But I recently moved to surf city. And I’m pretty sure I’ve only been to the beach twice. I thought it would be something I’d do more often. Life happens though, and the boys seem to prefer the pool, so I don’t push the issue.

Today, I went to Dana Point with a bunch of folks from my spiritual center. The water was clean, the waves were nice and someone handed me a boogie board.

And I rode wave after wave…until I was completely spent. And it was awesome! I swallowed salt water, had a few wipe outs, scraped my knee, got sand in my suit and kept going back for more. I didn’t stop until my body couldn’t take anymore.

Yeah, I’ll feel it in the morning. But I realized a few things.
1. I’m happier when I’m more active
2. I LOVE the beach, and…
3. I really enjoy boogie boarding

Honestly, today was so wonderful, I can’t even express the level of awesomeness I experienced.

Now I must go crash, for I am happy and exhausted.

“Honey, sometimes shit is hard.”

Yep. Just like that.

Because it is.

And when he’s crying because his knee hurts, and I’m telling him he needs to make it up the hill so we can catch our bus–when I really want to bike all the way home–what else can I say other than, that sometimes shit is hard?

I also tell him that these challenges don’t have to be so hard. That it’s all in your perception. You can push through the pain to get where you need to go. Just a little bit further. You can do it. I’m proud of you for being so tough. These challenges prepare you to handle for life and the bigger challenges that will inevitably greet you one day.

And sometimes I feel bad because we only have so much time for stalling before I start to get really conscious of the time ticking away and the possibility of missing my bus seems to loom.

“We don’t have time for this,” I snap. “I have a bus to catch and we need to get where we’re going.”

And he’s all, “But my helmet and my knee and ouch my toe…”

And sometimes I lose my patience.

Because, so the fuck what it’s hard. You know what? It really ain’t that hard. I’ve been through harder. Your knee hurts, well so does mine. Almost always. You’re tired from playing all day? Well I was working all day and had to ride the 8 miles from work to the Boys & Girls club because the bus bike rack was full. It was a brutal ride and we have 4 more to go.

I don’t want to hear about your pain, I have my own I’m trying to work through.

But I’m the parent, so its selfish for me to talk about my pain, when he’s talking about his. I’m supposed to keep that to myself and let him believe that the rides are only challenging for him. I’m supermom and can handle it all.

But that load gets heavy and on some level I want him to understand that the shit isn’t easy for me either. I enjoy commuting by bike most of the time, yes. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t also challenging. It doesn’t mean there aren’t days that I wish I had a car, so I wouldn’t have to worry about missing the bus and always being prepared to get on my bike and push myself the distance to get to him on time; before the Boys & Girl’s club closes.

So I tell him, straight up, that it’s not easy. Life isn’t easy. We gotta do, what we gotta do. And sometimes, to get things done, you just gotta grit your teeth, and keep it pushing.

Heh.

I’m of two minds on this myself neither of which include the parents questioning the government or the airline.

1) What resourceful kids! The girl decided she wanted to go to use her money to fly. She’d never done it before. She wanted to try something new. Enlisted her brother and a friend to go with her. Kids travel unaccompanied all the time (hell, my oldest son does it at least twice a year). They weren’t hurt, just a little spooked when they flew into the wrong airport.

2) As a parent who believes in giving my kids a long leash, I’m bothered by the fact that these kids didn’t bother to alert their parents. Is it because they knew they’d be told no? Is it because they didn’t think about it? Either way, they need to understand the responsibility of freedom. Meaning: if you want more freedom, you become responsible for making sure your parents are aware of where you are and coming in the house on time.

I know there will be lots of people blaming the airline employees for not asking questions and not stopping the kids from traveling without parental permission. But it’s not the airline’s fault. It’s not the regulator’s fault. This comes down to kids pushing the boundaries…perhaps a little too far for their parents’ liking.

Without knowing more about the kids or the families, I’ll say that passing the responsibility off to the airline to “ask questions” teaches the kids that they can do what they want, and there will be no consequences. And there should definitely be consequences. The worst thing these parents could do is sue the airline for some perceived negligence. Instead, the parents should talk to their kids about why what they did was wrong, the responsibility of freedom and lay down some ground rules for the next time the kids get the itch to travel. They were all old enough, the only problem is that they didn’t ask permission.

What do you think?

Yeah…

You think you’re freaking out, what about me? My neck hurts and my nerves are shot for the night.

I’ve talked about how I sometimes having my bike means I might miss the bus. There’s space for two bikes. If there are two on the rack already, I can wait for the next, or ride and hope to keep up until another biker gets off.

Today, I decided to ride. Not only did I keep up, I got ahead.

In fact I was riding so aggressively, I missed a turn, cut across on the sidewalk going the wrong way down a one way road, tried to beat a light and ended up riding into oncoming traffic.

