'Tis the Season...

The holiday season is upon us and as usual, it gets me thinking about those who are less fortunate than I am. I know it sounds cliché to say something like that, but for some reason this time of year illuminates certain situations, makes them stand out more so than usual. In a way, this gets me angry, because people are struggling every time of the year, not just during the holiday season. But I have to say, at this time of year especially, people are left wanting, children in particular. Or the togetherness and prosperity of others is so obvious, so enhanced, that less fortunate folks are forced to witness what they have not.

My seasonal heartache started off with a story my mom told when I saw her on Wednesday. She’s a school nurse and had seen a little boy in her health room who was dirty, hungry, and not well cared for. Long story short, he was six years old, hadn’t eaten breakfast, and hadn’t had any dinner the night before. When asked why, his response was something along the lines of “Sometimes we don’t have enough food. We have dinner some nights, but last night we didn’t.” He was wearing shoes without socks, and my mom gave him a pair of socks and a pair of sneakers he could keep. She made sure he’d had lunch and planned to make sure he’d be fed if he came to school again without any breakfast.

The sad thing is, this is but one small story of many I have heard from my mother over the years.

I remember a Christmas a few years ago... a little girl had come into my mom's health room exclaiming over a book she just had to have. All she wanted on earth was this book she saw at the school book fair. "I'd read this book over and over. I'd never want another book again," the girl said, the way kids do when they're really in love with something and being dramatic, but full of real passion.

My mom said, "Maybe you can ask Santa for it for Christmas."

The girl said matter-of-factly, "No, my mom said Santa isn't coming to our house." She knew not to expect anything for Christmas. And above all, she knew she wasn't getting even that book.

My mom bought her the book and sent it to her home with the return address reading: Santa's Elf. She also knew the girl had siblings, including an older sister who once said to my mom that she never had "cool" clothes and was so happy when my mom gave her a pair of my old outgrown jeans. So we went out and bought a bunch of "cool" clothes from Old Navy and a bunch of other Christmas gifts for the family, including gift certificates to McDonald's and gas cards. Then my mom wrapped it all in a big box and sent it to them for Christmas, as Santa's Elf.

I'm sorry, but as much as stuff like that makes me feel so damn good, it also breaks my heart, time and time again.

I’ve worked at the Boys and Girls Club of Allentown in the past when I was a college student, and I think my heart broke on a weekly basis – for children who didn’t have enough food, for a child who talked nonchalantly about living in a shelter with his mom, for a child who bawled her eyes out when there were no more hot dogs at field day because she’d had her little heart SET on one and hadn’t eaten anything all day.

I’m a Caseworker for Child Care Information Services, so in my line of work, I see a ton of kids who aren’t living the lives they deserve. I know of a bunch of families, come wintertime, who won’t be having much of a Christmas. I’ve heard a lot of sob stories, as they’re so deemed, but you know what? They ARE sob stories. They’re sad. They make me sad.

I wish I was someone who had a lot of money to spare, because I would make sure no one that crossed my path went without, especially during the holiday season. The last two years, I "adopted" a person from a shelter, giving him the only present he got to open on Christmas day. I guess stuff like that is all I can do, but somehow it never seems enough. It's only November, and I'm already slightly heartsick.

"We've Got 5 Years, What a Surprise..."

A lot has changed in the last 5 years. With me. With my parents. With my brother. With my whole life. November of 2004 seems eons ago if I look back in retrospect and recall the things I was doing, the things that were happening around me, the girl I was.

How can so much happen in 5 years? How can so much change?

Five years ago today, I was a junior in college, two months into the Fall Semester, hating my body, laughing with my room mate, missing my boyfriend, and loving my major in English. It was almost 2005, almost time to prepare for winter break—a time I both dreaded and desired. I dreaded it, because it had to be spent at home with my parents where my eating disorder inevitably worsened (or at least my sense of self). It meant I was far from friends who returned to their respective homes in different states. And it meant I worried needlessly about the impending new semester. Yet I desired it, because I got to enjoy the proximity portion of a long-distance relationship, got to take a breath between large amounts of schoolwork, and got to earn a little extra money.

So much is different now, this November. I'm sitting here in a house I moved into 2.5 years ago. I'm a Caseworker, a blogger, and amazingly (and thankfully) much happier.

5 years brought so much. My sense of self is restored, my body is not hated, my confidence is renewed. I graduated with two degrees. I fell into my job. I met Rick. We got married. We bought a house. I run an Eating Disorder Support Group instead of letting my eating disorder run me. I lost both of my grandfathers.

