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 |  My Blog....Pearls of wisdom and/or foolish mutterings.....You be the judge.... |
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A little of this, a dash of that......epic mood swings.......A LOT of foolish mutterings and occasionally a few words of wisdom. It's a crapshoot. You never know what you'll find in here... |
| More and more lately, I find myself typing a few opening lines of a blog entry and then deleting it all. It's frustrating - all those false starts. But it does seem to be in keeping with my general mood lately. I've been feeling very restless for a while now and I can't put my finger on the reason. I think those false starts in my blog entries are indicative of the way I've approached life recently. Maybe it's not such a bad thing, that tendency to second-guess myself. I've always lived very impulsively, rushing headlong into something - anything - before giving it a lot of thought. I can't say that hasn't worked for me; for the most part it has. Not always, of course, but that's to be expected no matter what your philosophy is. Whether you adhere to the slow-and-steady-wins-the-race train of thought or you're more of the act now--think later persuasion, you'll have both successes and failures. I still lean more toward impulsiveness and I'm sure I always will. That's just how I'm made. But, whether it's from experience or just a cautiousness that seems to come with age, I seem to be tempering the impulsiveness with a bit more forethought, of late. I don't think I'm in any danger of ever being accused of over-thinking things. I still function best as a spontaneous being. Given too much time to think things through usually results in my abandonment of the original idea and then I'm on to something else entirely. I've always known this about myself: if I plan something too far in the future, I will find a reason not to do it. I don't know why, but that's almost always the case. Give me a couple of days notice, or even better - a couple of hours, and we're golden. Whatever it is will go off as planned, without a hitch. I work better under time constraints, too. Deadlines are my friend (as long as they aren't too far in the future!) I'm a terrible procrastinator. Without some kind of pressure, I adhere firmly to the twisted proverb of never accomplish today what you can put off until tomorrow. Which is probably why I'm also very flexible (not flexible as in bendy - that's another blog, for another day.) It's an absolute necessity to be flexible if you're a world-class procrastinator. I can say that with absolute confidence because I've honed it to a fine art. What is this? Some kind of confession blog? Sheesh! Enough with the examination of my weaknesses. Let's move on to my strengths. My biggest strength is, and always has been, that I'm an encourager and a motivator. I've had lots of practice - with my brother, all four of my kids, my sons-in-law. I think it's a built-in component with mothers. You can't be a mother without being an encourager. I'm pretty sure God just designed it that way. The hardest part about being a motivator or an encourager is not allowing yourself to get caught in the trap of rescuing. There's a huge difference between encouraging and rescuing. I don't know if all motivators have that tendency, but I know I do. For years and years, I was the go-to person for anyone who had a problem. Not only would I encourage you, but I would break my neck trying to fix your problem for you. Which, of course, totally negates anything I might have done for you in the encouragement department. I'm still trying to break that nasty habit of taking over and rescuing instead of teaching and encouraging. Well, as most of you know, I could talk all day about myself (and usually do!) but I need to go do some actual work - bleeeccchhh!!! Don't worry though. If I think of anything else you need to know about me, I'll rush back here tonight and write more. I know you'll all be waiting with bated breath.  |
| Wow! I gave Maverik the Wonder Lab a gigantic chew bone over three hours ago and he has not stopped chewing on it once! I don't know how he feels, but I'm exhausted just listening to him chew on that thing. When I first gave it to him, he took it in his mouth, looked up at me as I was getting a bagel and promptly spit the bone out so he could stare longingly at my bagel. I told Charles that I bet if I picked up that bone and started chewing on it, he'd want it then (Maverik, not Charles.) Then I decided to test my theory. I picked up the chew bone, started pretending I was eating it and started to walk off. Maverik jumped up, ran to me and started leaping up in the air to get the bone. So predictable. And he hasn't given it a rest even once since then. I'm going to have to wrestle him for it in a few minutes when I go to bed. Otherwise I'll be up all night listening to him chase that thing all over the living room while he's chewing on