That’s right: I rode into oncoming traffic.

I was already out there by the time I realized my mistake. All I could do is scream and swerve and hope the drivers saw me in front of their bumpers.

And thank fuck they did.

But I was totally in the wrong and learned my lesson about trying to beat lights on my bike.

Oh…did I mention that I wasn’t wearing a helmet?

Yeah.

I almost died.

Don’t tell me I’m being dramatic, you weren’t there!

Ok…I’m going to lay down now.

Worth it to be closer to family. I’ve seen my sister more since moving than I did in the entire time I lived in Orange. It’s awesome to know that my hometown is just a bike ride away and that I can throw that bike into my friend’s car should we decide to go out on the town.

Worth it to be part of a community. I walk down the street and people smile and say hello. My neighbors gather at the pool on Sundays so we won’t all be strangers living near each other.

Worth it to be near the ocean. I love the breeze, the atmosphere, the people biking everywhere, the friendly laidbackness of beach communities. I’m going to learn to surf and hopefully hit the beach a few times a month.

Worth it to live two blocks from a park/community center. As is my style, I can send the boys outside and tell them not to come in until dusk. No, you can’t sit here and watch TV all day. Take your ass to the park and play. Make friends. Meet other kids. Do what kids are supposed to do.

Worth it to make new friends. To live near people so excited to meet you that they offer to take your kids off your hands for a few hours a day because they’re doing a softball training camp. Nope, they don’t want money. They just like us and offered the activity for the summer.

Worth it for the Boy to attend a good school. The reviews of the school he’s attend were raving! The kids we’ve met who go there love it. There’s a farm and creative freedom for the teachers.

There will always be challenges, but they don’t seem so bad when you have a great place to call home.

And now I’ve begun doing the same thing. Actually, it wasn’t until Summer and I had two kids on vacation, that child care and commuting by bus became a real issue. As I started pricing the child care, I almost had a heart attack. All day child care for two children is expensive. And getting them there is a challenge, to say the least. Especially since we all have to get there by bike.

The first day was a bitch. We were up at 5:30 AM and out of the door by 6:00 (you have no idea what I had to go through to get the boys to get dressed, even in their sleep deprived stupor. I told them to sleep earlier. They’ll learn.). We all mounted our bikes and set out for the Boys & Girls Club, which had the best rates for summer day camp. Four miles, up hill, down hill, busy streets, early in the morning.

For someone who had spent that latter part of the school year commuting by bike, the youngest seemed to have the hardest time. He cried about his nose hurting, complained about being hot and generally had a hard time with the whole thing. The oldest spent half the ride yelling at the youngest to stop crying. At one point we went down a hill and I let myself fly down until I reached the bottom. Along the way, the boys lost sight of me. When they caught up the oldest was crying and glared at me angrily. “He got scared because he couldn’t see you,” the youngest said rolling his eyes.

Despite the challenges, we made it to our destination and I got to work on time. It took an hour to make a 30 minute ride, but I’m pretty sure we’ll get faster as the boys get more used to the route. The ride home was much easier and faster and when we made it, we all vegged out in front of the television.

I saw a sign that the average bicyclist loses 13 lbs their first year commuting by bike. Those are results I can get behind. That and showing my kids that you don’t need a car to get around town. The more used to it I get, the less inconvenient it seems. We were even able to grocery shop–I’m talking real shopping–and get everything home on our bikes.

Truthfully, there have been plenty of times I wish I had a car. But I’m also learning to make due and so are my kids. Much like when my mom would drag my sister and I out on the bus to get to the sitter, I have to drag my kids out on the rode at ungodly hours to get them to the sitter as well. The main difference is that we’re all getting a work out on our way to our destinations.

As my mom always said, “I gotta do what I gotta do.”

Truer words are rarely ever spoken.

Grad school would cost a hefty $100k (not including living expenses, child care, transportation, books…etc.) and I had no desire to dig myself deeper into debt. Unfortunately, I had ignored certain debts too long and was soon confronted with them in most unpleasant ways: car repossession and the threat of wage garnishment if I didn’t start paying my student loan.

I was embarrassed; both creditors had found me at work. The student loan people called my direct extension, but it was a coworker who alerted me that my car was being towed; I had to bring all the crap from my car to my desk. Talk about a wake-up call. If you know anything about Southern California, you know it is not a good place to be without a car. But now I see having a car as luxury, one I cannot currently afford.

So I bought a bike and a bus pass. I’ve also not missed a payment on my student loan since that fateful call.

