Category Archives: home

A Fresh Start

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trust-the-magic

No matter how many times I start over again, it never gets old.  I love feeling as though this time I may get it right.  This time, there are many loose ends I need to complete.  When I think about all I have experienced over the last five years, this isn’t surprising.  First, I moved in with my grandmother in November 2012 to help take care of her.  Nearing 88 years old at the time, she needed company and no longer wished to drive.  Unfortunately, she became incredibly sick that winter and ended up needing nursing home care.

A year later, I decided to go back to school to earn my teaching degree.  I started substitute teaching and taking classes.  In April 2014, my other grandmother passed away.  Even though I didn’t see her daily, I was close to her too.  Shortly thereafter, my relationship with my boyfriend of 10 years dissolved in the worst way possible.  In May it will be nearly four years, and it still hurts at times, even if I have no regrets about the outcome.

As I finished my classes and student teaching, my surviving grandmother became less active and generally sicker.  She passed away just shy of her 92nd birthday.  On Sunday, it will mark one year since she passed away.  There are several other details I could include here, but I had to see for myself, in writing, some of the major events that have marked these last several years.

I am still going through my grandmother’s things and mine as well.  I am still coming to terms with no longer being a student.  When I returned to the classroom after almost exactly 10 years since I graduated from Michigan State University, I realized how much I missed it.  Before I move ahead, it is necessary to appreciate where I have been.

It is now time for me to figure out what I want out of life.  There are some non-negotiables.  I will be a part of the canoe livery, I will have a teaching career, and I will eventually adopt.  It is the personal details that I need to work out, and I have no idea where to begin.  It is so tempting to compare myself to others and feel as though I should have accomplished more at this point in my life.  I just have to remind myself that it is my life and no one else’s.

fresh start

Focus

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focusThis sums up my 2017 so far. I intended to chose a word for the year, but never did. In fact, I am still working on my word for 2016: Home. Have I made progress? Yes. Unfortunately, I am not quite there yet. I suppose it is for the best. There is still so much to do. I still have so many things to go through and do before I can truly say that I have turned this house into a home.

Right now, I need to focus to finish everything I’ve started. There is so much going on with my education and teaching career, the canoe livery, my family, and the wonderful organizations to which I belong that I find myself constantly reorganizing or changing dates if necessary. I love it. What would I do if I didn’t have such a full life? I honestly have no idea.

This is exactly why I question whether or not I even want to be in a relationship. I’m not quite sure how it would even work. Considering my plans to foster to adopt, I should make the most of these last few years of living alone. It is nice not having to answer to anyone or to be responsible for anyone else. I am increasingly aware that it will not always be this way. On the other hand, maybe I take everything in my life way too seriously.

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Leading By Example

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http://nothingbutbonfires.com/2011/06/sixty-years-memories

As my brother, sister, and I work on a project for our Mom’s 60th birthday (see link above for more information on what we are doing), I can’t help but think about role models.  It is clear from the letters we’ve received so far that my Mom left a lasting impression on at least a few of her students.  Those letters, preparing for student teaching in the fall, all combined with working with my parents and brother on a daily basis at the canoe livery make it clear that I am once and for all right where I need to be.

I do not remember a time when I did want to be like my Grandpa B. and my Dad when I grew up.  I loved my Mom dearly, but I never wanted to be “just” a teacher (how awful this sounds now).  In the case of my little sister, that is all she ever wanted to be.  In fact, I admired her for her determination and having the sense of self to know what she wanted to do with her life from the time she was born.  I just knew that I needed to create.  I’m not sure when I made the connection between business and creativity, but I did.  I watched as my parents grew their business throughout my childhood.  I watched as Grandpa B. grew his during the same time period.  The funny thing is that as much as I admired both Grandpa and my Dad, they had vastly different visions for their businesses.

Neither my Dad or Grandpa started their respective businesses.  My parents purchased Russell Canoe Livery from my Grandma Reid, my Dad’s mom.  In the case of my Grandpa, he took over his grandfather’s business with his younger brother.  After my Dad lost his father to cancer, he and Grandma Reid kept the business running.  When my parents married in 1977, they purchased the canoe livery too.  I saw the early sacrifices they made to grow their business, and even though no one expressly said so, I always believed that my Dad was more concerned with creating a business around our family’s lifestyle than business itself.  During the summer business came first, but there always seemed to be time to make memories of our own as a family.

