Raising a Teen...AGAIN!!!

I think raising a teen is way up there as far as challenges are concerned with going through a divorce, I know that much because I've raised two teens, a girl and a boy and I've also been through a divorce.

But what happens when I'm done raising my teens, come full circle through the divorce, gotten stronger and better than ever, gotten happily remarried and all of a sudden I find out I'm about to help finish raising a teen only this time it's not my own. I haven't had a chance to love him unconditionally I didn't raise and hardly know him so he comes to me with somebody else's life hangups and challenges, mom couldn't handle him so I said yes because I want my life partner to have a chance at the same thing I have, the satisfaction that I was always there for my children and they turned out to be two wonderful human beings.

I'm not going to lie and say that it's something I do from the heart because at times it has been very challenging and I've had feelings of resentment because it has come to take away the peaceful private and enjoyable atmosphere that my husband and I had created in our environment.

At first I allowed for the situation to settle down and adjust because I could imagine how difficult it must be for him to come from this little beach town where he grew up where he was in a very negative relationship with his mother. She never saw anything good in him, hyperactive child medicated by a very neurotic and hypochondriac mother, never put any effort into school, all he ever wanted to do was play soccer.

Mom leaves him behind and takes along the good son, the one who likes to study and learn, who is self contained, who caters to her by giving her hugs and kisses and moves very far away. So this kid who had a terrible relationship with his mother is never able to heal and close a circle.

Aren't we supposed to help those who need something we have in us to give? Wasn't I there one day when my ex-husband wanted to have a relationship with his father because he too was raised by a very dysfunctional and negative mother? Didn't his father's new wife make him kick us out of their house just because she was jealous of the re-birth of father and son relationship?

All of that is well and good, I want to be the cause of something good coming out of all this effort we have tried to put into my husband giving birth to the relationship he always wanted to have with his son, but there is also me and my desires, my rules, my needs, my privacy, my relationship with my husband.

So instead of running away and not being a part of this coming of age event in the life of a teenager in partnership with his father, I decided to make the rules very clear.

I will give up the things I've gotten accustomed to that bring me joy and peace, the time to help, the space, the patience, the guidance, but in exchange for that I will need to see passion and interest in learning and making the best choices. I will want to see appreciation for all the opportunities that life is giving him at a time when he didn't know which way to go to become a productive human being.

Now the ball is on his court, he arrived here an arrogant know it all cocky 19 year old who behaves like a 13 yr. old if I'm being generous. The first thing he did was asked dad to buy him video games and collection cards, he begrudged the cell phone we gave him with  unlimited everything. His father signed him up for the gym where I didn't sign myself up because of finances and we had strong disagreements because if I am going to have to clean up someone else's dirty work as far as raising a child is concerned it will have to be my way, otherwise this will never work.

I believe you always have to do the right thing for everyone concerned and that includes me. The other day I told my stepson. If I am stern and strong with you is because I care, the day I stop caring you will never hear from me again. So you have a choice, you either do it in this house with our rules or elsewhere with yours.

I don't care how many times I have attended these meetings with parents with problem children and how much I believe I'd be doing it a different way if that were my child, if when it happens to me I make the same mistakes I see everyone making, trying to be your kid's friend, trying to have him approve of you and like you. I rather he doesn't like me and becomes the best version possible of himself, than like me and become a loser.

There is no doubt that "Raising a Teen" is not easy, but if the Universe sent him to me at this stage in my life it must be for a reason, so I'm going to give it my best shot and see what goes...

It's starting to rain outside again, just like "Raising a Teen"...

Hugs xoxo
@nit@

The Real Secret to a Perfect Relationship...

It's "Containment"!!! There I said it. So what do I mean you say? I compare it to a fine perfume inside a beautiful bottle, you don't want a bottle which cap opens wide because it lets out all the scent and if you leave it like that it loses a lot of it, not to mention that the scent is too strong, unlike when you just spritz it lightly on your body to enhance and please your senses.

Life presents challenges every single day, and the more we develop as a species the greater the challenges. Just on a regular day he/she comes home and is tired, either sat at an office surrounded by co-workers of all types and personalities, or his/her work is physical or mental, might be all day on the streets fighting traffic or helping people, encountering tons of challenges and all he/she wants to do is go home to his/her refuge and be with you. Maybe he/she wants to share his/her day maybe not. So he/she gets home and you've been dealing with your own day to day challenges, sometimes less sometimes more, but it's life and stuff happens all the time.

