I had actually been researching information for a post that is formulating about the increase of Middle School anxiety and why, when my attention was caught by a post on Facebook exhibiting some of the exact reasons why anxiety has been increased over the past few years. The original post was an image highlighting the inconsistency of media reporting these days. Which is true. I don’t care which side of the political spectrum you support, the media coverage of any and everything has a schizophrenic quality to it, and extreme bias is shown when the media is supposed to be impartial purveyors of facts. And on that post was an escalating exchange between a father and daughter (both adults).

Mom and Dad

Let me be clear … my parents raised me to have my own opinions and to be fiercely independent — which was definitely NOT an easy task for either one of them. And I’ll be candid … my dad and I butted heads — regularly. But that head-butting always took place privately and never in a public forum. The major reason for that is that along with teaching me to form my own opinions, and to be independent, I was also raised to respect others — even when whole-heartedly disagreeing with them and the things they believed.

Unfortunately, all you have to do is pull up social media these days to find it dripping with peremptory dogma, malice, and often hatred. And what we don’t realize is the major impact that malice and hatred are having … not on the people who we are expressing it against, but to ourselves. I have established a routine of being on social media as little as possible simply because the seething anger is damaging to me and causes me stress, which I need to avoid for my own health benefit. I cannot imagine what it must be like walking around with all that hatred boiling all the time — we are killing ourselves.

Back to my point. Whenever I see families, in particular, taking such sides and expressing feelings that are ultimately damaging to the relationship, it brings my dad to mind and how much animosity I carried at some points in my life toward him. And every single time I have that thought, it is followed by how THANKFUL I am that we had resolved those issues prior to his passing. Had he died when my last memories of him would be the anger I held? I shudder to think of it. My mental health would have taken a huge nose dive and who knows when or IF I would have pulled out of it. Grieving for him was hard enough, without extra heapings of guilt for not having resolved our issues.

Those issues were not resolved by agreeing with every word he uttered. Again, that’s not how I was raised, but by letting go of the animosity, by letting go of the emotional intensity surrounding the issues, and understanding that while we may not agree, he always thought things through and probably had good reasons for holding his opinions as I did for holding mine.

Why didn’t I jump into the thread and say these things, instead of coming to my blog to express it? There are none so blind as those who refuse to see; and none so deaf as those who refuse to hear … a quote probably stemming from the 1713 ‘Works of Thomas Chalkley’ which have roots back to the Bible.

What I would like to say is “How will you feel if your dad was gone tomorrow? Will you have a clear conscience with which to grieve for him?” However, that is extremely personal, and I recognize how close that would have cut to the bone.

We are coming up on 28 years since my father passed, and while somethings are easier with time, others are not. For example, the big things that hit me are the things that never can be. Like winning an award for writing — something my dad never understood because he wanted me to have financial safety and security on my own. And right there is one of the points of contention I had with him. He wanted me to have a safe existence and the ability to support myself.

He couldn’t see writing novels as a potential life career because he wanted what was best for me. He didn’t see that writing for me is an essential part of my life, even if I were not to ever sell a single word, and at that time, I saw his lack of support as thinking I couldn’t do it, and didn’t recognize his fear of my being rejected (which is part of the publishing industry). I saw his attitude as a lack of support, a lack of love (something he had an extremely difficult time expressing), but fortunately figured out his reasoning prior to his death. I know, without any doubt whatsoever, that were he living today, he’d be bursting with pride over my accomplishments, and would be bragging about me more than I would like. I get emotionally overwrought because he isn’t here and I can’t share my successes with him. He may not have understood how important writing was to me, but he would have been one of my biggest supporters.

So in this long, rambling post, my point is to always treat (at the very least) family and friends with respect, realizing they are far more important than any political agenda, and it is not worth carrying around the animosity — because you never know when you’ll be facing the memory of them instead of the person. Will you be able to do so without guilt clouding your sorrow that they are gone?

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In my mind, the term rubber stamp conjures up an ink pad, with your choice of ink color, a stamp with a wooden handle, and when it gets worn, the edges of the stamp hitting the paper and blurring the message. But most of the time that didn’t matter because all the stamp said was, “PAID” or “CENSORED” … a single word or at most a return address stamp that became illegible from blurred ink when the ink pad was over inked.

And no, that isn’t the kind of stamp I bought — I bought signature stamps — both pre-inked and self-inking. There are some writers who write every book long hand. There is a change in how your thoughts function when writing long hand vs. tapping away on a keyboard.

