I have moved my blog to www.commitmenttovision.org 

Thank you for listening

Sharon

I admit that my first impression of blogging was that it would be a fun thing to do and who knows, maybe even profitable somewhere down the road.  So, typical of me, I jumped right in, joined a Blog Master Mind group and ran off into the blogging sunset.

It was addicting!  I loved it!!! It felt like I had a captive audience that would listen to my story.  I wrote about the things that had been meaningful in my life, the trials and tribulations of a 19 year old mother of two little boys.

I wrote about the honor of being with my sister when she died, then my dad, then my mom.  I wrote about my desire to coach people with the commitments they would make to move them into their vision.

I wrote about how I got rid of my ants.  I wrote about what was in my heart.

Then something happened.  I’m still not sure what it was but for some reason I stopped writing.  I think I scared myself.  I think I was going down a road of self revelation that I wasn’t quite ready for.

So I have some advice for you if you are someone that is considering taking up blogging.  Before you spend any money, go to http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/, download and read Yaro’s Blog Profits Blueprint book from cover to cover.  Then open up your “Pages” if you have a Mac or MS Word if you are a PC user and start writing posts.  See how often each week you can write about the subject you would like to blog about.

If you find that it is easy to write 600 to 1500 words four or five times a week, then you may be a blogger.  If that is the case, proceed to Gideon Shalwick’s “www.becomeablogger.com and watch his 10 video tutorials.  He will show you exactly what you need to do to set up your WordPress.org blog site.

Here’s an issue though.  If like me, you have already created a blog site with WordPress.com, the video tutorials will come to a point that they differ with what you see on the screen because Gideon is showing you how to do it on WordPress.org.  WordPress.org is for people that want to manage, control, change and maintain their own site.  If you feel comfortable with this, great.  If not, you need Joel “The Blog Tech Guy”.  Joel is fast and reasonably priced for his technical support.  If you want to “do it all by yourself” and if you have the technical know-how to accomplish it quickly, go for it.  But if you are better at writing than doing the nit-pickey technical things, get Joel’s help.  He will take care of it for you for a small fee and you can keep doing what you are best at which is writing.

When you are certain that you are a blogger, and you are set to move forward, get in touch with Yaro and let him lead you through the in’s and out’s of blogging through his “Blog Master Mind” course.

My experience of these three men is that they are first of all, men of integrity.  They are honest and they will do every thing in their power to make sure that you have all the tools you need to launch yourself into greatness.

I am still finding my way through the forest and I really don’t know where it’s all going to take me but I do know that this particular road has three guiding lights and if you follow their light…you will be safe.

Thanks for listening.

Sharon

What would it look like if I always acted like “The Best Human Being”?  What would my day look like?  Would I get up at 5:00 am every morning and spend an hour doing meditation and Spiritual work?  Would I then do physical exercise to stay in shape? Would I do Yoga?  Qigong? Would I be showered, fed and dressed for the day by 8:00?

Would I then start on tasks that I had planned the night before?  Would I do all of the most important and most difficult items first?  Would I have everything done by 2:00 PM so that I would be free to create and implement new ideas for the remainder of the day?

Would I drink lots of water every day and eat only the best foods in small quantities?  Would I stay mindful of all my potential at each moment of the day?  Would I do some sort of volunteer work every week?  What kind of person would I be if I really lived my life in accordance with my belief system?

Would I spend time each day visualizing the outcomes I want to have in each area of my life?  Would I do such a good job creating the feeeeeling of joythat I actually convince myself that it’s real?

What will it take for me to make all of this happen in my life on a daily basis?  What do I need to do to get back into the habit of doing the best I can to keep my eye on the goal?

And most of all…why do I ask when I know the answer!

So today I am going to coach myself.  I’m telling myself right now to get myself an “Accountability Partner”.  Someone that is ready to “GO FOR IT”.  Someone that is ready to make commitments and be held accountable.  Someone that is willing to give themselves consequences if the commitments are not kept.

Do you know what that would look like for you?  I will give you the formula as I see it for myself:  

1.  Find someone that is first of all, willing to go for it at the same level as you are.  

2.  Then make three or four commitments that you agree to keep and let nothing       stand in your way.  

3.  Give yourself a consequence if you don’t keep your word.  I remember when I was addicted to Ally McBeal.  One of the       most dire consequences I could give myself was to say:  “If I don’t keep my agreement, I won’t let myself watch a new         episode of Ally McBeal”.

