My company recently offered a peer mentorship program designed to help us to clarify our individual purpose(s), incite conversations with peers, and to create actions that will help us become more engaged and feel more support in the workplace. During the course of a year we are paired with four peer level executives from a different branches or divisions of the company, each for a three month period, where we meet bi-monthly for about an hour and talk and do different exercises that are set by the program, but directed by our responses.
I concluded by second meeting today. My peer mentor is also a senior VP, who works in Toronto and leads the IT team worldwide – a vastly different position than mine. I am more of a lone wolf in terms of my daily work. While much of my efforts support different teams within the company, I more often than not work on my own direction and do not have a support staff. I’ve been working in my business for the better part of twenty five years and with this company for over ten of those. I’m trusted, respected, and valued.
Following each mentorship meeting, we are given a directive to focus on or accomplish before our next meeting. It might be an action or a change of process or implementation of a new idea. Regardless of the mode, I’m finding them challenging in the best way. They lead me to think more deeply about my day to day work and the impact it has on both my team and the company as a whole. They cause me to look more critically at routines I’ve fallen into over the years. It’s easy to just get the job done to maintain status quo but I’m realizing that it’s crucial to strive for more.
All in a day’s work!
I’m generally happy in my position, and blessed to be working for a company I respect, with people I genuinely regard and enjoy. I hope to remain here for as long as they’ll have me. They’re supportive and understanding of my family needs (to the degree that I was able to work from Cole’s hospital room for a month and half with their full backing). I love their policies regarding community outreach, diversity and inclusion, and environmental issues. I am motivated by the opportunities, like this peer mentoring program, we’re given to help us all to rise up and be our best selves both at work, and outside of work.
I’d like to grow to a point where I can test out my managerial skills. I like the idea of delegating and sharing ideas with a team and I’ve come to realize that it’s a direction I want to move myself toward. Learning more about what it’s like to have a team and to manage, engage and inspire a team excites me. I’m not exactly sure what that looks like for me specifically but the mentorship conversations I’ve had thus far lead me to want to delve more into how I can create that opportunity. It’s helping me to recognize things in myself that I ignore or that lay dormant.
Not bad for two sessions! I’m really looking forward to seeing where the year of this takes me. I have three other mentors to connect and learn from as well several more sessions with my current peer mentor, from whom I’m already greatly inspired by.
I recently watched the limited Netflix series “Maid”. While I thoroughly enjoyed the incredibly well told, well acted series and recognize the importance of stories like this being told, getting a broad audience, and inciting discussion, it also brought up a part of my own story that I generally keep tucked away because it’s wrought with hurt, shame and disappointment in my younger self. I saw my younger self in the main character, Alex, in so many ways.
For much of my life I’ve struggled with self-esteem issues. Like many of us, my worst behaviors stem from my self doubt and insecurities. As a pre-teen and teen I had voices telling me I was fat, ugly, stupid and weird. Part of me believed this and part of me wavered. I mistakenly took the attention of boys as validation that I was lovable but boys who kissed you weren’t all looking for love or for girlfriends, so the attention that initially rose me up, plummeted me back to those voices telling me I wasn’t good enough.
My first boyfriend broke up with me because I cut my long hair short (!) as I delved more into the punk rock scene, leaving me uncertain of what I had ever meant to him. My next boyfriend, who made me feel loved and seen, cheated on me during a school ski trip we were on together, breaking my young heart and leaving me feeling utterly undesirable. And so on. None of it’s earth-shattering or truly devastating but it played against my fragile self-esteem and we were not openly discussing self-esteem or mental health in the early eighties. We weren’t seeing therapists or telling our parents or friends how we felt about ourselves.
My outer self had good friends, lots of interests and did pretty well in school. My inner self had self-doubt, insecurities and self-loathing, but no one really knew that part of me. That part of me made bad decisions, hoping for validation. I am certain I was not that different from most teenagers, and we grew up, became more accepting and understanding of ourselves and moved into adulthood relatively unscathed. I had a few other significant relationships that were happy and healthy and ended without impact, leaving the friendship in tact.
