I Don't Matter... and That's Okay

Since I'm having one of those days on which nearly everyone is taking all their anger and frustrations out on me, I thought I'd post something about a reoccurring theme in my life lately. The theme? "I don't matter... and that's okay." Now, before you get riled up or call me weak and spineless (yes, some of you have called me that on Twitter; don't worry, you've been forgiven), let me explain something... I don't care that I "don't matter." This is why...

I was raised as if I were an only child. The "spoiled child" stereotype was and wasn't true in my case. My parents taught me to work for everything I wanted. If I didn't do the work, I didn't get it. I wanted a Barbie? Okay, I needed to get good grades. I got my first job when I was very young (about 12-13), tutoring a little boy in math and English. I was 15 years-old when I got my first "real" job doing work-study during a summer at my former high school (the only year I was in public HS).

The spoiled part came when I was in college. My parents didn't want me working while I was in college. It was understandable; I was not used to it. Despite my anxiety, I worked in retail out of high school. I graduated a year and a half ahead of time (that itself was a lot of work; I completed part of my junior year and entire senior year in one single semester) so I had time before I started college. I was not used to working and going to school at the same time and my parents didn't want me to relapse. I ended up relapsing anyone (that's a whole 'nother story) and it took me a long time to finish college because of it. Still, I didn't do more than the odd freelance writing job during college. Scholarships brought in extra spending money but I taught myself to be frugal (which I am to this day). Still, I became a little selfish in college and it's something I've been working to get rid of since graduation.

This past weekend, one of my closest friends came to visit. It's been the first big thing for me since I became ill last summer. I had been so sick that I sort of fell back into my selfishness. Taking care of myself. Only looking out for myself (and my mom). If I didn't want to do something, I didn't do it. "Me, me, me, me, me." What a stereotypical Millennial, eh? I feel bad about this but then I remember that did need to focus on getting myself and my health back on track. Though I am still recovering (and I still have a bit of weight to gain to get back to where I was pre-illness; doctor's orders), I am at a much better place. For the first time since my illness began, I had to really put myself and my needs aside and focus on someone else. Sure, I had done just that (with my mom) before but never to the extent I've had to this weekend.

Before my friend came, I had been taking care of my mom. Though I felt faint at time, I still fought through it and cooked for us. Anything that she couldn't do, I did. Though I was weak and achy, I had to prepare for my friend's arrival. Though I was super anxious, I ran errands and drove mom to and from work. (side note: if you're very anxious, I don't recommend you actually drive; don't try this at home.) When my friend arrived, I was still very anxious yet I still suppressed it as much as I could and made sure she had the best time she could while visiting. Why? Because I didn't matter.

I'm not saying that I don't think I matter as a human being. It was just that my wants didn't matter. I hope it doesn't make me sound egotistical, but I think I bring something unique to this world. God's given me gifts (which I am still trying to figure out how to use) and one of them seems to be the ability to push aside whatever I am going through and focus on someone else who needs care and/or attention for whatever reasons. While, sure, being anxious, lightheaded and I was feeling like my stomach was going to send me to the ER, I knew that I was going to be fine. I've learned to distinguish when I should be really worried and when I just have to sit and relax (and do whatever is necessary) while whatever I'm feeling passes. Having my friend over was the first real big test and I'm happy to say that I think I did well.

I feel like God is preparing me for whatever the next step in my life is; whether it be career related or something else like maybe a wife and mother. Actually, the thoughts "okay, if I can do this (which is just a fraction of what moms can do -- they're superwomen), then my being able to do this is helping me realize that I can be a mama someday." That's right, I don't matter... and that's okay. It was a pretty fantastic feeling despite everything else that I was feeling.

So that's my whole thing. It was a little longer than I anticipated but I just really wanted to get it all out. And I'm sure that having The Avengers playing in the background gave me the extra push. ;)

Anyway, it's my day off so I'm going to try to enjoy it and not let the angry people ruin it. :)

I hope y'all had a great weekend and have a great week. :D

As always, thanks for reading and God bless. :D

Family Tree and Baptismal Anniversaries

While working on the family tree this past Sunday morning, I discovered to awesome things: my mother's and my baptismal anniversaries. Furthermore, I discovered them on my baptismal anniversary. :D

