50 Shades of Fiction

Yes, I have read all three of the 50 Shades of Grey novels.  No, they are not Pulitzer Prize level novels and are probably written on a fourth or fifth grade reading level.  I was invested in the two main characters when Anastasia tripped into Mr. Grey's office before the, what is now dubbed as, "mommy porn" started.  About 1/2 way through the first novel, I started to skip through a lot of the sex in the novel because frankly, it became repetitive and boring.   But, when I got to the end of the first novel and read about Christan's childhood, I got it.   I understood why he "exercised control in all things."  So, I read the next in the series and again skipping the repetitive sex.  If you remove the component of the novel that constitutes "mommy porn," EL James has a great back story that could be done in 2 novels and would constitutes brain candy for those of us that need to occasionally read something that really doesn't require us to think.

Yes, I was one of the people that went to see the movie adaptation of 50 Shades of Grey the first weekend it was out that allowed the movie to make some $94 Million dollars.  For those that know me, I am somewhat of a liberal but somewhat of a conservative depending on the issue.  On this particular issue, I would be somewhat of a liberal.  I can tell you that the movie will not be nominated for any reputable awards.   I can tell you that I was disappointed in the lack of character development in the movie.  If you have not read the books, the movie will fall flat in that area.  I do believe that the movie does now set the bar for how far a movie can push the limits in order to gain a MPArating of R versus NC-17.   When the lights came up, I was kinda uncomfortable because it was a mixed audience.   I was not uncomfortable because a number of men braved seeing the film on Valentine's Day weekend, more than likely with the motive of pleasing their significant other and with the obvious hopes of getting laid.   I was uncomfortable because of the grandma factor.  There were women in in the audience that were my mom's age.  This is not a film I would feel comfortable sitting in a theatre, or even at home, with my mom watching.  I believe that kids look at their parents and think that they had "x" number of children, so that is the number of times they had sex.   When I was reading the novels, my mom asked about them and I told her she was not allowed to.  Looking into the future, I would like to see the movies rely less on the shock and awe of the red room and develop the characters that I was invested in when reading the novels.  There is a message in these novels and the film alludes to it with the ending.  The message, you can't fix someone.  Love will not conquer all.  Relationships, of any kind, are extremely hard work and require two people to be equally invested.  Respect for the individual in the relationship with you is huge but what is even bigger, is you have to respect yourself.

Now, there has been a great deal of hype over the movie adaptation of the novel.  Is it warranted, sure.  We are a country founded on the concept of freedom from persecution, freedom of speech (which I believe to be more responsibility of), and the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.  Yes, it was founded on Puritan beliefs and I am sure that they are rolling over in their graves.  Do I disagree with those that speak out against the novels and the film stating that it glorifies abusive, controlling relationships, no I do not.  But here is the reality, it is FICTION.   The simplistic definition of fiction is something that isn't real.  Do these type of relationships exist? Yes.  But, going back to the concept of fiction, that is what these novels and the film are.  If you go to this movie and or read these novels and think that this is what a relationship between two people should be, then you need therapy.  Just like Christian and Anna would benefit from therapy and not that of the red room kind.  Christian's life started off with a great deal of strikes against him.  Have I, in 24 years of teaching, taught kids that have the same or similar start to life?  Yes.  I tell them that you have lived 1/4th of your life and it is your responsibility to take control of the rest of it.  You are in control of one thing, how you respond.   Anna, really did not have a strong role model in her mother, who is on her third husband.

There was a time when I did not understand why individuals (yes, men can be in these situations also) would stay in abusive or controlling relationships, but then I had an epiphany that I was in one myself.  I get it.  It takes a lot of courage and strength to stay and it takes a lot of courage and strength to leave.  They are different types of courage and strength. I left.  I left because I knew that I had no other choice.  I was dying inside and very close to losing the person that very few know today.  The walls that I have built are impenetrable.   These walls are my responsibility to break through.  They will not come down because someone else comes into my life.  They will not come down because some devastatingly handsome, independently wealthy man that lives by the mantra of "I exert controll in all areas of my life" and sweeps me off to his red room.

This is simply what I know, what I think.

Progress Report: One Month Into 2015

I am one month into 2015.   On December 30, 2014, I wrote the following entry into my journal.

They say that studies show that people who write their goals down are more likely to accomplish them...
In 2015 -
* get my passport
* join a fitness center and go at least 3 times a week
* get my ass organized at home and school
* take a REAL vacation
* post to Finding Miss Marjorie at least 1 time a week.
* attend a USMC Educator Workshop
* become a Google Certified Teacher
* Claim my "Kick ASS Life!"

