What’s Left June 16, 2008

About a week and a half ago I ran into Chris, who is the 29 year old Chief of Police in Parkersburg. I’ve known him since he was very young, as he was the best friend of my daughter’s first serious boyfriend. He also, after he married, bought the little house next to mine, and his first child was born there to him and his high school sweetheart-wife.

Chris has a job I wouldn’t want anyway, as a local boy turned police chief in a small town where he will be known for decades, still, as a wet-behind-the-ears-gung-ho kid.

But on May 25, when the tornado struck, his job became a burden I couldn’t imagine bearing. I couldn’t do it. And throughout everything, I would catch a glimpse of him in the Command Room at all hours of the day and night, in full uniform, conferring with people from a million different agencies.

In fact, now that I think about it, in the hour after the tornado struck, I remember seeing him at Triage, where I was, helping to carry his neighbors and relatives (he has a million relatives) up to the sidewalk to be laid down and assessed and treated and sent on.

Anyway, as I said, I didn’t get a chance to talk to him until about a week and a half later, when there happened to be a quiet half-moment at Incident Command, and I walked up and hugged him. He’ll always be another son-figure to me.

We talked a little bit about how he was holding up, how his pregnant wife and three children were holding up. Chris is a young man of amazing faith. Some of which he talked about with me.

And I told him that from the first coherent moments, the thought kept coming to me that, when everything else has passed away, these three things remain: faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love. And how we had all seen that lived out in the past ten days.

His rubbed his hand over his tired face and put his arm around me and said to me quietly, “I’m going to have to steal that one.” We both laughed.

So I’ve been thinking about that.

Faith, I’ve heard tell, is about accepting. It’s in the present. It’s when the babies, amidst everything, are happy and laughing and cooing as long as someone is holding them and cooing at them and playing with them. It’s a feeling that somehow, though the surroundings are unfamiliar, everything’s OK. Under control. As it should be - or soon to be. Faith is what enables our muscles to un-clench. It lets us sleep at night.

Hope, then, is in the future, it’s expectant. That things will get better - that they can’t stay bad forever. It enables us to see crocuses in the snow, the flower in the crack of the sidewalk, and envision things as greener, and safer, and happy again.

And love.

Oh, Lord. Love.

Sorry, kids, it’s not to be found in a song. Or even in a movie.

In fact, it’s so damn over used and bastardized, I prefer the word “compassion” to love.

It’s acknowledging a connection between the most disparate people. It’s caring about strangers, caring enough to put yourself out. It’s when things like being right, and being heard, and being first matter less than understanding, hearing, and sharing.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how little love you see in some places, and how much I am privileged to see where I work. I’ve really learned a lot there, and I’m so grateful for that.

I have felt overwhelmed by the sadness of our own tornados, and then the nearby flooding, and the knowledge that it seems to be going on everywhere. Tragedy, unfairness, and sadness, I mean.

And I can’t function that way.

But neither can I close myself off and refuse to care about anyone to save myself.

Thinking about these three things has helped me regain some balance. They remain, as they always have. As they always will.

I believe that there is no “them” - only an “us”. That anything that angers me in someone else, I can find only too readily, if I’m honest, in myself. I believe the greatest contribution I can possibly make in this world is to live compassionately as much as I can.

Including being compassionate with myself.

I read something once that said the most important person in your life is the person in front of you at any given moment. The most important thing yu could do with your life is to attend to the task at hand right now. And the most important time in your life is right now.

I’ve lived far too much life engrossed in navel gazing - that is, the obsessive and constant analysis of my own life, my own feelings, my own whatever. Me, me, me, me, me.

I am suddenly far more interested in the people around me.

The Hardest Thing June 13, 2008

This is a very hard thing for me to write. One I’ve thought a lot about in the last three weeks. One I’ve talked about with my fiance and a little bit with Britt but not with anyone else.

Because you’ll see me in a very unflattering light.

Like being in my underwear in one of those dressing rooms with awful flourescent lighting. With socks on. And believe me, no one wants to be seen that way.

But I have to. I owe it to myself. And to my fiance. And to my kids.

Yesterday, a lovely little friend dared to ask the question that’s been on a lot of people’s minds who know me - who know that I am now planning a wedding with a man I left less than three months ago.

Specifically - WTF?!?!?!?

And I fobbed her off as I have most people by saying, honestly, all I can tell you is that I’ve done a lot of soul searching, I’m not crazy, thank you very much for caring about me but I really do know what I’m doing.

