Sweet Catastrophe

I was talking to Larry (he’s one of the big guys down in Lumber) this weekend and he was asking me about school and how it was going this semester and we got to talking about what I’m planning on doing after school.

Good question! I really think that all depends on Ryan. I don’t think he’s settled on exactly where he wants to be, and I know I honestly don’t care. I’d prefer not to be in a really large city, but I know I could adapt.

Apparently, some people these days have a problem with my ideal lifestyle. Can I just remind everyone, that even though the ‘housewife’ was once a standard women fought to get away from, that doesn’t mean there can’t be people who genuinely choose that life. I’m not uneducated. I’m not blinded by society, I just know what I want.

For instance, I’m a General Studies major. Does that give you the idea that I came to college for a specific degree? I wanted my degree, period. I’m getting exactly what I want out of my education, based on the emphases I’ve chosen and I couldn’t be happier with that.

If I have to work, I’ll be able to. If I’m all set to live on some NC waterfront property while Ryan is off on a 6 week tour, I can do that too.

Seriously though, with what I want to do in life, I can do that anywhere. As far as family, I just don’t do many visits as is, I’m sure that wouldn’t change much. At most, I’d have to travel further, stay longer, and have more enriched visits with my family. I’m okay with that.

We can live in North Carolina, Louisiana, Florida, Utah, Colorado, or even Texas for all I care. As long as there’s a me, and a Ryan, and we’re living well, I can be happy.

It’s not something most of us care to think about, but at some point in our lives, most of us will eventually experience the effects of Alzheimer’s. Though more than 5 million Americans have Alzheimer’s, relatively few understand just how severe the disease can be.

Progression of the disease strongly varies from case to case, but can develop to a point where the individual cannot perform such simple tasks as brushing his or her own teeth, or using the restroom alone.

At this point, my grandfather has never been officially diagnosed, but for quite some time now he’s shown symptoms characteristic of not only stage 2, but as severe as stage 6. There’s a lot I haven’t witnessed on my own, but I’ve had conversations with my grandmother about the more serious aspects. He goes to bed quite early these days, and it’s not uncommon for him to accuse her of being unfaithful to him, simply because she’s not going to bed immediately when he does. He’ll lie awake, and even though he can hear her in the living room on the phone, or doing dishes, etc, once she goes to lie down he becomes very hateful and lets wild accusations fly.

While there’s no cure for Alzheimer’s, but there are drug-related, and non-drug-related treatments that can help with cognitive and behavioral symptoms, to make living with Alzheimer’s easier. Best of all, we’ve learned most of what we know about Alzheimer’s in just the last 15 years, so there’s still an ongoing effort, worldwide, to to find even better ways to treat it, delay it, or even prevent it altogether. That’s where we come in!

The Alzheimer’s Association Memory Walk is the nation’s largest event to raise awareness and funds for Alzheimer care, support and research, raising over $225 million since 1989.

These walks are held annually,in hundreds of communities across the nation, at various times throughout the year. There are 21 scheduled walks within the state of Georgia alone. I’m happy to say the one for Valdosta is scheduled for October, so there’s still plenty of time for me to work out all the details for that. Sign up, and sign up early!

The best help you can offer is awareness, and these walks bring much needed awareness, and much needed funding to the cause as well.

I had my feelings hurt yesterday and it’s really bugging me. At work, these people don’t know me. There are maybe two people there who have an idea of what I am outside of work. So to them, all they see is a really sweet southern girl. Apparently that automatically means I’m also simple-minded, because I happen to be easily amused and enjoy laughing… Really though? Ouch. Truth is, I avoid intelligent conversations at work because every time I’ve attempted one, I run into that all-too familiar situation of talking to a brick wall. The same things are said over and over with no progress in the conversation. How stimulating…and no, I’m not saying everyone I work with is dumb or anything like that; if that were the case I’d be doing the same thing they’ve done to me. It just so happens that all the people I work closely with are just really different from me. So thanks to those of you who think I’m simple-minded and felt the need to joke about it yesterday. Wanna compare SAT scores? I swear every time I start climbing up to be happy with my life, something smacks me down. Now I’ll be paranoid and self-conscious at work, and I really don’t like that.

And really, maybe it was just a joke, but it’s not the first reference in Lowe’s to me being a dumb little southern girl, so it just struck a chord this time. I have a very fragile self-image. I don’t know what kind of insults hurt worse–those founded in truth, or those you know are completely wrong. Either way I appreciate the blow to the ego.

So I just finished studying, and I had a full chapter on just gender discrimination. It was quite obvious that there was a lot of feminist input on this chapter. There was a sentence that really struck me and I just had to throw my opinion out there. “More often than not, women have supporting roles as wives, assistants, and secretaries.”

Now, I joke all the time with people that I’m going to college to get my Mrs. Degree. We have a laugh, but then when I tell them that I seriously want to be a housewife, you can see the gears turning. Also, my major is General Studies. Know how people graduate High School and lead perfectly happy lives without going to college to be a Dr, Lawyer, or some other overly specified career-person? Yeah, that’s what I want, only, I want my degree. I want my education. I want my college experience, so here I am, getting it. Expensive little desire? You bet, but this is what I wanted. Of all the things in the world I could be, I’d love to be a secretary. Honestly, that’s what I hope to be able to do. So here I am, majoring in General Studies with an emphasis in English and Adult Career Education (basically typing, office systems, etc.) striving to get my general education, but that doesn’t cut it for some people, and they can’t seem to get it.

Okay, a bit of a tangent there, but it all ties into my general point, I promise. As far as what I’m doing with my education, people think I’m short changing myself. Someone like me who’s had excellent schooling thus far and performed as well as I have should live up to some great potential, right? Well hey, that’s not what I want for myself, so shove off. Same goes for me falling into a stereotypical gender role and being a housewife and doing all the housework and errands and all that fun stuff. Just because it’s a stereotype doesn’t mean it has to be bad. If you don’t want to fall into that category then fine, I didn’t ask you to! That’s what I want for me though; that’s what would make me happy. Fact is, as much as I loathe cleaning and such right now, it’s really only because all those things have to be done in what could otherwise be my free time away from work and school. Give me a Sunday through Saturday off with no work, no school, no big commitments, and by Wednesday I’ll be on a cleaning and cooking spree. I’ll start baking in between loads of laundry and starting organization projects in the closets and even cleaning out computer files. It’s what I like to do!

So really, my dream future would find me living comfortably as a housewife doing temp secretary jobs whenever I wanted for extra money for vacations or gifts or whatever other extras came to mind. Now tell me, what’s so wrong with that? Will it hurt you for me to live my dream, just because I’m ‘allowing’ myself to fall into some stereotype?

And for those who’d care to ignore the truth in my words and focus on being negative and telling me how unlikely my dream is, I’ll have you know it’s quite attainable and I’m well on my way in the right direction, so again I say shove off, and have a nice day =)