4.  Make your commitments specific, measurable and time specific, such as from week to week.

5.  Start the commitment with “I will…”

6.  Be willing to hold your partner accountable and expect to be held accountable.

7.  Do it without judgement.

8.  Do it without fail

9.  When you fail…forgive yourself immediately and go for it again

10. Remember to say “Thank You” to yourself and others all day long.

Now let’s see if I do it.

Thanks for listening,

Sharon

I was going through some old files and found my mothers ‘bio” on herself.  One of my cousins in Texas had asked her to write her life story and this is what came out of her mind at 86 with a little editing from me.

I, Pauline Rasure Beck was born April 20, 1912 at Dike, Texas.  I lived there until I was about 30 years old.  There were 6 of us kids.  I was the oldest, 2 years older than Joe David, 4 years older than Thelbert (we knew him as Uncle Shorty), 6 years older than A.R. 13 years older than Quintin and 19 years older than Nell.

My parents were Avera & Lillie Rasure.  My grandparent’s Johnnie & Sally Rasure also lived in Dike.  I went to the same school all of my school years.  I loved school.  Can’t remember missing a day of school except for when my grandpaw died and they didn’t count me absent.  We had 10 grades and we had our graduation exercise, got our diplomas & rings.  I was valedictorian but only beat Mozell Bartley because she missed so much school.

I have loved sports especially basketball and baseball.  I caught behind the batter on one side and my friend Fay Patterson caught on the other side.  Daddy laid down the law to Joe David that he better not catch him behind the bat…he never dreamed I was…he didn’t have to worry because Joe David didn’t play.

One day I saw Daddy coming down the road on his horse…boy I got from behind that bat in a hurry because I knew he would have a fit and I wouldn’t be able to do it any more.  He never found out.

Some of the other girls and myself went back to school 2 years after we had finished just to play basketball.  We had a good team and if we hadn’t gone back, there wouldn’t have been much of a team.

Another thing I loved to do was ride horses.  We had one called “Old Dixie”.  She had some racing blood in her and she sure could run.  I used to race cars…remember Model T’s in those days couldn’t run very fast.  We had her for 16 years.  I rode her to visit my in-laws that lived in another community.  I never had to tie her up.  I just dropped the reins and she would graze on the grass and be waiting for me.

She was a feisty thing.  She kicked Joe David in the pasture…didn’t hurt him, but he was afraid of her and I wasn’t.  I would go to catch her and she would go around me like she might kick me.  I never moved out of my tracks.  I just kept screaming at her and she would finally let me catch her.  I loved that horse but daddy traded her off while she was in good shape.  He couldn’t stand to see her go down hill.

My dear friend Fay Patterson moved to another County.  I went to visit her and they lived close to the Becks.  Fay had a party, and I fell for Evert like a ton of bricks.  He bought an old car and came to see me.  He brought Fay, Fan and Clyde (Fan and Clyde were my dad’s brother and sister) with him and Fan fell for Monard and they ran away and got married.  She was 16 and he was 17.  They married in February.  Clyde and Zeldarie in October.  She was 17 and Clyde was about 7 years older than her.  

(Editor’s note:  Monard was a “Leewright” and Zeldarie was his sister.  The Leewrights were second cousins of my mom and her siblings.)

Evert and I married on Christmas Day.  I was 22 and Evert liked a few days being 22.  That was in the depression days.  In 2 1/2 years, Janice came along.  She was the first grandchild in my family and how everyone loved her.  Nell was only 5 then.  It was like she had a little sister.  Evert and I worked so hard in the fields.  Mama kept Janice.  Evert got sick and I worked in the fields until 4:00 o’clock, rode a horse in and milked 10 cows by hand, poured the milk into a tank on a truck, then I had to wash those cows.

When Janice was 5, we decided to pull up stakes and go to New Mexico where they were raising Pinto Beans.  Well, they had a complete crop failure and we lost our shirt.  I hated that place.  Never been away from home before and pregnant with Sandra.  (My mom doesn’t say it here but they left New Mexico to return home to Dike, when she was just two weeks away from having Sandra and she had to drive all the way because my dad was almost dead with dysentery.  She always said that was one of the darkest periods in her life.  She hated having to move back in with her parents but had no other options.)

