I am trying to hold back the Mississippi with a dam made of sand.

I have struggled with wading through the waters of mental health for quite a few years and it seems to have grown to the size of the Mississippi. The current is gaining strength and the water is rising.

Swelling.

At first, I had tried building a dam with the only thing I have to use and that is just sand.

And it worked ok for a while but the Mississippi is relentless. It swells and rises. It beats and pushes. The dam was beaten and pummeled until just a tiny trickle managed to push through to the other side. Well! That was all it took for the water to take advantage of the weak and tenable hold the dam had holding it at bay. The water took its chance and rushed through the break and tore away at the sides more and more to gouge a Grand Canyon of free-flowing water.

And I was there being buffeted and pushed and screamed at by the water and spray. I frantically worked to fill in the space and built it back up. I fortified it with more and built it higher and thicker. I hit it with all the energy I had and the fortitude of my determination and patience and grit . .  to which I have considerable amounts of. 

But the dam I am making is still sand and sand is sand. Is it not? It was just a matter of time before the relentless pounding of the waters would break through again. 

And it did.

And I fought back again. 

And again. 

And again. 

Then, I tried to stem the flow and to see if diverting it would do anything. I gave it another path off to the side. Maybe I could get the water to do something. . .  maybe be more productive. . . then, it will not batter and push and pummel the dam with such persistence if I could move it in a different direction. So I tried to maybe change the flow of water into a water wheel to try and get it turning and rolling around a bit. 

It didn't matter though because sand is sand. 

I fight and battle and work my ass off to keep back the waters knowing in my brain that it is insane to even try this and that it is a losing battle and that it will never work. But my heart . . . in my heart I fight. I fight until my hands bleed and my muscles cramp to hold it back .... to keep it from happening. I am doing this all the while crying out with tears streaming down my cheek because I know the futility of it all. I know it in my mind how useless it is to use sand for a dam. I know that no matter how many times I hold back the water it will keep getting through until I have nothing left.  The heart doesn't listen to the mind with stuff like this.

 My heart is refusing to accept this.

What is the saying? It is insanity to do the same thing over and over and expect it to change. 

I wonder if he knows.

I wonder if he knows that in my mind I have come to the conclusion and accepted that we are at the point where what he wants cannot happen and what we want is never going to be what he wants. He has been thinking of suicide on and off for over two years and we have exhausted all possible help and interventions that we can think of. But in my mind, I will always remember when dad told me that if a person has decided that they don't want to live that there is nothing anyone can do. They will just die. 

He was talking about the elderly but the more I am in this season of my life with my son, I am seeing that with some people that commit suicide, it is the same. And that is where I am with this dream of the Mississippi. 

But there is more. 

I live in fear of what I might find.

I wake up every morning and wonder, is he still here with us?

Then I am at work fearing a visit from the police with the devastating news. 

Every text I receive gives me a stab of fear wondering if it is him. . . . if he is having another episode.

Then I come home from work and wonder if I will see his car in the driveway.

And then I reinforce the dam to try and hold back the water for the day.

And then the next day I do it all over again. 

Day after day after day after day. . . . . 

And I am in so much pain thinking. . . . wondering . . . Fearing. . . .has he decided already and I am doing all this for nothing because of what my dad said all those years ago?

No. My heart will not accept it. . . . will not give in. 

So I keep going and going and going. And who knows when I will fall. Who knows when I will have nothing left. 

Who knows when my nightmare will be a reality. 

Love IS enough

Have you heard the phrase that love is not enough to make a relationship work? I mean you will hear it every once in a while when a person is running down a path of destructive doom in a relationship. When they are confronted about it they will scream that love is all they need while the other will say that there has to be more than just love to make things work. 

I used to go along with that ideology. You know- that love is not enough to live life with another person. 

But now . . . . now I think I am looking at this wrong.

After reading through my previous blogs, I think I may have been wrong about what loving another person truly means. And you know what I believe now? Love is enough if you know what loving a person really means. 

Love is not just an ethereal idea that just floats around and exists outside of living life. Love is an action and a state of mind and heart that motivates a person to behave and act and think in a very specific way. I have been saying lately that love changes a person's thinking from "me" to "us". But I don't think that really does this concept justice either. 

I will say that I am doing things and moving our lives forward for us when I talk about my wife and me. But that is not really true.... not in my mind. Not in my heart. In my mind and heart, I think of my wife as being me. Isn't that weird? She and I are so entwined with our thinking and our goals and our motivations and our wants and needs that it would be hard to tell the difference between us. I have grown through the decades of being married to understand on a spiritual level what it means in the Bible to be "one flesh." You are so much one person that to love them is to love yourself. I literally have emotionaly, mentally, and almost physically bonded with her. Does that make sense?

So, loving "the one" is more like doing and providing and supporting them because in doing that you are doing it for yourself. You are making your life so much better and happier by adding this other person to you and making yourself bigger and more full as a person. You have more perspective and more depth and more value and more drive and more insight and more. . . . just . . . everything. 

Am I explaining this well? No, not really. 

Because in my mind and in my heart and emotionally and spiritually, I truly believe that if she would suddenly tragically die, it would be much like having an arm amputated or a leg missing. It would be literally be losing a part of yourself. It sounds so romantic (and it is right?) but this is where I think a lot of people fall short of really truly finding their one person that they will spend the rest of their lives with. They have not deliberately taken the time to find themselves and understand themselves and to find the one person that will complement and bond to in order to become that better more full person.  

So, love is enough. You just have to learn and feel and be in love. Truly be Love with the person you choose to bond and love. 

If any of this makes sense. 

No progress without healthy debate.

 Here is an exchange I had with a person on Facebook. They made this no argument statement:

What we need is to eliminate anyone in the education industry being a government employee. At all levels, in all cities, counties and states. 100% private school choice with vouchers. Nothing short of that will satisfy me. Or fix the "system", because that's what is broken.

