It's probably very telling that I can't think of an answer to this question. Oh sure, I request help for a number of minor things... asking my husband for help with my car, asking a co-worker for help with a work problem that I can't seem to solve. But when it comes to the important, major things I tend to flounder and struggle along on my own until I'm way past my breaking point. I was literally at the end of my rope both times I finally broke down and went to marriage and family counselors. I was helped in the long run; but if I could only learn to take action and ask for assistance as soon as I need it rather than waiting, I might avoid a lot of misery in the meantime.
A case in point when I should have asked for help but didn't took place in December when my mother was hospitalized. Being a blind, elderly lady, she definitely needed an advocate with her in the hospital at all times. I'm the only family member living in the area, but I was balancing a full-time job, not enough time off, and a first grandchild about to be born all at the same time. Not to mention the fact that it was just a couple weeks before Christmas. I was overwhelmed, stressed out, and stretched beyond my limits. My brother and sister-in-law, both retired, were at their home up in Michigan, calling me on a daily basis and asking for updates on mom, but not once offering to come down and help. My husband was urging me to ask them for assistance, and I was considering it but never did. So what held me back? Did I think that:
a. Asking for help is a sign of weakness and I should instead be superwoman and handle everything on my own or
b. Asking for help inconveniences other people; things really aren't that bad and I should make every attempt to handle the situation rather than expecting them to go to any trouble.
Answer a just isn't me at all; I have no illusions that I'm superwoman. But I do recognize myself in answer b. I hate to trouble others, to the point of being ridiculously unfair to myself. In the case involving my mom, I'd also have to throw in the factor of past problems between me and my brother, making me more fearful of upsetting the delicate applecart between us yet again. As it turns out, he would surely have rejected my request for help. It was during the same week that he attended a long-awaited reunion with a group of 1960s activitists he admires. He never would have given up that opportunity. Had I asked and he turned me down, I would have added an extra load of anger and bitterness onto the already huge burden I was carrying at the time.
I guess in the future, for my own peace of mind, I need to go ahead and just take the risk. For my own mental health, I should ask for the help I need no matter what the situation is or who I'm asking, and let the cards fall where they may. Easy words to say; not so easy to follow through.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
"The beginning of a relationship, when just being in each other's presence is enough, no activity is necessary. We've all been there, and if you haven't been yet, your time is coming. If you're young, hang in there, if you're old, take a chance, love is worth the risk." ~ Bob Lefsetz Describe a time when you risked loving.
I doubt I’m unique when I say that my first true love was probably the riskiest. It was scary to open up and make myself vulnerable for the very first time and risky to expose myself both emotionally and physically. Uttering the three words “I love you” seemed perilous, as though I was jumping off a cliff.
I met Bob J. when I was an 18-year-old college freshman and he was a sophomore. We were together for almost two years, from 1972 to 1974. It seemed like a long time back then. He was from coal-mining country in West Virginia. His dad worked in the mines and Bob came from a hardscrabble, Italian family with seven children. Several of the boys’ names rhymed—Larry, Terry, Gary—along with Bob, Rick and Billy. Additionally, there was the doted-on baby girl of the family, Lynn. When I met her she was starting to show signs of being quite spoiled and I’ve often wondered what kind of woman she grew up to be with all those older brothers. Bob was the oldest of the brood, and he took his position as role model for his younger siblings quite seriously. The first in his family to get a scholarship and go to college, he was successful in his quest to be a good example. The next two brothers in line, Rick and Terry, followed in his exact footsteps and I wouldn’t be surprised if the rest of them did as well.
Bob first approached me in the dorm cafeteria and oddly enough, I really don’t really remember our first date. I know that we saw the movie “Billy Jack” early on—we went to the movies frequently. We quickly became inseparable. Bob was a chemical engineering major and had a rigorous class schedule, so we studied together a lot, which was definitely beneficial for me. Sometimes he’d get exceptionally frustrated with a math problem or equation he was working on, and he’d suddenly get up and knock his desk chair over, or throw all the books off his desk onto the floor. It was startling, but I never saw these little fits of rage aimed at people—only at things. He loved intramural sports and played on soccer and baseball teams; he also played racketball regularly.
For some reason, Bob was a controversial figure with my family and friends and I never quite figured out why. It was mostly the males that didn’t like him. Maybe it was his intense, competitive nature when it came to sports and academics. My brother didn’t care for him from the first time they met—it was winter, and Bob picked up a snowball and heaved it at Mike. I knew that he was just trying to “break the ice” and get my brother to horse around with him like guys tend to do, but Mike thought he was being picked on. My parents definitely disliked him. Mainly because they thought we were too young for such an intense relationship; but I also knew that Bob’s long, wild, out-of-control hair probably labeled him as a “hippie” in their minds. However, Bob was an R.A. in our dorm and he had to pass a stringent selection process in order to be chosen for the job. He came across as congenial and responsible to people who got to know him.
Bob came out to visit me in Montana the summer I worked in Glacier National Park and while we were apart he wrote lots of letters, always starting them with the words, “Dear little one.” He was attentive and kind, buying me flowers and record albums, and paying lots of compliments. He and I had the same taste in music and we listened to the Moody Blues, Cat Stevens, and Gordon Lightfoot as we studied. We went to see Neil Young in concert at Cobo Hall in Detroit. Bob liked to play the guitar; I listened as he practiced playing "American Pie." I felt loved and respected and downright euphoric when I was with him. I went to West Virginia to meet his family. They lived in a tiny, no frills house, but they all seemed happy and friendly, making me feel very welcome. His Italian grandmother, speaking very broken English, embarrassed me when she asked us when we were getting married. The truth was, we had talked about marriage, agreeing to wait until we were out of college.
I took it extremely hard when Bob broke up with me during my junior year. He told me he wanted to date other girls. In hindsight, at least he had the courtesy to be honest and direct with me. Interestingly, it was a rocky break-up for both of us. He got upset when I briefly dated another guy on his floor and oddly, he even protested when I agreed to sew some patches on the jeans of another guy he knew who had just broken up with his girlfriend. Somehow, through it all, we still remained friends for quite awhile afterwards, only losing touch after I moved out to California in the summer of 1976. I found his brother Rick on Facebook and attempted to get back in touch with Bob once, but was disappointed when my attempt was rebuffed. I figure he either has a jealous wife, or he’s the type that wants to leave the past in the past. Regardless, in the treacherous waters of first love, I consider myself lucky that Bob was “the one.”
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Don't think too hard... go with the first memory that comes to mind: The word is FLASHLIGHT. 10 minutes. Write.
When I was six years old, my parents hired a contractor and began building a new house in Farmington. This would be a big change for our family, moving from the country where we lived in a converted street car on my grandparents' apple orchard to a ranch-style, brick house smack dab in the middle of suburbia. My parents kept a close eye on the construction of the house, visiting frequently to check on the progress. I remember tagging along on a few of those visits. My brother and I were excited about our new home, particularly about the fact that we would each have our own bedroom. Our mom and dad showed Mike and I where our bedrooms were located and pointed out the bathroom across the hall that would be ours as well.
One day when we visited, the foundation and framing had been completed and the plumbing and electrical was just being started. As I wandered aimlessly back to my bedroom/bathroom area, I peered curiously down the black hole in the floor where the toilet would soon be mounted. There, staring back up at me, was the eerie, creepy face of a teenage boy. It was every little girls' nightmare (probably big girls as well!), and I was so startled all I could do was gasp. As I stood there, petrified, I was temporarily blinded by a flashlight that played across my face and I could hear the sound of muffled conversation and laughter coming from the boys in the crawl space under the house.
Finally springing into action, I ran to tell my parents. I was so shaken up that I began crying after getting over the initial shock. Of course, by the time my dad took a look for himself, the boys had high-tailed it out of there. We later found out that several of the newly-constructed homes in the neighborhood had been vandalized by a group of teenagers; our house luckily never sustained any damage.
From then on, I've always been a little creeped out about windows at night, ensuring that the blinds and shades are tightly drawn. It's my biggest nightmare that, once again, a face will be peering at me from out of the inky darkness!
One day when we visited, the foundation and framing had been completed and the plumbing and electrical was just being started. As I wandered aimlessly back to my bedroom/bathroom area, I peered curiously down the black hole in the floor where the toilet would soon be mounted. There, staring back up at me, was the eerie, creepy face of a teenage boy. It was every little girls' nightmare (probably big girls as well!), and I was so startled all I could do was gasp. As I stood there, petrified, I was temporarily blinded by a flashlight that played across my face and I could hear the sound of muffled conversation and laughter coming from the boys in the crawl space under the house.
Finally springing into action, I ran to tell my parents. I was so shaken up that I began crying after getting over the initial shock. Of course, by the time my dad took a look for himself, the boys had high-tailed it out of there. We later found out that several of the newly-constructed homes in the neighborhood had been vandalized by a group of teenagers; our house luckily never sustained any damage.
From then on, I've always been a little creeped out about windows at night, ensuring that the blinds and shades are tightly drawn. It's my biggest nightmare that, once again, a face will be peering at me from out of the inky darkness!
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Write about the softest thing.
Without a doubt, the softest thing I've touched recently is baby Aubree's skin. I've noticed that when my mother holds Aubree, she feels for a bare arm or leg and a smile of delight crosses her face as she strokes her. She may not be able to see the baby's sweet face, but touching her soft skin is the next best thing. The smooth, creamy plumpness is irresistable.
How to describe its softness? Well, Aubree's skin is softer than the pastel watercolor painting that hangs on our bedroom wall and it's softer than the feathery light down jacket I received for Christmas. It's softer than the bread dough that I kneaded for 15 minutes when I got ambitious and made homemade cinnamon rolls over the holidays. It's softer than the white Wonder bread and whipped marshmallow that I used long ago in making my daughters' peanut butter sandwiches. Its softness even competes with the downy fur of Bun-bun, my daughter Julie's pet rabbit. That's saying an awful lot, because Bun-bun is incredibly velvety.
I guess if I could put my hand in a batch of spun cotton candy, minus the stickiness, it might match the softness of Aubree's skin. Or if I could hold a white, puffy Cumulus cloud in my hands, it might be just as soft. But I'll never know for sure.
I think purity and innocence must be the secret ingredients in the baby skin recipe, causing it to win the contest for the softest thing on earth.
How to describe its softness? Well, Aubree's skin is softer than the pastel watercolor painting that hangs on our bedroom wall and it's softer than the feathery light down jacket I received for Christmas. It's softer than the bread dough that I kneaded for 15 minutes when I got ambitious and made homemade cinnamon rolls over the holidays. It's softer than the white Wonder bread and whipped marshmallow that I used long ago in making my daughters' peanut butter sandwiches. Its softness even competes with the downy fur of Bun-bun, my daughter Julie's pet rabbit. That's saying an awful lot, because Bun-bun is incredibly velvety.
I guess if I could put my hand in a batch of spun cotton candy, minus the stickiness, it might match the softness of Aubree's skin. Or if I could hold a white, puffy Cumulus cloud in my hands, it might be just as soft. But I'll never know for sure.
I think purity and innocence must be the secret ingredients in the baby skin recipe, causing it to win the contest for the softest thing on earth.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Write about something you can't deny.
I can't deny that I did some foolish, risky things as a teenager and "young adult." I admit that my behavior even bordered on being downright dangerous at times. (With the possible exception of the Amish or maybe the Mennonites, most adults can probably grudgingly admit to the same!) I certainly did my share of partying a little too hard, driving when I had too much to drink, and trusting total strangers when it could have had horrible consequences.
However, when I was 18 and a freshman at Michigan State, I found myself in a bad situation that was completely beyond my control. I decided to spend my spring break in Florida and flew down to my grandparents' house in Clermont, near Orlando, where I was meeting my cousin Audrey. She was also a college freshman, attending Florida State. We'd never been all that close; having opposite personalities, we had many disagreements over the years when our families got together. But since we were both in Florida for spring break, we decided to get together and spend a couple days with our grandparents, then drive Audrey's car to Daytona Beach, where we'd stay with some friends of hers who had an apartment there.
Our plans went off without a hitch and a good time was had by all in Daytona... until it was time to leave. Audrey had hooked up with a boyfriend from college, and he talked her into driving directly back to school rather than going back to our grandparents' house. They assured me they'd give me a ride to the Daytona bus station where I could catch a bus back to Clermont. I could then get a taxi for the short ride from the bus station to the house. Simple, right? I didn't have a good feeling about this change of plans, but what could I do? They were insistent. True to form, I felt double-crossed by my cousin, just as I had so many times before when we were little.
After being dropped off at the bus station, my bad feelings were confirmed. I was informed very matter-of-factly by an unconcerned employee at the window that there was no longer a bus going to Clermont; that particular run had been discontinued several months prior. My grandparents didn't drive anymore and I certainly didn't know anybody else I could call. Those were the days before cell phones, so there was no way I could reach my cousin and tell her to turn around and get her selfish butt back to Daytona! I took a look at my dwindling funds and called a taxi service from a pay phone, fighting against a feeling of panic rising within me. Sure enough, just as I feared, the taxi ride for such a long distance was much more than I could afford.
So I did the only other thing I could think of. I summoned up my courage, walked out to the highway with my backpack slung over my shoulder, and stuck out my thumb. It wasn't long before a middle-aged traveling salesman with a friendly demeanor picked me up. He was very talkative, seemed nice, and soon put me at ease. There were just two problems. He was only going half the distance I needed to go and.... hadn't I heard about the serial killer who was murdering girls hitchhiking in the central Florida area? I knew by the concerned look on Mr. Salesman's face that he was completely serious. In the blink of an eye, my unplanned adventure had suddenly turned sinister. He even said if it weren't for the fact that he had a business meeting later in the day that he just couldn't miss, he'd gladly go out of his way to take me the entire distance. By the time we reached the town where he lived, I was terrified and could tell he genuinely felt bad and had some serious misgivings as he dropped me off.
Once again I found myself out on the highway, but this time my thumb was shaking badly as I prayed that someone nice with good intentions would take pity on me and pick me up quickly. Suddenly, a squad car came around a bend in the road. The officer pulled up slowly beside me, rolling down the passenger window and shaking his head in absolute disbelief for a full minute before asking, "Don't you know how dangerous it is out here?" At that point, the last tiny bit of courage I had in my body melted away and I began to sob. The officer told me to get in the car and asked for my ID. He told me he was checking to make sure I wasn't a runaway. With tears streaming down my face, I explained my plight. He told me that he could take me only as far as the county line, then he'd have to figure out another way to get me where I was headed.