it. I think he's going to have sore jaws in the morning. Seriously, how could he not, after 3+ hours of solid chewing? I'll give him this - he's committed. I've never seen anything hold his attention like that bone has. He's so funny using those big old bear-claw paws of his to hold the thing while he chews on it. He should sleep good tonight! I felt sorry for Maverik last night. He followed me into my bedroom when I went to bed. He found a spot on the floor and made himself comfortable and then Charles came in to go to bed. He made Maverik get up and go out of the room. Maverik looked all sad and forlorn, he got up and walked out like he was walking the plank. When Charles shut the door, he said, "I would let him sleep in here but I'm afraid he'll jump up on the bed and crush one of us!" Which reminded me... a couple of years ago, Charles was out of town and I spent the night with a friend who was house-sitting for her aunt at this hoity-toity condo in Midtown. The aunt had two poodles - not the little ones, either. They were the medium-size poodles and they fought with each other all night long. Candace and I were sharing the only bed - a big king-sized number, which should have been plenty big, except for those two stupid dogs who kept jumping up and down, on and off the bed, fighting and growling. Finally after about an hour or so, Candace threw both dogs off the bed and they settled down. I fell into a deep exhausted sleep right away. I was laying on my back, dreaming away, when I heard one of the dogs start to growl. It just blended in with my dream and I faded away again. So then I was dreaming about a dog growling and HOLY CRAP! One of those stupid dogs jumped right in the middle of my chest, growling and snarling at the other stupid dog who was standing in the middle of the bed in guard dog stance. My eyes flew open, my heart was racing and I turned my head just in time to see the two stupidest dogs in the world lay into each for all they were worth right there in the middle of that king-sized bed with me on one side and Candace on the other, both of us yanked out of sleep, trying to get our bearings and these two idiot dogs trying to kill each other between us. At that point, I would have been perfectly happy if they had been successful and had just killed each other off, before I had the chance to do it. But Candace beat me to the punch; only she didn't kill them, she grabbed them up and put one of them in the bathroom and the other in the office. Hmmmm, I wonder why she didn't do that to begin with? Yeah, it wasn't the best time I've ever had. I woke up with a killer headache the next morning and all I wanted to do was hightail it out of there and never look back. Let me tell you, you've never had a bad night's sleep until you've had a growling, snarling poodle land on your chest in the middle of the night. I'm pretty sure it took years off my life. So, with that fond remembrance, I didn't argue for Maverik to stay in our bedroom and sleep. Eli will be home tomorrow and Maverik will have his sleeping buddy back. I think he'll make it until then. Maverik just spit the chew bone out and went in the kitchen to drink up all the water in his bowl. Now's my chance to grab that bone and hide it. I believe I'll do just that and head off to bed myself . Good night, sleep well and may your sleep be poodle-free! |
| Something very strange is happening. I think my brain is being taken over by Facebook. I am an avowed Facebook HATER, but I've been on there constantly for the last few days. I can't explain it.... it's as if I'm drawn there. I think someone must have a Facebook Voodoo Doll of me and they're making the tiny little Voodoo Doll sit mindlessly in front of a laptop with Facebook on it. WHEN WILL THIS MADNESS END? And on a different note.... since it is nearing summer (who am I kidding? I'm in Houston - it's almost always summer here!) But I digress... since summertime is upon us, I have been on my annual hunt for the most natural looking fake tanner. Because as we all know (and if you don't know this, listen up, it's very important) TAN fat is much more attractive than lily white fat. If you don't believe me, just do your own test. But we don't want real tan-from-the-sun skin, because of those nasty UV rays. Nope, we don't want to end up with an ugly three inch scar on our forearm from a skin cancer, do we? Although it was fascinating to watch the doctor cut it out and then sew the skin back together and thank goodness it wasn't the really bad kind of skin cancer. But I digress again.... Back to the fake tanner. Banana Boat spray-on tanner is excellent. It doesn't turn your skin orange, it works fast and the best part - it doesn't have that really nasty smell that most fake tanners have. Say it with me now - tan fat looks better than white fat. What other pearls of wisdom do I have to share with you tonight? Let me think... Oh, I know. You know how we've all been complaining about how labor intensive it is