My Depression Story

September 7, 2008

In all the tumult and disruption of becoming a stepmother, my psyche needs a solid platform on which to rest! Maybe that’s why I’ve been so reminiscent these past couple of months.

Reminiscing must be my coping mechanism. Maybe I’m coping with the chaos on the outside but inwardly, my mind is reverting to a safe spot, another time and place. Is that what is called “dissociative disorder”?

The smallest incidences can recall events long buried in my memory. Like the other day, Joe was telling me that one of his co-workers had been on Lexapro but it quit working, and now he’s on another antidepressant. He couldn’t remember the name, so I googled antidepressant medications, and came across one called Trazodone, with the brand name Desyrel. And slowly came back memories of nearly 20 years ago.

The Georgia Highlands Center was my first stop when I first sought treatment for depression. The first of many, that is, although I didn’t know it at the time. My counselor, Mr. McClain, recommended Desyrel. The psychiatrist’s name was, oh what was it. I remember him looking like Jarod, from the TV show The Pretender; tall, slim, dark-haired, very scientific and serious and not much of a people-person.

Dr. Reginald, that was it.

I was 24 years old. I’d suffered from depression most of my life but this time it was accompanied by suicidal thoughts. Up until the early 1990s, depression was not widely discussed, let alone diagnosed or treated. Having grown up in a strict fundamentalist church, I was raised to believe that if you’re depressed, you’re not close enough to God. You’re not praying enough. You’re not reading the Bible enough.

Something’s wrong with you, if you are depressed. You’re doing something wrong.

Finally though, society began recognizing depression as a very real, medically treatable condition. The company nurse where I worked was very encouraging and referred me to Dr. Reginald.

I couldn’t have been on Desyrel for long. I went to Georgia Highlands for only a few weeks, maybe 2 months, as I recall. Mr. McClain soon recommended Prozac. Fluoxetine, the generic name for Prozac, was the popular new antidepressant drug on the market, having been approved for use by the FDA in 1987.

Prozac was too strong for me. After taking it for only 2 days I felt I was ready to jump off a 10-story building. I’d had an extremely stressful day at work. I remember crying incessantly, so hard and so long that my face became numb. I had nowhere to go except home, and my home-life could be less than supportive. Surprisingly though, it was my dad that sat down with me and talked to me to calm me down.

That’s all I needed – someone to talk to me. Not somebody to tell me that I’m doing something wrong. Just someone to talk to me.

I gave up on the idea of Prozac pretty quickly. In fact I gave up on the whole idea of getting treatment. For the time, anyway.

A year or so later, I tried going to this doctor who officed in Birmingham, AL, with my friend Lynna from church. She and her mother-in-law had discovered this doctor who believed that yeast in the body caused numerous health problems that could be cured by taking nystatin to kill off the yeast, and reducing your intake of carbs (because yeast thrives on carbs).

I believe he was actually an allergy doctor – I remember that we couldn’t use hair spray or wear perfume when we went there. Health problems such as depression (which was my primary ailment) were the body’s allergic reaction to yeast. It made sense, on some level. So on doctor’s orders I began taking nystatin, a yellow powder that looked like pollen but had a dry, bitter taste.

He also prescribed allergy shots – although my allergy skin tests showed hardly any allergies at all. I never felt a thing when I took those shots, except for the prick in my skin. I mentioned that to the doctor once, and asked if I shouldn’t be feeling something – ANYTHING. He said that I should at least be getting an initial rush; but no, I was getting nothing.

I didn’t see that doctor for long, either. I remember having to pay around $200 for the initial visit, but I was willing to pay it if it would heal me. It didn’t. I finally quit going; it wasn’t worth the hassle. I had to take an entire day off work to drive the 3 hours down, have lunch, and drive 3 hours back.

THEN, I started going to Westcott Center in Dalton. Westcott was the mental health division of Hamilton Memorial Hospital. Shirl, a friend from work who was also in treatment for depression, invited me to EA – Emotions Anonymous. EA was a 12-Step therapy group sponsored by Westcott Center. It was a good group; what a huge relief it was, finally knowing that I was not alone in suffering from depression!