So here is my response. I basically challenged him to explain why his stance would be the best solution by bringing up issues that have consistently been a problem with Private schools:

Why do you think that would work? How would you regulate discrimination practices of Private schools based on income or performance of the students? How would you make sure tuition is used appropriately and without fraud? How will you keep pay competitive enough so that teachers don't have to have more than one job just to make a living? I just have not seen private schools show any progress in education. There are exceptions but it is not the norm. I am all for doing something but what needs to be done needs to address a lot of these issues. It might fall into a blame game, but I truly feel the biggest obstacles to education is family structure/culture and poverty/single parent homes.

His response:

there are no perfect systems, but I would trust parents and students over government indoctrination teachers 100 to 1. And the good ones would get paid good and the bad ones would find a new career.

And while I agree other obstacles are real, the government system has been proven to be an almost complete failure due to the unions.

So I challenged him again:

Do you truly believe teacher indoctrination? Of what subjects? What topics? Is it on the teacher's own or is it curriculum driven? Do you think the recent generation really would be able to develop schools for better outcomes today? Why is that? Is there proof? And what exactly determines good vs. bad teachers and how can you accurately and consistently get reliable measurements for bad vs good teachers? Just as a side note, how have the unions caused the government schools to be a complete failure? Is it the unions or is it the government and the unions are actually fighting against them?

And this is the moment where my challenges to his ideas met with this common response to challenging a person's views:

you obviously live in a different universe than I do if you don't already know the answers to every question you just ask. Let's don't bother trying to communicate.

And that was it. Without responding to anything I challenged him with which were legitimate and real problems that occur with what he was saying, he basically told me that if I didn't know already then I was stupid and not worth talking to. 

Isn't that the way nowadays? People would rather just say that if you don't know already then you must be blind or stupid or "drinking Cool Aid" or some dismissive statement like that. It is all just a ploy to avoid having to stand your ground with reason in the face of someone challenging your ideas. Can progress be made this way? No. 

I asked those questions because those are the most common issues that arise with these topics that are counter to progress, and I wanted to know what he thought the solutions were to them or if he could actually prove that those problems he stated truly existed in the first place. Instead of standing his ground with evidence and rational ideas, he decided "let's don't bother to communicate." He really missed an opportunity here, don't you think?

This is my frustration with trying to have good solid debate and compromise. If this guy truly had great ideas and good reasoning for why private schools could work to save our education system then he missed an opportunity to teach or sway my idea on the topic. I was honest and genuine in my responses. I am pretty sure that was clear. I was not derogatory or inciting. I will say, too, that he didn't drop to name-calling or insults which was nice for a change. But the end is the same. No progress or exchange of thoughts that move a problem forward to a solution. 

So here is my last words on this to him and I am pretty sure when he said it is not worth communicating further, he will never respond back:

Well, that's the issue, isn't it? I have not seen this so-called indoctrination in the schools I have experience with. I am not even sure I know what indoctrinating you are talking about. I am guessing it is more so in very liberal cities and states like California or New York. Do you know firsthand or have some basis to this other than a couple of YouTube or snap chat or Instagram references? It seems like this sort of thinking is ruled by a very small minority as far as I can see because they speak louder than the rest. If it is specifically in the curriculum, then what does it require a teacher to teach that is indoctrinating? I am also very serious about the measurement of what makes a good or bad teacher and how good this type of measurement is in validity. I also wonder what entails a union making a system fail and what specifically the unions have done to cause the education system to fail. If I live in a different universe, then by all means, give me the resources and data and research to bring me up to speed on what has been determined to work and are best result practices for a more productive set of citizens.

A letter to my Mentor

I came across this letter I sent to my New Teacher Mentor I had up in Michigan when I was a brand new teacher. Words just can't explain what she did for me as I was bumbling through learning how to be a teacher. If you have had an awesome one-of-a-kind mentor, then you know what I mean. She was more than just a mentor though, she was my work mom and the closest friend I had at the time that was not my wife. Man, I would give almost anything to hear her voice again and have a cuppa with her. 

Anyway, reading this really brought back memories of that time shortly after moving to Tennessee. It was really rough and hard at first (you can read about it in other posts on this blog) but this letter was written after things started to level out. One thing I can say to people that have had their lives completely turned upside down is that things will get better. You just have to keep going and have faith and lean on those who support you. So here it is. 

Dear Gini,

 

I can’t even begin to explain how much I miss you. It seems that I am running the whole show for my classes. Overall though I am doing pretty well considering how quick and fully my life has been disrupted. So much is different here and I realize the things I looked forward to every day are things that I enjoyed the most deep down. You know, there was one morning that I almost got a good pot o’ coffee. Almost.

 But, things move on as they say. I will be shortly ending my first semester here and that is the same as a full year on a period schedule. In January, I will be teaching the same thing to a new bunch of kids. At least I will have my lessons in place. It was difficult and I only covered about 2/3 of the information that I should have. I worked it out and the biggest downfall of the block is that not only am I shorted about 300min but I am also expected to teach the same amount of concepts. Needless to say, I couldn’t make it. Another problem that I have encountered is that it is unreasonable to actually teach two full 45 min periods of information in one block. The kids literally cannot take in the information that fast. So, I have been doing a lot of drilling.

 On the other side of life, my wife is doing much much better. She is still taking her antidepressant medicine (Lexapro) but I really don’t think that she needs it anymore. She has fallen in love with her new position at the kindergarten and is just having a blast working with the young ones. We are still waiting to get the results back from her Praxis test. If she does not pass this test, she will not be able to keep her position. I am sure that she did fine. And, if she didn’t then there will be another chance in January.

 My son is probably doing the best out of us all. He has gotten to the point now at school (daycare) where he doesn’t take his Elmo Doll (best $20 I have ever spent) and I can barely get a hug out of him when I leave him there. Hmmmmmm. . . I think I am having a harder time with it than he is. He is certainly making sure that his independence is known. He gets so angry with me when I discipline him that one day he told me that I was not his best friend. I just calmly told him, “That is fine son because sometimes I have to be your Daddy and not your friend.” After I thought about that statement later, I realized that I had said probably the best proverb that I will ever have as a parent.