Progress Report:
Passport:  have printed the application and it is in my desk at school.

Fitness Center: have not joined.  Partly because of needing the available funds and the other, I have had a sinus infection that will not go away.  BUT, I have reconnected on Facebook with a former student that happens to be a certified personal trainer.  Problem, I live about 75 miles from the gym that he has in North St. Louis.   We have talked and I am working to get access to the weight room at school on the weekends.

Organized:  I have purged a couple boxes at home and have organized my office at school.  I tossed a lot of stuff that I could not figure out why I even still had it.  The home and the office are not completed but a significant dent has been made.  Basically, a work in progress.

REAL Vacation:  been thinking about that one.  It just might be paired with the the USMC Educator Workshop...still waiting for the dates on that one, but application has been submitted to the local recruiter that asked me to apply.

Google Certified:  Honestly, money and just have not taken the time out to do it.

Claim my "Kick ASS Life!":  SLACKER here.  I had a series of texts between a good friend last night that has been my rock through my divorce and all that has followed.  She is amazing.  She, like I have, has been focusing on her career and raising her child.  She, like I have, has been ignoring taking care of herself.   As I have previously written, I discovered this book by Andrea Owen's "52 Ways to Live a Kick-Ass Life."  Our conversation culminated this morning with her having the realization that she must work on herself first and that she doesn't have to conform or sacrifice for any person to love her.   I figured that out about October, that I was and am worthy of being deeply and unconditionally loved by someone just as much as I deeply and unconditionally love.   In March, I met a guy (we will just call him Zander because it means "protector of mankind.") that I had been talking to from a dating site.  Throughout the year, we have texted and met a couple of times.   But in October, I was contacted by another guy that I had not talked to in at least 8 months.  I even asked him it he texted me because he stumbled onto my number while he was cleaning out phone numbers.  He was honest and said yes.  This was a guy that only wanted to have a physical relationship.   I know myself well enough to know that is just something I am not capable of.  No matter how tough my exterior comes off as, I am a typically female in that physical intimacy also involves a great deal of feelings for the other person.  In those situations, I wear my heart on my sleeve.   We met, had lunch, and there was no chemistry there.  I have not heard from him since and that is perfectly fine.   No ill feelings, have a nice life.  After meeting with guy with no chemistry, Zander and I met up for a hike through a local conservation site.  I told him that I had to thank him because I have realized that I don't have to compromise myself just to be loved by someone because that simply isn't love.   That because he has treated me with respect and been straight forward that everything starts with a friendship, that I met up with guy with no chemistry and was confident and knew that the next person that I let have my heart and let my walls down for will have to earn their way into my world.  I don't have to compromise who I am just to have someone care about me in any form of a relationship.  That it is all based on a solid foundation.  

So, I asked my struggling girlfriend if she would like to join me on this journey of claiming my KICK ASS life and she has accepted the challenge.

The Story of the Ring

About six or seven years ago, I got a stainless steel ring with the anonymous poem on it "What Cancer Cannot Do."  When I was in the eighth grade and diagnosed with Hodgkin's, I embodied what the poem says.  I embodied that poem so much that my parents even took me to a local psychiatrist because I was acting "normal."  I will be the first to say it, because people who know me are laughing at the statement "normal" because I am anything but normal.   Besides, normal is like beauty, in the eye of the beholder.  If you have not read the poem, the rest of this narrative will be irrelevant to you.

Now that you have read it...picture it on a ring.  

Then one day, a co-worker that I was not particularly close to was diagnosed with breast cancer. While Hodgkin's is admittedly a very different walk than Breast Cancer, we were now part of a family. A family that had one thing in common, Cancer.  It didn't matter what kind of cancer, it mattered that someone got it.  Someone who got what it meant to smell the chemotherapy drugs when they were brought into the room.  Someone who got what it meant to feel the chemotherapy drugs slamming into your veins like daggers of ice.  Someone who got what it meant to be standing in the shower, washing your hair, and you have hair threaded through your fingers.  Someone who got what it meant to have to go into a form of house arrest because your blood counts are so low that you can not encounter the rest of the world because you simply cannot fight off any infection it might give you.  Jane fought the fight and won.  She returned the ring to my mailbox in a Ziploc bag about two years ago.

