What I’ve Been Doing Instead of Blogging June 27, 2008

1) Working
2) Running around changing my name
3) Honeymooning

Just because my darling husband and I got married Saturday did not mean that the bosses did not expect me back at work on Monday. And Mondays suck - at any job there is. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are slightly better but nevertheless, it’s been a little daunting to switch mental gears from ooey gooey and back again to go to work.

And in the mornings before I go to work, I have been absorbed in the great adventure that is called Changing My Name.

Actually, the name was legally changed in ten minutes on Saturday of course - but no one knows that until you take the certified copy of the marriage certificate here, there and everywhere and have it changed on things like your driver’s license. Then when you get it changed on your driver’s license, you have to have it changed on other things like your checks, your debit card, and - omigod I almost forgot!! - my nursing license.

Oh. And my Social Security card. I might not be going to New York, but I absolutely had a multicultural experience at the Social Security office.

And honeymooning. Ahhhhhhh yes.

Since, as mentioned previously, we have no paid time off until September and we both went right back to work, our method of coping is to treat any day off we have together as a day of our honeymoon.

As in yesterday.

So we slept in together. And then we did a lot of running around to various agencies and places, but then we treated ourselves to lunch at Applebee’s. Which I love, because they have a way of serving things cooked in a way which I never would have thought of. I had a chicken sandwich with cheese AND Ranch AND some spicy something and thought - wow - this is awesome. I never would have thought to put all these different flavors together.

And we were holding hands and chatting and apparently glowing enough at each other at the table that an older woman stopped by our table and said “Keep that up! I’ve been married 42 years and that’s the secret!”

Insert huge grin plastered all over both our faces.

Then we went to the casino, which always seems very decadent in the middle of the day. Then we drove around looking at the way people have landscaped their yards, which is a thing for me.

And at night we came home and built a fire in the fire ring and just sat out there, with my head on his shoulder.

Sigh.

Tuesday was one month since the tornado hit Parkersburg. A whole month - it’s hard to believe.

And as I’ve said before so many times, everything has changed.

Everything.

It’s like decades of anger and bitterness and defensiveness I didn’t even realize was there - or at least to that extent - swirled away in the debris.

What’s left is just bliss.

I haven’t been keeping up on any blogs but one.

But it’s been a week of heaven.

The Most Wonderful Weekend Ever June 23, 2008

OK that last picture makes me laugh. I don’t know what got into me and no - no - no, Britt. Put down the knife or whatever. I’m very obviously not pregnant.

But I am - I remain - funny as hell.

I had the flu on Thursday. I haven’t had the flu since I was pregnant with Britt - and that was like, wow, 29 years ago. The sit-on-the-toilet-with-the-garbage-can-in-your-hands kind of flu. I thought I was going to die. I prayed I would die.

And I was all better for my birthday. And I got the three best birthday presents ever.

And then Saturday. I don’t have the words. It was sweet and informal and very very us.

And Saturday night about 65 friends and neighbors showed up and we grilled and sat around the fire ring on the patio and played with babies and told more funny stories. It was relaxing and fun and we both felt so freaking grateful we could hardly express it.

On Sunday we got up, cleaned up the backyard, hauled tables and chairs back to the fire station where we had borrowed them, and went golfing.

I really suck at golfing. I particularly suck at chipping, or pitching, or whatever they call it. To make a long story short I tried to chip and actually got under it for once - and damn near knocked out my new husband’s - uh - family jewels.

Hehehehehehehehehehehe

And then we went for what I was envisioning as a romantic stroll around Pine Lake. Except that he is 6′4″ - almost a full foot taller than me - and would have to be almost comatose to be strolling at my pace.

So we set off on this enduance hike, went further on this trail than I had ever gone, and then, seeing my distress, uttered those fateful words that should make every woman weep…

“Look, honey. I’m pretty sure that’s a short cut.”

Again. Long story short. We made it back to our cars - some people even offered to give us a ride back on their golf cart - yeah, we wandered onto another golf course in our adventure.

And it was the best best best best weekend ever.

Going back to work today was like when I lived in Mexico as a teenager and had to come back to the United States. I was glad to be home, but it felt like another planet.

No woman on earth is more fortunate than me.

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.

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

My Idea for a “Shit List” May 15, 2008

My best friend, this morning, was sleeping in her bed. Her ex-husband, who is psychotic, came to her door because she didn’t answer any of the 10 threatening and insulting voicemail messages he had left her calling her a “tramp”, a “whore”, and a “loser”, and their daughter let him in the house.

