Shining Thru

I’m not sure where the younger generation is headed, but it doesn’t look good.  Legislators keep trying to increase the curriculum and make everything look good on paper, but what it’s actually doing is forcing kids to give up.  No child left behind is plowing students over by trying to make them keep up with some made up standards by politicians that have never been inside a classroom, other than as a student.  I saw in the news that another student brought another gun to school….I think that it is so sad that we have to worry about such things.  As always the comments on the article were much more interesting that the article itself…people say all sorts of things from where are the parents, to that school is for the trash of the district anyway…Even if it is an alternative school how can we possible call children trash….Schools have a lot of issues these days and it scares me to think that these are the people of the generation that are suppose to be running things in the future.  If we don’t get it together and start worrying about the right issues I don’t understand how we expect improvements. What good are nice looking standardized test scores in the records office if children are running around on the streets or bringing the streets to the schools.  I don’t think that we realize all of the time what kind of issues are in the homes for the young people today, but I also don’t think that we should be making excuses for anyone, I think that the first step to having any real improvement is to hold people responsible for their own actions.

Reading the local news was pretty interesting today.  I read that near by the city counsel voted to impose a daytime curfew for children of school age.  Their new law states that children between the ages of 6 and 16 should not be found in the community between the times of 8:30 am and 2:30 pm.  Police will take care of running into children of school age during the day by offering to take them home or to school, if they refuse than their guardian will get the citation…..Reading the comments was even more interesting.  Some people were complaining that this is forcing the police officers to take care of the parental responsibilities of these young people…however, I feel that it is forcing parents to be held accountable for the actions of their child or children.  Now a days, parents don’t have too many excuses for not knowing where their children are; schools have auto dialers that inform them whenever a child is late or absent, teachers send letters home, and most teenagers I see have cell phones that parents could track them with if they so choose.  Some people may argue that tracking their child is an invasion of their privacy, but I feel that it is your responsibility to know about your child while they are living under your roof and your responsibility.  I think it’s wonderful that law enforcement will help parents out when they see the young people walking around town for no good reason other than to avoid getting an education….However, I do think that it is pretty sad that we, as a society, would have to resort to such matters.  It is interesting the variety of comments on this particular article, one person said that it is a shame that parents will end up paying for their children’s mistakes and that “parent’s are use to footing the bill for their children…I think that is a major problem in our society….why shouldn’t parents be held responsible for their children, they are the ones that raised them.  I know there are some people who feel that they are in a hopeless situation with their children…but I think they are running out of people to blame other than the parents and the way that the children were raised.  If you let a 2 year old run the household, what do you think will happen when that toddler grows into a teenager?

Strength crumbling before your eyes

Watching it dissipate and run through your fingers

Trying to pull it up, not finding it within

Summons are failing no matter how hard you try

Can’t keep going, not strong enough to walk through

Not strong enough to stop the flood gate holding back the emotions

Trying to hang on, but feel the fingers slipping

The grasp failing and fingers scrambling for the edge

Not wanting to drown in the reality you’ve been avoiding

The breath comes only into choking sobs

Tears that refuse to obey your orders of resistance

All the lack of strength, life wearing you down

I don’t understand the way some people think or logic their way through life….I was reading the news earlier today and was simply baffled by some of the comments underneath the articles from other readers similar to myself.  There was one article about a woman being shot to death in her home while holding her 3 month old baby and all but one of the comments that I read were saying what a bad mother she was and completely tearing her apart….and then another article was about how a teenager jumped out of a moving ambulance and died and there were only comments as far as I could see about how sad it was and how the family should file a lawsuit against the ambulance workers for not containing the boy.  Although I agree that because the boy had mental issues and the circumstances are sad and I feel for the family, I don’t understand how these are the same type of people completely slamming the single mother trying to raise her children.  Instead they are blaming her for the fact that some of her young children witnessed the shooting early in the morning when the kids should have been in bed…apparently it didn’t occur to any of them that the kids may have been sleeping in the same room as the baby and the mother was in there to pick up the baby since most 3 month olds I know don’t sleep through the night completely, or maybe there were woken up by someone breaking into the house, or the confrontation that could have been taking place before the shooting.  How can people in good conscience think that they are in the right passing judgment over a woman who just lost her life like that?  Not one of the comments that I read expressed any type of concern or sympathy for her children, they all just wanted to say how wrong she was for being a young single mother who was shot in front of her children, as if it was her choice, as if she was suppose to know she was going to get shot that day and have the kids pre-removed from the house….I wish people would stop and think before they shoot off their comments into cyberspace.  I have to wonder how many of those people would say those things out loud and how many of them are simply hiding behind the computer.  At least the things I say, I am not too ashamed to voice in real life.  I would hope that these people would be ashamed of their comments if the family of that woman heard them, but I fear that too often in our judgmental society, those people would still think that they are in the right, no matter who they were talking to.