As the 1990s rolled on, diagnosis and treatment for depression gained more and more acceptance. I would see TV ads for this hospital about 30 miles away, near Chattanooga, TN. The ads featured a well-dressed, intelligent-looking young man saying things like, “If you experience persistent sadness and don’t know where to turn, give us a call.” A facility in Chattanooga was a bit far away to visit for weekly appointments, so I decided to give Westcott Center a try.

I got an initial consultation with one of the counselors at Wescott. The counselor was this short, white-haired man wearing this tacky polyester cream-colored suit. I didn’t feel comfortable with him at all. I remember filling out a questionnaire about how I felt about myself, my life, my friends and family. Of course I answered all questions negatively (because I felt so negative about myself, my life, my friends and family), and desperately hoped these would be addressed in my subsequent therapy sessions. I needed solace, comfort. I needed someone to understand.

They weren’t. I was assigned to a psychologist. Dr. Tallady (who was much like Dr. Reginald in appearance: tall, slim, short dark hair, very mechanical in personality) would begin each $60/hour session with, “What do you want to talk about today?” or “How do you want to spend our time today?” Well, I didn’t know! I was messed up! I couldn’t put my feelings or thoughts into words. Wasn’t the doctor supposed to be asking me the questions, trying to get into my head and figuring out where I’m stuck? Wasn’t she supposed to lead the sessions and try to dig up whatever is buried?

This was about the time I started trying SSRIs – selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Westcott referred me to this doctor at a different location. He must have been a psychiatrist, because he could prescribe meds and Dr. Tallady couldn’t. I recall that his office was very oddly decorated. African statues and vases and artwork. No, not African; more like remote islander or Inca or South American. It just struck me as odd.

He prescribed Paxil. Then, Effexor. Later, Zoloft. I had told him about my Prozac experience, so he steered clear of Prozac. The meds made me feel worse than the depression did. I was supposed to give them six weeks to take full effect. But I could hardly function, and I had a job to go to. I couldn’t exactly sit around the house waiting for my system to acclimate to the medication.

It was here that I tried Zoloft; it lasted for 2 weeks, which was longer than I’d tried any other medication. Zoloft made me numb, as if I were sleepwalking. But it did seem to calm my “freak out” factor down. That was in 1994, when I went on my first business training session, a Vertex class in Philadelphia, PA. I remember that I would have expected myself to feel extremely intimidated and terrified of going so far from home without family or my husband (I’d been married for a year at the time), but I wasn’t. This was WELL before I was as independent and confident as I am now. I was still mousey and scared of stepping out on my own.

I didn’t sleep well on Zoloft, though, which is why I felt so sleepy during the day. The day I went off Zoloft, I slept the best I had in 2 weeks. It took a while for me to feel “normal” again, even though Dr. Tallady said that the medication was out of my body within 24 hours. I disagree. I felt as if my body was still ridding itself of the medicine for days.

My new husband and I moved from Georgia to Oklahoma shortly thereafter. It was years before I sought therapy again. I was very discouraged with the mental health profession. No one ever seemed to understand. Nobody ever “got it.”

Eighth Grade Football

September 5, 2008

John and Jodie are settling in to school here in Oklahoma. Jodie is in 6th grade at Kerr Middle School and plays on the girls’ softball team. John is in 8th and has joined the football team.

Yesterday evening I met Joe after work in Del City, for John’s football game. Jodie’s softball games take place in the early evening hours, after school but before 5:30. So I don’t get off work in time to see her play. The football games take place a little later. Last night was KMS’ first game of the season, and they stomped Deer Creek 54-6 or something. What a way to start a season! The KMS Eagles, they are, Green and Black. Just like the West Side Rockets!

West Side Middle School in Rocky Face, GA, was where I spent 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. We were the Rockets, Green and Black. Going to John’s game brought back memories of going to football games after school in 8th grade. We lived only about a mile from the school, so I walked, my sister Elaine with me.

I would watch from the bleachers as our boys in black jerseys ran back and forth on the field, tossing the pigskin to each other, blocking the opponent. The West Side Rockets played against the Eastbrook Mustangs (red jerseys), North Whitfield Pioneers (purple with yellow lettering), and the Valley Point Greenwaves (green with yellow).