Until in my late 20’s when I met him. He made me feel like I was the most amazing woman he’d ever met. I felt loved, wanted, needed and safe. We quickly fell into an intense relationship, moving into together (him into my house) and melding our lives together. He had a young child from a previous relationship, who spent time with us. It felt overwhelming but (at first) in a good way.
This is me in the thick of it – what you don’t see is him next to me (I cut him out) or the hopelessness I felt most of the time.
And then it didn’t. As I became more comfortable with the relationship and all that came with it, the more the praise, appreciation and kindness were pulled away, making way for him to take control of me, of my money (I worked a steady, salaried job and he was a day worker who started to prefer not to work unless it was a job that would take him out of town for a few days), my movement (it got so that I rarely saw my friends, only socializing with him or with his chosen friends with him), and my self-esteem (instead of compliments, he started emphasizing my flaws and insecurities). He threatened to leave me as he drained my bank account to support his social life, child and more . We shared my car so he’d drop me off and pick me up from work, often leaving me waiting for him to return (pre-cell phones) and without a car during weekends. He assured me no one else would ever want me, so I should be happy that he did. He blamed me for his inability find work or hold jobs. When he did work “away” jobs, he cheated on me. When I felt my lowest, he’d give me crumbs to keep me holding on to him. I was trapped both by him and by my own destruct from the way he broke my confidence, value and soul.
I was no longer financially independent, and started carrying debt to support us. We lived in my house, so I didn’t feel like I could leave and I didn’t feel like I could get him to willingly leave. I didn’t have access to my car most of the time, often leaving me feeling stranded. I didn’t see my friends or family much and felt too ashamed to talk to about what was happening to me. He worked every insecurity I ever had and broke me. I put on a good face. I showed up to work every day, smiled like a good girl and played nicely.
Sadly, no one seemed to notice. No one recognized the signs. The people most likely to notice didn’t see me enough or I avoided the conversation. I was so devastated by where my life had landed and felt shame and guilt for having brought it on myself. I invited him! I welcomed him! Most of the people I was around those days were his friends, who could care less how I was treated or how I felt. I supported their drinking and late nights. I fed them and provided a place to crash when they had no where else to go. I took care of his son when he couldn’t be bothered. I never felt more alone than when I was his girlfriend.
I didn’t notice it happening until I was well into the throes of his abuse. The changes from doting boyfriend to abusive boyfriend are subtle at first. The truth is, I wouldn’t have called it abuse back then. He never physically hurt me. Towards the end, I sensed that was coming though. His anger eventually lead him to throw things past my cowering body, or punch walls behind my head. I knew it would happen and somewhere in my mind I had drawn the line at that. I finally mustered the strength to break up with him. I left his stuff outside when was on a job and changed the locks. It worked for a bit. Like most people who suffer abuse of any sort, I returned to scene of the crime.
He wooed me briefly with pleas for forgiveness and showers of love and devotion. We dated again for a short time, but the abusive tendencies returned (as I should have known) pretty quickly and I had the strength to end it for good. I’m proud to say that I’ve never laid on eyes on him again.
It took a lot of time for me to find myself after that. I had no idea who I was anymore outside of that relationship. Dating sounded terrifying. I needed to get to a place where I could trust myself to make good choices. I threw myself into work and built a solid career that involved a lot of international travel, both of which help me build new confidence, acceptance and value to my life. I made new friends who had nothing to do with my life with him, who helped me to see myself as a worthy, bright, cared for and caring friend. I wrote a lot to sort through how I felt about what I’d been through and tried to understand how I let it happen. I worked to get my finances straightened out and to just enjoy my life again. To breathe again.
I am blessed that this experience was just a chapter in my book of life. It wasn’t a pattern. It was an eye-opening, devastating chapter that led me to make some needed changes, to work to better understand myself and to find acceptance of myself. I’ve made a lot of strides in doing so, but I recognize that I will always be a work in progress, and that’s okay. I still falter, am occasionally reactive out of insecurity, and sometimes suffer from self-doubt, but I see it now and I make effort to be gentler and kinder to myself and to others, and try to cop to my bad behavior.
