Al Sharpton speaks the truth

“Americans overwhelmingly voted for socialism when they elected Barack Obama."-Al Sharpton





Yay! Socialism!

Who's a conspiracy theorist now?





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On a positive note, we did our taxes, and a miracle occurred. We did not owe thousands of dollars in taxes this year. We even got a very little bit back. We are grateful we are still employed in this takedown of the middle class battle.

We are battle ready. We are resilient.

insert sarcasm here

I don't get many comments here which is fine with me because I stopped writing for comments long ago. I write somewhat anonymously because I hate all the drama associated with blogging. I consider this blog my space and I write for myself because it's what I love to do. I know of a couple of people who read this blog occasionally, although I suspect I have at least one follower from my old blogging days at aol who never comments but seems to check in on me a lot. I don't even mind that it might be someone I know who doesn't want me to know that they've found me as long as they leave me alone and don't start up drama. I've done the drama thing and don't want to go back there. I think most people come here accidentally, however, and never come back. I like it that way because I am not looking for an audience to love me or hate me. I just want to write.

My blog isn't a place I come to so that I can listen to a bunch of blowhards argue with me about what I write without knowing a thing about me. Because that's the thing about blogging--we show people what we want to show them about ourselves--at least that's how I blog. I show you a small part of myself and just trust me that you are not getting a full picture of me or my life. There is no way I can write it out for you, even if I wanted to. I will always be more and less than what you think I am.

So when I received this comment from "Christa" whose profile doesn't lead to anything but a private profile page, I was reminded again how much I despise most people in the blogging world because they tend to make false judgements about people they do not know at all. I've witnessed how hateful these self-important people can be when they comment at blogs where they disagree with what's written or how they perceive a blogger is living his/her life. They're like vultures enjoying a battered and bloody carcase on the side of the road. They're just despicable.

Here's Christa's comment:

Christa has left a new comment on your post "not a hero": Oh give me a break. Seriously, the "if they like their home country so much..." argument is one of the clearest signs of a bigot. Your kids are so lucky of all that you've taught them [insert sarcasm]. Thank God they're being exposed to a little more than the "Heavenly Father" BS you teach. Posted by Christa to Breathe Through It... at March 6, 2010 4:05 PM


Oh no, the bigot card was thrown out at me in an attempt to shut me up. She totally ignores the point that I make about the insanity of these radical, puke liberal professors LYING to their students and rewriting history by telling them that Mao is a hero, a visionary, a poet---instead of a cold blooded evil killer who murdered 70 plus million of his own people. Christa is just happy and relieved that my kid gets exposure to someone who lies about China and Mao instead of telling them the truth. We wouldn't want anyone to think badly of China now would we? That wouldn't be politically correct, would it ? We must make sure that we do not offend any minority because being politically correct is way more important than telling the truth. This is the exact sort of bullshit that is ruining our country. I'm going to call things as I see them and if radical pukes want to call me a bigot or think I'm a bigot, so be it. Radical professors who hate America and pine about the good old days in another country while smack talking America under the guise of educating our youth probably should go back to the land that they love because we don't need them here. We have enough Americans hating on our country as it is and striving their hardest to fundamentally change it into something else.

Christa ends with some nonsense about the"Heavenly father" BS that I teach my children. And this is where I am wondering if Christa is mistaking me for someone else because I have never mentioned religion here except in reference to my personal journey of moving away from organized religion because I do not believe it in anymore. My children were not raised in any religion and this is why I can't stand having some buffoon that doesn't know me from Adam (oh my, a religious reference!!!) coming to my space and making a comment based on nothing that is real. I don't need lectures from an anonymous asshat who doesn't leave a link to a blog she keeps so that I can go to her place and make sure she is pumping out material that suits my beliefs the way she came here to insist in a passive aggressive way that I should think and write things that are more to her liking. I feel really, really bad that I'm did not live up to Christa's blogging standards of political correctness (insert sarcasm!).