I would watch the cheerleaders and listen to their yells. My 13-year-old heart longed to be one of them. How I craved that green sweater vest with the black “W”, the pleated skirt, the green and black pompoms. Oh, I tried out for the squad, alright, but the honors went to 10 or 12 other of my classmates. It was so unfair -- I knew all the cheers, but my quiet personality held me back. I guess the cheerleading coaches couldn’t envision a quiet bookworm like myself, leading the crowd and cheering on our team. Besides, I wasn’t as pretty as the other girls. And at a public school, a cheerleader has to have two things going for her regardless of her cheering ability: looks and personality.

Anyway, back to John’s football game. Once inside the stadium, Joe and I took a seat on the bleachers. We both kept track of what John was doing on or off the field, but Joe tended to pay more attention to the game while I lived vicariously through the cheerleaders. I clapped and yelled along with them, doing old “Rockets” cheers in my seat.

Oh yes, even though I didn’t make the cheerleading squad 30 years ago, I still remember all the cheers!

Up, and down, our team don’t mess around!
We are the best from the east to the west,
‘Cause when we’re up, you’re down!

Green socks, black socks, two-tone shoes!
Let’s give the Pioneers the football blues!
‘Cause when you’re up, you’re up,
And when you’re down, you’re down.
But when you’re up against the Rockets, you’re UPSIDE DOWN!!

We’ve got a team that’s dyn-o-mite!
Come on, team, let’s fight tonight!
We’ve got a team that’s dyn-o-mite!
Rockets…..SHOW YOUR MIGHT!!

I remember every high kick, every jump. Joe said I could probably show them a thing or two!

Maybe. That was a lot of years ago. I’m a mom now. Now, another generation wears the pleated skirt. A new group of girls yells, claps, jumps. A younger generation of boys runs back and forth on the field vying for a goal. My youth is past. Their time is now.

10 Year-Old Accountant, Pt 2: Two Sides

August 22, 2008

Two sides battled within me: the aspiring career-woman and the romantic.

Part of me knew from the time I was 12 that I’d have a career in some sort of office/business setting one day. But the other side waited for Prince Charming to ride in on his white horse and sweep me off my feet. I would be the quintessential “happy homemaker” while my husband worked his career and brought home the bacon.

My fundamentalist religious upbringing formed the root of that idea: women belonged in the home and it was the man’s job to provide. Granted, I was homemaking-oriented: I’d been sewing my own clothes since I was 16 and made pillows and doll clothes from my mom’s cloth scraps since I was at least 6. Besides just knowing simple baking skills such as mixing and measuring and how to use an oven and how to read a recipe, I enjoyed trying new recipes and planning dinners. Following my mother’s example I’d learned how to do embroidery and cross-stitch by the time I was 8.

I enjoyed the homemaking side of life and believed in the old-fashioned stereotype of the woman taking care of the home and the man taking care of her.

Because of this dream, I didn’t take my early college years very seriously. I really just wasn’t settled yet. I was confused about my place in life and didn’t exactly get any instruction or direction from my parents. That, and I was terrified of the “outside world.” I’d been so sheltered all my life and had so little confidence, I was absolutely terrified of the responsibilities of a degree and a career. I “didn’t think I could do it.” I wanted to continue to be sheltered and protected from the harsh, terrifying world.

I graduated from high school in the mid-1980s, having dabbled in a few computer classes. Computers, programming, and anything related to the field were just beginning to be the “big thing.” This was reflected even in pop music; I can still hear Rick Springfield’s voice singing about this very thing in “The Human Touch”:

"Everybody’s talking to computers, they’re all dancing to a drum machine.
I know I’m living on the outside, scared of getting caught between.
I’m so cool and calculated alone in the modern world…”

My college career began with a study of Data Processing, but it didn’t suit me and I dropped the idea after just one semester. I spent the next two years studying Home Economics, then worked for three years at a seamstress shop doing alterations. A career in the domestic arts could be quite lucrative and successful for the right person – catering, designing, tailoring, decorating.

But the business-woman in me won out. When I was about 23 the idea hit me like a brick: why not study Accounting? I like business and I like working with numbers. Why didn't I think of this before? Accounting will be a perfect fit! Thus I enrolled at Dalton College, then a 2-year college, and pursued an Associate Degree in Business Administration.

Days were spent working at the seamstress shop, while evenings were spent in the classroom, two classes per quarter. I couldn’t take more than that because I had to work. People would ask me if I worked, or was I going to school during the day. My reaction to was one of, what do you think? Of course I was working, and going to school at night. I had tuition to pay for, for one. Plus I was paying for my own car and insurance, not my parents, although I was living at home. Buying my own groceries, too! How on earth would I have any money if I didn’t work?

