See me, feel me, hear me.

Well, it's official, my internal alarm clock does not understand Sunday is my only freaking day off....
I have been up for a long while now, staring at my bedroom wall over-thinking - time to just get the hell up and be done with it.
I am emotionally drained and feel physically beat.
Yesterday was a tough day emotionally, my past and present collided again.
Dan and I had a conversation where I was spoken to like I was worthless and sure enough as the day wore on,
I began to feel invisible.
Like putting on Harry Potters invisibility cloak in slow motion.
Even though, I was at work where I certainly don't feel invisible with people who see me as anything BUT.
Regardless, little by little I felt my self worth fading into the black abyss of a very melancholy mood.
I was intermittently teary, my playfulness shot to hell, my reflection screamed "you're worthless" every time I passed the three way mirror in the back of the store.
I heard it three times in fact "you're useless, you're worthless you're invisible"
Damn, you say. She is really fucked up.
Well - yes and no.
I KNOW that these things are not true (finally I know)
BUT what I discovered yesterday, is that my reaction to being treated that way, the way I FEEL is a reflex, just like when the doctor hits you with the rubber hammer below the knee cap.
I have been conditioned from childhood and my relationship with my Mother to FEEL worthless when I treated as though I am.
It is a reflex I need to unlearn, I need to teach my brain a more accurate and healthy way to ward off other peoples negativity, especially when it is intended to make me feel like I should shrink away into nothingness.
There are probably some of you who don't understand why this problem is especially awful or likewise unique. A lot of people are damaged from childhood, a lot of people struggle with self worth.
All I can tell you is that for me, this is huge - this was an epiphany when it comes to my own behaviors.
I realized that worthlessness is my primary human/emotional reflex.
No matter how many times your doctor hits you with the damn rubber hammer, no matter how much you know it's coming, you see it swinging, your leg jerks reflexively.
I am that way emotionally when it comes to myself.
I am surrounded by the most amazing people. People generally speaking (throat clear) enjoy me, love me, laugh with me are entertained in my presence.
I have accomplished great things - do great things or others constantly - give - achieve - survive - love, yada yada
and YET,
the hammer of "you don't matter" gets swung at me,
and all of the good I KNOW I possess,
FEELS invisible reflexively.
EVEN, when I am completely (and this is important) aware that the axe is being swung because of the other persons inability to DEAL with their own feelings.
And so...
With this new realization - I have to roll up my sleeves and get super busy trying to figure out how exactly I can un-train my psyche to go there.
I think I am going to need help with this - not sure I can figure out this strategy alone.
I have to (again, sigh) go back to little Deb and her childhood and rip the scab off the cavernous wound in my heart which is not only my absent Father, but more importantly and painfully, my present but ever absent, Mother.
I would rather do anything than get wade into that sea of misery - but I KNOW that I must, to retrain the brain to not go worthless.
It starts with her and ends with Dan and I must must must overcome the pain.
I bawled my eye balls out yesterday. I chain smoked too.
I am abusing myself physically to cope with the emotional and it is not working and I MUST stop this old pattern before I die from it.
I feel like I have cinder blocks sitting on my chest, one for each lung.
It is bad - really really bad.
when it comes to Dan and my Mother, what I have accepted is that I may never get the recognition for my suffering.
I may NEVER get to be a part of their epiphany moments, the one's where the allow themselves to acknowledge and accept responsibility for how they have hurt me.
They may never have those moments - may NEVER face what they have done to me, may never apologize, may never say "I'm sorry," may NEVER say "I love you Deb oh God let me please fix this before it's too late"
I believe this may be the case as much as I pray (as much for their sake as mine)that this is not the final outcome.
Life is too short to not fix things - my Mother has three daughters, not two and four grandchildren who she would really really like, a lot.
I have trouble with that - a lot of trouble.
How a Mother cannot love her own child and Grandchildren?
But oh, I am not going there now - I do NOT want to cry that hard this early in the morning.
My Mother is toxic for me, I know this, but it hurts just the same to not be loved by your own Mother.
Enough said.
Like my husband.
