I am aware that retirement is light years away, and I am married to 37 additional people besides my Spouse, and holding together my sanity as well as my unconventional family, with a smile on my face. I am Momo
Author: Momo Ray
I am wife, and mother of an unconventionally family. Working, for a living and co piloting threw mental illness and dusting ourselves off to have another go at building our future trying to get through what today has brought us as well as what is to come. Hopefully for the better, but ready for the unexpected.
I was honestly raised by my mother and my mother alone. She raised my sister and I without assistance from either of our fathers. She also took care of some neighborhood kids that grew up with us. My mom handled things without showing any weakness or letting us know that we were technically a poor family. She worked really hard to teach us a positive work ethic. As well as teaching us the value of a dollar the value of our time spent working and basically that to have the things that you want you have to work hard. This world is not designed to give you things. It was initially made for survival of the fittest and my mom gave us the basic skills to survive, to thrive, to be able to understand what the world was really about. Watching her on her hustle always made me feel like it was weakness to ask for help. Because my mom did all of these things by herself without anybody helping her. She lost her mother at a pretty young age she was already an adult but she was barely in her 20s around this time she also met her father for the first time and started building a relationship with him. A lot of times I feel like if I ask people for help that they’ll start thinking that I can’t handle my situations. If I try to achieve things on my own I feel like I have accomplished something. I feel like life can’t push me down because I won’t let it. This reasoning sometimes gets me into a situation worse than if I would have just ask for help. Sometimes I am my own worse enemy.
So as you know Facebook likes to remind you of things that have happened to you in your past. Show you things that you probably are trying to forget but there they go popping up in your head again so here’s the thing apparently 3 years ago today I was working at Love’s and a customer gave me two rules to live by number one don’t sweat the small stuff and number two everything is the small stuff.
Also on this day 5 years ago my husband and I signed our rent to own agreement and had it notarized. This day was in retrospect a amazing day it was the day that we finally were going to own something and it was going to belong to us. Both my girls had their own rooms my husband and I had a place to call home. Then only a few months after my husband broke his back and we started spiraling downward trying to keep this house that we already lived in for 3 years. We tried everything in the world to hang on to that but no matter how hard we tried it seemed like we were never going to dig our way out of the hole that we where in. I lost my job at Walmart because my husband was having issues mental health issues and physical issues. And before I knew it we lost our house, we had to throw in the towel and move back to Texas.
Also on this date 11 years ago I was still living in Texas and working at the Walmart in Grapevine. That was the day I was called into the office and told that I got caught on camera buying clothes on clearance. I kind of laughed but when our policy forbids associates from buying products before the customers can buy them. I thought it was going to get wrote up but I only got a verbal warning and the next day I brought back the two items that I bought and told them that there are five Walmarts from where I lived at to that store and I can buy things on clearance at other stores as well as use my discount card at another store. I shopped at this store because it was my home store and my bonus checks and pretty much paychecks move all around that stores ability to make sales but if my money is not as good as a customer’s money then that can be a customer somewhere else.
So that being said I think that 3 years ago a customer gave me some good advice to not sweat the small stuff and everything is small stuff no matter what way you look at it everything is able to be managed whether 11 years ago you thought you were getting wrote up or 5 years ago you thought that you were buying the house that you would be able to raise your kids and retiring or turning around and realizing you’re back at square one and starting from the beginning only this time you have two kids and a husband who is mentally challenging. The small stuff is what makes it worth going through. So ya’ll hang in there everything is going to be all right in the end.
No matter what’s going on in your life think of one thing that you’re proud that you accomplished this year because in reality that’s all it really is you have to get by day by day, week by week and then before you know it years have gone by. And this is your normal life
So after years of struggling to draw a heart you know being a girl even when I was a teenager wanting to draw hearts and everything my heart’s sucked. So I’m running through a sketch of an idea my daughter had for a t-shirt for her cousin and I draw this heart and she looked at it and said what is that I told her I know I don’t draw very good that’s a heart she says here mommy I’ll show you how to draw a heart so the one in the middle is hers and the one on the right side is the one that I usually draw and the one on the left side is the one that she taught me how to draw so my 6 year old taught me how to draw a heart.