to post pictures on WDC? I have pictures uploaded all over the world wide web because I'm a geek and whenever I run across a new photo upload service, I think I have to try it out. So, what that means is that I've tried just about every photo service out there and I think I've found the one that is the simplest, fastest and has the best display. Some of you are already using it because you've mentioned it in comments already. And the winner is...... FLICKR! Yep - it's the best. Scarlett  , this will be a good one to use when you get back home and want to upload all those pics of you with all the WDC'ers you've met while in America. The few that we've seen already that you and Nada  graciously posted here are lovely and we can't wait to see more!I think I will now take my newly tan body and my newly blonde hair and go to bed. Goodnight all! Sleep tight! |
| I'm dubbing May "the uninspired month." For me, at least. I just checked my blog calendar and this will only be my 7th entry for the month. Pitiful. And that's only valid if I actually do go ahead and post it, instead of deleting it like I have so many others. It just has not been a very inspired month for me. It's hard for me to believe I have nothing to say. I nearly always have something to say and usually I couldn't keep myself from blathering on and on even if I wanted to. But this month.... well, I sit and wait for inspiration to strike me.... and all I hear is.... crickets. That and the sound of a big empty space in my head. Disturbing, very disturbing. Hey, wait a minute. Maybe it's those thrice weekly visits to the bone cracker. Maybe when he crackcrackcrackCRRRAAACCKKS my neck, all of my blog ideas fall out on the floor. Maybe. But probably not. Besides, I don't really want to blame the bone cracker because I'm feeling way too much better to assign any nefarious dealings to someone who has my back and neck pain running away like a scared little girl. Until I began to go for whole days at a time with no back pain at all, I had no idea how much stuff I had stopped doing because it might make my back hurt. Seriously, I was walking through the grocery store the other day, pushing my basket along, when all of a sudden it hit me - NO PAIN! I wasn't leaning on the basket, using it as a big silver crutch on wheels, I wasn't stopping every few feet to rub my lower back and bend this way and that to try to relieve some of the pressure. I wasn't doing any of that. I was just walking along normally. And what's more, my right foot wasn't getting more and more numb the longer I walked. After several days of that, I decided to really put this to the test. My two youngest grandsons were here and I just picked them up indiscriminately, hefting here, hefting there, here a lift, there a lift, everywhere a lift, lift. For hours, I lifted and carried and lugged. Then they went home. And you know what happened? Absolutely nothing! No pain. None. Zip. Nada. (Nada as in none, not as in Sheila. Hi Sheila!) I still wasn't convinced though, because I've been to bone crackers before for this back problem and it never helped this much and it dang sure never lasted. I went to bed every night thinking, yeah, well, let's just see how it feels when I get up tomorrow. And every morning when I woke up, I just sat up in bed like a normal person and got out of bed. Wow. This was something I could get used to. Then I started doing all kinds of things that I haven't done in forever. I worked at one of the houses we're rehabbing, I patched a hole in the ceiling, I sanded doors to make them close without being forced, I carried stuff up the stairs - heavy stuff, not just papers or cotton balls! I stood up the whole time at church during praise and worship. I even started wearing flat sandals with no support again. After all that, I am happy to report that I am still pain free. Yippee! I feel like a new woman. No, wait, let me correct that. It's not so much that I feel like a new woman. It's that I no longer feel like an OLD woman. Ah ha! So maybe that is the explanation, after all. I've been a lot more active so I haven't had as much time to blog. Ahhhhh! That must be it. Just in time, too, because remember that rafting trip I told you all about? The one we won in an auction sometime last year and I lost the papers for? Yes, that one. Well, it seems that I did indeed lose the papers with all the info about it. But my diligent husband kept the program from the auction with all the information on it about every auction item. So I called the place and sure enough, they had all our information and all we have to do is pick a date. 5 days, 4 nights river rafting and camping on the Salmon River in Idaho. And now? Now that I can walk across the room without pain shooting up my back and down my leg? Well, now I think that rafting trip might be a lot of fun after all. I've never been to Idaho - looks like it's time to go there. Salmon River, here we come. |