When I started this blog, I thought about turning the comments off but it's something you have to remember doing every time you post and I always forgot. I'm putting my comments on moderation so that I don't have to see comments here by people I wouldn't bother knowing in real life. Christa and her ilk are all for being tolerant until someone doesn't say or think just what she considers acceptable and then tolerance gets thrown out the window and the claws come out. She can start her own blog for that purpose. I'm not obligated to give her my space to climb up on a soap box and spew her crap.

something so beautiful

I was thinking about doing the right thing--how I think it should be easy to always make decisions based on what is right and how I sometimes choose just to go along with things I know are inherently wrong simply because I don't want to make waves or make a scene. I don't know why that is. I don't know if it's an indication of a deep character flaw on my part, but I'm fairly certain that it is. I know it's impossible to be perfect, to live the perfect life, always choosing wisely. But when I look back on my life, I see so many instances where I should have done things differently, when I should have spoken up or questioned more, or fought harder to make my truths be as important as I allowed everyone else's truth be for them. It makes me feel like I've given away important pieces of who I really am--a selling out of my soul for a few moments of serenity that never make up for what I've lost.

I know people who are not afraid of speaking up and defending their truths. Some of them are much younger than me and I wonder where they get the courage to be so strong so early in life. I study everything about those kinds of people looking for clues to see how they make it look so easy. It's taken me half a lifetime to get to the point where I am not afraid anymore, but even now I still find myself tempted to keep my mouth shut because there will be less fallout, less drama if I allow my truths to take a back seat.

Here's the thing: I want to be better than that. I want to risk being uncomfortable. I want to be what I know I can and should be. I've tried to remember back to when it became important to me that I just go along, and all I can remember is that it's how I've always been. I want to be someone different than that because I do not want to regret not changing after recognizing the error of my ways. I don't watch Dr. Phil anymore, but I used to. I think he would say something like, "when you know better, you do better"--and I think that's a perfect sentiment.

Playing it safe for the sake of a false sense of peace is wearing me out from the inside. The people I love best in this world are the people who say what's on their mind and don't worry about anyone else. And I think what I love most about those people is that they seem to have figured out that they are only saying what everyone else is thinking behind your back. They find a way to live their best lives without all the censors most of us have drilled into us and though they might not have a bunch of superfluous friends on hand like everyone else, the people they do have around them are pretty stellar. That's what I've discovered.

When I do the wrong thing, it inevitably stays with me forever. I replay scenes in my head and I think about how free I would be feeling if only I was brave enough to stand behind what I know is right. I'm going to work on that. I want to feel free.

snoops

You know what is really creepy? Writing a private email to someone and mentioning something like weight or cooking or vitamins then the very next day (or maybe even sooner) getting lots of spam emails from different places about weight and cooking and vitamins.

Coincidence? I think not.

not a hero

Wow. My son came home from college last night and this is what he learned from his Chinese professor: Mao Zedong is a hero and China is not a communist country! When two out of the fifty students objected to this propaganda (lie), he told them that most people think Mao's a hero but some think he's a bad man (the families of the 70+ million Chinese people who died on his watch perhaps?) In whose world is a murderer of 70 million people considered a hero? And what on earth is wrong with those people?

Three out of four of my son's professors are foreigners (not that there's anything wrong with that). Last semester he had a Canadian professor telling the class how much better Canadian's healthcare is than ours. Honestly, if these people love their home countries so much, why don't they stay there and teach? It was an anthropology class so the professor really had no business giving lectures on our healthcare system. It's not enough that American radicals have infiltrated our educational systems to rewrite history, erase history, distort the truth and outright lie. We are now employing foreigners to help us along in our destruction. Wonderful!

(For the record, I don't support Obama's healthcare takeover. It's a tax and nothing more. No healthcare services will be implemented until 2013--that means we pay for at least 4-5 years BEFORE anyone gets anything out of it--at which time they'll cry in their soup that costs have risen and they will tax us even more--for LESS service! They simply want to steal more of our money and spend it foolishly. Perhaps more alcohol is needed for Nancy Pelosi's plane as she jetsets around the country with her family on MY DIME!!! WHERE ARE THE JOBS??????????????????????????????) People want JOBS!!!

I'm really sick of what's going on in our world. I'm sick of the right and the left and everyone in between. They are civil servants but they rule as though they are kings and queens. My children know real history because I took the time to teach them, but many, many others sit inside classrooms and listen to these communist pukes teach them lies so that lies become the truth in their minds. The White House had a Mao ornament adorning its Christmas tree this past year. Huh? This is unconscionable. How do we fight that? How do we recover from the calculated deceptions which lead to someone thinking it is a great idea to put a Mao ornament on a Christmas tree?