After driving awhile, he pulled off to the shoulder and we came to a stop right in front of the sign for the next county. As we sat in silence, I noticed he was intently scrutinizing each car that passed by. Suddenly he turned on the siren and with lights flashing, he pulled out behind a full-size luxury sedan occupied by an older couple. He could tell by their license plate that they were from Clermont and apparently he figured they looked "safe." Initially perplexed at being pulled over, they listened to the officer's explanation of the situation and agreed to give me a ride to Clermont.
I have to say I was greatly relieved as I settled into their back seat.... but one more loophole reared its ugly head in my saga. During our conversation, the nice couple asked for my grandparents' names... and it turned out that the lady worked as a teller where they banked. Wouldn't it figure? She knew my grandfather well as the blind, elderly man she often waited on. Once again I panicked; I did not want my grandparents to know about the horrible situation I had been in. I swallowed all my pride and asked her to please not tell my grandfather that she had met me. He would worry himself sick over my escapade. She told me she understood and wouldn't mention a word.
We pulled into my grandparents' driveway and as luck would have it, I could see my grandmother peering out through the slats of the Venetian blinds in the livingroom. As I entered the house, she asked me in utter surprise, "What happened to Audrey and how did you happen to get a ride with the lady from the bank?" I explained that Audrey needed to go back to school sooner than she had expected. That much was true. Then I told a lie--that I had taken the bus from Daytona and when I arrived at the Clermont bus station, the "bank lady" had struck up a conversation with me and realizing she knew my grandparents, had offered me a ride to the house. The explanation seemed to satisfy her. As I sunk into an easy chair, I relaxed for the first time in many hours, relieved that my ordeal was over. And vowing never to let Audrey railroad me again!
As a postscript to my story, I did get a certain amount of revenge a few years later. Audrey came to live for a short while in Boulder, Colorado when I was there. We saw each other a few times and made arrangements to go out together one night. That same night, my roommates made plans to see the movie "Pink Flamingos," a cult flick that I also wanted to see. Hmmmm, should I spend the evening with Audrey during which she'd probably meet someone and leave me stranded, or should I go out and have fun with my roommates? I did something very uncharacteristic for me and stood Audrey up for the better offer--the same thing she had done to me several times. I'm not proud of it, and if it was anyone else I wouldn't have done it. My mother always told me that "two wrongs don't make a right." But sometimes it's awfully tempting to "give someone a taste of their own medicine!"
However, when I was 18 and a freshman at Michigan State, I found myself in a bad situation that was completely beyond my control. I decided to spend my spring break in Florida and flew down to my grandparents' house in Clermont, near Orlando, where I was meeting my cousin Audrey. She was also a college freshman, attending Florida State. We'd never been all that close; having opposite personalities, we had many disagreements over the years when our families got together. But since we were both in Florida for spring break, we decided to get together and spend a couple days with our grandparents, then drive Audrey's car to Daytona Beach, where we'd stay with some friends of hers who had an apartment there.
Our plans went off without a hitch and a good time was had by all in Daytona... until it was time to leave. Audrey had hooked up with a boyfriend from college, and he talked her into driving directly back to school rather than going back to our grandparents' house. They assured me they'd give me a ride to the Daytona bus station where I could catch a bus back to Clermont. I could then get a taxi for the short ride from the bus station to the house. Simple, right? I didn't have a good feeling about this change of plans, but what could I do? They were insistent. True to form, I felt double-crossed by my cousin, just as I had so many times before when we were little.
After being dropped off at the bus station, my bad feelings were confirmed. I was informed very matter-of-factly by an unconcerned employee at the window that there was no longer a bus going to Clermont; that particular run had been discontinued several months prior. My grandparents didn't drive anymore and I certainly didn't know anybody else I could call. Those were the days before cell phones, so there was no way I could reach my cousin and tell her to turn around and get her selfish butt back to Daytona! I took a look at my dwindling funds and called a taxi service from a pay phone, fighting against a feeling of panic rising within me. Sure enough, just as I feared, the taxi ride for such a long distance was much more than I could afford.
So I did the only other thing I could think of. I summoned up my courage, walked out to the highway with my backpack slung over my shoulder, and stuck out my thumb. It wasn't long before a middle-aged traveling salesman with a friendly demeanor picked me up. He was very talkative, seemed nice, and soon put me at ease. There were just two problems. He was only going half the distance I needed to go and.... hadn't I heard about the serial killer who was murdering girls hitchhiking in the central Florida area? I knew by the concerned look on Mr. Salesman's face that he was completely serious. In the blink of an eye, my unplanned adventure had suddenly turned sinister. He even said if it weren't for the fact that he had a business meeting later in the day that he just couldn't miss, he'd gladly go out of his way to take me the entire distance. By the time we reached the town where he lived, I was terrified and could tell he genuinely felt bad and had some serious misgivings as he dropped me off.
Once again I found myself out on the highway, but this time my thumb was shaking badly as I prayed that someone nice with good intentions would take pity on me and pick me up quickly. Suddenly, a squad car came around a bend in the road. The officer pulled up slowly beside me, rolling down the passenger window and shaking his head in absolute disbelief for a full minute before asking, "Don't you know how dangerous it is out here?" At that point, the last tiny bit of courage I had in my body melted away and I began to sob. The officer told me to get in the car and asked for my ID. He told me he was checking to make sure I wasn't a runaway. With tears streaming down my face, I explained my plight. He told me that he could take me only as far as the county line, then he'd have to figure out another way to get me where I was headed.
After driving awhile, he pulled off to the shoulder and we came to a stop right in front of the sign for the next county. As we sat in silence, I noticed he was intently scrutinizing each car that passed by. Suddenly he turned on the siren and with lights flashing, he pulled out behind a full-size luxury sedan occupied by an older couple. He could tell by their license plate that they were from Clermont and apparently he figured they looked "safe." Initially perplexed at being pulled over, they listened to the officer's explanation of the situation and agreed to give me a ride to Clermont.
I have to say I was greatly relieved as I settled into their back seat.... but one more loophole reared its ugly head in my saga. During our conversation, the nice couple asked for my grandparents' names... and it turned out that the lady worked as a teller where they banked. Wouldn't it figure? She knew my grandfather well as the blind, elderly man she often waited on. Once again I panicked; I did not want my grandparents to know about the horrible situation I had been in. I swallowed all my pride and asked her to please not tell my grandfather that she had met me. He would worry himself sick over my escapade. She told me she understood and wouldn't mention a word.
We pulled into my grandparents' driveway and as luck would have it, I could see my grandmother peering out through the slats of the Venetian blinds in the livingroom. As I entered the house, she asked me in utter surprise, "What happened to Audrey and how did you happen to get a ride with the lady from the bank?" I explained that Audrey needed to go back to school sooner than she had expected. That much was true. Then I told a lie--that I had taken the bus from Daytona and when I arrived at the Clermont bus station, the "bank lady" had struck up a conversation with me and realizing she knew my grandparents, had offered me a ride to the house. The explanation seemed to satisfy her. As I sunk into an easy chair, I relaxed for the first time in many hours, relieved that my ordeal was over. And vowing never to let Audrey railroad me again!
As a postscript to my story, I did get a certain amount of revenge a few years later. Audrey came to live for a short while in Boulder, Colorado when I was there. We saw each other a few times and made arrangements to go out together one night. That same night, my roommates made plans to see the movie "Pink Flamingos," a cult flick that I also wanted to see. Hmmmm, should I spend the evening with Audrey during which she'd probably meet someone and leave me stranded, or should I go out and have fun with my roommates? I did something very uncharacteristic for me and stood Audrey up for the better offer--the same thing she had done to me several times. I'm not proud of it, and if it was anyone else I wouldn't have done it. My mother always told me that "two wrongs don't make a right." But sometimes it's awfully tempting to "give someone a taste of their own medicine!"
Thursday, January 26, 2012
When did you know you were in trouble?
Besides spilling drinks at the table, the other thing that yanked my dad's chain when we were little was to wake him up too early on weekend mornings. He was a hard worker who rose before daybreak every weekday morning, so Saturdays and Sundays were meant for sleeping in until at least 8:00.
My brother was usually the first in the family to awaken, and on Saturday mornings he'd get up promptly at 7:00 am to watch Deputy Dawg on TV without fail, followed by Yogi Bear at 7:30. When he was too young to tell time, the rest of us were puzzled by how he seemed to have this sixth sense about knowing when the show was starting. Come to find out, he'd listen for the "warning bell" at Franklin Products, the factory behind the fence in our backyard. When that bell went off for the workers, it was a signal to Mike that Deputy Dawg would be following closely behind.
In those days we had just one small black and white TV in our house, and it was located on a rolling brass stand in the livingroom. Unfortunately, our parents' bedroom shared a wall with the livingroom. The TV was luckily on the opposite side of the room, but it was still too close for comfort. Mike knew to turn the volume low on those early weekend mornings. It wasn't too much later that I'd get up, and that's when the trouble often started.
It usually wasn't a deliberate thing--we didn't know we were getting too loud. Sure, we had our share of arguments that escalated until they incurred dad's wrath. But most of the time we wouldn't realize until it was too late that while we played, our voices had steadily increased in volume. Or we'd miss what Yogi was saying, so we'd turn up the sound just a hair, or so we thought! Our signal that trouble was on its way was the sudden thud of our dad's bare feet hitting the bedroom floor and the menacing sound of heavy footsteps pounding down the short hallway. My dad slept in boxer shorts and a sleeveless white T-shirt, and I can still picture him storming into the livingroom red-faced, pointing his finger and yelling at us to BE QUIET! He usually threw in the threat of a spanking with the warning. He had white, skinny legs with knobby knees, the type that my husband refers to as "chicken legs." The vision brings a smile now when I think about it. But back then we knew better than to utter a word, and after his "warnings" things suddenly got very quiet. For awhile, anyway.
Looking back, I was never truly afraid of my dad even though I definitely knew he'd spank us when things got out of hand. Even at that young age, I somehow understood that everyone had certain buttons that you just didn't want to push intentionally. I also knew without a doubt that he loved us. Even on Saturday mornings before 8:00 am.
My brother was usually the first in the family to awaken, and on Saturday mornings he'd get up promptly at 7:00 am to watch Deputy Dawg on TV without fail, followed by Yogi Bear at 7:30. When he was too young to tell time, the rest of us were puzzled by how he seemed to have this sixth sense about knowing when the show was starting. Come to find out, he'd listen for the "warning bell" at Franklin Products, the factory behind the fence in our backyard. When that bell went off for the workers, it was a signal to Mike that Deputy Dawg would be following closely behind.
In those days we had just one small black and white TV in our house, and it was located on a rolling brass stand in the livingroom. Unfortunately, our parents' bedroom shared a wall with the livingroom. The TV was luckily on the opposite side of the room, but it was still too close for comfort. Mike knew to turn the volume low on those early weekend mornings. It wasn't too much later that I'd get up, and that's when the trouble often started.
It usually wasn't a deliberate thing--we didn't know we were getting too loud. Sure, we had our share of arguments that escalated until they incurred dad's wrath. But most of the time we wouldn't realize until it was too late that while we played, our voices had steadily increased in volume. Or we'd miss what Yogi was saying, so we'd turn up the sound just a hair, or so we thought! Our signal that trouble was on its way was the sudden thud of our dad's bare feet hitting the bedroom floor and the menacing sound of heavy footsteps pounding down the short hallway. My dad slept in boxer shorts and a sleeveless white T-shirt, and I can still picture him storming into the livingroom red-faced, pointing his finger and yelling at us to BE QUIET! He usually threw in the threat of a spanking with the warning. He had white, skinny legs with knobby knees, the type that my husband refers to as "chicken legs." The vision brings a smile now when I think about it. But back then we knew better than to utter a word, and after his "warnings" things suddenly got very quiet. For awhile, anyway.
Looking back, I was never truly afraid of my dad even though I definitely knew he'd spank us when things got out of hand. Even at that young age, I somehow understood that everyone had certain buttons that you just didn't want to push intentionally. I also knew without a doubt that he loved us. Even on Saturday mornings before 8:00 am.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
What do you NOT collect?
I do NOT collect stuffed animals. Oh sure, if you go upstairs in my house, look around and open the closets, it may appear otherwise. But they certainly don't belong to me! In my mind, the road to hell is probably lined with stuffed animals.
My mom tells me I was scared of them as a child--something about the furriness. She put a stuffed bear in the playpen with me and watched me crawl as fast as my little legs would pemit to the opposite corner, panic-stricken and refusing to go near it. When I was about 11 years old and we redecorated my bedroom, I decided it would be cute to have a cuddly stuffed animal on my bed and added one to my Christmas wish list. My mother bought a giant, hard-bodied pink and white stuffed poodle with long, rubbery black eyelashes. Nothing remotely cuddly about that! I should have specified a teddy bear....
After I had children of my own, they predictably received stuffed animals galore as gifts. They'd play with them for approximately ten minutes tops and then they'd end up in the closets, taking up prime real estate. I once embarked on a plan to surreptitiously spirit them away, one at a time, to the trash. Of course, my very first attempt was the day my youngest daughter happened to open the garbage can. Loudly protesting, she rescued the poor thing, lovingly placing it back in her closet to be further ignored.
High up on the wall in my oldest daughter's childhood bedroom is a shelf crammed full with her collection of smaller stuffed animals. Don't let their fluffy cuteness fool you--they're annoyingly evil, collecting dust and staring with beady, soulless eyes. The closet is even worse. My daughter's husband is extra skilled at those carnival games where you toss a ring or shoot a plastic gun. When they were dating he won many enormous stuffed animals as prizes, proudly presenting them to Michelle. She'd bring them home and, despite the fact that she's married and has a residence of her own now, there they still sit in the closet. There's an oh-so-natural gigantic purple monkey; a nature-defying colossal pink gorilla; a mammoth bright red mystery animal of some sort that, try as I might, I can't seem to identify; and an enormous, buck-toothed blue rabbit, among many others. I think the rabbit must be multiplying in there when I'm not looking. I swear the pile is inching ever closer to the ceiling...