I was blessed to meet my husband when I was a much healthier self in my early thirties. We’ve been together for almost 24 years (married for almost 22). He sees me for all that I am, the good, the bad and everything in between. We each carry our own baggage, and understand that we have to work together to keep our relationship thriving. It’s worth every effort even though it does shine light on things neither of us is proud of, but in some ways that’s what keeps us both in balance, as a couple, and as individuals.
Quarantine has brought out the worst in my conversational skills. Having considerably fewer opportunities for actual, in person conversation and too much time spent alone, in my head, talking to myself, I’ve lost touch with the art of conversation. I find my excitement to be talking to someone outside my tiny circle leaves me tongue-tied or over-anxious to speak, thus interruptive.
As life started to open up a bit more and I’m socializing with a somewhat broader group of friends, I notice the decline of my communicative finesse. I catch myself interrupting, or worse, getting caught up in my head, having internal chat with myself. It has become a frequent cause of upset with my husband, which doesn’t make the 24/7 we continue to spend together exactly blissful.
As much a I am content on my own, I have always treasured friend (and family) time. Sharing an evening with a dear friend, enjoying a long, lingering meal and endless conversation is one of my most favorite ways to recharge. I love nothing more than to get lost in a conversation that weaves to and fro with twists and turns that eventually lead back to the beginning. It confounds my husband that these conversations seem never-ending.
Back in the day of landlines, I’d spend hours on the phone with school friends, doing our homework “together”, dreaming of boys we wanted to kiss, places we wanted to go, which lipglosses were the best (Bonne Bell Dr. Pepper!), and back to boys (of course). Those silly, intimate, protracted conversations are in part what our friendships were built upon. They filled out the gaps in the day to day hanging out and chatting. They connected us in ways that still hold true today. To this day the girls I hung out with, some since age nine, the rest since middle school, remain among my dearest. We still see each other, still share cherished memories, and still have silly, intimate, protracted conversations over forty years later.
With shared conversations being something that I relish, the fact that I’m noticing the regression in my conversational dexterity after these seemingly endless months of semi-isolation leaves me feeling a bit anxious to be back in more social settings. Though I hope that the increase of practice will have a positive impact and bring me back to good graces before I’m lost inside my head for good!
It’s me…back after nearly two years. I’m getting back to writing!
I left off with Cole still literally hanging out, in traction, waiting for his spinal fusion surgery at CHLA. We ended up there for forty seven days. Yes, you read that correctly – 47 days! And then due to some complications from pain relievers that caused internal bleeding, we were back for another several days after being home for just a few. The surgery itself was hugely successful. Cole’s spine is straight and long, his organs no longer smushed up into one side of his body, and he gained almost seven inches in stature. The surgery also improved his head control so his access to his eye-gaze Tobii communication device is markedly better and he’s gained confidence from his face front, sitting tall presentation.
We found ourselves settling back at home and into our usual work/school/life routine for about six weeks before Covid19 struck. Dan and I both started working from home exclusively March 18, 2020 and Cole stopped school right after that. On one hand, we’d just spent a month and half together in a single hospital room so being quarantined to our house with a yard and neighborhood to wander felt fairly luxurious. We adapted our days to incorporate Cole’s on-line school needs as well as his entertainment and personal needs. Cole graduated from high school, completing the year on Zoom and having a drive-by ceremony. We created two offices spaces within the confines of our small home and settled into the new (covid) normal.
Oh, and we adopted two kitty brothers who arrived the night of March 17, 2020. They were about a year and half old and I had fallen madly in love with them on a foster site I found whilst we were in the hospital. I’d been keeping an eye on them since late December 2019, and happily they were still available to adopt in March! The foster would only allow them to be adopted together because they were completely devoted to one another (still are). The boys were part of a litter she called the “tea kitties” – each kitten in the litter was named after a tea. Our boys are Oolong and Earl Grey. We kept their names because they’d had them for a year and half already and it felt mean to rename them but had we done so they’d have been Nigel and Reg, respectively.