Hurts like hell.
Like HELL.
And speaking of Dan, I think I should acknowledge something that he said to me last night.
He said that I am defaming his character on this blog.
I was not aware that he ever read it, but okay - let's discuss.
I do not believe that I am.
I know in fact I am not.
I am sharing my life in a journal format - I am honest and in my mind, air on the side of privacy way more that I could.
I feel raw honesty is always best, why do anything else - isn't that lies?
But whatever - I said "well maybe you are uncomfortable with the way you are being portrayed because it simply is not pretty to look at?"
That is the reality.
But let me clear things up for him.
Dan is not a monster.
Dan is a broken man.
And, I may add, with good reason - which, I will not share specifically because that would be a violation of his privacy.
He has suffered yes, but NOT dealt with his problems and pain.
In turn, Brian, Kevin and I, have become the places where his DISPLACES his blame, anger, sadness and frustration.
He, like me, needs to go back to little Danny and rip off the scab - get in there and do the work.
He has potential to be a great man and great person - everyone does.
He has HURT me terribly.
And, unfortunately, consistently.
Our marriage is a mine field - he is a mine field - I WAS a mine field.
For ten years I have screamed "we need HELP!"
For ten years he has looked for ANYTHING, ANYONE, ANY EXPERIENCE to dull the pain and fear of what he faces individually and what we face, collectively as a family.
Naturally, none of it has worked because, no amount of alcohol, shopping or attention/sex from other women, can give any man the validation they can only give themselves through hard work and eventually, self respect and pride.
I am angry, sure.
Blazing hells fire angry.
Why wouldn't I be?
That is not defamation of character - it is simple put, the reality.
He has a problem with alcohol.
I have a problem with shopping.
He has a problem looking elsewhere for validation.
I have a problem looking to him for validatiion.
He has had affairs.
I had an affair.
He has hurt my kids.
I have hurt my kids.
He has neglected me terribly.
I have told him he makes me sick way more than I ever said "I love you Dan"
I wouldn't never make the choices he has made.
He would never blog to the free world about his life.
He is broken.
I was broken for the majority of our marriage.
He is not a monster.
I am not a monster.
Here is the thing....
When you have two broken kids who become two broken adults who get married and don't work to glue themselves and each other back together, you get a lot more shattered pieces.
We are in shards.
Is it anyone's fault?
It started generations ago, it certainly didn't start with us.
We however, are to blame for what we do now.
And there is work to do.
I am all about the work, I find it to be a great relief....
I love when a burden is lifted and set free to fly - feels so good.
Like day - time will tell.
I hope you all do not think I am an awful person who is defaming my husband.
I think I am being honest - it's my life and I can write about it if I want, I have earned that.
I believe that if more people honestly communicated about the reality of themselves their lives and everything they face - we as a human race, would heal and get closer - we are a selfish and desensitized lot, we could use a little more empathy and that only is possible in sharing.
maybe I am nuts - I dunno.

I certainly have no idea where I went with this blog....
I will say - I believe my blogs are valuable - I believe I am doing something fearless here and I am proud of myself for being so willing to share my journey with you.
I AM JUST HUMAN.
Off to face my day - I hope yours is blessed and peaceful.
Oh and for those of you wondering - Nana is stable and holding her own. She's a ninja I tell ya, a freaking Ninja.

sweet and sour

What a strange day it has been....
My family waited all day for Nana to go into the surgery that was supposed to occur first thing this morning. This afternoon, after many many many tears on my part (nerves from the situation with Dan coupled with lots of impending grief) I received a message from my sister that Nana was on the surgical floor BUT the doctors were on the phone with my mother because they were REQUIRING us as a family to revoke the DNR for the surgery.
My family feels strongly that if she codes on the table, we do not want her resuscitated, the likelihood that she would be further impaired seems pretty probable under those circumstances.
So....after waiting on the phone with my sister Ashleigh for what felt like an eternity, the decision was made to NOT go forward with the surgery, the DNR must stay in place.
My Nana will be treated with antibiotics for now, if it works, it works and if not hospice will be called in and she will be made as comfortable as possible while nature runs her course.