 I am making some pretty good friends here at the school. They are very welcoming here in Tennessee. I found that I really didn’t have to try too hard to just strike up a conversation. I do have to say that just like all places, there are clicks and rumors and such just like everywhere else. There are good teachers and bad of course and we even have the Dress code Nazis. Yes, that is even what they are called here too. The country here is very very beautiful and we take rides all over to explore. I have seen a few cave systems and a couple of falls. I am excited for the winter here to pass over so I can explore some more.

 I am doing very well now and I have even started to let go of some of the anger I had for my former principal. I am sure that you have picked up on this a little and I will admit that I was being pretty obstinate about that. My life changed so fast and so completely which caused my wife to have her problems and that turned into my son not adjusting to daycare and then the harsh reality that I really was away from home for good. I just needed to be angry with something. I am even planning to email him at the school to just let him know all is going alright.

 And before I close this letter I have to tell you that I have gotten a new train! It is a TIME LIFE train that has 5 box cars with pictures of famous covers on them. Boy is it neat! Every once in a while I pull it out and my boy and I just run it around. I can’t help it, I am just a big kid still.

Have a good holiday and a Merry Christmas. I am going to be up there and I will get a hold of you to drop by hopefully. Tell Gretchen I say Hi and that all is going well for us. I know she worries for me.

 

Love and Miss you

Guy

What it takes to be a man. My take.

I wrote this a while ago it seems and didn't realize I hadn't added it to my journal. So here it is. 

 I have been contemplating what it really means to be a man. This is on my mind a lot for a personal reason. I feel as if my son who is 14 right now is not on the road to being the man he needs to be. He tells me that he will not be like me and that I am trying to turn him into me. It hurts a little but the more I think about what he is saying, that is not what I am really trying to do.

What I am trying to do is to get him to be a true Man – not the socialized stereotyped falsity perpetuated by history or even dramatized in novels and movies.  I want him to be a man in definition and action that defies those aforementioned trivialities to be a person that signifies what it means to stand out and be noticed for being unique in a way that may not be understood but is universally accepted as being unlike anything that has been before. Of, course it is not a new concept but becoming a rare one I think.

So here is my view of what it means to be a real man. There are 10 parts:

1. Men break the stereotypes of what a man is in society.

            Men don’t cry and men are kings of the castle and men are aggressive and men dominate and men are . . . are . . . . .are. Well, these types of men according to society will never be ones that can truly affect people in a way that men who break those stereotypes. Compassionate, feeling, decisive, helpful, thoughtful, and caring men can do a lot for our society. What is next I feel may be unconventional but is raw in truth.

2. Men never say what they do not mean.

            A favorite lyric of mine from Pearl Jam goes like this – “Some words when spoken, can’t be taken back.” Well, that is not true. ALL words when spoken cannot be taken back. ALL OF THEM. If it is in your heart and mind, it is on your lips. A person can’t say something that they have not thought at one time or that they don't believe. It would never be uttered if they didn’t believe it or think it. All those hurtful things a person says when they are angry and then say they don’t mean them. . . well they did even if it is just a little bit and or they knew it would be hurtful and they may be ashamed but they are not that sorry. Anger just has a way of turning off filters and then the heart is drained of emotions.

            Say what you mean and mean what you say. What a person says when they are angry  (or sometimes when they are not even angry) tells you a lot of what they truly think.

3. A man is multitalented.

            If a guy does not know how to do a lot of things, then they have not stretched themselves. They have not found their strengths and developed a true love of themselves and their talents. To be honest, It really does not matter what they are good at .. . .it just needs to be eclectic.

            They can do more for their fellow man if they know how to do a lot of things and do them well. It increases their confidence and helps them to be wise with experience in many areas of talent.

 

4. A man has a deep sense of faith and is faithful.

            Do you want to see strength in a man? How much faith does he have that all will work out in the end? If he has a lot of faith, then he is looking for solutions because he has faith that there is a solution. This is how the good Lord blesses those who follow Him.

            Being faithful to your girl/girlfriend/wife/person is a no duh statement. If you choose to be with someone, then you have done all the careful selection stuff to make sure they are the one and you trust them to be your companion for life and be the person that will be in it with you together with them. Be faithful to that choice and love on them with zeal.

5. Men know who they are and know what they want out of life.

            It is a growing-up thing, I guess. And this is probably the hardest one of all to do for any person. How can you guide or make any choices in life if you don’t even know what you want out of it? A man has to really soul-search to know and love themself for who they are and what they want out of life. That is the only way to be able to understand who will make the best life with you instead of for you. Men who understand this in themselves are not looking for someone to complete themselves or to make them whole or to be told what to do. They have this aura of understanding what makes them happy and are more humbly confident.

            I wanted a job that I enjoyed and a wife I could share my life with. I wanted children and a house that is all my own. These things hold a focus for me. All other stuff is just icing. They are nice but they don’t hold interest for me. My focus is my job, my wife, and my family. It shows in all I do. It may come out as seeming like I am extraordinarily confident. That’s not really true. I just know who I am and what I have wanted.

6. Men follow the Bible.

            It might be heresy nowadays but Jesus really knew how to go about life. You don’t have to or may not believe all the God and Jesus stuff. Even so, if you don’t believe all that stuff, you have to admit that the way Jesus treated people is the way to go. If you really read the entire passages of the Bible, marriage is not a man owning a wife believe it or not. If you truly look at all the jobs and commandments a man has for following and how he is to treat his wife and fellow man ( and I mean all of them – no picking and choosing verses), they are what men should be. A man of God is a man that will make a mark in the community around him. He may not make a mark that is broadcasted (most likely not) but he will be missed without the people knowing why. The room will be a different place when they are there. That is what being a man of God is all about.