At this juncture late in September 2021, Cole’s been back to in-person school at a “CTC” – career transition campus – a post high school program sponsored by the LAUSD. The program provides some continued education, life skills, and for those who are able, work training programs in a variety of different fields such as data input, baking, retail, silk screening, car detailing, farming, and more. Cole spent his first year on zoom and is now happily back to riding the bus to and from school, with peers and pals, and enjoying the program. He’s back at iDance and just finishing up two sessions of his summer favorite, aquatic therapy. Dan and I are both still working from home, through in October I’ll start going in a couple of days a week as our offices slowly start to reopen.
It astonishes me how adaptable Cole has been through all of these challenges he’s faced these past couple of years. There have certainly been some low points because being stuck in hospital and then at home with just us would be hard on any kid, any teen, but he got through it all without serious issues. The one thing he implemented, as a measure of self-salvation I suspect, is that he no longer willingly will join us in the living room or dining room to eat or watch TV or hangout. His bedroom became, and continues to be, his sanctuary. He enjoyed going on walks, drives, and visits with us during the worst of the quarantine, and he swam with us and enjoyed having friends over when it started to feel safe to entertain outside in the backyard, but (if I’m honest) like many teenagers, he really didn’t want to hang with us anymore than necessary and for a guy who has little opportunity to exercise his independence, we respect his decision. It saddens me sometimes but I do recall wanting my alone time as a teen so I do understand.
A big impetus of starting to write again is that I find I live in my head and these past eighteen months have not helped that and in fact have made it worse. Writing has always been the best way for me to purge my overloaded brain from everything it’s striving to sort out and process and create. Writing helps to keep me nimble. So, I’m back. No one may be reading (yet) but the simple exercise of writing is enough for me. I actually have a couple of writing projects I’d like to attempt so resuming a daily or weekly practice of writing will be a useful practice in creating as well as the brain purge. I feel positive and excited about what lies ahead!
Twenty something years of being together and I’m realizing that my husband and I have some serious communication issues. Instead of developing a shorthand, instinctual and deeper sense of understanding one another, as couples are apt to do after being together for so long, we seem to be doing the opposite and it’s causing hurt, frustration and distance.
He thinks I treat him disrespectfully, with responses that are mostly piss and vinegar. I think he takes things too personally. My being frustrated when I get home from a long day at work, spend three of those hours in stop and go traffic each day, needing just a few minutes of down time to transition to being home and taking a breath, is not a sign that I’m not happy to see him or that I see him as the cause of my angst. I’m simply not always able to burst through the door, offering smiles and kisses the second I get out of the car. It’s absolutely nothing personal.
I’m not always kind. I know this of myself and I’m not proud of it. I work hard to try to be better but I think the unfortunate nature of marriage or relationships is that we have a tendency to take things out on the people closest to us. Part of that is simply proximity. Part of it is a sense of trust – people we love can see us at our worst and still love us. Part of that is a belief – however wrong it may be – that they know they’re not the root of the anger and frustration just the dumping ground. I’ve come to understand that these theories are not actually true. Particularly in the case of my relationship, the latter.
I’m not sure how one goes about changing patterns and habits that are well established from childhood. I suppose the fact that I can admit to or have awareness of my behaviors is the first step, though I struggle to get past that one step. I also feel like I can’t be the only one stepping. I can take responsibility for my words and my actions but I cannot influence how they are heard or taken. I can’t change someone’s expectation or anticipation of my presence.
The nature of our communication is stunted in some ways because we are almost never together without Cole present as well. it’s hard to have adult conversation, or even complete conversations about anything without him being there and often not pleased about us talking to one another or the feeling that a particular conversation may not be best had in front of him (like discussing our concerns about his upcoming surgery or my husband’s travels or a night out). It’s not natural and we rarely pick any of those conversations back up because we’re almost never alone, just the two of us in a room when we can have real conversations.
Anyone else have communication issues? Any thoughts on how to improve things?