| What a day today was! Holy crap! It really wasn't all that busy, it's just that I've become such a .... errr... uhhhh.... energy-conservationist (I prefer that term to the less flattering - but, more accurate - "lazy bum") that the activities of a normal day are exhausting. Anyway, one of the things I did today was to pay a visit to my hairstylist. I was inspired by Scarlett 's new and lovely hairdo courtesy of Jo Paulo. Check it out here: "Pampered"  Thanks for the inspiration, Scarlett. My new default picture shows me with the new 'do. And then there's this one: ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Dang! I had no idea my nose was such a ski slope when viewed from above. I'm still gasping in surprise every time I pass a mirror. Note to self: Get some spray on tanner. That should contrast nicely with the new hair. Coincidentally, while I was getting my hair done, I missed a call from Nada and Scarlett. We played phone tag a bit, but finally connected and I had the pleasure of speaking with Queen Scarlett. What a lovely accent she has. After we hung up, I kept chuckling to myself about how our two accents couldn't have been more different. You know, Texan meets Brit. Scarlett probably hung up and turned to Nada to say, "I couldn't understand a word she said!" I'll have to admit, I had a bit of difficulty understanding Scarlett. It took me a few extra beats to process what she said, so I may have appeared to be a bit "slow."  My other excitement of the day included a visit to the bone cracker (ahhhhhh!!!) and meeting a termite inspector at one of the houses we bought to flip that has given us no shortage of enormous surprises. And, sure enough, the latest in a long string of surprises is an infestation of termites. Yippee! Actually, termites are small potatoes compared to the mother of all surprises, which was that the wiring had been stripped from the house by the previous owners. So the first thing we had to do was have the house completely rewired. Tons of fun. Never a dull moment. It did make me happy tonight when Chris Allen won American Idol. Yay!!! I think I'm going to go lay my blond head down on my pillow. Sleep well, all my wonderful writer friends.  |
| Update your blog. Update your blog. Update your blog. The preset reminder from the blog police keeps knocking on my virtual door. I know I set it and could just easily disable it. But I must grudgingly admit it does serve a purpose. It got me in here after all. What my own personal blog policeman does not know is that I've made several attempts over the last couple of days to update my blog! but I've deleted every word. Sometimes, the words just don't come easy. This, apparently, is one of those times. It's the twentieth day of May (Happy birthday, Michael! - it's my brother's birthday today) and I've only made five entries so far this month. Pitiful. This will be a short one, as I have an appointment with the bone cracker this morning and I can't miss that. Although, I swear one of these days that man is going to twist my head right off my body. Well, tonight's the night. Will it be Adam or Chris? Chris or Adam? My money is on Adam to win American Idol, although I hope it's Chris. Adam definitely has a helluva set of pipes, there's no denying that, but I'd buy Chris Allen's CD right now if he put one out. I don't think I'd buy Adam's. I got the following in an email from my son's girlfriend and it made me laugh out loud. ========================================================== This is an actual letter from an Austin woman sent to American company Proctor and Gamble regarding their feminine products. She really gets rolling after the first paragraph. It's PC Magazine's 2007 editors' choice for best webmail-award-winning letter. Dear Mr. Thatcher, I have been a loyal user of your 'Always' maxi pads for over 20 years and I appreciate many of their features. Why, without the LeakGuard Core or Dri-Weave absorbency, I'd probably never go horseback riding or salsa dancing, and I'd certainly steer clear of running up and down the beach in tight, white shorts. But my favorite feature has to be your revolutionary Flexi-Wings. Kudos on being the only company smart enough to realize how crucial it is that maxi pads be aerodynamic. I can't tell you how safe and secure I feel each month knowing there's a little F-16 in my pants. Have you ever had a menstrual period, Mr. Thatcher? I'm guessing you haven't. Well, my time of the month is starting right now. As I type, I can already feel hormonal forces violently s urging through my body. Just a few minutes from now, my body will adjust and I'll be transformed into what my husband likes to call 'an inbred hillbilly with knife skills.' Isn't the human body amazing? As Brand Manager in the Feminine-Hygiene Division, you've no doubt seen quite a bit of research on what exactly happens during your customer's monthly visits from 'Aunt Flo'. Therefore, you must know about the bloating, puffiness, and cramping we endure, and about our intense mood