And don't even get me started on those people who cram the rear decks of their cars with hideous stuffed animal menageries! I shudder to think of it.
My mom tells me I was scared of them as a child--something about the furriness. She put a stuffed bear in the playpen with me and watched me crawl as fast as my little legs would pemit to the opposite corner, panic-stricken and refusing to go near it. When I was about 11 years old and we redecorated my bedroom, I decided it would be cute to have a cuddly stuffed animal on my bed and added one to my Christmas wish list. My mother bought a giant, hard-bodied pink and white stuffed poodle with long, rubbery black eyelashes. Nothing remotely cuddly about that! I should have specified a teddy bear....
After I had children of my own, they predictably received stuffed animals galore as gifts. They'd play with them for approximately ten minutes tops and then they'd end up in the closets, taking up prime real estate. I once embarked on a plan to surreptitiously spirit them away, one at a time, to the trash. Of course, my very first attempt was the day my youngest daughter happened to open the garbage can. Loudly protesting, she rescued the poor thing, lovingly placing it back in her closet to be further ignored.
High up on the wall in my oldest daughter's childhood bedroom is a shelf crammed full with her collection of smaller stuffed animals. Don't let their fluffy cuteness fool you--they're annoyingly evil, collecting dust and staring with beady, soulless eyes. The closet is even worse. My daughter's husband is extra skilled at those carnival games where you toss a ring or shoot a plastic gun. When they were dating he won many enormous stuffed animals as prizes, proudly presenting them to Michelle. She'd bring them home and, despite the fact that she's married and has a residence of her own now, there they still sit in the closet. There's an oh-so-natural gigantic purple monkey; a nature-defying colossal pink gorilla; a mammoth bright red mystery animal of some sort that, try as I might, I can't seem to identify; and an enormous, buck-toothed blue rabbit, among many others. I think the rabbit must be multiplying in there when I'm not looking. I swear the pile is inching ever closer to the ceiling...
And don't even get me started on those people who cram the rear decks of their cars with hideous stuffed animal menageries! I shudder to think of it.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
What got left behind?
Sheena was our 90+ lb., brindle Akita. She was a thick-furred, gentle giant of a dog. We got her in the fall of 1987, the same year that Michelle was born. They grew up together, with Julie joining them three years later. Without batting an eye, Sheena graciously tolerated the two little girls hugging her neck a little too hard, laying on top of her, and riding her like a horse. When we moved to Georgia in 1999, of course Sheena came with us. She and Michelle became even closer at that point; Michelle was age 11 and had a hard time making the California-to-Georgia adjustment. Sheena often served as both a companion and the focus of conversations with others for the shy Michelle.
Our house in Georgia didn’t have a fenced yard like the one in California did, and the garage didn’t have a door at first--it was a three-walled carport. But Sheena seemed to adjust well to her new surroundings. We kept her bed and food in the garage. She hung out around the house, never straying from the yard despite the fact that we were all gone to work and school every day. She was always there in the mornings, cuddled up on her pallet and seemingly wishing us a good day with her kind eyes. When we returned in the afternoons, she’d emerge from the garage to meet us with her curled, bushy tail wagging, happy to see us home again. She was starting to show her age, especially when attempting to get up from a lying down or sitting position. It took her much longer to rise and we could tell that her hips and back legs were arthritic and stiff.
After Christmas, we decided to drive up to Michigan to spend the New Year’s holiday with my brother’s family. We’d been in Georgia for four months by that time and were all a little homesick, longing for familiar faces. The kids, being California girls, had never spent much time in the snow; they were looking forward to building snowmen and sledding in the “winter wonderland” with their cousins. We arranged with our neighbor Sherry to look after Sheena, showing her the bowls and food. Sherry is an animal lover and was happy to help out. As we backed out of the driveway, Sheena came out to watch us go, standing in the driveway with her head cocked as if to say, “You’re all leaving at once? Where are you going and why can’t I come along?”
We spent an enjoyable three days in Michigan and the morning of January 1st as we were getting ready to leave, the phone rang. It was Sherry, and she was distraught. She said that the day before when she fed Sheena, the dog refused to come near her, cowering in the corner of the garage. Sheena was normally a very friendly animal and that was unusual behavior. Sherry had gone over again in the morning to check on her, but Sheena was gone. There had been lots of gunshots and fireworks during the night from New Year’s Eve revelers, and perhaps Sheena had been scared. We gave her directions to the house we rented when we first arrived in Georgia, thinking maybe Sheena had found her way back there, and we worriedly set off for home.
We were delayed a day in our travels when a big snowstorm hit Ohio that afternoon, forcing us to spend a long afternoon and night in Toledo due to closed highways. We called Sherry again, only to find out that she had checked the rental house but there was no sign of Sheena. The girls were both heartsick, but we did our best to assure them that when we arrived home, we’d put up signs everyplace we could think of, we’d place ads in the lost and found, and we’d check the pounds and the Humane Society to see if she had been turned in. We’d do our best to find her. We finally got home quite late the following night and went straight to bed. None of us could bear to look at Sheena’s empty pallet on the garage floor.
The following morning we were up early and the girls and I were already making our “lost dog” signs at the kitchen table before school. Rich went outside to finish emptying the car and Sherry called him over from her front door. With tears running down her face, she told him that she had found Sheena lying dead by the side of Highway 80 the day before. She’d been run over by a car. Not knowing what else to do, Sherry removed her collar for us. When she returned later in the day, Sheena’s body had been removed.
Rich came in to tell me the heart-breaking news and together we told the girls. We were all devastated. Nobody went to work or school that day. I put a picture of Sheena in a magnetic frame and hung it on the refrigerator, assuring the girls that we’d never forget her. I told them I’d find a glass figurine of an Akita and we’d put it on the mantel with her collar. They cried and cried—we all did.
We've had three other dogs since Sheena, but none have measured up to her. It took a long time before I could break myself of the habit of looking for her next to the garage door when I left every morning and returned home at night. I can still picture her standing in the driveway with her head cocked as we drove away, leaving her behind for the last time.
We've had three other dogs since Sheena, but none have measured up to her. It took a long time before I could break myself of the habit of looking for her next to the garage door when I left every morning and returned home at night. I can still picture her standing in the driveway with her head cocked as we drove away, leaving her behind for the last time.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Write about a humiliating exposure.
Oh, Gawd. Which one should I choose? So many humiliating exposures, so little time.
I could recount an incident when I was about 13 years old and opened the front door to get the newspaper. I was wearing an unattractive, old-lady, floor-length robe; my hair was in giant rollers underneath the bonnet of the hairdryer stretched over the top of my head; and my lovely retainer was in my mouth, giving me a lisp and making my voice sound eerily similar to Elmer Fudd's. Unfortunately, little did I know that my mad, secret crush from down the street was just about to ring the bell. He wanted to speak to my brother. Utter embarrassment! I did one of those numbers that you see in the cartoons; I immediately shut the door in his face and called for Mike to re-answer it. Classy move.
Then there was the time I unknowingly walked into the empty men's restroom at the airport when I was a young girl. I had no idea what a urinal was and wondered curiously about those funny looking sinks as I hurried into a stall and closed the door. Moments later, I realized my embarrassing mistake when I heard the sound of men's voices entering the room. Painfully aware of my telltale girl's legs and shoes visible under the doorway, I silently waited in the stall, finally emerging when I thought the coast was clear. It wasn't. I scurried past the lone man at the urinal, walking as fast as I could and not even daring to glance sideways. His shock at seeing me in the mirror probably matched my humiliation!
At least half of the online world has probably accidentally pushed the reply button rather than the forward button, or vice versa, at one time or another. There's nothing like those ensuing few moments of panic when you realize you just sent a snide comment to exactly the wrong person and there's absolutely nothing you can do to retrieve it. It happened to me with an older, retired man who was interested in researching our common surname. The problem was that everytime I'd go online, he'd start chatting with me and it was hard to extricate myself once the conversation got started. I complained about it to my buddy Darlene, intending to forward a copy of my latest lengthy chat session with him. Unwittingly I hit the reply button instead, and my unflattering remarks instantly went back to him. Oh, I still cringe at the memory! I sent him a profuse apology, explaining that I usually signed on with the intention of only spending a minute or two to collect messages. He told me not to worry about it. Soon afterwards, we both attended a big family reunion in Texas. As he walked into the meeting room, he loudly proclaimed that he had trouble checking into the hotel since they had lost his reservation. "I figured SHARON probably canceled it," he added, winking at me. Turns out that he had a great sense of humor and we're still friends via email. He rarely attempts to chat with me anymore, however. :)
I guess everyone encounters many embarrassing situations as they go through life. The trick is not to dwell on the humiliation. As I've grown older, I've also gotten better at laughing at my own embarrassment and forging on ahead. Or, in more serious cases, apologizing sincerely before moving on.
I could recount an incident when I was about 13 years old and opened the front door to get the newspaper. I was wearing an unattractive, old-lady, floor-length robe; my hair was in giant rollers underneath the bonnet of the hairdryer stretched over the top of my head; and my lovely retainer was in my mouth, giving me a lisp and making my voice sound eerily similar to Elmer Fudd's. Unfortunately, little did I know that my mad, secret crush from down the street was just about to ring the bell. He wanted to speak to my brother. Utter embarrassment! I did one of those numbers that you see in the cartoons; I immediately shut the door in his face and called for Mike to re-answer it. Classy move.
Then there was the time I unknowingly walked into the empty men's restroom at the airport when I was a young girl. I had no idea what a urinal was and wondered curiously about those funny looking sinks as I hurried into a stall and closed the door. Moments later, I realized my embarrassing mistake when I heard the sound of men's voices entering the room. Painfully aware of my telltale girl's legs and shoes visible under the doorway, I silently waited in the stall, finally emerging when I thought the coast was clear. It wasn't. I scurried past the lone man at the urinal, walking as fast as I could and not even daring to glance sideways. His shock at seeing me in the mirror probably matched my humiliation!
At least half of the online world has probably accidentally pushed the reply button rather than the forward button, or vice versa, at one time or another. There's nothing like those ensuing few moments of panic when you realize you just sent a snide comment to exactly the wrong person and there's absolutely nothing you can do to retrieve it. It happened to me with an older, retired man who was interested in researching our common surname. The problem was that everytime I'd go online, he'd start chatting with me and it was hard to extricate myself once the conversation got started. I complained about it to my buddy Darlene, intending to forward a copy of my latest lengthy chat session with him. Unwittingly I hit the reply button instead, and my unflattering remarks instantly went back to him. Oh, I still cringe at the memory! I sent him a profuse apology, explaining that I usually signed on with the intention of only spending a minute or two to collect messages. He told me not to worry about it. Soon afterwards, we both attended a big family reunion in Texas. As he walked into the meeting room, he loudly proclaimed that he had trouble checking into the hotel since they had lost his reservation. "I figured SHARON probably canceled it," he added, winking at me. Turns out that he had a great sense of humor and we're still friends via email. He rarely attempts to chat with me anymore, however. :)
I guess everyone encounters many embarrassing situations as they go through life. The trick is not to dwell on the humiliation. As I've grown older, I've also gotten better at laughing at my own embarrassment and forging on ahead. Or, in more serious cases, apologizing sincerely before moving on.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Author Abigail Thomas and her book Thinking About Memoir inspire this week's prompts... What do you have too much of?
It's official. As I stared into my closet this morning trying to decide what to wear, I confirmed to myself once again that I have TOO MANY CLOTHES. My closet is jammed full of items that haven't been worn in years. It's ridiculous. I'm one of those people that has a terrible time trying to discard clothing. My identity seems to be tied up in my wardrobe.
There are several items that conjure up cherished memories and carry such emotional significance that I can't bear to part with them. Like the dress I wore when I married Rich in 1986. It has shoulder pads, for God's sake! Also falling into this category is a long, flowered semi-backless dress. I have a picture of Michelle and I when she was in the 4th grade and I was wearing this dress. It was Award Day and she's grinning, proudly showing off her certificate for receiving all A's. During her "difficult teenage years" I made a copy of this photo and framed it for her; my hope was to remind her of the days when school was important to her and she was proud of her accomplishments. Michelle is 25 now; that dress is 16 years old!
I've hung onto several items that I wore when I was 15 pounds lighter, and of course I keep them thinking that maybe I'll shed the weight and actually wear them again. There's a 2-piece black velvet outfit that I wore once to a fancy Christmas party when I used to work for Contel. It has sparkly buttons down the front and a black lace insert in the back. I got lots of compliments on it, but the skirt is quite short and I know I'd never have the nerve to wear it again! Another short denim dress with spaghetti straps hangs next to it. I wore it once in New Orleans. Ah, the days of being young and skinny!
On the other hand, there are some outfits that I bought when I was 15 pounds heavier. Like the long black and white flowy sleeveless dress that I wore to my dad's memorial service with a black shawl. And the long rust/brown batik dress I wore to my aunt and uncle's 50th anniversay party during the same timeframe. I loved that batik dress and attempted to have it altered when I lost weight. It never fit quit as well after the alterations, but still I stubbornly hang onto it. Stacy and Clinton tell us to dress for the size we are now and get rid of the other stuff.... but who can really afford to completely re-do their wardrobe when they gain or lose a few pounds?
Then there are the omnipresent "mistake" purchases. Hanging in my closet is a pair of taupe dress pants with a soft pumpkin collarless jacket. I purchased them several years ago, adhering to the adage that "every woman needs to own a suit." It's outdated now and never adorned my body. A couple years ago I finally got rid of a fuzzy pink v-neck sweater that still actually had the tags on it. I bought it years ago in the garment district of L.A., got it home and immediately decided I didn't like it after all. But still I hung onto it for many moons, even moving it to Georgia with me. Go figure.
I used to maintain "jean equilibrium," meaning that when I finally discarded a pair of jeans from my wardrobe, I bought a new pair to take their place. Somewhere along the way, I stopped that practice. I'm down to only two pairs of jeans now. Instead, I switched from jeans to black pants and then allowed it to get wildly out of control; i.e. black pants equilibrium on steroids. The number of black pants I own is obscene, but many are too short, too long, too tight, or too loose. Out of probably 15 pairs, I really only wear about three pairs repeatedly!
