What A Boob

Today I am just under three weeks post operative from a surgery. I am recovering without any complications, only having dealt with the effects of five hours of anesthesia coursing through my veins. Anesthesia is no joke people. One week later, I couldn't count change at the counter at American Eagle. Do you understand the humiliation of having a hipster 19 year old look at you as if you are in need of special medication?

So, I posted my vague facebook updates about my status and kept it clean for the most part. I wrote a post surgical column that could have been apocalyptic as the anesthesia also numbed my inhibited nature to want to say totally edgy things in a small town paper that would have surely riled the good citizenry that is not accustomed to my snarkyness. I actually used a poop reference last week. Poop and burp, yeah, I used poop and burp in my column last week.

Well, the Snarky blog is where I spill the beans, the poop and the real thoughts that I have about anything and everything. It is my evolution between something that bothers, annoys or plagues me and my dissecting it and making it something useful for my life and hopefully yours as well.

"what surgery did you have?" "did you have your back surgery?" Typical private messages and posts, texts and what have you. NO I DID NOT

Here is the deal. I had a whopping pound removed from my boobs. I had breast reconstructive surgery. A boob job. A mammo-something-or-other.

You see a year ago I went from having a back problem to having a BACK PROBLEM. See how the capitalization emphasizes the seriousness? I was sitting in church and I felt a spurt and that was it, I was nearly incapacitated. I started a new job on January and I worked in excruciating pain for 9 months trying to solve the mystery of the back pain.

Finally, I saw a back and spine doctor who ordered an epidural shot to assist in relieving swelling and pain. All good in theory, but yay for me, I was one of the few who received no relief. The spine doctor sent me to a surgeon who, how shall I say this....... Said in his Asian accent with no bedside manner "You need breast reduction." "it make no sense for me to fix back if you have big chest."

hmmmmmmm Music to my ears. Do I hear you correctly??? You support the fact that my boobs have no support??? You see beyond the vanity to the physical benefit???? Sign me up!!!!

So, off I went to the plastic surgeon who said "my, you really will benefit from this. I don't know how you have exercised, hugged other people or seen your waist line in years" OK, he didn't say that, but I know he was thinking it as I stood there in all my mamo-glory pre op. He must have sensed my urgent need as he had an opening in a week. Highly unusual to see a doctor and have a surgery that fast in the real world, but we were in the world of Christmas and hey, who can't squeeze in a little major surgery alongside moving into a new home, decking the halls, making fudge, shopping for Christmas and all that jazz? I sure as hell can.

So, on December 19th my new boobs were made. On December 20th my skin had a reaction to the tape the ensconced my body, nearly blistering in the chemical reaction. Lots of fun, but the red color made things Christmasy, you know.

The change has been phenomenal. People I can cross my arms in disgust now without having to heave breast first. I can not hold an entire packet of pens under my boobs. I am pretty sure a small number two pencil would stick, but not a pen. I can seen an entire row of buttons when I look down my body and the button where my boobs are is not spread so thin it looks like it will burst at any moment and put someone's eye out. I now have a gap between my boobs and my belt. Yes, I HAVE A TORSO!

I have heard the stories about women who get augmentations and go around showing everyone their boobs. I totally get it. If you want a viewing, text me, I will hook you up. You will not be sorry. It isn't vanity that makes us new mom proud, its is the sense of amazement that something that was so lacking is now so not.

The truth is that getting this surgery is a step in the right direction towards healing my back. I stand taller and my shoulders are not drooping like the girls were. I feel lighter and I am by a pound or so. As the Asian doctor said. "It make no sense for me to fix back when you just going have more trouble"

So now I am healing and I am patiently waiting "for the tape to fall of by itself." Then I will go back to the Asian surgeon and see where we go from here.

I am not sure that there is a snarky evolution here other than I wish I had done this long ago. I wish I had not thought of this as a vanity thing and maybe my back would have never had to go through all of this pain. My boobs were size F people. F for Faydra, F for Freedom.

I went to Victoria Secret last week and bought bra's. I would never have thought I'd see the day I could wear a bra from there. They don't do size F people. I have this great memory foam number that is rocking my world. 250.00 on bras. Wow, but these things are priceless to me, so "spare no expense" is my motto.

If you need to take care of an issue with y our body that is hurting you, causes you physical or emotional pain, do it. remove the mole, increase or decrease the boobs or the belly. Your quality of life will improve leaving you to improve the lives of others with your enthusiasm.