Not long after getting the ring back, I also returned to church.  Attending the church that my mother attended and that my youngest child was baptized in.  I re-joined that church and on the day that I reaffirmed my faith in God, I stood at the alter with a couple.  The woman wore a scarf around her head and my cancerdar went off.   Cancer patients can sense when there are others in the same position.  There are the obvious signs, specifically being bald, but there are other vibes that you get. For a couple weeks, I carried the ring to and from church with me to give to Rose but she wasn't there.   Then one day she was and I passed the ring to her with the same instructions, keep it until you no longer feel the need to wear it or carry it.  About 10 months later, with her hair growing back, Rose placed the ring in my hand and thanked me.  

The school year had about a month left in it.   I had become close to a young man that had been diagnosed with Hodgkin's around the start of his 8th grade year.   He had been battling the cancer for close to two years.  Trevor and I talked periodically about just life, but we also made jokes or statements that only those of us in the "C" Club could understand.   His smile was infectious.  His spirit amazing.  I asked one day if he had ever heard of the "What Cancer Cannot Do..." poem and he had not.  I made a point of getting it printed off and laminated that day for him before he left to go to a treatment.  The next time I saw him, I gave him the ring.  My instructions were the same to him that they had been to Jane and Rose, keep it until you feel you no longer need it. I did not see much of Trevor during the second semester of the 2013-2014 school year. On Memorial Day 2014, Trevor travelled to St. Jude's Research Hospital in Memphis.  He had been accepted to a trial study and it was the hope of everyone that this would be successful when other treatments had not. When they got to St. Jude's, Trevor was in their ICU unit.  The decision was made to return, by ambulance, to St. Louis Children's Hospital.  On June 3, 2014... Trevor went to his greater reward, he went home to God.  On June 7, 2014, I arrived at the funeral home for visitation prior to the funeral.  Wearing a purple dress, I walked up to the open casket.  Trevor was wearing a dark purple dress shirt.  I knew in my heart that he was at peace with being where he was.  His hands were placed on his stomach with the left on top of the right.  The first thing I noticed was his class ring on his right hand and then through the tears, I noticed on his index finger on his left hand was the ring that I had given him.  My knees buckled and I braced myself on the edge of the casket.  It was at that moment that I realized just how much of an impact that ring, that I had had on this young man.  More importantly, I realized the impact that young man had had on me.  

I met his sister, Darby, for the first time at the reception following the service and told her the story of the ring.  She said that she had never known where the ring came from but that he wore it on a chain around his neck all the time.  Then she looked at me with a sense of panic and asked, "Was Trevor supposed to give the ring back to you?"  Her quick witted cousin, Jill, quickly responded, "Well, it is a little late now because it is in the ground with Trevor."  I looked at Darby, smiling, and told her that I was going to get a shovel and go dig it up...we all three laughed and I assured her that if it was that important to Trevor that he be buried with the ring, then that is what was supposed to happen.

Today, there are now four rings each worn by women that loved that young man with all their hearts but for different reasons.  

The Moral of the Story:  We do not know who we will impact or even how we will impact them.  More importantly, we do not know who will impact us and how they will impact us.  

The Purpose of Random Quotes

"The art of survival is a story that never ends."

American Hustle (2013) 

Irving Rosenfeld(Christian Bale)

Quotes are very motivating for me.   If you were to look through the photos on my phone, you would find a lot of those quote/pictures that float around Facebook.  It isn't that I don't have personal photos because I do.  I save them because the specific quote and/or picture actually struck me.   Sometimes, they strike because they are funny and others because they are true but mainly, they strike me because they are pointing out something in me.  It is sorta like a form of therapy.   Today, the above quote arrived in my email.  I receive the Reel Life Wisdom Quotes for the day from http://www.reellifewisdom.com.   They are quotes from movies and fall under the different categories of Love: Connecting to Your Supporting Cast, Self: Define Your Character, Life: Build Your Story, and Random Bits of Wisdom.   There are a plethora of categories below each heading and if you are a movie person, you will absolutely love this one.

I have been struggling to start this blog since the start of the new year and with it being an integral part of my overall resolution for the year, I really needed to do it.   I opened my e-mail today and this quote hit me.   I am a survivor because I have walked so many paths that seem to never end.   Just when I think that I am headed into a quiet existence, Life has a way of rearing it's ugly side and the events happen that add to the story of my life.   I have survived.  Now how artful that survival has been, it has simply been my own personal art.

Time to find my kick-ass life...