When I cut to the chase, I guess I basically have the fear that my wardrobe will look downright skimpy after getting rid of everything that I just plain don't wear. And it probably would. In actuality, I wear the same dozen outfits over and over again. But somehow, it's psychologically comforting to see a closet full of clothes and feel that I have plenty of choices, even though that really isn't the case. I have a huge wardrobe at my fingertips in my imaginary world!
There are several items that conjure up cherished memories and carry such emotional significance that I can't bear to part with them. Like the dress I wore when I married Rich in 1986. It has shoulder pads, for God's sake! Also falling into this category is a long, flowered semi-backless dress. I have a picture of Michelle and I when she was in the 4th grade and I was wearing this dress. It was Award Day and she's grinning, proudly showing off her certificate for receiving all A's. During her "difficult teenage years" I made a copy of this photo and framed it for her; my hope was to remind her of the days when school was important to her and she was proud of her accomplishments. Michelle is 25 now; that dress is 16 years old!
I've hung onto several items that I wore when I was 15 pounds lighter, and of course I keep them thinking that maybe I'll shed the weight and actually wear them again. There's a 2-piece black velvet outfit that I wore once to a fancy Christmas party when I used to work for Contel. It has sparkly buttons down the front and a black lace insert in the back. I got lots of compliments on it, but the skirt is quite short and I know I'd never have the nerve to wear it again! Another short denim dress with spaghetti straps hangs next to it. I wore it once in New Orleans. Ah, the days of being young and skinny!
On the other hand, there are some outfits that I bought when I was 15 pounds heavier. Like the long black and white flowy sleeveless dress that I wore to my dad's memorial service with a black shawl. And the long rust/brown batik dress I wore to my aunt and uncle's 50th anniversay party during the same timeframe. I loved that batik dress and attempted to have it altered when I lost weight. It never fit quit as well after the alterations, but still I stubbornly hang onto it. Stacy and Clinton tell us to dress for the size we are now and get rid of the other stuff.... but who can really afford to completely re-do their wardrobe when they gain or lose a few pounds?
Then there are the omnipresent "mistake" purchases. Hanging in my closet is a pair of taupe dress pants with a soft pumpkin collarless jacket. I purchased them several years ago, adhering to the adage that "every woman needs to own a suit." It's outdated now and never adorned my body. A couple years ago I finally got rid of a fuzzy pink v-neck sweater that still actually had the tags on it. I bought it years ago in the garment district of L.A., got it home and immediately decided I didn't like it after all. But still I hung onto it for many moons, even moving it to Georgia with me. Go figure.
I used to maintain "jean equilibrium," meaning that when I finally discarded a pair of jeans from my wardrobe, I bought a new pair to take their place. Somewhere along the way, I stopped that practice. I'm down to only two pairs of jeans now. Instead, I switched from jeans to black pants and then allowed it to get wildly out of control; i.e. black pants equilibrium on steroids. The number of black pants I own is obscene, but many are too short, too long, too tight, or too loose. Out of probably 15 pairs, I really only wear about three pairs repeatedly!
When I cut to the chase, I guess I basically have the fear that my wardrobe will look downright skimpy after getting rid of everything that I just plain don't wear. And it probably would. In actuality, I wear the same dozen outfits over and over again. But somehow, it's psychologically comforting to see a closet full of clothes and feel that I have plenty of choices, even though that really isn't the case. I have a huge wardrobe at my fingertips in my imaginary world!
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Describe a deal you struck... what form did the negotiation take?
My husband and I struck a deal several years ago at the urging of a marriage counselor. You see, I've always been a list-maker. And right in there with the omnipresent "to-do" lists were those of the "honey-do" variety. The thing was, I knew better than to hand Rich an entire list of tasks to do unless I wanted to start World War III! So instead, I'd chip away at the lists one item at a time by leaving little sticky notes for him on the kitchen table. They'd say things like, "Could you please start the laundry before I get home? Thanks! Love you!" Of course, I'd be sure to ask nicely, using the requisite please, thank you and I love you. Rich's work days have always begun and ended several hours before mine have, so I was never around to see his reaction to the notes. This was undoubtedly for the best! My little strategy worked maybe 50% of the time. Sometimes he'd do the chore, other times he'd ignore the notes for days on end.
To my chagrin, once we began counseling it came out how much he hated those little notes. He resented being told what to do, and I had to admit that I could see his point. My mother used to leave notes for my brother and me every Friday, listing the weekend chores she wanted us to do when we got home from school. We detested those Friday afternoon notes! When it was my turn to explain myself in the counseling session, I told how overwhelming it felt to work all day and then spend the majority of my time at home doing household chores. I believed I was doing much more than my share, and unless I directly asked Rich to do a particular task, he'd often sit and watch TV when he got home and it apparently wouldn't cross his mind to actually look around and see how he could help.
The deal we struck was this: I would stop leaving the notes if he would make it a special point to take some initiative, give thought to household chores that needed attention, and work on getting them done. We started out small; his goal was to do one thing per day. He had to begin thinking about things like, "OK, it's Wednesday night, so the trash needs to be emptied and put out on the curb" rather than waiting for me to remind him. We've always gone grocery shopping together, but now he had to recall what we bought, decide on something to have for dinner, and take his turn in preparing the evening meal without waiting for me to say, "Why don't you get the lasagna out of the freezer and put it in the oven before I get home?"
We've definitely had some rough patches, and he's slid back into his old ways a few times. But for the most part, he's gotten much better about doing his share of chores around the house. He can scrub a mean shower! Most Fridays when I come home from work, he's already started the laundry. Of course, I've had to overlook a few things--like the time he shrunk my favorite black and white sweater that I always hung to dry. But it's actually a small price to pay for no longer feeling quite so overwhelmed and overworked. I've lived up to my end of the bargain and rarely do I leave notes anymore. Mind you, I haven't stopped making lists; they're an intrinsic part of my personality. But they're for my eyes only.
To my chagrin, once we began counseling it came out how much he hated those little notes. He resented being told what to do, and I had to admit that I could see his point. My mother used to leave notes for my brother and me every Friday, listing the weekend chores she wanted us to do when we got home from school. We detested those Friday afternoon notes! When it was my turn to explain myself in the counseling session, I told how overwhelming it felt to work all day and then spend the majority of my time at home doing household chores. I believed I was doing much more than my share, and unless I directly asked Rich to do a particular task, he'd often sit and watch TV when he got home and it apparently wouldn't cross his mind to actually look around and see how he could help.
The deal we struck was this: I would stop leaving the notes if he would make it a special point to take some initiative, give thought to household chores that needed attention, and work on getting them done. We started out small; his goal was to do one thing per day. He had to begin thinking about things like, "OK, it's Wednesday night, so the trash needs to be emptied and put out on the curb" rather than waiting for me to remind him. We've always gone grocery shopping together, but now he had to recall what we bought, decide on something to have for dinner, and take his turn in preparing the evening meal without waiting for me to say, "Why don't you get the lasagna out of the freezer and put it in the oven before I get home?"
We've definitely had some rough patches, and he's slid back into his old ways a few times. But for the most part, he's gotten much better about doing his share of chores around the house. He can scrub a mean shower! Most Fridays when I come home from work, he's already started the laundry. Of course, I've had to overlook a few things--like the time he shrunk my favorite black and white sweater that I always hung to dry. But it's actually a small price to pay for no longer feeling quite so overwhelmed and overworked. I've lived up to my end of the bargain and rarely do I leave notes anymore. Mind you, I haven't stopped making lists; they're an intrinsic part of my personality. But they're for my eyes only.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Write about a SCAR you have... literal or figurative.
Since I recently wrote about a figurative scar from a past relationship, I'll write now about a physical scar. It's quite a "battle wound" on my left knee, more visible in the summer when it doesn't tan. It happened in 1962 when I was in the 4th grade, and I plopped down on the carpet in our livingroom to watch TV. There was a sewing needle sticking up in the carpet, and it drove right into my knee so quickly that I wasn't fully aware what had happened. All I knew was that when I looked down, there was a thread hanging out of my knee. I had been the one who was sewing, so I knew a needle was on the other end of that thread and that's when I started screaming.
My dad had just gotten home from work and for some reason, he decided to yank on the thread as if he could pull the needle out. You guessed it, the thread simply broke off! Now there were no visible signs that anything was inside my knee, except that I couldn't straighten it out or walk. The four of us piled into the car and drove as fast as possible to the office of our long-time family doctor. My dad carried me in through the crowded waiting room and straight back in to see Dr. Halstead. My brother was instructed to sit in the waiting room and he later said he was fielding lots of questions about what had happened. Dr. Halstead gave me a shot in the knee for pain; he warned me that it would hurt a lot but strangely I don't remember that it did. I think I must have been in shock by that time. Then we drove on to St. Mary's Hospital in Livonia.
I don't remember much about getting prepped for surgery, but I do remember the anesthesiologist instructing me to count backwards from ten. I looked past his face to the clock on the wall and it was just after 9:00 pm. For some reason, I thought it was important to note the time.
The next thing I remember is waking up alone after what I was later told was a four-hour surgery. Unfortunately, the needle broke in two pieces when it hit the bone in my knee. The surgeon found half the needle but couldn't locate the other half. I woke up frightened, not remembering where I was or what had happened, and needing to vomit from the anesthesia. My left leg looked huge from a literal mountain of bandages and I couldn't move it. My family had gone home for the night. A little girl in the next bed told me about the call button so I could summon a nurse, and I threw up several times into the basin she brought me. I was scared and wanted my parents.
I spent the next month in that hospital because my knee became infected. For most of that time, I had to lie flat on my back with my leg in traction, unable to get up or even roll over. I had to use a bedpan. I was in a ward with three other beds, mine was the second bed from the doorway. The only window was down at the other end of the room next to the last bed and I couldn't see anything out of it. The other beds were filled by a revolving door of little girls, most of them only there for 2-3 days to have their tonsils removed.
My parents visited every single day and brought small presents they picked up from the store or gifts sent by relatives and friends. My mother arrived at 11:00 each morning and stayed until 5:00; then my dad would take over until visiting hours ended at 8:00 pm. My dad read the book "The Real McCoys" aloud to me followed by "Heidi," which my Aunt Alyce sent as a get-well gift. My grandmother sent flowers in a vase shaped like a pretty lady's head/shoulders, but the nurses told us that flowers weren't allowed in the children's ward so my mother had to take them home. I wonder whatever happened to that vase? The "vase lady" was wearing a big-brimmed hat and dangly pearl earrings, and I loved it.
School had barely started for the year when I was hospitalized, and one day my mom brought a packet of letters from my classmates. Over and over again, they told me how they had started song flute lessons with the music teacher. I was really disappointed to be missing out on that. Because it was a Catholic hospital, there were nuns coming in the room throughout the day. One older nun was particularly grumpy and gruff, and I really didn't care for her. One day she started questioning me about what grade I was in and how long I had been in the hospital. Shaking her head, she told me that I probably wouldn't be able to catch up with the rest of my class. When my mom arrived that day, she found me crying over what that nun had told me. She left orders with the nurses that the nun wasn't to enter my room or talk to me again, and she never did.
When the doctor finally allowed me to get up and try to walk, I literally couldn't remember how for awhile. I eventually managed a few slow, shaky steps down the hallway while hanging on to a nurse. The doctor stood with my parents, watching me. Many years later my mom told me she had to hide her tears from me as she watched me struggle to walk. The doctor told my parents I would probably limp for the rest of my life. I did limp for awhile but in a matter of a few months, it was gone without a trace.
I was so happy when I was released to go home at the end of that long month! As I looked out the car windows, I was amazed that the season had changed from summer to fall while I was lying in the hospital bed. It was a bright, sunny day, and the leaves had turned beautiful colors and were falling off the trees--a glorious and welcome sight to me. I was laid up at home for awhile, but it wasn't too long before I was back in school again, limping but glad to be there. The first day back, we were running the 50-yard dash in gym class. The gym teacher told me I didn't have to do it but I wanted to try anyway. My limp-run probably looked really awkward and my time was terrible, but I remember she told me she was proud of me.
X-rays revealed that the other half of the needle eventually embedded itself into my knee bone, and it's still there today but I've had no further problems. Not even arthritis, knock on wood! So that's the gruesome story of my scar; it always makes people squeamish to hear it, but it's a part of my history. That month in the hospital may have affected me more than I'll ever realize.
My dad had just gotten home from work and for some reason, he decided to yank on the thread as if he could pull the needle out. You guessed it, the thread simply broke off! Now there were no visible signs that anything was inside my knee, except that I couldn't straighten it out or walk. The four of us piled into the car and drove as fast as possible to the office of our long-time family doctor. My dad carried me in through the crowded waiting room and straight back in to see Dr. Halstead. My brother was instructed to sit in the waiting room and he later said he was fielding lots of questions about what had happened. Dr. Halstead gave me a shot in the knee for pain; he warned me that it would hurt a lot but strangely I don't remember that it did. I think I must have been in shock by that time. Then we drove on to St. Mary's Hospital in Livonia.
I don't remember much about getting prepped for surgery, but I do remember the anesthesiologist instructing me to count backwards from ten. I looked past his face to the clock on the wall and it was just after 9:00 pm. For some reason, I thought it was important to note the time.
The next thing I remember is waking up alone after what I was later told was a four-hour surgery. Unfortunately, the needle broke in two pieces when it hit the bone in my knee. The surgeon found half the needle but couldn't locate the other half. I woke up frightened, not remembering where I was or what had happened, and needing to vomit from the anesthesia. My left leg looked huge from a literal mountain of bandages and I couldn't move it. My family had gone home for the night. A little girl in the next bed told me about the call button so I could summon a nurse, and I threw up several times into the basin she brought me. I was scared and wanted my parents.
I spent the next month in that hospital because my knee became infected. For most of that time, I had to lie flat on my back with my leg in traction, unable to get up or even roll over. I had to use a bedpan. I was in a ward with three other beds, mine was the second bed from the doorway. The only window was down at the other end of the room next to the last bed and I couldn't see anything out of it. The other beds were filled by a revolving door of little girls, most of them only there for 2-3 days to have their tonsils removed.
