes me want to put on that little black dress, throw my shoulders back, toss my hair around (long and full of body with the best extensions money can buy) and say “Oh stop, it was nothing!” in response to another guest complimenting me (yet again) on one of my achievements.

Gosh darn but it’s fun!

And if you don’t believe me, try it. Ask a few close friends if they would be interested in coming to a party at your house (everyone pitches in for good caviar and a little champagne), based on this premise - just watch as people start to giggle at the thought that they can pretend to be whatever it is they’ve always dreamed of. Everyone’s energy automatically rises.

It’s the ultimate costume party because you get to dress from the inside out as anything you want to be.

And for those of you who are pshawing and murmuring under your breath that this party should be called, “Yeah, right, as if” with a sarcastic undertone all I have to say to you is - we all do it in life anyway, but in such bits and pieces that it doesn’t have the same magnitude as actually declaring a party in honor of what we COULD BE.

Take for instance the actual names of these two co-ed soccer teams in my hood:

“We’ll Bury You Cockroaches” and “Multiple Scoregasms.”

I love those names. Each one cracks me up.

But beneath that laughter is also an underlying message to the other team: We’re gonna kick your asses from here to the moon.

It’s all in good fun but it’s also competitive - as much as a no-ref, few rules, friendly kind of game can be (which trust me, can be really intense).

Think about it. Nobody in their right mind would ever call their team, “The Has Beens”, or “The Try Hards”.

Because I think deep down inside we all want to be the best version of ourselves possible and prefer to see a win in every situation we face.

And these desires rise through the cracks of our life and society constantly, manifesting themselves in the names of teams, our obsession with people who have ‘made it’, and even our desire to look our best when we go out on the town.

It’s just that somewhere along the way, we started to think maybe we weren’t entitled to live up to our own expectations.

Either we had an inner bully that told us we didn’t deserve it, or an outer bully in the form of negative and destructive naysayers, or parents that wanted us to live a safe, secure existence because essentially it meant that they could stop worrying about us.

Or maybe, we were simply surrounded by people who were apathetic about life - their own and existence in general. (Perhaps the most draining of all dream-busters).

Basically, there are two kinds of people who teach us subconsciously (or consciously if we’re aware) of how we want to live by their own example:

Those who teach us how to be and those who teach us how not to be.

And what I have learned is neither method is more valuable than the other.It's all a matter of what you get out of it.

NEXT - How I learned how not to be (and from who)...
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