She brings light, she is like the sun

"For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out."~James Baldwin


The saddest part of today was when I was sitting way up in the civic center stadium while the class of 2009 marched in and I couldn't find my daughter among the sea of 1000 green caps and gowns.

I stood there looking for someone I knew so I could approximate in the alphabet where she would be and I couldn't pick out even one face that I recognized from so far up. I panicked then, just for a little bit, because I thought--who sends their kid to a high school with a graduating class of 1000? And I could feel tears pooling in my eyes with the ridiculousness of it all--but then I found her--decked out with her honors collar and ropes (cords) and medals and pins and my heart filled with joy. She never found me in the crowd, but I found her. She has done everything right and I hope our country doesn't get too screwed up before she gets to really shine because that would be a damn shame. She brings light, she is like the sun.

On the way over to the graduation ceremony, stuck in traffic, my husband sighed and asked me if our daughter just couldn't have skipped the ceremony and picked up her diploma at the school sometime next week. I've gotten good at taking this sort of remark and not exploding on the spot anymore. What I do is I tell him I can't entertain his nonsense at the moment and to please act normal. Then I'll file the comment away in my head somewhere and take it out (like now) and think--whatever will I do with myself if I have to deal with this craziness for the rest of my life.

You might think that your youngest daughter graduating from high school with so many honors she barely has room around her neck for more would be an experience you'd want to dive into and enjoy forever. But no--it's an inconvenience for him--finding a parking spot and whatnot. I had to remind him that today was not about him and I truly think that I should NOT have to do that sort of thing at this point in my life, but for life to run smoothly, I suck up the things that make me want to scream. I think I am getting better at accepting that life will not always be the way I want it to be.

Then it's time to choose a place to eat and of course there's a battle between the graduate and my husband and he doesn't seem to get that it's HER day and that he should take her where she wants to go. Nope. An argument ensues and I sit there feeling myself shrinking and wishing I could disappear because no one will "just go along" except for me. What's so hard about doing something you don't want to do once in awhile? My father used to tell me it builds character.

Anyway, I thought I'd be very emotional today but between my husband's juvenile behavior and my son's griping about not "having a plan about where to sit," and the kid who sat next to me who hogged the armrest while my husband hogged the one on the other side leaving me scrunched up and claustrophobic, and my camera malfunctioning, and the 12 or 13 people who needed to get up and as a result I had to get up to let them go by so that I was pretty much a like a jack-in-the-box for most of the ceremony, and then the restaurant wars afterwards--well, I was too aggravated to feel sentimental and weepy. Mostly I just wanted to hit someone.

I'm really proud of my daughter and all she has accomplished. I'm happy to think I played a small part in all that greatness.

Searching for something

To combat monotony in my life, I have taken to cooking new things. Every week I ask around the house for suggestions and someone always comes through with an idea and I make it. I've tried lots of different things and I've had more hits than misses, however I think this is mostly about having a challenge, of doing something different. My life has come to this: I cook for a little excitement, to say I've done something new.

My youngest has only 1 more day of high school left. I thought by now my heart would be breaking with sadness for all the time that has slipped by without me really noticing. I thought tears would constantly be at the ready to fall and fall some more. But here I am, not really all that wistful or sad. I cannot cry for what I am losing because I need to focus on everything good that is in front of her. There is a world out there with its arms open wide just waiting for her. I pray the world is gentle with her, with all of us she leaves behind.

I had a bit of a meltdown last weekend and if I must say so myself, it was not one of my brightest moments. I feel this ticking inside my head sometimes, like a bomb just waiting to go off at the smallest of provocations. I've learned to turn it off a good deal of the time, but there are moments when it gets the best of me and I lose control. Afterwards I feel like such a loser--like I will never be able to rise above the pettiness of life and people because inevitably, I engage in these despicable scenes where I don't know who I am anymore. And I could not even tell you what was really wrong, just that everything felt too much and one wrong word sent me over the edge. I resolve not to do it again until I do it again then feel rotten for my lack of self-control.