Finding the Honor

In may I was talking with God. I was asking Him when my husband would be home. I was asking Him about issues that were important and on my mind. At some point in the conversation, he gave me a date. He also gave me the inclination to write the date down, put it in an envelope and mail it to myself. Ever obedient, I did. Two days later I got a pretty purple note card in the mail with my handwriting mailed to and sent from me to prove God's promises and to show the proof to my husband.

I thought the date was telling me when he was coming home. I thought the date would be a cause for celebration and we would rip open the envelope together and praise God's mightiness.

My husband came home on 6/16/2011. Over two years later and safe and sound and suffering PTSD from what he had been through. I never mentioned the envelope. I couldn't. The date was wrong. At one point he mentioned the envelope sitting there in its purple glory and I dismissed the inquiry. I thanked God for the early gift, figuring He brought Jim home sooner for a reason that is beyond my understanding and since the date was earlier, I certainly wasn't complaining.

A few days later, I tossed the envelope, figuring that I loved God even if His idea in my head failed. Just another mystery of faith I crossed wires on.

A few days later, Jim and I were headed home from the bay area and we got a call. My mom had just died. Anyone who knows my story knows that my mom and I were not connected the last many years. She had become so entrenched in alcoholism and poor choices. She was living with alcohol related dementia and she was unable or unwilling to manage a relationship with me.

The date on the card was the date that she died.

What was God telling me that day I wrote the date down? Was he giving me a premonition about the fact I had a finite amount of time to have said something, anything to my mother?

the last time I saw my mother was the day I convinced her she needed a will and a medical directive "in case" something happened. That was 2006. The day after her death, my brother and I and her attorney sat in his office and read that will. That will that left her estate to two other people who were not in that office.

My brother and I have followed her wishes to a T. She has bee cremated in the manner she desired and I am managing her estate to benefit two women I barely know and one of whom has no real connection to my mother. I don't have to do this. My mom didn't ask me to. She didn't intend for me to benefit from her death. She didn't like me much in the end of her life and I didn't much like the way she treated me in the beginning of mine.

What I am keenly aware of is this. God asks us to honor our mother's and father's. As a new women in Christ, I often asked myself what that meant for me. Was I supposed to run to my mother with her self induced dementia, unwillingness to be kind and who subjected me to trauma most of my life and hug her and tell her I love her when I wasn't sure I did? Was I supposed to give her the whisky if it was out of her reach and act as though it wasn't a giant white elephant in the room?

I knew that no matter what He asked of me I would do it. Here's what He has said. I am honoring my mother by taking the best care of her and her things. I'm selling her estate for the most I can simply to benefit someone else. I am lovingly preparing her house for sale rather than hiring someone to do it on my behalf. I am relieving my brother of the trouble of helping. I am honoring my mother as best I can.

When my mom died, I thought I might find a sense of something. I don't know what. What I found was a sadness and a worry that maybe she didn't know God like I do and maybe she isn't somewhere where I can see her again. I get why God allows anyone the opportunity to come to Him no matter what they have done. My mom lived a hard life by her choices, but maybe she didn't think she had any. Maybe she thought she was making good choices. I wonder if she knew of the choice to know God.

Though I know in my heart, I was not treated well as a child. Though I know that my mom could have made my life better and didn't. I am not glad to be rid of her. I am sad that her life seemed wasted. I am sad that she became broken and I became strong. It is as if we switched roles.

The snarky evolution is this: We can honor God's call on us to obey even when we don't get how or why we should. I have the ability to honor my mother in her death in a way she and I never could have done in life.

Peace and Light and honor to you all~

I Think I May Be Getting It Right

There is a saying the God will bring you around the mountain as many times as He needs to until you get what He is trying to teach you. Unlike certain schools or courses, you can re-take His tests as many times as you need to and hopefully you pass before you meet Jesus face-to-face.

Today turned out to be different than I hoped and better than I expected in one particular way.

Today was a significant day for my family who have been facing persecution for over two years. Every time a significant turn of events comes to pass I have, in typical anxiety, faced the news with a smile on my face and a complete and epic melt down of the spirit that rivals Japan's nuclear plant. I face the adversity with a strong front and inside I question God- how long, how much more, how far down will He allow us to sink? I start to forecast the doom of my family and though you wouldn't know it from the outside, I feel alone, separated and condemned for something that actually has nothing to do with me. I am just caught up in the collateral damage. Such is the life of a risk taker.

