I think of my parents every day. I send good thoughts and prayer for them every morning right after I wake up and every night right before I fall asleep. However I don’t call nor email them often.

For these past couple of months, I have read many books regarding taking care of old parents and spending time with cancer patients. All of them were helpful for me to think.

Among them, a story of a woman around my age resonated with me.

Her mother reached to an old age. She was not sick so that she didn’t need to stay in a hospital. However, her body got weak and could not do daily chores by herself anymore. She was living alone and needed support in her daily life. The daughter; aka, the author, decided to take care of her mother. She resigned her job and moved back to her mom’s house, and started devoting all of her private time to take care of her mother.

She made her decision with solid confidence. It was from her pure love to her mother. She was happy in taking care of her mother at the beginning.

Such life had passed by for more than four years.

By then, the author got too exhausted and stressed out of her life. She forgot about her first motivation of her decision. Gradually she started blaming her mother for ruined her good job. She started wishing her mother to pass away soon.

One day she realized of her wish. She blamed herself for wishing that. Then, after discussing with her other family members and relatives, she sent her mother to a nursing home. The daughter still helps her mother for the monthly payment of the nursing home, but she now has her private time to enjoy her life.

Toward the end of her book, she shared her wisdom that she learned from this experience.

It was nice of her to be willing to take care of her mother. It came from her kindness. That being said, she admitted that it also came from her obligation feeling. She thought of her other family members or relatives as well as others such as neighbors and friends. She worried they might think of her as a cold hearted person if she does not take care of her mother. She concluded if somebody wants to take care of their old parent, think twice if it comes from only pure love. If it also accompanies with their obligation feeling, they should not proceed.

After four years, she started wishing her mother’s passing away as soon as possible. Spiritually speaking, our thoughts create the reality. Her wishing of her mother passing away soon is not necessarily same as the wish of her mother. Her wish might be in the way for her mother.

After read her book, I thought of my own decision.

I think I made the best decision about my parents for not going to see them nor not living with them to take care of them devoting all my private time. I know my parents are independent souls. I know they fully understand and honor my decision and life.

This is the decision agreed between both of my parents and myself. I don’t need to worry about others on what they think of me. I need to protect my sacred boundary.  

Last night she had headache. She went to bed earlier than usual and had a nice 10- hour sleep last night.

Regardless of her effort of last night, her headache still stayed in her when she woke up. She wanted to be absent from school today. Judged from her face color and energy level, I was confident she would be fine at school. I knew her headache would be gone by the time when she arrived at school. I talked her into going to school. She reluctantly said okay.

She normally goes to the bus stop alone, but today she asked me to come with her.

While I was walking to the bus stop with her, she was walking very slowly. In each step, she complained about how sick she was.

Even though I knew she was acting being sick, I thought it cute of her. Within five meter or so from our house, I asked her one more time if she really needed to miss the school. Her face brightened up. She happily said YES.

I thought it would be fine for her to take one day off from school. So, I agreed with her and let her stay home. This was her very first day to be absent from school in this school year anyway. She deserves to rest up.

She nestled up to me and acted like a small child all day. I accepted her and stayed closely with her all day. It was good for both of us.

She is in the transition age. I remember it was confusing and frustrating to go through the physical and mental transition. I am glad that I could be there for my daughter whenever she needs me the most.

My daughter came back home feeling sick.

According to her, her head started hurting after the math test at school. The test was performed on the computer screen, and the students had to stare at the screen for close to two hours.

My daughter also said that after the test, it was not only her but also some other students mentioned about headache.

***

In the night, she went to bed earlier than usual.

She said she could not sleep due to the strong headache. But after received some minutes of Reiki from my husband and me, she instantly fall to a sound asleep.

I appreciate Reiki energy for helping her to sleep.

My husband received a letter from the VA office. It announces the new regulations effective from January 1st 2020. He will be qualified for receiving some benefits of Military. One of them is to shop at the grocery store on post.

I had a bad memory about this store.