No matter what our lives are like or what we go through in a day, its just that, a day, and you can only deal with what you are equipped to deal with and sometimes we are either not well equipped or have too much on our plate so we open that cap wide and let out the 'Monster' that lives inside of us and we need someone who loves us unconditionally to help contain that 'Monster Within'. Not to judge, criticize, analyze, fix, or even label it, but simply to help us contain it until we recover our balance and our harmony once again.

I don't believe there is any "Free Will", yes we choose who we marry but can we choose what he/she will do on any certain day? we can decide to have kids, but can we choose what they make of themselves? we can choose our careers, jobs and our friends, but that's about where the "Free Will" begins and ends because outside of our choices there are all these circumstances that are totally out of our control that can make our choices either succeed or fail, so for me what works is having someone to LOVE unconditionally who wants to be loved and LOVES me in return the same way, so much so, that is willing to help me contain my 'Monster Within'.

Make sure the partner you chose to share this life adventure with is helping you contain that monster instead of being the one who opens the cap and lets it escape, look inside and see if you're not the one who awakens theirs, be more selfless and help them become a better version of themselves, be brave, caring and do something about it. It is worth every effort you make.

Are you containing each other with LOVE!?

Hugs xoxo
@nit@

What Happiness Isn't...

I think there are only two ways that you can look at life, as "Challenging and Painful" or as a "Happy Adventure" the situation could be the same for two individuals and one will perceive it as the first and the other as the second. So does that mean that our happiness depends on the perception we have of our lives rather than what happens in them?

We all have different values, wants, needs, realities, experiences, but should we start paying more attention to our perception rather than to what's outside? Is that what the spiritual leaders refer to as "Going inside oneself?"

I have lived it and seen it both ways, and every now and then I still experience anguish, fear and pain, but now I learned how to "Go inside myself" accept what is and change my perception.

But what if you don't seem to be getting the results you were expecting, or there are difficult and painful situations on the road to your dreams, you worked so hard at getting something only to see it fade or get taken away, you were about to reach the stars and failed, you are used to getting everything and then one day difficult challenges come your way, you wish you had made different choices, should you put Happiness on hold then until you get what you are looking for? and what if you get what you were hoping for and you're not happy then, or if you change your dreams to something else. Should the efforts you put into the things that in the end didn't work be considered a waste?

Happiness is always there even in very challenging situations because its not tied to an individual, a situation, an event, a possession, knowledge or preparation. It's not a thing we can mold or purchase, it's a decision we have to make by changing our perception.

I don't like the feeling of fear or pain anymore than anyone else, but I'm grateful to them because they allow me to exercise my perception.

What if we started today to take responsibility over our own reality and stop blaming everyone and everything else? What if we "Go inside ourselves and change our perception" give the other side of the coin a chance to shine now and then?

I believe our happiness is our responsibility! Are you taking it?

Much love xoxo
@nit@

Con Desearlo No Basta...

We make a very strong effort to improve the outer conditions of our existence

But the one who always deals with the experiences of the world is our Spirit

And it translates it either as welfare or as hardship

So if we transform the way we perceive things

We'll be changing the quality of our lives...

"We must become the change we want to see in the World"

M. Gandhi ~

Wishing is Not Enough...

Hugs xoxo

@nit@

Man's Harshest Foes...Mother Nature and Father Time

Humans are straddled with unsurmountable challenges, from the moment of conception until dust turns to dust. If anyone looks back at their lives and evaluates the challenges, hurdles and burdens they have had to overcome just to exist, many would question whether the effort justified the legacy.

It appears that every critical movement made in our lives, is a decision between good and bad, right and wrong, do or die. The outcome of those choices can only be properly assessed in hindsight, when the dust from the battle has settled and we can then count with clarity all the casualties left behind. It is the expectation of humanity that we constantly walk through the right door, even though the laws of aging and time are antithetical to experience and wisdom.
The traditional hope is for us to become wiser and consequently better as time and maturity set in. And yet in order to achieve homeostasis with our environment we are naturally doomed to make enormous errors in judgement from which we are to learn the lessons in life. It is almost like we are fighting ourselves and our birthright ignorance, in an attempt to fortify and toughen the positions we take when we confront our fellow man. As shown throughout time, it appears we have yet to master these skills, and we wind up yearning for more time or more endurance to reshape our legacy in later years. The paradox is overwhelming, forcing us onto the compliance treadmill that keeps us generally on the straight and narrow while stifling creativity, progress and internal growth. Sometimes or most of the time we swallow the bitter pill in order to shave off trials and tribulations associated with breaking out of chained traditions.

