Stand up! But keep listening, too

By nature, I avoid anything resembling a confrontation.  When I was young, I was so painfully shy I avoided anything that might even lead to a confrontation or difficult conversation.  Early in my marriage, I'd beg Darrell to call the phone company or any other service provider if something was wrong that we needed to resolve.

I credit Darrell with teaching me to argue, and without meaning to, teaching me to stand up for what I believe in.  In a strange turn of events, I am now the one who is better at demanding good service from companies we do business with.  I am not mean, but firm.  I remember a co-worker hearing me deal with an issue from the office once, and she was shocked that I could be like that, because she'd never heard the firm, insistent Jennifer.

When I was first testing my wings with this new and improved Jennifer who stands up for what is right for herself and for others, way back at my first professional job, a situation arose.  Through overhearing office gossip, I found out that coworkers in another department with the same job function and title were getting paid quite a bit more than those of us in my department.  Just a few years before, I'm quite sure I would have just kept my mouth shut, and stewed in my own juices about it.  Instead, I brought it to the attention of the Vice President of my department.  I wasn't really even demanding about it, and I don't think I would have said anything even then if it hadn't affected several other people besides myself.  Within a few weeks, five of us got significant raises to bring salaries in line with the other group.  To my knowledge, I was the only one who brought up this disparity in pay, even though others realized it.  Despite my fear, I was never treated poorly after.  In fact, I think I earned respect by standing up for myself and my coworkers.  At least, I like to think so.

I don't have regrets about my past.  My experiences and decisions brought me to the life I have now, the life I love.  When I think back to the 18-year-old girl just graduating high school with so many ambitious dreams, I know that I've accomplished them.  I quite honestly have everything I ever wanted.  From 40 on, it's just icing on the cake, and it's a pretty tasty cake.  Sure, I have bad days.  Sure, I'd like to move all my family and friends to my neighborhood.  Sure, I know I could lose it all, or at least lose someone significant in my life, at any time.  But overall, life is sweet.

But, if there is one thing I'd go back and change about myself, it would be that I would have always stood up for what is right.  I would go back and have the tough conversations.  I'd go back and try to stop the bullies from picking on kids in my grade school.  I'd go back and talk to the school administration about things that weren't handled well.  I'd make my voice heard, because I would know there were others just like me that were afraid to speak up, so I would speak up for them.

I've had a few weeks of difficult conversations.  A few weeks of standing up for things that I believe are right for both myself and my daughter.  It hasn't been easy.  I'm admittedly more hurt when my children aren't treated fairly than when I'm not.  I'm even a little worn out from it.  Right now, it even seems like little or nothing will be done, for us at least, resulting from these tough conversations.  But I have learned that it is still important to speak up.  Things may not change today based on matters I raise, but if I speak up now, policies might change for those who come after.  I have several examples from past experience of things getting better for others that followed after me, even if I didn't get to experience the benefit personally.  I speak up so that even if it doesn't help my daughter, it might help your younger daughter five years from now.  I speak up because I used to be afraid.  I speak up for the people that can't. And, I hope I learn to do it better, to speak up for other important issues that I just stay out of now while I'm so busy supporting and raising my family.

So, I'll leave you with one final thought.  Learn to speak up for what you believe in, but make sure you don't learn it so well that you forget how to listen.  That's the lesson I am trying to make sure I learn myself.

What a Difference a Year Makes...

One year ago today, I was completely overwhelmed.  Darrell had been gone already for almost two months, though he was on his way home for the weekend.  Will had just had surgery and been in the hospital for three days, and had a setback just that day.  The movers were coming to help us get out of our home of seven years the very next morning.  The kids and I were moving into a temporary place that I was quickly realizing wasn't as nice as I'd hoped.  I was heading to Indy for a quick trip for my brand new job the next week, and then starting work full time from our temporary place the week after that.

I was a mess, but I had no choice but to trust it would all work out.  And it did.