See, I've been working on my family tree for months. I like history so looking at one's own family tree has always fascinated me. I'm currently stuck in the early-mid 1800s as many records were burned during the Cristero war (the town where my paternal grandparents and family lived at the time saw a lot of action, apparently) but I hope to find something to get me unstuck. Also, I'm pretty sure I'll soon find something that confirms whether there's some Irish ancestry on my paternal grandmother's side of the family (as is believed). The Spanish line, I'm happy to report, runs deep. ;)

As for my mother's side of the family, it's a little harder to find. My mom was adopted when she was days old and her adoptive father (yes, she was raised by a sole parent) didn't get many things in the process. Mom's been on her own since she was young so we didn't know much about that side of the family. Thankfully, I was able to find church records from the town she was raised in and found something she hadn't known her entire life -- whether she was baptized as an infant or not.

I skimmed through all the records of the year she was born until I found her birth date. I stopped skimming and went through them slowly until I found her. Her name, the name of my maternal grandmother (who had a different surname than we thought), the name of her godparents, and the name of the priest who had baptized her. It turns out that she had been baptized at a day one, which she never knew. Mom was baptized, did her first communion, and was confirmed when I was 3 years old... but it sounds like it was a conditional baptism since they didn't know whether she had been baptized or not. Anyway, needless to say, mom was so excited that she hugged me and was on cloud nine the rest of the day.

I was curious to see my own baptismal records (which my mom happily produced) and saw that my own anniversary was this past Sunday. That's right, I celebrated 28 years (yes, I'm that old :-P) of being Catholic on September 1st. With my mom's birthday and baptismal day being this month as well, you can bet we've found new reasons to celebrate. ;)

Anyway, I thought this was neat so I wanted to share. Okay, I really wanted to write and couldn't come up with anything else so I chose this to write about lol. Never let it be said that I don't try. ;)

I will have something to write for tomorrow's What I Learned Wednesday post... and hope to have it published early enough.

Now to have a late lunch and try to stay cool despite a leaky A/C and heat in the triple digits.

Hope y'all are having a great week thus far. :D

As always, thanks for reading and God bless!

What I Learned Wednesday #18: Oops!, Ahh! and Eesh! Edition

These are actually from last week but since I didn't post anything last week (and haven't for a week due to busy schedule and illness), I am using them for this week's post.

1. You know how I love futbol (soccer) to the point where it's the only sport that I watch (well, aside from the occasional rugby match)? Well, when we cancelled cable in March I had to say goodbye to my beloved Fox Soccer (which is now defunct anyway) and other sports channels that aired live matches. I looked into paying to watch them online but they were either super expensive for only a handful of matches or I had to search for links from shady websites. I wondered (although I already had a feeling I knew the answer) about whether it would actually be considered a sin to watch live matches on dubious links. I asked Fr. John Flynn over at XT3 and the answer was a definite: YES! Sorry, fellow Catholics who offered to send me shady website links. Fr. Flynn quotes the CCC for y'all which states that "2408 The seventh commandment forbids theft, that is, usurping another's property against reasonable will of the owner." Any football (yes, that's what I call "soccer") fan knows that the FA, MLS, and other franchises give certain networks rights to air the matches (for a fee, of course) and that those networks retain the rights to air the matches. So by watching matches on feeds without permission of the networks is, in fact, a form of steal. You might've not been the one who hijacked the live feed but you're still watching it without permission. You're an accessory to the crime. I haven't watched any matches on shady links in ages but I have in the past so I need to add that to my list of things I need to confess this coming weekend when I head to the confessional. Oops!

2. Something I didn't know (hello, poorly Catechized and no good formal education on Catholicism) that most English-language Bibles aren't complete. Yes, I knew that Protestant/Christian Bibles left out many books that the Catholic Church still has but I didn't know that not all Catholic Bibles were complete. Yes, you read that right: things are missing! In my Catholic snobbery (yes, I'm a bit of a snob regarding certain things; sorry, I'm woman enough to own up to it), I've preferred the Douay-Rheims version but one that I don't actually own a copy (aside from the copy in my iPieta app). My spiritual director gave me the heads up that the versions of the Bible (while Catholic) were incomplete and pointed out the fact that, if I looked it up (and I did), I would see that only 9 of the 12 fruits of the Holy Spirit are listed in Galatians 5:22-23. I compared it to the Douay-Rheims version and, yes, it's true. The DR has all 12 listed while the other Bible I primarily used had only 9. Guess it's time to save up and get myself a more complete version. Side note: The Ignatius Study Bible was also recommended but much more expensive. Ahh!