swings, crying jags, and out-of-control behavior. You surely realize it's a tough time for most women. The point is, sir, you of all people must realize that America is just crawling with homicidal maniacs in Capri pants... Which brings me to the reason for my letter. Last month, while in the throes of cramping so painful I wanted to reach inside my body and yank out my uterus, I opened an Always maxi-pad, and there, printed on the adhesive backing, were these words: 'Have a Happy Period.' Are you f------ kidding me? What I mean is, does any part of your tiny middle-manager brain really think happiness - actual smiling, laughing happiness, is possible during a menstrual period? Did anything mentioned above sound the least bit pleasurable? Well, did it, James? FYI, unless you're some kind of sick S&M freak, there will never be anything 'happy' about a day in which you have to jack yourself up on Motrin and Kahlua and lock yourself in your house just so you don't march down to the local Walgreen's armed with a hunting rifle and a sketchy plan to end your life in a blaze of glory. For the love of God, pull your head out, man! If you have to slap a moronic message on a maxi pad, wouldn't it make more sense to say something that's actually pertinent, like 'Put down the Hammer' or 'Vehicular Manslaughter is Wrong', Sir, please inform your Accounting Department that, effective immediately, there will be an $8 drop in monthly profits, for I have chosen to take my maxi-pad business elsewhere. And though I will certainly miss your Flex-Wings, I will not for one minute miss your brand of condescending bullshit. And that's a promise I will keep. Always. . . Best, Wendi Aarons Austin , TX =========================================================== I'm off to the bone cracker now. Ta-ta! |
| Yesterday, I commented in alfred booth, wanbli ska 's blog, urging him to go for broke working toward getting published. I hope my words inspired Alfred as much as they apparently inspired me. I took my own advice and spent a good part of yesterday researching agents. By the end of the day, I sent out two query letters for my book (No Stone Left Unturned) - one to an agent and one to a publishing house (I know, two letters for a whole day? I get carried away researching.) I also submitted an essay to the Chronicle. I quoted our good friend Nada to Alfred, admonishing him (and myself, too, obviously) to go for it, because "If not now, when?" More query letters are going out today. ======================================================= Switching gears... The Liquid Energy in a bottle that I spoke about yesterday garnered quite a bit of attention. So here's the scoop: It's called Super B Complex and is made by Twinlab. We buy it locally at The Vitamin Shoppe, but they have a website where you can place orders. http://www.vitaminshoppe.com Just be sure you eat something when you take it or you'll barf it right back up. Bleeeccchhh! ======================================================= My boy, Danny Gokey, was booted off of American Idol on Wednesday. That is just not right. Yes, I know that Chris and Adam are both very talented. Adam is crazy-talented, what a voice! Chris is a musician with a great voice - just how many instruments can that boy play? Truthfully, I would have been disappointed to see any of the three go, but Danny has been my favorite from the very beginning. I'm just waiting to hear that somebody - some SMART somebody - has signed him. ========================================================= Thanks so much to everyone who participated in the building of my ego yesterday with your wonderful comments. I had a hard time getting my swelled head through my bedroom door last night. Thought for a minute I would have to sleep on the floor outside the room. But then I remembered how bendy I am and I made it through, although I do have a neck ache this morning from sleeping on my big head. ======================================================= Yesterday when I checked my snail mail, there was an interesting looking envelope in there with a return address that said something like Survey from President Obama. I opened it and read a few of the questions on the survey. I thought, Wow, this is pretty cool. A President who wants to know the pulse of the people. I'm impressed. Then I leafed through the rest of the pages and it turns out the whole thing was actually from the Republican Party and here's the kicker. The last page was a letter telling me how important it was to fill out the survey and return it "along with your contribution to the Republican Party of $20, $50 or $100." I was so disgusted that I tore the thing into pieces, threw it on the floor, jumped up and down on it, set it on fire and then got Maverik the Wonder Lab to pee on it to put the fire out. Well, that last part may be a bit of an exaggeration, but I did tear it into pieces. ======================================================= I think I've downloaded enough mindless drivel for today. Your turn. |