I try to remain hopeful but it's difficult. I wish for a world away from this world where me and my family could go to get away from this madness. People think communism is great because they do not know what the word means. Go live in China then come back and give us a report on how wonderful it is to have to get a permit to have your one allotted child. I am so sick of stupid people. Stupid people are dangerous and I am telling you right now that stupid people had best stay far away from me because I am liable to slap them upside the head with reality should they start spouting the propaganda taught in schools and disseminated on the news.

Stop poisoning the people with lies, especially our children who are our future.

the 7 o'clock hour of dread

Just recently I have been noticing a growing sense of dread coming over me when the 7 o'clock hour rolls around. This is the time of the evening when my youngest daughter has taken to calling me to chat about her day. When I say chat I guess I really mean complain. For 30 minutes to an hour, I get a run down of what's been happening since the last time I spoke with her (within 24 hours at most.) Her list of complaints gets longer by the day and sometimes I think my brain will burst from all the negativity. Here are some of the things she complains about:

....being really, really tired, her feet hurting from walking to and from class, how much homework she has, how overly liberal her professors are, how hot it is in her dorm, how her roommate is super messy, how her roommate keeps her up at night because her classes don't start till the afternoon, how the food in the cafeteria sucks, how much she hates the showers in the dorm, how her head is aching from one thing or another, how uncomfortable her bed is, how she is out of diet coke with caffeine, how there is still an infestation of ladybugs in her dorm room even though I've called to complain about it numerous times as has she, how late the buses always are, how heavy her book bag is and how it is making her shoulders ache, how hot or cold it is outside that day, how slow her computer is, how her phone is getting on her nerves, how she hates her haircut, how she's bored, how she's out of money, how she forgot her favorite top at home the last time she visited and that's what she wants to wear tomorrow....and on and on and on...

Since August 14th, I have been getting these calls on a nightly basis, and it's taken until this past week or so to finally feel I'm at my limit. At around 6 PM, I start feeling edgy, anticipating the call, and when I see her name pop up on my phone, I think, "Oh, here we go again!" I flip open the phone, take a deep breath, and ask her about her day.

A number of years ago, when my children were young, I wrote a poem called, A Good Mother. The poem listed all the things a good mother would do that I did not do. It starts, "A good mother wakes up in the morning and makes her children eggs..." because that's what I've always thought good mothers should do. Me? I served toast and cereal because it was easy and fast. I slipped eggs into their diet at night when I would occasionally serve breakfast for dinner, but I never felt I should get credit for that because it felt like I was cheating. Truth be told, I was too lazy and grumpy to make eggs in the morning and as far as I was concerned, that's what a good mother would do.

That poem felt like a purging of all the awful things I felt about myself as a mother--all the "shoulds" I couldn't manage to do---all the ways I felt I was falling short. I'm not sure what happened to that poem but if I find it, I'll post it here so you can see where my head was at. There is a quiet sadness about stay at home mothers that nobody seems to notice. We never hear enough good things about how important and difficult our job is. Never.

That poem came back to me today when I started writing this because I imagine if I wrote it today I would probably say something like, "A good mother would listen to her college age daughter complain without watching the clock to see when the call might be over." After hanging up with her, I find myself heading to the kitchen to look for something crunchy to eat like pretzels, or something crunchy AND sweet like Frosted Mini Wheats which I eat out of the box until I have my fill. I crunch and crunch and crunch and crunch. Can y'all hear me wherever you are?

If I'm extra lucky, on those same nights I get a call from my daughter, my husband will be out of town and call me to recount his list of complaints so that I get a double dose of downers. I can be bobbing around the ceiling like a helium balloon all day, and in no time, my feet are planted back on the ground where good mothers and good wives listen with compassion, and promise with conviction, that tomorrow will be better, for sure.

you wanted something more than this

My husband is in one room and he hears the water running but he thinks it's someone taking a shower. I am in another room, with my daughter, watching a Jersey Shore episode I have DVR'd and saved to watch with her when she comes home on the weekend from college. We cannot explain why we love that show--we just do. We laugh about their accents and their hair and the ridiculous tans they get from tanning beds when the beach sits right outside their front door. I hear water at one point, but it is raining outside and so I shake my head and tell myself it's just rain. More time passes and I hear the sound of water again and I think to myself that something is not right, that it sounds as though it is raining INSIDE the house. I walk out of the room and I turn towards the sound of the water and discover it is coming from the bathroom. The toilet has overflowed and flooded everywhere.

