What’s Your Language?

Yesterday I took the Love Languages Test.  I found it really interesting and truly accurate.

I few years ago, I read the book and made my best guess as to which language was my top one.  For those of you who are unfamiliar, here is description I took from the Love Languages website:

1. Words of affirmation: These are things you say that are encouraging and affirming. I imagine that they are complimentary in nature as well.  Things like, ” I am so proud of you.”
2. Acts of Service: These are things one can do for other people: cutting the lawn, taking out the trash, making dinner.  These acts service help the other person in some way with seemingly mundane tasks.
3. Quality Time: This is time spent with another person where each person is actively listening and engaged with the other.
4. Gift Giving or Receiving: This involves a tangible object that is given as a gift. It does have to be something big and expensive, but it shows thought.
5. Physical Intimacy: The site was clear to state that this does not have necessarily involve sex, but it could include hand holding, hugging, cuddling.

Before I took the test, I already knew that a big one for me was Words of Affirmation.  A score in any one area can go as high as 12.  Words of Affirmation scored a 9.  This was followed by Acts of Service which scored an 8.  The final of the big three was Physical Intimacy with a score of 7.  Gift Giving/Receiving ended it all with a 1.

Again, I was not surprised by the way my scores played out, but it did start to give me additional clarity.  Some of my miscommunications with my boyfriend and children may stem from the fact that Gift Giving/Receiving is probably a much higher number for them.  My boyfriend gives me gifts all of the time, but he often finds it difficult to verbalize his feelings.  It’s important for me to put my feelings in check after I write him a detailed message about the reasons I find him so amazing and all I get is a t-shirt.  It also helps me to explain to him why he may feel like he is doing everything he can to help me feel loved, but I am being needy and distant all at the same time.

The other part of this text that I absolutely loved is the idea of a Love Tank.  We all have one and it is on various levels of filled and empty through the course of any given day.  My son running up to me just to kiss and hug me “hello”- Love Tank full.  My other son complains about the dinner I just made for our family- Love Tank empty.  It is not only important to know which language makes you feel like your tank is full, but also the language of your partner and children so they can feel full.

Overall, when we look at love as a reciprocal thing that has pre-conceived conditions for each person, it can give us more control over how we feel in our relationships.  Perhaps my not feeling loved is merely a matter of perception.  Or when I see how my son feels love simply by a small gift I procured at the store, I can know that his Love Tank is full.

And isn’t that what it’s all about?  Giving and receiving love…what could be simpler?

Click on the link below to find out what your love language.

http://www.5lovelanguages.com/

Additional Resource from fiercemarriage.com:

More Poetry- Another Storm, Brother

Another Storm, Brother

Torrential down pour
Rain splattering against the window
But that isn’t what wakes me

Engine groaning, spinning but not catching as it should
Over and over it starts and stops until I stand
Feet on soft carpet

Slipping one finger through the tight metal blinds
Pushing one slat from another
From my bedroom
Your stalled 65’ Falcon
Navy blue with silver so polished it reflects like a full length mirror

So many times
You have peeled out of our driveway on its deep tires
And I always envied how you rolled away with your windows down
Arm extended as you straighten the rearview

You stop trying to start
And you leave your sanctity
the rain is coming down so hard
that your image blurs almost immediately
I push the blinds further apart to see where you are going

Standing at the rear you push forward
Nothing accomplished
Nothing gained
and I know
I should be out there

If nothing else maybe to see if you’re okay
because that’s what we all would have done
if this were an episode
of The Brady Bunch
but our family was never that together
and I am not strong enough to hear you yell
or watch you cry

I remove my finger
The metal catches and grabs and the slats are now crooked
And I can still see you continue to push
your prize
that is slowly starting to slide into the middle of the street
knowing that I am not
close enough
to help

Sometimes- A Break for Some Poetry

Sometimes I realize how close I am to the ground.

So close that I can see very small stones and pieces of dirt that I know taller people can’t see.

Sometimes I become very dissatisfied with myself and the fact that I often wear jeans twice in a row without washing them.

Sometimes I see people talk.

Their lips are moving in a fish-like motion.

They even look like fish…

large Angel fish, the kind that always rip the other fish to shreds and pluck out their eyes.

Then in the tank, you have these eyeless fish floating through the water.

They lack any real direction until they bump into glass walls.

Sometimes when people talk to me

I watch their teeth and their tongue moving back and forth, up and down.