And then Britt and I were talking on her way home from work about another situation, and she said the sentence, referring to someone else, “You dragged us along with what you were doing, and then you change your mind and you want us to be happy for you and support you, and you’re damn right we’re hurt. We’re confused.” And then, she said, “I don’t feel that way with you because, to be honest with you, I’m used to it with you.”

That’s it right there, ladies and gentlemen. That right there is the crux of the matter.

Allow me to introduce myself. I am a drama queen extraordinaire. No. Really. Like no one you’ve ever met.

Not on purpose. I really do feel everything a hundred times more intensely than a normal person does I think. When I’m happy, I am blissfully happy. When I’m pissed, I have been pissed all my ife and this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to anyone and by God someone has to pay.

But because I’m eloquent and also likeable, I have dragged people along in my ups and downs all my life. Especially my kids. You care. They care. And you root for me, and you support me, and you pray for me and send me hugs.

And then I go and switch currents on you - hell, I switch whole oceans. And you have every right to say…

What. The. Hell??????

I’ve done it all my life. Recently a co-worker with whom I’d been butting heads forever, in a tiff, said to me, “I’m not like you - it doesn’t have to be all drama.” I almost jumped across the desk and strangled her. Except I’m too old and immobile to jump across anything.

In my relationship with my fiance, I’ve been all about drama. In fairness to myself, he’s a pretty big drama king himself (he refuses to call himself any kind of queen - heh) but I will only talk about my side of the street here.

When we got together almost two years ago, I was so screwed up I had no business being with anyone. Those two months I spent living in my “tipi” were the best time I’ve ever spent in my life as far as getting my head untangled.

During the year and a half we were together, I had no idea who I was pissed off at - but I was pissed off all the time.

Not only that but I was trying to keep up a persona that, looking back, I have no idea who she was. Or who she was for.

When I tell you that everything changed for me standing there on that devastated street in Parkersburg the night of the tornado, what I didn’t tell you was that what I saw, very clearly, was my own penchant for drama.

My own selfishness. My own arrogance. My own self absorption.

Hell, even this whole blogging thing, for me, is an excercise, most of the time, in self absorption. Not for everyone - I’m not saying that. But for me, yes.

Remember the infamous post I wrote? Do you want to know why I chose that headline? Honestly? Because I knew it would attract readers. Jesus H. Christ. I’m a salesperson, if not in my current job, then at least by nature. I know what attracts attention.

Don’t get me wrong. All of the feelings have been real, all along. It’s been a mish mash. And yes, as I said, getting away, for both of us, was exactly what we both needed. We both were acting like freaking forty something morons.

And I will never ever ever in a million years forget what it felt like on that street that night.

When I was telling him I was sorry, I meant that I was sorry for my freaking bratty, blind, self obsession. I was sorry to him, to my kids, to people who suffer a hell of a lot more than I do, and to the people who love me who I’ve “dragged along” on all my adventures, leaving them worn out and me ready for another “adventure”.

I’m regretful. And remorseful. And ashamed and embarrassed.

And I’m realistic.

I know that I didn’t turn overnight into Mother Theresa, although I wish I could - minus the sari. I saw an interview once with a young woman who had gone and spent some time with Mother Theresa in Calcutta, and she said that the most remarkable thing about the woman was that whoever she was with at the time held her full attention. All of her focus and regard.

How many of us do that?

I want to be a kinder person. One who takes herself a little less seriously.

I want to give joy instead of demanding it and whining about it all the freaking time.

Most of all, I want to be a good wife to a very good man. One I am, honestly, so in love with I can’t find the words. Once I stopped worshipping myself that night, I was able to fully feel what I had been rebelling against for a long time.

The man makes my heart sing. And feel safe. He’s the funniest person I know outside of my own family - what? C’mon. We’re funny people! He’s also the most honorable and ethical. And talented. And he “gets” me. And he “gets” what I’ve been feeling since then - cuz he’s been feeling much of the same.

I want to be a good mom to my grown kids and, more importantly, a good nanna to my grandkids.

So, um, there. Now you know. I sorta suck. Oh, I have awesome things about me but in this particular regard, I suck a lot.

And I don’t want to anymore.

When I tell you that I have felt ambivalent about everything all my life, and that now, today, I feel 1000% sure about my choices, believe me when I say that I mean that.

I’m an ass. He’s an ass. But he’s my ass, and I’m his.

And I’m grateful as hell - as hell, I tell you - to be marrying him next Saturday.

