Free to Be Me.

All I want right now is to cut my hair, dye part of it blue, pierce my septum, and finish my sleeve. I have been putting it off because after five years of being a stay-at-home-mom, I am finally looking to get back into the work force. I am having a hard time finding a job and I think that if I make myself look even more different than I already do, I won't be employable at all.

It's bumming me out because I am me, and I am proud of who I am. I wouldn't have all of these tattoos if I didn't like them, and I don't regret getting them. Having tattoos and wanting blue hair does not say anything about me, other than that I like blue and I like tattoos. In fact, I really don't like needles, even though I am tattooed.

I have a degree, and I plan on getting a graduate degree. I am smart and hardworking. I am really friendly and I learn quickly. I am clean and dress appropriately. I think that I am very employable. I just want to job where I don't have to wear a turtleneck and long sleeves, seeing as it is like eighty degrees here in October. I want a job where I can be me, even where my looks are concerned. I don't feel like I am asking too much.

I don't want to wear skimpy clothes. I just don't want to constantly be covering up all of my tattoos.  I hate that I can't do what I want to do with my hair, because of some stupid notion society has about what's acceptable. I look darn good with blue in my hair. I want to let my light shine. I don't feel like it's too much to ask. There has to be somewhere that I can get a job and still look the way I want to look.

I feel like everyone has a different light. Everyone has a different look. I really wish that I lived in a world where everyone was able to let their light shine through the way that they want. Purple hair, a mohawk, head to toe tattoos, piercings galore, a mu-mu, head coverings in public, all black, pastels only, bald, bearded, dread-locked- I don't care. It's all pretty as long as the wearer feels pretty. I think the important thing is to do what makes you feel like you light shines.

In my opinion, it is incredibly unfortunate that I feel like I can't let my light shine because I won't be able to get a job. Or I can choose to let it shine, and remain unemployed until I can find an accepting employer. We are all so beautiful and so different, we humans, it's a pity that we are so often compelled to conform.

My little Oyster.

Last night as I was dealing with my usual bout of insomnia, I was thinking about something that I have experienced multiple times recently. This leads me to a post that is going to have two parts, the first is going to be about choosing your words carefully.

Recently, a couple of different people have said to me that my younger son, Puff, must have gotten all of the personality between he and Archer. That sentence in itself is incredibly hurtful to me and would have been incredibly hurtful to Archer had he been the one to hear it. There are many other ways to describe my boys. Puff is definitely the more boisterous of the two. However, being outgoing doesn't necessarily mean that he has all of the personality. I won't pretend that I have never put my foot in my mouth before. I have done it many times and I probably do it at least once a day. However, when referring to someone's children or addressing their parenting tactics or home life it would always be prudent to choose your words carefully. Hurting my feelings regarding Archer is one thing, but had he heard these statements and been hurt himself it would have been a whole different issue.

Now on to the good stuff. The part about my little oyster. Puff is definitely more of an intense personality than Archer is. However, anybody who thinks Archer doesn't have much personality is sadly mistaken. In fact, that mistake says more about you than it does about Archer. What it says is that you haven't been let in by him, and that's probably with good reason. Archer only opens up to the coolest of the cool. He only becomes attached to people who truly deserve his love and attention. And when he opens up, you will find the most amazing pearl in the whole world. If Puff lets you in, it means that you smiled at him or, simply, that you are in the room. However, Archer is more selective regarding the people that he opens up to.

As far as personality goes, Archer loves to snuggle. He loves to play in the dirt and he enjoys collecting bugs. He knows lots of different bugs by name and he also knows their habits. He is well-versed in animals and sea-creatures. We have tried to put him in several different sports, but he would rather play the piano. He likes to talk to adults and tell them stories about Transformers and Thomas the Train. He prefers situations where adults talk to him one on one. He has excellent taste in movies and he loves zombies. He would be an amazing sidekick to have when the zombie apocalypse rolls into town. He is extremely perceptive and really witty. He is much like his dad in that he will suddenly use a big word and surprise you because you never imagined he would know the meaning of that word.

Archer loves people. He remembers people that he hasn't seen in years. He takes his attachments very seriously. He takes his friendships and relationships seriously. Archer doesn't like to kill bugs, he would rather set them free. He likes to give hugs. He likes pink and he also likes princesses. He has no concept that certain things are for boys and certain things are for girls, and I intend to keep it that way for as long as possible. He believes in magic and he lives in a world where superheroes are real. If we pass a red and black car, he generally assumes that it is Bumblebee and he is on an important mission.

Archer is not typical as far as boys his age go. However, to assume he has less personality than his brother is a gross underestimation. And, I say again, it really says more about you than it does about him. If you are reading this, and you know the Archer that I described, you should feel an incredible amount of pride. If that little oyster let you into his life, than you must be pretty special too. If not, you should take the time to talk to him. Your life will be better because of it. Mine is.

A Journey.

I know that I talk a lot about running, but that is because I love running. Running saved my life. Running picked me up out of a crippling depression that had been going on for years. Running lost me 60 pounds, which is great on its own but it also did wonders for the self-loathing I had been feeling for years. But most of all, running made me believe in God again.

I have been on a spiritual roller coaster for most of my life. I was raised Catholic, and my Catholic family didn't exactly make the religion appealing. My upbringing made me very leery of religion. It made me loathe spirituality and question God. It raised questions that have lasted until the present. I don't really have a lot of good things to say about Catholicism, but I won't go any further with it because I don't want to offend anyone. Suffice to say, I am not Catholic anymore and being Catholic wasn't a positive thing for me.

I have, at times, decided to try to find my way to God but I never have managed to. I dabbled in churches and never lasted long. But for the past year and a half, I have been growing closer to God without a church. It has been made abundantly clear to me that he exists and most of that has come to me through running.

It happens in various ways. Sometimes, I run outside and bear witness to beautiful things that point to God. Sometimes, I run and my thoughts wander and then become clear in a way that I can't really describe. Sometimes, it hurts so bad that I can't wait for it to be over but when I am done I feel like I conquered the world. Other times, I spend and entire run feeling grateful for my feet pounding the pavement and the breath in my lungs. All of it has inspired a level of gratitude within me that leads me to a level of faith that I have never experienced before.

For the first 25 years of my life, I had no desire to run. When I was young and hadn't baked and birthed babies, I didn't really need exercise to be in shape. After I became a mom, and when I started struggling with my weight, I tried all different sorts of exercise and nothing ever really stuck. I couldn't get into it. Then, suddenly, when I was at my heaviest and when I was at my most miserable I decided to buckle down and I started to run.

What followed can only be credited to God. I pushed through when I hated it, and I am not known for my perseverance. I started to lose weight, I started to love running. Here I sit nearly two years later, and running is the only thing in my life that I am 100% certain of. If I gain weight, I will still run. I look forward to it every day. I feel things and know things when I run that I don't feel or know at any other point during the day.

In my mind, it is like this perfect circle. When I needed running, God brought me to it.  I don't think that I just needed it physically, I think that God knew that running would bring me to him as well. God brought me running and running brings me to God every day.

I am writing this with a smile on my face and hope in my heart. I am enjoying the path that I am on and I am enjoying the journey that I am taking. I can say, with certainty, that I did not like my life nearly as much when God and running were not part of it.