I am exhausted, full up with mixed emotions that feel like a tug of war of monumental proportions is going down inside my gut.
My childhood is haunting my adulthood, I am plagued with flooding memories of small details from my life - the kind of details you only think about when someone from that time is preparing to go forever.
I thought of the silverware drawer today, could hear the sound of the metal rails scraping as I pulled it out.
The indented circular brass door pulls on the sliding door to her closet.
The silver high heels that lived on the shoe rack I always wore for dress up, the buckles were big and square and ridiculously fabulous.
The bottle of CVS brand vitamin E that was in the bathroom medicine cabinet FOREVER.
The details keep coming, one on top of another - things I may have never actually THOUGHT about until today.
How often does one think about the sound the silverware drawer makes? Not often - it just makes the sound and it becomes 'the sound' and it just is one of the millions of familiar sounds of life.
The silverware drawer at 43 Willoughby made a very distinct noise - it echoed in my head all day today.
I wish I could pull that drawer one more time, grab a tea spoon, walk into the dining room, heap some sugar in my bone china tea cup and sit on MY chair at the table (between Mom and Papa) with one leg folded up underneath me and eat one of Nana's cookie while she sat smiling with her green sweater and holiday turtle neck framing her face and show casing her crystal Christmas tree earrings.
I wish so badly, I could go back for just one more cup of tea at that table in that room in my house.
I am grieving terribly while we wait.
I guess she does not get her perfect day of peace after all, sigh - very mixed emotions...
In addition to Nana's issues - I am also dealing with my own - go figure...
Today, Dan was here and it was all bad for me.
I am not sure if I can articulate why specifically - let's just say, that I would be better off to NOT have to look directly into the face of blankness.
It hurts to NOT see remorse, sadness or (and most of all) a desperation to want to make it right.
And selfishly, let's put the kids aside for a minute, it is devastating to me as a human being, a woman, a wife.
He looks right through me as if I weren't even here.
As much as I would like to say that I am immune to that pain, I am not - it hurts, hurts more than I can put into words.
It feels like I am reliving the moments right after I discovered he was cheating - I don't matter, I am not enough of whatever matters to him, I am worthless, I am meaningless, I am invisible.
Now, after years of work on me - I do KNOW that this is not the reality.
I know that it is him and he is entirely broken.
I know he has nothing and feels nothing - I know that it has NOTHING to do with my worth
BUT, it hurts just the same.
I think it is human nature to want someone who has hurt you to recognize and care enough to make it right, right?
I mean when you are utterly destroyed emotionally by the actions of another person, don't you long for them to realize and do EVERYTHING in their power to fix it?
He looks through me and it hurts.
Getting past this is going to be tough - this is why so many people say they would rather a death than a divorce.
Death is final, he will be here again in the morning....
And, he will be hung over to boot which will piss me off even more - the only friend he has, the person he is staying with is a raging alcoholic.
Booze is life blood over there - neither one of them want to feel a real thing if it means facing pain.
He CANNOT give up drinking as much as he says he has it "under control" - he cannot give it up for the kids or me or himself, he doesn't even dare say that he WON'T drink because deep down he knows he CAN'T succeed -
I love the way drunks act like the sober party is the one with the problem.
One visit to AA and he'd see himself all over the room - I even offered to go with him and he said "I don't have a problem"
classic.
I am getting upset again, angry and so I should stop.
The anger hurts me jaw.
I am really sad and completely disappointed.
It took 17 years to get this sad - I hope the hell it doesn't take 17 more to get rid of it all.
Mary reminded me, "don't waste any more of your good years" - she means at some point the hot factor will fade.
Humph and I thought she knew me better than anyone - I will be 80 with swagger to spare -
I am kidding - I get what she means.
Cut the pain loose.
I am going to work on that after I get some much needed sleep.
I am thankful for this life - thankful for all of you who read about it.
Goodnight kittens, goodnight mittens....

Let us give Thanks and Praise.