Whaddya Know? Does This Make It A “Destination Wedding”? June 12, 2008

Ahhhhh. What little girl hasn’t dreamed of a “destination wedding”? Somewhere ocean side or lakeside - sun setting dramatically on the water, blah blah blah.

Besides me, I mean. I think I was the only little girl who never once planned her wedding as a little kid. I was going to be a world class war correspondent capturing the horrors of war and its effects on women and children so brilliantly that the world would wake up and go “Whoaaaaa - we have to stop this.”

Or a circus clown.

But I digress. (And I wasn’t kidding. About either.)

So we were going to get married on July 12, because that was going to be our first day off together. We, of the schedules-written-in-stone-that-can’t-be-changed.

And then his boss changed his schedule. Out of the blue.

My response. “Are you freaking kidding me?”

No. Apparently he wasn’t.

So after some schedule swapping around, our first day off together is now going to be Saturday, June 21. So my darling accosted his friend-who-happens-to-be-a-judge at home grilling in his backyard, and the date is set. 10 am on our deck that morning with just our kids present - minus that little Florida one - er - what’s her name? heh

And grilling out in our backyard that evening with whoever shows up.

Except that the weather does not stop here!

Two and a half inches of rain again last night. Darling is out right now doing traffic for what he refers to as “the city boys” who are pumping water on Main Street. Basements are flooding everywhere, and this ain’t shit.

Yesterday he went to a fire (he’s also a fireman) started by a sump pump that self immolated in the basement of an accounting office.

The entire freaking state has become lakeside property. My little pharamcy delivery guy came in last night, white faced from trying to reach us. His dad’s house is gone. Foundation crumbled, windows blown out.

They have taken, I hear, to preemptively flooding some basements all the way up to the top of the foundation in the path of the flood waters because at least that will keep the water pressure - uh - the same? So it doesn’t rush through and crumble the foundations with it.

Because unlike tornado damage, which is covered by insurance, flood damage is not.

Which means everything you see on TV washing away, and everything you don’t - furnaces dead, water heaters, cracked foundations, blown out windows, everything ruined - well, kids, that’s just tough cookies. Act of God and all that.

Another goddamn tornado hit a Boy Scout camp last night in western Iowa, killing four teenage boys and wounding 30-40 more that we’ve heard about now.

And somewhere around midnight the page went out and Darling (see how stringently I’m avoiding the term “my man”? Hmmm?) hopped up, jumped into his clothes and headed out the door to do “spotting”. This time, with me on his heels.

“What are you doing?” he says to me.

“I’m going with you.” He gives me a strange look and I say, “I’m never going through another two hours searching for you like I did in Parkersburg.”

So I sat in the front of that fire truck with two fireman, scanning the horizon, trying to see funnel clouds whenever lightning lit the sky enough to see something through the rain. My teeth clenched. Silent as a stone. When I get nervous, I chatter. When I get really scared, I clam up.

“Hey honey,” he says to me, trying to lighten the mood. “You can talk. you know.”

I look sideways at him and say, “Remember you said that.”

hahahahahahahahahahaha

Seriously. Is God mad at us all?

The Antidote June 11, 2008

I’ve been going through something lately.

The tornado and its aftermath that I can’t escape - the flooding two weeks later…

I don’t know if it’s given me a heightened sensitivity to tragedy and pain or what.

But I’ve just been bone crushingly…not sad. Just very very aware of all the pain and shit around us.

There was a guy on Oprah yesterday who’s dying of cancer. And there was a guy in his late 40’s that our ambulance crew responded for - massive heart attack.

I think it’s stuff that’s always around us, but ever since the tornado it seems to me that that’s all I see and hear.

It makes me feel helpless and vulnerable and almost hopeless.

I was talking to Britt about it this morning, telling her I needed to find some balance between being open to other people’s pain and empathetic - and letting it crush me.

Wondering how to get back to that sunny optimism I usually feel.

I want to keep the gratitude and humility, without the heavy weight of despair on my shoulders.

Then this morning my fiance and I went flower shopping.

See, flowers and gardening have always been one of my things, and last summer our yard was downright lush with pots and plots and stuff.

This year of course, as I mentioned before, it’s been bare. Not only did I not live here for two months in the spring, but since then, there’s been no time for such frivolity.

Ah, but this morning I came home with two delicious hanging baskets spilling over with some kind of gardenias. And wave petunias - yes, wave petunias! in two big pots that I sat in the cormers of the patio around our fire ring.

A shepherd’s hook and a hanging pot of New Guinea impatiens with their dark waxy leaves and their neon bright flowers. Hard to kill those babies.