7. Men are without question.

            It is all in the items above. A man will not be questioned. If a person that does not know them questions who they are as a person or their motivations, the others around shut it down as fast as the question is on the table. This also means that a true man has nothing to defend themselves for. Nothing to hide is nothing to defend. It is all out for all to see and it is consistent and unwavering. A man is one that is beyond question and will always hold themselves in the integrity that perpetuates it.

8. Men never stop pursuing their wife.

            A man has to deliberately and carefully choose their wife. They have fallen deeply in love with them on an emotional level and have grown an inseparable attachment to their wife in which no one could possibly understand the uniqueness it holds between the two. It shows when you see the man pursuing their wives with endless vigor. They are constantly showing their love for them even at the smallest level. A touch, a note, words of affirmation, doing chores, holding hands, wistful glances, and all the things that had to be done because it can’t be pent up inside, it has to pour out in a constant stream of pursuit.

9. Men need to be decisive.

            It is in the Bible really. Men need to be decisive. They need to be the leader of their families and household. I know that this seems like the whole barbaric man of the house thing but hear me out on this one. If the man makes the choices, then it saves their wives from the guilt and shame for making hard and sometimes inevitably wrong decisions. I love my wife so much that I don’t want her to bear that kind of inner turmoil.

            Now, this does not mean that a man makes these choices alone. They must listen to their wives and take their good counsel. Why would I have married my wife if I didn’t believe she was wise and would have good advice? I also feel that faith has a lot to do with it too. It may not be the in thing nowadays or it may not be “woke” enough. . . I am just saying that when it comes down to who makes the choice – it should be the man.

10. You don’t have to be a fairytale to be a Man.

            Let’s be honest, a whole lot of what people think men should be is unrealistic. It should be clear by now that I really have some contempt for media-driven views of what men should be like and how movies perpetuate unrealistic views of men. Life is longer than two hours or a grammatically wrong meme. There are days that we just have to get through. We have moments where we are weak and moments where we feel like we could spin the world ourselves. We have to just do day-to-day things that need to be done. Sometimes that looks like doing the dishes or cleaning the toilet. Sometimes it looks like going out of our way just to make another person’s day easier. Sometimes it looks like just putting down the game controller and giving undivided time. Sometimes it is listening and giving good counsel. Sometimes it's just being there. And sometimes it is making hard choices to save the guilt and feelings of the ones we love.

            We are people that are real and living day to day with hard choices and just trying to get by most times. We have our moments and if we have a lot of love in our hearts, these times come more often than others. We are people. Human beings with human feelings and problems and successes and failings. We are not some made-up person that looks good on screen or in magazines but has no more depth than the tv screen or the piece of paper it’s printed on, and that is okay.

 

I am not sure, maybe I am on the wrong path. I do know one thing, I sure am better off with these traits. I am not sure if I am like “the” model of them because they are a lot to live up to, but I sure do try my best. So here you have it, my ten traits of what it is to be a real man.

 

 

We teach more than content

I thought I would put out this email exchange I had with a parent today. I have a strong focus on more than just science in my class. teachers really do model how positive and appropriate relationships function. It is very hard and not many can navigate how to do it.  I guess this is why a lot of teachers walk away from the profession in the first 5 years or so. 

Our job is hard.

Our job is more than teaching content.

And honestly, part of the reason I am making this post is because I need this kind of encouragement and wanted to save this in my journal. 

So, the following is our exchange;

 Hi teacher, hope you are doing ok. I'm emailing you concerning some things that have been reported to me about my daughter's behavior. I was told that she has been disrespecting and insulting you. Which shocked me because we email each other all the time and you have never mentioned it. Mr teacher, that is unacceptable behavior and I will not put up with her doing that to you. Not doing her homework is one thing but disrespecting adults is a totally different situation and I did not raise her that way! This is just between me and you I need to know if this is true so can handle this situation accordingly.

Sincerely, her mom.

My response, 

Good morning!

After reading your email last night, my short response is. . . no, she is not disrespecting me. 

But that is the short answer and really does not do the dynamic that your daughter and I have justice. So, I will see if I can be a little more descriptive with how she and I interact with each other. 

First, I am not sure if she has talked much about my class or my teaching style. I am a very over the top enthusiastic overboard theatrical teacher that seems at times to kinda have a screw loose. Kids usually respond to me with fear and uncertainty at first because they have not really experienced a teacher who is so wound up about what they are teaching that they practically are bouncing and giddy.  I am definitely not like other teachers. After a week or two, they start to ease into my personality and be more at ease.

One of the strategies that I use in class quite often is to make fun of myself about certain behaviors and aspects of my personality. I do this so that the kids can see that I know my faults and insecurities and that I have come to just accept them. And, I pick on myself and poke fun about them constantly to the point where some kids will also reflect it back to me. Technically, I choose what the students criticize me and pick on me about because they are just repeating and reflecting what I say about myself already. It also gives me a chance to model how to shrug off and manage disparaging remarks. It is pretty hard to offend and hurt my feelings. And also remember, I chose what they pick on me about with a bit of behavioral psychology. These topics I do this with are my weight, my problems with studdering and mumbling, losing my train of thought, my oversized hands, and my puppy make you cringe gag love for my wife. Since they are only reflecting what I have already expressed, it is not out of line or disrespectful and increases a sense of comfort and fun to the class. 

As for your daughter, She has not ever said anything that has been out of line or disrespectful to me personally. She has only reflected these things that I pick on myself. She has not said anything that I have not said about myself already. You see? 

But I do understand that if a person that has not experienced my class with me for several weeks that they would really feel that these kids who are just reflecting my own criticisms back to me would sound like they are being insulting and super disrespectful. But they are not because it is just part of my teaching strategies.

