Outside the box

Sometimes I find that what is going on in my head has absolutely nothing to do with reality, but it is a safer place to live. I guess this is what is known as denial, but if I don’t deny that I am aware of this, then I guess its okay. There are all sorts of defensive tactics that people employ to survive living from one day to the next; denial is simply one of many, a means to an end. The resulting comfort is a welcome byproduct…or maybe I’m just crazy.

30, 51+, where have all the flowers gone?

I hesitate - well, a bit, anyway - to bring this up again, but a WOW widow is not a good look on me. As my daughter reads this blog on occasion, and for various other reasons, this is probably not the wisest course of action - but you should be happy to know that, after 30 years, some things are still vital - a woman has needs!! Okay, that's all I'm sayin' 'bout that!

"I hate lying to them, but I couldn't stand Mom looking at me the way---"

"The way she looks at me?" I smiled. "Life's too long to live for them."

Beneath Our Skin ~ Lauren Faulkenberry

There you have it - it isn't that life is too short...the fact is that life is just too long to not live your life for you! It is YOUR life, afterall, take it, capture it, seize it and do with it what you will.

The Year of Living Frugally
Live Cheap, Die Rich
These are a couple of titles my incredibly imaginative imagination came-up with when I decided to blog about a a change I have recently made in my life (Small Change). There are, however, several reasons why they quite simply just do not work - without walking through the boring grammatical issues, I'll admit the main problem with them is that they do not embody the truth. Here it is: I have made a decision to buy no personal, accessory-type items for myself for 12 months - purses, shoes, clothes, books, cds. I am just under 40 days into the pursuit of lightening my load, and have made no such purchases. Now, this was not done for any sort of alturistc reason (it isn't as though I am now giving more money to charity or anything of that ilk); frankly, I am running out of room, and I just do not need anything else. Happily, I have discovered there is more expendable cash to point toward other things that make life more pleasant - added features on my cell phone, an expanded cable line-up, turning on the heat. It is painfully obvious that I have either decided that I can treat myself better or that I am allowed certain extravagances - maybe I'm just trading one thing for another, but at least I don't need to rush out for more hangers.

I was just reading an article - well, not so much reading the article as wondering about the title - "What Makes a Good Marriage?" This year, I will celebrate 30 years of marriage, and I will say that it is as simple and complicated as easy and as difficult as this: it takes work. If you want it to work, you will work at it. Yes, I understand that it takes two - if you love someone, and they just want to screw everything that isn't nailed down - and some things that are - or they prefer smoking crack to having an intellectual discussion, obviously, the relationship has issues. Barring such glaring need-someone-even-greater-than-Dr. Phil problems that need resolving, the sowing will result in the harvest. What, how much, how far you are willing to give, grant and go is entirely up to you, but the investment can truly offer rewards. It can be worth the time and the effort. As mentioned in Prime, however, you might want to think at least a half-dozen times before investing in a game console or World of Warcraft membership...I'm just sayin'.

Heath Ledger died today. I do not understand why the passing of a movie star - and I use the phrase fairly loosely - should have such a profound effect on me - except that he and my child are about the same age and his very young daughter is left to face the world without a father, I really do not get it. But I don't have to understand the whys of everything - it just really makes me very sad.

...if you bring off adequate preservation of your personal myth, nothing much else in life matters. It is not what happens to people that is significant, but what they think happens to them.

Anthony Powell

Books Do Furnish a Room

Grateful

So, my daughter dedicated a recent blog posting to gratitude, and she posed the "what are you grateful for?" question. Not declaring my areas of thankfulness directly on her blog is a conscious (conscience?) decision - better to just list that stuff here - I'm not saying that it makes sense; it just is.