By this time the war had started so we sold what little stuff we had and headed for San Diego to stay with Clyde and Zeldarie.  I don’t remember how long we were there but there were 4 grown up’s and 5 little kids.  They all worked swing shift and I did all the cooking, washing & ironing and me with a 3 month old baby.  I nearly lost my mind so I told them I couldn’t do it anymore.  I went to the housing people and told them my troubles and they got me a house.  

(The story goes off into accounts that wouldn’t be of interest to anyone but our family but I wanted you to get a flavor for this woman called “Aunt Polly” by almost everyone that didn’t call her “Sis”.  I will be writing more about her later.  And you are definitely going to hear more about her and also about “Aunt Fan”. She is my last living Aunt and my favorite.)

Thanks for listening.

Sharon

Hi,

I’m learning to put photo’s into my blog posts.  I have done it in the past and it was too small.  This one may be too big, I don’t know how it will look until I actually post it and then visit my post.

This is me in Cabo San Lucas.  I am at Pueblo Bonito Pacifico which is their Holistic retreat and it was just wonderful.  Sometimes life is soooo sweet.  Actually it has been pretty sweet for quite a while now, since I have been with my Hungarian sweetheart.

More later…

So the nice man at the information counter said we needed to hurry if we wanted to see the Eiffel Tower because it was past 10:30 and the lights would go off at midnight but that we would find lockers where the bus was going to let us off.  I felt like Cinderella trying to find my glass shoe before time ran out.  I really wanted to experience the white lights sparkling all over it like I had seen in the movies.  I couldn’t wait.

So we got on a bus and it took us to the Champs Elysees and dropped us off.  We looked around and the beautiful Arc de Triomphe was right in front of us and there was a little outside cafe on one side of the street, closing up shop, and a small quaint hotel on the other side.  No Lockers in sight.  Bummer.

So we drug all our carry on paraphernalia inside the small hotel to ask if they knew where the lockers were located.  The man behind the counter chuckled and said there weren’t any that he knew of.  I’m sure our faces fell as we realized that we were stuck there for the whole night with only the Arc to look at until we could get on the bus in the morning to go back to the airport.

So the Frenchman (who according to legend, hates all Americans) asked us when we planned to be back.  We told him our situation and how we just wanted to walk as far as we could around the city and see as much as we could see in 9 hours.  He said that he got off at 6:30 am and if we promised we would be back by 6:00, he would lock our stuff up for us in his back room.  We were overjoyed.  He wouldn’t even let us tip him, let alone pay him for it.

So we were foot loose and fancy free in Paris.  YIPEE!  We knew we only had a short amount of time to get anyplace on the Metro and we didn’t know where it was but my husband heard a small group of people speaking Hungarian (Unbelievable) and they showed us where it was and how to get to the Eiffel Tower.  We were off and running.  

When we got above ground we walked past a very large building and as we passed it, the Eiffel Tower came into view in all it’s… glory?  What?  It was Blue?  With big huge stars in a circle on it?  I just couldn’t believe it.  Turns out that the President of France is also the President of the European Union and he did that to the Tower.  And every half hour or so, all the lights start strobing and twinkling and rotating and everyone goes “OUUUUU”.

Anyway, enough of that.  I’m sure there are a lot of people that think that is one of the best sights in Paris.  So, on to the next thing I wanted to see…Notre Dame!  No disappointment there.  What a beautiful Cathedral.  I wish we could have gone inside and had a chance to just stare at it for hours.   Also it was amazing to look at it in real life and see how high the tightrope was that Philippe Petiti strung across the two towers before he was arrested for walking it.  

Have you seen the movie/documentary “Man On Wire”?  If not…do so as soon as you can.  It is really about him stringing wire across the top of the World Trade Center Buildings in 1974 and walking (or “dancing” as one policeman said) back and forth 8 times before he stepped onto the building and let them arrest him for that caper.  It is one of the most amazing films I have ever seen.