In the end, your daughter is not being disrespectful. She is actually just going along with the program and my idiosyncrasies. She is playing along with me and moving things forward in class as I put on my show. She is very respectful. She tells me often that I am her "Bestie" and we will talk about her behavior outside of class like the bus incident the other day. I will say things like "not everyone responds to that stuff like I do" so that I can reinforce that everyone is different. She listens and I can tell that she takes my advice seriously and thoughtfully. She always says hi to me or greets me positively and she talks positively to others about me. She really appreciates how she can cut up with me and how I am not overly sensitive about just having a little levity in class. I can tell that she really truly thinks highly of me and that means a lot. 

Your daughter is doing just fine with me and she is not disrespecting me or insulting me in any way that I have not already set the expectations for. I enjoy having her in class and that is why I have never mentioned that behavior because it is actually part of my teaching strategies for teaching kids how to interact with different and diverse personalities of people. 

I know this is a long email and I am not sure if I have really explained it well enough but if there is ever a problem with how she talks to me, I am positive with no doubt in my mind whatsoever that if I pull her aside and talked to her about it that she would be apologetic and never repeat that behavior again. 

Have a great day and you have any concerns that I will get right back to you. 

Mr Teacher

Her reply, 

She actually explained it to me last night after I told her that I emailed you.She also explained to me that you are her favorite teacher which she has already told me several times in the past.I just wanted to make sure because it was reported to me that she was being disrespectful and she knows I don't tolerate it.But now that you have clarified the situation what she said last night makes sense and I am relieved to hear that you two have this special bond.I already knew that she means alot to you after our emails in the past.I am honored that she has such a dedicated teacher.I really appreciate all the time and guidance you give her. I know I have thanked you numerous times but once again thank you. You are a great man and an awesome teacher! Sincerely Mom

My last word.

Awe... Thank you. I really do love my job and have lots of fun. Being a Dad to these kids is just part of who I am and it is really something to be able to have the job I have. 

Keep on keeping on!

Mr Teacher.

Insecurities of men.

 I am sure I am not the only one. I can't be. 

There are lots of encouraging and uplifting memes and posts for women and their struggles. You know the ones.... Body image and work and relationships and being a mom. Well, men have these insecurities too, but you don't see them being uplifted. 

I think it's because people either feel that we just have to man up, stuff it deep inside, and move on or they truly believe that men don't struggle like women do. 

And that is a load of bull. 

I struggle with a lot of issues. I am positive there are multitudes of men that are the same. Seriously….. just look at suicide rates. We just feel like we will be brushed aside and minimized because we are guys. There is no way we can feel as deep or second guess ourselves or struggle from unfair judgement like women. Right?

 Just being a guy can be hard. For me, I am not exactly the most masculine guy. I mean yeah, I look the part, I guess, but I just don't have that confrontational arrogance that exudes love of sports, cars, and objectifying women. I am a guy that can just about do anything I set my mind to from cooking dinners to using power tools to sewing to doing science experiments. I pretty smart too. I am sensitive and emotional, and I would like to think that I and pretty empathetic. I just come off as being overly odd. 

I struggle with my job at times. I am a teacher and I am one of those "I can change the world one kid at a time!" kind of teachers. But there are days more often than not that I get to the end and think, "What the hell am I doing?" It was a disaster and I feel like I made no difference at all. I worry most of the time if I am doing a good enough job or I am making the class challenging but not too challenging.

I wonder if my bosses don't want me there anymore or if I am more trouble than I am worth. Most of all, I just don't want someone to say something I did or said is misinterpreted or untrue that could make me lose my job. Honestly, it's easy to do to a teacher (especially a male teacher) and there is no going back no matter if I am exonerated or not. That is a real fear I have.

I struggle with being a husband. Those who know me would be surprised I am sure. I talk about my wife all the time and I dote on her and show her how deeply I love her every chance I get. I struggle though. I am a Christian and I am tasked with leading my family. It is clear in the Bible what being a leader of the house means. It means that the husband is the last say on the decisions that affect our marriage as a family. And, I just don’t feel like I am getting done.

Honestly, I think it is meant for the husband to protect his wife from the guilt of poor choices. Let me be clear, it is not for the husband to command or dominate. He is to love and seek council and wisdom from his wife but in the end the choice is his and if it goes wrong, he bears the responsibility. That way his wife is spared guilt and shame. 

That is so hard of a job that I struggle with letting her down and disappointing her. She depends on me to make wise choices and to protect her and to make sure she will never have a need or want. Honestly? There are times where I just don't know what the hell I am doing. 

I dote on her but also feel like I am not doing enough or taking care of her enough or giving her enough support for her feelings and mental health and stuff. She gets worn out and depressed sometimes and I feel like it is my fault that I can't do anything or unable to change it at times. I am supposed to be able to support her and lift her up out of it. But there are days I lay next to her at night thinking I make no difference at all. I lay there not feeling like I deserve the affection she is giving me.

I have found that being a Dad is the most challenging and most morale spirit breaking role I play. I look at my kids and constantly wonder.... Am I saying the right thing? Am I coddling too much or not enough? Am I giving just the right amount of wisdom? Am I letting them be independent enough? And on and on and on the questions go. The second guessing. I feel like I am failing at this dad thing all the time. And you know what? I really don't know if they are going to be alright or not. They seem to be struggling in so many ways but I just don't know what else to do. You know? 

I look to the men in my life and wonder..... How did they do it? I look at the man my dad is and think that he is the superman of husbands and fathers. I am nothing compared to him and how can I live up to be a man like him? My grandpa was an old school man of the house type and I disagreed with many of his "man of the house" philosophies, but he taught me so much about integrity and confidence and that nothing is out of my reach to learn. I fail at so much but then I am able to do so much at the same time and it is because of the type of man he was. I just don't feel like I could ever measure up to him. 

In the end I know that maybe I should not feel like I have to live up to them or strive to be who they are. But in my mind, they are such great men and I want to be like them. But I struggle. I feel like I am falling short all the time. I feel like I am just one poor choice or one wrong sentence from catastrophe. 

And I am guessing I am not the only man that feels that way.