So, the news came, delivered by an uninterested party who has no investment in my mental health or cares that bad news activates a never ceasing twitch in my left eye. Once the phone call was done, I sat and used Lamaze breathing techniques until the veins in my head stopped popping out. I put my car in gear and drove home. Actually, I stopped at the store, bought some Vegenaise, vine tomatoes and a cake mix and frosting and then I drove home.

I did what all good mom's do, I baked a cake, readied dinner, and otherwise tried forget that my life has huge holes of suckness in them, yes that is a word because I said so.

BUT THEN.........

God spoke to me as He sometimes does when I am paying attention enough to listen. He said to me that this isn't about the outcome that I heard today. It is about whether or not I can pass the test of moving past what I heard to a place of not letting it bother me, consume my every thought and make me question God's loyalty to me. It is about my loyalty to Him.

I know that there is nothing I can do about what happened today. I am a part of it, I did not cause it and I am not in trouble. What I can control is how I react to it. How I let it affect me. I choose to believe that God has told us that Love bears all thing, hopes all things, and believes all things. Most of all Love ENDURES all things. I think I may be going around this mountain for the last time.

Peace and Light and fewer trips around the mountain for you all~

How to Make a Flower Ninja

I have a confession that will not make a very sweet person in my life very happy. I have a brown thumb for indoor plants and flowers. For whatever reason, I can't keep indoor stuff alive. I suppose that the benefit is that I will never be able to grow an illegal indoor marijuana crop therefore keeping out of a potential criminal issue.

I've tried. I really have, but for some reason, I have a brown thumb. I can grow things outside, roses, bushes, I even know how to prune, but if it is inside, no dice.

This really isn't a problem most of the time. I certainly know my limitations, so I never purchase anything, no matter how cute, if it requires me to care for it indoors. Also, my daughter is very allergic to most of flowers, so I rarely have bouquets in the house. I actually put them on the table outside on the patio and admire them through the window. Again, I never know how much water to put in the flowers, and what is with the Kool-Aid packet that you are supposed to mix in there? Also, same thing with the Christmas tree. Hate managing the Christmas tree. the best thing I ever did was buy a fake one and burn pine candles to make it seem like it was real.

sooo, my birthday was this week and someone whom I love left a beautiful lilly outside my front door. OOOOO the sheer panic. whenever I receive someone's floral love I feel very anxious because I appreciate the gesture, but the giver and the plant do not realize that it is only a matter of time before the poor plant will be a gonner. I struggle with the guilt knowing that someone used their hard-earned money to buy me something that they believe will incite beauty into my life. What they don't know is that it used to illicit dread.

I said Used to

Some time ago, I came up with a plan to save the plants!!!! Save the flowers and save the occasional gift balloon. I give them away.

Yep, yesterday, before the poor lilly had a chance to wilt, I watered it and got it ready for a journey. You see, what I do is write a card that has thoughts of hope and love and attach it to the gift and I take it to one of the local nursing homes and ask the staff to give it to someone who does not get visitors or who could use some love. The staff know exactly who could use some love, a lift or a hope that someone cares. I have been doing it for years. I have taken balloons from birthday parties to children in the hospital and I have taken un-used goodies from parties to shelters.

So, for my sweet friend who gave me the lilly. I made a ninja move and took the beautiful flower to someone who will love it and hopefully has a greener thumb than I do.

Peace and Light and spreadin' the flower love to you all~

The Difference Between Jealousy and Admiration

I had an AHA moment today. I was sitting at the stop light and a woman whom I had always liked pulled up to the light to make a right hand turn. In one moment, I realized something profound-I ADMIRED her.

I realized I have admired her for a long time. I admire her statuesque composure, her wardrobe choices, her presence and her countenance. When I think of her I am inspired.

It that same moment, I realized something fundamental. Jealousy or envy is very different than admiration. I have felt envy before. Envy feels bitter, admiration feels better. Envy feels jealous and resentful, admiration feels inspired and challenging in that take-it-up-a-notch good way.

In that same instance, it was clear to me why I felt admiration rather than envy or jealousy and it boiled down to her car. You see, she was driving an older model car. It wasn't flashy and it was most likely paid for. When I saw her I felt respect for her. I realized that though we really don't know each other that well, I know her well enough to know this- She does not live outside of her means. She pays cash for her vacations. She saves before she spends and her priorities are straight.