The next step was to look at what other expenses I could scale back. I had this apartment that I was happy for at the time–escaping from recent outbreaks of violence in my long-time subsidized housing–but now it was starting to look over-priced. I was starting to see graffiti at the edges of the neighborhood and neither the boy nor I cared for the school he was attending. I felt isolated from my friends and family, most of whom lived 30 minutes to an hour away. I was struggling to make ends meet and really starting to feel the pressure.

I had two choices: Get a roommate or find a smaller apartment.

I waffled back and forth (very briefly) before deciding to take the plunge into finding new digs. Sure, I could save more money by getting a roommate, but I’d also be giving up my privacy and inviting a stranger to live with me and my child. I just wasn’t comfortable with that. If I moved, I could go to a city I liked and get closer to my family, while being able to maintain the privacy I valued so much.

So I made a list, a vision–if you will–of all the things I required of my new abode. I wanted a place walking or biking distance from the beach, with a private balcony or patio, a bedroom (not one of those Jr. 1 bedrooms that don’t have a separate sleeping space) and I wanted to save $200-300 a month. I gave my 30 day notice–effectively burning my ship–and started booking appointments and submitting applications. Again though, I was confronted with my poor financial history. While I had a good income and had never been evicted or filed bankruptcy, with so many things in collections, I looked like a risky proposition for a tenant and I was rejected several times.

Mentally, I began making compromises. Maybe I didn’t need a patio and maybe I didn’t need a bedroom. Maybe I should look at this piece of shit apartment over here because it’s been on the market for so long and they might be willing to negotiate. Maybe I can’t afford to live close to the beach. Maybe I’m not worthy of what I desire.

When I was declined just as my 30 days ran out, I started to doubt even more. Maybe I’d made a huge mistake. I should have waited to give my notice. What if no one is willing to give me a chance?

I felt weary but it was in this darkest moment I made up my mind that the doubt was a lie. I would have was I was looking for. It was out there for me, I just hadn’t found the one yet. It would come and it would be on time. I got an extension on my moving date and resumed my search with a strange feeling of calm.

I was more determined than ever, but somewhere along the way, I ditched my desperation flag.

You know the one flapping around going, “Hey I’m in need! I need and I need. Please help me because I NEED.”

Would you take a chance on someone so needy? Most people won’t. Not when it comes to their money.

It was really do-or-die time, but I had decided not to worry about whether or not things would work out. With every application I submitted, I let it go. I could not control the property owners, nor could I control the outcome of the applying. If it was meant to be mine, they would say yes and until someone said yes, I knew that the right place was waiting for me.

Then a rental agent I had been working with called me. He had submitted an application for a condo we saw a few weeks prior and I was approved. All I needed to do was go sign the lease, take in my deposit and move in when I was ready.

So, in two weeks [UPDATE: I moved in almost two weeks ago an I love it! More details on the new crib in a later post], I’ll be sitting on my lovely patio, at my new beach condo, saving money on rent every month and biking to the beach on Saturdays with my boys.

And I didn’t have to make any compromises.

True enough, my finances are a mess. It’s also true that I will prosper as my soul prospers. The lie is that I don’t deserve any of the things I’m seeking: financial, physical and spiritual health. The truth is that I deserve it all. We all do.

Originally published at the Live Your Truth blog.

Then there was Claudia Hall Christian The Fey. I started on a Friday night and was finished by Sunday. I’m not a particularly fast reader, the book was just that engaging (read my review). So when Claudia offered me the chance to read part 2 in The Fey series, Learning to Stand, I knew there was bound to be more action and ass kicking by the heroine Alex “The Fey”.

Learning to Stand did not disappoint. Intrigue, romance and action…this book has it all. Alex endures real trauma over and over again and somehow manages to remain simultaneously vulnerable and powerful. Just as you’re wondering what more Alex can go through, another bomb explodes. It’s enough to make your heart ache wishing people would stop trying to kill the beloved femme fatal.

What I love most about Alex is that even when she’s not sure, and she wants to give up all hope, she finds some way to soldier on. Of course, this is largely thanks to her great friends, but its that imperfection…Alex’s fragility that makes her a great heroine. She’s every woman. She’s a survivor. She’s afraid. She’s uncertain. She’s broken. And she keeps fighting for love, for country, for her life and the lives of others.

From beginning to end you will be engrossed in Learning to Stand. Take it from this non-fiction reader anxiously waiting to read the final Alex “the Fey” saga. Read it online, or get the hard copy, which I recommend because you’ll probably want to read at a faster pace than the chapters are posted online.

And if you like Alex the Fey, check out Claudia’s Dever Cereal!

Today has been dubbed by Lenore Skenazy of Free-Range Kids, Take Your Children to the Park and Leave them There day. I generally don’t go to the park near my house because it’s not really…near my house, but today I woke early determined to participate in this day somehow.