She heard his voice and escaped into the bathroom, which he proceeded to enter, called her a few more names, and then whacked her across the face and knocked her right off the toilet onto the floor.

She got herself up, attempted to chase him out the door, while he is continually calling her names, and finally lost it, whipping a set of keys in her hand at his back.

He finally left, she called the cops, and discovered that if she presses charges they will both go to jail because “it was all said and done with” and then she threw the keys at him - making it a double assault.

Sigh. Deep heavy sigh.

She also can’t get a restraining order “until he does something”. I stood right there next to the officer telling her “not in ____ County, anyway”.

So what are we to do?

By the way, said psycho ex-husband hates my guts with a fiery passion because I have dared to tell him, to his face, to knock it off, leave, and that, oh, by the way, I think men who talk to their wives and hit them like he has for years should be buried up to their necks in the sand and a lawn mower run over their heads. You know - kind of as a public service.

I am also, in his book, a “whore”, a “tramp”, and a “loser”.

Which - whatever. I’ve had my ass beat by bigger men than him and should push ever come to shove and he make a threatening move toward me, I know without a doubt I could tear him limb from limb.

The point is - the nutty fucker drives by here day and night. (My friend is also who I bought my palace from and lives about - I don’t know - 30 secs walk away from me.) He calls her day and night repeatedly.

OK, so the law is set up so that “they” can’t do anything to him until he kills her, or somes close.

What about the rest of society?

I don’t know who said that evil exists - nay, even thrives, when good men do nothing.

And I absolutely believe it is my job, as a woman hell bent on leaving the world a better place for being here, that I have the right, even the obligation, to confront shit like this by standing up calmly and saying, “Alright, knock it off. Your behavior is not acceptable here, it will not be tolerated, so go away.”

And then someone told me, yeah, but if you do that, you just inflame the situation.

So I guess what we’re all supposed to do is just sit there and be called names by needle dick freaked out wife beating assholes?

Um. No.

There has to be a better alternative.

I really don’t care about being called a bitch or any derivative thereof. I am one, certainly, at times.

At one time I had the brilliant idea of publishing a “shit list”. You know, as in “Oh, I’m on her shit list today.” And just taking submissions from women and publishing them with men’s names, not with hearsay and mean spirited revenge stuff, but just with verifiable stuff like “doesn’t pay his child support”, “beats his wife”, “cheated on his wife” - and leaving that list in places like bars where women and men run into each other.

That way, should a man and woman meet and there be some interest generated, the woman could say, “Hold on,” look him up, and see what his past “references” are.

Yes, there would still be the morons like me who would say stuff like “Oh, he’s not like that with me” and “Oh, nobody understands him like me.” Which makes me laugh to think about, I am so predictable, and why I want to be alone because I know the kind of mental contortions I do.

But maybe - maybe? - it would have the effect of old fashioned shunning. Maybe those little pukes would all go somewhere where they could hang with like minded pukes and leave the rest of the world alone.

Maybe it would change the world.

Yes I know. I KNOW, Adam - who will invariably point out the flaws in my idea from a legal point of view. I love you Adam. I really do. You would never be on anybody’s shit list, except maybe - temporarily - on Britt’s sometimes.

I’m open to ideas for refinements.

It’s Selma’s Birthday!!! May 10, 2008

OK technically, Selma’s birthday is May 10. But she lives in Australia and, as she pointed out to me, that means she is FIFTEEN HOURS ahead of me! Which, by extension, means that to her American friends, she has TWO birthdays.

Her birthday at HOME and her birthday HERE.

Because, ahem, it IS all about me - as all of my friends have been carefully schooled to understand.

Why do I tell you this?

Because, honestly, other than my daughter, I truly believe that if you read one blog, it should be Selma’s. She really is a brilliantly gifted writer, and by reading her, she has inspired ME to get off my lazy butt and work on the craftsmanship of writing. To read what she writes is like unwrapping a priceless little gift for yourself every day. No. Really. She really is that good.

But she shines as a human being.

She is one of the most empathetic people I’ve ever met, and by that I don’t mean what you usually think of as empathetic.

I mean, honestly, that she truly feels what other people feel. Their pain, their joy, their triumph, their loss. And then she writes about it. She is more connected to the rest of humanity than any other person I’ve ever met - like you’d expect some kind of guru to be connected.

