Relationships; My Ship is Friendship First

 Looking back to 9 years ago. 

Journal Entry 12-18-2012;

As Americans, I hope that we can address the underlying issues behind violent incidents and carry ourselves as being more understanding, less judgmental and offering words of kindness to all; including people, we don’t understand or like. Have you ever tried to have a positive thought, or speak positive words about someone who you think negatively about? Change is not easy but it has to start with each and every one of us.

I shared this summary on Facebook, thanks for the memory notifications, I’m revisiting it today. 

I wrote this after much reflection on the end of relationships and or the changes of, specifically due to my decision to end my marriage; that officially occurred 13 months before 12-18-2012.

I had seen a few counselors for relationship help and attended different Christian sessions on marriage, I tried the "Love Dare." I had prayed for years,

 “God please save my marriage. Help me be a better wife. Why can’t we be a family like everyone else?.”

As I prayed, I realized my husband wouldn’t pray with me. 

As I prayed, I felt like to be his wife meant I couldn’t be a mom or have friends. 

I was drowning and lost. You know, freshwater mermaids swim, swim, swim… they don’t do drowning. 

I was getting information, including opinions, from religious leaders, medical health specialists & friends. 

God, began to show me that my marriage was not working & I needed to end it. 

If it’s meant to be then it will be. In the year I gave myself to focus on myself & being a single mom, God continued to show me that being a divorce survivor was my path.

Thus, to my December 2012 journal entry. 

I was preparing for another holiday season as a divorced single mom.

I would send my son off. He was 8 and I trusted my in-laws but my son was use to me going. He was not good at communication, preferred his room, reading, drawing and video gaming. 

I’d help him pack his favorite items. They had legos at their houses and he had cousins, it would be fine and it was.

I didn't know how’d I miss catching up with my in-laws and the being of an Aunt things. I send a small gift from me, but I lost time. 

Thus, started emotions of anger and hurt. 

I was in a program, Divorce Care, at a local Wesleyan Church. 

I was able to start healing & grieve the loss of not having a family-like others or the fairytale. 

I had to accept my story. I wanted to be a Mom & I was, God picked me for this. 

I had to get myself to trust again but to build friendships first. Divorce Care said stay away from attraction & lust, which lead to more unhealthy relationships. I know that children are more likely to be abused by a step-parent or Mom’s boyfriend. 

I knew I couldn’t handle more drama, I decided to be a person of Chasity. I had to shut the thought of just dating out. 

I had to learn who I was now. One day at a time. 

Temptations arrived but I stood with my faith. 

I didn’t want to play house, I didn’t want my son to meet strangers. 

My choice was lonely but not in a bad way, I began to see a lot of ugly and good about myself in the lonely. I learned not to be afraid of lonely. 

I began to walk more & invite others to walk with me. 

I began to set goals of my interest for things to do. I got scuba diving certified.

I went to restaurants by myself. 

I feel more comfortable sitting at the bar when I do. I learned to politely turn men or women down who tried to hit on me. I’m she/her who will date a man when I’m ready, but friendship first. 

You tell them that, they stop trying, change the subject, chat about the sport game on the TV, smile and part ways.

I have watched movies by myself, yes even going to a theatre by myself. 

Inspiring Quotes, on 12-18-21 posted;

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive.” -Anaïs Nin

“In a beautiful meditation on the power of friendship, French diarist and essayist Anaïs Nin wrote in 1937 that each person we meet and befriend invites us to explore more of ourselves and discover new insights. Our interests, personalities, dreams, hopes, and thoughts are made richer and brighter when shared with someone else, and sometimes it takes the arrival of a new friend to awaken our truest identities.”

I have learned this. 

I have learned that sometimes friendships aren’t meant to last for a long time and that friendships change.

The other night I was talking to my best friend of 25+ years, we met in high school.

Her husband is also my best friend, I don't think he had a choice, so I often refer to myself as their third wheel. I’ve been around since their beginning. I’ve learned to be a 3rd wheel.

She was talking about love languages, what I thought my love language is. As I’m sharing my single online dating trials with her and I told her probably quality time. 