| I tried writing a blog entry last night, but when I read back over it, it sounded like this: blahblahblahblahblahblah, WHINE, WHINE, SNIFFLE, SNIFFLE, blahblahblahblah, BOO HOO, WAAAAAHHHHH, WHINE WHINE WHINE, blahblahblahblah. I deleted it and tried again - three times. But every time it sounded the same. So I told myself to shut the hell up and go to bed. I did and it was perfect timing. I flipped on the television to catch a dose of mindless drivel (yeah, like I need more of that - I think my mindless drivel quota is maxed out already) and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a rejuvenated and very funny Robin Williams, fresh from heart surgery, relating his adventure to fellow heart surgery survivor, David Letterman. Now, I usually avoid David Letterman like the plague. I think he is full of himself, rude and generally not funny. But, for Robin Williams, I made an exception. It was a good choice. Robin Williams was hysterically funny (he made me laugh out loud several times) and he is so manic that dry, sarcastic Letterman could hardly get a word in edgewise. I enjoyed that as much as I enjoyed Robin's patter. It was just what the doctor ordered and I went to sleep with a smile on my face. This morning, the good-mood fairy seems to have paid me a visit, so I figured I should take advantage of that and dash out a blog that is not dirge-like (for a change.) To top off my good mood, I treated myself to a good hearty dose of the liquid energy my husband keeps in the fridge . It's a super B complex in liquid form and I swear the stuff is a miracle in a bottle. I cooked breakfast for my son (few of you who are reading this will recognize that for the certified miracle it is; I despise cooking and only do it under extreme duress.) While my son was sitting at the table, still in a state of shock, eating the breakfast that I, his mother cooked (who was that woman and what have you done with my mother,) I went on to further mystify myself by grabbing a dust rag and attacking the many dust-laden surfaces in my house. I had a slight setback when I got to the entertainment center. My vigorous cleaning frenzy knocked the middle glass shelf off its supports and I had to put my dust rag down momentarily to wrestle the brackets, the shelf and the two pieces of electronic wizardry back into place. That took a good fifteen minutes, and was sufficiently repetitive (the shelf fought me and fell back down several times) and required enough physical exertion that I'm counting it as exercise for the day. Unfortunately, I think I used my entire quota of profanity for the day while arm-wrestling with the shelf. Let's just hope this good mood sticks around. On a different note, I was having breakfast (which I DID NOT cook) with a good friend the other day and I was kvetching about my lower back pain that I can't seem to get rid of. She told me about a Wellness Clinic that she goes to for therapeutic massages and chiropractic adjustments. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I thought, I have a kid in college, I can't afford to pay to feel good. Ah, but then the good news came. Your medical insurance will pay for it, she glibly said. "Check please!" I was out of there in a flash, headed to the Wellness Clinic. And yes indeed, my health insurance will pay for it. I almost jumped over the counter to grab the receptionist up in a big bear hug when she told me that. I had my first deep tissue massage the next day and was back a week later for another one. That time, I met with the doctor before my massage, so he could take my history, check my range of motion and speak with me about a treatment plan. So I did the whole routine of range-of-motion movements; you know, bend over and touch your toes, bend to the side, now the other one, bend back as far as you can, same thing with neck - front, side, side, back. You have good range of motion, he tells me. Yeah, yeah, I'm here for the massage, can we get on with this. So then he has me lay face up on the table (no, not a regular table; an adjustment table, try to follow along) and he takes my foot and says, I'm going to raise your leg straight up. Tell me when it becomes uncomfortable. Raising, raising, raising...still okay? he asks. I nod my head. Raising, raising, raising...to a ninety degree angle. Okay, I say, I can feel that pulling He stops, does the same thing with the other leg, 90 degrees again. He lowers my leg to the table and as he is doing so, he says to me in a perfectly serious voice, "You used to be a dancer, didn't you?" I laugh out loud, then look at him and see that he isn't joking. I laugh out loud again. "A dancer? Me? No, I was never a dancer." He can hardly believe it, so he asks again. "Nope, not a dancer." Then he tells me that I am very flexible and he never sees that degree of flexibility except in dancers. All I could think about was the Friends episode where Phoebe and Chandler decide they should date and Phoebe tells Chandler, "I'm very bendy, you know." I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying it. But, now, armed with the knowledge that I am very bendy, I intend to wear that like a badge. Suddenly, I don't feel quite so old and decrepit. Especially since I've had two deep tissue massages and that doctor cracked my neck and back like a walnut and I can actually walk around pain-free. Ahhhh! Life is good. And I am bendy. |