I'm still searching for the truth in religion, God, faith, church, life. I have this idea that the truth should be simple, clear, static. I think that the truth should not be subjective, depending on a particular agenda we might have inside our heads. It's like molding a truth to what you want it to be. That's not real. But I'll read something about church/God/religion and it will strike such a chord with me and I think that I have found the truth and then I'll read something else that makes more sense and completely leave the first truth to stand behind the second truth I've just found. So I think--what is it? What is the truth? Are there as many truths as there are people in this world, or is there one truth that I must dig and dig to find? And will that truth still be the same 10 years from now, because I want it to be the truth 10 years from now and not have to find out that I've had faith in something false. So is it that I'm afraid to be wrong--or wrong again? I think I am. It's not like I haven't been wrong a million times before. It's not such a big deal. If I'm wrong, life will go on and I'll just believe in a new truth. I should be happy that my heart is open to hearing everything and sifting through it all to try to find what I am looking for.

Break a window, burn a souffle, scream a lullabye

I have it in my head that other people lead more normal lives than I do. By that I mean when other people get in the car to go out to eat with their families, I'm sure the trip to wherever they're going doesn't end up in shouting matches like it does here--where I have to hold myself back from opening my door and jumping out into the road just to get away from all of them. Normal in that when someone suggests to their father that he might be passing by the dry cleaners where he needs to drop off his shirts for work, everyone doesn't end up listening to a tirade about how someone doesn't need anyone telling him how to drive or where to go because he knows everything and takes care of everything.

Normal in that people can agree on one place to go to eat without it being a major production like we always have here--people within a family who can compromise and not always put themselves first because they feel they work the hardest or deserve to make all the decisions for everyone because they earn the money that will buy the food everyone will eat. I want normal people in my life and I don't have normal people in my life, and when I look around me, I think everyone has normal people except me, and I'm jealous of them. I think I started off my life pretty normal then gravitated towards crazy and now I am neck deep in it and I want out even though I know I cannot go.

I know tomorrow I will feel differently, but now, I am beside myself with regret. I don't want out of control yellers who make mountains out of molehills, who fight dirty by bringing up things that have taken place years ago just because it's easier than being normal and letting things go. I'm sick of scab-pickers who feed me the most beautiful words thinking that I will believe in words when there aren't any actions to back them up.

It's the day of love and after attempting to going out to eat with my family, we all came home and went our separate ways because we can't do the simple things without making them difficult and ridiculous and so terribly insane it makes me ashamed to even write it all down. I took the valentine my husband gave me and I went into the kitchen and I got scissors and cut it up into a million pieces and left in by his wallet. It felt cathartic cutting that thing up.

Don't give me a valentine that speaks of love then scream like a maniac about all the things in life that should not matter because that is not the way I have ever operated and if you don't know that by now, then I guess I am living with people who do not know me at all.

And it's moments like this that I wonder how in the world I ended up in this place, in this life with these people. What's the purpose, the message, the life lesson I need to learn that put me right here where I least want to be?

And I think...how could I have gotten it so wrong? How could I have thought I knew that this is what I wanted for my life when I was only 21 years old? And I want so badly to go back and make different choices...ones which do not lead me HERE with a person who finds it so easy to stamp out my light, to leave me lonely.

I hope they're following their bliss (or, red shoes make me happy, too)

I'll never understand why it seems so hard for people to be happy for you when good things happen in your life. I used to live next door to a woman who would drop everything in her own life if you were having a rough time. She'd cook you dinners and listen endlessly while you cried on her shoulder. But the second something good happened that you wanted to share, she backed off being your friend in search of a new needy person to aid. It was like she grew taller and brighter when your life was in ruins and I think it was because she was secretly happy that whatever was happening to you wasn't happening to her. It almost felt as if she wanted to be a witness to your pain rather than help alleviate it. Like, she did all that cooking and listening because there was the payoff of having a front row seat to watch the devastation up close and personal. I like to call people like this misery magnets. I don't like people like this because there's a real lack of sincerity going on under the guise of compassion. I mean, if you can't be happy for me when I'm happy, I would basically rather not know you.