I found the love languages quiz and I am 37% quality time so that means;

“nothing says I love you to me then undivided attention being there for me with the TV off and everything else on standby … failure to listen can be accessed and especially hurtful” to me and that is from the five love languages.

Www.5lovelanguages.com

I’m not settling or in a hurry for love. 

I’m not afraid of lonely. 

I’m not sure I can take another failed love relationship, so I’m not playing house. 

Dude, I’ll meet up with you as a friend, doing the things I like to do, walk and swim to start. It’s going to take a long time and frankly a miracle from my God, if I decide to give you more than friendship. 

Lastly, I think I’ll need my own bedroom, woman cave for the rest of my life. 

Relationships are complicated but I’m trying to have healthy ones, full of celebration, happy memories with endings or parting ways peacefully. Agree to disagree. 

I'm trying to walk with a clear heart and mind.

 “If you owe me, don't worry about it - you're welcome. If you wronged me, it's all good - lesson learned. If you're angry with me, you've won. If we aren't speaking, its cool (I love you and I wish you well). If you feel I wronged you, I apologize. Life is too short for all the pent-up anger, holding grudges and extra pain!”  -Unknown 

In a “Lifetime” movie a guy just said the best ship in life is a “Ship of Friendship.”

Now, go and make new friends but keep the old too.

By -Rebecca McGrath-H.

mrs.mcgrathh@gmail.com

Beck Mcgrath-hinkle/Mrs Mc FACEBOOK

mcgrathhblogspot.com

@mrs.mcgrathh TikTok

@BeckMcGrath Twitter

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          BMI # 550916280

Rotisserie Chicken’s

12-20-21

This week I was at the grocery store and I decided to buy a rotisserie chicken. 

No big deal right, have you ever bought one? 

Kroger Grocery in my hometown of Ohio, usually has them right by the registers and they smell yummy.

Well it became an issue, you see this is my first time on SNAP/food-Stamp card. I found out I had to pay for a Rotisserie Chicken, why? Who decided that a person of poverty can’t buy this food item ?

I immediately was flooded with emotion, I shockingly paid for it, instead of removing it; however the stories of my former urban public school students, some who lived in cars, hotels or talked about only having a microwave to cook, immediately set me off into anger. 

I remembered a Cincinnati FCCLA teacher who was recognized for having fundraiser drives for crockpots.  She taught crockpot cooking due to the number of her students whose only cooking source was a microwave. She had partnered with getting free produce & teaching them how to cook that in crockpots too. 

All of a sudden her efforts & the necessity of her purpose became more vivid to my mind! 

Some families are not able to buy a rotisserie chicken from the grocery ?  or Cooked foods from a deli that have less additives than precooked frozen meat? 

 

The rotisserie chicken that is convenient for busy parents and promoted in a lot of store fronts ? 

Seriously? 

Rotisserie Chicken is for the privileged ?  

Congress ? I mean who comes up with this stuff? 

The SNAP card can buy processed pre packaged junk food, jerky & soda but not a rotisserie chicken? 

Is it assumed that on SNAP that the person is just sitting at  home, not working & that they have resources for major kitchen appliances?

This is not the reality of many people in poverty. 

I know many families on SNAP who are working 2 or 3 part time underpaying jobs & taking care of children who can’t afford an oven or appliances to cook a raw whole chicken. 

It takes money to buy an appliance and electric to operate such an appliance. 

Can one cook a whole chicken in the microwave? 

How about the prepackaged individually wrapped foods given to school children. 

That’s a whole other issue. 

Any questions regarding SNAP policy should be directed to: SM.FN.RPMDHQWEB@usda.gov.

Shelly Pierce

Acting Director

Retailer Policy and Management Division

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

I’m contacting her & members of Congress.

Also, this week I called Ohio Medicaid back because I still have not seen anything in the mail. They told me 7 to 10 days for instructions to provide them of my income change for eligibility, since it is so different from last year's taxes. They have to mail it. It’s not on their website and can’t be sent electronically? 7 to days should of been December 8th, but I was told they are showing mailed out 12-12-21, which is a Sunday.