And I do happen to love what happens mentally when I do write long hand … but the arthritis I have in my hands makes it impossible to do more than a paragraph or two before the pen is flying across the room because I can no longer grip it. For whatever reason, I am affected more severely trying to hold a pen than I am when typing.

So when looking ahead at the need to sign multiple books in one sitting, I needed to minimize the impact to my hands. Enter the rubber stamp … only fancier than they used to be. I am not only thrilled with the stamp’s design, but also how it looks when used.

Why am I bothering to blog about the stamps at all? Well, first off, I think they look great, but secondly they coincide with my message of Be the Cat! because for me signing a lot of books in one go, or even spread out over time, would be difficult — an obstacle to overcome. No amount of hand strengthening therapies are going to enable me to hold a pen for long periods of time, but rather than allow that to affect me negatively, I have found a way to improve the situation.

From the time I was a child, my fine motor skills have been lacking, although my large motor skills were well-developed. And some days even lightly touching my fingertips to my palms (of the same hand) involves pain … and a book signing should be a wonderful experience rather than painful one, so getting stamps will allow me to enjoy the moment instead of trying to drive past the pain. With every stamped signature, there will also be a reminder of my Be the Cat message — a message near to my heart.

And that alone makes me smile.

PS — to any naysayers who think my stamp isn’t a legitimate signed copy … the signature IS mine, painstakingly captured for reproduction, and I will be the person putting it in every single book.

BE THE CAT!

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I have read the article posted a few times to make sure I didn’t misread something — but I didn’t. Initially, I saw a post which referenced the article and since I was concerned about a psychologist encouraging a ban, I made sure to dig until I found the original article, because there was always the possibility she had been misquoted. She hadn’t. She wrote the article … and it is difficult to misquote yourself. I was disappointed to find according to her bio that Barbara Greenberg blogs as “The Teen Doctor” for Psychology Today. When I was young and working out what I wanted to be when I grew up, my answer was psychologist as being a writer was unlikely to pay the bills. I’m probably one of the few pre-teens to ever have a subscription to Psychology Today. Okay, so it was my mother’s subscription, but I’m the one who read it from cover to cover as soon as it arrived. Why would I be disappointed in Psychology Today? Because they employ someone with faulty (and potentially dangerous) thought processes to blog for teens. And I used to revere their articles as gospel.

Because I took such exception to the article and the ideas espoused, this will probably be the first blog post on this issue, but not the last. No one wants to read a 350 page rebuttal to a US News article, and I’d rather focus on one point at a time. So, let’s start with the concept of best friends. One of the problems I had with the article was the lack of acceptance that it is possible to have multiple “best friends” … while the term can mean a single friend, it can also refer to a small group where you are all best friends which is why the best friend jewelry industry runs to making pendants that have more than two parts.

At no point in the article did Dr. Greenberg ever intimate the possibility of having more than one best friend. Yet, ironically, in the middle of the article about banning best friends in favor of small groups of close friends is a link to the article on The Promise and Perils of Friendship Threesomes posted earlier in the year. Both of these posts are in the Health section of US News. Now I’m confused, US News … you run an article stating that having best friends is bad, and you also have run an article about the dangers of having a small group of friends. So are you anti-friend? Or is it that you’ll allow anyone to state their opinion as an authority just so you have content?

Anyway, my point is that we have an authority stating a premise where anything that contradicts the premise is conveniently left out or ignored. Which is not exactly the best method to employ when you are stating a position where you want people to accept your word on the matter as the expert. Because such a basic variable to the conclusion was ignored, you have lost my acceptance of you as an authority. The premise developed a hole I could drive a semi through, so it is no longer valid.

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I immediately stopped focusing on how poor I felt, and instead focused on how much better I feel compared to 4 years ago. Four years ago I was still facing the fact that while I had a relatively benign form of leukemia and lymphoma, my particular case had just the month before been diagnosed as exceptionally aggressive due to some abnormalities and life no longer lay in front of me like a big ol’ highway. All of a sudden I was on a twisting, turning road where I could only see as far as the next bend.