Unfortunately for this young woman, so many people feel that they are in the right and have the right to say whatever thoughts pop into their heads.  Their attempts at thinking are sometimes pitiful and I am sorry to say that I live in a society that feels that they can pass judgment without knowing all of the facts in a situation and publicly post their blind comments about it on the internet.

I saw a commercial today that advertised a show that claimed to display the secrets to a  happy marriage.  I’m not sure that there could be a formula to such a thing…in fact it seems rather ridiculous that anybody would waste their time doing a study on such things.  I’m sure that there probably are some things in common, but everyone is different and as long as human personality and emotions are a factor in the equation there can never be a blueprint for the perfect marriage.

I think the secret is:  Don’t be Dumb, don’t worry about the little things, and Don’t try to change the person that you choose to spend the rest of your life with, love them for who they are.

I think that a lot of people take the easy way out and get a divorce instead of working through things.  They were showing clips of interviews with elderly couples, but a lot of those couples grew up in a generation when divorce was taboo and not looked upon as normal like it is now.  I think that if more people removed that option from their minds, they would probably first of all not rush into who they marry, and second try to work things out instead of just deciding that they want to give up.

I think that when you really love someone, you love them for who they are and can be happy together, as long as you accept the person you love the good with they annoying   I hear too many people (mostly women) say that they thought they would change or mature or whatever, but as a good friend told me, always trust people to be exactly who they are.

Wobbly legs that crisscross across the water

Slippery water turned to sleek and slick ice.

Shaking arms out for supported footing

Placing one foot in front of the other

Feeling as if you’re on a tightrope

You walk through life

Tip Toeing around

Scissoring legs try to straighten themselves

Resisting the urge to give up and crawl

Continuing to hold your head up

Confidence does a lot for balance

Balanced for a moment

Looking on watching to see if they will make it

Wanting to come to their side

and hold their hand

Unwilling

Unable

Looking on, knowing that it’s your turn to stumble next

You hope for balance in your life

An unwavering hand to guide you

Give you what you lack

Give you want you want

Not just looking

Walking

It is strange how the smallest thing can make a wall collapse.  I think that people are like that too.  When emotions cause hairline fractures in our soul, confidence, mind, and heart, it only takes the smallest amount of force to break a person.

It could be something so mall that any other time it wouldn’t have been a big deal, but as you hear about it, everything else associated with anything or anyone involved in the situation rises to the top and comes pouring out in your words, emotions, and tears.  A full collapse of the strong facade.

Tears run down your cheek and a sort of self hate rises up as you can no longer control your emotions and keep them hidden from view.  It only takes a pin hole in a balloon and it only takes one moment for a person.

Collapse of the world around you can happen so quickly, everything that you knew to be true can change in a heartbeat.  I guess that is life….always changing, never knowing.

I think it’s crazy that sometimes you can feel more productive in one day than you have felt all week….Sometimes it feels like you have gotten more done in a few short hours compared to the work of a week….Sometimes you can work as hard as you can and yet feel like you have accomplished nothing, and other times you’re sitting around having a good time and realize that you have gotten everything done in no time at all….

I have to wonder, are we more productive when we don’t think about it as hard?  Sometimes it seems like when you’re having fun, the work comes easily, the problem being of course that there are some tasks that cannot become fun, or enjoyable.

So what makes us be productive?  Have you ever gotten a sudden burst of motivation and just worked through everything around you quickly and without problem, but then had other days where even the simplest tasks seem to have something that will trip you up and make things difficult?

I wish I had more productive days….

How can you keep pushing forward when you don’t have a known direction?  If you don’t know what road you’re traveling down, it’s kind of hard to see over the hills in front of you.  Left or right?  North or South?  The various paths in life that pop up, almost like a secret shortcut…until you get inside the forest and get lost.

Directions in life are tricky….

Never knowing what is coming next, knowing that what you really want isn’t your call if you get it or not…knowing that your hands are tied and there isn’t anything else you can do but wait and see….but then how do you move forward…push on so to speak?  Do you just travel blindly or do you try to map out a new route?

All of the things that happen in life can pop up as obstacles.  Do you drive around, take another avenue, or simply travel over the hump?

Do you ever find yourself with two personalities…not in the crazy way, but just the way you act and react to different groups of people compared to when you’re on your own or with a separate group of people that you know better and are more comfortable with?  I’ve noticed that some people have work personalities and then are a completely different person outside of the work place, when they are home, or just hanging out relaxing with coworkers as friends instead of work associates.

I know that my personality changes and people notice it sometimes too…if they see both personalities, but I think it’s just the way certain situations and groups of people make me react.

It’s weird to find the balance of always being yourself but being what people expect of you in certain situations as well…I think that we start this struggle at a very young age.  having to be this while knowing it doesn’t quite fit with who you are as a person…so trying to curve it to make the square peg fit in the circle hole by smooting the edges a little…even when it takes a lot of force.

Some people will argue that you shouldn’t change who you are for any reason…but I’m not sure you are changing who you are…I think it’s more of a action and reaction kind of thing…I think that certain situations simply cause people to act differently….