Have you ever walked up to someone and casually just asked how you doing? The conversation can go in so many different ways but the person in question for the most part will say “oh I’m okay”
What exactly does okay mean? Sometimes people use the word okay to actually mean that they are in fact okay. Sometimes people use the word okay because they don’t want to take the time to explain to you everything that is going on with them. Sometimes okay is a replacement word for everything in my life is falling apart, my home life is not happy, my work life is crazy, and then sometimes okay just means it’s none of your dang business. Pretend to ask people are you okay when we think they’re acting out of sorts or not being themselves or maybe everyday you see this woman smiling and looking like she has no cares in the world and when you look at her different day she looks like a her world is crashing down on her.
Truth is okay is just that okay. If for some reason you feel like you’re not okay it’s okay to say so. Somebody asks Hi how are you today? You can tell them I’ve had better days or this isn’t the worst day I’ve ever had. We are all entitled to having you not so good day. And just because we have a day where we’re not okay doesn’t mean that we are trying to bring everybody else down or being negative it’s just a day that you just don’t feel quite like you. We have our days when we want to wrap ourselves in our cocoon blanket and make the world go away and it is all right to do that. But on the off chance that you start to feel this way more often than not I am not a medical professional in any way I would suggest to find someone who is and can direct you in the right way to finding your bliss again.
So I know I have not really touched on the subject of my daughter’s birth very much. But in my psyche it places a really big trigger. Thing is my daughter was born through surrogacy. My husband and I after 10 years of being married found out we couldn’t have children and my sister stepped up and decided to have a child for us. This please do not take this wrong but I everyday thank my sister for this and I appreciate what she did for me but sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever have a true bond with my daughter. I love her I would do anything in the world for her and it has nothing to do with the fact that my sister didn’t fart to her and that I didn’t because the person that she attaches to the most is my husband. If I try to tell her something she gets upset with me she gets angry with me and right away she asks my husband about it feel like I can’t discipline her it feels like when I’m trying to talk to her she half listens to me. Sometimes I feel like I am just tolerated by her and in the family that I grew up in the examples that I have of respect I feel like she’s disrespecting me so much and I feel like I don’t know if I can have the patience to break it down for her you know that I need her to understand what I’m saying in the living need to listen to me. I’m sorry I’m kind of a strange place right now I’m feeling like I’m just kind of here right now and I don’t know I am feeling alone right now so I just needed to say this to somebody and I have a platform where I can actually do that so I’m just kind of venting and ranting a little bit please do not think that I’m trying to hurt myself or anyone else I’m just needing to talk.
I think the simplest definition of morality is doing the right thing not because people are watching, or because you’re part of a certain religion, but actually doing the right thing because it’s important to you. It is our nature to respond to what we are taught if our moral compass is to be honest and live by a set of rules or laws then morality should be easy to obtain. However that being said not everybody is raised to follow laws or rules or even shown what right or wrong is. This does not excuse people from not doing the right thing it just shows that in this world of entitlement people are now raising their children without stipulations and boundaries allowing them to go forward with the notion that no matter what action they make the world should forgive no matter the case.
This is somewhat of a loaded question. Some days I feel very empowered and other days I feel like I have nothing to offer. To say I have strengths is kind of unusual to me because I feel like they’re just things that are a part of me make me who I am.
Honesty
Sense of Humor even if it’s dry
Willingness to learn new things
Believe in being a team player
Believe in hard work and ethical values
1. Honesty- I am by nature an honest person I think it’s because I hate being left out of the loop or left in the dark. I don’t dig surprises and I certainly cannot respect an individual who feels the need to be deceitful. I can understand reinventing oneself for growth but own what you did in your past and use it to be a better person in the future.
I have a hard time lying to not only myself but to other people around me I laugh giving myself away make it out into a joke but the truth of the matter is if I say it out loud most likely I mean it. Don’t get me wrong I’m not a narc or anything like that but if asked point blankly a question I have a very hard time not answering truthfully this is not only one of my greatest strengths but it is also one of my greatest weaknesses because let’s be honest, people don’t want to hear the truth they want you to validate their feelings rather then get your opinion. So if that is what you came here for you will be disappointed because what I’m dishing out is brutal honesty. No matter what, but with that you can rest assure I will never talk about you behind your back I will always tell it to your face first. That being said I expect the same in return. Honesty is very important to me.