My parents visited every single day and brought small presents they picked up from the store or gifts sent by relatives and friends. My mother arrived at 11:00 each morning and stayed until 5:00; then my dad would take over until visiting hours ended at 8:00 pm. My dad read the book "The Real McCoys" aloud to me followed by "Heidi," which my Aunt Alyce sent as a get-well gift. My grandmother sent flowers in a vase shaped like a pretty lady's head/shoulders, but the nurses told us that flowers weren't allowed in the children's ward so my mother had to take them home. I wonder whatever happened to that vase? The "vase lady" was wearing a big-brimmed hat and dangly pearl earrings, and I loved it.
School had barely started for the year when I was hospitalized, and one day my mom brought a packet of letters from my classmates. Over and over again, they told me how they had started song flute lessons with the music teacher. I was really disappointed to be missing out on that. Because it was a Catholic hospital, there were nuns coming in the room throughout the day. One older nun was particularly grumpy and gruff, and I really didn't care for her. One day she started questioning me about what grade I was in and how long I had been in the hospital. Shaking her head, she told me that I probably wouldn't be able to catch up with the rest of my class. When my mom arrived that day, she found me crying over what that nun had told me. She left orders with the nurses that the nun wasn't to enter my room or talk to me again, and she never did.
When the doctor finally allowed me to get up and try to walk, I literally couldn't remember how for awhile. I eventually managed a few slow, shaky steps down the hallway while hanging on to a nurse. The doctor stood with my parents, watching me. Many years later my mom told me she had to hide her tears from me as she watched me struggle to walk. The doctor told my parents I would probably limp for the rest of my life. I did limp for awhile but in a matter of a few months, it was gone without a trace.
I was so happy when I was released to go home at the end of that long month! As I looked out the car windows, I was amazed that the season had changed from summer to fall while I was lying in the hospital bed. It was a bright, sunny day, and the leaves had turned beautiful colors and were falling off the trees--a glorious and welcome sight to me. I was laid up at home for awhile, but it wasn't too long before I was back in school again, limping but glad to be there. The first day back, we were running the 50-yard dash in gym class. The gym teacher told me I didn't have to do it but I wanted to try anyway. My limp-run probably looked really awkward and my time was terrible, but I remember she told me she was proud of me.
X-rays revealed that the other half of the needle eventually embedded itself into my knee bone, and it's still there today but I've had no further problems. Not even arthritis, knock on wood! So that's the gruesome story of my scar; it always makes people squeamish to hear it, but it's a part of my history. That month in the hospital may have affected me more than I'll ever realize.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
"Today was like a shadow. It lurked behind me. It's now gone forever. Why is it that time is such a difficult thing to befriend?" ~ Mary Casey Describe the shadow of yesterday... what is gone forever?
Gosh, this prompt uncovers an Achilles Heel—wallowing in the past. I go through phases when I spend a lot of time re-examining days gone by. I can open a photo album, read old letters, or simply revisit memories and before I know it, a half a day will be gone.
What disturbs me is the sense of melancholy that often washes over me when I indulge myself in getting lost in the past. Don’t get me wrong—the wistfulness isn’t caused by regrets or reliving bad experiences--my memories are happy, satisfying ones for the most part. Instead, here are some of the questions posed by that incessantly anxious voice in my head:
- Could the best part of my life be over?
- Look how young I looked then; did I appreciate that time in my life as much as I should have?
- Will I still have opportunities to make memories that rank right up there with those in my past? Or are my best memories relegated to well worn photo albums and hazy corners in my mind?
It’s ironic, isn’t it? I spend time worrying that the best days of my life are over rather than using my time to get out there and make these the best days of my life. I’m reminded of a co-worker at a company where I used to work. Jerry, a non-smoker, worried obsessively about the work time wasted by his colleagues who smoked. He developed a chart on his computer and constantly monitored the windows to catch his co-workers outside smoking, recording how long they spent on their nicotine habits. I don’t think it ever occurred to him how much work time he was wasting by auditing everyone else!
So it all boils down to making time my friend rather than my enemy and putting the past in its place. Has anyone written a “how-to” manual for that?
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
"We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr. Describe a time when there was "silence."
I've described my day on Sept. 11, 2001 in a previous post, but this prompt brought it to the forefront of my mind once again.
Rich and I had gone to Applebees for a late-night dinner when he arrived home after we expected due to a lockdown at the Base. It was his 50th birthday. Applebees here in Macon is normally a bustling, noisy restaurant made even louder by the fact that the bar is in the middle of the establishment. The chatter of the dining customers together with the louder voices of the slightly inebriated drinking customers usually drowns out the noise from several TVs that are mounted on the walls around the room.
On the night of 9-11, the only sounds in the restaurant were the somber voices of the newscasters on TV and the dire speech of then-President George Bush. A phrase he used that night stood out to me and has been forever etched in my mind ever since: “evil, despicable acts of terror.” A shocked disbelief coupled with an underlying layer of fear permeated the room. The woman sitting across the aisle from us had tears streaming down her cheeks. Tables of people were eating their meals in utter silence, listening intently to the stunning, horrifying events of that day.
I’ve never before nor since witnessed a room full of people so absolutely, eerily silent.
Rich and I had gone to Applebees for a late-night dinner when he arrived home after we expected due to a lockdown at the Base. It was his 50th birthday. Applebees here in Macon is normally a bustling, noisy restaurant made even louder by the fact that the bar is in the middle of the establishment. The chatter of the dining customers together with the louder voices of the slightly inebriated drinking customers usually drowns out the noise from several TVs that are mounted on the walls around the room.
On the night of 9-11, the only sounds in the restaurant were the somber voices of the newscasters on TV and the dire speech of then-President George Bush. A phrase he used that night stood out to me and has been forever etched in my mind ever since: “evil, despicable acts of terror.” A shocked disbelief coupled with an underlying layer of fear permeated the room. The woman sitting across the aisle from us had tears streaming down her cheeks. Tables of people were eating their meals in utter silence, listening intently to the stunning, horrifying events of that day.
I’ve never before nor since witnessed a room full of people so absolutely, eerily silent.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
"You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life." ~ Winston Churchill Tell me about an enemy of yours... someone who has been an opponent, adversary, rival or foe.
I don't think I've ever had any enemies in the traditional sense of the word. None come to mind. However, as so often happens in families, I sometimes felt as if my daughters were my adversaries during some tumultuous teenage years. We had some rocky times, for sure.
There were the less harmful transgressions--things like drinking, experimenting with smoking pot, skipping school, sneaking out of the house. (I have a very funny story, in hindsight, about my husband coming home and catching a kid out on our roof.) These were all things that I admittedly did when I was young, so on one hand I felt that I had no business judging my daughters. But at the same time, I couldn’t remove myself from the fact that I was their parent and was worried about their welfare. Then there were some more serious situations. One daughter was stalked by a girl who filed a false police report against her. The other daughter was involved in a car accident so bad that the tow yard owner told us he thought for sure it had been fatal after seeing the car. And there were other dire incidents involving bad choices that I decline to go into on this public forum.
Yes, there were definitely some "colorful" years there. As I think back on those times, I wince. My daughters weren't bad kids by any means, but they definitely liked to test their boundaries. And boy, did they ever like to push the envelope! Like all teenagers, they were trying to establish their independence while also viewing themselves as invincible—a dangerous combination.
I shed many tears and spent sleepless nights fraught with deep-seated worry and heartache. And try as I might, I couldn’t seem to keep from internalizing what was happening, asking myself questions like, “Are we bad parents?” and “What have we done wrong?” As much as I knew better, these self-doubts were often reinforced by society around me. Once when my older daughter had gotten into some trouble, the female campus police officer at the high school looked me straight in the eye and said, “I don’t know the situation in your household, but it’s my experience that these kids usually use their parents as role models.” My face flushed as I defended myself, but inside I really wanted to slap the self-satisfied look off that officer’s face! She’s the same officer who condescendingly told Michelle that her relationship with her boyfriend would be meaningless in the big scheme of life… that boyfriend is Craig, who has been with Michelle for over eight years and is now her husband.
It’s a time in my life I definitely wouldn’t want to relive. Through it all, I concentrated on making an honest attempt to keep the lines of communication open between my daughters and me. I tried to clearly let them know what my feelings and beliefs were in any given situation. And I kept telling myself not to let up or relent in any way, even when it was most tempting to take the easy way out.
We all eventually survived the teenage storm. My daughters are now ages 24 and 21 and are doing well—in fact, more than that they’re thriving, each in their own way. Both have apologized to me for the difficult times. I talk to my co-worker who’s dealing with a rebellious teenage son and I reassure her that he will eventually mature. Someday he, too, will be apologizing to her. When you’re in the middle of the storm, it’s hard to believe that “this too shall pass.” But it always does.
There were the less harmful transgressions--things like drinking, experimenting with smoking pot, skipping school, sneaking out of the house. (I have a very funny story, in hindsight, about my husband coming home and catching a kid out on our roof.) These were all things that I admittedly did when I was young, so on one hand I felt that I had no business judging my daughters. But at the same time, I couldn’t remove myself from the fact that I was their parent and was worried about their welfare. Then there were some more serious situations. One daughter was stalked by a girl who filed a false police report against her. The other daughter was involved in a car accident so bad that the tow yard owner told us he thought for sure it had been fatal after seeing the car. And there were other dire incidents involving bad choices that I decline to go into on this public forum.
Yes, there were definitely some "colorful" years there. As I think back on those times, I wince. My daughters weren't bad kids by any means, but they definitely liked to test their boundaries. And boy, did they ever like to push the envelope! Like all teenagers, they were trying to establish their independence while also viewing themselves as invincible—a dangerous combination.
I shed many tears and spent sleepless nights fraught with deep-seated worry and heartache. And try as I might, I couldn’t seem to keep from internalizing what was happening, asking myself questions like, “Are we bad parents?” and “What have we done wrong?” As much as I knew better, these self-doubts were often reinforced by society around me. Once when my older daughter had gotten into some trouble, the female campus police officer at the high school looked me straight in the eye and said, “I don’t know the situation in your household, but it’s my experience that these kids usually use their parents as role models.” My face flushed as I defended myself, but inside I really wanted to slap the self-satisfied look off that officer’s face! She’s the same officer who condescendingly told Michelle that her relationship with her boyfriend would be meaningless in the big scheme of life… that boyfriend is Craig, who has been with Michelle for over eight years and is now her husband.
It’s a time in my life I definitely wouldn’t want to relive. Through it all, I concentrated on making an honest attempt to keep the lines of communication open between my daughters and me. I tried to clearly let them know what my feelings and beliefs were in any given situation. And I kept telling myself not to let up or relent in any way, even when it was most tempting to take the easy way out.
We all eventually survived the teenage storm. My daughters are now ages 24 and 21 and are doing well—in fact, more than that they’re thriving, each in their own way. Both have apologized to me for the difficult times. I talk to my co-worker who’s dealing with a rebellious teenage son and I reassure her that he will eventually mature. Someday he, too, will be apologizing to her. When you’re in the middle of the storm, it’s hard to believe that “this too shall pass.” But it always does.
Monday, January 16, 2012
"I left because there was no room for me. But you could tell me not to go. Say it to me. Tell me not to go." ~ Stephen Sondheim, Sunday in the Park with George When did you know it was time to go?
This prompt harkens back to a long-ago, three-year relationship that had a very painful ending. Steve and I lived in his condo and we worked for the same company--as it turned out, a definite recipe for disaster. He was smart, fun, and we had the common interest of enjoying the outdoors, taking many camping trips together to Yosemite. But after three years, I could feel the relationship changing. How did I know when it was time to go?
At that point, I became the wronged woman and admittedly a little scary. I stubbornly decided I wanted him to take what I perceived to be rightful ownership of the break-up. I questioned him relentlessly and wore him down until he admitted that the new relationship had started in secret even before I left. He didn't make the confession proudly or defiantly, in fact he even whimpered a little when he actually spoke the words. I got the admission I wanted, but it sure didn't make me feel any better.
Ensconced alone in my new apartment, I embarked on a frenzy of activity, making plans with everyone I knew. I left my job of over five years so that I wouldn't have to see him every day, and so our co-workers wouldn't feel like they needed to take sides one way or the other. I was tearful and hurting. My parents were so worried that my dad came from Arizona and spent several days with me. It was then that he told me about a rough break-up he had with a girlfriend when he was in the Army, before meeting my mother. I was touched that he confided in me, and grateful that he was the type of dad who wanted to be there for me during a tough time in my life.
It took me a very long time to get over the hurt, betrayal, and the feeling of being unloved. Sometimes knowing that it's time to go is just as painful as being told to leave.
- when in conversations with 3rd parties about future plans, I began to hear him say "I" instead of "we"
- when laughter became rare
- when conversations felt forced
- when prolonged, empty silences seemed uncomfortably loud
- when I realized that touching and cuddling was mostly initiated by me
At that point, I became the wronged woman and admittedly a little scary. I stubbornly decided I wanted him to take what I perceived to be rightful ownership of the break-up. I questioned him relentlessly and wore him down until he admitted that the new relationship had started in secret even before I left. He didn't make the confession proudly or defiantly, in fact he even whimpered a little when he actually spoke the words. I got the admission I wanted, but it sure didn't make me feel any better.
Ensconced alone in my new apartment, I embarked on a frenzy of activity, making plans with everyone I knew. I left my job of over five years so that I wouldn't have to see him every day, and so our co-workers wouldn't feel like they needed to take sides one way or the other. I was tearful and hurting. My parents were so worried that my dad came from Arizona and spent several days with me. It was then that he told me about a rough break-up he had with a girlfriend when he was in the Army, before meeting my mother. I was touched that he confided in me, and grateful that he was the type of dad who wanted to be there for me during a tough time in my life.
It took me a very long time to get over the hurt, betrayal, and the feeling of being unloved. Sometimes knowing that it's time to go is just as painful as being told to leave.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
"The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed." What do you love with all of your heart?
I had to read this prompt through a couple of times before I realized that it's not asking who I love, but what I love with all my heart. Not a person, but an inanimate object or a concept/idea.
At the risk of sounding redundant, I have to answer that I love being a grandparent with all my heart. It's a love that's pure and unconditional. It's unblemished by responsibilities and disappointments; uncensored by expectations and limitations. It just is. And I hope it will always be this way.