Anyway, back to Paris at night.  The other thing that was amazing to us was how many policemen and policewomen we saw strolling around.  It was very comforting.  They were really friendly also.  Where was all of the disgust for Americans we had heard so much about?  Hmmmm

The main thing that Istvan wanted to see was the original Statue of Liberty.  He just couldn’t locate it on the map of the city that the sweet man at the hotel had given us so we asked two policewomen that were strolling by.  They spoke just a little bit of English but they sure laughed at Istvan when he asked them where the Statue was located.  They looked at each other, and laughing at the crazy Americans, said “Zee Statue of Libertee eez in New York” hahaha.  We thanked them and walked away letting them enjoy themselves.

By the time Istvan did find it on the map (there it was, an actual tiny statue of liberty on the map as an icon) we were too tired to do more than go back to the hotel and wait for it to open up at 5:00.  We drug our selves into the lobby and asked for our stuff and the Frenchman encouraged us to just sit in the lobby until the bus’s started running.  We were so tired that we immediately fell asleep sitting up.

An hour later when we felt we had probably overstayed our welcome and hoped that we hadn’t snored to much, we asked for our luggage and he insisted on having us sit at a little cafe table while he brought us espresso and chocolate croissants.  Who was this guy anyway?  Why didn’t he hate Americans?  He was just an angel originally from Tunisia who spoke five different languages and made sure our few hours in Paris were moments to remember for the rest of our lives.  

As a matter of fact…his light shines in my memory far stronger than any Eiffel Tower light of any color.

Thanks for listening,

Sharon

Almost every Sunday I have a Spiritual Conversation with two friends that live in different parts of the country.  It is my Sunday “Church Chat” so to speak.  Today there was only one on the line with me and I admitted that I, normally Ms. Sunshine, was having great self doubt.  

I was looking at the results of several situations that looked like they were going to turn out one way, only to go quite South in direction, projects started with such enthusiasm only to meet with closed doors and opportunities that have appeared only to disappear.  I take full responsibility.  I know that I create my life with every thought and action…so it must be my fault.

Anyway, that was my line of communication to my friend this morning, and all of a sudden I hear a “Ping” that tells me I have a new message in my inbox.  I opened it and it said that my favorite Blogger had posted a new article.  YIPEE.

I went right to it and read it so my friend could hear it also.  If you haven’t had a chance to check out Personal Growth with Corinne Edwards”, do yourself a favor and check her out.  Anyway, she has posted an article about losing a job and what we as humans experience when things like that happen in our lives.  The lies we tell ourselves, the negative self talk we engage in…the works.

I can’t remember when something so synchronistic has ever happened to me before.  It was like a bolt out of the blue reminding me that my past is not my future.  I am still in control of my thoughts and decisions.  And I can choose again.  And I do.

So my new outlook is this.  I’m thankful for my life.  I’m going to get back into tithing no matter what the financial situation is in our household.  And I am going to actively start pursuing my Coaching/Facilitating online.  I am putting it out there that I would like to have a “Non-Advice” column for “the good of all and the harm of no one”.  

I don’t exactly know what it is going to take to get it done but that is where I’m going.  I am clear that I am here to serve and this is the way I think I can help the most.  To listen to what others have to say, tell them what I see (if they are interested and ask) and remind them that they are whole and perfect just the way they are.

I’m also going to continue to write my life story just in case it could help or entertain someone along the way.

Thanks for listening,

Sharon

That was a turning point in our relationship.  He decided that I was the one he wanted and we started looking for priest (the other one had disappeared) that would marry us in the Catholic Church without me having to sign anything that meant my kids would be raised Catholic.  I was still going to church every Sunday morning at this point.  We were married by a priest a few months later with our Choir teacher standing up for us.  She had spoken to her priest and he had agreed to conduct the service.  It was just me, my husband, the Choir teacher, his dad and his brother in this huge church but it felt sweet to me and like I had the world by a string.  What I didn’t know at the time was that I was pregnant…again.  At least I had turned 18 and would be 19 when this baby was born.

We moved into a little apartment, our first place together.  I remember finding out that I was pregnant again and he was very upset.  I think it made him feel like going to a University instead of a Junior College, had just been pushed further into “fantasy land”.  Secretly in my heart, I wanted this baby.  I felt like I had matured (Ha) so much and I was eager to have a child as an adult.  I knew I was an adult because I got on a bus every morning and traveled into the city to work at a bank.  That’s adult…right?

