growing up me

In 1993, I made the decision to stop drinking. I remember wondering, 'what in the world am I going to do without my numbzit'. I had all these feelings I had no clue how to deal with. I thought I was born angry and that it was normal for me. So, to get to the root of the problem, me, I had to take a hard look at my life. It was ugly. I had problems with my parents, my mother specifically. We had never been able to get along. (Today I am cautiously optomistic about the relationship we have. We've been through a rougher than normal patch this last 6 months.) I felt like she hated me for being born. I had colic when I was a baby. I can't count the number of times I heard about how they walked the floor with me and the car rides hoping I would stop screaming. When mom  talks about it, even today, her nostrils flare and she gets that look on her face. Throughout the rest of my life, she and I butted heads regularly. I still don't understand why she was so harteful. My poor dad had to feel like an embattled referee. To me, it was absolute hell.Of course, I did my share of, I'll call it major rebellion. I remember being rebellious way before I ever took a drink or a drug.  When I was in the 6th grade I was told not to wear a certain gold skirt because it was so short. I did it anyway and got in trouble. I snuck around with boys at about the age of 15. Everything had to be on the sly because I was probably disobeying a direct order. My grades all through school were poor at best.   I recall being tested and tested and tested to see why I had bad grades. The tests showed that I was really very smart. I am sure I was ADHD back then and probably still am. I did manage to make the honor roll one time my freshman year. I got pregnant at 17 and had Amber before I graduated from high school.

I was the apple of my dad's eye. I tell people that I was the only son he ever had. He had a little 350 Honda and would take me riding with him and his friends. It was fun. He worked in the oil patch and would take all of us with him sometimes. I rolled, head over heels, down Glass Mountain out by Cherokee. The smell of the oilfield still makes me think of those days. (That's probably one of the things I love about my wonderful husband who works in the oilfield.) Dad took me and my sister with him when he would pump wells. I love the sound of those diesel engines. The chugging sound they make is like a lullaby. Call me crazy. I love football because of him. He started taking me to OU football games when I was about 11. I recently found of picture of me with Jack Mildren. I kept a scrapbook back then of OU and our Tonkawa Buccaneer football. Dad recently met Joe Washington and was thrilled. We were at the game where little Joe, as they called him then, was engulfed by the OSU defense and came out somehow and scored a TD. When OU won the Orange Bowl back in 99 or 00, dad called me. He is still a major fan.

School was awful. I was so emotionally unstabel that I was a perfect target for some of the popular girls in my class. I was pretty much singled out to make fun of. Jr. high and high school were just as bad. One girl shoved me in the hallway between classes, causing my head to jerk forward, jamming my chin into a pencil sticking up out of my notebook. I still have the lead in my chin to this day. I told my kids if I ever heard them making fun of someone, I would tan their hide. One of those mean girls did apologize to me in front of a church congregation on Sr. day in 2005. My daughter, Brittany, was sitting next to me, crying with me. My classmates still don't have much contact with me and who could blame them....I was one sick teenager.  One of my teachers took a disliking to me also. She stood me up in front of the class and yelled at me for an incident in the cafeteria the day before. It seemed like I stood up there for an hour though I am sure it was about 15 minutes. She paced back and forth in front of me, pointing her finger in my face and yelling at me in front of the entire class. I went home sick at lunch, crying uncontrolably, and didn't return for a couple of days.I didn't trust my parents with my feelings I guess so, I didn't tell my parents about it til I was questioned by my mother a few days later. It seems that one of my classmates was at the bowling alley and told her about it. I didn't want to go back to school at all. I see now that the shame from that incident stayed with me for a long time. Ironically, she worked here at the college and I got to where I liked  her very much. 

Thank goodness that I don't have to take things so personally today. My oldest blew up at me, for no apparent reason, a few weeks ago. She made herself my judge, jury and executioner. I didn't leave mad, I just left. I was really kind of confused because it seemingly came out of nowhere. But then, most things like that don't just come out of the blue. She feels about me pretty much like I felt about my own mother. Fortunately, I was able to break the chain with my two younger kids.  I have terminated my relationship with the oldest daughter. I have apologized more times than I can count to no avail. She will have to deal with her demons in her own way. In the mean time, I don't have to have verbal abuse heaped on my head for things that happened over 16 years ago. I didn't have to get drunk over it either. Look for the little miracles that happen every day and every day that I don't take a drink is a little miracle. The Grace and Mercy of a loving God is all I need. He loves me no matter what as long as I am seeking His will for me. Thank God for the meetings I go to at least 5 times a week. The spiritual part of my life is what keeps my head above water when I'm sure I'm about to drown. Thank God for my friends who help me so much just by being there and reminding me that I  am loved.

