It was June 15

I birthed Booboo three months before my 19th birthday. She is the best thing that ever happened to me.
I wouldn't wish being a young single parent on anyone, though.
It's not easy, it's socially awkward, and I often feel as if I am being judged from the moment I mention that I am a parent.
"YOU have a kid?" I hear often from people with exasperated facial expressions.
Yep. This girl is a mother, lip ring, poorly thought out tattoos and all.
I would tell you how I got here but I'm saving it for my memoirs. Who wants to ruin all that fun?
I will tell you this, if I could go back in time I wouldn't change a thing about my life... ok maybe I would re-think the post-child-birth-almost-free-tattoo's... you know how people say not to cut your hair in the midst of a life changing event? Yeah, make a note-to-self here, don't get tattoos then either!
That aside, wouldn't change a damn thing.
I would make all the same beautifully stupid mistakes because they made me who I am and I like me.
Granted there is a chunk of time where my life read like A Million Little Pieces, but without me having to exaggerate the story. I wouldn't change that either.
I tend to aviod meeting new people because I'm not sure how to integrate my crazy shit into general conversation.
It slips out in little awkward refrences, like I just made to the James Frey novel, raising more questions than I am readily willing to give answers to.





You're intrigued aren't you....?

Hey Mom, what's a hippie?

Seeing as I spent the better part of eight years looking something like this (sans the mustache and mis-matched socks... I was doing a 1970's impression of my father in this photo):

smelling like this:

working with grassroots organizations like this (which I still work with):

and having legs as hairy as house wife from southern France, I felt like I should be able to answer this question. I wanted to talk to her about ideals and freedom, but she'd just gotten out of the DARE program where an older police officer had used the term hippie loosely in a phrase which Booboo quoted as, "You know, he said there's hippies and crack heads and they're bad people we don't want to be like."

Whoa, bad people?

Instead of informing our youth about historical movements and explaining addiction, the DARE program just pulls a Mr. Mackey and says, "It's bad, mmmmkay." Let's take a moment and think of some of these "bad people"...

Notable Hippies: Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Mitch Kapor, Lee Felsenstein, all of whom had major impacts on the developments of computer technology; George Carlin (comedian),  Yvon Chouinard (founder of Patagoina), not to mention the long list of some of the most notable musicians, authors, activists, and artists to come out of the U.S.

Notable addicts: Whitney Houston (singer), Ulysses S. Grant (18th president), Eric Clapton (musician), Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner (writers), Betty Ford (first lady 1974-1977), also not to mention the long list of some of the most notable musicians, authors, and artists to come out of the U.S.

I don't think these lists are lists of "bad people," these are people who have helped shape the world as we know it. Without Steve Jobs, would technology have developed as it has? Without Ulysses S. Grant, would the North sill have won the Civil War? Without Betty Ford, would women's health issues and issues related to drug and alcohol abuse have been brought, so candidly, to the national spotlight?

I think we owe it to our children and to ourselves to be truthful and not to engage in fear mongering and disinformation.

Inform them, make them knowledgeable, help them seek the truth for themselves so that they can shape the world when we are gone, it's their turn next.

Change of tune and some giving of hope

Today I would like to write about something else, giving people hope. I found out recently that you don't have to do much at all, or even anything on purpose, to give someone hope.

I was at work last week when an older man wearing a back brace and a pained look on his face came into the store. I asked him, "How you doin' this evenin'?" He said, "Eh, I'm not so good, got some back pain.", and continued on his way. When he came back to my register I asked him what had happened to his back. He told me that he'd had his entire spine-from top to bottom- surgically realigned, because he had a severe curve in it when he was growing up and now he could afford to have it straightened. I told him I kind of knew how he felt. I had three back surgeries on my lower lumbar, the third resulting in the fusion of 1/4 of my lower back vertebrae. A look of pure joy came over this mans face as I spoke to him. I wasn't sure what exactly made him look so happy.