Their words are soundless. Their eyes are bright.

There are no Angel fish to pluck them out.

Promposals

As a high school teacher, I am privy to many strange adolescent activities, but there is nothing like the fluttering of prom season.  Every year students wait for it, plan for it, dream of it, and every year it comes and it goes with a sea of limousines and multi-colored fabrics and flowers.

Though all of this is perennial and one grows accustomed to the excitement and whirlwind the prom creates, there is nothing to compare with the newest of adolescent incantations: the Promposal.   Teenage boys are now required to ask females to the prom with a pomp and circumstance that rivals a wedding proposal.  January through February now brings carefully lined up flowers that spell “Prom,” tea lights surrounding large posters that ask the question: “Will you go with me?”, and lockers filled with chocolate candies with wrappers instructing the young lady to go out to her car where she will find her boyfriend waiting with a dozen roses.  This entire practice makes me sick to my stomach.

“I love it,” my coworker says as she opens her laptop.  “These girls have power and they’re using it.”  She smiles as I shake my head.  She starts to type.

“I am not seeing how this shows strength at all,” I answer. I have now turned my body in her direction.  My coworker is a strong woman.  She speaks her mind, she stands her ground, she never backs down from a fight, so if she sees this as a power move, I am curious to know why.

“It shows that the boys have to jump through hoops to get them. If they want them to go, they have to do something special, to win them,” she adds.

“I still don’t see it,” I answer.  “This jumping through of hoops just seems prissy and archaic.”

“No,” she answers. “It’s power.  We have it and these girls are using it.”

At this moment, I am still questioning this.  A woman’s right to make men do certain tasks to get what they want could be seen as power. It could also be seen as a chance to encourage the male/female hunt.  Could Promposals be a great equalizer or just another way for girls to act like a prize to be won as opposed to a person in a relationship?  Do we want to encourage our males to be with females who need to be put on a pedestal and jumped for instead of just asked and appreciated?  Do we want to encourage our girls to be a product instead of a person who also wants to attend the same social event without all of the social conventions?

 

 

Single Mom Life Part 2

In his novel The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom writes, “All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.”

When I first read this, I was in my early 20s, savagely blaming both of my parents for my myriad of hurts.  I felt as if I were the final description, the shattered glass on the floor, broken beyond repair.  I have since learned that this damage is reversible.  I have painstakingly tried to glue the pieces back together in a pattern of my own.  I choose to look at the glued pieces or scars in a positive way, knowing that the light would refract differently off of me if I were still one piece.  Perhaps the repaired cracks are stopgaps.  I am more caring and empathetic to those who are also looking at their scattered remains.  If my glass was clear, I might not be so open.

Now that I am an adult with two little boys, I read this quote differently.  I wonder with each misspoken word what my smudges will look like. I can only pray that I have not nor will I crack a part of them.  Despite my eloquent twistings above about my repair job, I hope to leave this life without causing such damage.  I want only for my imprints to be easily cleaned away with some Windex and a fresh paper towel.  The rest of the world can leave its mark on my little guys, and I know that it will.  Their glass will be bumped and jarred and marked up by a multiple of hands that I may never even meet. Their first love, their bosses, their teachers, their friends…all of these individuals will have a chance and when they do, I want my sons’ glass to be as intact as possible.  There is a strength that can be had in the cracking of the glass.  There is a benefit to knowing how hard you can be hit before you crack.  Both of these things are true, but I believe that my job is to help them through the hits, not be the one who is doing the breaking.

I am sure that I will continue to make my fair share of mistakes.  Greasy, peanut buttery fingerprints will be streaked down their glass from my fingers. I am sure of it.  At the end of the day, I still want to be able to say that the damage I did was wipeable, washable, dissolvable.  I only want them to truly know that they are loved.

The Single Mom Life

 

My closest family is made up of my two little boys.  They both bring a level of contentment to my life that is unmatched. Kissing their little cheeks before I leave for work at 6:15 am is the single most favorite thing in my life.  The warmth of their skin and the sweet smell of their breadth as they exhale upon being slightly jarred by my kiss is joy.  My little one whispering, “I love you, momma,” before he rolls over to snuggle deeper into his blankets makes me smile.  I think it is the way he says “momma.” He gives it a long, two syllable draw which causes him to sound younger than he is.  After I get my fill of him, I going over to the older one.  His blonde hair is all I see and I push it away to kiss him goodbye.  He is less likely to talk, but sometimes he shoots a sudden arm into the air to give me a hug around my neck before I go.  He draws me in and pulls me so close that I fear I am going to fall over, but I let him do it anyway because I fear the day it ends.