Grandpa, on the other hand, truly loved the convenience store business.  During summer time trips to the UP (the Upper Peninsula for those not from Michigan), we would stop at his convenience stores to see how things were going.  He constantly sought to expand his business and enter into new business ventures.  My Dad sought to innovate at the canoe livery as well, and did so successfully; however, he never had an interest to expand into new business opportunities.  As I later managed one of Grandpa’s convenience stores for a short time, I learned so much from both men.

Only fairly recently did I fully appreciate my Mom’s role in the success of the canoe livery.  As I have taken on more of her responsibilities, I have a new respect for all of those summers she worked while other teachers took much needed time off.  She continues to be the glue that makes everything work.  Late in her teaching career the superintendent at the time asked her why she never pursued her Master’s degree (she ended up with the equivalent).  She simply stated that she was too busy spending her summers building a business.  I include that here because it illustrates just how under appreciated my Mom’s contributions to the family business can be at times.  There is no doubt that my Mom had a successful 32 year teaching career.  I argue that her nearly 40 year career as a co-owner of a family business is just as successful.  She worries about how our Crystal Creek Campground will run without her.  As a future owner, I worry as well.  Our Crystal Creek customers love her, and I can’t imagine Crystal Creek without her.

The funny thing is that I am largely following in her footsteps.  Not Dad’s.  Not Grandpa B.’s.  Those men taught me so much about business and impacted my career in thousands of ways, but it is my Mom’s example I will follow.  I plan to teach and spend my summer’s continuing to build Russell Canoe Livery with my brother.  If I am half as successful as my Mom as both teacher and small business owner, I will do well.

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The "back yard" of my childhood home: Crystal Creek Campground.

The “back yard” of my childhood home: Crystal Creek Campground.

May

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relax

Call it a casualty of having an overly full life, but I have no idea what happened to May.  It began with a quick getaway with my Mom and the end of one of the most trying semesters of my college career, Mother’s Day brought new hope and renewed faith, and Memorial Day signaled the unofficial start of my summer life.  I’ve wanted to write a post about motherhood and Mother’s Day for close to a month, and frankly, I doubt I can do my feelings justice.

Something felt different about Mother’s Day this year.  Even though in recent years I’ve been fortunate to spend Mother’s Day with my Mom and Grandma(s), the very thought of Mother’s Day was enough to make me break out in hives.  When I worked in retail, I had to keep my composure as customer after customer wished me a “Happy Mother’s Day!”  They all meant well, but they also had no idea how those words stung.  The first thing I remember wanting out of life – to be a mom – eluded me and continues to elude me, at least for now.  Even though I knew that I wanted to adopt in the future, I saw no way to do so.  Fortunately, I changed the circumstances of my life.

That is why this Mother’s Day felt so different.  There is nothing standing in my way now.  Winter semester 2016, now in the books, marked the last traditional semester of my teacher certification program, my second college career.  After completing my last class at the end of this month, only student teaching and extensive testing stand between me and my first teaching position.  I will finally be in a position to adopt and create a family of my own.  The sense of purpose – and peace – I have in my life now shapes everything I do and my future.  I know that I’ve talked about this before, but I did not expect to feel this way so soon.  I haven’t even taken classes to become a foster parent yet.  Above all, I needed to trust that I will make it happen.  I love knowing that it is now all up to me.

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Not My Mother’s Life

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Getting Married is Not An Accomplishment – Natalie Brooke – Huffington Post

As my last semester as an undergrad comes to a close (student teaching not withstanding), I can’t help but wonder what my future will bring.  I finally came to the conclusion that I will have to create my own path.  There is no template in my family for what I am about to do.  My mother, and my grandmothers and great-grandmothers before her, married by age 21 and became a mother by age 24.  I do not know what single-parenthood looks like on a daily basis.  Am I confident that I can handle being a single mother?  Yes.  Is that what I intended for my life?  No.

Add in the process of becoming a foster parent and then adoption, and I am clearly in uncharted territory.  Fortunately, I’ve been preparing for this most of my life, and I am fortunate to know several people who have adopted and served as foster parents over the years.  I have resources.  Add in the fact that most of my family lives nearby, and I know that I can do this.  I also have a wonderful group of women with Turner Syndrome that I can lean on for support too.