Now, if I were married, I thought, I wouldn’t have to work! So anyway, I made good grades in all my classes and completed my Associate Degree with a 3.53 GPA.

By then I’d met the man who became my first husband. He also had an Associate Degree, in Computer Programming, and although he wasn’t working in the programming field yet, he spoke often of getting into it. And, even though this was the early 1990s, long before popular use of the internet, cell phones, digital cameras, and dotcoms, I knew that any career choice involving data processing or information services or computer programming was bound to be lucrative.

If I married him, I could have my “happily ever after”! He would make lots of money, I would stay home and raise the family, and my fears of the “outside world” could be put to rest. Prince Charming had rescued me from this harsh world!

Believing this myth, I focused my time and energy on planning the wedding and becoming a wife. Finally, I would be a “Mrs.”, and being a Mrs. did NOT include the stress and responsibility of a full-time job outside the home. As far as I was concerned I was done with school, and completion of a Bachelor Degree or becoming a Certified Public Accountant were the furthest thing from my immature, short-sighted, 20-something mind.

(to be continued…)

The 10-Year Old Accountant, Pt. 1

August 21, 2008

“You actually LIKE taxes?” “How can you do that? I just couldn’t sit there crunching numbers all day.” “Ugh! I always hated math!”

Those are comments I’ve heard throughout the years. “What made you choose accounting?” is another one I’ve heard, usually on job interviews. The quick answer is that I always loved math and have a personal relationship with numbers. But there’s a much longer story to tell, about how I got to be a 40-something CPA with the State Insurance Fund.

My career was not begun on the traditional route. I didn’t go to college immediately after high school; I didn’t get my accounting degree at age 22 or 23 and immediately go to work for one of the “Big 4” accounting firms (or Big 8, or Big 6, depending on the what year it was and who merged with who). In fact I was 23 before I even decided on a career in Accounting; 33 when I completed a 4-year degree; was pushing 40 when I passed the CPA exam.

But the roots of my career choice start at a much, much younger age.

I was an accountant when I was 10 years old; I just didn’t realize it! My family would go grocery shopping every Thursday. Like clockwork. I believe that stemmed from when my dad would get paid from his job once a week; he’d get paid on Thursday so that’s when he’d take my mom to get groceries. She didn’t drive; never learned. So every Thursday for as far back as I can remember, we’d all hop in the station wagon and journey out to the Quality Buy in Tunnel Hill to pick up our weekly groceries.

We kids didn’t get a regular allowance but each Thursday at the grocery store my dad give each of us a dime, a quarter, or a dollar, depending on our age. Remember that this was the 1970s! A dime would buy us a coke or candy bar or bubble gum or ice cream (my favorite was the orange push-ups). I can still see us in the back seat, stretching our arms to our dad in the front seat, hands cupped and ready to receive our spending money. We looked like baby birds waiting for their mother to bring them a worm! It was our chance to get a little treat for ourselves.

Also, we didn’t realize it, but our dad was teaching us in small ways, how to manage money and make our own choices.

Well, I never liked parting with my spending money unless it was something I really, really wanted. My indulgence of choice was Star Trek cards (The Original Series, of course), which came in packets with bubble gum, similar to baseball cards. I still have those cards, by the way! I liked holding on to my money, so I would save. And save and save and save. My coins would clank and jingle as I dropped each one in my metal world-globe coin-bank. I still have that too!

By the time I was 9 or 10, I was periodically tracking my money thus: I took a sheet of notebook paper and listed how many quarters I had, how many dimes, how many nickels, etc, and multiply out the values. Then I added them all up to come up with a grand total. Here’s an example:

quarters: 13 x 25¢ = $3.25
dimes: 9 x 10¢ = 90¢
nickels: 17 x 5¢ = 85¢
pennies: 52¢
-----------
$5.52

Finally, I physically counted out all my coins to verify that the counted total matched the multiplied total. I had no concept of “cash reconciliations” in my preteens, but that was exactly what I was doing: a simple version of a cash rec.

I took my time and was very methodical about counting my coins. Oh, but it was so much fun! Managing money was like a hobby, to me.