I recently heard about a colleague’s attempt to do so by having a night a week where she and her husband turn off electronics and spend the evening playing a game and talking, be it cards, Yahtzee, or whatever. She says it’s done wonders in terms of them appreciating one another more…A fun idea that sounds worth the try!
Several months ago a dear friend asked me to be part of one of the segments of a podcast she created. It would be me, and another close friend, and her talking about the effect of having children with special needs on our lives. The three of us know each other well so despite my nervousness, I agreed to do it.
I arrived at the designated address and was directed to a studio where there were big microphones (the furry ones that get placed right up near your face) and some chairs. There were lots of audio crew people and producers and Amy, the host, our friend Dawn, and me. We sat and started chatting under Amy’s topic direction. The three of us each have a child with special needs. Amy’s daughter is Cole’s age and we’ve been close for twelve or thirteen years now. Cole and her daughter continue to be pals despite being at different high schools these past several years. Dawn is someone Amy and I met a few years ago at a support group. Her daughter is younger than our kiddos but she became a fast friend. So the set up felt comfortable and the conversation somewhat familiar though we delved deeper than we might over cocktails at a mom’s night out.
After a point, the other people and equipment sort of melted away and the conversation flowed easily. We recorded for an hour or more, shed a few tears, laughed a little and left our vulnerability on the floor. I left feeling pleased about doing something new, getting out of my comfort zone and not allowing my nerves to completely defeat me. Happy to have spent a little time sharing with two people I love and trust, and curious to know how it would all sound if and when it aired (is that what podcasts do? Air? Stream?).
Tomorrow, months since we recorded, our episode enters the world. It’s available on whatever platform you listen to podcasts on like Apple. The first five episodes of the podcast have all been released in the previous weeks and this is the final of this round. I hope there will be more seasons or whatever podcast runs are called because it’s a really interesting, thoughtful and thought provoking premise.
It’s called The Challengers with Amy Brenneman. It’s not a “I had a challenge and came through and everything is rosey” kind of look at challenges in life. It’s more about how life challenges have us (collectively) stepping more into humanity because of or inspite of the challenges. The guests she chose for the these first six are all fascinating and diverse. I highly recommend listening to all of them.
I was not an innocent young thing when I was in high school. I snuck out to go see bands play in Hollywood, went to parties as often as I could, and kissed a lot of boys. I had a group of close girlfriends, what would now be called my squad, who I spent most of my free time with, sometimes including some of our guy friends in the mix, or meeting up with them wherever we would land. We all experimented with drinking, some drug use and boys. Not all of us left high school virgins, but some did. We weren’t wild or reckless. We were actually considered “nice” girls. We were pretty typical teens in the early 1980’s.
I met my first boyfriend when I was 15, and was 16. I was in 10thgrade and he was in 11th. We dated and hung out for quite a while before he became my first. I had it in my head that I should wait until I was 16 to have sex. I don’t know where that notion came from but wait we did. Despite having a caring relationship, we broke up when I cut my long blonde hair short as I got more into punk rock. So much for young love!
Your first time is supposed to be the cherished memory you carry with you. The general sweetness of the nerves and fumbling and genuine belief that you are in love and this is the next, natural expression of that young love. At the time, it was all of that…plus in all honesty, it was fun.
I didn’t have a boyfriend for a while after that first relationship. I kissed a few boys at parties (kissing was probably one of my favorite activities – I know I’ve written about my love of kissing before) but I didn’t have my second boyfriend for quite a while. However, my opinion of sex was forever changed not long after the breakup.
One Friday, we all found ourselves at a post football game house party. A fairly usual occurrence. To this day I remember what I was wearing (A black mock turtle next sweater that was my mom’s when she was in high school, a wool pencil skirt, fishnets and black pointy toe pumps) and I can picture the front entrance of the house, double doors, with the garage and driveway to the right, with a large BMW sedan parked in the driveway, close to the garage door. There were shrubs that lines the walkway to the right of the door that led to the driveway. There wasn’t a light on the garage, but the porch light glowed brightly.