I have been guilty in the past of being envious and jealous. I see people with their Miss Me jeans and the associated body types that fit into them. I see the shiny new 60K cars and the houses with ceilings vaulted to the heavens and utility bills to match. I see the ski boats, vacations and their children who never wear the same outfit twice. How easy it is to feel inadequate in their presence when you use that yardstick as your measurement tool for success.

What happened to me was that I was jealous of the stuff because I didn't necessarily respect the people who had it. I mean, I knew them and their personalities and damnit I thought they didn't deserve to have it all. Who the hell am I to determine what someone else is deserving of? I am a bitter person when I think that way. Dissing on people who have crap that I don't need that they use to impress people that don't care about them is none of my business.

But, there today in an older model car was someone who wears great clothes and goes about life in an ordinarily extraordinary way. She impresses me. She gives me a desire to step up my game. She could have the best of the best and more accolades and stuff than any one else in town and I would not feel the negative twinges. I would look at her and think "you go girl, good for you."

In realizing the difference between jealousy and admiration, I realize that I need to keep my thoughts and opinions in check and I need to keep my mind focused on the people who inspire me and I need to let the others do what it is they do, wearing what it is they wear and driving what it is they drive and paying allllll the bills that go with it.

Peace and Light and admiration to you all~

Isolated in the past

So, I started a new position. I am overqualified, but the job market is such that it is the best thing going at this time. I am working in social work again. The all too familiar place for me.

Just last year, I came out of the molestation closet and started speaking publicly about my dirty little secret. Seems it has helped a lot of people and of course that makes it very worthwhile. Who knew that my snarky take on taboo subjects could be so healing. Go figure.

Sooo, as I am in endless trainings, I am remembering why I shoved so many of my thoughts, feelings and actions into that closet. Stereotyping. Yep. I had been out of the line staff limelight so long that I forgot one of the main reasons that I hid the part of me that social workers dealt with.

You see, in social work, a fundamental part of the focus is on child abuse, abusers and children. The workers are often times so immersed in the here and now of the abuse that all they can see, believe or predict is that the whole lot of the customers they serve are destined for failure, relapse and therefore write the whole experience off to certain doom.

One of the reasons I spent most of my career focused on what people can be, do and have is because I am living proof that you can live a childhood hell and turn out nothing like what you experienced. To be clear, there is a certain amount of collateral damage; however, I know like I know like I know that your destiny is not predetermined by your childhood. Try telling that to most social workers or other health and welfare professionals.

As I have sat in one grueling training after another, I am awash in the anger that I have been stereotyped and the persons sitting alongside me don't even know it. When the social workers are venting and telling the stories about the kids "who don't stand a chance" they don't know that I was that same kid. I bet you that many people thought they had me pegged and written off at various times in my life and I thank God that I never had a worker in my life pitying me and making assumptions about my scarred psyche and projecting my doom unto me.

I always thought that if I talked to people about my reality at home, that no one could relate to me. I always thought that my lifestyle was so weird that regular people would think I was a freak. Turns out that I still feel isolated at times by people who assume that if I was molested, neglected and emotionally abused I must, in fact, be unbalanced- potentially a child molester and certainly an alcoholic, or that I engage in domestic violence.

Turns out that I am often times asked to speak, talk and share information about success. Many of the people I talk to have no idea that the person before them was a scared little girl who was locked in basements, starved, and regularly ridiculed at school and knew more about good touch/bad touch than they cared to know. I just find it somewhat annoying when I hear other workers talk about kids destined to failure when they don't even know one of those "kids" is sitting right there. It's like someone cracking off an ethnic joke and later learning your name is Bearquiver or Chang or Lipskowski. I mean, I don't LOOK like I was abused, you know. I have all my teeth, I have not been in the woman's shelter as a client and my kids are not known to CPS and I don't get quantity discounts at liquor barn.

I guess I would be called an exception to the rule. That is the way that statisticians sweep the anomaly of my overcoming my childhood under the rug.

What I believe and why I had always been in the helping profession is to be a hope to others. I want to be the one to say "Hey, look at me, you can overcome whatever you are subjected to as a child." I have every identifying factor in my history that says I should be one jacked up woman who attracts bums, has multiple baby daddy's, is on the welfare doles and is a substance abuser. If nurture is over nature, and you do what you were taught, I would be a whiskey drinkin', child molestin', domestic violencin' machine.