Even as a child, I tended to think of things in terms of how much they cost, and how much will I have if I save X amount for 10 weeks, etc. If an amount I’d saved was earmarked for a certain purpose, I never touched it or dipped into it – I treated it as if it weren’t there at all. Yes, even as a grade-schooler, I understood the value and importance of money.

My family never quite understood my obsession with money, though. My sister labeled me stingy and selfish. And yes, I was quite tight with money. But behind that was the need to keep things organized and managed. It would have been nice if my parents had encouraged me, saying “You’re pretty good at keeping money managed. You do it better than a lot of grownups. You could have a career in banking or accounting one day.” No, I never got any such encouragement. I just lived with the “stingy” label.

Another thing they never understood was my love of math and numbers! In 4th grade I would get those math activity-books at K-Mart; I would get the ones on the 6th-grade level. My mom said they’d take us kids to Kmart to get a toy -- because a trip to Kmart to pick out a new toy was a TREAT -- and I’d pick out those math books. Said she never could understand it! Said I’d work thru those math workbooks as enthusiastically as the others played with their toys.

Even so, it never occurred to me to study Accounting until I was in my early 20’s. Actually, I had thought working in a bank would be a good fit for my ambitions. Oh, I’ve applied and interviewed with several banks in my life, but never got any job offers. I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.

(to be continued....)

Hearts Can Be That Way

August 15, 2008

“Hearts can break and never mend together…”

“Hearts” by Marty Balin was popular a few months earlier, during that spring of 1981.

Like I said, I was 14 and coming of age. After church services one cool April evening, my sister Elaine and Andy’s sister Debra planned a picnic atop Fort Mountain. The state park was a popular spot for picnicking and hanging out with friends or family. The mountain lies at the foot of the Appalachians, resting within the Chattahoochee National Forest in northwest Georgia. Tall Georgia pines surround the calm lake. As a bonus, it was still early enough in the season that we nearly had the park to ourselves.

I wasn’t a stranger to Fort Mountain; I’d been there many times as a child, when my dad would take us on family picnics. After we ate our sandwiches and chips or whatever Mom packed for us, my sisters and I would gleefully raid the playground. We’d slide down that metal slide that must have been a mile high. We’d swing on the swings high enough to touch the sky. And we’d spin round-and-round on that wooden merry-go-round so much and so fast (if we could get a grown-up to push us around!) that we’d get merrily dizzy and the world seemed to revolve around our heads.

Yes, Fort Mountain was like an old family friend.

“Love can fade away.”

Of course, Elaine’s fiancé Frank, and Debra’s sometime-boyfriend Thomas, came along, that April evening in ‘81. So did I… and so did Andy. I guess they all thought it would be cute to pair off Andy and me. Debra was most likely the instigator of that match-up; she was the oldest of 7 kids and was bossy and thought she knew everything.

In all honesty I felt “grown up,” having been included on a triple-date with the older kids. It was probably my first “real” date, although I generally considered my first official date to be Andy’s high school Sports Banquet (he ran on the cross country team). It was May 18, I think, about a month later, shortly before school let out for the summer.

“Hearts can cry when love won't stay forever…”

I even remember the dress and shoes I wore to that banquet. I found the dress at JCPenney in Bry-Man’s Plaza: a green-and-blue floral design was set against a cream-colored background; inch-wide straps covered the shoulders, and the full skirt draped to mid-calf. I found summery-green sandals to match, at Cannon’s downtown. I felt so pretty, and so ladylike, dressing up for my first date.

Paula went with us to the banquet. I was nervous, this being my first real date where I was actually asked out by a boy, so I was secretly glad Paula was there. She, Andy, and I sat together in church often, and as far as I was concerned, we were all just good friends.

"Hearts can be that way."

We were like one big happy family. Frank and Andy played on the church softball team, and once or twice a month our team would play in invitational tournaments against neighboring teams at Dellinger Park an hour away in Cartersville. Six or eight teams from around Georgia would meet at Dellinger, and I remember so vividly spending entire Sundays roasting, my pale skin literally burning, under the hot Georgia sun, cheering our boys on.

Andy gave me my first “thinking of you” card there. Being good friends, we grew very fond of each other, and we became an item. I guess Debra’s matchmaking did its trick. The card was so sweet. I would bet I still have it, somewhere. Maybe.

