There are stories to be told...

There is an older man that lives somewhere in Brigham City (I am assuming).
He has walked the roads enough to wear them thin.
I just saw him walk past my house with a cane...swinging up and down...not using it to help him but more like a suave Dick Van Dyke with a prop sort of cane.
The significance of his walking past my house is that it is almost 10 am. I saw him on my morning walk this morning at 6:30 am.
I have seen him as early as 5:30am and into the late hours of the evening. I see him during the day...always the same walk with the cane swinging.
Seeing him makes me just ache to hear his story. I have imagined several in my mind. I have been sorely tempted to run out and just ask him...but somehow that just doesn't seem right.
I love peoples' stories. I think that is why I love the elderly. They have so much to tell. So much wisdom. They have seen and heard and experienced things that are so foreign to me in my life right now.

Everyone has a story. I sat in a meeting a week or so ago and judged the speaker. She is so so so perfect. Her hair, her family, her finances, her body, her calling, her everything. I keep telling myself "no one is perfect...she has her problems just like the rest of us" but it is so hard to imagine her in a messy home, or without perfect skin and hair. This got me thinking about peoples' stories. You just never know what people have gone through, are going through, or will go through. It makes me want to learn her story. Not to solidify my current opinion or to make me feel better that she is not perfect, but to understand what events and choices and experiences have led her to where she is now. What sorts of things does she struggle with...and how does she handle those things?
It just fascinates me to think of what we could all learn about life if we just knew peoples' stories.

I have this weird suspicion that if I could know Mr. Van Dyke's story...I would be a better person...just from knowing it.

Maybe, just maybe I can find out his someday.
I know that it would be better that anything I have imagined.

Myths about women

There are many myths about women...but I think the most destructive myths come from ourselves. I have followed a lot of myths throughout my life. I have clung to them, and believed them, and have based (essentially) who I am against them.

My mom told me the other day (a very wise woman) that somewhere and somehow in my life I have clung to the belief that if I do not do things PERFECTLY, I am not lovable. When you type it in and read it, this sounds ridiculous...but I have clung to, believed, and have based who I am on this myth....this falsehood.

When I was in young womens, my leader would be giving a lesson and she would say something to the affect of...."now you girls should really work on having more faith...except for Chersten because she is perfect". At that time, I really believed that I was pretty close. I did things right, I was an example, I had integrity and faith and all the rest. I felt that I had been lifted to another standard...a higher one than everyone else. We all like to feel like there is something special about us right...something that makes us different and stand out? This was mine. It was fine for a while...I had defining things throughout my school years that helped me to feed this myth. I had very outward talents, I was involved in school and church, and generally people liked me. I graduated...fell in love...and had a baby. Perfect right?

Marriage wasn't easy...we really struggled. This definitely didn't fit my perfectly mapped out life. I had a baby. It was not love at first sight. I actually didn't like him much. That little thing had caused me a lot of pain, tears and a broken tailbone. Nursing was horrible, I did not lose the weight that I planned, and I was depressed all of the time....enough to be medicated. I felt horrible guilt...like I had failed. I was a shame to all of those who once believed in me.

The years went by...now I couldn't have kids...(probably because I hadn't fallen in love with my son at first sight)...I gained weight, was still medicated, struggled with "loving to be a homemaker", and so on and on and on.

I wish now that I could say that I found the key. The key to destroying this myth. But the truth is that I fight a daily battle. I struggle each day to not let what is around me DEFINE who I am. I like to be clean and organized and crafty...but when I am not perfect in these areas I feel like I am not showing who I really am. If my house isn't perfectly clean (which it NEVER is or has been)...I struggle because I am not showing who I really am. If my children make mistakes...it is a reflection on me right? Maybe that is who I really am. I feel tired just writing this all down.

What a sad myth to have clung to for so long. If I am not the perfect mom, the perfect daughter, the perfect wife, housewife, friend, and counselor...I am not lovable. I have been demoted from that lovely stand my leader set me on.

When we believe in myths and what the world teaches us...we will fail. It is just like the scripture says about building on a firm foundation. If your foundation is built on myth...and not gospel truth...you will be washed away. So I guess right now I am trying to get back to the bare essentials that make up ME. Not the fluff that I feel defines me...but who I really am.
The core of my being.

This is where I will begin to build a new me.

I will learn about who I am based on truth...not myth.

and I will love who I am based on truth not myth.

The time machine

I have been in a time machine.

I have seen years rewind and features refined.

She had Alzheimers and I was "grandma watching".

They called just days after my son was born. Would my husband and I consider living at their home for a week while they went on a trip? We would watch after their kids, send them off to school, and simply maintain a bit of order while mom and dad were away. It didn't seem too bad. Quite easy actually...and to be honest the money they offered was the clincher. Oh and by the way we also have a "grandma". She has Alzheimers. She really is harmless. She kind of just wanders. You will have to explain who you are each day...but no big deal.

With a bit of hesitation and a little reluctantly ...we said yes

So we went. Jared was in school, so I spent my days alone with the baby and "grandma".
Because she couldn't remember from one day to the next, I heard all of her stories...a lot of times. She was a teacher and loved her students. She was a mom and loved her kids. Each time, I would ask her questions trying to get more meat to the stories I had all ready heard.

Being a new mom for me was overwhelming. Taelor and I were getting used to each other. I didn't know how to comfort him or sooth him. (They inadvertently forgot to give me that pamphlet when we left the hospital).

Now here is where the time machine comes in. Did you think I forgot?