I went to bed last night on the Eve of my forty first Thanksgiving, in my Boston sweatshirt and shamrock pajama bottoms with black make up trails running south on my face. My eyes were sore from crying, I didn't brush my teeth, wash my face, hang up the poncho which draped the end of the bed. I crawled in, curled into a tight ball and cried myself to sleep.
My Nana has a blockage in her kidney, a severe infection and will be in surgery sometime this morning. Her blood was too thin yesterday, so they pumped her with frozen plasma (?) last night to thicken her blood - good for the surgical purpose, but bad for a woman who has arterial issues and has suffered strokes.
The surgery is a must, and a risk.
There is the possibility she will die, a good possibility.
Crazy thing is,
I have been writing about my Nan like a madwoman lately. My Grandparents, my childhood, 43 Willoughby Street - I have tried to make snap shots of my past with my words.
I said to Kevin just Tuesday night "I would like you to learn amazing grace, so we can sing it at Nana's funeral" - Out of no where - I thought that, said it....
I have been thinking about her a lot lately, find myself frozen, hands in the soapy water on a dirty dish, staring at her violet on the window pane wishing it would sprout new purple blooms.
I have always been eerily in tune with the peripheral of my life - I usually FEEL something long before it becomes a reality.
It is a curse and a blessing all in one gulp.
I will be very surprised if she lives through this surgery and recovery process.
I think her time has come.
When my sister called me and said surgery is delayed til tomorrow, I said "I cannot think of a more perfect day for her to die"
Crazy right - nope not really.
She loved Thanksgiving, loved every holiday, loved a good theme and a reason to decorate.
Thanksgiving was always my favorite Holiday with her, we cooked in the kitchen, she taught me to make gravy and I now am the meanest gravy maker around.
I stood by the stove with the wire whisk relentlessly making circles, keeping the juices moving in the big heavy black cast iron pan.
She would taste in from time to time, dipping a teaspoon in and bringing it to her mouth to blow on it before slurping it up (like a lady mind you, daintily)
I would ask, "done yet Nana, is it good?"
And she would say, "keep stirring tweetie."
I said to Ash, "It would be the perfect day for her to die, I can't think of a person more grateful, more thankful, more giving"
I NEVER want her to die.
I NEVER want to live in a world without her.
I NEVER want to say goodbye.
But, she has suffered more than any Nana should. She has lived for years now paralyzed, with pureed food, lost dignity, in a nursing home and for the last year without my Papa, the love of her life, her very best friend.
I am hoping that her suffering ends today and that I get to be grateful, thankful, relived that she is at peace and home with God, Papa, and all the loved ones she has outlived.
I am so sad that I can barely take it.
My eyes are oily feeling, the tears are just there, constant pools.
Yesterday, as I went to work, I was thinking about what my friend and co-worker said to me the other day "your life is always full of drama"
It is, no doubt.
Although that could be perceived negatively, as I walked into the brutal wind as I made my way down the mall, I thought, yes, yes, yes it is.
I have a FULL FULL FULL life, full of people and hurdles and possibility and happiness and sadness and DRAMA.
I would have it no other way. A full life means a constant process of emptying and re-filling.
I am thankful that I have a full life, even with the endless pitfalls, even when the emptying seems prevalent and the fullness feels hard to find.
It is always full - no matter what, because, simply,
it is.
I was hoping that I would sleep in this Thanksgiving morning, that I would relax the day before my retail hell reality begins,
Thanksgiving Thursday the prelude to BLACK FRIGGEN FRIDAY -
But alas,
not in my cards.
At 5 something this morning I got sick of rolling over and looking at my phone for text messages from home.
I said screw it and just got up and made myself a thick dark pot of mud.
I cried last night to my little sister "There just aren't enough words, I couldn't say them enough times, not enough poetry, not enough essays, not enough of anything to tell her how much I love her and how grateful I am that she loved me - the impact she made on my fragile life."
I had the perfect goodbye with her years ago. We sat staring into each others eyes, we said ALL the things we should have. She cried, I cried, it was beautiful and peaceful and I know that she knows.