It’s a tender time in a young girl’s life, that of her first love. A fragile time.

Rose's Last Days

August 20, 2008

I read more of Ghost in the Little House during lunch yesterday. Rose is getting up in years and living in Danbury, CT. Most if not all of her old friendships are gone; she has lost contact with Rexh Meta and has given up on John Turner. He went through a stage where he couldn’t keep a job and was always sponging off Rose. That didn’t surprise me one bit. She took him in as a young teen during the early years of the depression, provided for him amply, and sent him off to school and to travel the world. She had high hopes for him, but in the end he failed to appreciate her provisions and learned that he didn’t have to do anything for himself as long as she was around.

She was so very against the government having their hands in our lives. She didn’t believe in Social Security because “she was appalled that her government should presume to choose for its citizens how they should prepare for their old age.” In 1943, “she was convinced that government controls of prices, production, and distribution would suppress the natural productivity of the American people and needlessly distort the economy.”

She refused to get a ration card, choosing rather to grow her own fruits and vegetables and raise cattle, pigs, and chickens. She would make homemade butter and cheese and home-can her own food. The same year, she had what the author calls a “revolutionary insight,” one that I strongly agree with: “Man controls his own energy and is responsible for his own actions.”

To me, that says that we are free; free to make our own choices, but also free to accept the triumphs or defeats we achieve.

Rose would never have been happy in modern-day society.

I read ahead last night, to Laura’s and eventually Rose’s deaths. Rose fought the issue of income taxes and Social Security to the end; she never even got a Social Security Number. We must remember that Social Security and income taxes are relatively recent inventions in the government attempt to regulate the economy – which Rose was against from the beginning.

It has already become apparent to me that she didn’t seem to have any concern as to retirement income or subsistence in her old age. But then, that concept was foreign to her generation. Heck, the concept of a 401K is foreign even to my parents. It’s an invention of the late 1970s and 1980s. According to Wikipedia,

“In 1978, Congress amended the Internal Revenue Code, later called section 401(k),
whereby employees are not taxed on income they choose to receive as deferred compensation rather than direct compensation. The law went into effect on January 1, 1980, and by 1983 almost half of large firms were either offering a 401(k) plan or considering doing so. By 1984 there were 17,303 companies offering 401(k) plans.”

And regarding income taxes: “The first Federal income tax was imposed (under Article I, section 8, clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution) during the Civil War, then again in the 1890s, and again after the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified in 1913.”

Yes, many words describe Rose Lane. Trailblazer. Independent. Impatient. Driven. Intelligent. Pathfinder. Pioneer. Entrepreneurial. Go-getter. Achiever. She was a living history book. Born in Dakota Territory in 1886, her first seven years were lived as a homesteader, the daughter of a pioneering family in the Old West. Settling in Missouri, she was raised as a farm girl. Intelligent and enterprising far beyond her years (and the culture of her day), she grew to be a successful business woman and writer. She experienced the beginnings of feminism and witnessed the ratification of the 19th amendment. She traveled the world. She saw two world wars; she saw our economy crash and lived through the ensuing depression. She witnessed the New Deal, President Roosevelt’s plan to restructure our country economically. She actively promoted her political beliefs. With all her life experience, she was called on even in her last days, to travel to Asia and report on the Vietnam War.

She accomplished a lot and contributed a lot, in her 80-plus years; she spent every day of her life making the most of her time on earth. And she would still be doing the same, without any apologies, were she alive today. The world lost a great person when it lost Rose Wilder Lane.

That Old Song

August 15, 2008

“A good song and a love affair go hand in hand together…”

Why do past memories come to mind so suddenly, and so vividly?

This afternoon I was quietly working along at my accounting job, calculating some numbers or preparing some report. In the back of my mind was the “jingle” contest our company is having. Individuals or groups can make up a jingle that would advertise our company and all we stand for. I was thinking of the theme song of the 1984 movie “Ghostbusters,” as in “Who ya gonna call?” and then replace the word “ghostbusters” with our company name.

“Ghostbusters” was performed by Ray Parker Jr. My thoughts flew to an earlier tune he recorded in 1981 with his band, Raydio, called “That Old Song.” I remembered the tune and the chorus….and suddenly I was 14 again, in that summer of 1981, when life was happy, pleasant and all was well with the world.

