Well, I’ve made it through the first two weeks of the training class. As concerned as I was about making it, I discovered several others in the class were struggling the same way I was. I think I half-way wanted to fail so I could move to something else. But no such luck. I’m trying to put it into a positive light: I’ll be able to work from home (no gas, no wardrobe, no rush hour) and it’s strictly customer service (no revenue figures to meet in conjunction with telephone numbers as well) and I’ve been able to exceed expectations on the service end. So, I guess I have a job. You can tell I’m real thrilled about it.
In the meantime, I’m so very excited in other areas! I remind myself that you can’t hold a negative thought and a positive thought in your mind at the same time. When the holiday stresses and the job and my family all begin to feel like they’re closing in on me, I think of my son who is flying in Monday night, coming home for the holidays! He is and always has been the light of my life! His name is Michael and his smile lights up my universe even if he isn’t five years old! He’s grown into a man: intelligent, sensitive, compassionate, strong, and independent. There’s not a day goes by that he doesn’t invade my thoughts and give me beautiful moments! And did I mention, he also happens to be very good looking too! When we walk together, I tell him to call “Mom” loud enough for others to hear. Not only because of my pride in him and his accomplishments, but because I really don’t want people thinking I’m some dirty, old lady sporting this beautiful “eye candy” on my arm!
On one of his previous visits, we went to a little bar and restaurant. A friend came in and asked me to shoot pool. I declined the pool game (which is unusual for me), introducing him to Michael as my “special date” for the evening, thinking he knew the man I was with was my son. Well, several days after Michael returned to Los Angeles, I stopped at the little bar to eat, avoiding a totally solitary dinner. The friend’s wife was there and stopped at my table. She asked about the young man she’d heard I was dating. She had suspected it was my son and when I confirmed it, she laughed out loud. Her husband had been insulted when I turned down a game of pool with him just because I was with “some good-looking man, half her age!”
Michael and I have had a good relationship all along. I didn’t have any decent role models for motherhood and sometimes felt he was shortchanged. As a child, he was my top priority; I brought him into the world and felt it was up to me to see to it he was not only fed and clothed and educated, but more than that, I wanted him to grow up knowing he was loved unconditionally and beyond measure! With all the doubts I had in my life, I didn’t want to burden this new life, this innocence, with the garbage from past generations and I fought hard to keep them away from him. I truly believe his presence in my life gave me the courage to stand up to anything: family (including my mother), hard times and poverty, even my own bouts of PTSD and depression. There were times I don’t remember, chunks missing from the memory banks, yet somehow I managed to make sure his care wasn’t lacking. In the ideal world, that’s what children and parents do for each other.
I didn’t have that kind of relationship with parents growing up, neither did my brother. And while my brother and I have our own differences, we both struggled as young parents, trying to provide our own children with as much love as they could possibly handle! All of the young adults in the generation coming behind us, our children, will have issues. No generation escapes them entirely. But by God, our kids don’t have issues of abuse, neglect, mistrust or lack of love! In that respect, even though it was a “negative education,” my brother and I learned well what not to pass on to our children. They’ve each grown into happy, productive adults, enjoyable to be around, good people to know. Our children are beautiful people; my brother and I have both been completely successful.