I start screaming OMG but then I shift into clean-up mode. I am good in a crisis. I panic initially for a number of seconds, but then you can count on me to find a way out of whatever mess I am in with quiet and cool. You want me on your side because I can make you believe everything will be ok, that I can fix anything. My husband is just the opposite. He can be counted on to help, but he cannot give up on his raging against whatever mess we are in. He screams and he rages and he does not get that nothing he says will change the fact that we simply need to shut up and deal with what's in front of us. He makes whatever mess we're in a thousand times worse just because he cannot keep his mouth shut.

We spend the afternoon wet vacuuming up the excess water and attempting to dry the carpets with big, industrial sized fans. The entire time we are dealing with this mess, my husband is screaming his lungs out about everything. How he is sick of living this way, how hard he works and how much he hates living with the insanity of toilets overflowing, etc., etc., etc. He can turn the smallest thing into the biggest problem and the biggest problem into something much worse without even trying. In my head I am plotting how I will leave him even though I know I will never go anywhere. It helps to pretend there is a place I can go when madness is all around me.

That evening, after cleaning up all the toilet water we've been knee deep in all day, we head off to see the play Annie downtown. It is still raining outside--the freezing kind of rain that makes you think the whole world is crying, and our parking space is two blocks from the theater. We do not have an umbrella because I forgot to bring one and if I don't remember everything, then nothing gets remembered. We are drenched and so very miserable. I am heartsick about everything, mostly about being stuck in a life that sometimes feels like a trap I can't find my way out of, but then Annie comes on stage and starts singing The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow and I feel my own heart start floating back into its proper place from where it fell inside me.

Sometimes I am amazed at the level of dysfunction I've created for myself without even knowing I was creating it. I own it all, even the crazy, because it's all part of who I am.

the bearer of unconditional things

I know this is really strange, but every once in a while I go to my brother's flicker site and go through his pictures--a virtual stalker, if you will. I have two brothers who don't speak to me, who I have not seen in over 20 years. My one brother doesn't speak to me just because (really!). My other brother who doesn't speak to me, basically cut the whole family off and I was just collateral damage thrown into the mix because he severed ties with them. Even though I did nothing to him except love him, I got cut off, too. I've spent a lifetime trying to process this. I cannot tell you how it feels to be erased like that from someone's life because there are no words. I never talk about it to anyone because I don't know what to say. I know that a lot of my childhood years have been forgotten because of this.

I cannot remember so many things. My sister will ask me if I remember this or that and I have to tell her no. I try to remember, but I can't. I was literally erased from their lives, then I think my mind erased most things connected to them. I do remember my older brother being a know-it-all and I remember him playing the Elvis Costello song "Alison" over and over and over again. I remember this about my little brother: When he first started school, he cried and cried, and could not be consoled, so I would stand in line with him to take him to his class in the morning so that he would feel safe and stop all that crying. I have never been able to stand seeing little kids cry.

Anyway, this wasn't meant to be a trip down memory lane where I get all weepy over lost relationships because I'm at peace with my life at this point. What I wanted to write was that as I was going through my brother's Christmas flicker pictures, I noticed something weird. There were pictures of the inside of his house decorated for the holidays and what I noticed is that both my sister and my brother have almost 100% copied the way my parents furnish and decorate their home. They all have open beams on their ceilings. They have the same type of rug in the family room. Their kitchens are set up in identical ways. Their wooden tables all have a sheet of glass on top and a white doily runner between the wood and the glass. There are built in bookshelves in the family room of all their homes. Their fireplace mantles are adorned in similar fashions. When my parents started to collect a certain kind of expensive pottery, my sister went out and bought a ton of it herself. My mother has an extensive collection of Hummels and I noticed that my sister started collecting them as well. They all have the same type of curtains in the windows, too. Let me be clear, their homes are beautiful. But it's like this weird copycatville where they all seem compelled to be carbon copies of each other. I wonder what they think about when they visit each other. I'm guessing they think what good taste they all have since they all have the exact same taste.