And several assorted little bedding plants - regular petunias, lobelia, sweet potato vines and impudent pansies.

And when I came home and set those pots out and around, I was cheered.

And I realized that the antidote is HOME. As they say on my favorite TV channel, HGTV, Start At Home.

Home is where I can feel safe and nurtured and relaxed. Where I do the little caring rituals that I’ve always done, cooking and doing laundry. Where everything is familiar and cozy. Where I can dream - and daydream.

Yes, “home”, as in a building and its possessions can all disappear in the blink of an eye.

But as of right now, I have my family. My fiance. My puppies. And my loving them and caring for them and laughing with them doesn’t dishonor anyone else’s pain and tragedy. In fact, I think it honors it.

It embodies hope.

At least it makes me feel more balanced.

And boy you should see my pretty flowers!

Some Things Are Just Too Big June 6, 2008

It would be nice, I suppose, to have a blog about low carb living or style things. Ha. Like I could do either. But when all I write about is the vagaries of my life, there are times when things are just too big to write about.

So I haven’t. Written, I mean. As you can tell.

I have been busy, that’s true. Either working extra hours at work, or working relief stuff in Parkersburg, which thankfully now is slowing down as progress is being made and the major relief stuff is gearing down as people are able to do a little more for themselves.

Like feed themselves.

As usual, my baby and I were discussing this this morning, and I hung up the phone with her in tears at the profound relief it was to be able to talk about this with someone who understands.

The past two months have been such an introspective and reflective time for me anyway. Probably the best time of my life in terms of honest self evaluation.

And then the tornado experience on top of it - I have been flooded with - gosh, I don’t even know how to tell you.

New insights not polite enough to be kind. Glaring revelations - mostly about myself. No, that’s not true. ABout everything.

I have had a recurring mental visual image of myself standing naked in the midst of unimaginable rubble (yuck - thank God it was only a mental image!). But I still see it - and me - with so much stripped away.

Anger. Self righteousness. So much false “certainty” and at the same time so much uncertainty.

I’ve said this several times over the last two weeks but I feel a clarity and a certainty and at the same time a strength in myself and a vulnerability that I’ve never felt in my entire life.

I could tell you how dumb and sad it was for my man and I to ever have gotten involved with each other two years ago when we did - how pathetically wounded we were at the time, and clinging to those wounds, lingering over them, chewing on them. And grasping at each other, trying to shove each other into the hole that had been left there by previous relationships. Taking out our anger on each other, and our suspicions and our raging, unrelenting pain.

We treated each other like shit and had no idea why.

No - actually, we both kind of knew what we were doing. We were just powerless to stop.

Over the past two months, we talked. And we actually talked more honestly than we had in a long time. But we kept banging into the same stuff.

If you haven’t lived through a life changing experience, you will be bored of hearing about this. And although you will understand my words, they won’t have the same gut meaning that they do for me.

But if you have, you will know that there can come a moment in life when absolutely everything changes.

It’s like. Shit. What is it like.

Like growing new eyes.

I have gone back to abusers in my life and justified it to myself and everyone around me, and I know what that’s like.

I have deluded myself and everyone around me into believing anything I want so badly to believe.

This is different.

What my beloved and I did to each other in our relationship was sad and lonely and hurting. In fact, I know for my own part, a good 50% of me was never present. It was back there, still chewing on the corpse and mourning and howling and pissed off.

And how we both look at each other now is totally and completely different. And there’s no way for me to explain that.

It’s just too big.

But I can tell you this.

We picked up our marriage license yesterday. We picked up our wedding rings the day before. And we’re getting married at 10 am on our deck on Saturday July 12. Because that’s the first day off we have together.

Think about that. We won’t have a day off together for 36 days - and then only because I did some begging and stuff to get my weekends switched.

I am more fortunate - on every hand - than I can ever express to you. My life is not without its problems, like anyone else’s.

But kids, don’t kid yourself. We are all in the middle of one shit storm or another. If you look around, there are some real tragedies around you all the time, and real pain.

And yet, here I stand. Naked and stripped down in the rubble. I am so freaking fortunate to still be standing. To have a very kind and honorable man standing beside me. To have a kid who embodies loyalty and heart to understand me when some things are too big to say.

To have people who care about me and my family.

I really do mean this - thank you so so so so much.

What Comes From Too Much Freedom May 24, 2008

Hooray for long weekends!