Lessons I've Learned From Flowers

An aquaintance of mine shared the story of a plant from her grandmothers funeral. It was all shriveled up such that she thought it was dead. She pulled off the dead leaves,watered it and put it in her kitchen window. Before long the plant started showing new growth. I was kind of like that at one time. My leaves were certainly withered and  I was praying for death because I was at a place where I couldn't drink and I couldn't stop. I prayed for God to release me from the bondage of alcoholism. Soon after my leaves started growing again and I learned to flower. I never give up on a plant til I'm positive it's dead. Every once in a while a plant I swore was dead would ocme back like the native hibiscus I threw in the compost heap because they were infested with red spiders. Imagine my surprise when I opened the heap to stir it sometime later and the things were still alive and growing.....minus the red spiders.  Fortunately God didn't give up on me. There were a lot of people who didn't give up on me either. I had lots of prayer warriors keeping me lifted up.  I am living proof that prayer works.

Opportunities from the garden

When I look back at the last 20 years of my life, I have to look at all of the blessings that have come to me directly because of the gardens. I've helped with Boy Scout University for the last 10 years, every other year. I've been on Oklahoma Gardening three times. People from the KAABG (a Kansas group of gardeners) came to visit our campus a few years ago. The people I've met through gardening are the real blessings. My PhD friends at OSU are awesome and they I became a master gardener in 1999 and get to teach other master gardeners the things I have learned. What fun is that!!!!!!!!The pres of the hort/landscape dept loves me.According to him I have the most comprhensive reports on the woody ornamentals we have been given by OSU. I've been invited to be guest speaker at several OHIC and OBGA events. These are the gravy of my job. I love sharing my love of gardening with anyone who will listen.

Then there is the Ray See Park project. Talk about a lobor of love. Ray See was a WW I veteran who was very instrumental in getting WPA projects to Tonkawa.  There were several and the ones I know of are: The Tonkawa Public Library, the National Guard Armory, the Tonkawa Municiple Swimming Pool and Bath House, and the 5th street drainage project. Ray See Park has had a couple of names throught the history of Tonkawa. It was touted as the park on the banks fo the Salt Fork River in some old newspapers from the 1920's. It was the park I played in when I was growing up. It has a shelter house and a bathroom facility. About 5 years ago, I noticed the park was looking neglected. I asked the city fathers if I could take over the care and general maintenance of the grounds. That set the ball rolling toward improving the park. About $18,000. was raised to buy trees and new equipment. I asked a local business man if he could use his track-hoe to clean out the ditch which was full of trash, debris and scrub trees. He worked for three days cleaning that ditchout and it is beautiful. You can see the bath house from the highway for the first time in over 30 years. This bit of community service has given me way more than I could ever return.

Continued How it all Began

In August of 1992 I had an emotional breakdown. I was still drinking and I really didn't want to.  Alcoholism is a horrible disease. It leaves a person bankrupt in every way, physically (I weighed about 100 lbs because I didn't eat), mentally and emotionally I was exhausted, I was financially in dire straits, and the most important and debilitating bankruptcy was the spiritual bankruptcy. I will never forget how I felt the day I checked myself into the psychiatric unit in the Ponca hospital. My timing was awful as school had just started that day. It was a Monday and I had been crying non-stop since Sunday morning, even in my sleep. I had been kneeling in one of my gardens and really wanting to just check out of life. I had one daughter who was living with her father and two little ones with me. I think Cale was about 18 months old and Brittany was 5. I wish I could say that I put the plug in the jug then but it took almost another year of steading drinking before I threw the pick/axe away. I'm one of those hard-headed people who threw away the shovel when I hit rock bottom and picked up the pick/axe so I could get a little further down. June 9, 1993 I took my last drink. I was sitting on the edge of my bed, very drunk and crying again. This time I asked God for help and the compuslion to drink was gone and hasn't returned since. I was still a mess in every other sense of the word, I just wasn't drinking.