I worked until about 4 days before the baby came and that bus driver would look at me with a skeptical eye and ask me every day when I was going to stop getting on his bus in that condition.  I would just laugh and hope I didn’t go into labor.  I had to earn as much money as I could before I went on pregnancy leave.

I remember it was the end of November and my husband was studying for a big test when I went into labor.  I didn’t even know I was in labor until my mom told me.  I thought I just had a really bad back ache but my mom wanted me to go get checked.  I did and they told me that even though I was barely dilated, the baby was definitely on the way.  I didn’t want my husband to get a bad grade on the test so I told him that I was going to stay at my parents house so that he could study as late as he wanted without bothering me.  He fell for it and I had my mom drop me off at the hospital.

My mom hated to leave me there alone but I told her I was just going to go to sleep and that I would call her later.  I never was one to want my mom with me when I had my kids.  She dropped me off at about 10:00 PM and I guess it caused a bit of a stir with the nurses because they didn’t like to see someone as young as I was, having a baby alone.  I explained why my husband wasn’t there and that he had no idea the baby was coming and that it would be just fine.  They told me how brave they thought I was and I remember thinking that bravery had nothing to do with it but I was glad they thought so.

He was born at 9:00 AM the next morning and when I woke up at about noon, they brought him in for me to hold. I remember when I looked down at him, he was looking at me with very big eyes that looked just like mine.  I said to him “You and I have been together before” and I knew we had.  My husband didn’t find out he had arrived until he got home from school and I know he was so glad to have been spared the labor room ordeal that had been no fun the first time and I was happy to have been able to give him this gift.

A few moments later there was a big stir out in the hallway and the other ladies in the 4 person room wanted to know what was going on.  One of the nurses came in and said “Never mind…it isn’t something that you need to know right now in your condition.  Well we all had a fit and said that we wanted to know what was going on so they told us that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas.  She turned on the TV for us so we could watch.

I went home that night and when I got up in the morning, I immediately had such a splitting headache that I couldn’t stand up.  It was a reaction to the Coddle they had given me in my spine and it caused me to not be able to raise my head for the next 4 days.  The only thing I could do was lay and watch TV and the only thing on was the news about the assassination and then of course Jack Ruby shooting Oswald on National Television.  What a time that was for all of us in this country.

I really thought I was done with having kids because it was hard to try to raise a family and go to school (on my husbands part) and work to keep it all together.  My husband at times had three part time jobs while carrying a full load at the Junior College.  He was determined to go there for two years only and then transfer to Cal Berkeley.  He was successful at this plan and graduated from the University with a degree in Electrical Engineering.    But before he was able to graduate, I had this funny feeling I was pregnant… again.

By this time, I was 23 and felt almost like an older woman.  After all I had a 7 year old son and one that was 5.  I knew that I had never missed one birth control pill but I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I was pregnant.  I went to see my doctor (that same one that had seen me through the first pregnancy when I was 16) and he said “Don’t I have you on birth control pills?”  When I said yes, he told me that I couldn’t be pregnant.  But then he said “Wait a minute…what kind do I have you on?”  I told him and he said “O, well you could be because those are only 90% effective).  Only 2% of women given a Caudle get that awful headache after birth so I guess I am one of those people that are in the minority in more ways than one.

So I was going to get to have a baby as an adult.  I was elated.  When I told my husband though, he couldn’t handle it.  He was so close to his dream of getting a degree from the University and he felt that this would just be the end.  He wanted me to get an abortion.  

Back in those days things had progressed from when I had first gotten pregnant at 16.  Now, if you felt that being pregnant was going to cause you to have a nervous breakdown or something, you could get permission to have an abortion.  But first I had to go to a County Psychiatrist and convince him of my “unstable mind”, which I did…then go to a specialist and get confirmation that I was pregnant.  

My doctor gave me a referral to a specialist and when I went, the specialist was very rude to me and I was confused about why he was being so mean.  His wife was his nurse and she apologized after he left the room.  She said he was so against abortion and he knew that I was there for that reason.  I told her I didn’t want an abortion either and she said “Then why in the world are you doing this?”  I told her it was because it was what my husband wanted.  I remember how her face changed at that revelation, and it cause the wheels to start turning around and around in my head.