Yet so much is the same. 5 years strengthened pieces. I'm still a writer at the core and won't ever stop writing. My best friend is the same room mate with whom I laughed. I'm still as introspective as ever, though my focus is usually on the positive.

Even though, in a lot of ways, those days seem like yesterday sometimes, I am so struck by the turns my life has taken, by the changes in my circumstances, by my altered family dynamic.

People come and go. I think this is what makes mere years seem like eras. My dear friend Alicia and my own husband weren't even a twinkle in my life back then. And we're only talking about FIVE years.

Contemplation Station

I'm the kind of woman who believes in quality over quantity...but I'm also the kind of woman who thinks Why not both? I mean, why can't you have both quality AND quantity. Less isn't always more. At least that's how I feel.

 

My feelings on this stem mainly from the phrase "I love you." I know there are people who believe that if you say it too often, it somehow lacks validity or "specialness," if you will. I don't believe this and never have. I think, as long as it's TRUE, that "I love you" is one of the things a person can never say enough. I also know that there are people who don't say it, because they think, "well, she knows by now, after all this time."

 

You can never say "I love you" too much to someone. If it's real, it's always a meaningful thing to say. If it's offhanded or not genuine, that's a different story.

 

Of course, I am also of the opinion that if you really do love someone, "I love you" should not be said simply for reciprocation. If you feel it, say it. If you say it 5 times a day, it does not mean it is less true. It does not demean the sentiment. It is reiteration of a truth, said because it is felt. It is both quality and quantity.

 

Sure, I have been the one to say "I love you" and have waited for a reply, waited for those words in return. But I don't understand the other person holding back if the feeling is mutual. I don't understand holding back because you've already reached some mental quota of "I love yous" for the week or month. There is no threshold for "I love you" that once passed indicates the words are no longer meaningful. They are always meaningful if they have meaning for the person saying them.

 

Those words mean something to me. Every time I have said them in my life, I have meant it. Every time. I haven't said them to a thousand people, and they don't mean the same thing as "I like you." To me they are not the kind of words that thoughtlessly accompany a "bye" on the telephone, though I have often said "I love you" before hanging up. I don't say "I love you" as a clockwork phrase, said just because it's what people in relationships do. I say "I love you" because I love, and because I want the other person to know, to feel that good, fulfilled sensation that comes from hearing it directed in a personal way...because it's an expression of emotion...and because it bears repeating.

 

I say what I mean and I mean what I say. If I've said it, I've meant it.

 

Why not say "I love you" a lot, if it's real? Bad things can't come of it if you are sincere. Speak from the heart and you can't go wrong.

 

Thank you, Rick, for always telling me you love me, so I don't have to guess.

Alien vs. Football

Let’s play a little game called “Alien or Football.” What kind of game is that, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you. This past weekend, while planning for some down time with the hub, he tells me excitedly that I have two choices of what we can watch--“Alien or Football!”

If you’re anything like me, for a moment you ignore the sheer delight in his voice and think to yourself, “How is that not a lose/lose situation?”

I mean, come on...Alien or football? In case he didn’t get the memo, I’m a woman. A sweet, little, feminine woman. Granted, I have been known to like the occasional Terminator and even Star Wars and Star Trek... and I do think that I’m pretty well-rounded for a girl, but... Alien or football? I mean, I’m SCARED of things like Alien and I’m BORED by things like football. And the funniest thing is, Rick sits there with a gleeful, oblivious smile on his face, giving me this seemingly generous choice, adding, “I really don’t care. I would watch either one.”

Well, of course you would, dear. You’re a man.

For the record, I have never seen the Alien movies. ‘Til this weekend, that is. Because that was my choice, folks. In the game of Alien or Football, I chose Alien. Which was then followed by the sequel Aliens...as if one alien wasn’t scary enough.

They popped out of their little eggs, I screamed. They scurried across the floor waiting to attach to people’s unwilling faces, I screamed. They burst out of people’s stomach’s, I screamed. They grew to the size of a truck, chomping their jaws and preparing to destroy, I screamed. I wore a blanket like a permanent ornament in front of my face, just below my eyes, ready—at the smallest glimmer of a thrashing Alien—to cover my head.

As I curled myself into a blanket-y ball on my La-Z-boy, shrieking and/or tense with fear, my husband laughed. Not at the Alien, of course, but at me. I’ll give him this much—I can see why it’s a movie classic. But would you not be scared to death by this? (And trust me, this is a tame picture because I didn't want to scare any kids that might happen upon my site.)