I just wish I could be suspended with her in a bubble of infinite time and say "I love you" on loop.
I cannot think of a more perfect calendar day for her to pass.
I am hopeful that peace is hers today...
I will say it again - Middle age sucks ass.
This shit is HARD in ways I never imagined.
sigh - who knew?
I hope that you all have a blessed THANKSGIVING. I hope that no matter where you are, who you are with, who you are without -
that your day feels full just because you got to greet it.
And with that, I need to stop.
I don't know why, but suddenly I have to just be quiet.
God Bless.

Bottom - up.

Good Sunday morning to you all,
I have had an incredibly difficult week - if you don't want to know, stop reading now.
This is one of those times where I sit before the keys with fidgety fingers and a pounding heart and question - just how much do I share?
Thing is,
as you blog followers know, this is an honest journal about my life's truths.
Not everything in life is cupcakes and roses, especially mine and so - I share it all,
even the ugliness.
As you all know, I have been "reconciled" with my husband for the last year or so - reconciled is far too kind a representation,
we have been sharing a house, but nothing more.
When he moved in with me there were promises of counseling, marriage and family, family counseling in my mind was essential as my two oldest boys have suffered a lot of whip lash on the roller coaster ride of this marriage.
Needless to say, there has been nothing but a lot of excuses and stalling - a cycle continued.
I probably justified the misery (no probably about it) by telling myself that somehow, Dan and I living together at the very least provided Emma and Matt with the stability of both parents and a more secure economic situation -
when I was alone, I was dirt poor, barely able to keep up my strategy of letting bills lapse until disconnect notices came and paying just the minimum to keep the lights on.
It was unbelievably difficult and hard on someone like me, at this stage of my life, someone so proud and I admit, extremely bitter to be stripped of nothing in order to gain my freedom.
I look to MLK to remind me, I am not the first person in the history of the world to experience that frustration....
I told myself that us together was better than us apart for the sake of the kids.
It wasn't, I dare say at the threat of sounding like a know it all,
IT NEVER IS.
Not only did it make no difference economically because somehow we were still broke (I think it's food prices),
but more importantly with the lack of counseling or any progress to speak of,
the kids were just exposed to a whole lot of misery and family members who passed like very tense ships in the night.
Walking on egg shells just does not convey.
My truth is,
that as far as I am concerned in this marriage,
I have done it all, given every chance and then some, and then stupidly, some more.
I know that people who have not lived this, judge me poorly for allowing him back in after the cheating, lying, emotional abuse, physical out bursts, the loss of our house etc. etc.
I know that a lot of people in my life though I was fucking tapped to ever consider "trying" again.
I understand their judgment, I get it.
I just say in my defense that you can only understand the burden and confusion of a heart like mine if you have been in the situation and, if you know the powers of emotional abuse first hand.
I don't think that gives me a free pass on any of the bad choices and mistakes that I have made,
on the contrary,
in fact,
right now my heart is suffering more than it ever has at the hands of anyone else - it is pissed off at me for allowing so many things to happen that never should have.
I have to deal with my reality, work through my guilt, accept responsibility with my children, especially Brian and Kevin,
apologize profusely to them for what they have had to endure because of my choices and offer them a hand up out of the quick sand of shit they have been thrown in.
I have to repair kit the hell out of the damage and never give up hope that it can be reversed, the bad behaviors they have learned by example, un-done.
It's a mess - my heart is a mess.
But, I feel clear and I feel ready and I feel strong.
This week, another out-burst in the house occurred between Dan and Kevin.
Dan only ever speaks to Kevin to tell him to do the dishes or in some other way be-little or insult him.
Dan thinks both the older boys are basically useless and yet, sees no correlation between why they may struggle and his treatment of them and/or his treatment of me.
Kevin hates the man he once loved, the man who has raised him since he was one.
There is not a shred of respect.
Any shred that may have served as a thread connecting them was severed two years ago when they had a physical confrontation that ended with Dan bending back Kevin's fingers threatening to break them.
Kevin, the guitar player, his fingers his art form, his life line, his life.
The emotional devastation that he felt, I know, all too well.