I have no observations that moves us closer to resolving the riddle.
I do however have some commentary about two forces that are usually discussed in gentle terms, friendly forces that ease the challenges of the exciting climb to the summit from where we can see where we came from, and guide us gently through the descent where we hope to settle at base camp to talk about all our achievements, in hopes of convincing them that our route was the right one. All of this if only we give in kindly to them, without resistance, passively and amicably. These forces are natural, human and part of the equation of life. I don't believe they are as friendly as they are portrayed. They are interwoven into life's fabric and they become an essential component of the blanket we use to shelter ourselves as the days get colder, in the wintery quarter of our presence on earth.

Mother nature and Father time. Amazing how their public relations agents even gave them both benevolent and revered status by assigning them paternal monikers. Making us feel like they are part of our family, trustworthy and intent on advancing us to a better place.

I think they are the ultimate Trojan horse embedding themselves in our bodies, minds and spirits, only to slowly spread like a malignancy that leads us to the ultimate holocaust, the destruction of humankind. Take mother nature always portrayed as a playful winged creature powdering life with sprinkles of fairy dust after which everything seems greener and smells fresher. She solidifies the illusion that as long as we care for her, we shall be cared for in kind. Father time is portrayed as a benevolent figure born with a diaper on January first and wisely walking off the year's calendar on December 31st. This is done as if to contain and cloak the ravages he dispenses in his relentless eternal tick tock attack on our lifetimes. Together they play the most deceiving slight of hands, intended to lull us into their lair, asking us to give up gracefully the youthful indiscretions that defined us and made us relevant. These two con artists steal our importance in society pushing us off the treadmill with the promise of an afterlife where neither appear to play any significant role. Just think of the deception. Mother nature delivers the infant, squeaky clean, powdery fresh innocent and free from responsibility, helpless and totally reliant upon others to achieve the next level. She sneakily provides us with all the necessary elements to breathe, drink, eat and thrive. She makes us feel invincible, with rubbery bones that never break, skin that always regenerates and enough energy to tackle every daunting task that we are faced with.

Then we grow holding hands with her, listening to her advice and admonitions, believing blindly in her altruism, convincing others to follow her, dancing behind her like rats behind the piper. It's not long before you realize this lady is no lady at all. Playful at first she seems so innocent and loving, until the first subtle yet definitive assaults. The tree that sheltered us from rain and suspended our childhood house, collapses in a pile of timber after it's struck by lighting, either of which can snuff you out if you cross them. The earths waters rise and fall as she warns "prance at your own peril". The gentle breezes become violent killers randomly plucking her children and churning them into netherworlds. The warm comforting crackles of the nourishing and warm fire, explode into wild orgies of destruction at the drop of a match. The solid earth we tread on giving us a gravity platform will spontaneously tremble so recklessly,it brings all her children to their knees begging for forgiveness for transgressions never committed. The nourishment provided by her kindness slowly offends and degenerates our organs rendering them inefficient, obsolete or both. The skin wrinkles, the muscles ache and the mind fades. The more we are encouraged to pursue our dreams, the more she seems to impede the efforts. It is almost as if she is lying traps in the labyrinth that has no exit, and the reward, when reached is staled by our absence of zeal and vigor.

We go so far and try so hard, only to realize that the prize, is half figment of our imagination and half truths. She is ultimately uncaring of our half fulfilled hopes that scream for a little bit more time. Which brings me to him, Father time. Always present from the inception and promised to be there at the end. Always on time, like clockwork marking it's passage by benign celebrations where we eat cake and blow out candles to signify another year of accomplishments and hopes for the future. He encourages you to look at times past making your past life a living and breathing being,always at your beck and call to assist you in the next endeavor. He is a distant friend in your early travails, and we seem to not see him or worry about him as the summers last forever and the things of youth are seemingly perennial. But don't mistake his fatherly complacency. He is much more evil than the kindly clock we believe him to be, ticking happily at the beat of each step we take. He is a con artist, a deceiver, a liar, corrupt and corrupting. How ironically he plays with our memories, taking us instantaneously to other places in the past where we feel the emotions are vividly in our reach. He gently glides you past those years that are so fulfilling and reminiscent of better circumstances,while covering the face on his watch as if to say, "don't think about me, you will always have me by your side".