3. As some of you may know, I made the official announcement regarding my MA decision on Twitter.

Okay, I'm making this Twitter official: I've chosen a Master of Arts in Theology. Thanks to @aquinonez for listening to me for weeks. lol.
— Emmy Cecilia (@nerdwriter) August 26, 2013

I did decide on getting my Master of Arts in Theology (I even finished most of my application to my top choice) but I've been getting hit with horrible indecision and anxiety since then. The anxiety is bad... to the point where I'm suffering both physically and mentally. I'm not sure if it's a spiritual attack or if it's just a sign that this is not the path I should take so please say a little prayer for me while I try to figure that out. All I know is that my heart says Theology and my head says Speech-Language Pathology... and my anxiety says "forget it, lady!" Eesh!

Anyway, it's super hot and muggy today and the laptop is burning my thighs so I need to shut this baby (laptop) down and go jump in the water to cool down a bit.

I hope y'all have had a great week thus far and continue to have a good (or have a better) week. :D

As always, thanks for reading and God bless!

Discernment Mambo: Indecision

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I am currently discerning both my career and vocation once again. When I think I have it all figured out, something happens and I end up rethinking my decisions. It's a vicious, never ending cycle (thinking, rethinking, doubting decisions, more thinking) that happens every time I make a big decision. It's who I am but thankfully I am not doing it on my own this time around.

I have been thinking about the career part more than the vocation part because the applications for grad school will go up in a few weeks and I want to apply early. It's a huge decision for me -- whether I will get my Master of Arts in Theology or a Master of Science in Speech-Language Pathology -- and I am not going to leave any question unanswered. It's not easy, as no big decisions are. Some days I think that doing something like Youth Ministry or working for a parish would be best for me but, in all honesty, most days I think that being a Speech Therapist would be best for me. I have to take into consideration what will both utilize the gifts God gave me as well as what would fulfill His will for me.

I think that I might be dismissing an MA in Theology because of how much I hated my experience as a Religious Studies undergrad. I don't have to tell most of you; a good number of you have been reading this blog for a long time and/or at least know that I attended a "CINO" (Catholic in Name Only) college in which they taught liberation theology, ragged on then Pope (Emeritus) Benedict XVI, and made my life miserable for being the "tradition" (read: orthodox) student who made them uncomfortable with my unwillingness to be swayed to their side of thinking... and for speaking up (when I got the chance) on my beliefs. It sort of ruined it for me. I know all schools aren't like that but it was hard for me. I used to cry when I was at home because of how I was treated and because of the atrocities I heard during lectures. I even cried during lectures. That bad.

At the same time, I am not the same girl I was when I decided to get my BA in Religious Studies. I wanted to get it because I didn't know much about my faith and I wanted to share everything I learned with others, especially the young (though older people were the ones with whom I usually had these conversations with). I've seen that I don't need to be in a parish or a Catholic school (though I wouldn't be opposed to it) to always do God's will and/or evangelize.

I've been thinking of what I can do with an SLP M.Sc. My mom's doctor told me (when I mentioned it to her) that she thought it was an excellent decision for me and that I could use it to "continue (my) ministry." I wasn't sure how she meant that so I started thinking about it. Maybe, if I work hard and get the opportunity, I can afford to offer free SLP services to those who can't afford it but need it, especially the poor that go to parishes to ask for help. Maybe I can use my degree to help priest, religious brothers, and religious sisters who have had strokes with their speech therapies. I wouldn't charge them for it; it would be my way of giving back and thanking them for all they've done for us and for God. There are possibilities for me to be able to give back if I choose that career path.

The thing is that I am not sure what God wants me to do... and that's what my spiritual director is trying to help me figure out. Since novenas and prayers were helping but not getting me too far, he suggested to try the Ignatian discernment process. It's been slow but I am getting somewhere. I've been praying both the Little Office and the Liturgy of the Hours to help give me peace and de-stress and it has also been helping. Still, it will be an interesting and difficult couple of weeks (and months, since I still have my vocation -- married vs single life -- to discern again) so if y'all can spare a prayer for me at some point, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Anyway, this has been on my mind lately (and especially today) so I thought I'd write it all out and share. :)

And now, I should go try to get through the library books that are due this week. :)

I hope y'all had a great weekend and have a wonderful week. :)

As always, thanks for reading and God bless. :D

What I Learned Wednesday #17: Love Thy Neighbor Edition

I promise that Anne Shirley breaking a slate over Gilbert Blythe's head is relevant to this post.