And in my case a long weekend is a TWO day weekend. In four years at my current job - policy of working “every other holiday” notwithstanding - I have never ever had Memorial Day off.

And I don’t care. Because I am NOT picking up extra hours this weekend, and I have TWO whole days off in a row for the first time in over a month!

I came home last night, fended off friends’ text messages to go out with them, welcomed home my baby boy from college, and sat down at the computer and carved up my paycheck into my bills. And with what’s left over I ordered four brand spanking new windows from my favorite supplier. They’re no frills, but they’re perfect for what I need - their prices are good and - even better - their customer service is terrific!

So I sit here on a cloudy, windy day-off morning wondering: what to do? What to do?

I can’t go shopping. Last night’s online ordering spree took care of that.

Right now I’m in the “not so fun and oh so expensive” part of re-feathering my nest. The “I have to get the walls, windows, and floors sound before I can put anything pretty inside” part.

So all the drooling over design websites is just mental gymnastics - kind of like Avi and porn. Hehehehehehe. The budget, she is shot for another 2-1/2 weeks. Turn on HGTV.

I have been invited here and there, but man, I find it harder and harder to leave my little nest, after being away from it so much and so long.

I love Home. Even as shabby and oddly dysfunctional as it is - and I mean that in a structural sense - for once.

I rescued a homemade bird feeder from the neighbor who made it and was going to throw it away because “it’s summer now and the birds can fend for themselves”. Silly man. Like winter won’t come again.

And that sets me to daydreaming about the “losethelawn” area I envision to the east side of my home - a narrow little strip between my house and the neighbors. I’m not a bland expanse of green grass type person. I see winding walkways and flowers and plants selected for their color and height and texture and fragrance.

I see odd little reclaimed treasures tucked here and there - like this homemade bird feeder that uses a license plate bent as the roof. I want to mount it on a pole and sit by the window and watch the little ones come and breakfast while I do.

I want to curl up on my second hand couch, bare feet tucked under me. When you’re on your feet working as much as I am, the shoes come off when the time clock clicks, not to appear again until it’s time to punch in again. Flip flops, sandals, and bare feet are the order of the day.

I want to take my puppies “bye bye”, even if it’s just a run to the convenience store for cigarettes and a fountain pop. “Home”, in my head, extends to my big old cruiser.

I don’t want to “give” to anyone today - not after several days of not feeling well and a month of giving the best I can manage at work.

I want to cook something. I want to nap. I want to go to the library and get new books. I wonder if libraries have shortened hours for Memorial Day?

I wonder if this post is just mindless rambling - and then I wonder if, if so, what the hell is wrong with that?

Freaking Flu… May 23, 2008

I never get sick.

Honestly, I am smug with the people who “always” have something wrong with them, heartless ass that I am.

And then, Wednesday night, I lay in my bed whimpering like an injured kitty. The sweats, followed by the chills, intermingled with the kind of body aches to my legs and back that were reminiscent of the “growing pains” I had as a kid. The nagging headache for three days - I never get headaches!

Of course I worked Thursday anyway. I can’t afford to take time off unpaid (and no, we don’t get paid sick leave until the second day of illness) and it’s damn near impossible to find my own replacement. Another policy - hazard of the industry. Nurses dare not get sick themselves.

And I was pissy.

I was mainly pissy about my house. This is the first time in my life when I have actually had the time and emotional space to feel creative stirrings about my space.

Up until this point, raising kids, it’s always been just “Do you have a bed? A dresser? Cool. C’mon - we’re late for practice!” Or work, or whatever.

But now I haunt the sites about small space stylish living. For me to even use the term “stylish living” is a new luxury for me.

To have the time to flesh out my thoughts about why small space living is important to me from a philosophical point of view, low impact, leaving a small footprint, anti-McMansion thinking. To develop my ideas about why reclaimed furniture and building materials matter to me. Not just because they’re cheaper.

And I can’t really do anything with all my cool ideas except file them away somewhere in that disorganized mess we’ll call Nanna’s brain.

Because right now, all I can do is focus on the structural necessitites. Shoring up the floors. And a lightweight remedy for the bare insulation in some of my walls. Thw windows that still need to be replaced.

One non-rock-star paycheck at a time. With what’s left after the regular bills are paid. And trying to avoid the paid professionals like the plague, God love ‘em.

But I got some very very good advice yesterday from my beautiful and wise friend Joyce, who told me, when the feelings are swirling about like a little dust storm, to just sit. Wait it out. Don’t act on them, don’t speak based on them. Just wait. Wait until that feeling of calm and peace comes again. As it will.

