Elesean Fields

I don't know Lisa very well, but what I know, I like.  I like that we are very different from one another.  Knowing Lisa makes me think differently and consider possibilities I might otherwise have ignored.  And that's what life is all about, right?  Vive la difference! 

We became acquainted through Irene and Darice, since the three of them are members of the Alpha Bitches.  I know she is a compassionate and (probably more importantly) tireless daughter.  She is a proud and fully engaged mother.  She is loyal and dedicated to her friendships.  She is passionate and vocal, and does not shrink from telling her truth.  And she doesn't like drama.

I know she has a wicked sense of humor that shows up on tshirts, and that you can buy those tshirts at Raven's Nest Fashions. 

Meet Lisa: 

First Name:  Lisa
Age Range: Forties
Job Title:  Complicated.  No - really - until the VPs stop fighting over my job responsibilities, that's my answer.
Industry:  Construction.

Who are you?  I am a work in progress.  Which sounds flip, but really everything else is a label - typically put on me by somebody else - and how I see myself is usually wildly out of sync with how the rest of the world sees me.  My politics are not what you'd expect.  My sexuality is not what the average person would expect.  My job, my family, my marital status - all of it invariably ends up raising *somebody's* eyebrows.

Emerson is famous for saying "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."  Who I am is filtered through so many different prisms and affected by so many different variables that I really can't get any more precise than "a work in progress".

Describe Your Family:  The older I get, the smaller and more select my family.  My bio-family, with few exceptions, has never understood me, and I'm really past the point of trying to find common ground with them.  I love them, and will more than happily go to family get-togethers - but they are really only interested in the parts of my life that make sense to them.

My family of choice is the best I could have ever hoped for.  Awesome men and women that I know I can call upon at any hour for any reason - and who I respect enough not to abuse that privilege.

And then there's the teenager - probably the single best thing I will have done in this life, when called to account for my actions.

What does the first hour of your day look like?  I have to take my thyroid medicine immediately - it has to be taken with a full glass of water an hour before food.  On weekdays, I then get the teenager up and fed, take her to the bus stop and return for my own breakfast.

On weekends, I surf the 'net and watch television until I can eat. 

What does the last hour of your day look like?  Lying in bed, either surfing the 'net or watching television.

What makes you feel successful?  Exceeding people's expectations of me.  Taking on challenges and mastering them.  The look on my project manager's face when I pull off something really impressive.  Any time anybody tells me how amazing my daughter is.

What brings you joy?  My daughter.  Alpha Night (our weekly "Girls Night Out" get together at the local Starbucks).  My job.  Getting to be as big a fangirl as I want to be.

What were you like in first, sixth, and twelfth grades?  In first grade I was the quintessential bookworm.  I still had friends, but was starting to see some of the punishment kids get for being the "brainiac" of the class.  I hated PE, dressing like "a boy" and getting dirty.  I loved animals, and would spend recess playing make-believe that my best friend and I were timber wolves.

In sixth grade...huh.  I just started to type about all the cool stuff that went on in my school in sixth grade - and it did - but sixth grade was the year I really tried to self-sabotage and make myself appear dumber in order to stop kids picking on me.  That didn't last long - I went to a private school, and my teachers were all over that.  Sixth grade was pretty manic - lots of emotional highs and lows.  Lots of loneliness, but got to experience a lot of cool stuff as part of the class at large.

In twelfth grade I was finally starting to come to terms with myself.  I had a best friend, and she had more than enough cool for both of us.  I was in a tough school, but nobody really hated me like in elementary and middle schools.  I had figured out the self-defense mechanism of listening more than you talk, and this may have contributed to my overall upswing in social acceptance.

What advice would you give yourself at each of those ages?  Thing is, I try really hard not to do hindsight.  That gets me really bogged down, and bad as the bad times might have been, they've all gone into making me who I am today.

And I like who I am today.

Who do you admire?  I really don't do the hero worship thing anymore.  There's a sense in it of trying to model yourself after part of all of that person, and in my experience you have what you need inside you already to be the person you're supposed to be.  All you've got to do is get out of your own way long enough to listen to what your inner voice is really telling you.

How would you like to be remembered?  There are days I'm not sure this is something I want.  I had a long run in my twenties where I was very concerned about noteriety, pretty much at all costs.  Looking at it with a fresh perspective, I'd like to be remembered as somebody who lived a good life, raised a positively contributing member of society, owned her mistakes, and did her best to correct them.

Check out Lisa's store at Raven's Nest Fashions.