Christmas and 2013

Well, I got an A in my first quarter back in school. That was a nice gift. Christmas is supposed to be a special time and it is. I have to say i love that my son got 3 things for christmas and was overjoyed at all of his things.  his pajamas were way too big,  his lego hulk came with the wrong pieces but he found the right ones in his drawer to make him whole. he put on his jammies and said they were comfy and warm.  sometimes i worry that he doesn't have enough compassion and then tonight he shows me how sweet and caring he really can be.  maybe I am doing something right?  I feel guilty for not being able to do more, but really he is happy to do things with his mom and dad and be together. this time of year is hard because we are usually tight on money till the next quarter starts.  We are lucky to have each other and a nice house though.  I could be sad that I lost my dad this year and I am far away from my mom who is recovering from breast cancer and my cousin who has been fighting colon cancer this year.  It has been a hard year but we got to Skype earlier. Although I miss my dad a lot, I know he is free from pain and with Aunt Bertie now.  I hope for a new year that we can maybe pay all the bills and always have enough food on the table. I hope for a year that we are not as sick and can maybe be a little more comfortable.  I wish for a good year for all my friends and family without as much hard times as this past year.  I remember christmas with my mom and grandparents and playing under the tree with my new toys and the colored lights in the living room and everyone sitting on the couch drinking egg nog and listening to christmas records. I hope that my son remembers his christmases fondly and that we have many more happy ones like this.

shapes

So, I was talking to one of my besties last night and she was mentioning how her 6 year old daughter could be in better shape and how she has more of a belly in ballet class than the other girls. this brought back memories of my own dance class insecurities. I was a bit chubby in elementary school. my metabolism changed in middle school and I was a size 2/3 for most of high school, but there was the time when I took ballet and tap in 2-5th grade where I would look in that huge oversized mirror at the line of  super skinny black leotards and then I saw me, a chubby little browish girl who never quite felt like I fit in. I was a pretty good dancer, but I always felt ashamed that I wasn't as thin as ther rest of the girls or as pale, or had pretty blonde hair.  Parents worry about putting extra stress and negative body images on their kids but I think that kids tend to do it to themselves no matter what.  I had a pretty good self confidence outside of dance class.  I was a good singer and also played piano very well. I did very well in school and my art teacher thought I was an art prodigy.  I just coudn't get over the fact that I didn't look like the stereotypical ballerina. I wasn't lazy or an overeater.  and my mom did not feed me lots of junk food. I think it was just genetics from my dads side.  The martinez are just more fuller figured.  but back to my friend's daughter. I was just very adamant that she not tell her daughter that she needed to lose weight and that as long as she is getting out and moving then she will be fine and she is pretty just the way she is.  I am still dealing with my own body issues and my own weight. I still see the fat little ballerina in the mirror. Even when I was super skinny and weighed barely 100 lbs, I still thought I was chubby.  The funny thing was that none of the other girls made fun of me (at least not to my face) I was the one who was judging and being mean to myself.  my mom and my gradnparents never said anything either.  I think it is just this self loathing thing to be perfect, or what others percieve as perfect. I don't have the answers but I hope we can move with future generations to a more self loving, self accepting body image.

the first post

Everyone seems to be blogging and at one point I wanted to be a writer, so here I am...  Anyway, I was doing reading for my class today while Keenan was in class and it was in the book "4 v's of leadership" by Shaw. Anyway, at the end of the chapter it was talking about what would your legacy be? and what would you like to be remembered for?  That got me upset for some reason and then happy.   Well I guess I could go back to what I wanted to be in high school.  I wanted to be next jim Morrison, or maybe Jack Kerouac?  I wanted to be a crazy poet/ rockstar, lead singer and influence the world in a huge way.  I wanted to be large and wild. I was kind of wild and crazy and drunk but I could never get used to the crowd part. It was really intimidating being a girl and being the frontman (or woman in my case) I didn't like when guys would come up and say that I could sing well for a girl, or that I was good but, "rock n roll is not for girls." (I should have come to Olympia sooner)  There was more, but I didn't always feel that my bandmates backed me up as well. Well, looking back they did, but I put 200 times more pressure on myself to be perfect because I felt i had to prove those people wrong. i ended up losing my voice a lot and not singing out sometimes, which made it hard to be a drunken, sexy buffon on stage like Jim Morrison. I got more and more stage fright and found it hard to have my own voice so I let it go.  So then  I went to write in the woods of Washington like Jack Kerouac, who i found so wild and free and profound as a young girl looking through naive eyes.  When I got here, I found the pen was dry, but there were lots of adventures to be had and followed.   There was a lot of fun and philosophy at evergreen state college but finally that road lead me to KAOS radio's doors.  KAOS was awesome because I could share my love of music and I learned as fast as I could listen, to all kinds of tiny little indie gems.  I also could be on the air and be the kind of quiet rockstar in a way that I wanted to be, but from behind the curtain.  Anyway, back to the question at hand, what would my legacy be?  I hope that my KAOS time has lead a little bit of a legacy of good music and enjoyable programming. I want to be known as someone who helped the community and is a loving, compassionate person.  I want to be be remembered as a fun and loving person who did things for the music community and local community in general. I don't really want to be Jim Morrison or Jack Kerouac anymore.  They had  problems dealing with reality and the world. They were too large and too sad.  I was drunk and sad when I was younger and wanted the world and wanted it now.  As I am older, I want to raise my son and be a good mother and wife.  I still get restless. I still get yearnings to see the world and what is out there and be wild and free but the next day I would miss my son and family and want to come home.  I love music and singing and writing and crafting.  I would like to be in a higher position at a radio station. I think i could be a rockstar at that now.  The high school me might laugh at the me now but I think if she saw what we have now she would understand.