That's it--short, sweet and simple. But straight from the heart.
At the risk of sounding redundant, I have to answer that I love being a grandparent with all my heart. It's a love that's pure and unconditional. It's unblemished by responsibilities and disappointments; uncensored by expectations and limitations. It just is. And I hope it will always be this way.
That's it--short, sweet and simple. But straight from the heart.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
"You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor." ~ Aristotle Describe a time when your courage helped you accomplish something significant.
I’ve had to reach within and summon up a great deal of courage each time I embarked on a new endeavor or picked up stakes and relocated to a new locale. I’ve done this many times in my life, from leaving home to attend college, to spending summers working in national parks, to beginning new jobs, to criss-crossing the country and moving to different states. The amount of courage required increased tenfold after I married and had children, when the act of leaving safe, comfortable familiarity behind greatly impacted their lives as well as mine.
So what “significant accomplishments” did these individual acts of bravery produce? Well, in the larger, universal sense of the word, absolutely nothing! But to me personally, these adventures added layers of depth to my life, expanded my horizons, and broadened my personal experiences in countless valuable ways. I witnessed paths in life totally foreign to mine, such as when I spent time on a dude ranch in Montana, got lessons in using a lasso, and attended a barn dance where I met a real-live cowboy who made a living artificially inseminating cattle. J I spent New Year’s Eve at Times Square and watched the ball drop. I water skied through the cliff-lined fingers of Lake Powell in Arizona and rode a bicycle across the state of Iowa. I ziplined “over the river and through the woods” in Georgia and white-water rafted the Forks of the Kern in California. I sat in a field of blue bonnets in Texas and watched the sun set in the Everglades. And how many people can say they climbed a 7,200-foot mountain in Colorado while experiencing snow flurries in July?
Some of the sights I’ve seen opened my eyes to the plight of people much less fortunate than I and stirred up feelings of gratitude for my many blessings. There was the legless beggar on the streets of Tijuana, the homeless man sleeping on a subway in NYC, and the blanketed Indian squaw trudging for dusty miles on a Navajo Indian reservation in New Mexico.
After living where I do now, I've come to the startling realization that there are many people who have never left their home states, are clueless about other cultures, and who view life through a pinhole rather than a panoramic lens. It makes me thankful for my relatively broad range of experiences and eager to continue leaving the familiar behind. The sights to behold and adventures to experience are limitless.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Don't think too hard... go with the first thought or memory that comes to mind: The word is FORTUNE. 10 minutes. Write.
I'm pondering which kind of fortune to write about. There's the kind of fortune that means you've amassed a lot of money, and the hypothetical type of fortune that determines whether events/issues will be favorable for you or not. Neither of them holds a lot of personal meaning for me...
How much money is a fortune, anyway? If you have more money than you'll ever need, is that a fortune? I've heard the expression "he pissed away a fortune" but I've never personally known anyone who did that.
Of course, I can't think of the word "fortune" without picturing Pat Sajak, Vanna White, and their proverbial wheel--my mom's favorite TV show.
The funniest fortune I ever got in a cookie came once when I was eating lunch with my friend and co-worker Steve D. It read: "Never depend on others to make you happy, you can do it yourself." Of course our minds immediately went to the gutter. I remember we started laughing so hard that I snorted ice tea out my nose!
That's it--all I've got on "fortune."
How much money is a fortune, anyway? If you have more money than you'll ever need, is that a fortune? I've heard the expression "he pissed away a fortune" but I've never personally known anyone who did that.
Of course, I can't think of the word "fortune" without picturing Pat Sajak, Vanna White, and their proverbial wheel--my mom's favorite TV show.
The funniest fortune I ever got in a cookie came once when I was eating lunch with my friend and co-worker Steve D. It read: "Never depend on others to make you happy, you can do it yourself." Of course our minds immediately went to the gutter. I remember we started laughing so hard that I snorted ice tea out my nose!
That's it--all I've got on "fortune."
Thursday, January 12, 2012
"He has drawn back, only in order to have enough room for his leap." ~Friedrich Nietzsche What leap are you preparing to take?
I left this prompt alone for awhile because I didn't feel as though I was about to leap into anything. Cautiously approach, maybe, but not leap.
However, yesterday I jumped off the cliff into the financial world of municipal bonds, mutual funds, annuities, and a myriad of other complicated financial transactions about which I profess total ignorance. My leap wasn't really voluntary, it was forced out of necessity. My mother's complicated finances were the last bastion of her affairs I hadn't touched. Frankly, they intimidated me and I also realized it would take up even more of my time to learn about what was going on enough to handle those affairs. So I let it ride as long as possible.
My mother used to be a numbers wizard, and she and my dad built up a complicated portfolio. As all the statements come in month after month, I've come to recognize the many names--Franklin, Invesco, HIINA, Lincoln, and the list goes on. I religiously added the interest deposits into her checkbook, filed the paperwork into their respective folders, and took it all in to the tax preparer each year. Beyond that, I had no further understanding and I was content to let things ride. My mother would report receiving phone calls occasionally from brokers, reporting that bonds had been called and asking her to make decisions about reinvesting her money. She was handling the situation without my assistance, which was fine with me.
But her recent hospitalization took a heavy toll on my mother's mental faculties, and all the figures, investment companies, and financial terms have become more jumbled in her mind. Suddenly, she no longer understands the difference between a bond being called and selling a bond. A big blunder almost happened recently due to her confusion, and it could have cost her dearly. I knew that my time of blissful ignorance was quickly coming to an end. Then one of her long-time, trusted financial advisors, sensing her confusion, told her in a nice way that he'd really like to talk to me. So that's how it came to be that I finally took the plunge.
I was dreading that phone call, but it actually went well and I felt good about it afterwards. We talked for about an hour and I received my first lesson in investing/brokering. He was informative and not at all condescending. We're going to work on transferring all her assets over to his firm so they are all under one "roof." Until talking with him, I didn't realize that this could be done without incurring penalties. I trust him--he's been with our family for a long time and he's the financial advisor/broker for both my uncle and my cousin in Florida as well.
I'll never be the numbers wizard that my mom was, it just isn't my thing. But if I can gain a basic understanding, enough to feel comfortable about handling my mother's affairs, I'll be happy. And there's an added benefit--I'll be able to make more informed financial decisions for myself in the future. A win-win situation.
However, yesterday I jumped off the cliff into the financial world of municipal bonds, mutual funds, annuities, and a myriad of other complicated financial transactions about which I profess total ignorance. My leap wasn't really voluntary, it was forced out of necessity. My mother's complicated finances were the last bastion of her affairs I hadn't touched. Frankly, they intimidated me and I also realized it would take up even more of my time to learn about what was going on enough to handle those affairs. So I let it ride as long as possible.
My mother used to be a numbers wizard, and she and my dad built up a complicated portfolio. As all the statements come in month after month, I've come to recognize the many names--Franklin, Invesco, HIINA, Lincoln, and the list goes on. I religiously added the interest deposits into her checkbook, filed the paperwork into their respective folders, and took it all in to the tax preparer each year. Beyond that, I had no further understanding and I was content to let things ride. My mother would report receiving phone calls occasionally from brokers, reporting that bonds had been called and asking her to make decisions about reinvesting her money. She was handling the situation without my assistance, which was fine with me.
But her recent hospitalization took a heavy toll on my mother's mental faculties, and all the figures, investment companies, and financial terms have become more jumbled in her mind. Suddenly, she no longer understands the difference between a bond being called and selling a bond. A big blunder almost happened recently due to her confusion, and it could have cost her dearly. I knew that my time of blissful ignorance was quickly coming to an end. Then one of her long-time, trusted financial advisors, sensing her confusion, told her in a nice way that he'd really like to talk to me. So that's how it came to be that I finally took the plunge.
I was dreading that phone call, but it actually went well and I felt good about it afterwards. We talked for about an hour and I received my first lesson in investing/brokering. He was informative and not at all condescending. We're going to work on transferring all her assets over to his firm so they are all under one "roof." Until talking with him, I didn't realize that this could be done without incurring penalties. I trust him--he's been with our family for a long time and he's the financial advisor/broker for both my uncle and my cousin in Florida as well.
I'll never be the numbers wizard that my mom was, it just isn't my thing. But if I can gain a basic understanding, enough to feel comfortable about handling my mother's affairs, I'll be happy. And there's an added benefit--I'll be able to make more informed financial decisions for myself in the future. A win-win situation.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
"Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius." ~ Pietro Aretino What are you discovering this winter season?
I'm discovering that the empty nest syndrome isn't so bad after all. It's taken me four winters to reach this conclusion. In the summer, my youngest daughter is home from school and she's in and out a lot, so it's really not until winter when it becomes glaringly obvious that the nest is empty.
I missed the hustle-bustle for a long time. I longed for the energy in the house when the girls were around. I wanted the distractions. In the back of my mind, I dreaded the horrifying thought that maybe, just maybe, when my husband and I were sitting at the dinner table by ourselves, we would find absolutely nothing to talk about. And the funny thing was, that fear was a self-fulfilling prophecy for awhile. The more I worried about it, the more it paralyzed me until I actually couldn't find anything to talk about. I remember sitting in a restaurant one evening when Rich and I barely spoke a word to each other during the entire meal. I don't think he ever noticed, but I was painfully aware.
But this winter, as the daylight hours dwindled and the nights became longer, things felt different for some reason. After spending the day at work and stopping to see my mother, I've begun to appreciate coming home to a house that's not quite so hectic. There's a quiet comfort in knowing that things will be just as I left them. It's nice to know that if I make plans to do something, they won't be interrupted by one of my daughters wanting to use the car instead or having to make a mad dash to the store for last-minute school supplies. There's less pressure when my husband and I make our dinner choices without worrying about our daughters' food preferences or schedules. We can eat meat without wondering what our vegetarian daughter will have for dinner! I can work on projects or read uninterrupted. And if I immediately decide to put on my comfortable pajamas and a robe upon stepping through the doorway, I can do that knowing that half the world won't be traipsing into the house behind my daughters.
That's not to say that I don't miss my daughters' presence. I still do without a doubt, some times more than others. It was fun to have a full, bustling house once again over the holidays and during Aubree's birth. But I'm starting to appreciate the mellower household more. And Rich and I have even had some lively dinner conversations on occasion!
I missed the hustle-bustle for a long time. I longed for the energy in the house when the girls were around. I wanted the distractions. In the back of my mind, I dreaded the horrifying thought that maybe, just maybe, when my husband and I were sitting at the dinner table by ourselves, we would find absolutely nothing to talk about. And the funny thing was, that fear was a self-fulfilling prophecy for awhile. The more I worried about it, the more it paralyzed me until I actually couldn't find anything to talk about. I remember sitting in a restaurant one evening when Rich and I barely spoke a word to each other during the entire meal. I don't think he ever noticed, but I was painfully aware.
But this winter, as the daylight hours dwindled and the nights became longer, things felt different for some reason. After spending the day at work and stopping to see my mother, I've begun to appreciate coming home to a house that's not quite so hectic. There's a quiet comfort in knowing that things will be just as I left them. It's nice to know that if I make plans to do something, they won't be interrupted by one of my daughters wanting to use the car instead or having to make a mad dash to the store for last-minute school supplies. There's less pressure when my husband and I make our dinner choices without worrying about our daughters' food preferences or schedules. We can eat meat without wondering what our vegetarian daughter will have for dinner! I can work on projects or read uninterrupted. And if I immediately decide to put on my comfortable pajamas and a robe upon stepping through the doorway, I can do that knowing that half the world won't be traipsing into the house behind my daughters.
That's not to say that I don't miss my daughters' presence. I still do without a doubt, some times more than others. It was fun to have a full, bustling house once again over the holidays and during Aubree's birth. But I'm starting to appreciate the mellower household more. And Rich and I have even had some lively dinner conversations on occasion!
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
"Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever. . . it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything" - Aaron Sussman Select a photograph that captured a meaningful moment in time. What little things does it remind you of?
My dad was the breakfast-maker in the family; bacon and eggs were his specialty on weekends or special occasions. This particular morning was probably considered a special occasion with my aunt and uncle visiting. He always made the eggs sunny side up. I think he's about to fry a batch of bacon here; the electric frying pan is out on the stove. Dad was the one to awaken my brother and me every morning and drive us to school. Oh, how I hated those cold Michigan winter mornings when he would enter my room and turn on my overhead bedroom light! But he was a great breakfast-maker, and I recall all those hearty bowls of hot cereal he made for us. He had a radio on the kitchen counter near the table, and on school mornings he had it tuned to WXYZ as he fixed breakfast. Once in awhile we'd get lucky on a winter morning and hear that school was canceled due to a snowstorm.
In true June Cleaver-like fashion, my mom always wore shirtwaist dresses and skirts in those days, just as she is in this picture. She usually wore half aprons that tied around her waist while she was in the kitchen, and it's hard to tell, but she may have an apron on over her skirt here. I'm thinking that might be a roll of biscuits in her hand, and she's getting them ready to put in the oven which is to the right of my dad. Funny story about that oven. Despite the fact that my dad was an electrician, it couldn't be turned on at the same time as the dryer without blowing a fuse. It's kind of like the story of the auto mechanic who didn't have time to fix his own car. Of course my mom would sometimes forget that fact, only to discover wet clothes and a cold dinner at the most inopportune times.
The door at the back of the room lead to the laundry room and garage. There was a window over the kitchen sink and a set of three floor-to-ceiling windows back on the left side by the kitchen table, all hung with blue and green plaid cafe-style curtains. Once in awhile at dinner time, Joy, my friend from next door, would come over to see if I could play and she'd peer through the bottom window to see if we were done eating yet. My mom would typically fret that she was getting fingerprints on the window. I remember standing at the kitchen sink, looking out the window as I washed and dried the dishes every night until we finally got a dishwasher. That was my job, whereas my brother's job was to empty the wastebaskets and take out the trash one night a week. It struck me as highly unfair, particularly on summer evenings when he went out to play after dinner as I cleaned up. I vowed then and there if I ever had a son, he would do just as much housework as a daughter. Never happened!