No matter what, tomorrow is coming. It always does. I have been learning that the number of men lately that choose not to face it is increasing. That is not me and I have a lot of grit to keep going. I have my wife that keeps me going no matter how scared I am that I am not being enough for her. I have my boys that need me to keep talking and keep pressing on even when I think they think I am not being the dad they need. I keep going because I just do and I can't explain why I do. I keep going even when it's hard and I am unsure. I keep going because I just keep going.

Anyway, just remember. Men struggle too. Most of the time it is silent or they express it behind closed doors. We do struggle, though, and the more encouragement we get will give us that little bit more of strength to keep stepping forward. . . . To keep at it the next day. And the next. And the next. Even when we feel like we don't know what the hell we are doing.

Love story #17 - Births part two

I am just going to say that the average person has no idea how difficult it is to have children for some people. For some, they sacrifice a lot - everything at times, sometimes changing their lives forever just for the chance of changing their lives forever with children. This is true for my wife and I. And again, what we went through is still not even close to what others have endured. 

We didn't have infertility.

We didn't have the trauma of IVF

We didn't have to endure the horror and mental anguish of miscarriage. 

We didn't have to tell each other that children were not in our cards.

Deciding to have another child after what she . . . we . . . went through with our first boy was a tough decision. But we thought we knew what to expect and that we would be ready this time. We would know what to watch out for and know what the struggles will be and it will be easier. 

Yeah, that is what we thought. 

First, though, there was a big stressor in our marriage that was like an elephant in the room. It all had to do with the aftermath of the first birth. Can I be blunt? Are we all adults and understand those things that two people that love each other that no one talks about but know happen? Can we can be open and plain with each other? I hope so. 

After the first birth, my wife had pretty extensive damage to her birth canal and the recovery was not the most pleasant. The aftermath left her with scarring and it was very difficult for her to be intimate with me because she would have bleeding and bad pain (more like excruciating) for days afterward. Seriously, she would suffer. Like, hard to walk piercing pain don't touch her suffering. 

I am not sure how others would treat this but you can imagine that my wife was in quite a mental state about it. She just could not get in the "mood" because to her it was going to hurt and she would be paying for it for days afterward. But on the other hand, she truly believed that I would leave her because of her unwillingness and hesitancy. That guilt was so much that she decided to endure the pain and not tell me. Can you even comprehend what she was doing to herself? Because she feared that I would leave her is why she chose to have sex even though it was excruciating and she would suffer pain for days afterward.  So, she went through the pain and the suffering quietly and endured it.  

And it ripped my soul open when I found out.

I am not oblivious. It is an irritating quirk of mine to always be on the lookout for anything that changes with my wife. Chalk it up to being a science guy. I am observant. It started with seeing her wearing a pad for a couple of days after we were intimate. After I made the connection between the two, I ask her about it after I saw her wincing and then she shrugged it off. It was more than just my size and her size like before. I could tell, it was more than just an inconvenience. When I understood, I was broken inside. She was choosing for me to abuse her body and to suffer in pain for days instead of telling me out of fear that I would leave. She did this out of fear of me leaving her because of something she had no control over. She did this for like one and a half years. Can you even come close to being able to see what I am trying to describe?  We tried to see if there was anything we could do to fix the problem.... yeah, "fix" is not really a good word to describe it but it is the only one I can think of. She had a surgery (episiotomy) and some scaring removed but it didn't work. So, what now?

And she wanted another baby and she knew I wanted another one too.  We had decided two years difference in our boys would be a decent gap so we stopped using birth control measures.  We didn't know when but we hoped it would be sooner than our first boy. And, again, it was just not in our cards. We would try and then wait for her to recover ..... Wait for a positive test. Then we would try again. Wait, again. 

It was not really a great experience for us to tell the truth. Here we are trying to have another baby but one of us is physically suffering pain for days after each try and both of us are suffering emotional pain from things that are out of our control. We went through the whole ordeal again (see the births part one). This time though, you can add the fact that I was basically assaulting my wife. Well, I suppose technically I was not if it was consensual but, in my mind, and heart..... Hurting her like that on purpose even if she wanted me to was as good as abuse. It is not really easy to ...... Well ...... Be able to..... Perform? God, how do you explain something like this to people that have no idea what it is like..... What we were both physically and mentally and emotionally suffering with? 

God. You can't even imagine I bet. I still don't think I am coming close to describing it...... To really put words to this thing that is like a twisted little devil that sits in the room just putting pressure on a relationship and the pure will and love power we had to keep it at bay. 

And this went on for months. And then over a year. 

Then, just like that...... just like the first time.  We got a positive test. She was pregnant again. 

We were so excited but that was tempered by the effort it took. It was tempered by what we knew was coming up. There was a lot to do and to plan for. And so it began. 

Everything seemed to be going so much better this time. We were being treated at Vanderbilt and she was placed on high-risk but no bed rest. She developed pre-gestational diabetes and that was caught a lot sooner than with our first. All her vitals and all of the milestones hit when and how they were supposed to. We even were told that if there was a problem with the birth, they could have the baby out in less than 5min. 

It was a lot better this time around. But as always. . . . when things seem too good to be true. . . . you know

Everything was going pretty good until the morning which was one month from the due date. My wife and I were sitting at the table before school started. 

She flippantly looked at me and said, "You know, if this was our first boy, he would be born today."

I was like, "Shhhh! Don't jinx us! Damn, Girl!"

We giggled a little and then went about our day. 

And what was a small joke in the morning with a little giggle of reminiscence, became real. 

Her water broke that night. 

My wife was not quite in the mental state she was the first time around. We've been through this once before and everything was rolling just like it was the first time so there was nothing to worry about compared to last time.

Me? I was worried about everything. I was worried about more hemorrhaging. I was worried about hospital time. I was worrying about whether or not there was something wrong with the baby. I was worrying about why this baby was early just like the other one. But of course nothing could be answered till we got to the hospital so off we went.