Alien or football... oh man...which would you choose?

Dream a Little Dream

Have you ever had a recurring dream? I'm not talking a nightmare. I'm just talking about a regular dream that is somehow persistent. It keeps coming back. It might be a bit different each time, but is basically the same theme or involves the same people. You might be reliving the same event a bunch of different ways. Or you might constantly dream of the same person, even if that person is someone you haven't seen in a long time.

 

The thing about these dreams is that, for me, they FEEL persistent. I feel like if I keep dreaming them, it's for a reason. Perhaps it's to work through something in my mind. Perhaps it's a message I'm not yet able to figure out. Perhaps it's because something is happening with a particular person from my past and my dreams are a way of connecting me to that.

 

I keep a dream journal and have for over 6 years. I don't always write in it religiously, because quite frankly I have multiple dreams per night and I don't always have the time to sit down and type them all out. I do, however, write the most telling dreams in it, and I do try to at least jot things down on a list of sorts so that when I have a moment I can play catch up and get a bunch of dreams down at once.

 

A lot of the dreams I have are so vivid, so startlingly real.

 

Sometimes I have dreams that seem out of the ordinary... and then something in real life happens that makes me stop and think...makes me wonder if my dream thoughts have come to fruition.

 

Most of the time, if I dream about someone from my past who's no longer a part of my daily life, I feel like the Universe is trying to tell me something. Especially if I dream about that person over and over again.

 

Once last year, I dreamed about an old friend I haven't seen in years. The dream was so natural and real. I dreamed about her again, each time really intrigued by the fact that I hadn't seen her, heard from her, or dreamed about her in years. I didn't even know what she was doing in real life. You have to understand that this is not a person I'd connected with on Facebook or had a phone number for in my cell phone.

 

Then one day very soon after, I was in the grocery store on my lunch break from work. It's not the grocery store I normally go to—it's the one across the street from my office. I was darting out of an aisle, in a hurry to get in line to pay so that I could make it back to work on time, and as I did so, I passed a woman and our eyes met. The gaze broke and we kept moving for another second, but both of us looked back, doing a double take, and shocked, cried out each other's names at the same time. It was half question, half exclamation... like, "Arielle?!"

 

It was the old friend I'd dreamed of, and we stood there like those rude people in the grocery store you always have to navigate past, because they're talking to each other and ignoring all sense of politeness or obligation to move out of the way. We were so struck and pleasantly surprised that we hugged each other, even while holding our grocery baskets. We were both wearing scarves. She looked good. She was getting married. She was happy. After a few minutes, we said we had to go, made our good byes, and walked away. I realized only after leaving the store, when the flustered trance had ended, that I hadn't even gotten her phone number or email address to keep in touch. But it didn't matter. I think my brain had learned enough, had been content with what it discovered about the old friend. I didn't dream about her anymore.

 

 

Do you ever dream about someone from the past with whom you aren't in contact any longer?

 

Do you ever have recurring dreams?

 

Has anything you've dreamed about signified something in real life?

 

I'd really love to hear your answers. My dreams are making me wonder a lot lately.

 

Favor?

So, as many of you know, I have another blog called Actively Arielle: A Voice with a Commitment. It’s an eating disorder recovery blog and its purpose is to advise, motivate, and encourage those struggling with eating disorders, as well as give them hope that real recovery is possible. I started it because I’m a recovered individual myself, and because I’m also an ANAD eating disorder support group leader.

Actively Arielle just had it’s 2nd birthday!

Anyway, it’s a lot more popular than this regular personal blog o’ mine, and I’m a Top HealthBlogger for Wellsphere. And... I currently have a badge on my site readers can use to vote for me to win a 2009 blogger award for Wellsphere. Right now, based on the votes I’ve gotten so far, I’m in the Top 20 best health bloggers and I was wondering (pretty please?) if some of you would pop over to my other blog and take a second to vote for me? I’d love you forever. :) Just click here.

It can’t hurt to ask! Thanks, everyone!

It's the Moment You've All Been Waiting for...

My mom's newest YouTube performance. She loves her fans. Haha.

You may remember her YouTube debut, or her oh-so-special dance moves, but this is a whole different kind of performance entirely. Complete with singing. Yep.

So, without further ado, my mother...
with her rendition of "Honey Bun" from South Pacific.