And inasmuch as it is possible in the middle of said storm, to do what I can to get back to that feeling of peace. Whether that means actually forcing myself to walk and talk and move more slowly - which is actually a very good tool to use at work when I can’t just jump in the car, grab my puppies, and head off to the lake in the middle of my shift.

The older I get, the more vital to me that feeling of “peace” is - whatever that means to anyone else. Not accomplishment and achievement, not the feeling of being “loved” (because I already know I’m loved). Peace - the lack of chaos and drama. Serenity. A deep breath and a cup of coffee.

Those are the feelings I value most right now in my life.

That and sleeping off this damn bug, whatever it is.

I really don’t have time for that crap.

I Am An Encourager - And So Are You May 20, 2008

One time I took a “Spiritual Gifts Inventory”, a thing they do in churches (maybe other places, I don’t know) to help you to discover what it is you are especially gifted by God to do.

Of course, everyone wants the cool rock star gifts like the gifts of healing or prophecy.

I have the gift of Encouragement. Also known, in the King James version, as “exhortation”.

Which means that I am naturally inclined to encourage people. To make them feel welcome and included, to tell them when they look terrific or smell terrific or did a terrific job.

Britt and I were talking this morning about how she, having known the angst of feeling “different” at various times in her life, feels very strongly about never letting anyone else feel excluded. She is always the one who seeks out the quiet one, the one in the corner.

How much more proud can a mother be to say that about her child?

We talked about how many times bloggers are quiet people in their “real lives” (a term I take issue with personally - what in the hell defines a “real life”?) but who, in the blogosphere, can communicate brilliantly and eloquently, with great insight and wit. People who other people actually take the time to sign in, look up, and read every day because they have something to say. Who, in a group of other bloggers, blossom into these relaxed and confident people, comfortable with who they are.

You’ve heard me say before that “everybody has a song that needs singing” or some shit like that.

I really believe that.

Which is why I tend to have a motley, eclectic collection of friends and companions of all ages and socioeceonomic backgrounds.

If you can look past the various “hats” people wear, there are often some really fabulous finds. Gracious, wistful, parallel-plane people whose perspective is just skewed enough relative to mine to be able to provide a valuable perspective.

I also believe very strongly that “everyone needs a flock”, an emotional home to which they can return, relax, kick off their psychic shoes and just let it all hang out, secure in the knowledge that they will be safe and nurtured and just plain OK, exactly as they are.

It can be hard, if you’re a little bit “different”, to feel like you haven’t found your flock. (Think ugly duckling trying to fit in until she realizes she’s a swan.)

And a lot of us go through a lot of stages thinking, “Maybe this is my flock” and, “Ope, nope, surely that is my flock.” When what we’re really doing is trying on different personas ourselves to see if we can fit in with the great Them.

Lord knows, I’ve thrown myself headlong into my Evangelical Christian persona, my party girl barfly persona, my Man Hating Dianic persona. Let’s see. Always the Hippie Persona. The Soccer Mom (actually, wrestling mom) persona.

The thing is, I am all of those things, in part. (Except the Dianic one - I really don’t have the attention span to pull off that one.) What it has taken me a long time to realize (like in the last two months) is that I am a sum of the total of all those parts.

And we all are.

And that’s what makes people cool.

That none of us can be defined by these rigid “personas” like “the pot heads” and “the in crowd” and “the jocks” in high school.

All of us are a crazy patchwork quilt of lots of different personas - roles we’ve tried on over the years of our lives, keeping some parts of them, and dropping others.

And that’s what is the Great Adventure of being around other people.

To invest the time to see past the “comic book freak”, the “goth chick”, the “barfly” or whatever other labels we stick on people.

And don’t kid yourself. We all label people. We have to, in a sense, just to minimize the input that comes screaming at us every day. We categorize and profile people for a reason.

I’m just saying we don’t have to stop there.

I have to tell you about a lovely little treasure in my life, a high school girl I work with.

She’s a “goth chick”. She wears all black, all the time, and her eye make up would make Cleopatra envious. She’s all into “emo”, whatever the hell that is. At 17, she’s pierced and tattooed everywhere.

And she has a giggle like pink lemonade - which bubbles up all day every day. You can hear her down the hall, and it makes me giggle myself every single time.

She’s also devoutly Catholic, and just flat out happy. Not things I thought were part of the whole “goth” thing.

She displays the most consistent patience and affection with the residents I work with, and she and I have sat and had the most in-depth conversations about everything under the sun.