She’s going to kill me when she reads this. Hehehehehehehe. Which makes me giggle.

That empathy, I know, causes her pain sometimes. But at this point in her life, I think she has come to terms with it, with the fact that she is one of those precious people on this earth who truly feels more than most people. She takes the bliss with the mourning. She sees the extraordinary in the ordinary. She remembers everything.

And she will encourage you all day every day with an uncanny sense of knowing exactly what you need to hear to have courage, to feel justified, to feel heard.

We’ve never met in person, Selma and I. But we will someday. Somehow. And we will, as she put it once, paint the town purple together. And hold the most amazing conversations long into the night, stopping only to sleep when we can’t keep out eyes open and picking up the next day at the very next sentence of the discussion.

She introduced me to Writer’s Island which is a wonderful tool for people who write to practice their chops. Since I met her, I have always told myself I would go there weekly and take their prompts and work on it myself.

But I am lazy, and never have. Until now.

Because the prompt for this week is Faithful.

And faithful is what Selma is.

Not in the “old dog” way. But in the way of, if you’re her friend, you can count on her to really be your friend. She will stew over your troubles while you do, she will become giddy with your joys while you do.

And in between it all, she gets up every morning and carries on with her own life and her own duties and obligations, the very best way she knows how. With grace sometimes, with her teeth gritted sometimes. And sometimes, when it all becomes too much, she will crawl under the covers and take a break to reboot.

Honestly - please go over there and wish her a Happy Birthday. She is at the most wonderful time of her life, and I don’t think she even realizes it.

Happy, happy Birthday, my beloved friend.

Thank you so much for coming into my life and enriching it the way you do.

God sees.

And I am not at all sorry for embarrassing you by posting this. Because, at the core of it, I really am an incorrigible person.

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

A Day In Which Healing Comes By Leaps and Bounds May 7, 2008

Yesterday was the best day off I’ve had in a long long time, and I realized, sitting here on the couch last night sharing pizza with the puppies, just how good the last six weeks have been for me.

I got up when Britt called - the highlight of my day, as we all know. I drank my two big monster cups of coffee, and then packing my little backpack, I grabbed up the puppies, put them in the ghetto cruiser, and off we went.

Now remember, I went for over a month with no car, and before that I went for about a year and a half driving a car that was not my own, but someone else’s to give or take away at their pleasure. I hate that feeling.

So as I steered this big boat down the highway, it felt like big flaky layers of something were peeling away and flying out the open window.

I stopped in Wellsburg to see a friend for a few minutes, and then off we went to Pine Lake.

On a weekday morning, there were only a few random souls who would appear for a minute or two. So we had the place to ourselves, the puppies and me.

You’re supposed to leash your dogs - and I did, I really did. But Buddy, my little stray, gets so sad and morose when he’s on the leash. And he never gets more than six feet away from me anyway. So I eventually I let them both off, and we wandered down by the boat ramp.

There’s a dock there, and we went out to the end of it and sat there. Neither one of them, I think, have ever been around water like that. Leah, the puppy, was curious and sticking her nose out as far as she could go, while I wondered if I could grab her fast enough if she lost her balance - or if she would have to learn to swim very quickly.

A lone goose paddled away back and forth about 50 feet out - and then it was joined by two others for some kind of impromptu goose meeting in which they honked and paddled around each other.

I took us back up away from the water onto a grassy hill and laid back just listening and feeling the breeze and watching. The stray - my spooky one - would wander around in about a 20 foot radius. The puppy, my hotshot, would wander further away, and then I would see her come barrelling back with her little dachshund legs churning and her little ears flipped back, skidding up to me like “Jeez, Mom, I thought I lost you!”

We walked around looking at stuff - they followed me into the outhouse because certainly there was something fascinating in there that smelled like that.

We just hung out there all morning. And then we got back into the boat and drove back to town where I did some errands and we came home.

We took a nap together, and then for supper I ordered pizza, and we curled up on the couch, watched TV and listened to the thunderstorm - until I realized that the three windows on the north side of my “tipi” were all leaking. Note to self - putty tape and caulk until I can replace them.

Now, that all might sound very boring and weird to anyone else, but it gave me a lot of time to think in a very not-have-to way.

I realized that I have been so angry and defensive and on guard for so long. Far before this breakup - in fact I was swept into that relationship with my dukes up, never having taken the time to heal from my divorce five years ago, and the whirlwind stupid bad-boy relationship I got into a year later.