In fact, a comment by a fellow woman with Turner Syndrome really made me think.  Her statement summarizes what I’ve been feeling for much of my teenage years and then my adult life and nails it.

“What feels lacking is the status given to women for their fertility – and precious little else.  I think we are in the *perfect* position to blow that ideology back to where it came from and help people learn of different ways to make a family and make a life.”

Unless you’ve lived through infertility, I don’t think people recognize the extent to which women are still valued for their fertility.  That brings me to the article above.  As a society, we celebrate marriages and births.  Women are still largely defined through family and marriage.  While privately our family and friends might celebrate our academic and career accomplishments, they are not celebrated in the same way in our society.  Why not?  Who says that one has to marry to create a family?  That may be ideal, but it just might not work for everyone.

Why should I wait until I meet the right man before I pursue my dream of having a family of my own?  I already spent ten years with someone who was not right for me in the hopes that we would get married and start a family.  It turns out that he did want a family, just not with me.  As difficult as those lessons were, I am much stronger for it.  After letting go of that relationship, I was finally free to start pursuing my dreams again.  It wasn’t that my ex prevented me for pursuing them.  Instead I found myself holding back until the timing was “right” and focusing on “us” when there never truly was an “us,” at least not as how I perceived it should be.

Frankly, I would love to meet the right man, someone with whom I can share my life.  If it doesn’t happen, it isn’t the end of the world.  As I go through the process of becoming a foster parent and adopting, I am going to focus on myself and what I want out of life.  I am in a position to create the life that I want.  I might as well make the most of it.

quote jk rowling

The “L” Word – Love

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love

There is no more loaded and misused word in the English language than love.  This post, as much as I wish it could be about romantic love, is about the everyday love that gets people up in the morning.  The thing is that I would not be here or in the position I am now if it were not for the love of several people in my family – namely my parents and every single one of my grandparents.  I realize that many people can say that, but not all.  Also, I have the unique perspective of being able to directly tie my future to the love and support of my parents and grandparents.  If it weren’t for my family, I would not have been able to go back to school to pursue my teaching degree.  If I am able to fully realize my dream of being a high school teacher, business owner, and mom, it certainly won’t be due to my efforts alone.  Only the love of several people could help me accomplish those goals.

When I first began thinking about this post, I couldn’t help but think of my Grandma B., my maternal grandmother.  She passed away in 2014 just as I was beginning my second college career.  She most definitely approved of my plan.  When I finally have my first classroom, I know that she’ll be watching over me from wherever she may be.  Education meant that much to her.  My other grandmother, Grandma R., values education every bit as much, but never had the opportunity to obtain a college education.  Even at 91, she reminds me at least once a week that she loved school, and she tells me old school stories that I’ve heard too many times to count.  I love it because I will never forget them.  In some ways, I feel as though I am getting an additional opportunity at a college education that she never had.  If I eventually do adopt, my child(ren) will know all about them and the profound influence they had on our entire family.

What frustrates me at the moment is that I so badly want to give back what has been given to me.  I want to help someone achieve their dreams.  I am just not there – yet.  I am not in that position – yet.  I have so much love to give and, as of yet, no family of my own.  I am simply way too impatient.

Refining My Creative Process

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Cultivating the Creative Process – Ellen Vrana

If you happen to be a writer, you are missing out if you are not reading Ellen Vrana’s blog.  It is simply beautiful, and yet relatable.  In other words, it makes me want to run off to London.  In this particular post, she addresses an issue that I’ve thought about quite a bit lately:  How place affects the creative process.  After Christmas, I had the pleasure of meeting up with one of my local writer friends for lunch.  Our conversation made me realize that I am in a place where I need to seek out new places to write.  One’s surroundings affect the writing process, and I need to do something new.

As a student, I seemed to naturally seek out places to study that both feed my creativity and allow me to focus on the tasks at hand.  As an undergrad at Michigan State, I absolutely had the best of both worlds.  When I needed creativity and wanted to dream, I could head over to the women’s resource room in the MSU Union.  It is simply a large, beautiful room set aside for women to study in silence.  Occupying one corner of the Union building, its windows overlook the approach to Beaumont Tower and some of the most beautiful parts of MSU’s gorgeous campus.  Best of all, if I needed a change, the energy of the rest of the building was just outside the door, the type of energy that can only be found on a bustling college campus.  If I needed to concentrate on simply getting a project completed, there was always the business library.  No distracting beautiful views, just a quiet cubicle that allowed me to shut out the rest of the world while I worked, without all of the social aspects of MSU’s main library.