I am a “Spoonie” now. Even though my cancer is realtively under control with a new treatment protocol, I have been isolated for the past year and a half because the leukemia has attacked my immune system and I now struggle to fight off illness. So last night when the universe stripped away all my remaining spoons, I got a little down. It’s the holiday season, and I do love the holidays. Reading the post from 4 years ago, however, changed my perspective immediately. While yesterday and today it has hurt to move, it is nowhere near as painful as moving was then. Four years ago, I would not have been able to concentrate enough to string a sentence on the page, let alone write a chapter. I felt as if my creativity had been stripped away. Today, I am working on my next Middle Grade project and my excitement is growing. I have recently launched 7th Grade Revolution which has been very positive so far. And my creativity is staying with me. I have a top Middle Grade editor, a former Editorial Director of 20 years for one of the Big Five, excited to work with me on this project, and an agent who is kicking my tail to get enough of the book written we can appropriately forecast when it will be ready for editing. And I am going to do it. The details are flooding in, so I may be in a position where it is difficult to keep up, versus having to pull every scene through like a recalcitrant tooth.

Why am I talking about this on my author blog instead of my cancer blog? Because 4 years later, my dreams are as big as ever, and I’m closer to achieving them now than I ever have been in the past. I realized that The Secret of the Red Key is a huge stepping stone along the path to success.

But the biggest reason is that I want to make sure all kids know never to give up on their dreams. No matter the obstacle, as long as you have a passion for something, follow your passion. Yes, I am still living life beyond normal, where daily naps are essential, and sometimes the bad days frankly suck. But those bad days are temporary, and they aren’t as frequent, and I’m stronger than I was before, and I have already achieved so much, how can I stop now when the dream is firmly in reach?

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When I read, I fully invest in the story. I enter the world of the characters and live the story with them. I did the same as a child whether reading it or listening to my mother read bedtime stories. I remember reaching the moment in Peter Pan when Tinkerbell has drunk the poison meant for Peter and was dying. I cried, not so much because I liked Tinkerbell because I didn’t, but because she was Peter’s friend and he would miss her, and even though she was mean to Wendy, I didn’t want her to die. So when Peter asked everyone who believed in fairies to clap their hands, I clapped as loud and hard as I could, because I knew if Tinkerbell heard she would be saved.

Fast forward a year or two. I would listen to Peter Pan on an album we had and would always clap at the important moment. Not quite so loud and hard as I did in the beginning, but I clapped because I believed. But then things subtly changed. I’d listen to the record or read the story and would think, “But not everyone is reading or listening to the story at the same time as me, so how do I know whether Tinkerbell is dying?” Would my lone claps save her? I clapped. Not because I believed it would save her, but because I didn’t know it wouldn’t. Notice, it wasn’t my belief in fairies that had waned, but my belief that clapping could save a fairy in a far distant land.

Before, I had believed without question. Now, logic played a part and altered my beliefs based on concepts I better understood, like not everyone reading the same story at the same time. And slowly, I stopped clapping … and felt sad because it was no longer in my power to help Tinkerbell live or die. I first believed I had the ability to sway Tinkerbell’s fate because Peter, the hero of the story, had told me so. Later I believed because I had proven it to be true … I had clapped and she lived. Later still, my belief slipped because I had greater knowledge and that knowledge cast doubts on the beliefs I had previously held.

I find the same to be true with all beliefs. We might first believe something because we hear it from an authority figure. Someone we like/revere/trust. As we grow/mature in our knowledge surrounding the belief, there might be some subtle shifts in what we believe and how strongly we believe it. Sometimes we reach a point where we discard a belief previously held. And sometimes the hole, where we once held the belief, is filled with sorrow or even anger.

Back to the kids in the Homeless Myths series. They believe many things adults would say were wrong. But they hold on to their beliefs because they need them. The beliefs help explain the world they live in. A world so chaotic it otherwise does not make sense. And who is to say they are wrong? Because we cannot prove them right doesn’t mean they are wrong.

Yes, I have given up the belief that clapping because I believe in fairies can save one from dying, but who is to say I don’t believe it fairies?

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I grew up in a neighborhood where all the kids played together, whether it be dodgeball in someone’s backyard, playing hide ‘n seek, or building a fort, we’d do it together. There were no cell phones, and social media was gathering in person at someone’s house or at the mall instead of going onto the internet. This doesn’t mean that everyone always got along or that teasing didn’t happen — it did. The difference is that then, if someone was being mean, or you didn’t like what was happening, you could leave. You could go to a safe place, usually your home, or if things were chaotic at home, your bedroom, or even the backyard, to get away from the situation. We built a fort, not in a tree, because my dad wouldn’t allow us to build a fort in our tree no matter HOW many times we told him it was the perfect tree for it, but in our sandbox. The sandbox was wedged in between the garage and the fence dividing our backyard from our neighbor’s. Who could resist building a fort when three of the walls were already there? All we had to do was put the second story on it, hang some “curtains” (old ratty blankets) to create the 4th wall and put a trap door in, so we could get to the top. When I needed to get away from my brothers, the fort was a good place to go read … and no one bothered me.