He began asking me a lot of questions.
"Did your doctor tell you to walk for exercise too? Did it hurt to move longer than you thought it would? How long before you felt back to normal?"

"He told me to build up to walking two miles at a time. Man, it hurt waaaay longer than I thought it would, I don't did think I did more than get up to pee for six weeks! Ha! It was a good year before I felt back to normal; where I could do all the same things I could before the surgeries but now with minor modifications."

'Wowwie," he said as he looked me over. "You're standin' up straight and picking things up! I can't wait to be all fixed up new like you! You know, you've given me hope miss Tricia. I haven't thought at all that I would get all the way better and seeing you standing here I know I can." He grinned from ear to ear.

"Good, I'm glad!" was all I could manage to say. It made me think that too many people discount themselves and things they've overcome; people don't see the little amazing things they've done. When I think about it, it's amazing that I am even living and breathing at this point. My twin sister and I were born pre-mature, I weighed 2lbs 3oz and she 2 lbs 6 oz. I almost died several times and I had three major back surgeries in my early twenties which I was told might leave me on disability for the rest of my life.

I'm not dead yet. Quite the contrary, I'm very much alive. And at this moment, the mere fact that I am walking around with a job is enough to give someone hope. That man with the back brace doesn't even know anything else about me except that I am alright and I've been through something like him.

I bet you're giving someone hope too, and you haven't the faintest clue. I consider myself more or less blessed (so to say, I don't like to use that phrase but being southern this is the closest I can find to express what I'm meaning) that he told me he felt that way. I walked away from that conversation a tad bit flaberghasted with my head held a little higher.

I'd like to make it a new habit to mention to people little things they do that inspire me. I think that would be nice.

Booboo's Thoughts to Ponder

Booboo asks a lot of questions. This is one of my favorite qualities I have found (so far) in her.  Some questions I can answer, some I can find answers for, and some leave me dumbfounded and grasping at straws. I love doing my best to answer her questions, and I love helping her find her own answers to questions. However, sometimes, I have nothing to say. Rather, sometimes I don't know what to say. Here are some questions posed to me last week that I, at least at first, just didn't know what to say to.

1.) Hey Mom, when there's a zombiepocalypse can they break windows to get inside and eat me?
     - This question was posed to me as (I think) an attempt to stave off bedtime, because she asked me just as I kissed her little rosy cheek and tucked her into her Littlest Pet Shop themed pink puppy sheets. I tried to just say, "nope," and sneak off on the sly but that didn't go over well. Oh no, there were follow up questions, "If zombies can't break windows then why are all the windows broken in zombie movies?"

2.) Hey Mom, Cirianna brought a picture of Jesus on the bus and he was black, but at church the pictures of Jesus are white. I told her she had the wrong Jesus but she said that she didn't so which Jesus is the right Jesus?
     - Now, I don't claim to be a religious woman, but I'm pretty sure Jesus was probably not white or black. That aside, I told her that there were many different ways that people think Jesus looked like but no one could be certain because Jesus didn't have a camera. Perhaps when she is older we will discuss theories of Jesus being Ethiopian, Native American, or Arabic, or chat about blonde haired blue eyed Aryan Jesus and the included implications of white elitism. But for now, for Booboo, there's no 'right' Jesus because he didn't have a camera.

3.) Hey Mom, what's my Dad's name again?
     - This one froze me. She laughed as she said it. It was not by any means a sad moment, and before I could even exhale she moved on to a discussion about colors of unicorn poop and whether it would be color blocked or rainbow. For me, it was a moment of realization... I could say ANYONE! Hell, he wasn't a good guy, hence the whole not being around thing. I mean, she knows what he looks like and I'm (pretty) sure she really knows his name, but I didn't realize until she asked this that she hasn't seen him in about 4 years. That is a long f***ing time. That's long enough for a kid (your kid) to forget you. If I wanted to, I could make up anything, I could change the whole story and tell her a new one. I could re-write her little history. I just didn't say a damn thing and voted color blocked for unicorn poop.