Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end ~Seneca

"We are shaped and fashioned by what we love." — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


After having a migraine for about 24 hours, I'm finally feeling better. It's hard to explain how it feels--it's like I go from feeling as though a board of daggers is being driven relentlessly into my skull, to this clearheaded nothingness and I'm so happy not to be in pain anymore. I start mopping floors, I'm dusting like a crazy person, I'm moving around and I'm so happy to be free of the daggers. I try not to think too hard about being happy it's over because I'm afraid the strain on my brain will bring on another migraine. LMAO.

So I've been absent and quiet but I've continued reading all my favorites. Sometimes I just think it's better to step away from always being negative which I feel I've been lately. I can seriously come up with at least one rant a day without even trying (like today I tried to order pizza from my favorite place and the phone rang and rang but no one picked up. I immediately called back and got a busy signal. For the next 15 minutes, the line was busy so I thought perhaps it wasn't open for some reason. I was out and about and went by the place and saw the big neon sign flashing OPEN, so I got out of my car, went in and went up to the counter and placed my order. I told the woman taking my order that I tried calling my order in but that the line was constantly busy. At that very moment, I happened to look down at her phone and guess what? The phone was off the hook! She quickly said to me (as she HUNG up the phone) that she had been having a conversation with someone, but that was a bunch of bull because when I walked in, she wasn't ON the phone, she was sitting there watching ONE LIFE TO LIVE! I know!!!), but I think that gets old for everyone, including me.

My youngest went back to school this week and so it's been quiet here during the day. I didn't get my usual sadness with the beginning of another school year because I've learned that endings aren't always bad and don't always mean THE END. I know my daughter is going to do great things with her life and so I'm just going to enjoy watching the show. She really is the biggest character I've ever encountered in my entire life. I wish you could know her.

My husband and I took the 5 hour trek up to where my son's car had broken down on his way home for the summer because it was finally repaired and brought it home. It's amazing how having that one extra car has alleviated a lot of stress in the household. It only took most of the summer, but I've already forgotten that in my joy at finally having it back.

I do have moments away from this blog when I think that I will never come back to writing here but something always brings me back. What brought me back today was reading a blog elsewhere and getting to the end of the post and being touched by the power of words, and remembering that's what I love best about writing--that feeling of being moved by someone else and coming back here to try to do that myself.

You're the emptiness the whole world sings at night

We attended an end of the season banquet for my daughter's sports team last night. It was a really great evening, with lots of celebrating, pictures, awards, laughter and fun. After the dinner and the awards were handed out, one of the mom's did a tribute to one of the women who would no longer be helping out because her daughter is graduating this year. This woman has been helping out for years and so people were asked to speak about a memory they had of her during her reign of volunteering (aka controlling/organizing everything and acting the "martyr"). Well, after 7 people gave their little stories/tributes, I felt like the focus of the whole night shifted from the kids to this woman (I'll call her Beth Ford for purposes of this post).



A good half hour to forty five minutes was spent recounting this woman's good deeds while the kids were all fidgeting and wondering what the hell happened to their banquet. Then they presented her with an expensive gift from the boosters club (which parents basically fund and which Beth is a part of) and that was when I felt like enough was enough. It was officially BETH FORD NIGHT and not a high school sports banquet anymore. She stood up front thanking everyone, making speeches like she'd won an Oscar, and crying like a death had occurred. Honestly, the whole thing was quite a spectacle. If that was me, I would have said, "Thanks, let's get the focus back where it belongs...on the kids." But she was soaking up her moment in the sun and loving every minute of it. I wanted to scream, "GET OVER YOURSELF ALREADY!!"

What is the deal with people who have to be the center of attention at all times (especially adults)? I think they start that way as children and never grow out of it. They volunteer to head all sorts of committees just so that they have control over everything and then they love to shove it down your throat that they do all the work...when they are the ones who volunteered in the first place! Ugh. It's so annoying. They need other people telling them how wonderful they are, how giving, how hard working. If your sense of self has to come from outside sources all the time, I'd say you're doing something wrong, but that's just me.

School is almost over here. I am both happy and sad. Happy that all the rush is almost over for awhile, but sad that life is moving so fast. I try to stay in the moment, but the moments are flying by me and it's so difficult to hang onto moments that will not stay still no matter how hard I wish they would. I want to yell stop sometimes, but I know that's not possible.

I can hear the minutes ticking away on the clock that sits beside me on a shelf. I feel the beating of my heart in perfect time with it. Right here, right now, I guess this is me living.

Endings

There are important events in my life that I do not remember. I do not remember the last time I held each of my children before they were too big to pick up, but there was a day when I no longer could pick each of them up and it seems to me that I should remember this. My world should have halted for a second so that I could savor those moments, but I think what happened was that I picked each one of them up for the very last time and I simply went on with my day not even knowing that something important was ending.