Mood

Initiation: Identify a situation in your life about which you have a recognizable mood or emotion. "Enter" a mood or emotion and write for ten mintues. At the end of the ten minutes, stop. Take five more minutes and write about the shifts in your mood that the act of writing caused. Be an observer.

Step One: I am proud of my son's work ethic. This summer Ryan has taken a job working for Jacco in the rice fields. It's hard work, and he works long hours. Now this, in itself, is not a big deal. He is sixteen years old, about to be a junior in high school, and he should certainly have a summer job. That is an expected minimum, not something to provoke motherly pride. However, in this case, there is more to it that evokes the emotion of pride.

Ryan has been doing odd jobs for family members, friends, community organizations, and individuals who get his name via word of mouth for years. He has always been a hard worker, and even more importantly, a saver. He loves to take his pay and tuck it away in the bank. That's right. It's never been blown on skateboards, junk food, video games, or any of the other things I think of when I think of teens blowing money. It usually go straight in his bank account, an account he opened when he was ten years old as what was called a Mulah Mulah account and recently converted to a full blown savings account.

When he turned fifteen he got a job in Filipp's (mmm mmmm good local restaurant) and worked there until the next baseball season rolled around. By the way, I didn't even know this was legal, but apparently in Texas you can work at 15 with parent permission and only a certain number of hours. Soooo...he asked me to write him a note giving him permission to work and he set about becoming gainfully employed.

He wasn't able to continue working at the restaurant this summer because of scheduling conflicts with his summer baseball league, so he found a different job, the rice fields. He works from 7-12 in the morning, Monday-Saturday. Monday through Friday he gets a two hour lunch break (no afternoon shift on Saturday) durng which he eats a huge meal, takes a nap, and then returns for 2-7 shift. That's a ten hour day in case you haven't done the math. That's a long day.
While this is going on, he's playing summer baseball, reading his books for the dual credit English class he is registered for and helping out around the house (he does a great job with the yard with no complaint and for the most part without me asking...albeit that is in exchange for being on my cell phone plan).

Anywho...time is up, but I could just go on and on. He's a good kid, and I'm proud what can I say. Don't get me wrong, he's NOOOOOO angel, as any of his teachers can tell you, but he makes me proud, and today that is my mood.

Step Two: Writing this intensified my mood. It made me even prouder to write about it, like I was just hoping someone would read it. I wonder though, what would have happened if I were in an angry mood? Depressed perhaps. Would the writing process have intensified that mood or helped me work through and alleviate it? I'm betting on the latter. I also thought about the emotion of confusion. Would this process have helped me "metabolize" that confusion as with the other initiation? Interesting process. As for now...still proud!

*This post was actually written yesterday, July 16th, but I was unable to post.