I don't know about y'all but I have really nosy neighbors. They want to know (and usually do find out) everyone's business. Most of the time they also exaggerate and/or create gossip out of thin air. As someone who likes her privacy, I get really annoyed with it and with questions about where I'm going or what I'm doing (or who's that guy?!). That annoyance has landed me in the confessional a couple of times so I thought to myself this week "why not look at what it says about 'loving thy neighbor' and write a post about that?" So, here we are... and here we go.

1. In Matthew 22:39 it clearly states that: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself"... which isn't easy when said neighbor is doing something that's just plain mean. Example: A neighbor of ours told me that my mother had spoken ill of me. This neighbor isn't exactly known for being truthful 100% of the time and I knew that my mother hadn't said anything of the like but I still brought it up to my mom. Not in a confrontational manner but in a "hey, mom, Mrs. *insert surname* said that you had something this about me." Mom was, unsurprisingly, upset that someone she thought she could trust had said such a falsehood. It was just mean. Who would lie to potentially create friction in the household of "dear friends"? Well, who am I to judge the kind of person who would do that? Sure, I don't like it but it gives me no right to turn around and judge them and their actions. Do I want to go to confession for having uncharitable thoughts or seeking revenge on this neighbor? Not really. A smile, a cordial greeting, and straight to my house or car is all they're getting from me these days.

2. I've had to remind myself that, while anger is a natural human emotion, one must not dwell or act upon it. Not that I've acted upon it but I used to beat myself for getting angry at what my neighbors would say about me and/or my mother. Once, there was a rumour going around that my mother was involved with a former building manager... when it reality the guy was actually trying to court me. Yes, I used to the words "court me." We knew who started the rumour. It was the same person who, on a trip to the ER because I had an allergic reaction to food, said that I was "dying" and "throwing up" and a whole bunch of other things that were not true. I was livid. This woman who had said that I had been more ill than I was was also besmirching my mother's name and reputation for no good reason. During times like this I have to remind myself: "Be angry, and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your anger" (Ephesians 4:26) as well as "Revenge not yourselves, my dearly beloved; but give place unto wrath, for it is written: Revenge is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord." (Romans 12:19) So, even though I am uber ticked off at times when neighbors try to make up rumours about myself and my mom, I'm learning to say "Okay, my anger is justified but I have to let it go and focus elsewhere."

3. The biggest thing I learned this week was that I really didn't know where everything I wanted to add to this blog was in the Bible. I knew that it spoke about loving our neighbors, turning the other cheek, not acting in revenge, and about gossip itself but I am so out of touch with reading the Bible that I had to look them up (also looked in my Catechism). In fact, there was so much material that I couldn't fit it all in this blog post. However, it also dawned on me that I may not be the only one. So, a challenge: look it all up in the Bible. If you have a problem with a nosy neighbor or one who likes to slander folks, look up what the Bible says and then pray for them. There are a number of reasons why these neighbors may be acting the way they do but it all boils down to them hurting themselves. Their words and actions hurt them more than they hurt those who are the objects of their gossip and rumours. Just think of what it means for their own soul. Pray for them and pray for patience for yourself if it really bugs you. My go-to prayers when I am trying to keep uncharitable words from coming out of my mouth is to say "Good gracious, give me patience" and "My God, have mercy on their souls."

Oh, I'll slip and gripe ("Ugh, why don't they mind their own business?! My business doesn't concern them") but that's what lands me in the confessional so I'm trying to get better at it. I'm nowhere near perfect but I have to remind myself that when (as my British friends like to say) I'm being a "stroppy cow", I have to be kinder than I feel. Not always easy but not impossible either. :)

I should also note that you can say something to the neighbors about their actions but I'm the "avoid conflict and arguments at all costs" kind of gal so that's why I wrote this post as someone who would rather turn a cheek and be silent. Trust me, in my situation it would be best to keep my mouth shut.

Anyway, that's it for this week's edition of What I Learned Wednesday. It's something that's been occurring more often so I thought I'd write out my thoughts/feelings.

And now I have a date with a cold glass of water (hello, summer heat wave) and a snack before I have some girl time with a good friend. :)

As always, thanks for reading and God bless. :D