Pick Me

Finally, a somewhat quiet minute to write...

I really loved reading about your conversation with JJ and his positive attitude. I swear, there is definitely something intrinsic in some of us that makes us able to turn things around. What some of us would suffer from and end up in therapy discussing: I never got picked first, all my life I felt like no one wanted me. I spent years thinking pick me, pick me (remember that?), others hardly notice or bounce back from. It's how I explain families in which siblings are at different levels of functioning and adjustment despite growing up in the same house with the same alcoholic parent, you know?

Funny, but I was just saying to my friend and colleague J, in reaction to some stupid sh*t I saw go on in the hallway, "for a town that purports to be so uppity, there sure is a lot of white trash around here." From there we got into a conversation about how I was a blue collar girl, a have-not among haves I felt for a long time in my life. But I took advantage of opportunities, did the fake it till you make it thing. And there are kids here who clearly do not have the means of most that I want to shake and say, You want to go through life like PWT? Come on, now! Step up, rise above! You want to keep acting like trash or do you want to make something of yourself? It's frustrating. I don't know how they don't have it in them, but that's the point, I think some people just don't have it, whatever "it" is, in them. I think sometimes all the best parenting in the world can't make up for something inside. Just as a sh*tload of bad parenting can still turn out a good kid.

But anyway, now I am WAY off track. I am glad that JJ has that positive glass half full spirit in him. And that he has good parents...

Okay, I should probably pay a little more attention now to these kids I am paid to teach. After school I am meeting C at TGIFriday's. I want to hit a Home Goods to look for frames for the photos that came in, and that's in her neck of the woods (our school is in between her home area and mine). We're both on a budget, but she has been out sick all week and we need to catch up and she has a coupon, so we thought it was okay to go there. (But, by the way, we're still boycotting our favorite place--so even if we had more money we'd wouldn't go there.)

I'll check in tonight. Love, Barb