Recent stuff

Yeah, yeah, it's Mother's Day. Not my favorite. My blog about it last year says all I have to say on that subject. I should be doing something productive today, but I got sick this week and have taken it easy all weekend. Mr. Salted and I watched "Whip It" last night and enjoyed it, which surprised me; I wasn't all that enamored of the book, but the movie had a great cast. We were in the mood for something fairly light, and it sufficed. It was fun to see Betty White on Saturday Night Live last night, too. Mr. Salted's mother has Alzheimer's disease and lives in a facility out of state, so this isn't his favorite day, either. I called my grandmother and sent her a card. She is doing as well as can be expected, and my uncles are taking care of her, which has been such a load off my shoulders. I call her about once a week, and send her a lot of little cards that don't say much.

I got a job with a very well-regarded Internet company. It starts in the next few weeks--I've accepted the position and done the paperwork with the staffing agency, but it was a mass hire (400+ people) and something like 80 of them will start each week, so I haven't gotten my firm start date as of yet. It's just a contract job for a minimum of one year (maximum of two) but it's also a foot in the door and I'm really happy to have it. I really enjoyed working in the tech industry in the past and that's where I'd like the rest of my career to be.

On that note, I took my first continuing-ed class on the way to a Technical Writing Certificate Wednesday. It was a level 2 Microsoft Word 2007 class, and a good way to dip my foot back in the educational pool. I'm a fairly adept Word user, but got to learn about all kinds of cool stuff the software can do now. It's come a long way since 1995, when the kids at my university were teaching it to me in the computer lab--I was six to eight years older than they were, and at times like that I felt as though they thought of me as a pet ("look at the old person learning computers!"). I still had an electric typewriter, and it was 1996. Ah, good times.

So the Word 2007 class was cool--I think there were eight people in it. I was neither the oldest nor the youngest there, and it was fun talking to the other people there about how they used Word and what they did for a living. I like continuing ed--it's geared toward working people (read: grounded in reality). The classes are small and the atmosphere is very laid-back. I take a Visio class this coming week. That one meets twice for four hours, which will be a lot easier than meeting once for eight--that was a bit of a marathon, and I think that's how I ended up sick. I think it was just that and the finally getting a job and my body just said, Okay, you're down now, REST.

My weight hasn't really changed much. I stay between 205 and 208. I think I worked out once this week, and my eating is fine, nothing out of the ordinary. I went through my clothes today and things are still shifting around, albeit slowly. I have a couple of things that fit with no X in the size, which is nothing short of amazing! Most of my stuff is 18s but some of the 16s fit or nearly fit. My stomach remains my biggest (literally and figuratively) nemesis. I can literally get all of me except my stomach into a pair of size 14 jeans. I want to know why they can't just do a tummy tuck NOW. Hmpf.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day is hard for me; I tend to go underground. Like most major holidays in this country, the greeting-card industry beats it to a pulp. I'm not saying moms don't deserve to be celebrated--the good ones deserve that and more--but I find it to be yet another "family holiday" that doesn't have a lot of room for people without families that look at least a little traditional.

My actual mother died in a car accident when I was two years old. This is a loss I am still trying to fully comprehend and grapple with at the age of forty. I think I have missed her more often and more deeply since I was thirty than any time of my life before that. I knew a lot of cool mothers growing up--a lot of my friends have great moms, and I credit a few of them with helping me survive my childhood. I stay in touch with most of them to this day. There are also wonderful women, such as my former mother-in-law, who have been the closest thing to mothers I've experienced in my life. I always try to remember, thank, and celebrate them as well.

I was not medically able to be a mother myself, and I really wanted to for a huge part of my life--in an ideal world, I wanted to have one child and adopt one child. Over the last ten years, I have resigned myself to the fact I don't really have the stamina anymore, my second husband has never really wanted kids, and I'm past wanting to raise a child now; I have accepted that my journey on the planet is a different one. However, since I did try to have a child for years and lost actual pregnancies, a part of me still and always mourns those losses. There is no one more pro-choice than myself on planet Earth that I've ever met, but when I was actively trying, the pregnancies I lost were real to me. Questions that went around my head and heart (things like this are not logical, they just are) included, Am I a mom? Was I ever a mom? If there is a heaven, are my kids there, will I be a mom there? One of my dear friends, one of two or three people I can even I can even mention these feelings to, told me yes, you were; yes, you are; yes, you will. Can I believe these things and still be pro-choice? I think so. It's not a black and white issue, and it gets a lot more gray when you fall into my category (whatever that is) and live a few decades.

Not getting to either have a mother or be a mother, at times I feel shut out of a huge part of not only life, but being female. A woman's life is far from pointless without children, and I am finding out just how NOT pointless it really can be. Society beats that whole issue to a pulp as well, and not just around Mother's Day. I love kids, I love moms, and I love women, but Mother's Day isn't a wonderful celebratory day in everyone's year.