March 19, 2014
Yesterday, I went on a date, a first date, with a really amazing guy.  We met at a St. Louis Barnes and Noble.  Why?  Coffee!...Caffeine...a required component to daily survival.   Secondly, BOOKS!  BOOKS! BOOKS!  The topics are endless and keeps the conversation going.  Plus, what a better way to learn about someone than through what they read?  Do they read?
I ask they question, what is the last genre that you should find yourself in and actually purchasing a book from when on a first date with someone...that is correct, the self-help section.  Well, that is where I found myself.  I arrived a good thirty minutes early for our meeting.  Why?  I am one of those individuals that likes to scope out their environment, get comfortable, go to the bathroom, and settle into a spot...my spot.  I know that my self-appointed life-coaches (yes, by their own admission and by my acceptance of their leadership and guidance in my life) are reading this and thinking, "Lord, tell us that she didn't?"  They quickly acknowledge that, "Lord, yes she did!"  So with the roll of their eyes and a quick drawn of the cell phone to group text the four of us, only to be chastising me.  The picture of the orangutan to the side is what I look like when my life coaches are giving me what for.

Andrea Owen's 52 Ways to Live a Kick-Ass Life. 
I bought the most amazing, motivating, and life changing book,
And so starts the real journey to "finding Miss Marjorie."  Who is, Who was Miss Marjorie?  Where has she been and why?  What has happened?  What will happen?  Why?  When?  How?  the 5 W's and an H, is a simple formula to writing but with very complex questions and even more complex and at times eluding answers.
What do I know right now - thank you, Ms. Oprah - is that I am a survivor of many things that have impacted me in more ways than I ever knew, know, will be learning and in reality, may never know.  I am so very, very blessed to be here and that in reality, I am statistically a miracle for just being here.
I am at a truly cathartic and spiritual point in my life.  I am stripped emotionally stark ass naked for the world to see and to hurt and to take advantage of.  If they, the world or anyone really, can get through the walls that have been a life time in the making, I know that those individuals have to be angels sent to me from God and that they must really love me unconditionally to fight that hard for me.

Chapter 1 - Take Responsibility for your Life and Choices 
I do not, repeat DO NOT, want anyone reading this to feel sorry for me because I do not.  It is my path that God has put me on.  Do I believe that He only gives us what we can handle?  I do but I do just wish He did not trust me so much and could spread it out some.  Plus, it is a waste of time for me or anyone else to feel sorry for me.  I don't have time in this life for all the bull shit.  If you feel sorry for yourself, that means that you see yourself as a victim.  That all the circumstances in life have been out of your control.  Well, they have not, at least not all of them.  I take responsibility for my choices, my actions and I apologize where I need to and accept my role in events.
So, let's just put a few of the things out there that will be a very big part of this journey that I have set out on to Finding Miss Marjorie:
I am the daughter of an alcoholic father.
I am the granddaughter of a verbally abusive grandfather.
I am a pediatric cancer survivor
I am an adult cancer survivor.
I am in financial debt up to my eyeballs ... to the IRS, to student loans, to my auto loan, to four different lawyers, and to my mother.
I am taking responsibility for the choices that I have made and the decisions or actions I have avoided because of fear.
I am one of 2 people that are responsible for the failure of a 15 year marriage that has brought me 2 of my greatest joys in my life - my sons.
I am, somewhere inside of me, the person that I was years ago...some 30 years ago.  But, I know that person is not the same.  That person is older and wiser.

If you have stumbled here through an Internet search or because someone shared it out, welcome.

If you are here because of a personal invitation from me, Thank You.  Thank you for making me accountable.  Thank you for having the strength and love to fight for me when I could not or did not.  Thank You for picking me up and dusting me off or making me do it myself.  Thank You for loving all the perfect imperfections that make me, me.

I have made that choice to remain somewhat anonymous in this travel that I have chosen to document here.  I do not know where this journey will take me, but I may choose to share very inmate and personal accounts or details, and it is not to protect me but to ultimately protect my children.  I have no intentions to embarrass others or to violate any one's privacy.  I share this journey only for others to gain strength from and take the leap of faith that I am taking here.  I guess this is a disclaimer of sorts.

If my writing inspires you, makes you laugh, cry, angry, sad, and any of all those others blah blah blah emotions...then it was for a reason.  Not my reasons, but for your own and that is for you to figure those out.
Get the book!  Come along for the ride.  I can guarantee that it will be a roller coaster you have never before experienced.   You are warned, grab the Dramamine, the Kleenex, your side while snorting in laughter because this train is pulling out of the station.  Please remember to secure your loose objects and keep your hands inside.