I'm trying to figure out what this means because I think there has to be some reason why they both felt the need to replicate our parents home inside their own homes. I think it might have something to do with needing my parents approval and knowing that they would have it if they copied them. What else could it be? There's no hint of originality in either home that screams, THIS IS ME, I AM DIFFERENT FROM YOU.

I guess I just find it fascinating to know that there isn't anything in my home that resembles their homes. If I never moved away, I wonder if my home would mimic theirs. I wonder if I would reside in copycatville as well due to the pressure of living in the same area, or if I would have the courage to be the me that is different from them that I feel free to be because I am so far away.

Blue moon ringing in a New Year, 2010

There's an eclipsed Blue Moon tonight, so I am taking that as a sign that 2010 will be good.

2009 has been mostly wonderful. I am enormously blessed. I look forward to the promise that a new year brings and will do my best to honor my life here on earth. I will continue to seek the truth in all things and I will work to acquire the knowledge I need to help myself and my family navigate through this world. I will look for the divine everywhere and in everyone. I will strive to remain in the light.

Happy New Year!

May health, happiness and prosperity be yours.

the stars are brightly shining

I woke up Christmas morning with a sore throat. It's no wonder, really. My kids have been sick off and on for the past month and I could have picked up something from them. Or, it could have been from that woman I stood behind at the post office the other day. She coughed like a maniac without covering her mouth. She carried around a little plastic bottle all taped up with gray masking tape and about every few seconds she would spit into it. I tried not to think about it too much or look at her doing this because it was seriously grossing me out. I've never seen anything like it. Who carries around a little plastic bottle to spit into? The post office line was ridiculously long and as I was standing there all I could think was that this woman's germs were making a beeline into my air space at breakneck speed and I had no way to protect myself from the assault. Sure enough, I woke up to my throat feeling as though it was on fire. I've loaded up on vitamin C and took some colloidal silver to kill whatever bacteria has invaded my body and I'm already starting to feel better. Oh, and I pop Zicam dissolvable tablets as well. They always make my colds go away quicker.

I made a delicious meal, mostly using my grill. I've read several blog posts lately about people finding joy and peace in the kitchen and maybe there's something in the water because I seem to be finding that same sort of contentment when I'm cooking that I never felt before. I think a part of me has spent a great deal of time convincing myself that I'm not a good cook and will never be one. I assigned myself a label of mediocrity in the cooking department and was content to live down to that assessment. Then one day I got bored and tried new things and found that I can cook and I'm really good at it. I'm the type of person that likes to follow directions to the letter and so letting go of that rigidity has given me the freedom to subtract or add things or even totally make up my own recipes as I go along. All my life I've been aware that I place limits on myself that only hurt me. I'm learning to change the way I think about myself, giving myself permission to be more. It's like the sky is the limit if only I believe it. Better late than never, right?

I did not miss my extended family even once this year, so I am here to report that after 18 years, being away from loved ones gets easier. It's like I've totally accepted that this is my life and it's up to me to make the most of my time here. When I went outside tonight to turn on my Christmas lights, I looked up into the cold December night sky and sent my love and good wishes their way. I am with them always. They are always with me.

Merry Christmas

I tried something different this year. Instead of waiting until Christmas Eve to wrap all the presents, I started a couple of days ago and now, for the first time in forever, I am not hunched over on the floor somewhere with tape and wrapping paper and Christmas tags cursing whoever it was that thought it was a good idea to wrap presents in pretty colored paper. It feels glorious.

Merry Christmas from my house to yours. I wish you happiness, peace, light and love.

the lies she tells me

She lies about everything. Stupid lies. Insulting lies that make me want to suggest she work harder at coming up with something more believable when she cannot find the words to speak the truth. I ask her if she even cares about us because I think that she can't possibly care about people she lies to all the time so easily, with not so much as an inkling of guilt. And she replies, "that's an awful thing to say," turning the discussion away from her, pointing an accusatory finger back at me which is another thing she does to avoid answering questions honestly.