* I have a wonderful child with whom I have a quite outstanding relationship.
* I have a good marriage.
* My remarkable husband is so precisely due to his unremarkableness.
* Wine is back in my life.
* Strength to leave it all behind - and actually happier as a byproduct.
* Getting over myself.
* No longer wishing that I had sisters.
* Never being hungry, without the easy opportunity to feel filled.
* Being healthy in my body and my mind (thank you, Juno soundtrack).
* Freedom to practice whatever religion I desire in whatever fashion suits me.
* Truly fabulous friends - very few, but really fabulous.
* To have the chance to simply say, "I am grateful."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

...if you chose to go into someone else's reality, you had to be willing to walk. There were no shortcuts.

alice sebold

the almost moon

As I was wandering through Costco (I believe that I have alluded to, if not directly mentioned, this sickness that I have), I heard someone call my name. I turned around and there was this little old woman - really, little and old and woman - who I have known practically all my life; she is a good friend of my mother's. So, "I'm here avec your mom, but I said, 'I don't care; I'm going to say hello.'" And she did, and she wagged her little-old-lady finger at me and made certain that I understood, "If you see me and I don't see you, you come and tell me hello!" And I will, and I am grateful.

All I knew was that in not speaking to her, it felt as if I were storing nuts or bullets. I grew stronger every day.

alice sebold

the almost moon

another year over and a new one just begun

Stuff - I have too much of it, and quite frankly, I am ready to do a massive cleansing, body, soul and spirit...and, yes, a deep, unsentimental purging of the home as well. I need to be grateful for all that I have; less on the shopping front is a good place to start.

Finding that place inside myself to store away the emotional enemies that I no longer need - maybe I never did - should help in this process as well. In doing so, it is possible that I will uncover other shoved-down feelings that could use a good airing out. Out with the old (bad) in with the new (good).

Continuing on the precarious road to complete, honest and true forgiveness will, I believe, lead me to the milk-and-honey land where I can love my neighbor as myself; accomplishing love of self is the first step; I must take that one in order to progress on the journey.

Off, I go then.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I did not want to leave my children. I had loved them both immediately. They were my splendor and my protection, both something to safeguard and something to safeguard me.

alice sebold the almost moon

and what have you done?

Often, I feel as though I just do not do enough; oh, I do plenty for myself, don't get me wrong; it's doing for others that seems to roil itself into that sick-acidic-ball in the middle of my stomach. I want to do more for others, I just don't. I have all sorts of excuses ranging from being too busy to not feeling well to not having enough money, to...well, you get the idea, n'est pas? I need to get up off my duff, which is pretty much it's own solar system (HEED, PANTS NOW!!) at this point; the volunteering muscle could be well-used. As everyone knows, I can do plenty of stuff - some of it fairly well - I should share my multitude of talents and my wealth of knowledge with others. I would feel more Christ-like; I would be less self-centered; I would be more aware of the plight of my fellow man. So, in truth, I see that this would simply result in my being a better version of what I already am...nobody wants that, right? I'll make some sort of decision about it later; right now, I have no money and no time, and I really feel like I'm coming down with something.

and, so, this is Christmas

Christmas is a difficult holiday, but I truly enjoy it tremendously - mother issues and all. Most of the childhood memories that I am able to face have to do with December 25th, and many of my adult memories are filled with the joy of that day. I can laugh at the homemade-ornament-debacle of 2001 and the great-artificial-tree-debate of 2002 - oh, yeah, I am just splitting a gut right now thinking about those - NOT! But I am starting to find them mildly amusing, and that's progress. I am hoping that it is progress in the right direction.

comfort and joy

So, last Christmas, I received a RED ipod from my superfantastic daughter, and this year, in the weeks preceding Christmas, I have had carols and hymns to follow me all around the house. I cannot begin to express how much joy I have found in this - the music lifts up my soul in the most comforting way. So, to my dearest girl, thank you this year for the gift last year - you have brought the soothing expression of music, simple as it is, back into my life, and along with it, peace in my heart. I love you.

Heal thyselves

Really, I do not want to remain on this topic or in this place for an extended period of time, but I must say that this is the Blackest Friday I have known in many, many years.