Then one petrifying mirror morning you discover the rouse. We are face to face with a stranger, a distorted apparition that looks nothing like you remember, and bears the scars inflicted by her, Time's ally in the battle against you. And when you try to time travel, the memories are not quite the same, and mostly only serve as an anxious reminder of what was, and no longer is. As if this were not humbling enough, she robs you of the ability to reminisce by dementing the memory process and erasing any cogent thought that may help you figure out, how you wound up where your at, and how to cope with this strange unreal world. As we are conned into believing that she is all embracing and he is the keeper of happy times we are slowly yet systematically awakened by their evil plot, first by making you believe in their selflessness and then, once you do, kick out the underpinnings of the structure we call our life, sending it careening down into a dark eternal place where even her sunshine can't reach, and his hands no longer mark any passages.

At the near end All thats left from the solid rock you depended on, is sand slowly dripping into the bottom half of his iconic instrument. So there you are, wasted tired confused and weary. Battle scars are abundant and grotesque for all to see. The young ones coming up from behind never believing they too will be here one day, smirk at how irrelevant you are in their world . All you have left are morsels of love and companionship parceled out by the loved ones you touched in life.

And sadly toward the end, all that is consistent are the foes . Mother nature decaying the last few fibers of hope dragging us to the finish line regardless of stature or station in life. She does so independent of good or bad works, and uncaring of half fulfilled hopes that scream for a little bit more time. Simultaneously father time, is rapidly counting away the few remaining minutes, sadly flashing better days before your eyes. They both embrace each other congratulating themselves on a job well done. One more for the eternal record . We appear to be always concerned about the date the world will come to an end.

Sadly it ends every second of every minute of every hour of every day. The third enemy of the triad, "Death", ends the world for you.

Mark. Fall of 010

Dirty Dancing...

I don't know about all of you, but I go on stages. Sometimes I like certain foods and I can eat them every day for months and not get tired of them, same as reading, or walking, or listening to music, or watching movies, etc. etc. I focus on one thing from each category in my life, and I try to keep some sort of continuity. I think I do it more as an escape, an illusion of having some sense of control when my life seems too chaotic. Lately it's been movies.

At the end of my long day, once I finally rest my head on the pillow, I just like to transport myself into a fantasy world, so depending on the type of adventure I feel like experiencing, that's the type of movie I will play on my little portable DVD player. I've been going through A LOT!!!!! of big time challenges, that made me wonder how to better control my thinking, so as not to continue to attract what I seem to be attracting lately, and it was only after I watched Dirty Dancing last night, for the umpteenth time, that I decided to see the 'Special Features' and read the huge challenges they had to go through to make that movie. It reminded me that when we are going through rough waters, we just have to let go of the resistance, trust, believe, stay focused, and the the storm is sure to pass.

I paused the 'Special Features' to write down all the facts of the Making of the movie, so that you can see what I'm talking about. What is most important is to realize that challenges will continue to happen, it's how you handle yourself while going through them that matters. Some people just quit, some others begrudge going through the challenges, some fall apart, some thrive and are passionate enough to keep on going until they succeed. Which of these are you? I hope you enjoy these facts.

Hugs, xoxo @nit@

The Making of Dirty Dancing

• Movie Budget $5,000,000
• New York was too expensive for the shooting, so Kellerman's was filmed at the Mountain Lake Hotel in Giler County Virginia, but the cast and crew had to lodge there in order to make it viable.
• Record rainfall had the crew wearing hip boots.
• The clouds parted for 4 days, just long enough to shoot all exterior scenes.
• The scene where Johnny teacher Baby how to do the lifts in the warm summer lake, was done on an icy 30 degree lake.
• Throughout the production the set was plagued with bad luck.
• The rehearsal place was burglarized, heavy flooding blocked the roads, an art department station wagon destroyed the prop department van, and a set decorator fell off a ladder, injuring his face.
• The wardrobe assistant broke her toe, the second assistant director fractured her wrist, and three crew members were stricken with food poisoning.
• To add to the bad luck, the production crew was experiencing, it was soon discovered that much of the green foliage surrounding the resort was turning red, left with only one solution, they spray painted the leaves green.
• When the cast and crew moved on to Lake Lure, NC to film the staff quarter scenes, they faced overwhelming heat.
• During the filming of the final dance scene, many of the cast were overcome with heat exhaustion.
• Miraculously on October 27, 1986 production of Dirty Dancing wrapped with all involved surviving bringing the film under budget.
• Ten months later on August 26, 1987 it premiered.
• It was greeted with highly favorable reviews and a brisk opening weekend business.
• It went over to gross over $65 million in the US and propelled both Jennifer Gray and Patrick Swayze into stardom.
• As a result of the film's success, two chart topping soundtrack albums were released, a nationwide dance tour was launched, and the subsequent home video broke many records...