This is after I waited 8 weeks for a response & when I called back they said I was denied due to lack of information, so they reprocessed my application over the phone. I started in July before my health insurance ended. 

The process to apply for assistance is more ridiculous than I could ever imagine. 

I’ve given numbers to families and referred them to help in the past, not realizing how difficult this process actually is. 

My faith is what guides me, I need to try to change this and make others aware.

I have spent 2-4 hours a week on the phone or online trying to complete assistance paperwork, since my income has drastically changed.

I’m literate and have technology sources. 

I know this is not true for many people.

Thus, who is helping them figure this mess out ? 

God I’m woke and I’m listening. 

I’m not liking what I’m seeing. 

I’m seeing too much hopelessness & darkness. 

I’m walking everyday being a light & staying positive. 

How are you? 

Let me know what injustice you see. 

Public Service & Uber; God what are you asking me to do, to be a Donkey?

 I have walked with God, well for as long as I can remember. 

Don’t worry I’ll explain all about the Donkey so please bear with me. 

I found my faith when I was 7, while surviving sexual assault, but that is another story for another day.

In July 2021, I left a contract job with a set income in Public Service because “IT” was killing me & my spirit. 

My Family Doctor, Specialist for SIBO, counselor’s and Psychologist for years have advised me that the stress, business of my life and career was not helping me. 5 years ago, I started praying to God to help me prepare and make changes to live for my health first. Thus, I set out on the plan that I made in prayer. 

I have walked and continue to walk in my work, praying & trying to be the light of God every day.  

The “IT” is and was this confusion from Administrative powers, Government funding, too much talk & less action to help me serve as a Public School Teacher. 

1 counselor, yes I have seen a few, but this 1 told me that my 20+year career is the story of a trailblazer and trailblazers don’t have it easy, they can’t go with the majority because they walk with a higher power who won’t let them. 

I question everything because human and social justice is my burden. This was in January 2020, right before the COVID19 pandemic. I learned that I need to stop questioning my thoughts and rebel-ness against our systems because “If God is with me then who can be against me?” This notion took on a whole new meaning for me.

This was the first time in my life that someone had told me to embrace my rebel and trouble maker spirit. Other’s have said you just need to say NO, just let it go, just teach and then go home. That was killing my spirit, so I kept being me and attending lots of meetings, not all but questioning authority and telling them what I felt was needed or what I have seen that works in my classroom. 

I was advised to take a sabbatical, a year off. That I needed time to re process the last 20 years and to continue writing my story because I feel better when I do, just start getting more of it all out. During the 2020 Pandemic closure, I went back to my journals and started rewriting them to add to my Blog and to create song lyrics out of some of them. 

When I tell my story, I have critics and I have lost some friends too. 

Looking at this as my burden to carry in order to be God’s light. I have bid friends farewell, tried not to harbor hate at them or try to overanalyze our friendship. As a divorce survivor, I have learned to appreciate the relationship, the love and to let the bad go, however, to set boundaries in future relationship opportunities by being more business-like. 

This is my American story or my American tragedy you decide? 

I’m working on writing stories, stories I have started and stopped at different points during my whole little life. When I found out I wasn’t needed to teach at the college nearby the place I moved to in July 2021, I prayed. Why? God why?

My faith has gotten me this far, so what are you wanting from me?

I focus every day now on my healthy life which means exercise & healthy eating for my body first each & everyday. I follow a Lowfodmaps diet and keep a food journal. 

I saw Uber as a way to still serve. 

An opportunity to serve & help people. I’m in control of how I handle every Uber that pins my phone. I accept & serve. 

Uber has app manipulation or manipulates what you get. I found a “UE Secrets” Facebook Page created by Donald Franco who Ubers with his wife. The tips and tricks he has taught our group is awesome, but it angers me that we even have to do it because Uber is not really for the Contractor Courier or the Uber customer. Read that again, if you use UBER, they really do not care about you or the Driver. 

Lastly, at church yesterday, 12-5-21, Central Church @ Florabama, Pastor Rick said, 

“Mary & Joseph didn’t have an Uber, they just had a donkey.”