I suppose it might have been better if I had spoke to some other parents near me. Truth is that I work a lot and the Boy doesn’t know the other kids very well. So I decided we’d ride to the park and I’d leave him at the playground, while I rode the bike trails.

When I got to the park, I was a little nervous. Not because I was afraid the Boy would come to any peril in my absence but because there were adults hovering over kids like I had never noticed before. Just as I was thinking I’d make him ride trails with me, another kid his age showed up and I didn’t exist anymore. I gave him instructions for responding to questions for where his mother was (I told him to say he was fine and that his mom was in the park, instead he said “Today is take your kid to the park and leave them there day! ” :-/) and headed off to the bike trail.

The sun was bright, the morning air was refreshing and the creek the bike trail followed was absolutely beautiful. I could smell jasmine, and grass and hear the little bit of water make its way over and through the rocks. And I was slightly in awe of what I had lived relatively close to for almost a year, and never bothered to see (I had also been complaining that the park wasn’t walking distance…which it really isn’t from our house, so the bikes helped).

When I returned to the playground about 30 minutes later, the kids were engrossed in play. I asked the Boy if he wanted to ride the trails with me, he asked his new friend, I introduced myself to the friend’s mother (who asked about “eave your kid at the park day,” which I happily explained) then we all rode off on the nature reserve bike trail together.

It was so much fun! The other mom and I had lots in common, and the kids were getting on like old friends. There was a set of metal slides and we hug out there, while the kids went down the tallest one over and over.

Then it was time for us to go our separate ways. The other mom and I exchanged numbers because…well, our kids hat hit it off (and so had we kinda) and expressed some interest in hanging out again. The whole thing was all in keeping with why I was there in the first place: For the Boy and I to go out, be active and make new friends.

We’ll definitely be doing that more often.

I provided him with a note granting my permission to ride his bike to school, to which the school responded that it was against the district policy to allow kids in his grade to ride to school on a bike.

I was pissed* because they hadn’t even asked any questions (even though I specifically invited them to call me if they had any and included two numbers). I immediately left a message for the principal wasn’t really sure what to do. First thing I needed to do was find that policy. If it wasn’t on the books and publicly available, they really wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. I also emailed Free-Range kids, to get some other ideas from the free-range community before I had my next conversation with a school admin. There were a bunch of great suggestions, most of which echoed the do your homework, contact the board, do it anyway and find somewhere to lock the bike off campus. (Thanks Free-Range Kids!)

Then I started to think about whether or not it was really worth the fight. Was it something we really needed or was it just me fighting the system (I have a tendency to want to make my own rules). I decided this was something the boy and I needed for a few reasons:

1. I don’t have a car
2. I use a combination of bike/bus as transportation
3. I would be riding with him
4. The after-school getting home from the after school program takes longer by bus, than by bike

You see, beyond my objections as a free-range parent, I had some good reasons to fight this policy. So I sent an email to the school board and the superintendent explaining my situation and asking that they be willing to consider my case. I kept digging around for the policy and couldn’t find it. I also sent him to school with the bike the following day. If there was no policy, they couldn’t really say no. Before I left work, I put in a call to the school board office. Bureaucrats have a tendency to drag their feet, so I wanted to speak to someone as quickly as possible (don’t worry, I wasn’t all panicked on the phone, I just wanted to talk to a human).

As I was making my commute to work I received a call from the principal. She was sorry but this was the district policy and it was her job to enforce it. I tried to explain my situation: but I ride with him and I don’t have a car, this is how we will get home together when I’m picking him up. And I would need her to show me the policy. She had quick responses: even if I rode with him, he couldn’t lock his bike on campus and ride home by himself and even if he didn’t ride home by himself, the bike could not be locked on school property. It is the policy. If I wanted to fight it, I could go to the school board (I don’t think she really expected me to do it).

I found myself feeling sorry for her, thinking that she was just an enforcer. The principal had no real power (or so it seems) to examine individual circumstances (I think mine were compelling) and make rare exceptions on a case-by-case basis. That evening the boy handed me the policy documentation, but somehow I knew this would work in my favor.

So today, I sent him with his bike anyway. And this afternoon, I got the call that the school board agreed to my request, granted the boy obeys the rules and I ride with him in the morning.

VICTORY!

I thanked the principal for working with me and told her to have a great weekend. When I picked the boy up, he did a little victory dance. I was relieved to have successfully bended the rules and not just because I had an abstract philosophical objection. It might not work for everyone, but for me, I feel like this saved my life.

* I have to admit that I’m not in favor of quite a few school policies. I think kids have way too much homework, uniforms take away their freedom of expression (yes I let my kids pick their own clothes), NCLB is not working, teachers have no creative freedom and the public school system is meant to socialize kids into being worker bee drones. I do a lot of reprogramming and deprogramming.