I wish I still owned that 1950s vintage kitchen table and chairs. The table was a green laminate with chrome metal sides and legs, and there were four matching green vinyl chairs. My chair was the one that faced the windows, with my brother sitting directly across from me, my mother to my left and my dad to my right. In our younger days, my brother and I took turns saying grace at this table. Bowing our heads and clasping our hands, we said, "God is great, God is good. Let us thank him for this food." As we got older, saying grace went by the wayside.
My dad had no tolerance for spilling your milk, or whatever you were drinking, at the table. It didn't matter that it was an accident; his immediate reaction was to reach out and slap the perpetrator. My mom would say, "Rex, stop! She (or he) didn't mean to do that!" But the very next time he'd slap again. It was weird--it triggered this momentary automatic flash of anger in him. The only thing I could figure was that he was punished that way when he was little for the same infraction.
Mounted high on the back wall was a small, green-faced kitchen clock. I was in the 3rd grade when had my eyes tested and found out I needed glasses. I remember when I came home wearing my new glasses for the first time and glanced up at that clock on the kitchen wall. I couldn't believe how clearly I could see the time! It was like a whole new world suddenly opened up to me.
If you look hard, you can see a wall phone mounted between the back windows and the overhead cabinets on the left side of the room. Our phone number was GR6-3273; the GR stood for Greenleaf. I still remember my grandmother's phone number too: FI9-2385 (Fieldbrook). So many conversations, happy and sad, took place on that phone. My mom called her sister and her parents every day. For some reason, my aunt was billed when she called us from her home in Pontiac, but not vice versa. So if she needed to speak to my mom, she'd call and let the phone ring just one time. It was a signal for my mom to call her back. The only time in my life I ever saw my dad cry, he had just hung up that phone after finding out my Uncle Max was dying of cancer.
I vividly remember my mother crying twice in that kitchen. Once she was cleaning out the cupboards and she placed a set of blue glass dishes I had inherited from my great-grandmother on the countertop. She accidentally dropped a glass on top of them and broke the sugar bowl in the set. I was home from college at the time and was laying out in the sun in the backyard. She came out of the house crying and apologizing for breaking the bowl. I remember feeling worse about the fact that she was so upset than about the bowl being broken. And also a twinge of guilt for not being in there helping her rather than laying in the sun. The other time I caught her crying was when my brother and I were young and we had been fighting and arguing off and on all day. I walked into the kitchen and she was sitting in her chair at the table with her back to me, her head was down and she was sobbing quietly. I was shocked. I asked, "What's wrong, mommy?" and she whirled around angrily, mad at me for "sneaking up" on her. I went back to my bedroom, knowing that I deserved to be yelled at for being such a brat earlier in the day but not for sneaking up on my mom, as that surely hadn't been my intention. After thinking about it, I went back in and told her I was sorry. She hugged me and apologized as well.
Wow, so many memories are rooted in this picture. My mom prepared every Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner here and spent all day in this kitchen. My dad made popcorn every Sunday night in a big yellow bowl and we'd watch Lassie on TV. Mostly, I remember this room as a kitchen of comfort. A room of family togetherness and happy moments.
Monday, January 9, 2012
"Over the years, my brothers and sisters have brought out the best and the worst in me." How have your brothers and/or sisters brought out the best and/or worst in you? If you don't have any siblings, how has being an only child affected you?
I've written plenty about the relationship I have with my brother, but maybe I can attempt to examine it in a new and different way this time.
When my brother and I were pre-school age, we lived out in the country on my grandparents' fruit farm and we were really each other's only playmates, with the occasional exception of our cousins. There are many pictures of Mike and I playing outside together, swinging on the swings, riding tricycles. Inside we did lots of coloring and watching TV, sometimes I could even get him to play house with me. I remember him sitting at the little table and chairs we had set up with the plastic doll dishes, saying, "Pass the jeddo please."
When we moved to our house in Farmington, which was in an actual neighborhood, things changed. Lynn, the girl across the street, and I became fast friends. Mike didn't have anyone right around his age so he loved to torment us. I recall many times when he was on one side of my bedroom door, pushing with all his body weight trying to get in, while I was on the other side doing the same and yelling all the while for my mom to make him stop. Once, to my mom's embarrassment, Lynn's older sister's boyfriend told us he could hear us screaming and fighting way across the street while he was visiting.
Yet we'd always protect each other if one of us was being hurt by a third party. The day in 2nd grade when one of the Musino boys came out of nowhere and punched me in the stomach on my way to school, Mike, a kindergartener at the time, defended me to the hilt, yelling and threatening the kid to stop. We'd hit and punch each other, but God forbid someone else should lay a hand on one of us!
As the years went by and we grew up, we each had our own circle of friends and did our own thing. We really didn't intermingle much, but we co-existed in basic harmony. I didn't think too much about it when I went away to college, but when I came home for the first time at Thanksgiving break, he asked me if I wanted to go the movies together. We saw "Play Misty for Me." I was touched that he actually wanted to go with me, and my mom told me he really missed me being around. When I was working out in Rocky Mountain Park the first summer, he and his friend came out to visit and tried to get a job working for my boss, Ted James. Ted told them he'd hire them if they'd get haircuts, but they decided against it and left Grand Lake. I was disappointed.
Then came marriages and families, and once again we didn't have a lot of interaction. Flash forward through our dad's death, all our disagreements, and our five-year estrangement to the present time and our tentative reconciliation. I would never have predicted all of our difficulties, although Mike might say differently. He frustrates me tremendously with so much of his behavior, and he leaves me holding the bag as caretaker for our mother. But I somehow need to get past all that and accept the fact that he's just not going to do his fair share, because after all is said and done, a relationship with him is still important to me.
Why go to the trouble? Why not just write him off? Those are questions that my husband has asked me and that I've asked myself. Well, the longest relationship I'll ever have in my life is with my brother. He and I know each other almost as well as we know ourselves. We share origins, core values, childhood memories, places, people, and crucial moments in time. I just can't let go of that.
We may never have the kind of relationship I wish we'd have. I'd love to have a sibling who I could count on to be in my corner--a key member of my support group. Someone who would lend an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on when I needed it. Someone to rejoice with me when I'm happy and feel my pain when I'm sad. I would gladly reciprocate. My mother has that type of relationship with her brother. Maybe I'm expecting too much; maybe a sibling relationship like that is much more rare than I think. It would truly make me happy but in its absence, I'd like to make my relationship with him the best it can possibly be.
When my brother and I were pre-school age, we lived out in the country on my grandparents' fruit farm and we were really each other's only playmates, with the occasional exception of our cousins. There are many pictures of Mike and I playing outside together, swinging on the swings, riding tricycles. Inside we did lots of coloring and watching TV, sometimes I could even get him to play house with me. I remember him sitting at the little table and chairs we had set up with the plastic doll dishes, saying, "Pass the jeddo please."
When we moved to our house in Farmington, which was in an actual neighborhood, things changed. Lynn, the girl across the street, and I became fast friends. Mike didn't have anyone right around his age so he loved to torment us. I recall many times when he was on one side of my bedroom door, pushing with all his body weight trying to get in, while I was on the other side doing the same and yelling all the while for my mom to make him stop. Once, to my mom's embarrassment, Lynn's older sister's boyfriend told us he could hear us screaming and fighting way across the street while he was visiting.
Yet we'd always protect each other if one of us was being hurt by a third party. The day in 2nd grade when one of the Musino boys came out of nowhere and punched me in the stomach on my way to school, Mike, a kindergartener at the time, defended me to the hilt, yelling and threatening the kid to stop. We'd hit and punch each other, but God forbid someone else should lay a hand on one of us!
As the years went by and we grew up, we each had our own circle of friends and did our own thing. We really didn't intermingle much, but we co-existed in basic harmony. I didn't think too much about it when I went away to college, but when I came home for the first time at Thanksgiving break, he asked me if I wanted to go the movies together. We saw "Play Misty for Me." I was touched that he actually wanted to go with me, and my mom told me he really missed me being around. When I was working out in Rocky Mountain Park the first summer, he and his friend came out to visit and tried to get a job working for my boss, Ted James. Ted told them he'd hire them if they'd get haircuts, but they decided against it and left Grand Lake. I was disappointed.
Then came marriages and families, and once again we didn't have a lot of interaction. Flash forward through our dad's death, all our disagreements, and our five-year estrangement to the present time and our tentative reconciliation. I would never have predicted all of our difficulties, although Mike might say differently. He frustrates me tremendously with so much of his behavior, and he leaves me holding the bag as caretaker for our mother. But I somehow need to get past all that and accept the fact that he's just not going to do his fair share, because after all is said and done, a relationship with him is still important to me.
Why go to the trouble? Why not just write him off? Those are questions that my husband has asked me and that I've asked myself. Well, the longest relationship I'll ever have in my life is with my brother. He and I know each other almost as well as we know ourselves. We share origins, core values, childhood memories, places, people, and crucial moments in time. I just can't let go of that.
We may never have the kind of relationship I wish we'd have. I'd love to have a sibling who I could count on to be in my corner--a key member of my support group. Someone who would lend an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on when I needed it. Someone to rejoice with me when I'm happy and feel my pain when I'm sad. I would gladly reciprocate. My mother has that type of relationship with her brother. Maybe I'm expecting too much; maybe a sibling relationship like that is much more rare than I think. It would truly make me happy but in its absence, I'd like to make my relationship with him the best it can possibly be.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
This year I will say YES to...
This post is inspired by my friend Susan, who recently wrote in a blog about being grateful for a wide circle of friends available to her. As I read her blog, I realized that there are so many activities that I do alone because I haven't yet found friends willing to do them with me. It's not that I have no friends here. I do have buddies who are willing to shop, go to the movies, eat, drink, or work out at the gym whenever we're so inclined. But I don't know a soul locally who'd be willing/able to go hiking or bike riding with me. Or sit and scrapbook, craft, or sew. It's good to do these things alone sometimes, but there are many times I miss the companionship. My world here is full of acquaintances, but few heart-to-heart friends. So this year, I will say YES to expanding my social circle here where I live; I will say YES to widening my network of friends.
It's not that I haven't tried in the past. I've put in efforts here and there with limited success. I've ridden bikes with a co-worker who has since quit her job and stopped riding due to a new baby, and another lady who decided that I was more advanced in riding ability than she was despite my encouragement. My neighbor was going to ride with me one Sunday but he canceled at the last minute, giving the excuse that my endurance was far greater than his. (I have a feeling that the real reason may have been objections from his wife!) I also rode with a group in Perry which has since been taken over by racing types, and another club that combines bike riding with kayaking, camping, hiking, etc. The latter group is still on my list of possibilities; I'd like my husband to go along with me on some of the hikes and camping trips to meet other couples. Rich and I enjoyed our dance lessons but they were expensive and therefore they dropped way down on our list of priorities.
It's hard to make friends here in Middle Georgia. I've encountered a vast lack of education, plenty of old-fashioned ideas and beliefs, Bible Belt sensibilities, and yes, some close-minded, racist types. It takes more effort to find compatibility here than any other place I've ever lived. But that's not to say it's impossible by any means.
So I'll renew my efforts. I'll grab Rich and go check out the Bare Bulb Coffeehouse in Kathleen that I've read about. We'll attend more music events at the Big House and make plans to get together with the camping/hiking/riding group that I rode with previously. A co-worker and her mother teach craft classes at Hobby Lobby; I'll sign up for one of their classes and perhaps meet some fellow craft/sewing/scrapbooking people that way. Maybe Rich and I will check out that upholstery class that we talked about or begin dance lessons once again. The possibilities are endless and I'm not being fair to myself to give up because of past fruitless endeavors.
It's not that I haven't tried in the past. I've put in efforts here and there with limited success. I've ridden bikes with a co-worker who has since quit her job and stopped riding due to a new baby, and another lady who decided that I was more advanced in riding ability than she was despite my encouragement. My neighbor was going to ride with me one Sunday but he canceled at the last minute, giving the excuse that my endurance was far greater than his. (I have a feeling that the real reason may have been objections from his wife!) I also rode with a group in Perry which has since been taken over by racing types, and another club that combines bike riding with kayaking, camping, hiking, etc. The latter group is still on my list of possibilities; I'd like my husband to go along with me on some of the hikes and camping trips to meet other couples. Rich and I enjoyed our dance lessons but they were expensive and therefore they dropped way down on our list of priorities.
It's hard to make friends here in Middle Georgia. I've encountered a vast lack of education, plenty of old-fashioned ideas and beliefs, Bible Belt sensibilities, and yes, some close-minded, racist types. It takes more effort to find compatibility here than any other place I've ever lived. But that's not to say it's impossible by any means.
So I'll renew my efforts. I'll grab Rich and go check out the Bare Bulb Coffeehouse in Kathleen that I've read about. We'll attend more music events at the Big House and make plans to get together with the camping/hiking/riding group that I rode with previously. A co-worker and her mother teach craft classes at Hobby Lobby; I'll sign up for one of their classes and perhaps meet some fellow craft/sewing/scrapbooking people that way. Maybe Rich and I will check out that upholstery class that we talked about or begin dance lessons once again. The possibilities are endless and I'm not being fair to myself to give up because of past fruitless endeavors.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
This year I will say NO to...
I need to find a way to say no to stopping to see my mother every single day. And more than that, I need to stop feeling guilty about it.
My mother is lonely, blind, and needs help. She's dependent on me to the point where it cripples both of us. When I'm around my mother won't even try to do things for herself. As an exmaple, she makes soup for herself for dinner quite often and manages just fine, but the other evening when I was there I noticed that she needed me to open the can of soup for her. I've heard her turn down offers of help from others by telling them, "That's OK, I'll have my daughter do that." When my brother and his wife were visiting in October, they spent most of one day with her at her apartment while I worked. My daughter Julie went over there for the afternoon as well. When I got off work and stopped by, my mother asked me if I'd gotten the mail yet. All I could think was that three grown adults were sitting with her most of the day, and she waited until I got there to mention the mail.
As I sit here thinking about it, I realize that I've never even seen the house that my daughter Julie lives in this year at school. It's a one-hour drive up to Atlanta, but I haven't made the time for that. And I've only seen my new granddaughter, Aubree, a handful of times (four times to be exact) since she was born a month ago. My extra time is usually taken up by helping my mother, to the point where I rarely even think about others. But I can't completely put the blame on her; I'm permitting her to dominate my time.