Now take my little friend, and multiply her by the dozens or hundreds of people I encounter every day.

Imagine the endless possibilities.

No, I’m not saying I like everybody.

Part of the payoff of taking the time to get to know people is the ability to say, with clarity and integrity, nope, I really don’t like them personally. Not someone I’d like to hang around with.

But the other part is to be able to say, I wouldn’t want to be married to that person, or be their roommate every day. But certainly to spend some time listening to them, hanging out with them, that is a gift.

And so, I try to make sure I tell them that.

There are people who come here and comment a lot whom I have never met. Not even sure how they found me. But when they do comment - and of course, espcially when they comment positively, and take the time to leave well thought out feedback, it damn near brings me to tears every time.

That someone would spend their precious minutes to read, reflect, and respond.

When you do that, you are an Encourager.

And thus you are an antidote to alienation and cynicism and defensive postures - all things we all see too much of in our “real lives”.

There’s that freaking term again! Damn it!

Ode to the Inner Bitch May 19, 2008

I have said the same sentence so many times to my baby. “Honey - release your inner bitch.” If you’ve read or met Britt at all, you know she has some very strong and well thought out opinions on a lot of things.

But like her mother before her who taught her - and like a lot of women I know - there are times we feel justified in expressing those strong opinions - strongly. And times when we sit back and mewl like kittens, all in the name of “being nice”.

“Release your inner bitch.” I became so enamored of phrase I coined that I started using it with other women I talk to. Mothers whose teenage kids talk to them with disrespect. Wives and girlfriends whose men do something we wouldn’t tolerate in a girlfriend.

And I am all about live-and-let-live. And compassion, and everybody has a reality from their own perspective. And listening. And letting it roll off my back. I’m a hippie, remember?

But there are times, damn it, when it’s time to draw the line in the sand, bare one’s teeth, and dare some stupid ass to cross it.

Everybody has their own triggers.

I have two.

One is to insinuate, or say outright, that I lie. Because I don’t. I think it’s childish - what are you going to do if you don’t like my truth? Spank me? Ground me?

I also don’t have the attention span to lie because then I would have to remember what story I told you, in order to perpetuate it.

And foremost, I hate having to try to have any kind of a relationship with someone who lies, because I’m building my half of the sand castle leaning against yours - and if you lie, there is no support on your side for the castle - er- relationship.

I taught my kids when they were little that the two worst things they could do in the world were to lie and be mean to people. All three of them, plus various other kids who I “mothered” over the years” can repeat that phrase by rote.

So don’t fucking ever say to me that I lie. Or sunny sweet Nanna will turn into rabid nasty Nanna with a vocabulary arsenal that will cut you to shreds.

The inner bitch is released.

That happened to me this weekend. Someone knowing my aversion to lying, in an attempt to get my goat, implied that I was a liar. And the needle buried itself in the red zone in less than a second.

I let loose and said all (no, most) of the things I’ve always bit my tongue from saying before because, typically, women have brakes on their tongues. You can fight and argue and say hurtful things but there are always those things that are never brought up. The deepest insecurities. The most putrid wounds.

But damn it, you asked for it.

And afterward I felt a little ashamed of myself because I really do try to be a “good person”.

And then today I thought to myself, nope.

There are times when you have to let people know that here is the boundary. You may trespass this close and no farther. Because if you do, I will fuck up your world. I will remind you that I took the time to get to know you, and I know where your skeletons are buried.

My number two trigger is to threaten me. Not so much with bodily harm because, seriously, I’ve had my ass beat before, and lived through it. At this point in my life, someone who raises a hand to me is going to have a scrap on their hands, because I’m not at all afraid.

But don’t ever threaten my ability to take care of myself, to support myself. I’m paycheck to paycheck as it is, and will be for a couple more years yet (or longer, if I join the cultural trend), and I lay awake sometimes at night trying to figure out how to gracefully make it to payday.

So don’t freaking ever threaten my income.

I will come barrelling out the door with the zeal of every peasant woman who ever brandished a broom to protect her home.

Except that my broom is my mouth - and it has spikes on it.

Today, instead of having that anger hangover that I dreaded, I feel finally more centered. As if I took hold of the leash someone had been yanking me around with and yanked it back into my own two little hands.

This is my life. My best advice to anyone who has a problem with my life is to stay the hell out of it. Find your Zen elsewhere, if I’m so damn upsetting. This is my dance space, and yours is way the hell over there.

I don’t get headaches, baby. I give them.