Being by myself has been scary at times, like the night of the oops with the tub surround adhesive, frustrating lots of times. And I’ve continued being royally pissed at the whole freaking world.

And I really don’t like myself that way. But I couldn’t seem to pull myself out of it.

No, I am not “cured” after six weeks and one bucolic day.

But truly, it helped a lot.

I really really need days of sunshine and puppies and holey jeans and flip flops and just time to wander around entirely by myself.

I’m very social by nature - but I’ve been so focused on everyone else’s thoughts at work and in my private life that I had completely lost sight of me. The best parts of me.

The part that really and honestly believes that the world, in itself, is a lovely place - the part that feels gratitude and delight just because.

Last night, when the windows were all leaking - and NOT the ones I put in, thank you very much, but the ones still on the “need to be replaced” list - I didn’t get angry, or cry frustrated tears. I put up towels and looked on the Internet. This morning I went outside and walked around and realized that taking the old ones out, and putting in some new putty tape and caulk before I put them back in would keep me dry until I can replace them. And it’s no big deal.

The man I had lived with came over to pick up the drill he had lent me, and we had a chance to sit down and really talk, honestly and openly, without recriminations and blame. I told him I had never been ready to be rushed into the relationship we had shared, and hadn’t even been me for that entire year and a half.

I feel very content today. Very centered and peaceful. I feel like a have a tool in my box again for when those moments hit - just get outside and hit the open road all by myself with the dogs for a few hours, and I can find balance again.

This probably all sounds so elemental to anyone else that a reader will think “Well, duh, everyone knows that.”

But I had truly forgotten. I’ve created enough drama around myself for the last five years that my instincts were completely off.

I really really need my space. I need to know I can do it by myself - and not in a gritted-teeth kind of way either. I mean, I can be happy all by myself.

That’s a good good thing to remember.

Breakfast With Old People May 3, 2008

Oh my gosh, I just came back from the funnest breakfast I’ve had in a long long time.

See, you know I’ve told you that my friends are not of any particular age group, and I have one dearly beloved man friend who is 93 years old. I’ve known him for about 4 years and he’s absolutely one of the coolest and funniest people I’ve ever met.

He’s also one of the most inspiring. Not only because he’s had a fascinating life - he had his pilot’s license and own plane back before that was very commonplace at all - but he’s also been kicked harder by the vagaries of life than most regular people could imagine. With some of the stuff that has happened in his life, through none of his own fault, you would expect him to be on Jerry Springer, or at the very least Dr. Phil, telling the world the why’s and wherefore’s of his bitterness and depression.

And yet, this guy has none of that. He’s cheerful as hell, concerned about everyone, finds something to laugh about at least twenty times a day. Oh - and he loves me to death. Which of course makes him aces in my book.

So anyway, yesterday we concocted the idea that we would go out and have breakfast together, and while I refused to go at 7 am, which is when he normally has breakfast and when I normally am fumbling for the prybar to get my eyes open, we did compromise on eight and agreed to head to the local teeny tiny wooden floor grocery store, which has done some very smart value added marketing by offering breakfasts and lunches.

Oh, kids, turns out “Dean’s” is the place to be on a Saturday morning, and I laughed myself silly.

When you walk in, there is one long table that is encircled by “the guys”. The old farmers who come in and have coffee and sit there for hours and hours discussing the weather and God knows what else. I say “God knows” because, believe me, a woman daresn’t (”daresn’t” is a small town Midwestern word) go over there. You can stop by and say hello - and you better - but it is strictly verboten for a woman to sit there.

Then you have the long table where all the old ladies sit. They meet regularly, it seems, on Saturday mornings for breakfast. Regularly enough that the waittress knows what each woman orders and just brings it, unbidden. They talk about everyone in town, who’s had what surgery and God knows what else. I say “God knows” because, although I did sit there unknowingly, I knew they wouldn’t get to the good and juicy gossip until I left.

And then there are two or three smaller tables where the younger folks go - the middle aged ones like me with their spouses or their grandkids they’ve kept overnight.

So my buddy and I walk in, head to the second table, and lo and behold, before we even ordered, we were descended upon by a flock of older women, who hadn’t seen my friend out and about in a long time. Kids, I tell ya, you could almost hear the soft twitter of excitement.

I knew most of them too - they come visit where I work, and some have been there for rehab stints.

So we just had a grand old time. My buddy and I would look at each other from time to time laughing at something. I swear to God it will be all over town by church tomorrow that he and I had a date this morning.