I am to blame for allowing the two anywhere near each other without counseling happening first - the promise of counseling was not enough.
It happened again, an explosion and this time Kevin took matters into his own hands and called the police.
His step father was arrested and has been out of the house since.
I am hoping for the sake of Matthew and Emma that he has sunk to his lowest point with this and will now get the help he so desperately needs.
Three affairs, getting fired from his job, losing our house, having his wife and kids at poverty level, losing friendships and respect and the love of his step children has not yet, equaled a bottoming out.
He is in deep shit now, and I cannot do a thing, nor will I, to help him out of it.
The time has come.
And, it's been a long time coming.
I feel very emotional and yet, incredibly calm.
I like being alone.
I hate being "lonely", but I like my life my way and under my control.
I enjoy the freedom of my moods being all mine and not induced or affected by anyone else.
I will be okay alone.
I am scared shit less of the money situation.
As it stands today, I don't have enough to pay my rent alone, I don't have access to his money and if history is any indicator,
he will let us all suffer before doing the honorable thing.
And, yay for it being the Holiday season!
I need God or an angel to throw cash from the sky like he throws squirrels...
It will be okay, I know, I am a survivor built to get through.
I am naturally worried about my kids.
Emma and Matt love their Dad.
As they should.
They are sad and scared and confused.
I am trying really hard to exhibit calm and confidence, "everything is going to be just fine loveys"
So far, I think they believe me.
My daughter has started leaving me notes all over the house that kill me - great, she's a writer like her mom.
"Dear Mom,
I miss Dad so much my heart is breaking inside me"
sigh.
I know baby - mine has felt that way a million times in the last seventeen years.
I just forge forward with positivity and hope and appear stronger than wonder woman for my kids.
As far as Brian and Kevin are concerned, SIGH, the emotional scars are visible and throbbing and are going to be harder to fix than the munchkins.
They have to be willing to let me help them, willing to look into themselves to see the damage within and work to fix it - that is tough with a teenager and a grown man who think they are nothing like the man that raised them,
but are absolutely products of an emotionally unstable environment.
My positive influence was strong, but the negative influence in parenting always pervades and plants it's ugly seeds.
I do not want my boys to be emotionally abusive and I fear without intervention that is just what they will be as much as they say they will not.
I fear I negated my voice, effectively silenced it, by ALLOWING Dan the opportunity to drown it out.
I fucked up big time.
And, I know it.
In hindsight - my own childhood came into play here - I was not fixed myself, had not overcome that emotional damage, married a man just like my Mother.
Crazy how we do that.
What you know feels safer than what you don't even if it's miserable.
Misery loves a symphony (Ben Harper)
I know better now, I have been working on knowing better for three years now.
I can say with confidence - crazy miserable unhealthy abusive instability is NOT attractive to me anymore....
It has been a bad week, I'm whooped and yet - okay.
Sad all around, for all of us.
Sad for what we never had, for what we had that we lost, for what we have endured, for what we face.
But I know, we will be just fine.
I am typed out for the time being, my stomach hurts (stress) and I should face my only day off and do some constructive things with my time.
Not that this isn't - I have just said enough and I don't want to cry which is starting up with my words.
Time to switch gears and not wallow...
For all of you who have supported me, I love you and thank you.
Have a blessed day.