“When you think you’ve gotten over one, the other holds onto you forever.”

Most of my friends and social life in the teen years revolved around my church and our youth group. The days were thick with heat and humidity, so characteristic of those Georgia summers. I was sorry that my best friend Pam wasn’t going on our youth group’s annual trip to Six Flags Over Georgia, down in Atlanta. I was the shy, quiet one; she was the friendly, outgoing one. Who would I hang out with? I certainly didn’t want to spend the day at that big park with all those cool rides by myself. What fun is that?

“I’ve tried hard to forget ever loving you. Just when I’ve convinced myself it’s over with, then I hear….”

Someone must have heard my plight, and introduced me to Teresa and Wayne. They were a new brother and sister at church, around my age. They moved down from Tennessee after their mom married a divorced single dad in our congregation, who already had two sons of his own. Their mom had met their stepdad less than a year earlier, at our annual church convention Johnson City, TN. Our church observed the annual Feast of Tabernacles each fall, pursuant to Leviticus 23:33-43. About 4,000 churchmembers from Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, and other surrounding states, gathered in Johnson City for the Feast that year.

I know; I was there. As my thoughts travelled further back in time, I was 14 and in ninth grade, my first year of high school. It was my first Feast, the fall of 1980. Johnson City, TN was a 5-hour drive from our home in north Georgia. Although my mom did the best she could, she had saved only $200 for herself and 4 daughters on the 8-day trip [equivalent to just over $500 today]. We camped (which is cheaper than staying in a hotel), along with Pam and her family and a couple other families from church, at Warrior’s Path State Park.

“That song that they used to play on the radio just about every day.”

The comforts of home were absent, of course – we slept on sleeping bags on the ground, walked uphill to the bathhouse each morning, and ate our breakfast outside in the cold autumn-morning air. But lots of other kids my age were camping also, which Pam (being the outgoing one) would meet and introduce me to. Pam’s brother Andy, who was just a year older than me, hung out with us, as did his friend Jeremy. We all got to be good friends. So in spite of the lack of amenities I still remember that camping trip being loads of fun. A happy, peaceful time.

“Whenever I hear it, all I can do….”

We attended church services each day of the 8-day festival. I was coming of age; I was just beginning to want boys to notice me. Now, I’d liked boys for years, but at now that I was 14, I became acutely aware that all the other girls had boys liking them. But me? I was invisible! I felt so left out. Pam and her sister Debra thought they’d do a good deed, and set me up with 15-year old Philip of Kentucky. I resented being set up. It was demeaning, akin to admitting that I wasn’t popular or attractive enough to meet a boy on my own. Ok, so I was just 14! But when you see it happening with all the other girls, you can’t help but compare yourself.

“…is reminisce about loving you. That old song that they still play keeps me longing for the good old days.”

Where was I? Oh yeah, Six Flags. Summer of '81. Teresa and I rode rides together, lunched on burgers and fries together, and sipped lemon freezes together. Both of us being fair-skinned, we even got sunburns together! Teresa and I got to be good friends as we took in every experience the Atlanta amusement park had to offer. Occasionally we would cross paths with Wayne and their stepbrother Rob. Rob I knew already but this was the first time I really spent much time around him.

“The lyric and the melody remindin’ me how in love we used to be.”

Rob, Wayne, and Teresa began meeting Pam, Andy, Jeremy, and I, each week at church services. A friendship grew between the seven of us.

Especially between myself and Andy.

(to be continued...)

Adjusting

August 18, 2008

It’s a lot more work, having three kids rather than one. It’s also a lot harder having stepkids versus just having your own kids! You know your own kids, and have since birth. You know their personalities. You understand them. You’ve taught them YOUR way, under your rules and your home-culture.

When stepkids come along, all bets are off. You don’t know them. You don’t know what is “normal” for them, what sort of home they’ve grown up in, or how their personalities have developed over the years. Literally, you are strangers to each other. And now here you both are, shot like arrows into the bull’s eye of life’s massive target.

I’m quite calmer now than I was yesterday, here at work this Monday morning, in an environment I understand! As an accountant, I expect things to be organized, in order, in their place. But I’m still miserably stressed from one of our first orders of business this past weekend: taking the kids on their first clothes-shopping trip.