So my truck and I are just a Donkey this Holiday Season, God I’m listening, send me where I am needed. 

-Rebecca McGrath-Hinkle

mrs.mcgrathh@gmail.com

Beck Mcgrath-hinkle/Mrs Mc FACEBOOK

mcgrathhblogspot.com

@mrs.mcgrathh TikTok

@BeckMcGrath Twitter

MCGRATHHINKLE Instagram

          BMI # 550916280

“If Your Not In It;” By Mrs. McGrath-H.

 “If Your Not In It;”

V1

Did you hear, 

hear that no one would miss you?

When the thoughts crossed your mind,

You didn’t think to say, why” 

Why am I thinking this way?

And why, why did you keep thinking it’d be okay to leave, to leave today … today?

Chorus

Your life is no more

Some say you won’t find heaven’s door?

But I can’t see a heaven if your not in it

That’s not true cause 

They don’t know you 

Nah they don’t know, now

Whose gonna fill your part?

Tell me, whose gonna fill your part?

V2

I didn’t even know, when I told you so.

Oh, how much I wanted to go.

You didn’t even tell me what you were hiding inside.

Oh, I’d do anything, anything to see you again

Will my pain ever end?

Our lives, those who survive, are a semi colon;

And your’s is a period, an end?

Nah, we’re believers and the powers that be will have the say

Repeat Chorus

V3

Some of us are not made for this world

It’s too much of a burden to bear 

Who are they to tell me, tell me, it ends this way?

Your smile, our laughing, laughing at all our trails

You were the smartest, with the biggest of hearts

By -Rebecca McGrath-H.

mrs.mcgrathh@gmail.com

Beck Mcgrath-hinkle/Mrs Mc FACEBOOK

mcgrathhblogspot.com

@mrs.mcgrathh TikTok

@BeckMcGrath Twitter

MCGRATHHINKLE Instagram

BMI # 550916280

Freshwater Mermaid By Rebecca McGrath

I am working on girl empowerment with my "Freshwater Mermaid" story that has started out as a Poem/Lryic.  #freshwatermermaid

Help Wanted;

I am looking for collaborators for the following; 

1. Adding a tune/melody 

1. An Artist/Illustrator for drawings of the Freshwater Mermaid

Freshwater Mermaid

Raised as an Ariel, no Prince, yet. 

Some can be mean, selfish, liars, even narcissists.

Thank God Disney finally has Muana,

That girl followed her gut instinct, that feeling, just like me.

Chorus

What if a love story is how you chose to live?

What you give, to be kind

…to smile, give a helping hand, 

an ear to understand, 

That not everyone splashes or swims, 

Cause, even little mermaid didn’t want her fins. 

Nope she didn't want her fins.

Dads can be Titans, but mine he had a soft spot.

He knew I needed a pool, a lake water because

that is a freshwater mermaid's fate.

Dreamer I am.

Dreamer I must. 

Chorus

Now don’t lust. 

Somethings aren’t meant to be

That’s not the future I see

Freshwater Mermaids grow up 

Wading, floating, swimming, boating

Lake Erie, Ohio River or Little Darby Creek.

Thus, it takes a special Merman to not use his feet. 

Chorus

By -Rebecca McGrath-H.

mrs.mcgrathh@gmail.com

Beck Mcgrath-hinkle/Mrs Mc FACEBOOK

mcgrathhblogspot.com

@mrs.mcgrathh TikTok

@BeckMcGrath Twitter

MCGRATHHINKLE Instagram

http://linkedin.com/in/rebecca-mcgrath-hinkle-289856b8

BMI # 550916280

Songtown USA Member since January 2021

Mrs. Mc. is applying for a Doctorate Program !

My purpose for applying to the Graduate and “CHP,” which I believe stands for Center for Humanities Professions at the University of Florida; first of all, the explanation of the Psychology Clinician Doctorate program, that has caught my interest. I am considered to be an overqualified, urban, public school, Pre-k to 12th Teacher, who holds a Master's Degree Plus in college credits. Most teacher’s at this stage in their career start Principal Leadership pathways. I have no desire for that. I enjoy the teaching and learning process too much to transition into that side. Thus, I feel that my professional and life experiences make me a great candidate for your Doctorate program. At this time, I will explain most of them. 