I wonder what holds a lot of us back from being happy for one another when good things happen. Why can't a simple joy be shared without vultures waiting on the sidelines to rip us to shreds for the crime of finding a little happiness? I read these posts today and I was struck again how mean-spirited and petty people can be. The blogger posted a couple of pictures of items she had purchased and along came a killjoy to question if she really ought to be purchasing red shoes when she was just recently lamenting over financial difficulties in her life. I don't get it. How do the red shoes take away from any of us out here reading about them? If red shoes gave the blogger a reason to smile then who are we to steal that away from her?

We've all got sad tales to tell. I know I've got at least a million of them. We seem to cling to them like they're life rafts instead of recognizing them as anchors that are pulling us under. We like following trainwrecks, and scoff at people who present their lives in a positive light. I'm guilty of this sometimes. I don't mind people who have wonderful lives who write about them, but I will say that I have read blogs where the blogger will present a life of peaches and cream then one day snap and confess that it's all been a cover for all sorts of dysfunction going on. WTF? I don't like that crap. At least be real. Have a good day then a bad day like the rest of us, and don't concoct fairytales to tell just because it might sound better than my bitching about spit on the mirrors from people sloppily brushing their teeth.

I don't mind admitting that I'm all over the place most of the time. But I am able to be happy for other people when I see that they are happy. It shouldn't be that difficult to share in the little joys that help give us hope that things will get better--the joys that lighten our hearts momentarily. I just wish we could all be happy for one another when good things happen instead of thinking someone else's joy means there might be less for us somehow, or that someone isn't deserving of happiness just because we say so.

On love - On marriage

"I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it's not the answer." ~Jim Carrey

I think if anyone has illusions that marriage is all fun and games, they ought to take a peek at True Wife Confessions. I get sad, sometimes, reading post after post of downers about marriage, so I don't go there very often. I know that the site is primarily a place where women go to discuss things they feel they cannot discuss with other people--the ugly stuff, the embarrassing stuff, the sad stuff. There's a lot of anger there, too, and it's not under the surface either; it's raw and incredibly heartbreaking.

It didn't dawn on me until just recently how much of marriage seems centered around "the man" and making him happy--how marriage seems like it's something men get more out of than women. The expectations that women have placed on them to be everything to everyone are staggering and impossible to live up to, while men are expected to bring home a paycheck and if they do that then they're pretty much golden. Most of the women I know who are in marriages that would be considered "good," feel as though men benefit from marriage more than women do. This isn't a bunch of woe-is-me women pulling nonsensical theories out of thin air, it's real women looking at their lives objectively and feeling like the scales are tipped in favor of men more times than not in relationships, and saying to themselves that if they ever did get divorced, they'd never, ever marry again.

I feel that way, too, mostly because I married young when I could not know what it took me over 20 years to learn. And it has nothing to do with my husband--it's more about me wanting to experience life on my own terms--because I've never done that. I've always been defined by the relationships in my life that have ultimately taken over my life.

When I was growing up, I was told that getting married and having kids was what women should want for themselves, and I bought into that without question. I feel a little disappointed in myself that I never challenged what other people felt was my lot in life, that I did not dare think for myself because ultimately, that is what it was. I look back and think I've sleepwalked though parts of my life when I should have been awake and paying attention. I wonder, sometimes, why no one slapped me into consciousness, why no one looked out for me. Was it a generational thing? I don't know. All I know is that I would never presume to chart the course of anyone's destiny the way certain people felt entitled to chart mine while I went along like a good little girl who could not think for herself. I try not to dwell on it too much because it makes me angry. Why didn't I fight more for what I wanted? I just kind of went along. It's maddening. I really piss myself off.

My husband is always telling me how much he and the kids love me and I jokingly tell him that doesn't surprise me one bit because if I wasn't me, I'd be in love with me, too. I mean, who wouldn't love someone who does everything and expects so little in return?

I learned a friend of mine is getting a divorce because her husband cheated on her. For three days now, this is all I can think about. I cannot tell you how this breaks my heart because I want to believe in the sort of love that lasts forever, in the sort of love that takes commitments and vows seriously. I want to believe that love and marriage cannot be traded away carelessly after too much booze and too little thought, but this is what happens every day all around me. I want to believe that people are too smart to fall for that grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side bullshit, but we do it all the time. We think what we have is not enough, or not exciting enough. It's this constant looking outside of ourselves for something to fill us up. I don't get throwing away a family for a little fun that simply CANNOT be worth what it costs you in the end.