I feel guilty even as I write this, and there are lots of people I would never admit this to. I'm resentful over feeling obligated. I resent the fact that she asks me to call her if I'm NOT coming. She makes me feel as though I need to come up with a good excuse for not going to see her and she questions the reasons I give. Over Christmas when my daughter was home from college, I phoned my mom to tell her I wouldn't be stopping by, I was going home right after work because I had promised Julie I'd make her a vegetarian casserole to take back to school. My mother asked, "Can't Julie make her own casserole?" A flash of anger went through me as I replied that it was something I wanted to do for my daughter. Why should I have needed to explain myself?
After spending three hours yesterday afternoon taking my mom shopping, I decided to give myself the day off today. I told her that I wouldn't be over; that Rich and I were planning to drive down to Warner Robins to shop for new kitchen flooring and while there we were going to visit Michelle, Craig and Aubree. With disappointment in her voice, she asked, "Will that take you all day?" I really had to work at stifling the feelings of guilt rising up in me as I told her that yes, it would take all day.
I struggle with feeling that my mom probably won't be around too much longer and I should WANT to spend as much time as possible with her. I wrestle with rationalizing that she took care of me for all those years, now it's my turn to take care of her. I tell myself that a good daughter would be happy to help her mother all she could. Oh, the guilt! I feel it rising in my chest now as I write. How did I get into the position where, except for a very brief and limited conversation at her lunch table every day in which she rarely has much to say, I'm my mom's sole contact with the outside world each day? Why does she put me in this spot by rejecting most of the contact with her neighbors and refusing to participate in the activities where she lives?
I feel a huge burden, with nobody to share it with me. I need to find a way to just lay the burden down more often and give myself a rest, without feeling guilty when I do it. I do plenty, and I deserve a break! I need to make those words my mantra and keep repeating them to myself: I do plenty, and I deserve a break!
My mother is lonely, blind, and needs help. She's dependent on me to the point where it cripples both of us. When I'm around my mother won't even try to do things for herself. As an exmaple, she makes soup for herself for dinner quite often and manages just fine, but the other evening when I was there I noticed that she needed me to open the can of soup for her. I've heard her turn down offers of help from others by telling them, "That's OK, I'll have my daughter do that." When my brother and his wife were visiting in October, they spent most of one day with her at her apartment while I worked. My daughter Julie went over there for the afternoon as well. When I got off work and stopped by, my mother asked me if I'd gotten the mail yet. All I could think was that three grown adults were sitting with her most of the day, and she waited until I got there to mention the mail.
As I sit here thinking about it, I realize that I've never even seen the house that my daughter Julie lives in this year at school. It's a one-hour drive up to Atlanta, but I haven't made the time for that. And I've only seen my new granddaughter, Aubree, a handful of times (four times to be exact) since she was born a month ago. My extra time is usually taken up by helping my mother, to the point where I rarely even think about others. But I can't completely put the blame on her; I'm permitting her to dominate my time.
I feel guilty even as I write this, and there are lots of people I would never admit this to. I'm resentful over feeling obligated. I resent the fact that she asks me to call her if I'm NOT coming. She makes me feel as though I need to come up with a good excuse for not going to see her and she questions the reasons I give. Over Christmas when my daughter was home from college, I phoned my mom to tell her I wouldn't be stopping by, I was going home right after work because I had promised Julie I'd make her a vegetarian casserole to take back to school. My mother asked, "Can't Julie make her own casserole?" A flash of anger went through me as I replied that it was something I wanted to do for my daughter. Why should I have needed to explain myself?
After spending three hours yesterday afternoon taking my mom shopping, I decided to give myself the day off today. I told her that I wouldn't be over; that Rich and I were planning to drive down to Warner Robins to shop for new kitchen flooring and while there we were going to visit Michelle, Craig and Aubree. With disappointment in her voice, she asked, "Will that take you all day?" I really had to work at stifling the feelings of guilt rising up in me as I told her that yes, it would take all day.
I struggle with feeling that my mom probably won't be around too much longer and I should WANT to spend as much time as possible with her. I wrestle with rationalizing that she took care of me for all those years, now it's my turn to take care of her. I tell myself that a good daughter would be happy to help her mother all she could. Oh, the guilt! I feel it rising in my chest now as I write. How did I get into the position where, except for a very brief and limited conversation at her lunch table every day in which she rarely has much to say, I'm my mom's sole contact with the outside world each day? Why does she put me in this spot by rejecting most of the contact with her neighbors and refusing to participate in the activities where she lives?
I feel a huge burden, with nobody to share it with me. I need to find a way to just lay the burden down more often and give myself a rest, without feeling guilty when I do it. I do plenty, and I deserve a break! I need to make those words my mantra and keep repeating them to myself: I do plenty, and I deserve a break!
Friday, January 6, 2012
2012 will be the year I...
Hmmmm. Is it my imagination or are these questions starting to sound repetitive? Or is it my answers that are repetitive? I've written about my aspirations to pay off debt, plan more activities with my hubby, conquer my fear and get back on my bike, improve my diet, enjoy my new role as grandmother, reconcile with my brother, plan for retirement, and widen my local circle of friends. I feel tapped out on goals! Plus I have a fear that, just as with a long daily "to-do list," if I have too many goals, I'll end up unable to focus and will attain none of them.
So let me just say this. It’s my goal in 2012 not to worry about these prompts! There’s been a whiny little voice in my head lately that nags, “You’re a week behind on your blog” or “You left those two unanswered prompts last month,” etc., etc. You get the picture. To that voice, I’d like to say, “Knock it off!”
There are so many positive qualities to my blog. I love the insight it provides into problems and events in my life. It helps me to flesh out and develop how I really feel about issues and situations. Not to mention that it’s a great creative outlet that allows me to practice writing without having to come up with my own topic every day. But here’s the rub: writing in my blog can take a lot of time and energy, and thus can easily turn from a passion into an obsession for me. And if that should happen, it will tragically lose all sense of joy.
So here’s the short list I’ve come up with to prevent that from occurring:
So let me just say this. It’s my goal in 2012 not to worry about these prompts! There’s been a whiny little voice in my head lately that nags, “You’re a week behind on your blog” or “You left those two unanswered prompts last month,” etc., etc. You get the picture. To that voice, I’d like to say, “Knock it off!”
There are so many positive qualities to my blog. I love the insight it provides into problems and events in my life. It helps me to flesh out and develop how I really feel about issues and situations. Not to mention that it’s a great creative outlet that allows me to practice writing without having to come up with my own topic every day. But here’s the rub: writing in my blog can take a lot of time and energy, and thus can easily turn from a passion into an obsession for me. And if that should happen, it will tragically lose all sense of joy.
So here’s the short list I’ve come up with to prevent that from occurring:
· Return to my initial practice of strictly spending 10-15 minutes a day on the prompts.
· Realize that everyone gets writer’s block from time to time, and there will be prompts that don’t inspire me or that just plain don’t evoke any significant thoughts or ponderings.
· Likewise there will be prompts that I’d love to write about but that aren’t presented. As these come to mind, keep a list, pull them out and choose one when the given prompts seem repetitive or unmotivating.
· Remember that it’s an exercise meant to be fun! I control the blog, it doesn’t control me!
Thursday, January 5, 2012
This year it is my intention to let go of...
... sweating the small stuff. The stuff that often irritates me on a daily basis, but when I look at the big picture of life, it really doesn't amount to a hill of beans. For example....
My department at work is comprised mostly of women and there's a lot of gossip and talking behind others' backs which is basically initiated by one person. I already ignore it and isolate myself when it's going on, but I let it bother me. I know I'm not going to change it; I need to stop letting it ruin my day.
My husband has a tendency to pontificate in a loud voice when he dislikes or disagrees with what I'm saying. You'd think I'd be used to it after all these years, but there are still times when I internalize it and feel that he's talking down to me. I need to knock it off, quit taking it personally, and see it for what it is... his way of expressing his opinion.
My mother assigns my retired brother to "walking on water" status whereas I'm the worker bee. The other night we needed his help in recalling something about her finances. I suggested that we call him to ask. My mother checked her watch and quickly said, "Well, it's probably his dinner time now and I don't want to interrupt him." Never mind that I had just worked all day, had spent the last hour and a half helping her, and it should also have been MY dinner time. At that point, I immediately asserted myself in the kindest way possible, told her it had been a long day for me and I really need to go home, fix my dinner and relax. I left, but I carried the resentment with me and stewed about the inequality of the situation, and that's where I need to stop. It is what it is.
I want to quit making huge resentments out of aggravations. If I could learn to do this successfully, I'd be a happier person in 2012.
My department at work is comprised mostly of women and there's a lot of gossip and talking behind others' backs which is basically initiated by one person. I already ignore it and isolate myself when it's going on, but I let it bother me. I know I'm not going to change it; I need to stop letting it ruin my day.
My husband has a tendency to pontificate in a loud voice when he dislikes or disagrees with what I'm saying. You'd think I'd be used to it after all these years, but there are still times when I internalize it and feel that he's talking down to me. I need to knock it off, quit taking it personally, and see it for what it is... his way of expressing his opinion.
My mother assigns my retired brother to "walking on water" status whereas I'm the worker bee. The other night we needed his help in recalling something about her finances. I suggested that we call him to ask. My mother checked her watch and quickly said, "Well, it's probably his dinner time now and I don't want to interrupt him." Never mind that I had just worked all day, had spent the last hour and a half helping her, and it should also have been MY dinner time. At that point, I immediately asserted myself in the kindest way possible, told her it had been a long day for me and I really need to go home, fix my dinner and relax. I left, but I carried the resentment with me and stewed about the inequality of the situation, and that's where I need to stop. It is what it is.
I want to quit making huge resentments out of aggravations. If I could learn to do this successfully, I'd be a happier person in 2012.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
This year I will nurture myself with...
A lot of my nurturing in 2012 will probably center around the best present I received this Christmas--the gift of becoming a first-time grandmother.
I have to admit to some initial apprehension at taking on the moniker of "Grandma." The name evokes visions of a short, wrinkled woman with curly, grayish-blue hair and the scent of White Shoulders perfume in the air. I don't feel like I'm anything close to this; hopefully I don't look anything close to this! But when a co-worker recently asked me if becoming a grandmother makes me feel old, I had to smile. Because if I were to sum up my new status of grandmother thus far, the word "old" is far from my mind, but the words "appreciative" and "appreciated" are what stand out.
I'm appreciative for no longer being the harried, overwhelmed new mother who can't see the forest for the trees. I now have the wisdom to see the forest quite clearly. I'm well aware that I need to hang on to every precious moment with my grandchild because I know how fleeting the time is from changing her poopy diapers to sending her off to college.
Being a grandmother conjures up long-forgotten memories of my own children--memories that I'm grateful to relive. As I held Aubree yesterday, a gummy little crooked smile crossed her face and melted my heart. I had forgotten all about those sweet newborn smiles. And I had to chuckle when she protested vigorously every time I sat down. She prefers that I stand and carry her around, loving the constant movement just like her mother did as a baby.
Becoming a grandmother has allowed me to be closer to my daughter. We're united by a new, common love and we're on the same team in wanting the very best for Aubree that life has to offer. I feel as though Michelle has a new understanding of the challenges and the overwhelming sense of responsibility I once faced in becoming a mother for the first time. She calls me at various times during the day, wanting to share small moments or to ask my opinion. It's nice to feel that new wave of appreciation.
Holding Aubree, I feel an intense connection to both the past and the future. It's amazing to contemplate the repetition and the cycle of life that the birth of a new baby evokes. I look into her eyes and see vestiges of my Grandmother Simmons, who I loved dearly. And I think about the day that Aubree herself may become a grandmother, when I'm no longer inhabiting this earth. I hope with all my heart that she looks into her grandchild's eyes and thinks of me.
I'm discovering that the sense of nurturing and being nurtured is reciprocal between a grandparent and a grandchild. It's a chance to savor and commit all those sweet moments to memory once again, minus the intense, time-pressured haze of being a parent and one step removed from the day-to-day responsibilities. In that way, it's a unique relationship like no other and I'm so lucky to experience it.
I have to admit to some initial apprehension at taking on the moniker of "Grandma." The name evokes visions of a short, wrinkled woman with curly, grayish-blue hair and the scent of White Shoulders perfume in the air. I don't feel like I'm anything close to this; hopefully I don't look anything close to this! But when a co-worker recently asked me if becoming a grandmother makes me feel old, I had to smile. Because if I were to sum up my new status of grandmother thus far, the word "old" is far from my mind, but the words "appreciative" and "appreciated" are what stand out.
I'm appreciative for no longer being the harried, overwhelmed new mother who can't see the forest for the trees. I now have the wisdom to see the forest quite clearly. I'm well aware that I need to hang on to every precious moment with my grandchild because I know how fleeting the time is from changing her poopy diapers to sending her off to college.
Being a grandmother conjures up long-forgotten memories of my own children--memories that I'm grateful to relive. As I held Aubree yesterday, a gummy little crooked smile crossed her face and melted my heart. I had forgotten all about those sweet newborn smiles. And I had to chuckle when she protested vigorously every time I sat down. She prefers that I stand and carry her around, loving the constant movement just like her mother did as a baby.
Becoming a grandmother has allowed me to be closer to my daughter. We're united by a new, common love and we're on the same team in wanting the very best for Aubree that life has to offer. I feel as though Michelle has a new understanding of the challenges and the overwhelming sense of responsibility I once faced in becoming a mother for the first time. She calls me at various times during the day, wanting to share small moments or to ask my opinion. It's nice to feel that new wave of appreciation.
Holding Aubree, I feel an intense connection to both the past and the future. It's amazing to contemplate the repetition and the cycle of life that the birth of a new baby evokes. I look into her eyes and see vestiges of my Grandmother Simmons, who I loved dearly. And I think about the day that Aubree herself may become a grandmother, when I'm no longer inhabiting this earth. I hope with all my heart that she looks into her grandchild's eyes and thinks of me.
I'm discovering that the sense of nurturing and being nurtured is reciprocal between a grandparent and a grandchild. It's a chance to savor and commit all those sweet moments to memory once again, minus the intense, time-pressured haze of being a parent and one step removed from the day-to-day responsibilities. In that way, it's a unique relationship like no other and I'm so lucky to experience it.
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