This is my morning.  I go off to work to make the only paycheck our family will see.  I am the breadwinner, the bill payer, the laundry doer, the food shopper, the ear cleaner, the band aid giver.  I feel blessed to be part of the thirty percent of single moms above the poverty level.  I feel defeated in the fact that my ex-husband gives me no financial support because one cannot get blood from a stone.

Being a single mom is the hardest thing I have ever done, and I dread the consequence of each painful mistake I make. I secretly pat myself on the back when I have a parental win.  I know many people look down on single moms.  The way I see it there seems to be two concrete stereotypes that exist in our culture.  First is the single mom superhero stereotype.  She is capable of doing everything and anything for everyone.  She takes care of her children and does the job of two parents with ease.  She may even be working two jobs and going back to school.  I have heard of these moms from adults who were raised by them. I have not actually seen or met one in real life. Of my friends, I am the only single mom.  I hope to be viewed as this type of single mom, but I feel I fall short on many occasions.

The second stereotype is the single mom mess.  This is the woman who is more preoccupied with dating than her children.  She clings to her ex for money and support, but she ends up using that money on herself.  She misses school conferences and doesn’t drive her kids to soccer practice.  She would rather troll dating websites for her next man than make dinner for her kids.  She smokes, has tattoos, drinks too much and talks loudly and disparagingly about her useless ex-husband.

I know I am somewhere in between these two worlds.  I would be lying if I said that there haven’t been moments where I was more concerned over my boyfriend’s text message than helping my son put on his cleats before soccer practice.  Sometimes I just want there to be other things in my life than caring for the boys.  I also know that if effort in anyway accounts for anything, I put in a valiant effort every day.  I care more about raising my boys to be kind, respectful young men than I do anything else.  The days that I peel myself up and get them to bed and make sure that they brush their teeth and are all snuggled in are taxing.  They exhaust me beyond words.  But I know the importance of building memories and of being a stable force.

So despite my worries and my fears, I know I must always go back to my mat and trust, trust, trust.

 

 

 

 

Sacrifice and the Empath

I woke up this morning thinking about the idea of sacrifice.  As an English teacher, I know what the word the means.  I can define it, identify it as a topic in literature, or point it out as a lesson to be learned in the myriad of television shows my boys watch.

Recently I heard the story of Chiron.  Chiron was a centaur (half man/half horse) who was born to the Titan Kronos and a nymph.  A weird pairing, I admit, but their subsequent relationship created a different kind of centaur. Chiron was wise and faithful.  He was known as a healer and a speaker of prophecy.  Chiron was immortal, but he was wounded by a poison arrow, and he decided to give his immortality away to Prometheus.  He was the guy who sacrificed his life to steal fire from the Gods to give it to man.  This single act changed humanity forever.  When Zeus found out, he chained Prometheus to a rock and a vulture ate his liver everyday.  His liver then regenerated every night and the torture began anew.  Chiron gave his immortality to Promotheus thus saving him from this fate.  Despite Chiron’s incredible healing powers, he was unable to heal himself and died a bit later.  Zeus was so touched by this act of sacrifice and he turned Chiron into a constellation in the sky.  If you know anything about astrology, you may know which sign your Chiron is in.  Mine is in Aries.  This represents your deepest wound.  The part of you that must heal if you are to understand your soul path and chosen path.  Strangely enough, Chiron in Aries means that I have deep psychological or physical wounds that I hide from others.  I have difficulty believing in myself and my self-worth.  Yep, all of this is definitely true of me.

So what does this all have to do with me?  I am not entirely sure.  Why did I wake up this morning with the story of Chiron and sacrifice coursing through my over-active mind?  No idea.

I do know that my deep wounds are being touched on at this time: my fears of not being a worthy mother or partner.  I am still working on healing these every day, but I feel like it is getting better.  Perhaps, like Chiron, some wounds are too deep and I just have to give into the idea that they cannot be healed in this lifetime, but this thought seems too morose.  Perhaps I am Prometheus, and my good deeds will eventually be rewarded despite the suffering that transgressed before.  Either way, I will think about it in silence and see what happens when I take to the mat.

Trust. Trust. Trust