2. Humorous even if it is a bit on the dry side.- in the tradition of my father’s side of the family, I have an uncanny way of making anything into a joke. I will go as far as saying I laugh at things that are not actually funny they are in fact sad or horrific. Sometimes I feel like it’s my job to keep the mood light. To make people feel a little more at ease so they don’t start to look at the negative things happening around them. By making jokes and laughing and smiling about it I think it might help them realize that life could be so much worse all it takes is a blink of an eye to turn your world upside-down. What’s depressing to me is that a lot of times when I’m trying to make a joke about something that is important to me or something that I grew up observing people don’t always understand my humor.
3. Willingness to learn new things.- I have had the honor of living on this planet for four decades in this time I have learned that you can always learn something more.
I have done a number of different jobs some of them not so Glam like I was a housekeeper at a hospital I can honestly say I have cleaned vomit out of a sink before. Like the toilet is seriously like five inches away from the sink and they chose to vomit in the sink. This gets you ready for Parenthood for sure. After that nothing my kids could do could be worse than that except for spit I don’t like spit. But in this adventure I like to call my employment history the one thing I have learned is there is always something more to learn if you do something a certain way a million times and it works for you someone else might have a different way to do what you’re doing yet in less time. My philosophy is smarter not harder if there is an easier way to do what you’re trying to do and you’re going to get from point A to B just like everyone else do it that way.
4. I am a team player- I am an organizer, I thrive with structure, I am more productive if there is a strategic plan in motion. Yes folks I have OCD. Which does not mean what people think it does, people believe that my house is spotless, that my kids are not allowed to get dirty, that I hate messiness when in fact my bedroom right now is cluttered with clothing sometimes I climb in bed with my clean laundry that I should be folding up and putting away yet it’s laying in my bed and becoming part of my pillowdrie. What it means is certain things in my life have to be done a certain way. If I have a laid out game plan or a routine to My Day, that day tends to go more smoothly. I also work so much better when people are not talking to me over my shoulder or micromanaging me. When I run into this it frustrates me causes me to start getting upset and when I start crying it is not a sign of me being weak or cry baby it’s a sign that people need to get away from me because I’m getting so frustrated that I can’t hold it in and that’s when I get irritated and tend to lash out.
That being said, I almost always make decisions that will actually benefit not only the people I work with but the people who come in after I do. I try not to make more work for other people. I feel like this is a sign of respect to your coworkers that you don’t always get a chance to see or get a chance to correspond with. My coworkers think it’s funny because I try to communicate with other people that come in after me or people that might come while I’m going to the restroom or out to lunch I carry post its in my pocket and write a napkin note (is what I call them) keeping everyone informed. I feel like it’s a clear correspondence with a person who may come up on something that you’re working on and you had to stop in the middle of it, It helps to let them in on what is going on. So they may understand what that specific project that you’re doing is and that you are responsible for it and that you will finish it. I do believe that we are only as strong as our weakest link. That having an attitude that someone else will finish something is not an attitude that will help your company as a whole. Playing the blame game or the I’m not going to do it because nobody else is doing it is just childish and should be addressed and people should be held accountable for it. I am part of a team and if I am trying to help my team accomplish a goal I kind of hope that my fellow team players would do the same.
5. I believe in hard work and ethical values.- growing up I was raised by a single mother who never let her children know how difficult it was to be the only breadwinner,the only income, the only parental example we had. We grew up watching my mom hustle and make sure that her responsibilities were taken care of. In turn we were taught a very positive work ethic. We learned that in life anything worth having is worth working for. Nothing in this life is free everything is paid for whether it’s paid for with monetary value or with our time. We learned this very early in life that money doesn’t grow on trees and in order to buy things you have to have money. However we also learned that money is not the key to happiness. Money itself is only temporary and the value of our work is what people look at. Nothing comes easy nothing comes free our quality of life is based on hard work and a solid foundation of ethics if it seems like everyone else is getting by with the bare minimum that will reflect in their true quality of their life. If we learn that we can receive handouts financial aid from the government those programs are not set up to help people who need help they’re set up for people who don’t want to help themselves. When I walk into my home I know that I don’t owe anybody for the things that my family has my family has worked hard for everything that they have ever had. I am completely against this entitlement generation.
Work, Family,and Friends according to Momo 