I’m almost 48 years old, and I don’t need another parent figure. I don’t need a moral compass. I don’t need teenage relationship drama.

What I need - and what I can create for my own self, thank you very much - is peaceful surroundings splashed with beauty.

I need stimulating conversation about things that matter to me - my kids and their kids, the environment, the upcoming election, the sad decline of Christianity into the Pharisaic mentality that my Lord died to free me from.

Stuff like that.

You can clutter my life with whining and moaning and a list of “should’s” for me for so long. But when you cross that line, look out.

I will release my inner bitch.

And I promise you. You will come away remembering her.

My Sunday Advice - Do It Anyway May 18, 2008

Actually, this makes me laugh. I am the least qualified person I know to offer anyone advice - and typically people don’t want anyone else’s “advice”.

But I had to come up with something for a headline, right?

Don’t Wait Until _____ To Be Happy. We can all fill in the blanks with any number of things - which would be a fascinating survey in itself.

When we get these bills paid off. I do that one myself. In 2-1/2 years my financial situation will look a lot different than it does now. Unless I get hit by a feed truck and die in the meantime.

When I lose ____ pounds. This one breaks my heart. I’ve never met a woman who doesn’t chain herself to some stump with this one.

When the kids are grown. Or in kindergarten. Or when summer gets here. Or when school starts up again.

When my kitchen is “done”, I will have friends over. Unless, as I said, I die first. Which could happen. Do it anyway. If your friends don’t want to come into a screwed up kitchen, get new friends. Furnish your kitchen first with warmth and memories. The rest will follow.

When I’m done with my degree, then I can start doing stuff I want. Except - uh - you won’t. Because then you’ll be working at your first big job and exhausted and buying stuff you could never afford before and then working more to pay for it. Creed. Do stuff you want right now, and treasure every minute of it.

When we move in together/get married/have kids, our relationship will really blossom and settle into an idyllic fairy tale. Until I get the flu and shit the bed. Or you have a heart attack and can’t work anymore. Or get sent off to war and come home a paraplegic. Or in a box. Make the fairy tale now. Or shut up.

We’ve all talked about the movie “The Bucket List” and even I, the last person to ever get in on anything, saw it. Loved it.

And I don’t have a grand list like “See something truly majestic” on it.

Because I see something majestic every single day of my life.

And so do you, if you truly “saw”.

My baby is going to New York next month because it’s something she’s always wanted to do, and I am very very proud of her.

But it doesn’t have to be that big and grand of a thing.

Get a pedicure if you’ve never had one. Or even if it’s just been too long since you’ve had one. Unless, like me, you’re kind of “meh” about pedicures. Nice, but, eh, I can live without it.

Don’t let anyone else tell you what you should want.

Just want. And then go do it.

This weekend, I really want to make gumbo and eat it with my son. So I’m off to the store to buy the ingredients.

In my life, I have known the following people:

A young man in his early twenties who went out hunting with friends for a day, and came home a quadriplegic. Who then finished college, bought a house and fitted it all out for his needs, and got an awesome job. Who has a wicked sense of humor.

A man who worked all his life the way he was “supposed to”, saw his lifelong employer go belly up and his pension disappear, and his wife develop and live with Alzheimer’s under his care until she died. Who is one of my best and most favorite friends.

A woman who left all she knew and had to follow a man to another continent, only to have said marriage dissolve, and then created a fascinating and colorful life for herself with her own two hands. Not without its mishaps, but without her, I would not exist. She was my mom.

I am acutely aware of how precarious life can be, how comically our plans can turn out, and how very very unaware of how much joy there is to be had - that we blithely and irresponsibly ignore.

If we want a more joyous world in which to live, we have to start being more joyous people.

And we already have everything we need right now to be at least a little bit joyous.

Do it for me. I need more joyous people around me.

Cynical, whiny ass people suck the life out of me.

I’m your girl if you need a sympathetic ear when you’re going through a rough patch.

But if you want to stay there and build a cozy little nest in misery, constantly cataloguing everything that’s ever not turned out your way, everyone who’s ever disappointed you or not appreciated you or hurt your feelings or broke your heart - please go elsewhere.

Bring me your gifts of joy, and I will share mine with you.

Or get the fuck outtahere.

*giggle*

Random thought: A long time ago I met a guy who told me, very seriously, how “vulgar” he thought it was to hear a woman use the word “c*cksucker”. And actually, I kind of think so too. But being who I am, what word do you suppose I used 48 times in the next five minutes in every possible combination I could think of? Hehehehehehehehe