I'm not even sure what the point of this post is. I think a common theme of my blog is that love isn't easy. I never want people to walk away thinking I don't believe in marriage or love, because I do. But I think the day in and day out of it is tricky and difficult to navigate at times, and I think pretending that it is not does a disservice to everyone.

As often as I am disenchanted by love, I am swept up and away by how wondrous it is. Those are the times I try to keep with me. Those are the times I hold close.

You'll sit alone forever if you wait for the right time--what are you hoping for?

Can I tell you I get tired of their neediness and their noise and their inability to see the messes they create unless I point it out to them? Can I tell you that I sometimes bite my lip until it hurts when I am in the middle of something and I am called away from what I am doing to pick someone up and taxi them around some more? Can I tell you that I sometimes calculate in my head the hours of monotonous, mindless driving I do and think..."this is how I am spending my life..." and then I have to quickly forget about it because if I don't, the thought consumes me and makes me feel bitter, and angry, and cold inside?

Can I tell you that a lot of the time I do things not because I want to, but because I think it will be easier if I just go along...and how that makes me feel small and unimportant and weak because who does this besides me...who is always willing to be considered last all the time the way I am? Can I tell you that I do not think that my happiness is anyone's number one concern...that I am thought of in terms of what I can do for others...and that more times than not, I am perfectly ok with that until I am not?

Can I tell you that I feel like my life is about filling other people up? Can I say that when I think I cannot do any of it for another day, I somehow take a deep breath and get up and do it again and I then I think to myself that surely I will be rewarded for being the type of person who doesn't quit...and that believing this little lie I tell myself, is what keeps me moving in the right direction?

Can I tell you that listening to one of my children cough incessantly makes my skin crawl and that I have to hold myself back from screaming, "shut the fuck up" even though the cough is not something that can be controlled or stopped just because I cannot stand hearing it anymore? Can I possibly say that I am spending my life trying to make other people happy and that when they are not happy I resent them in a huge, indescribable way? Can I tell you that I feel like every minute of every day will always be theirs and not mine because when you have children that's what happens and so you learn to give over your life to other people minute by minute, day after day.

Can I tell you I made mistakes that I carry around in my heart and in my head and how those mistakes weigh me down with a sadness that never quite leaves me? Can I say I've been disappointed by the people I have loved but when they disappoint me I think it's something I probably deserve anyway? Can I say I wish I loved everyone better, and gave more hugs, and spent less time worrying about things that don't matter? Can I tell you I choke down so many things I want to say because I know that saying them might make others see me differently and I don't want to risk them rejecting the real me who is sometimes so very ugly? Can I say that if I did not have my husband and children that I know I could be happy alone but that I would never say as much because it feels disloyal to be this kind of honest when it doesn't reflect how I feel the majority of the time?

And if you let me say all this, is it possible for you to believe that most of the time I feel lucky? That all I know about life and love I learned from them? Can you understand the complexity of life is such that contradictions abound in every feeling and thought that I have and that I am often so conflicted by the side of me that wants to scream and run away? Can you see why it's easier to hide the negative things, why it is better to bury those things deep in a place they can't be accessed, why it's kinder to let those thoughts be something I never share with those that I love but instead write here where no permanent damage can be done?

Can you believe that I am still happy?

Reality

I put my phone on silent because I don't want to talk to anyone I'm related to for a while. My youngest has been out of school for exactly three hours and the shopping has begun. She just called and told me that since I broke her sunglasses (which I did, I am horrible with sunglasses for some reason...I break them, I lose them etc.), that she had found a new pair she wanted me to buy her and that they were "a little expensive." I asked what she meant by that and she answered, "$150." I'm trying not to let other people determine my moods so I took a deep breath to get my blood pressure back down and told her that no way was I buying her sunglasses for $150. She then said, "but they're marked down from $400!" OMG. I told her the answer was still no. She then whined, "well what am I going to wearrrrrrrr????" OMG. See, this is what I hate about summer vacation. She's all angry that I'm not caving in but I don't care. She can get herself a job and buy them herself and then we'll see how fast she's willing to blow money on things that are not necessary.