We arrived late. The party was already in full swing. Music was playing and kids were spilling through the sliding glass doors in the living room out into the lit up back yard. A guy I liked was there and though he didn’t often show me any attention or regard, he came up and started talking to me. He gave me a beer and we continued to talk about bands we’d seen. It was loud and he took my hand and led me out to the front yard. No one was out there.
He kissed me and I kissed him back, thinking, wow he likes me. He moved me over to the driveway, backing me up against the garage door, still sort of kissing me. Then he moved his hands to my shoulders and started sliding me down the door until I was on the cement driveway behind the car. I felt uncomfortable and nervous and suggested we go back inside. I started worrying about what was going to happen next and yet I couldn’t quite escape him. He still had me pinned down and was sort of squatted over me.
He pulled my skirt up and reached down and ripped my fishnet stockings open as I squirmed and tried to get away. Then he pushed inside me. No fanfare, no utterances of care. It was over quickly, though it felt like ages laying there in the dark, on a cement driveway, pinned between a garage door and BMW, while my friends and lots of other people were inside having fun. All the while he acted like it was a normal thing.
No one worried that I wasn’t inside the party because my friends knew that I thought he was cute. They figured we were making out. They were probably happy for me that he had shown interest in me.
He actually extended a hand to help me up after, though he smugly went back inside alone, while I attempted to pull myself together and get my clothes back in order. Eventually I went back in, found a drink and shook. I couldn’t understand why that had happened and I kept replaying it, wondering what I did to make him think that it was what I wanted or that it was okay. I doubted myself. I blamed myself. I didn’t understand.
Date rape wasn’t defined for at least another decade after that experience. Those kind of experiences were brushed off as boys getting carried away or girls leading them on. You know, you can’t get a guy all lathered up and not let him get off. Peers weren’t supportive and parents were fairly useless. You were not believed, you were judged. You learned to just live with it and carry on. If you were lucky, you didn’t get pregnant (because this was early 1981 and AIDS was just emerging so condoms were not readily used). If you were lucky, no one found out and you weren’t branded a slut. If you were lucky, this wouldn’t have happened to you.
Sadly, it seems that today, almost forty years later, it’s not that different.
Cole’s first junior year report card arrived yesterday. Straight A’s. He’s fairly consistently receiving A’s and a very occasional B on his high school report cards and always with E’s, and is always proud of himself when the grades are revealed. We are proud too, of course. For Cole, the grades are both a mix of subjective grading, his effort, and his understanding of the given subject. He has modified work and the benefit of one on one class time with his Special Ed (SpEd) teacher. It doesn’t diminish the grades and is certainly reflective of the attention he puts forth in class. He takes a fair amount of pride in maintaining his grades and in the attention he receives for doing so.
I just wish he put forth the same interest and effort in developing some of his communication skills and independence at home. He would gain so much by engaging in conversation with people outside of school, including me and his dad. He has friends who desperately want him to use his Tobii (eye gaze generated voice output device) to talk with them. Teens, even understanding, kind hearted teems, don’t always welcome the parent invasion when they’re hanging out. Having time with friends, independent of a parent or even of a support adult to help facilitate conversation, would be so incredible for him. It’s such a valuable facet of friendship.
I’ve gone so far as to suggest to some friends that they tell him that they won’t chat with him until he starts chatting with them using his Tobii. His friends are too sweet to listen to me and continue to talk to him despite his aversion to the Tobii. He met a girl this summer who is very similar to him in diagnosis and also uses a Tobii, though she is happily reliant upon it and uses it well and often. I’m told she pressed him to use it during summer school and he was slightly more receptive, which makes me hopeful that he with the right motivation he’ll warm to it.
I understand part of his reluctance, or disdain, for the device. Cole’s a people person. He’s very keen on eye contact and adept at communicating some of his needs and reactions through small sounds and various facial expressions and smiles. The Tobii obstructs his direct view of people he’s “talking” with. It’s also taxing to use, both physically and mentally, so an element of laziness factors in too, especially if he’s asked to use Tobii with his dad and I. We’ve developed a strong understanding of him, but even with us there’s so much left to our interpretation. He’s often just not bothered enough to be frustrated or care. I really wish he were.