The old ladies would mutter to each other in German phrases. Hey, girls, I’ve worked with your age group long enough to understand a lot of that, OK?

And there are the inevitable geneology questions. “Who are your people, dear? Where are they from?” It took me a couple of years of those questions to realize that when they were asked, they weren’t asking where I had lived in the last ten years or so. They wanted to know family tree type stuff - and country of ancestral origin. I’ve finally gotten it down to a few sentences that make them all nod approvingly. I am accepted. I will always be “an outsider”, but I am OK, I guess.

And we ate - oh Lord we ate! For a grand total of $7.75 for the two of us, including coffee, we waddled out of there like two stuffed hogs.

Then, of course, we had to drive around a little bit looking to see if the water had gone down. We’ve had some pretty spectacular flooding here in the last week or so. And he showed me the house he and his wife had lived in for forty years before she died.

I dropped him off and we promised to do it again sometime soon, and I really hope we do. He is a treasure I want to appreciate while he’s here - a gift God put in my life to remind me that my piddly little shit ain’t much at all.

And to remind me that I am loved.

What a nice, nice morning!

Imagine! I’m Not “Everything” to Anyone! May 2, 2008

OK. We’re going to take a break from the “home improvement” type posts because a) I’m sick of it, and thus, b) I imagine that you are too.

I was sitting here on the couch last night after work (when I should have been finishing the bathroom floor - oops! Sorry - that slipped out) thinking of that Brad Paisley song entitled “She’s Everything to Me”.

Gosh, I have always really loved that song.

And I have, ever since I first heard it, wanted to be that for some man in my life. In fact, I tried to believe I was that for the last two men with whom I have had a serious relationship (since the song first came out). Oh - and I don’t really date. I only ever have serious relationships, because I somehow had it in my head that that was “better”.

The thing was - and I realized this last night - I never was.

In fact, much to my surprise, now that I thought about it, I never really have been.

Now, this is not a wah wah post because I don’t at all feel wah-wah today.

But I do find it odd. I mean, come on! I was raised on the romance novel and the old old notion that Prince Charming would come riding up on his white horse and sweep me away. In my case, the tale always had some hippie undertones but - hey.

And I do - I can’t help it. I consider myself to be a pretty extraordinary woman. Loving and nurturing to the extreme, loyal to the death, trustworthy and honest - not to mention smart, hardworking, personable and darn cute.

And I have, in my life, deliberately and consciously made other people my “everything”. I have picked up, moved, centered my entire life around other people, sat at their bedsides more than once, plunged into their lifestyles, embraced their families, reinvented myself to fit in with them, etc.

And it hasn’t been reciprocated.

I have bascially run into two different scenarios.

One, I have been a “trophy woman”. Meaning, any woman would have done - just a warm body to fit into the spot. “I need a woman to feel whole/normal/complete.” And I can’t really bitch about that because I’ve been guilty of the same. But the problem is that you can’t be “everything” to someone when they don’t really see you.

When your own individual attributes are not only not wanted, not valued, but are actually a hindrance to the fantasy, whatever role I’m supposed to be playing at the time.

Two, I have been involved with men who have had their own previous First Loves. Namely drugs and alcohol. I don’t care what you (or I) say. Drugs and/or alcohol is a mistress with whom no woman can compete. Bud Lite may be “everything” to someone. Methadone may be “everything” to somebody. But I never could have been.

I remember being so amazed and secretly outraged when Britt’s father, long after our marriage and disintegration, referred to his second wife as “the love of his life”. Wha?!?!? I had met the woman. She was the love of his life over me?

I also remember asking at least two men to choose between me and their “habits” - and coming in a quick and unequivocable second place.

And I am not “everything” to my now-adult kids - and God help me, any woman who is did not do a good hob raising them. I mean the world to them, yes, and they to me. They love me with a fierceness and loyalty that would scare a normal person - as I do them. We enjoy each other’s company tremendously, we miss each other.

And at 28, 22, and 19, if I am “everything” to them, then something is wrong.

I am not meant to be that for them at this point in their lives - nor are they meant to be that for me.

I suppose I am “everything” to my puppies - and if you don’t know how cool that is, you clearly don’t have puppies of your own.

But you know what? There is an immense sense of freedom not only in not being “everything” to anyone right now, but not having to try to be everything to anyone right now.

I can just be…me!

And that is a very very cool thing to be at this interesting juncture of my life.