On the way to the hospital, we had our first stumble. Our first son got car sick on the way and threw up all over himself. It was all over the front of him and all in his booster seat. That was quite the ride to the hospital smelling that of course! And when we got to the hospital my aunt was there waiting for us and I told her that he was sick and he had vomit all over him. She said she'd take him anyway. I don't know if she truly realized how much that meant to me. So, I unstrapped his belt and put him in her car in his car seat and all, Up chuck all over him and all. She gave me a hug and off we went our separate ways. 

In the hospital, My wife was all hooked up and ready to go. She was having contractions regularly and it seemed as if all was fine. Of course, that was not going to be the case soon.

When she was having a contraction, three nurses and a doctor came rushing in and set on her with what they thought were voices and actions that were just normal procedure, but I could tell were not as they seemed. They were moving with a sense of urgency even though they were trying to hide the fact. They were asking a lot of questions and checking a lot of readings and palpitating all over her belly. I could tell that there was something that was not right and that they were worried. 

It happened all at once. They told my wife that they were going to turn her while telling her that they were struggling to get a heartbeat for the baby. They inserted a device up to the baby to check the heartbeat. That's when the doctor looked at the nurses and said, "we go now." I one nurse pull cords out of the wall and the other nurse grabbed the chords on the other side of the bed while the third opened the door to the room. 

And they were gone. 

Just like that - - they were gone.

One moment I was in a room full of people and the next I was standing in an empty room wondering what the hell just happened. Right after that thought a nurse came with some blue outfit and told me my wife was ready and that I needed to come with her right now. I did. Putting on the outfit she handed me which was an overalls-like paper thing that was labeled "one size fits all," I rushed with the nurse down the hall to where I hoped my wife was. 

I walked into the room and saw her laying on a table with a surgical cap over her head and she was covered down to just below the breasts with a green sheet and a green sheet was upright over the upper tummy like a screen. I thought - c-section. When I looked down to my wife, I saw that she was shaking uncontrollably. I asked why she was shaking, and they told me that it was the anesthesia that did that. I whispered to her that everything would be ok while tears trickled down her cheek. 

When I looked up to see what was happening, I was shocked to see my baby boy's head clear the top of the sheet screening the bottom of my wife's body. Later when all was said and done, I would think to myself that when they said that they can get a baby out in a few minutes that they weren't kidding! But for now, I was barely hanging on to thinking straight and everything was happening so fast. I stood up and moved to keep my son in sight as they handed him off to a nurse who set him on a sheet covered table under a bright light. 

The first thing I noticed was a deep depression in the middle of his chest as he cried like someone was taking their finger and pushing the center of his chest hard, pushing the skin down to the table. It was deep and I didn't like the look of it. It didn't look right. When he gasped in a breath, the depression would rise up to be flat with the rest of his chest and when he screamed it would plunge straight back into his chest again. It was definitely not right. 

I was then being guided out of the room and back to the room we started in. They ushered me in and told me that my wife would be there shortly. I asked if I could go with my son and they told me that I would not be able to and that I would be able to see him later. That worried me because I was able to follow my oldest son to where they prepped him and I still had that image of his chest in my mind that I was rolling around and building worry about. 

It seemed like a long time for all this to happen but in reality, from the time they took her from the room to the time I was put back in the room was probably less than 10 minutes. As I look back it was one of those time where times slowed down to be a crawl as the stress and anxiety took hold. And as for me, I was taking in an incredible amount of information through sight and sound and it all was overwhelming. Standing there in the room afterwards when it was over almost had me fall to my knees with the confusion of it all. 

My wife came back and was asleep. They told me she did just fine and to let her sleep it off. I sat next to her to just take a few moments and calm myself in her presence and having the comfort of her breathing in the comfort of sleep. I was mentally and emotionally spent and needed that time to recharge. 

Later that morning we found out that our boy was not ok. He was not in danger or critical but he was not able to be brought back to our room. They told us that he would have to stay in the NICU for awhile but that they didn't know how long. You see, that depression I saw in his chest was a problem. They told us that since he was not born naturally that he was not squeezed and that an air bubble was in his chest keeping one of his lungs from fully inflating. That was why his chest did that when he cried. They said it was nothing to worry about and that the air would just defuse out of the body on its own. It was somewhat common for C-section babies and all we had to do was wait. 

It was devastating for us. No one really prepares you to see your baby in NICU. He was so small and he had all these wires and tubes hanging off him. We could only look at him through the incubator and I would watch the lines and numbers roll across all the screens of the machines he was hooked up to. We would visit him as much as we were able to for the next couple of days.

And on the third day they told us that our insurance would not cover my wife staying at the hospital until our boy was released. . . . and if she wanted to stay it would be over a $1000 a day. 

It was heart breaking to have to be told that we couldn't stay with our baby and that we couldn't afford the absorbent costs of staying in the hospital with him. We were crushed and we were frightened. We had one more visit with our baby and they let us hold him for the first time since he was born. We sat and cried. We were going to leave soon. We were going to leave the hospital without our baby. We were going to leave him there. And it broke us. 

We reluctantly handed him over to the nurse and slowly gathered up our belongings. We struggled towards our car in the basement as if there was someone holding us back every step of the way. We sat in our van in the basement for probably two hours . . . neither of us wanting to go. Neither of us wanting to leave with our baby still in the hospital. But the time came where it had to be done. We had to go and I had to be strong enough to do it. 

She cried the entire way home. 

After a day of crying and pain, we received a call to be told our son was ready to come home the next morning. We didn't even sleep that night and waited to head back to get him. The one thing I remember vividly was how the nurses said that they didn't want to see him go since he was one of the few that they could actually hold because the others had to stay in the incubators. But he was ready and healthy, and he was ours to take with us! We were so ecstatic! 

The next several weeks were nerve wracking as we worried about every little hiccup. But as we gained confidence that he was growing and he was being a normal baby, we eased into being new parents and enjoyed every moment with him. 

And that was our journey with our second boy's birth.