As I was driving home, I had to pull over to the side of the road because I was crying so hard.  When I finally cried myself calm, I had made up my mind. My husband was waiting at home to hear when the abortion could take place.   As soon as  I walked in I said “I’m having this baby no matter what and not only that, it’s going to be your favorite child”.  He looked stunned but he didn’t argue with me, he just accepted it.  I think he didn’t like the idea of abortion either but just felt overwhelmed and didn’t know what else to do.  

Looking back now, I think that was the beginning of the end of our marriage because up until that point, I had always let him do the thinking for me.  I thought that is what a wife was supposed to do, obey their husbands.  But my mother had a term for what I was experiencing.  She always said “When the worm turns…watch out”. Julie arrived and my husband just went nuts over her.  She became his little “Pork Chop” and to this day they have one of the closest relationships I have ever seen between a father and daughter.

I have once again exceeded the amount of text that is acceptable for a blog post but I wanted to finish this tale of being a young mom.  I didn’t want to do “Part 4″.  I may write more about my relationship with my first husband later, but for now I want to say that for someone who got married the summer before his Senior year in high school and had three kids before he was 25 and still graduated with a degree from the University of California by the time he was 26…well that’s just incredible to me.   I think he’s an amazing human being and a great dad to his kids.  We both made mistakes with our children like every parent does unless they’re Saints, but they are all three great people who have given us wonderful grandchildren and I wouldn’t change a thing.

Thanks for listening.

Sharon

As I listened to him, I realized that my feelings about what he was saying, fell into the category of “judgment”.

I am always thankful for my inner voice because it went off like an alarm inside my head and said “If you are noticing it outwardly…it must be residing inside of you or you wouldn’t be noticing it in the first place”. This inner voice allowed me to check in and see where it was in myself that bordered on a lack of Integrity.

So what is “Integrity” anyway?  Is it doing what’s right?  Who says right is right?  Who’s the Judge?  When these situations come up I go online to Wikipedia and see what it has to say about the subject.  

“Integrity” according to Wikipedia, is “consistency between one’s actions, values, methods, measures and principles”.  It goes on to say that “People are said to have integrity to the extent that they behave according to the values, beliefs and principles they claim to hold”. Hmmmmm

As I examine that explanation and apply it to myself, I understand a little more about what triggers me and why I am so affected when the triggers are pulled.  My biggest trigger is money.  When I got a divorce from my first husband, I went on AFDC (Aid for Families with Dependent Children) and had to use “food stamps”.  It took several years to work my way up to the point of establishing credit in my own name, and probably would have taken much longer if I hadn’t met a nice man at the restaurant where I worked who managed a bank and gave me my first loan.  That loan gave me the credit I needed to get my first credit card in 1981 and I still have it today.  I keep it for sentimental reasons even though I rarely use it.  

I am one of those people who balance their bank statement as soon as it arrives and I pay my bills as soon as I get them in the mail and my good credit is one of the most important things to me.  However, being married to a man that is in real estate full time in this current market is causing my normal triggers to become “hair triggers”.  Almost anything financial can pull me away from my peaceful center.

So when I heard this person talk about something that I judged as “lacking in Integrity”, I realized I needed to look within and find out why it was causing such judgment inside of me.  

What I found is that I am out of alignment with my belief system and that’s what is causing me to go into judgement.  I know that we are all “One” and if I am judging someone else…what I’m really doing is judging myself.  If I apply what the Wikipedia says about Integrity and how someone is said to have it to the extent that they behave according to the beliefs they claim to hold…Bingo…there it is!

I profess to believe that everything is as it should be no matter what it looks like and that every issue in my life is an opportunity for me to test my faith and belief system and to grow and yet not having enough money to pay the mortgage can make me nuts.

So today, I emotionally let go of my house.  I told my husband that I think it’s time to put it on the market while all of the flowers are still in bloom and it is looking so beautiful.  He doesn’t agree and thinks that something will come along to bail us out.  Like maybe he will sell that 1.5 million dollar home he has been holding open.  It doesn’t matter to me one way or another.  He is my home and as long as he is walking on this earth with me…I am content and I feel whole, which is the true meaning of Integrity to me.  Wholeness.  Oneness.  Perfection.  Bless us all.

Thanks for listening.