I want to take responsibility for the part I feel I must play in this, the part that makes her feel unsafe in telling the truth, even about the little things. I wonder where I went wrong, where I failed on my end. I think about this every time she lies and since she lies so much I'm thinking about it all the time. I've tried reacting with anger, compassion, and unconditional love but nothing ever changes--the lies just keep spilling and spilling out of her mouth and into the spaces of air that appear empty between us.

She lies about everything and I do not know what to do about it except not believe anything she says.

The center of everything

I am trying to burn down a pumpkin spiced candle that's almost at its end. I should probably just put it away already but I love the scent. It's raining outside--has been raining and cold most of the day. I ended up doing a little Christmas shopping today and bought some poinsettias for the house. I finally threw my pumpkins in the trash although what I wanted to do was toss them out back into the woods at the edge of our lawn so that they would rot and maybe the seeds would take root and sprout pumpkins next year but my husband said it would attract ants and apparently we don't want to attract a bunch of ants outside where they live anyway so in the trash they went.

I can't wait to run tomorrow since I wasn't able to run today. Sometimes I hate running so much I want to cry because of all the aches I end up having, but then I'll miss a day because of rain and all I can think about is running. I'm never sure whether I am running away from something or towards something--maybe a little of both. I do know that when I am out there, I forget about everything and that's a good thing when your head is always filled to bursting with thoughts that won't let you rest.

I received the most thoughtful, wonderful gift for my birthday--tickets to see The Phantom of the Opera and I can hardly wait until Saturday when we go. I had been quietly promoting this as a gift for a while amongst my family but no one seemed to get a clue so I gave up throwing out hints about a year ago. Then one day I was listening to the soundtrack and thinking to myself that I'd really like to go see it in person and the next day tickets arrived in the mail!! It was like magic. I wasn't feeling sorry for myself and I wasn't angry that I hadn't had the opportunity to go yet, I was simply thinking how great it would be to go. I didn't say a thing--I just had the thought in my head that I wanted to go and just like that, I am going!

In my dreams--the ones I manage to remember--I always have magical powers. I like thinking I'm learning to find the magic of my dreams when I'm awake.

Drop by drop

"Writing a journal means that facing your ocean, you are afraid to swim across it, so you attempt to drink it drop by drop."~George Sand


I've been watching the second season of HBO's In Treatment on demand and decided that there is an art to listening I had never noticed before and I wonder if maybe the only way to have access to that type of listening is to pay for it. I'm not being snarky here. It's just that no one I know listens the way the therapist on the show listens to his patients--with such care, such attention to detail, and such compassion. It is truly an art and something I would like to learn to do better, and have done better in regards to me.

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For the past couple of weeks I have been on an eating binge. I eat everything in sight--leftover Baby Ruth bars from Halloween, chips, pretzels--you name it and I eat it. I go to bed at night with a container of extra strength tropical fruit TUMS by my nightstand and chew those up like skittles to combat the indigestion brought on by these feeding frenzies, then I wake up the next day and do it all over again. I am never filled up. I am never filled up.

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There is an angel tree filled with requests by children at the grocery store where I shop. The other day I stood there and read the little wishes and I almost started crying because I wanted to scoop them all up and be the person who filled all those wishes but I know my husband would flip out if I did such a thing. Instead I think I will take an angel every time I go and fill that wish from now until Christmas. I have been blessed with much and it makes me happy to share--especially with children who remind me to be ever hopeful of just about everything.

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Weekends get a little stressful around here. I want a break from the same old, same old and want to be free to do what I want to do and yet my adult children seem only to think of my life in terms of what I can do for them. It's all so predictable and annoying and I do not know of a way to complain about it that gets my point across for more than 5 minutes. I do not want to be that parent who wishes her children would just hurry up and leave but I find myself becoming her more and more--especially on the weekends. It's a fight to keep my newly found serenity and it worries me that I feel serenity most strongly when I am by myself.