I don't want to pay for what abortions truly cost us.

 Of course..... .violence and hurting people is the way to respond and protest the violence and hurting other people. Isn't this the cycle now in our country? The way to stop hurting people is to just hurt more people .... Right?

I have made my choices in life concerning creating life and I am at peace that I made sure that the girl I was with got pregnant when I wanted her to. Well, we discussed it together and decided together and took steps to ensure it happened when we wanted it to happen. Personally, though, I don't care about what others do. It's their body and their conscience.

What I will say though is this- - America can't afford to ban abortions. Why is no one talking about how every American will pay for forcing women to have babies they don't want? Because it will cost us a lot in the long run.

You know, because I personally don't want to pay for it.

I don't want people that are protesting getting hurt or killed (and it's only a matter of time based on our current culture of hurting people because other people are getting hurt) which could affect prices and insurance premiums.

I don't want to pay for the hospitals to cover the uninsured or give government medical assistance for those who get shotty or poor or dangerous illegal abortions that put those women's lives in danger.

I don't want to pay for the increase in single-parent homes because poverty will become more widespread and that will affect how much I pay for them to have government assistance.

I don't want to pay for the prisons and criminals that will increase in numbers because single-parent homes ( mother homes mostly, especially impoverished homes, and boys mostly) produce more criminal tendencies. That also affects violence and murder and homicide to our society which will trickle into how much I will pay to deal with them.

I don't want to pay for the medical expenses of those women that have pregnancies that are 100% fatal if the pregnancy goes to full term. There will be unpaid medical expenses and lawsuits that will trickle down to the taxpayers.

I don't want to pay for the mental health problems of these people. There will be an increase of mental health issues not only in the parents that don't want these children but the children that know that they are unwanted, or for women who have mental health problems because they are not ready for the stress of having kids. And remember, a lot of them will be impoverished so they will need government assistance which trickles down to my taxes and increased insurance premiums. I don't want to pay for that.

I don't want to pay for the increase in population. Banning abortions will flood our country with 500,000 to almost 1 million new kids a year to our population. (No that is not a typo) And kids are a financial burden that is pretty substantial. I am positive we will pay more in a very few short years with them putting strain on our economy in all areas and I don't want to pay for that.

I just don't want to pay for all that stuff. And that is partially why I support abortion (because I have completely ignored all my feelings, religion, and human rights views in this post).

If it was a perfect world though, I would attack this problem BEFORE it becomes a problem. Movements need to be made to instill a sense of responsibility about the choice to have sex and to understand how to prevent pregnancies. It has to be a mindset shift. It has to be a societal movement. We have to teach women to value themselves and to value their bodies. They need to understand that sex will not manipulate a man to be with them or do what they want and this is especially true after they are pregnant. We need to shift the man's mindset from dominance over a woman and manipulating a girl's feelings to just have one more conquest. We have to teach them that they have to be responsible for their choices and to respect a girls choices about their bodies.

Then we need to stop talking out both ends. If we want unwanted pregnancies to stop then we need to give and supply contraceptives for people. We need to create and then expand and then support safe sex and contraception practices which will be much cheaper than the above mentioned costs to our society. Then the only need for abortions will be boiled down to saving the life of the mother, alleviate the stress and mental health of a crime like rape, and for the extremely small chance of contraceptive failures (when they are used correctly). And how many is that...... Like less than 5% of current abortion cases? Remember, there is upwards to almost a million abortions a year....... In a perfect world, the problem with abortion should be taken care of before it is a problem. But no one is talking about that..... Its much easier ,I guess, to just rip the baby out after poor choices than to make a country wide social shift in our mindset. But hey, that is our mindset now as a society, huh?

Love story #19 - You don't have to share your kids every second!

 I have seen a lot on my friends list getting pregnant or being pregnant and I thought I would just give you something to chew on for a moment. 

You don't have to share everything all the time. 

I am an advocate of just being in the moment with your significant other and just reveling in the experience of being a mommy and daddy with them without all the crap that family and friends can or could bring with it. 

When my wife and I were expecting, we put out the news and told our friends and family. We didn't go all crazy though. We took pictures and we talked about being parents, but we didn't put it out constantly. I didn't want to. I wanted to be selfish and only share the experience with my wife and my parents. To me, it was one of those times that was a new kind of intimacy with my wife, and I was jealously savoring each moment. I really didn't want to share it with anyone imposing their thoughts or views into it. I didn't want people telling me how I should do this or do that or impose expectations on us. 

For example, we didn't find out the sex of our first child and that turned out to be so scandalous! But why not? It is our first baby and our first time being parents. I wanted that part of our experience to be ours and ours alone in the moment when the experience will be like nothing I could ever imagine. To this day I am thankful my wife agreed (against her own urges) to let me have that joy.

We had visitors about a day after the birth. Honestly, since our boy was a month early, that just ended up being the way it was anyway. Looking back, I didn’t realize how much of a blessing that was. I made sure when family were able to get across the state that visits were only for a very short time because I wanted to just enjoy being a new dad and get the hang of my new boy and just be in the moment with him as I fed him and cared for my recovering wife (who had a hard birthing experience). I was so exhausted but eager to have every minute with my new boy and I didn't want anyone else crowding me with it. 

We took lots of pictures, but we didn't throw them around and pass them out. We wanted memories but . . .  "likes" ..... not so much. It was my little family that my wife and I was building. I didn't want others to push their idea of family into the one that we were building. 

And, so what? Why was it so important to everyone that we didn't do that? They had their family and they had their time. Why impose on our time to be a family? I didn't have any shame with it back then or even today. I covet my time with my wife and family. I post some things here and there but mostly, I just enjoy my time with them. 

So, if you are feeling like me and feel like you are getting smothered but those who are unintentionally (or maybe even intentionally) making you feel like you are missing it, do not let them make you feel "less than" if you want to pull back a little and just immerse yourself in being a new parent. It will be fine and they will be fine and all will be fine.