Sharon

My husband went right to Junior College while working as a stock boy at a local store, and I started looking for a job.  My husband, in the meantime, was suffering guilt because he was a Catholic and we had been married by a judge instead of a priest.  Even when we were dating, there were huge differences between what we believed.  Take sex for instance.  He thought anything that was that great had to be a sin and I thought anything that was that great had to be O.K. on some level.  His guilt grew or at least that’s the excuse he gave for moving back home to his parents house.  

I started looking for a priest that would marry us without me having to sign my child over to the Catholic church.  When my parents were kids growing up in the South, Catholics were “Papist” and the Pope all but had horns as far as they were taught, so I knew that I couldn’t sign any kind of paper saying I agreed to raise my kids Catholic.  

I found a priest in the city that thought it was worse for us to be separated than the alternative and he said he would marry us without me having to agree to anything but to raise my kids Christian.  I had been staying in the city with my best friend Betty (who is still my best friend these 50 years later) and I had gotten sick with a sinus infection but I just had to get home to tell my husband the good news.

The town we lived in was about an hour away from San Francisco and I remember getting a ride from one of Betty’s friends and I was so sick I was hallucinating on the way home.  We arrived at about midnight and I had him just drop me off because I knew I was going to have to sneak around the house and tap on the window to wake him up.  But he was still awake and at his desk studying and he let me in the back door.

I remember telling him my great news and how his face fell as I was telling him.  I asked him what was wrong and he admitted that what he wanted was an annulment instead of a ceremony with a priest.  He took me home and I know he felt so bad but it was the truth and he couldn’t lie about his feelings.  He had tried to spare me the hurt by blaming it on the Church and I appreciated that.  ”I’ll think about this tomorrow” I said to myself ala Scarlett O’Hara.  

I was in bed with that sinus infection for almost two weeks.  It’s hard to heal your body when your heart is broken.  But…looking on the bright side, I went to bed a size 12 and got out of bed a size 7.  As my mom would say “That’ll help your sore toe” (I never knew exactly what she meant by that but she said it for every occasion where something good came out of a bad situation”.

After that I got a job in San Francisco with Bank of America and I started trying to put my life back together.  My husband and I would see each other when he could get away from school and work, to visit his son and sometimes we would go out.  Since neither of us were dating and I was so in love with him, some of our visits were very sweet and physical.

By this time I was sharing an apartment with my oldest sister Janice who was going through a divorce of her own and the man she was dating gave me some advice.  He said “Sharon, you are never going to get him back while you are ‘ever ready Eddie’, you need to make him think you are interested in someone else”.  I thought that was just nuts and I could never do that because I am someone who can’t act worth beans.  Everything shows on my face all the time and I know it. 

It just so happened that my husband called my mom one Friday and asked if he could pick me up at the bus station instead of her and on that occasion I had met someone at the bank that said they were going to my town and would give me a ride.  My mom told him that I didn’t need a ride because a man was bringing me home and did he want me to call him when I arrived?  He said yes.

O, I have forgotten a huge part of the story.  Funny that it slipped my mind when it was so huge back then.

When we were both in Choir, we took a bus ride to perform at another school and we sat together and talked.  It was the first time we had ever spoken to each other and he told me all about this beautiful girl that had been his first love.  He had broken up with her because she wanted to go dancing at the recreation hall and he didn’t want to and she went anyway.  Him being of Spanish decent…well that was it for him.  His pride wouldn’t let him back down after telling her that if she went without him, they were through.  I was too young and dumb to know that he was still carrying a torch for her.

When I was about 8 months pregnant, he came home from work late one evening and he was really upset.  She had come into the store and he realized that he still had feelings for her.  He was so upset and now I was upset and we didn’t know what to do but to go knock on our Choir teachers door.  We both loved her and trusted her and thought she had some answers for us.  I don’t remember anything she said to us but the result was that we both felt better afterwards.  And all the feelings went underground.

Now fast forward to a time just before me getting a ride home from the “other guy”, when my husband and I are having another conversation about his first love.  He had run into her mom and it brought it all up for him again.  I remember thinking about love while he was telling me how he still had feelings for her and I was able to tell him “If you love her, I want you to have her”…and I meant it.

That was the last conversation I had with him before he called my mom to say he wanted to pick me up from the bus and found out that I was with “ANOTHER MAN”.   The Spanish blood was on the rise again.

To be continued…