Where oh where does the time go?
I just got up, well about an hour ago in truth - I couldn't sleep last night (go figure) and watched stupid cheese ball movies until 3 AM.
Have I previously mentioned how much I hate TV?
Yeah, it makes people mindless drones, and - I was one of them last night.
Over stimulated by ridiculousness.
Grrrrrrrrr.
I am awake now and feeling defeated already - over tired, with too much to do , too little time and, oh wait, did I mention a sick doodle bug?
Yup my wee littlest one Emma is down hard - sick with something that has her pale and achy and not wanting to face the world outside of the bed.
She, is a looking a lot like I was last Tuesday.
Sigh - poor bug, I know her pain and I feel for her.
I am a little nervous that illness has invaded my home and this is just NOT the week for it (as if any week is?)
But really, this is not the week....
My dear friend Rebecca, one of my BFF's is getting married on Saturday and I am a bridesmaid - this cannot be the week that illness takes over my life.
I have so much to do between work, school and the wedding - I have to look alive on Saturday - I would like to NOT look like dawn of the dead if you know what I mean.
Not that I matter all that much, the attention should be on the bride who WILL look BEAUTIFUL because well one, she is, and two her dress is sooooooo fantastically gorgeous.
But you know what they say about those around you looking good - it makes you as the centerpiece look even better - I don't want to show up with the flu.
Please wedding God's - make me not ugly between the hours of 1 and 11pm, Saturday October 8th.
Sigh - I need lots of water, no gluten and no dairy and sleep.
No stress and no illness - ALL WEEK.
If that actually came to fruition, I dare say that would be the first week of my life to have that happen.
I am not really complaining really, just whining a little about the truth - my life ugh, so full.
So full comes with so much work and hence, so much stress.
And when you have as many kids as I do, well than illness is common place during these god forsaken not summer months.
Fingers crossed and adopting a positive attitude - officially, starting now....
So I told my co-worker Jo (who does not read my blogs) about my Papa possession and she being older and maybe in some ways wiser than me, read the NIPS, cheez its and Canada dreams differently than my interpretation -
she thinks that I am HUNGRY for him and that I am feeling like I need to be taken care of.
I think she might be right.
Maybe he is not possessing me at all, maybe I am not channeling his spirit because HE is trying to tell me anything - maybe in truth I am just trying to get close to the one man that was always there to take care of his PUMPKIN.
I am after all approaching my forty first birthday in nine days and it is now officially (according to the weather) Autumn - makes sense that I would need him now.
I am in my birth season and something about it always strips me bare emotionally and leaves me feeling a lot like a little girl -
wow I am far from that now - I am middle aged - yikes, when did all that growing up happen?
It's funny because although I know I am almost 41 and feel it (creaky and crows feet) I still remember being little like it was yesterday - still, feel very much, like that little girl....
The young me is still very much alive and the memories are crystal clear having lost very little of their color and clarity.
I miss being little.
I long for a crack at it again - maybe just for a day.
I would return to Willoughby Street and start my day with a Nana omelet.
Maybe watch some price is right and then knit with Nana in the den while we watched General Hospital together.
Nothing special - just to go home for a day and absorb it all for old times sake.
Yup I am homesick and missing my Papa.
Missing my old life that has all but vanished.
Last year when I went home for my Papa's funeral - Mary and Toto and Nic and I did a drive around my childhood hood. We visited Chandlers pond where I fed the ducks as a little girl,
where we walked after Thanksgiving dinner, Nana and Papa in their Irish Knit sweaters - in between football games and dinner and the desert spread. (I never did get mince meat pie btw)
Chandlers pond to the weeping willow trees where I would run and hide on sullen girl days - days when I was mad at the world, or at a Father I didn't know,or saddened by a Mother that didn't like me much.
We drove by St.Johns seminary where I would ride my bike like a mad woman, inside the big black gates, along the best bike paths (not meant for bikes) where the acorns fell on my head a perfect percussion, as I sped through on my badness, arms up over my head like on a roller coaster -
"Look Cardinal Medeiros - NO HANDS!!!!!"
I was chastised by the Cardinal himself a lot - he was sweet and really liked me,
but none the less - the paths at the seminary were not meant for me and my big mouth or speeding orange bike with the bell that Papa put on the handle bars for me over thirty something years ago...
We visited 43 Willoughby street and wished that we had not -
Nothing quite like seeing your childhood home trashed and abused by the present owners.
Papa's front bushes were gone, the porch paint was all chipped and peeling off and well, the rest I won't even get into - it hurts too much to recall.
I just remember vividly standing with my 19 year old sister Courtney who has a wealth of her own good memories from 43, feeling like what was ours had been robbed and neglected to the point of being unrecognizable.
It sucked beyond - we two stood there arms around each other Thanking God that Papa had never seen his beloved 43 this way and that Nana, well Nana never would.
If we thought it hurt us - imagine them seeing it that way - well that would have killed their spirits, so Amen for that never happening....
I remember walking that day along the sidewalks in front of the house, feeling my little feet from all the years before, running, skipping walking right there on that concrete basically unchanged. The sewer drain by the driveway was the same as when I was a kid.
The crack in the sidewalk I always tripped over.
The little metal marker thingy for the water company in the walkway.
So much was the same as it had always been and yet,
everything is/was in that moment different.
Life is hard like that.
Makes me cry right now as I see myself at seven excitedly jumping out of my Mother's Green toyota and running up the steps to the the front door to ring their bell on Christmas morning.
The upstairs door would open, then the stairs would creak where the rug was worn thinner at the landing and the crest of arms hung facing you, it was then I could tell if it was Nana or Papa by the sound of their steps.
The bottom door would open, then the feet on the foyer entrance, than the front door would open where I stood waiting inside the screen door while my Mother barked that "you can carry more shit you know"
yeah well it's Christmas Ma and I got a Merry Christmas kiss inside me bursting to come out for Papa....
Oh how I wish I could have bottled that feeling and open it right now,
smell the smells of his cologne and the turkey cooking, the warmth of the house, the Christmas music playing, the feel of Papa's lap as I sat in it, my tights always making me fidget while I sat.
Those were good days - and Jo, well she is right I think - I am hungry for my Papa, hungry for the safety I always knew there at 43 Willoughby.
I miss my sisters too - I never see them - never talk to them and it makes me sad.
Life is too short and everything changes.
I proved last year on my pilgrimage through the memories that you can't go back - you just can't - no matter how much you want to.
I want to, OBVIOUSLY.
I hope that my Grandparents know what they gave me - I hope that while I was able, I made it crystal clear to them, that they gave me most everything that ended up being good about my life and are responsible for everything good that I am.
I hope I communicated that while I had the chance.
I hope my Nana feels me thinking of her now, way up in Boston in the nursing home that is so not even close to her home.
Sigh and cry.
I think 41 is going to be a big year for me - after all Dave has been singing to me about it for over a decade now - anticipation is built high...
I think it will be a life altering year and I pray in all good ways - I think as I approach what I feel will be life altering - I am in need of a little going back so that I never forget where I came from - where it was that I was built...
I miss it all - all what was....
and with that almost noon has turned to almost one and I need to get my ass in gear.
I have too much to do to sit and type all day - although clearly it is what I want to do.
I hope this week is easy - hope my daughter is better - hope the puffiness under my eyes goes down by Saturday and hope I do okay without all the NIPS and cheez its which I have sworn off for all their gluten and dairy yuck-ness.
Ah me - off to eat a rice cake and do work.
I hope you all have a blessed day.
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