Before we flew out to San Diego, I expected that John and Jodie would have a hard time adjusting to a new home, a new state, a new life without their mom, their family, their friends. But it seems that it is I who is having the hard time adjusting! I’m not used to having so many people in my house. I feel so crowded and closed in.

I also don’t appreciate kids who aren’t respectful. I could tell even on our trip to San Diego, after knowing them for only a few days, that they aren’t used to having a parent in charge. They aren’t used to having boundaries or rules to follow. They seem to be unaware of the concept that the parents make the rules and the kids are supposed to do what the parent says. They seem to have the idea in their heads that adults are there to serve THEM.

Sometimes the three of them and Joe too, talk to me all at once. I can’t carry on 4 conversations at the same time! And sometimes I feel Joe compounds the problems. He takes the stern “don’t do this, don’t do that” approach, when I feel that a calmer tone and a “let’s do it this way because…” approach is more effective in the long run. My thoughts are that instruction, and not commands, are more effective. Much of Joe’s approach may be his military background.

Back to our shopping trip. Like I said, it was a miserably stressful experience (probably even more so because I hadn’t taken my meds). It was extremely difficult to find clothes that John and Jodie liked, that Joe and I approved of. I guess that’s normal for teens and tweens.

I found so many cute things in the girls’ section, but Jodie didn’t like any of them! When I was young, I would see racks and racks of those cute, colorful, trendy outfits that I wanted, but my mom couldn’t buy. I wore a lot of hand-me-downs from my older sister. Some were in better shape than the others. But as most tweenage girls do, I wanted to wear what the other girls my age were wearing!

Now, I CAN buy those cute, colorful, trendy outfits, for my own (step) daughter, but she’s not interested.

Finding jeans for John was nearly impossible. He’s got a big build and wears a 34” waist, but a 28” or 29” length, and we could hardly find 34W jeans with less than a 30” length.

And while we’re concentrating on getting one kid outfitted, the other 2 insist on being loud and getting in the way. I include my own son, Nathan, in that – in fact he was probably the worst of the 3.

**********

Nathan is usually quiet and keeps to himself. John is defiant and thinks he’s the boss of everything. Jodie is a talker and never shuts up! I didn’t read much of Ghost over the weekend, partly because I’m slowing down as I pass the halfway mark. But partly also because I couldn’t concentrate from Jodie talking so much! She wouldn’t shut up. She has to talk incessantly.

And it would be different if she was saying something useful, but she just yaks about what ever pops in her head. Actually, I’m not even sure her words go that far! I have never had much patience with people who have to talk all the time. About nothing.

Joe had one of his “talks” with the kids, and as punishment took both their laptops away for the week. Besides Jodie’s indiscretions – snooping in my back room without asking, demanding that I should have “at least unlocked the doors” to the car, when we were getting ready to go somewhere which I don’t remember, and opening our bedroom door without knocking even after I just got through saying not to bother dad while he was napping (which of course was an excuse for us to get some personal time), John had stayed up playing on his laptop until I woke up at 12:40 Saturday night (Sunday morning), after I had said to put it up at 11:00, after we had dinner and watched Moby Dick on OETA Movie Club.

Both John and Jodie think they have to have their noses in everyone else’s business. If Joe and I are having a conversation between ourselves, one or both of the kids will perk up and say, “What? What are you saying? I don’t understand what you mean. I don’t remember that happening. Was I there?” I wasn’t TALKING to YOU!

Another time Jodie ticked me off was last week or so when Joe got home from work. He and I were in the bedroom talking, with the door not completely closed but cracked. Jodie came up to the door and demanded, “Why is this door closed?”

I wish I’d thought quickly enough to say, “It is none of your concern. Young lady, when a door is closed, it is none of your business what goes on behind it.”

Ugh. Grandma Fern said they pull the same garbage with her, and it makes us all wonder what went on in California. Their mom was constantly ill and in the hospital. Their grandmother and other relatives were likely focusing their time and attention on her. The poor kids were left to their own doing, with little to no parental supervision. I asked them once, what did you do while your mom was in the hospital? Jodie spent her time at her friend’s house. John spent his time alone in his room.

So that’s what went on in California – the poor kids weren’t getting the attention they needed. They sure can’t help that. It isn’t their fault. And now Joe, Fern, and I are left to deal with it. And like Joe said recently, we’ve got a lot of work to do.