It was a tough several months, but a year later, things feel much more solid and stable.  Instead of moving away from our beloved home and friends, we're on the way to making new friends. We like our new house perhaps even better than the old house. Both Darrell and I have stable, though of course not perfect and sometimes trying, jobs.  Both kids have made friends here and seem to like their schools and activities.  We found a church home quickly.  We lost a beloved pet (Chester), but after grieving for a while, we have sweet Simba.  It is starting to feel like we belong.  And that's such a good feeling.

I know others experience even more trying circumstances than we have over the past year or so.  But I have to believe that after the trying times, it gets better.  After the storm, sometimes there is a rainbow.  After the pain, there is peace.  Sometimes you have to just get through it, and there is beauty on the other side.  And usually there is even beauty along the difficult journey, if you just look hard enough.  I hope you see some of that beauty today.

The World Keeps Getting Smaller

As a young girl, I got to go to the Magic Kingdom several times.  Not because my family had all that much money, but because my Granny lived and worked in Kissimmee, Florida (just outside Orlando).  We would drive the 16 hours from our home in West Virginia many summers during miner's vacation (yep, for part of my life, I was indeed a coal miner's daughter).  As wonderful as the Magic Kingdom was, I don't even think it was my favorite Florida theme park.  I remember Sea World, too, but my absolute favorite was Circus World.  Does any other 70's kid remember that awesome amusement park?  I don't remember a lot, but I remember being so excited to go and so happy there!

I could ride any ride at any of the amusement parks and not get sick.  I still have an iron stomach compared to most my age, but admit that the teacups would now do me in (I still love roller coasters though - especially smooth, fast ones!).

The Magic Kingdom opened the year I was born.  And I have a favorite memory of something my sister and I would get each year we went - the coolest balloon with a colored Mickey Mouse shaped balloon inside, and a clear/transparent white regular balloon on the outside.  I remember admiring those balloons, watching some of them float away from other children while I held mine tight (including my little sister's a time or two, I think).  They looked something like this, although I don't remember the ones of my childhood being so transparent on the outside balloon or having the inner one with the print/design:

Would you like to guess what my favorite Disney ride really was though?  It's a Small World After All, of course!   Years later, riding it first in adulthood with my husband and friends, and then again at later times at least once with each of my children when they were young, there was something so comforting about that tune and the ride.  Even if the tune does get stuck in your head for days and days... and days after the ride is over.

My daughter is at Disney World for the first time without us this week.  The first time we took her, she was four years old.  Wasn't that just yesterday?  She is suddenly so grown up, so independent.  And she's always been my more independent kid anyway.  I miss the four-year-old who believed, just a little, that the Disney princesses just might be real.  I miss the four-year-old, so sure she wouldn't like shows at Disney at all compared to the rides, and the look of wonder after seeing her first Disney show (The Lion King).  She didn't complain about going to a single Disney show after that.  I miss the four-year-old and her five-year-old cousin pulling us all through the parks, so eager to get to the next adventure.  I turned around twice, and she grew up on me, but you may be tired of hearing me talk about that already.

Perhaps just amazing to me as my little girl being grown, is how small my world seems to get year after year.  I know several people at Disney this week, the same time as my daughter.  Two friends were kind enough to even send videos of my girl in her parade.  One friend is one I still miss sometimes so much that it hurts, my next door neighbor in Lexington that I still wish I could have moved right along with us.

And, many years after my Granny has moved, and then passed away, we have family nearby in Florida again.  Darrell's parents live in Florida each winter, and his aunt and her family just moved to the area last year.  It is doubtful any family will see my girl while she's there, but at least I know they are nearby if she really needed them. 

It is just surprising how often I know somewhere where one of us is going, how small the world has grown.  Even moving here, a city I hadn't even visited in many years, we had people already we knew.  And while I haven't seen them as much as I'd like, I know I have friends with history already here, and maybe already just about anywhere I'd go (at least in the US).  The more we've moved, the more we travel, the more we reach out and connect with others, the smaller our world becomes.  And I like it that way.  I like it very much.