At the time right after we married, my husband was serving as an active duty military. As a military spouse, I was qualified to shop at the grocery store on post. We lived in the government housing on post. From our house to the store, it was just a 10 minutes’ walk. Those days I didn’t have my own car, so it was convenient for me to shop at the store.

I appreciated for the nearby location of the store, but I had one concern about the store. It was about the baggers.

The baggers in this store does not get paid from the store. Since they are fully depend on customers’ tip only, the customers were supposed to give them a tip for their service of bagging.

At that time we were a young couple who strove for every penny. Even a small amount of tip of $3 to $5 was hard for us to spare. I asked the baggers politely and gently to let me bag my shopped items. They yelled back at me that it was their job. (I guess it was their way to say No.) After bagged, some of them started pushing my shopping cart heading to the parking lot. Sometimes they bagged my shopped items in a pretty bad way. The eggs were broken or some vegetables were pushed by other heavy items. There were times that I noticed some missing items after I arrived at home. They forgot to put the bag in my cart.

There were no other options to avoid the baggers in the store. There were no self-checkout cashiers available at that time.

I wanted to shop at the other grocery stores to avoid the baggers of this store. But I could not do so, because I didn’t have my car.

Because of the uncomfortable experiences, when my husband mentioned about his new benefit to shop at the store, I was not excited that much.

***

Today my friend told me a good news about the store.

The store now has self-service bagging lanes for the customers who want to bag their shopped items by themselves. Now I am willing to go back to the grocery store.

***

Please don’t get me wrong. I am not intending to offend the baggers. Firstly, I understand the tipping is Americans’ traditional custom. Secondly, I know some customers appreciate the baggers’ service to bag the shopped items, to carry the shopping cart to their vehicle, and to load the items into their vehicle.

I just wrote my personal experience. There are people who strives for their every penny or wants to bag their shopped items by themselves in their preferable way.

Therefore, it is good to offer both options for everybody to match their preference.

Yesterday I wrote about my adolescence days without my mom’ support. I thought about that and realized it was not my mom’s fault.

The first reason is, as I mentioned yesterday, the society at that time was like that. Adults were not willing to talk about the physical change openly with their children.

The second reason is that my mom grew up without her mom. My mom’s mom passed away when my mom was still a baby.

In my younger days, I always blamed my mom for her not supported me in my adolescence days.

Now that I am much older than those days, I know the reason why my mom did not support me. It was not that she did not support me on purpose, but that she could not. Because she grew up without her mom’s support. My mom didn’t have the proper relationship of a mom and daughter.

If I could go back to my younger days in spirit, I would tell “younger-days-me” not to always blame my mom. Be nice to my mom because she grew up without her mom. She doesn’t know what to do… I could have made our relationship a better one by not giving up in communicating with my mom. I gave up in communicating with my mom and kept everything to myself.

That being said, I cannot change my past. All I can do is learn from my younger days’ mistake.

Luckily my daughter provides me the opportunity to act wisely and differently this time. I am willing to openly talk with my daughter and learn from her wise spirit.

My daughter has her favorite teacher in the library. She offers the coding club, the electric club, and the craft club at the library.

While I was chatting with her today, she shared her personal information with us. She and my daughter share the birthday day just one day apart. Now we know why they like each other very much. Regardless of the huge age gap, the teacher and my daughter are good friends. They share the similar personality.

Recently my daughter turned to 10 years old. I thought she has become a teenager.

The teacher corrected me. She said here in America, a teenager is considered as a person whose age literally containing “teen”. So the age range is within thirteen to nineteen. She also said my daughter is within the age range of preteenager. It is the age range of nine to twelve.

***

After I came back home, I did some more research.

According to the definition of The World Health Organization (WHO), an adolescent falls within the age range of 10 and 19. So my daughter is an adolescence. Adolescence is the transition term between child and adult.

In my adolescence days, I went through lots of challenges and changes. I needed my mom’s advice and support. I wished I could have talked with my mom. At that time, not many parents were willing to openly talk about the topic related to sex with their children. The society was like that. I could not talk with my mom openly. I sometimes felt lonely in the transition.