Today, that scenario doesn’t work as well. Why? Because of the smart phone. The shift in bullying has moved from in person to more and more happening online. And it doesn’t go away. Even if you were to shut down your device and ignore it for a while, when you turn the device back on, there it is … in your face, a constant reminder of how you think others perceive you. If you shutdown a social media site, there is always email or text. You are constantly available. Or maybe I should say you are constantly accessible. Never before in our history have we been available to others for so much of the day. There is no relief, no down time, no place where it is safe to just be.

It’s easy to say that we should simply take away the devices from our kids. It might solve some of the issues short term, but I see this as something larger than the bullying situations that occur. Because adults never have the opportunity to get away either. They never get those moments of down time, as brief as they may be. The world is at our fingertips 24/7, and for all the positives, there is a huge dark side to it.

I’ve heard people say that kids need to learn the discipline to walk away from the digital devices and shut them down. But honestly, how can we expect kids to exercise self-control in an area where we ourselves cannot. Oh, but it’s different for adults … Really??? No, it isn’t. Stress levels in adults have risen since the advent of the smart phone, we are never “off” in ways that we could be before as we carry our phones everywhere. It is an insidious addiction and I’m as guilty of the addiction as the next person. For me, the smart phone gives me access to the world outside my doors, and it is important because right now, the bulk of my human interaction must take place over the internet or via phone or text, to help keep me as healthy as possible. But the down side is a loss of focus, interruptions which were more readily blocked out before, we’re distracted all the time, and we’re losing the ability to interact in person in a meaningful way. Being disciplined about unplugging is good, but there is a down side to that as well. When I unplug, I’m completely cut off from humanity … good for the short term? Yes. But for long term, not advisable.

What’s the answer? I don’t know. What I do know, is that short of the grid going completely down, our safe place has all but disappeared.

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So an article about a Girl Scout troop who were homeless caught my attention. What a wonderful opportunity for those girls. Giselle Burgess started Troop 6000 — the first ever troop of homeless girls — in February, and the girls, who had never been out of the city, got to experience the wonders of the wilderness.

So how many kids are homeless in America? That’s hard to say. Per a study conducted by the National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway and Thrownaway Children, the estimate is 1.7 million. But there is a caveat to the number — the study was conducted in 1999, which is reaching the point of irrelevancy due to the number of years since the study was conducted. The most recent data collected by the U.S. Department of Education indicates numbers less than the 1.7 million, putting it closer to the 1 million range; however, the data collected is only if the kids are attending classes and participating fully in school activities. It does not count children who are staying with a friend or relative outside their immediate family and does not count those who are not in school. In 2014, the National Center on Family Homelessness released a report estimating the number of homeless children in America to be a heartbreaking 2.5 million. The report identifies six major causes contributing to the unprecedented rate of child homelessness: high poverty rates, lack of affordable housing, racial disparities, challenges of single parenting, domestic violence and other traumatic experiences, and the lingering effects of the recession.

Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images

What makes this Girl Scout troop even more incredible is that all of the girls in the troop live in the same 10-story budget hotel in Queens, where New York City’s Department of Homeless Services pays to shelter homeless families. Including Giselle Burgess and her five children. Burgess lost her home last year when the landlord sold the building and has had difficulty finding a new place to live because potential landlords are not willing to take on a single mother with five children. Burgess, who was working for the Girl Scouts of Greater New York as a community development specialist, looked at her situation and saw an opportunity. And the Girl Scouts fully supported Burgess’s endeavor. Troop 6000 has been such a success, the New York City government announced it will invest $1.1 million to expand Troop 6000 from twenty-eight girls at one shelter to as many as 500 girls at 15 shelters across the city.

I salute Giselle Burgess for taking a stand to improve the lives of these girls and for helping to eliminate some of the stigma for them about being homeless — something completely out of their control. For giving the girls a sense of worth and accomplishment in a difficult situation. And for teaching the girls that the difficult times “are just seasons in their lives. And that they will surpass it, and that there’s much more out there that they’re capable of accomplishing.”

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