I had so many things to overcome. I had no clue how to be a mother to my kids. I was a screaming, abusive person. The last time one of my kids looked at me with raw fear was when Cale spilled something, milk or water, whatever it was. He looked at me with those huge eyes, he was so little. He was terrified of me and how I would react. I promised myself that it would never happen again and it hasn't. Over the years I learned how to be a good mom. Today, Cale is 19 and Brit is 22. They don't remember ever seeing their mother drunk. They feel comfortable coming to me with problems because they know I won't judge them. We have a good relationship because they know they can count on me to be there for them.

How did the gardens help? I spend a lot of time on my knees planting annuals. I work alone and don't have another person there to talk to every day. My favorite flower is the rose....Mr. Lincoln to be exact. The color is a deep red and the fragrance is powerful. I can spot a Mr. Lincoln blindfolded. I have used my job to find God. I know every plant and flower on that campus intimately and by name, scientific and common names. I can tell you about when I planted a certain flower and how it performed for me. I know where the ladybugs hide in the winter months. The robins follow me around in the spring to grab the worms and other insects as I dig up the ground for new plants. I know why ants take aphids down into their dens in the fall. I understand the balance that is needed for the ecosystems of the campus to work properly. I am positively awestruck by all of it, even after 20 years. Spring is magical to me. I can't wait for spring and the wonder of the daffodils and the redbuds in bloom. The white lilac on the north side of the Vinyard Library is one of my favorites. You can smell it before you see it when you are coming around the corner of the building. The oakleaf hydrangea has started leafing out hiding the beautiful exfoliating orange bark. Some of the viburnums bloom early while others are just leafing out. The 'Home Run" roses at the front edge of the campus start busting out of their winter rest. The new foliage has a reddish tone to it. The dogwood tree we planted in memory of our Jared Weiberg has bloomed in spectacular fashion every year since it was planted. Vina sent me a note this last spring that made me cry. Jared was such a sweet young man who died entirely too young. I miss him still.

All of these things have played an important role in my sobriety. It was 10 years before I felt comfortable sitting in a church. I argued with myself about going. It was an every Sunday ordeal. I just knew God was going to pluck me from the pew and smite me in the parking lot. I also felt like the 'dirtiest' person in the church. I felt like I didn't deserve to sit with all of those 'perfect' Christians. I know today that we all need God and none of us are anywhere close to perfect. We are all fatally human. I enjoy my church and my pastor. I love those wonderful old hymns I remembered from my youth ( I was amazed that I still remembered most of the words) and I like the new stuff too. The new stuff just isn't as comforting as the hymns. I can't even finish 'Amazing Grace' without crying because it is my life story the song is telling.

Claude Monet once said, "Were it not for the gardens, I should not have become a painter." I can say that, were it not for the gardens, I should not have become the person I am today. The gardens led me on a path straight to God and helped me to find His love and strength. The strength I needed to make the amends to the people I hurt and the strength to not take a drink one day at a time. Some people may never forgive me and that's ok. I can't control how people, other than myself, behave or how they feel.  I am good with myself and God. Some amends can't be made any other way except to continue to live a sober life and try not to cause any more pain than I already have. I do not regret the past nor do I wish to close the door on it. It has been the best learning tool I've had.

I have a good life today. My husband loves me and spoils me rotten. Brittany has a position at the college and Cale has a full time job he enjoys. I've had a job I love for almsot 20 years and just graduated with my associates degree at the age of 50. I am OSU bound and headed to agricultural communications so I can share my love of plants with others. One more thing I can't keep unless I give it away.

New to this blogging stuff

Gardening saved my life by helping me find a God I could understand. I'd been to church and religious activities and don't have a problem with Jesus Christ being my Savior....because he is. I lived with addictions and the shame and guilt that go with it. It was a living hell here on Earth and I was sick of living like that. In order to understand the things I was learning at the meetings I attended I had to find a God that would forgive and love me with all of my shortcomings and defects of character. There were many and I didn't know where or how to start. I worked as a gardener (still do) at a small JUCO in my town. The campus was in pretty bad shape and so was I. ( I was at the beginning of the end of my drinking and drug use.) Finally, it occurred to me to look at something I really loved.....my gardens. At first I had a 12 x 24 glass greenhouse to work in. It's older than I am. Then in 1993 the college built me a 21 x 96 quonset greenhouse to grow annuals to put out on campus. It will comfortably hold about 7,000 plants. Since I know very little about moderation, I had over 10,000 plants that first year. The process was slow and painful but if I wouldn't have had my gardens to tend, I would have been completely lost. To be continued