Life Choices

Posted on September 30, 2012 by Lydia | Leave a comment

Lately, I’ve been thinking back over my life’s hits and misses. If you are anything like me, you loathe making mistakes with a passion. I find myself reliving past mistakes, as if in the reliving, I could change the outcome. The thing is, after years of trying to fight my mistakes, I’ve come to believe that I am fighting a losing battle. Why? Because we are meant to make mistakes. The important thing to consider regarding our mistakes, is not that we make them, because it is an inevitable certainty that we will make them and others. No, as it is with most of life circumstances, the crucial factor is our reaction to the mistake. What do we take away from it? Hopefully, we learn enough through the making of the mistake, to avoid repeating it.

More importantly, we’ve heard countless times that life is not intended to be perfect, with perfect choices, answers and circumstances. It’s not like that precisely because the truth is that life is a risk. Of course, there is one sure fire way to avoid making another mistake – – inaction. Yet, what type of life would that bring? Every time that we choose, we take a risk that our choice my lead us down an unintended path. Sometimes that path can lead us astray and we realize that we’ve made the wrong decision. At other times, the path, while unintended, leads us down a road that opens us to new experiences and excitements– ones that had we chosen otherwise, we’d never encounter. The thing is not only that we live through our choices; we live because of our choices. By taking the risk, we say “yes” to life and “no” to inaction, the safe choice.

So given all the mistakes that I’ve made in my life, I cannot be accused of hewing to safe choices. No, all the cringe-worthy lapses in judgment, or some would argue, the total absence of judgment, are all mine- good and bad. When I am being rational and clear-headed, I view them as part of a life well-lived, instead of agonizing about the choices that I can’t change.

My Story, Part 4

Posted on June 24, 2012 by Lydia | Leave a comment

It was a Friday night after a particularly long, hard week that began in Washington, D.C. for an AAG conference. Throughout that trip, I thought of nothing but my brother and planned to call him later that weekend. As I mentioned in my last post, he’d been diagnosed with cancer and after a very difficult adjustment period, he had finally moved on with his life and was in his last semester of a master of communication program . He was a graduate student in the University of Oklahoma at Norman’s Communication program. I never got an opportunity to talk to him. I received a frantic call from my niece who lived with my Mom. An answering machine message from a Norman, Oklahoma funeral home wanted to what my Mom wished to do with my brother’s body. Please note that at this point, we had no knowledge that there was a problem.

As the oldest, I took care of anything important, so there was no question as to who would handle this task. In shock, I verified that my brother had indeed died. After a number of calls, I learned that the University of Oklahoma-Norman police department notified the New Orleans police department who were supposed to personally notify my mother about the death. They did not. The man from the funeral home waited all day for a return call and after receiving none, assumed that the family had been notified and left his questions on the machine. He was mortified when he learned that my mother had no idea about my brother’s death and I am certain that he has not left such messages on an answering machine since then. Nevertheless, my mother learned of the death of her beloved son, from an answering machine.

It was I, who moved my brother to Norman 1 ½ years before, and it was I, and my husband, who drove to Norman, where, four years after his cancer diagnosis, my baby brother died of congestive heart failure. He’d already purchased the frame for his diploma. It was just like him to plan ahead. Since I’d helped move him in, it seemed natural that I would move him out. Nothing was natural about the trip and what followed and I never counted on the future impact that it would have on me. Imagine this, I literally carried my dear brother’s ashes, in one of his carry on bags, onto a Southwest airlines flight from Norman to New Orleans, rented a car and brought him home to my mother–one of his best friends. I had never experienced that degree of overwhelming anguish and despair, then or since. As I write this, I can feel remnants of those feelings that still exist, and always will.