| Seems the title of my blog is proving true lately, especially the Foolish Mutterings part. And even those don't come easy lately. I feel strange - out of sorts or ill-at-ease, somehow. You know the old saw about "feeling comfortable in your own skin?" I just can't seem to find that comfortable place in my own skin right now. Usually when I feel that way, it tells me that some big change is on its way. I have to say, I don't think I'm up for a big change right now. It could be that having finally put to bed the never-ending gobstopper of my dad's estate, a large chunk of my mental faculties has been freed up and after four years of always having that hanging over my head, accompanied by no small amount of dread, I just don't know what to do with myself now that it's finally over. Yes, it could definitely be that. As strange as it sounds, I seem to have forgotten who I was before this tragedy draped itself around me. And it's made all the more confusing because these last four years have changed me. Even if I knew who I was before, I'm someone altogether different now. Oh, I'm still the same in so many ways. I still wear all the same hats - wife, mother, grandmother, sister, friend, even daughter still; because I'm fortunate to still have my birth father with me. But it's not the roles I play or the hats I wear that have changed. It's deeper than that. On a fundamental level, somewhere deep in my psyche, I'm different. It's not necessarily a bad thing. Change can be good, especially as we age and it's tempered with wisdom (I hope.) But it's not a comfortable place. Not yet. There's an ache deep in my heart; a melancholy that's pervasive. My heart is a crowded place, with emotions tripping over each other, clamoring for attention. Pssst, hey, look over this way, hey, over here! Gone is the cocksure attitude of certainty that I cloaked myself in. I regret the patronizing air that I so easily adopted with my mother in her later years. I'm all too aware of the swift fleeting of time, and of the moments I squandered instead of treasuring. Now I look back through a clouded window of uncertainty and dismay. I know I have to reconcile the past before I can find a way to look forward. Now that the distraction of an acrimonious probate is gone, all the emotions I had squarely tucked away are fighting their way to the surface and demanding to be recognized. I see them, I feel them, but I want to push them away. I have no energy to deal with them. Confronting those emotions of grief and loss that have been so long-delayed will hurt. Anger and self-righteous indignation are so much more manageable. I have to step on to this path and start the journey. I have to feel the loss, absorb the pain. I don't want to, but if the last four years have taught me anything, they taught me that I won't crumble, I won't lose myself to the grief. I'll walk through it, or maybe I'll crawl through it, but either way, I'll come out on the other side of it. It's just that first step that I hate... |
| Drivel: to talk stupidly and carelessly Here I sit, with a million words swirling in my brain and not one cohesive thought among them. It's rare that I find myself at a loss for words. I almost always have something to say.Or at least a smart-ass comment to make. What, what, what is causing this log-jam of words in my brain? Why have the delete key and the backspace key become my favorite keys on my laptop? And why am I sitting here, once again, tapping my fingernails on the keys waiting for inspiration to strike? It must be the lack of angst and/or upheaval in my life at the moment that is rendering me incapable of stringing together words to produce a clever, witty, poignant or funny blog entry. Could that be the problem? Or is it ennui? Lack of interest in what is going on in the world around me? I don't think it's that. Maybe it's the fact that Mother's Day is upon us and I've really been missing my mom, my step-mom and my mother-in-law a lot lately and I don't want to confront that? Maybe. Maybe not. Back to the lack of angst theory. That one just seems to fit. I don't have a cause celebre gnawing at me and I don't feel passionate about much of anything at the moment. You know what I'm doing here, right? I'm just spewing words, hoping to ignite some kind of fire that will incite my fingers to take off in a fit of typing delirium, which will, of course, result in a brilliant and thoroughly readable blog. HA! Not working. I got nothin'. Maybe tomorrow...... |
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