Today, as I finish up my second experience as an undergraduate student, I find myself doing the same thing.  There are places on both SVSU and Delta College’s campuses, their libraries, where I know I can go when I need to concentrate wholeheartedly on the task at hand.  What is lacking is a writing space where I can feed off of the energy.  This is precisely why I would feel right at home living near a college or university.  Instead, I live in the smallest city in Michigan.  There are no true coffee shops where I could spend an afternoon just watching people and maybe write a word or two.  There are no places to really just spend time alone in public.  In my quest to find such a space, I’ve tried two small local libraries.  Unfortunately, they are too quiet for my taste, and they are not particularly comfortable.  If I want that much silence, I might as well be comfortable at home.

As I spend this year concentrating on the very idea of home, developing my own creative writing process is just as much part of my concept of home as my bedroom.  If I am ever going to succeed as a writer, I need to explore my creative process and how physical space affects it.  Given that I live in such a rural area, I may have to get creative.  Without internet access, such a task would become much more difficult.  Fortunately, I also draw a lot of my inspiration from music as well.  I would be lost without my playlists.

What Ellen does so well in her blog post is explain the difference between inspiration as a writer and the actual physical task of writing.  Maybe it is because of our shared heritage (her father and my mother are first cousins), but I can imagine her writing process working well for me too.  I can relate to drawing inspiration from experiences in the city and writing in the country.  This is why I renewed my passport this summer even though I have no plans to travel at the moment.  Much of my inspiration has always been drawn from the very idea of travel, of being able to reinvent oneself and start over.  The idea of having my passport handy is enough.  Throughout all of my study abroad experiences at Michigan State, I wanted desperately to capture it all in writing.  Unfortunately, it didn’t work out as I planned, although there were a few exceptions during my time in Spain.  Quite simply, there was too much to take in, too much going on to capture it well.  Now that I have the desire, time, and space to write, the inspiration isn’t as immediate.  Hopefully I’ll be able to find what works for me in 2016. untold story

 

Home

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LIW 4

I am not one for New Year’s resolutions. Instead, I rather concentrate on creating good, sustainable habits. Those take time and patience. If I state that I will do this or I will do that, it is simply asking for failure. In 2016, I will simply concentrate on the word home. Even though I’ve lived in the same house since the end of 2012, I have yet to make it my home. It is my grandparents’ home and the house my Dad grew up in. I’ve lived there alone since the beginning of 2013, and yet, it is still very much my grandparents’ house. It is time to make it my own. I started the process last spring, but became so busy that I haven’t done much of anything since.

As a busy college student, I’ve concentrated on my classes above anything else. The last thing I wanted to do was look at all of the projects awaiting me at home. Instead, I packed up my backpack and headed to the university library where I could concentrate on my work, ignoring all that needs to be done at home. Well, this is my last semester as an undergraduate student – minus student teaching. It is time to start concentrating on the next phase of my life. It is time I created a space for myself.

During my years in Bay City, I didn’t do much to create a home for Brian and myself. I always kept thinking that we’d get married and buy a house. As the years went by and that happy scenario seemed less and less likely, I became depressed and no longer cared much. Why waste time and energy on a rental house anyway? When I finally moved in 2012, it felt wonderful to actually go through all of my possessions. I gave away items I no longer needed or used. Bags and bags of clothes that no longer fit were donated. I felt free. This is exactly what I need right now. When I complete my teaching certificate next December, I want to do so with a completely clean slate. I want to be able to fully move on to the next stage of my life.

So, why concentrate on home? Every family needs a home, right? It stands to reason that if I want to create the family I’ve longed for my entire life, we need a place to call our own. But, it involves so much more than just a house. It needs to function for me and the family I want to create. It is the first step in a long process. A family of my own is the first thing I can ever remember wanting out of life. After all of the heartache, many setbacks (just about anything you can imagine), and waiting, there is nothing standing in the way anymore. I am enough. I just figured it out way later than I would have liked. I am just glad that it is not too late.

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Oprah Video – You ARE Enough

AC Hoekwater – My One Little Word for 2016