Sharing Our Story

When my daughter set out on this adventure of raising money for St. Jude so that she could possibly shave her head, I agreed to shaving my own if she reached $1,000. It's not that I really wanted to shave my head or anything, but I wanted to be that mom.  

That mom that supports her child's amazingness.  
That mom that knows that hair is just hair and teaches her child to look at the beauty within instead of the beauty on outside.  
That mom who follows through on promises and keeps her word.
That mom who isn't afraid.

But I was afraid. I was afraid of how people would perceive me.

Would they think I lost my hair from chemo treatments like my mother and so many others do?
Would they think I'm living "alternatively" and rebelling against societal norms?
Would they judge me and think I'm a bad mother because I shaved my head and I let my 10 year old daughter shave hers too?
Would they think I look like a man?

What I have found has been the confidence to tell our story. It's become much bigger than being that mom. It's even bigger than the fundraising that my daughter has done for a wonderful organization.

It's about facing the world with nothing to hide behind.
It's about talking about that dirty word cancer and how it affects so many lives.
It's about believing in the greater good in our children and their future.
It's about celebrating who we are as individuals and living an authentic life.
It's about having courage and confidence when you worry about what they might think.

And they're all things I've struggled with over the years. My adventure into baldness has brought about a small change in myself. Instead of being afraid when people stare, I smile. When people say hi or mention "rocking the bald look," I talking freely and openly about why we did it. I share our story.

I've been documenting our lives since my daughter started kindergarten 5 years ago through another blog. It's another aspect of sharing our story. Writing in this blog shares our story, too. Everyone has a story or even volumes of books that would outnumber an Encyclopedia about their lives.

The truth is that this adventure into shaving my head came after one chapter of my life story has ended. Another relationship gone wrong. And I've taken it hard. At times, I've felt like the story of my life would end right there, no other pages to be written because it was just too sad to think about a life without him in it. I was again afraid.

But the truth is, most of the pages of our stories remain unwritten. And even if they are written they are often left untold to anyone. So I'm going to continue to tell our story because we have so much to tell and share with the world. As I venture on in life and move forward from that last chapter, I start this chapter with a clean slate. Hair will regrow and hearts will heal.

- Kathy

Starting Over

If I'm being honest, my life doesn't always take the easiest path. In fact, when possible, it's as if the Universe, or even God himself, conspires to make sure that I deal with as many trials and tribulations as possible. My life has been shaken up in countless ways, some worse than others.

What I've learned about myself is that sometimes I have to start over. While we can't redo life itself, we can choose to start fresh. To make changes to ourselves and in our lives to, hopefully, lead us to that better, maybe easier, path.

So here I am, starting over...again.

My marriage ended, I started over by moving home.
My mother died, I started over by moving to North Carolina.
Graduated law school, I started over with a job.
Relationship ended, I'm starting over.

Our path is ever changing and we're moving again. To give myself a chance to start over. I'm 36 years old and starting over is daunting to say the least. Crying one day on my way home from work, I asked a friend "How many times am I going to have to start over?"

She said, "As many times as it takes."

Moments

Our lives are filled with them. A moment that changes everything or keeps things the same. A moment that we came so quickly we didn't even have time to wait impatiently or the one that we never thought would come. A moment when we have to do something we never thought we'd do. A moment that passes by as quickly as it came or the one that seems to linger on and keep us pigeon-holed where we don't want to be. But they are the parts that make up our lives. The moments we choose something or not, that will make up who were are and what we become.

As I sat down to decompress from the moment I just had with my Mom, a song comes to mind. It's Emerson Drive's song "Moments". It's a song about a suicidal man who is stopped by an old homeless man because he talked about his "moments". It's a beautiful song that reminds me that even in the worst possible times, we still have those moments of being great, of being second to none, and doing the things we never thought we could do.



I'm only 31 and I've experienced some pretty big "moments" in my time. I remember the moment I held my breath waiting for the first breath of my daughter who was born 11 weeks premature. And the moment I held her for the first time with a nurse pumping oxygen into my tiny baby. They were both just moments. One was the scariest and felt like the longest moment of my life. The other was the moment that I knew my baby was going to be okay.

I remember the moment my ex-husband proposed to me in front of most of my friends and a bar full of people that we knew. And I remember the moment of standing on the front porch in my old house, the night I chose to leave. I had been told by the one police officer who kept coming to the domestic dispute calls to file a restraining order or to go to the safe house for women. I remember looking at him and telling him he would never be called to that house again with me there. And he hasn't because I took that moment and left.

I remember the moment the doctor said the word "cancer" to my mother. And I remember the tears and the fears that went along with it. And the moment of my mom finishing her radiation treatment and ringing the bell at the cancer center to tell everyone there that she was finished with radiation. The brief moment of clapping and cheering that let the scariness disappear for just a moment.