I am in not your average, ever day child of trauma. I do have my issues, especially with authority, but I am very well adjusted and I believe something that makes me great at social work. I believe that it is possible to pull your head out of your butt and that nothing determines your future but your choices. People can do and say whatever they want to you, but how you react is totally in your control.

I want to reach out to all people who feel that they have not reached their full potential. I want to show them with words and deeds that all things are possible. You are not alone. If you have overcome your demons, you need to stand out for the others to see your strength and follow your lead. If you are beat down and think that your past determines your future, I want to shake you up and challenge you that you can be, do and have anything you want. Sure, you may have to unlearn crappy behaviors. You may have to heal deep scars. You may have to leave people and attitudes in the past, but you do not have to be that which you came from.

My favorite passage in the Bible is John 17:16 They are not of this world even as I am not of this world. "they" is us. We are not of the world of abuse. We are from it. We went there to learn the skills we needed to teach others to be like us. Survivors.

It's I Have a Dream Day

Today is Marting Luther King, Jr day. I call it "I have a dream day." I posted a question on Facebook this morning asking people what their dream was. I got varied responses. I tried to think of what my dream was. I mean, with all I have managed in my recent past, one would think I would have quite the dream list. The truth was, I couldn't think of something to write. What? Me? Couldn't think of something to wish for, hope for or want. Nothing global, philanthropic or poignant to want for myself of the world. Nope.

Then I started to realize why. I realized that the reason why was peace and grace. There is a time in your personal struggle where all you want is release from the pain and the situation. You want to be set free from the reality you are in for the hope that you have. At least, I do and did. Almost two years ago, my life was shattered by issues that divided and displaced my family. It has been a long road back to togetherness.

On the road to togetherness there were a lot of choices that I had control over. I had the choice to work with God's program or try to work mine. I consciously chose God's program. I chose it, I asked for it and I openly received it unconditionally. That doesn't mean that I didn't cry, ask a lot of questions or wonder if I were misinterpreting Him along the way. The one thing that never failed, no matter what, is that I NEVER stopped believing or trying. EVER. I admit, I was shaken a few times and I thought to myself "will this ever end?" but I committed to the long haul. I just told myself double for my trouble and beauty for my ashes.

So, here I sit on "I have a dream day" and I realize that though not everything is over, I have something better than it being over. I have grace and I have peace. I realized today that when I did not have a dream to share it was because I am in the knowing that all is well and as it should be. One day, I will share the good news of what God has done for this family. How enemies tore at it like savages and blamed and cursed it and how God held it together, put it back together and how the ones who wanted to, found Him in the process. Not all, but most and that is better than not all, but some. Oh the stories I will tell that will shock and amaze. Stuff that is on 20/20 or that conspiracy movies are made of. Seriously.

There has been a HUGE change in the lives of this family and I can see that God is starting to pour out his blessings just like He promised. I am employed, I am financially stabilizing, and my family has been reunited and is living mostly under one roof. Great things are happening in the natural, but the one thing that has happened that can't be seen is the grace that is upon me and the peace in my heart. The loss of anger, the need to be vindicated in a big and public way, the need to control and (dare I say) manipulate outcomes for my best interest. The ability to walk a path that seems unwanted and counterintuitive to what I want and let the gift of it unfold and wait for the reason instead of insisting I know better than Him.

We have all heard the term, Let Go, Let God, I understand it now. It saddens me that so many people think that they believe in God and what He is. They make Him so small and act as though He is merely an afterthought unless someone they love is dying or they are making a deal in their hour of need. I guess I do have a dream that everyone will find the God that I know. The one who wants a personal relationship with you. He wants to be your friend, your counselor, your teacher and your mentor. He wants to deal with the crap in your life. The crap you put in there and the crap you didn't. He can clean it all up. What is more, He can put thoughts, feelings and actions into your life you never knew you could have. He can make you stop doing things you never though you could overcome and He can make you start doing things you never thought you could begin. His plan is the same for all of us. The best news of all, to me so far, is that when you really find Him, all the things that happen to you become benign. It all happens and you have a new way to deal with it. You can face anything and you can become anything.

I started my work in public speaking talking about how you can be, do and have anything in life you want. It is still true. What I know now, is that the path to be, do and have is better with God. Not necessarily easier or faster, but better and any one who has been through a storm will tell you the same thing.

Peace and Light and dreams to you all~