Afterwards, I tried to pretend that nothing had changed, that I was the same, but it was all a lie. I went back to my job as an AAG, working the horrendous hours, year after year, ignoring what was happening to my body. Until then, my life never left me much opportunity for self-inquiry. Growing up poor, left an indelible mark upon me to succeed at all costs–and that I did. Stopping was not an option, so I didn’t. I kept up the insane, crazy, out-of-control pace: working, going to classes, parenting, commuting between Cypress, Texas and Austin for 2 years, and then, the stressful life of a trial attorney. Just as I ignored my inner thoughts, I ignored my body and its’ pleas to stop the madness. Soon, my body wouldn’t take no for an answer and, it stopped me in my tracks. I had no choice but to listen and I am listening still.

My Story, Part 3

Posted on June 22, 2012 by Lydia | Leave a comment

This post continues my story. If you’d like to, you can read part 1, here, and part 2, here.

I landed in Houston, Texas. Once there, I was homesick for home, family and friends, as well as my son, who was living with his dad. Over the years, leaving my son with his father is the only thing that I wish that I could do over. All the other choices, big and small, missteps and those less than perfect choices that litter my life’s path, I’ve grown to accept as necessary to make me the person that I am today, and I would not change them if I could. For example, marrying young was not a good choice, but as a result of that choice, I have three beautiful children, whom I would not have without that particular person, at that particular time. Yet, I see my choice of leaving my son with his father as more about me and less about my son. Although he disagrees, I should have chosen better.

Anyway, after months of sending out resumes and applications and interviews, I finally secured a job as an assistant geologist with Sohio, which after a number of iterations is now BP America. I loved my job, was good at it, and rewarded accordingly. By 1984, I was once again ready to resume my education. I did with a vengeance. With Sohio’s assistance, and my husband’s help. (By this time, I’d remarried.).

Looking back, I can’t believe how I managed to do it. I attended undergrad full-time at night, while working full-time during the day. My weekends, lunch hours, and kid’s soccer games were set aside for study. I was on a mission to prove to my ex-husband that I would not be one of those women who ended up in the project trying to subsist on welfare. Whenever my energies lagged, the memory of this statement never failed to reinvigorate me and spur me forward. After just 4 years, I graduated summa cum laude with a 3.74 G.P.A. and a B.S. degree in General Studies. I was the first college graduate in my immediate family. I’d finally repaid my Mom’s efforts.

I went on to win an academic scholarship to law school at the University of Texas at Austin-a top tier law school, as well as the other law schools to which I’d applied. I choose the University of Texas in Austin, even though it meant leaving my then husband and children outside of Houston while I commuted back and forth every other week. With the blessing of my husband, I moved to Austin, and into a small condo not far from the university. Believe it or not, I was 29 years old and this was the very first time that I had ever lived alone in my life. I was terrified. Guilt and terror drove me through the days. For two years, I trekked back and forth along the well worn back between my Austin home and my Houston home. That is, until the summer between my second and third year of law school, when my marriage ended and I brought my girls to Austin, where we made our home.

My last year of law school (1990-1991) was, in a word, hell. My baby brother, who was my dearest and closest sibling, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at the age of 23. A favored cousin was diagnosed with cancer in early 1991 and died that same year. The girl’s step-mother who had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer, died in the first half of 1991. Due to the girls’ school schedules, I could not work and we had to rely on my scholarship and financial aid to survive. Pets died. Cars were broken in to. At times life appeared to be careening out of control, but as always, it didn’t.

After an emotionally grueling and money-strapped year, I graduated from law school in 1991, sat for the bar and was licensed the same year. My headstrong, tenacious baby brother did not succumb to cancer, though he was forced to leave his beloved San Francisco and return home to New Orleans to be close to family. I began working as a trial attorney practicing civil rights defense for the State of Texas. Except for a brief stint, I remained with the State until my health forced me to resign early in 2004. With the exception of some health issues that did not impact my ability to perform my job duties, things were reasonably quiet until 1997. Everything up to this point, pales in comparison to what happened in 1997. It changed my life and sent me spiralling into a deep, dark depression. To be continued. . .