First Mother’s Day without Mom

Lord, it was hard to actually see that typed out.

Mother’s Day… without Mom.

Mom’s been gone nearly a year, and I still can’t wrap my head around that fact. I mean, I live in her house and she’s not here. I can’t call her when I need advice, or to shoot the breeze with when I get bored.

But to say I didn’t see this coming would be wrong.

I think I realized something was wrong when I went to Austin in September of 2011. I told her I’d be out of town for a few days, and she thought that meant that I wasn’t going to finish school. “No, Mom, I’m going to a concert in Austin and I’ll be back by Thursday (because I had a night class that semester I couldn’t miss).”

She asked if I was still going to finish school, and I said of course. That I was only going to be gone three days.

She still didn’t get it. But then she hoped I had a good time.

Now, she will be gone a year in July, and it seems unreal to me. Still.

Mother’s Day is going to be strange, like last year, but Mom was still here last year. All we had to do was go over to Midwest City to the skilled nursing facility she was in and see her.

Now if I want to see her, I have to go to the cemetery in California where she’s buried with my dad.

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I’m Stef and this is where it’s @ !~

An open letter from Oklahoma regarding the Boston Marathon

Reblogged from proactiveoutside:

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Dear Boston,

It's hard to find the right words. But we feel your pain, shock and sadness. Deep within us.

In a little less than two weeks, people from all over Oklahoma City and the state of Oklahoma are going to gather to run the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon. It's a great race, the state's biggest. And while competition and achievement are high on the list for those of us going, there is a higher purpose for the event: To highlight the Oklahoma City National Memorial.

Read more… 717 more words

Having lived in the Boston area, I feel like my city was attacked. Just like New York; Just like Oklahoma City. When will the insanity end? Terrorists are cowards. We have always gotten back up when we’re knocked down, & we’ll do it again. Why? Because we’re Americans, that’s why! God bless Boston. We stand with you!

thoughts (or, an open letter to someone i’ll never know on a real level)

It’s not about what money will buy. I’d be just as happy having coffee from 7-11 as I would be having coffee from Starbucks. It’s about being together, enjoying each others’ company. It’s not about who has it easier in life, it’s about making do with what you have; It’s not about who has the better education, it’s about using what education you do have to do good in the world; It’s not about age. That’s just a number that represents how long you’ve been alive. It’s about attitude. I’ve known old people who act young ( NOT immature. There’s a difference), and young people who act old. It’s not even about you anymore, but the effect being in someone’s life has on them.

You have the power to use the things that God gave you to do the most good. That’s why He put you where you are now. Because that’s where you will do the most good. Later, He may influence your path to go in another direction, again so you can do the most good. Do you even realize the effect just being you has on others? That’s the measure of a man, whether you realize it or not.

You’ve had that effect on me. Maybe we weren’t meant to be friends, but just to cross each other’s paths in life. And, conversely, perhaps were are meant to be friends, but not now. Perhaps it’s not the right time for that.

And perhaps, I’ll never see you again.

Whatever happens, I wish you success and happiness in life. May our paths cross again someday.

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I’m Stef and this is where it’s @ !~

3.13.13: a new Pope

Wikipedia didn’t waste any time on getting a page together for Pope Francis I, elected today in just the second day of the papal conclave.

You can read the continuing updating of the page of the new Pope here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Francis

He is the first non-European, the first Jesuit, and the first one to use the name Francis, which more than likely came from St. Francis of Assisi. He is a champion of the poor, and while serving in his home country of Argentina, lived in a small apartment and took public transportation!

Hopefully, he can pull the Catholic Church together and get it out of the scandal it has found itself embroiled in for the last several years.

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I’m Stef and this is where it’s @ !~

Always something there to remind me…

Once upon a time, oh say about 30 years ago, I was this naive, idealistic teenage girl.

My boyfriend and I wanted to get married, so we did.

If I’d known what heartache that would have caused me, maybe (in retrospect of course) I might have thought better of it. But, what was done was done.

On my wedding day, my mother told me that I would grow up and my groom would not. And you know, I wish I had listened, or at least believed her. But, being 19 and in love, that fell on deaf ears.

Until the day some 16 years later when my husband asked me why I didn’t feel the same way about him 16 years into a now failing marriage than I did when I met him at 15 years old.

“Because I’m not 15 anymore!” I said.

And I realized at that moment that my marriage was over, and that my mother’s prediction came true. I grew up, and he did not.

He blamed all of our woes on me and my wanting to have a good life for the four sons we brought into this world. I wanted all the bills to get paid on time and have food on the table and a roof over our heads. All he wanted to do with what money we got was buy stupid crap like Disney movies and expand his ever growing collection of TV Guides.

He couldn’t hold down a job because he thought he knew it all; he lost a job because he creeped out some girl he worked with. For far too long, I was the sole breadwinner, and when he did find a job, he tried to have it be mine, too.

Then he met some chick on the internet and declared our marriage over (something I knew long before this). He asked me for a divorce, and I said, “You pay for it.”

After being separated for 7 years, I finally got my divorce. After 22 years and nine months to the day we married, I was finally free!

And I swear to God that if he calls me today to remind me what this day is, I will hang up on him.

I have a life now. One that does not include him.

Praise God!

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I’m Stef and this is where it’s @ !~

Springing forward

Okay, so we lost our annual hour to Daylight Savings Time. That might explain why I’m so bleepin’ tired, but ptobably not.

I’m looking at it like this: it’s related to my post “Just Keep Movin’”.

Spring forward.

Move forward.

Because backwards is not an option.

You can’t live in the past, because what’s done is done. You couldn’t change it even if you wanted to, despite what science fiction tells us.  You can’t unring the bell.

I was thinking about that today as I was deleting old emails. I read over a few, and I cringed upon reading some I’d sent to someone I admired. It was clear that their association with me was over just by the way they signed their emails.

So why didn’t I pick up on that the first time I read them? Maybe I just didn’t want to believe it? In denial? It could have been interpreted a million different ways. But the intent was clear had I only taken it at face value.

Oh well.

What’s done is done and I can’t dwell on it. I have to keep moving forward and not dwell on the past. Moving forward is where the future is, like it or not.

Whether or not this person I admired is part of the journey or not. It’s their loss.

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I’m Stef and this is where it’s @ !~

Just keep movin’

It’s all I can do.

Nothing gets accomplished by sitting on your ass. And I’m not planning on sitting on my ass.

I’m getting out there, getting the lay of the land, then coming up with a battle plan.

I have to do it because my very survival depends on it.

(photo © 2012 by Stephanie Pera. Taken on Interstate 40 somewhere in New Mexico. Enhanced with PicSay for Android)

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I’m Stef, and this is where it’s @ !~