One especially hard day, Taelor was really fussy and I was really frazzled. I was trying to make dinner for the kids while holding and bouncing and humming and doing whatever I could think to calm him down (again.,.a simple pamphlet would have been nice...a little bitter).

"Grandma" had been sitting on the couch watching me with that blank look...like she always did. Suddenly, she got up, came up to me and held out her hands.

I momentarily panicked.

She was not in her right mind, could she hold this precious baby without dropping him? What if she didn't give him back? What if she hurt him?

Reluctantly, I handed my son to her.

She was stiff and awkward.

I was nervous

This is where I entered the time machine. That's right. I just jumped in and typed in a year 60 years earlier.

A sudden moment in time came over her.
I could see it in her eyes.
Her whole body relaxed as she gently took my son and the years melted away. She was a mother. She held that baby and rocked him. She did the mom bounce (you know the one) taking her weight from one foot to the other to the other. Taelor calmed instantly falling blessedly asleep in her arms.

Humbly, I blinked away the tears...and stirred the spaghetti noodles.

Becoming Her

Yesterday, I became her. I have always imagined what becoming "her" would be like, and today I reached it. I was coming home from the elementary school having finished my motherly and community duties in the pta. As I drove in, the detective hair on my arm rose as I saw two boys across the street at the middle school being suspicious. Their heads were together and it looked like they were lighting something. (I concluded it was a smoke - very deductive Holmes) It was the middle school's lunch period and it was just beginning. The first thought in my mind was that I should call the middle school and tell them about the heathens. Then I thought of her. "Her" is the old woman in a rocking chair, knitting needles clicking, with the curtains slightly parted looking out and waiting. Waiting for something sinister to happen. When it does, she grabs the previously positioned phone and makes the call. Service rendered. So I didn't call. I was not going to become her. But suddenly I thought of the moms. Wouldn't I want to know what my kid had been doing during his nourishment period? Wouldn't I be overwhelmingly grateful for the person who was a tattletale? I could just feel the her in me itching to come out. At first it was a small nudge and then a lurch and then suddenly the 'phantom hand syndrome' overcame me and I grabbed for the phone.

Middle School Secretary: Hello?
Her: Hi, I live by the school and there are some boys on the North East side of the gym that I think are smoking. (so eloquently put)
Middle School Secretary: OK- Thank you. We'll send someone out. (That was it? No 'can I have your name and number and we will have the school officer come and question you and later give you a plaque with your name on it for service to the school?' Nope)

Service Rendered? Not quite. If I wasn't going to get a plaque, at least I had to see the fruits of my labors. I stood by the window, blinds parted and watched (knitting needles aside) By this time, several students were gathering. They kept closing around an object and then running away. (Very similar to what my husband does when lighting the fireworks display on the 4th) Well, right as the were lighting it, out of the school comes (I am assuming) the principal...running. My first thought was "oh heavenly penny, what have I done?" The principal (I'm assuming) was doing the slow motion Chariots of Fire run and the kids were doing some run to the theme song of COPS. Right before the principal (Eric Liddle if you will ) rounded the corner BOOM!! I actually saw flames. The hotshots were laughing and patting each other on the back until they saw the principal. Their faces dropped and they suddenly became model citizens just out on lunch break enjoying the fresh air and the newly mowed lawn. Now, back to her. Her actually jumped for joy and squealed. Her relished the event that had been so beautifully orchestrated by her capable hands. The principal gathered said boys around and made them empty their pockets. He questioned others. The kids dispersed and went inside. Her, pleasantly satisfied, went shuffling back to the rocking chair, grabbed the knitting needles, positioned the telephone, parted the curtains and waited.

Discrestionary caution observed

I am feeling remotely free for this small space of time...a benefit to all who read this post because I am about to admit something that very few people know and even less want to find out about. I usually use discretion...not wanting to enhance the common opinion about me...but like I said I, for the moment am feeling free. Congrats.

I am fascinated at watching and observing how people handle things that come up in life. How they handle grief or change or hardships or blessings. I love to watch the resiliency in some and feel sad for those who don't handle things well. Oddly and even more fascinating to me is how I handle the above. I am not so great with change, hate grief, could give up hardships and I lackadaisically handle blessings.

The most poignant memory for me (and here come the beans spilling all over the floor) was a bed full of laundry. I remember, being fairly newly married, walking into our mobile home bedroom and seeing our bed with hundreds of thousands of clothes laying, heaping, and needing to be folded and put away. I remember the hate boiling up. Is this what my life had come to...a meaningless heap of laundry? I considered walking away. I pondered ignoring. I hoped for help and despised the reality.

But then came the resiliency. I squared my shoulders, straightened my shirt, replaced a fallen strand of hair, and became a talk show host. Yep. The third grade imagination came at me with full force. It was Chersten's Sharing Show...an eclectic mixture of ideas and expertise to help with the hum drum of daily life. I began the hour expressing my disdain for laundry and how I had found a way to fold and organize my clothing in a way that was not only satisfying to me but to the very clothes I had once had bad feelings for. I showed how to fold the fitted sheets, and the shirts, and how to properly hang those dress pants for optimum non wrinklage. The show was well received...I was an icon in the folding industry and best of all the hundreds of thousands of clothing items were all put away nicely, organized, and with love.

The sad thing, is that this has translated over to many aspects of my life. I also have a cooking show, an organization show, a cleaning and scrubbing hour, and many more I choose not to divulge.

We all handle things that come up in life very differently.......

mine just happens to be a little schizophrenic in nature.