Now I am a parent in a different era from my parents’ era. I want to be always there for my daughter whenever she needs my advice and support.

My husband and I had a good talk about our residence.

The recent sudden rent increase was very shocking to us. Now that they increased it, it means they can increase the rent any time as they want. It is just scary. The rent increase has made us seriously think about our residence.

My husband and daughter really like this current house. They want to buy this house if the owner offers a reasonable price. I like this house too. I agree with my family. If the price is reasonable, I don’t mind to buy it.

To be honest, my mind goes back and forth. Every time I was thinking about buying this house, my eyes caught some drawbacks. This house has lots of aspects that makes its value low. The owner made a whole bunch of nail holes in a clumsy way. There were no remodeling or upgrades in this house, except for the new gas stove. I really hope the owner considers all the aspects to reflect their sale price, if we buy it.

However, there is something in my mind. Deep inside.

During the conversation with my husband, I found out my husband feels the same way as I do. He wants to buy a house and settle down, but deep inside, there is something making us rethink about buying a house on this area.

My husband’s current employer is a huge organization. It has its branches not only throughout America but also internationally. There is some possibility to work in Japan, so he submitted the request to work in Japan. Recently he has been working on two more certificates related to his current job. Once he gets all the certificates, it will make him look good at the company. The opportunity for moving to a new job position will be open for him.

In case the company offers some new opportunity in other area or even in Japan, if we are still renting, we will be able to easily move out. He wants to keep ourselves as flexible and obligation-free. That is why he feels safe in renting a house at this moment.

I agree with him. I like being flexible.

If our right land calls us next year, I want to move smoothly.   

My husband and I agreed to keep having our hope. We will trust our family spirits to guide us naturally to our right decision. It might either buying the current house with the reasonable price, buying a new house in our current area, or as a new option, moving to a new area through my husband’s job.

During my morning walk, my family spirits sent me a brock of messages.

It was to contact the realtor of this current house and let her know of our house hunting.

Before I did so, I talked with my husband. He agreed with the idea. I also asked my family spirits for their support. My desire is to maintain the good relationship with the realtor. When it comes to a house issue, I need to be extra cautious. Changing a residence is a big deal.

After my prayer, I sent her a text message. I mentioned we have decided to do a house hunting in this area. I asked her to put our name in her mailing list as a house buyer.

She quickly replied back with her kind words. It was obvious that she was happy to hear that.

I believe this will turn good for us. At least it implied her that we didn’t like the rent increase and we are willing to leave this house as soon as we buy our house.

This morning I went to the local gas station store. The entrance glass doors were broken. The area was protected by the yellow keep-out tapes.

In my Facebook top page, I saw the news of the store posted by the local Fire Department.

It posted some pictures with the comment of “a minor accident.”

Later in the evening I found out the minor accident happened this morning. A white pickup truck collided to the glass doors. The driver was a man, but the police didn’t announce any further information.

We don’t know the detailed information why the driver collided the doors.

It was at least good to know nobody injured from this accident.  

Today was my daughter’s 10th birthday. However, this morning my daughter woke up and cried.

She said she was sad because she had to go to school on her birthday.

I knew her real reason why she was sad. The previous week her school was closed for three days to celebrate Thanksgiving week. She enjoyed her five days off including weekend.

Anyways, I talked her into going to school. I promised her she would have a great day.

***

As I expected, and as my prayer was heard, she came back from school all happy.

She had a great day at school. Her classmates gave her a hug and a birthday wish. She enjoyed eating the birthday cupcakes with her classmates.

***

From today, her class had a new teacher. She was not new to school. She has been as a substitute teacher for years. She was assigned as a temporary teacher for my daughter’s class for a while. Nobody knows exactly how long she will stay. I personally like this teacher. I have talked with the teacher many times. From the conversation, I can tell she is good at teaching. I hope she will stay being my daughter’s teacher until the end of school year.