And tonight's moment was helping my mother from the bed to the bedside commode because she is so weak that she can't do it with the walker anymore. But it wasn't me helping her that I will remember. It's that once I helped her back into bed, she needed to reposition herself. Though her legs are so weak that she can barely stand, her arms are strong. I watched in amazement as she used the trapeze (those little triangle things above hospital beds) to life her entire body up off the bed, with just her feet still touching it and pulling herself into a more comfortable position. I'm healthy in comparison to my Mom now and I don't believe I could have done that for myself right now. A moment of strength when she feels the weakest and I am in awe.

We do not have many moments left with Mom. Her body is shutting down. I smell the dreaded smell that people have told me about with cancer patients as they are nearing the end. We may not have too many moments left, but I will enjoy every moment of helping her to the bedside commode, bringing her food and drinks, and fixing the cable box when she messes up the remote (something she has always done).

Moments are what we have in our lives and they make up who we are. Moments have the capability of breeding forgiveness, love, anger, sadness, joy, and a plethora of emotions that shape us. I will cherish the moments...

Still loving my life,
Kat

Life Lessons from a Wounded Person

This past year has been the craziest year in my life. Though I feel wounded at times in a battle of the soul, I find that I have also learned a lot over the last year. I turn 31 this coming March, so I have compiled a list of life lessons (most of which I have learned over the past year and hope to have 31 by my birthday). Maybe it will help someone else or maybe it’s just my own ramblings on paper.

1. Don’t make someone a priority when you will never be their priority. They don’t deserve that much from you.

2. Don’t live your life regretting the things you should have done or not done, the things you should have said or not said. It’s okay to have regrets, but don’t live by them. Change what you can or move on. It does no one any good for you to regret the things you cannot change.

3. Addictions are the hardest things to overcome, but they can with a great support system, willpower and the right motivation.

4. Motivation has to come from within. If you are doing whatever you’re doing because you’re getting motivation from an outside source, you will not stay motivated. It’s great to have support and people to cheer you on, but you have to do the things you do for the right reasons and that comes from only you.

5. Happiness is something you decide. We don’t have to be happy with everything, but when we choose to be happy despite our circumstances, that’s when real change can come.

6. Fake it ‘til you make it. It’s okay to pretend to be confident when you’re actually scared out of your mind. It’s okay to pretend to be happy when you’re not. Faking it can rub off and make it true.

7. Sometimes it’s best to just settle for a slow down. When you slow down and aren’t in such a hurry to get to here or there or to get this or that done, it’s a lot easier to see the joy in the everyday. Settle for a slow down every now and then and joy will come back even when you feel like it’s all gone.

8. Random acts of kindness renew the soul. Do something kind for someone you don’t know, even if it’s something as simple as letting them go in front of you in line, giving them a dime when they’re ten cents short at the vending machine to get what they really want, or ask that lady you see with tears in her eyes if she’s okay. Even if they don’t accept, you’ll feel better both inside and out.

9. Absolutely nothing is better left unsaid. Unless it’s negative. There is so much negative in the world right now, if you have something good to say, say it. Even if you don’t think the person or circumstances warrant it. And, really, if you love someone in any way, you really should just tell them.

10. Failure only truly comes when you stop trying. As long as you are still trying, success can still come.

11. The opposite of love is not hate. It’s indifference. Hating someone means they still hold the power over your emotions.

12. Hurt comes from someone else failing to meet your expectations. Some people say if you don’t want to get hurt, lower your expectations of other people. But I say, why? Keep them high and maybe they’ll surprise you. I’m okay with being hurt every now and then because I’m gonna learn and grow from it.

13. It’s okay to hold a grudge. There are just some people that you want in your life (because either they are good for you OR you are good for them), but you cannot fully trust them. It’s okay to hold a grudge. You know what you can say to them and trust them with and what you can’t.

14. Some people are just gonna stir the pot. No matter what you do, there are some people who have not learned the world doesn’t revolve around them. And they’ll stir the pot until everyone around them has to focus on them. That’s okay, but let it be their drama.

15. Sometimes it’s just best to say your peace and move on. It doesn’t make you a bad person to just say “This isn’t working for me.”

16. Don’t let your past dictate your future. We all have a history full of both good and bad, but they don’t designate where we go in the future.

17. Take the time to open your eyes to the world around you. What is there just might change your life if you take the time to realize what you have when you have it, what you can get when you want it, and what you need when you need it.

18. It can always get worse. I don’t care if you believe you are at the bottom of the deepest pit. Believe it or not, you can always go lower. But when you feel you are at YOUR bottom, it’s time to scratch, dig, crawl, jump, scream, and pull yourself out of the bottom. Knowing that there is always a worse to the situation can better able you to want to move in the right direction because you really don’t want the worst of the worse to happen!

19. Sometimes you just gotta cry it out. We have tears and emotions for a reason and sometimes the only thing to do is have a good cry and get it out of the way. Once you let your emotions settle, then it’s easier to figure out what needs to be done.

20. Everything is better in the end. If it’s not better, then it’s not the end. Really believe in this one. Think about even searching feverously for something. You never find it until you look in the last place. You stop looking for it because you found it. And everything’s better because your search is over and you’ve found what you are looking for. That makes the perfect ending.