Anyone who knows me even just a little bit, knows of my great love for baseball, a game I have always believed to be one of the few really pure team activities. Truly, although I adore my Giants, I love the GAME. What a sad day for all of us who feel this way; the Mitchell Report has blown a whole through my heart. I knew it was coming; I knew there were dirty players, but DAMMIT!!!

Coming soon to a bookstore near you

To borrow one of my favorite daughter-phrases, "the problem with me is" I am a true teacher at heart - while I may not do much of anything correctly, I absolutely KNOW how most anything SHOULD be done - I can teach everyone everything! This is why I am hoping to write a guide book - "The Things I Know That Apparently No One Else Does." It will be a compilation of my vast knowledge about some of the little-used shortcuts to take to virtually any Costco, the best way to maneuver through Target, the most efficient waiting-in-line protocol, and the proper etiquette on pretty much all there is for which etiquette is necessary. Clearly, my help is required.

Having recently read a blog (http://www.rebalala.blogspot.com/ - quite excellent) invoking Grace Kelly, I got to thinking about grace and what it means and the tremendous power of the word itself.

I have never had what you might call grace, in terms of gracefulness (much to my mother's great dismay, try though I did to stand on my toes or pretend that I could complete a Pirouette or an Entrechat), but I find that my life is filled with grace, the kind that comes only from God. I do not have this of my own accord, and sometimes, I do not have it at all, but on occasion, I see it weaving its way through the most difficult parts of my life. There is much that would not happen, that I would find unlivable, that I would be incapable of surviving, if it were not for grace.

Not knowing how to respond or defend or give proper expression to that which remains unsaid, I fall upon grace to find the words, the armour, the way, and more-often-than-not, it picks me up and moves me along. Sometimes, it's the only way I can walk at all, with grace, if without gracefulness.

some women I know

As I was falling happily to sleep last night, I was thinking about the ways in which we conduct ourselves in the world - how we protect ourselves, why only certain facets of our lives are available for public consumption, the huge barriers we erect until we are ready to go crashing through them. These things were finding their way through the labyrinth that is my mind for many different reasons, mostly because there are women who are not quite prepared, just yet, to see what faces them on the other side of those walls, but one day they might be.

I have said before, and do still believe, that it IS about the destination and the journey, not so much. I have gone down roads that led nowhere, found places that I did not need to visit, gained knowledge that I had no business knowing. Yes, these false starts may have made me stronger/wiser/better, but what I had to do was go headfirst through the morass that led to the bridge that took me, finally, to the layer of bricks and mortar that I had to travel beyond...I had to get THERE.

Everyone's "there" is different, some only slightly and others so far removed that it is barely recognizable to the human eye. The personal path we all take to where we each need to go is our journey, our memories, our life. But getting to the other possibly-not-greener pasture is the destination which allows us, at last, to be free. It does require some tree demolition and concrete sandblasting (there may even be a scythe involved); the work IS necessary, I'll give you that, but it's what we do upon arriving at our destination, that permits us, finally, to be our true selves. I wish/hope/pray that, as difficult as some things are to overcome, women who need to break through and get "there" will find the required stamina along the rutted road of their personal journey. It's worth ruining a few pairs of good shoes.

I Ain't Packin' Up Anytime Soon

It has come to my attention that a relationship is helped to survive considerably if one of the people involved has optimistic tendencies, believes that there is more good than evil in the world, strives to find that goodness in everyone and everything. In the incident of my own marriage relationship, that person would be my husband; it can't be me; it's a mere process of elimination situation. Again, this may be something that I should have likely discerned long ago; again, a bit slow on the uptake, but, in order to arrive at certain places, I am required to recognize/admit/embrace certain aspects of myself of which I am not particularly proud, but do not necessarily want to change. (Oh, the things that swirl around in my head - it's really not pretty!) It's the whole domino effect; if I change this, how will it affect that; if A+B no longer equals the familiar C, what does the new (possibly - but also not - improved) C look like/mean/require from me? Maybe it all just comes down to laziness or pessimism or some other negatively-connotated word, but I prefer to call it reality - that's the home of my denial, and I am comfortable there, why move?

The Best JJ Ever!!