I just want him to use his voice…to express his thoughts, opinions, and needs. I want him to deepen his friendships by opening them up through mutual communication and the intimacy that comes from friends sharing. I want him to engage new people in conversation or to initiate conversation. I want him to show interest in other people by asking questions or simply saying “Hello” aloud. I want him to expand upon his education by using his voice to express his knowledge and understanding. I want all of these things for him…
“Take a look at the world,
and the state that it’s in today,
I am sure you’ll agree,
We all could make it a better way.
With our love put together,
Ev’rybody learn to love each other,
Instead of fussing and fighting.”
Jimmy Cliff
There have been so many natural and human disasters around the world recently. It seems endless and it seems impossible to know what to do to help besides throwing whatever money one can afford to throw. But that doesn’t feel like it’s enough and it precludes any direct connection with the victims, and fall out.
After seeing the devastation in Florida, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, and the tragic aftermath of the senseless shootings in Las Vegas, or the massive loss of life in Somalia due to two car bombings, we look to one another for answers, comfort, and relief. We hold our loved ones tighter and make effort to let those we love, know we love them. We join campaigns and donate to organizations to provide assistance. We hope that our own cities won’t be the next struck by any kind of tragedy, natural or manmade. And we then we go about our lives feeling we’ve helped.
And we have. Being kind to one another is important and providing much needed funds to relief efforts is necessary. Going about our normal daily lives is also important both for our communities, our families, and us.
But there are some people who think outside the box and make effort to effect change and to impart a different kind of care, the care of action. I am blessed to know one such angel, and I want to share what she did in the wake of the Las Vegas tragedy. She made a pilgrimage of kindness to Las Vegas; where she did fifty-eight acts of kindness, encouraging each recipient to pay it forward themselves, in honor of each of the fifty-eight victims.
The deeds ranged from surprising random diners in Flaming Fajitas with gift cards to cover their meals, to presenting flowers to a senior in an assisted living home, to paying for haircuts at a local Fantastic Sam’s, to bringing pizzas to the first responding police station, to providing her cab driver with a generous tip, that he then donated to a collection his company had going to provide aid to the victims, and so much more. Each deed was accompanied by a note with the name, hometown and age of the shooting victim she was honoring. Many of the recipients had stories of their own to share with her and ideas for paying her kindness forward on their own.
She touched an entire city. She connected with people on a whole different level. The local paper caught wind of her mission and wrote about her. She shared the journey on Facebook and had lots of supporters wanting to help facilitate her passion. She took the idea of helping a step further than most of us even conceive. I know her to be one of the kindest, most caring, friendly, enthusiastic people I’ve ever met and I’ve been inspired by her since she came into my life. I aim to think outside the box like she does. I hope you will find inspiration in her actions too.
A friend recently shared information about a service that can create a voice for people who do not speak and rely on the use of a voice output device to communicate. Vocal ID can create a voice that closely resembles what your actual voice likely sounds like by using both sound recordings of utterances if you can make them and accessing a voice bank they have to find your vocal match.
I love the sound of Cole’s voice when he uses it successful to speak, and especially when it rings with laughter. I can’t quite imagine how I’d feel hearing him speak and sound like him. The voice his Tobii device uses is a computer generated voice that is somewhat age appropriate, but a voice that is shared by countless others who are of similar age and sex and who use voice output devices. It’s not unique.
Our voices are one of the most unique things about each one of us. With closed eyes, I think I could correctly identify most people I know by their voice. Cole’s is a voice I never imagined hearing, save for the limited vocalizations he makes. To have conversations with him using his Tobii but sounding like Cole would be overwhelming and life changing. I feel like conversation becomes that much more intimate in knowing it would be his voice, unique to him.
I’m just starting to explore how to go about having his voice imprinted and put on his Tobii. I’ll share more as I myself learn more and begin the process. I signed up as a donor too, to bank my voice with the hope that it could be used to help shape someone else’s own voice.
I love your brain 