21. Love can be blind. It can also be def, dumb, and stupid. But even in the worst of circumstances, it is much better to love than to hate or be indifferent. So love, even if it makes you feel stupid.

22. Everything happens for a reason. We may never fully know the reason but there is one. We don’t always have to try to find the reason, years down the road it could come to us in the simplest way. Just know there is a reason for the negative stuff too. And usually it’s so we learn from it.

23. You cannot change anyone but yourself. You can be supportive, encouraging, and inspirational, but you cannot make anyone change. They have to want to do it for themselves.

24...

Laundry Service??

As a mom, sometimes I wish that I could really afford just to hire someone to do the laundry. That I could just send the laundry out dirty and have it come back clean. With 6 people living in our house, the laundry piles up quickly, especially now with school in session and the girls (my daughter and niece) require both school and play clothes.

But I can't afford it. And now that I think about things a little differently, I don't know that I'd really want to do that. I mean, I get to do laundry because I get to wear clothes everyday, because I'm a living, breathing, singing, dancing, running, laughing Mama. And I have my daughter and niece to prove that's they're living, breathing, singing, dancing, running, and laughing too.

So why is laundry such a dreaded chore? Why is washing the items that we have to have such a dreaded chore? Afterall, I know what cute outfits of my daughter's are in the wash and they're usually in the wash because they're her or my favorites so they get cycled in more often in the "what to wear" items. This is true for me too. I have favorites that I miss wearing when they're sitting in the mountain of laundry. So, why dread it?

Fellow SHM Sheilah and I took on the laundry mat yesterday...not to do laundry together, but to capture some beautiful portraits of her. She's been on a month long challenge to face her truths and dare to reach her goals. It's been a month of self-exploration and it's ending with a new view of herself. I had the pleasure of being the girl photographing her. She was open to my ideas (and had a few of her own). I suggested the laundry mat and she loved the idea.

I captured a few images there that maybe, just maybe, changed my view of the laundry mat. Over the last month, Sheilah has changed her views about herself. Personally, I think this is harder to do than changing our views about a situation or place. If she could do this over a month, I think this one time in the laundry mat has forever altered how I view it and the chore of laundry.

How do you feel about laundry service now?

Kat

My truth about running

I hate running. There is probably nothing that I like less than running (well, maybe washing dishes). I really thought that once I got into my training miles that I would really start to enjoy running. I just don't. I struggle to get up in the morning to put in all my training miles because I hate running that much. I've even had days where I hope to trip, fall, and break my leg just so I don't HAVE to run anymore.

I have to run. I've committed to the 1/2 marathon on 10/10/10. It's not that I don't want to become physically healthy; it's just running is not going to be the way for me. I thought I would learn to enjoy it. Afterall, I enjoyed my first 5K that I did in February. And the one in May. But that's the competitor in me. Even though I knew that I suck at running, I was competing with myself and that still makes it a competition to me and it makes me give it my best. There is no competition in the training miles and it's getting harder and harder to get up and do them.

Yesterday's "run" was the worst. No motivation. Cramps. Sore foot. Horribly hot weather. And then to top it off in the back of my mind I kepting thinking of the words someone from the SHMC posted on my page and I questioned more than ever why I was out at 7 am, with cramps, a sore foot, in the hottest humid weather to run when I hate running!

Those words were simply this: ‎

"Pretending I'm something I'm not because I'm worried of what people will think of me just makes me miserable."

I am NOT a runner, so why the hell am I pretending to be? Why am I doing all of this when running makes me miserable? Why would I keep getting up on very little sleep to do something I don't enjoy? Yes, I feel accomplished after running because I completed my miles or I sweat out 5 gallons of water weight, but mostly I feel accomplished because it's DONE! And I don't have to do anymore running that day! Then I go back to dreading the next day's miles that night before I go to bed.

Honestly, running makes me more miserable than not having confidence in my body or being overweight. After the 1/2 marathon it will be time to find a new avenue for me to achieve my fitness and physical goals. Until the 1/2, I will slave away doing something I hate because I've committed to it and I ain't no quitter!

Anyway, now you know my truth about running. So when you see me not motivated with getting up early in the morning and running, you truly know why! I hate it, but I'm doing it anyway.

Still (even though sometimes I'm not sure why) loving MY life,
Kat

I'm Gettin' There

It's amazing to me how much I respond to music. Whether it's getting ready to party with the girls and dancing to some Lady Gaga with my Baby Gaga or sitting back and relaxing to more mellow music of some 80s love ballads, music speaks to me.

When I was a teenager, I first heard Lila McCann do an acoustic version of "I Will Be," the inspiring song for my blog. I still remember exactly how I felt listening to her sing the words to the song. It's my all-tme favorite song now, so I scoured the internet for a video of the song to post to help inspire others.

Though I couldn't find the song, I came across this song of her's that I had never heard before. The song struck with me well today as I was very emotional, for no apparent reason. I just wanted to share it with any of you who are following along my journey and traveling your own journey of "getting there" as well.