 

I am a facilitator and life-long researcher who will use various technologies and teaching methodologies to enhance my presentation of information. One of the theories I apply is Vygotsky; believing that learners build new knowledge from their previous knowledge, while teaching content in a relevant approach. I have continued my education to expand upon my knowledge of Career Technical Education, Preschool through Fifth grade, and Special Education as a Reading Specialist for Kindergarten-Twelfth licensing programs through The Ohio State University, as a Non-Degree student. 

Currently, I am in my 26th year of teaching and will be teaching Male Inmates at the Santa Rosa Correctional Institute in Milton, Florida, starting September of 2021. In June of 2021, I completed my 22nd year of teaching for Columbus City Schools, in Ohio. In January of  2019, I began teaching courses for Columbus State Community College. I have had a lot of full-circle moments, getting to teach courses that I took. I am a proud urban public school graduate and mom to a public school graduate. Thus, I have seen the psychological impacts of surviving poverty. 

 

In addition to just teaching, I am an active member of NEA, OhEA and the Columbus Education Association (CEA) in an advocacy and engagement of members role. I have hosted Zoom, Webex and Google Meet Video sessions for families, students and colleagues; while creating Google Classroom assignments for remote and blended learning settings. I will use whatever technology is available to make connections with others. 

 

In April of 2021, I was on the Panel for “The Council for Professional Recognition CDA, Child Development Associate,” credential program sharing my success with successfully implementing the credentialing program for my students. I was very humbled to have been contacted for this work. I just recorded a virtual session to be presented at the October 2021 CDA EELC Conference. I have and use my social media platforms to be a light to others while sharing my journey. I want the next chapter of my career to continue work, that I feel is my calling and I now feel that it includes me earning a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology. Thus, I feel that I should be in your Doctorate program.  

-Rebecca McGrath-H.

mrs.mcgrathh@gmail.com

Mrs Mc FACEBOOK

mcgrathhblogspot.com

@mrs.mcgrathh TikTok

1st, selection for Interview is December 2021.

So time will tell.

Keep the positive vibes and thoughts coming my way!

Book Proposal/Song Lyric "DEAR WHITE SON"

 Dear White Son

Dear White son, Dear white father, brother

I love you but sorry not sorry.

America gave you a leg up, steps forward. 

It’s time, time for you to listen, that your journey is not ours. 

Those who are female,

Those who are black, brown, those behind the whites.

Dear White son, Dear white father, brother

I love you but sorry not sorry.

America gave you a leg up, steps forward. 

I am a woman. 

I have not gone mad.

I have become educated, knowledgeable, powerful, sad.

Fucking furious as Sophie Heawood.

Dear White son, Dear white father, brother

I love you but sorry not sorry.

America gave you a leg up, steps forward. 

It’s not easy to make it in your Daddy’s world,

This man’s club of founding fathers,

Can you hear me,

Can you hear me,

Can you hear the brown and black voices,

Can you hear?

Can you do better?

We can do better.

Dear White son, Dear white father, brother

I love you but sorry not sorry.

America gave you a leg up, steps forward.

Can you see?

See, 75% black brown verses 17% white taken 

Taken out by police.

Let’s talk about these games,

Games on these streets. 

We gotta question this system 

Dear White son, Dear white father, brother

I love you but sorry not sorry.

America gave you a leg up, steps forward.

It’s time to stop fighting change. 

What are you afraid of?

Poverty?

Whatta you gotta lose?

By Rebecca McGrath-Hinkle

mrs.mcgrathh@gmail.com

Rebecca McGrath H.                YouTube Channel 

Mrs Mc                                        FACEBOOK

mcgrathhblogspot.com

@mrs.mcgrathh                               TikTok

@BeckMcGrath                               Twitter

MCGRATHHINKLE                       Instagram

http://linkedin.com/in/rebecca-mcgrath-hinkle-289856b8