My mom always said, "Always tell the truth. Even if you think you're going to get in trouble. I need to be able to trust what you say, because one day you're going to need me to trust when it looks like you're lying." I never forgot that, and I began my truth-telling as a young lady. Even when I was telling the truth, I still sometimes was perceived as lying. But I held to that code of honor 99.9% of the time for the next years of my life up to this day. There were times I became defensive and eluded an honest view of myself and something wrong I had done, but I came around. The lie I most regret is the one to Mrs. Rabeler, ninth-grade algebra teacher. She was a very smart, sharply-dressed woman who taught at Lansing Christian High School. Man, was she brilliant at math. She wrote neatly on the overhead, and nobody even thought to disrespect her, I don't think. The one rule we all had is that we could NOT chew gum in school. We had a brand new school and e...

This reflection quickie is inspired by something I said to my son regarding food. Take a peek: Me: "What did you have for lunch at school today?" Son: "I didn't try it, I didn't think I would like it." Me: "Son, you're not always going to like everything that's placed before you. What if we didn't have any food at home and that's all you got to eat for a few hours, is what was offered at school? You'd be pretty hungry." **Deep breath to think of how to organize subsequent thoughts into preschool-friendly terms** Me: "...sometimes you can't think about the future, that you'll just eat when you get home. Think about the present, what's happening right now. You won't always like what's in the present, but sometimes you have to accept it whether you like it or not." Did you catch it? I immediately ingested my own words, and they're still digesting. I realized that the pain and hurt I mu...

I am a very interesting individual. I have been told by my therapist I'm very unique. I'm different. I'll paint a quick picture of what she means by different so that I don't scare you into thinking I'm psychotic-different, which I may never convince you of but I feel responsible to at least handle some information with care since our society likes to suspend little five-year-old girls who bring "Hello, Kitty" bubble guns to school and pretend to shoot. You know what I'ms sayings! I used to practice piano a lot. My mom made me. I used to get very bored practicing piano, and as a result I unknowingly began dabbling in improvisation and challenging my ear, although I was terrible at it for a long time. I had to use very special mental powers to force myself to play something over and over monotonously without stabbing the piano and deflating it. The upside is, I became very good at sight-reading and became a tad bit virtuosic.  This said-virtuosity p...