I've got a new pet peeve. Water bottles and gatorade bottles that have one maybe two gulps taken out of them left all over the house. I went into my daughter's room this morning and she had two water bottles side by side, each with just a few sips taken out of them. Then on her desk there was a gatorade bottle half full. I don't get it. Why take another water when you haven't finished the first one? So I've taken to writing their names on the tops of the bottles and putting them back in the refrigerator with a note not to open anything new until the other bottles are finished up. The inside of my refrigerator is turning into a memo board.

And while we're on the subject of pet peeves, I'll add this one to my list: certain people who "clean their rooms" by shifting piles of shit (clothes) from their room onto the kitchen table with a little note to "Please donate the clothes to a battered women's shelter, thanks, love T." She leaves a little postcard from the shelter with the number on it on top of the clothes. Um. WTF? Perhaps she's too busy leaving half full bottles of water and gatorade all over the house to make the call herself.

It's the little things like this that threaten to send me over the edge.

My husband cleaned the grill for me so I'm back to grilling again. For some reason the grill won't fire up when you push the ignite button so I'm back to throwing matches into the gas and hoping for the best. Each time I go out there with a plate of meat or chicken, I'm convinced I'll go up in flames. Sadly, it's the most exciting part of the day for me.

I am flawed but I am cleaning up so well...I am seeing in me now the things you swore you saw yourself

"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting." ~e.e. cummings, 1955


A couple of days ago I was reading a blog where the writer posted pictures of her apartment. She went from room to room and the photos were lovely. Her place was quaint and cute and looked like a place I could see myself living if I was single and childless. But what made me fall a little in love with her was that she posted a picture of a closet of hers that she said she was finally going to start organizing. The closet was a disaster. I mean, it was piled high with all sorts of stuff. It was a jumbled, ridiculous mess and I couldn't stop staring at it. I kept thinking how brave she was to post something like that because not in a million years would you ever get me to post the insides of my junk drawers (which outnumber the organized drawers) or my closets. And part of me was just really happy and relieved to know that there was someone else in the world who had closets that were a mess.

I remember sitting in the kitchen of one of my good friends a couple of years ago. While we were chatting she was emptying her dishwasher and putting away bibs and dish towels and whatnot. When she opened the drawer with the bibs and the dish towels I almost fell off my stool because OMG, everything was folded so neatly and put in these perfect little piles and OMG not in a million years would I ever be able to maintain that sort of organization for more than a day. She opened cabinets, too, and they were all perfection. It took my breath away. On my way home, I felt tears starting to fall because there's something about organized people that makes me feel like I am a colossal failure. I want so desperately to be like them but I always, always fall short. I want to know their secret.

I'm good at having things look presentable on the surface, but don't dare open a drawer, or a closet, or peek under the bed because the truth of it is that beneath the facade of cleanliness, everything's a jumbled mess and I'd rather everyone have the illusion of me being better than that. I'd be a shoe in for Queen of Surface Cleaning if there was such a thing. If only.

Anyway, I was thinking how brave that blogger was to put it out there that she had a closet that was such a disaster. I'm not brave like that. What typically happens is that I get inspired to clean up my act, and I tear my house apart so that I can be organized, too, because I think that being organized is the secret to feeling at peace because you're never worried that someone will come over and discover what a disaster you are. I'm convinced this will make me feel at peace in the world. So I work like a mad woman cleaning everything up, and when I'm done I'm so exhausted and sick of the whole thing that I let everything fall back into chaos in no time. I get about a week and a half of peace before I'm back where I started.

What this all says about me is beyond me. I'd like to think I'm just too busy doing more important things, but that's not true. Books call me away, my friends call me away, the sunshine calls me away. I have excuses for everything. It's more that I don't want to work that hard at all the nitpicky things you have to do to maintain an organized life.

I remain a work in progress.