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I have hated running the past two weeks. It's a struggle to get myself out the door, not because I hate being outside but because I dread running the same paths and hearing the same music. I started to think about how many miles I have run in the last 21 weeks of religious exercise and it feels like a million. I am running up and down streets and around cul de sacs--like a lab rat stuck in a maze. So I'm thinking about changing up my scenery by going somewhere new. And I bought some new sneakers to have something new and shiny to motivate me not to give up. You should hear the pep talks I give myself each morning. This is what I say: "You can't give up. You have to keep trying. Remember how good you feel afterwards. Don't be that person who can't stick to things for more than just a short while." This is a dangerous time for me. I always know when I am about to take a little break from exercising that will last 6 months or more and I am determined not to let that happen. I'll keep you posted.

~~~~~~~~

I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving. I've got pies to bake and a turkey to cook correctly so that I don't give my family food poisoning. This is always a worry of my husband's even though no one has ever gotten food poisoning from food I have prepared in over 20 years. Still, each year I get cautioned that I must prepare the turkey correctly. This year he has also suggested that perhaps instead of potentially poisoning everyone with turkey, maybe I should just make meatloaf and mashed potatoes instead. It promises to be another interesting holiday in my corner of the world.

the easy kill

“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.”~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


On the day of my birthday, I did not get a call from my parents. I kept checking the phone thinking I would miss their call when I went out for a run, when I stepped out to get the mail, while I was in the kitchen unloading the dishwasher. I was watching TV in bed that night with my phone beside me, and I decided I needed to check the recent call list one last time just to make sure I didn't miss their call, but there was no listing with their name and number beside it. There was no missing call. It was in that moment that I was able to step out of myself and see how pathetic the whole situation was. I see myself waiting for the call. I see myself accepting no call will come.

I like to think about life as a journey of lessons learned, so I tried to figure out what the lesson of this could be. Was it that the world did not end just because I did not get a call from them on the one day of the year that is mine? Was it that a phone call, or lack thereof, should not be mistaken for love or lack thereof? Was the lesson that expectations of others are futile--even the simplest of things--because expectations inevitably lead to disappointments? Who knows. I'm sure I don't.

I tried to imagine the thought process that went into them not calling me because it is important that I understand why. Did they make a conscious choice to let the day pass without a word to me or did I slip their mind altogether? I will not lie: neither choice feels acceptable. Understanding eludes me.

A pattern of mine that I've been trying to break is the one where I lock all the unacceptable things inside my head where I tell myself not to think about them. It's a safety mechanism of mine that I've taken up because people have not always been careful of my heart and I know I'll be unwaveringly vigilant. I've learned, though, that the feelings tied to all the unacceptable things do not go away just because I choose not think about them.

Instead, I've been trying to deal with the feelings as they come--to honor the feelings, good and bad, that come from my journey. I used to think it was best to lock everything bad away because I was afraid thinking those thoughts would kill me, but they didn't. In case you haven't noticed, I can be quite theatrical at times. I thought the feelings would paralyze me and render me unable to move forward. But then I stopped being afraid to feel my own emotions, and learned I am stronger than I think I am. Hidden, unexamined, unfelt feelings are more poisonous than allowing myself to feel them. I can cry the sadness out of me and then move on.

For most of my adult life, I have felt somewhat disconnected from people, and I think the roots of this disconnection go all the way back to my beginning. There was a lack of nurturing I experienced--not in any way connected to having food, clothing, and shelter--that left me feeling apart from the rest of the world. I find this difficult to explain. It's like being on the outside looking in all the time. It's needing to watch other families and relationships to learn what it's like to behave like a normal family/person because it doesn't come naturally. It's guarding your heart always, because that is what makes you feel safe in this world.

When something happens to remind me where I come from, I feel stuck and angry and sad all at once. I have to sit in those emotions and feel them and they feel awful. I think if only I was a better person--THEN I'm sure they would have remembered to call me--which is ridiculous. I don't want to have to be better to be remembered. I just want to be who I am.

Sometimes I feel so alone in this world--that my ties to the people I love are so tenuous--that if severed--I would simply float away, telling myself not to look back, because I would know instinctively that those on the ground would not be looking up to see where I might be going.

I have been mourning the relationship I have with my parents for most of my life. It feels like this: I have everything except what they did not give me, and what they did not give me is everything I'll ever want.


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*This happened a number of weeks ago and I wrote this immediately afterwards, however, I wasn't really able to post it until now because I felt so horrible. I'm pretty much over it now. Time heals what reason cannot.