Before the deluge

Maybe the picture of somebody you were hoping I might be. Jackson Browne could be heard on Saturday afternoons, I would leave him mid- sentence closing behind me the door which at some later point garnered a slide police lock. In my fidgety kid hands, quarters clashed together in time to the music that I would continue to sing as I ran down the steps and out the two glass doors that exited our complex on Winthrop Road. Looking through some photographs I found inside a drawer I was taken by a photograph of you. The etched brass metal cup that housed the quarters would be less one, a sneaky candy bar purchase come Monday morning, so much for Sunday dessert day. The walk way between the buildings was worn by footsteps on laundry day; I imagined my left hand was the only one that pulled a waxy leaf from the bush at the end of the path before skipping up the next set of steps. Shit, I forgot my keys, she’s going to kill me, let’s hope she doesn’t search my pocket and discover my one too many. Back to the bush, rip, scuffle here scuffle there wearing my own discernible path and up the three steps into the foyer. The Buzzer read Goggin, my finger depressed sure it would go unnoticed because of Browne. I know now she expected it and waited, annoyance the most relevant part of me. “I forgot my keys Ma”
BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Jumping two steps now, anxiety in my legs. But the angels are older. In and out as quick as Santa Claus. The room in the building next door was where Anne’s apartment was in ours. Every time I entered, the storage closets scared me, the giant particle wood boards stained mahogany, locks dangling, mysteries I would never solve. I walked to the left by the pipes and fuse boxes, looked beyond them to be sure I was not alone in the laundry room with my rapist or killer. The room smelled of fabric softener and mildew, the heat from the boiler infusing the both into a dense perfume, I didn’t want to die to that smell. I fidgeted the locks for good measure and sang out loud, “Well we come to the place where the road and the sky collide” pulling our wet clothes from the industrial washer sides. The door to the dryer tried to close as I hotwired realityyyyyy. I hate laundry day, I thought it every time, a flat Mickey Mouse smiling at me from the light blue background of my sweatshirt. Humph you were always dancing in and out of view.
The quarters stood in slots, 25 cents per ten minutes, the load was heavy so I slipped another from my black corduroy pocket, the ones with the white piping up the side, circa 1982. I pushed hard with my palm and watched candy bars disappear from my future, victims to the hum of churning.
Sometimes we forget we love each other and fight for no reason.

Goodbye yellow brick road.

Good dreary ass morning peeps,
This day finds me irritable - my family members drained the hot water heater this morning and freezing cold was not going to cut it for me, so here I sit at my kitchen table, NOT in my 8am math class. Grrrr damn teenagers and their half hour long showers.
I could have just brushed through the mop and gone on to class all crusty feeling but my poor muscles are aching so bad from my workout Tuesday night that without the heat I fear they may refuse to sustain me through my day and...another work out at 5:30.
And may I just add that I think it is bullshit for a college to charge me 335 dollars for a fitness class when I already have a gym membership - that gym class makes me cranky.
But enough complaining.
This morning, when I first opened my eyes, my thoughts went immediately to my dear friend/co-worker Barbara who is traveling to New Jersey today to close the sale of her parents house. Her Dad passed a bit ago and her Mom, just recently.
Last night before I left work, we chatted about the feelings that accompany the loss of your childhood home.
She doesn't like to get emotional in front of others, so when she began to cry, we cut the convo short.
I am thinking of her and sending her love love love today, as I know all too well how heart wrenching that process can be.
I wrote five essays for the writing contest this year, one of them happened to be on that subject exactly. If I do say so myself it was beautifully constructed and written, I just had a hard time capping all that emotion off at 750 words - as those of you who know me know, 750 words is me just warming up, setting the scene, not enough to accurately encapsulate that much sorrow.
I submitted something else and left the essay open ended, something I will revisit sometime when I can find the time.
I told Barbara that before Nana and Papa's house was sold, during my last visit to the house, I sat alone in each room and allowed the memories to flood over me, soak into me, return to the sights and sounds of a lifetime, generations, traditions.
I told Barbara it was the hissing of the radiator in the living room that did me in.
I sat alone in the dark, trying to smell my Grandfathers cologne, the Thanksgiving Turkey, camel non-filters, when that radiator hissed from behind my left ear.
A sob slammed off my rib cage and pummeled my lungs as it worked it's way up and out.
The hiss of the radiator.
Funny how a sound like that, the ones that fade into the background of a life can be the ones that when heard in pin-drop silence, reverberate the loneliness and loss of what was, and what will never be again.
I heard that hiss my whole damn life.
I never thought about it until that moment when the hiss became years of our laughter, the candy dish on the table that was always full of hersey kisses, the ceramic swan on the end table that had roses growing out it's tail feathers like the swan boats had people growing out theirs, the tea cups that rattled on their shelves when Nana walked through the dining room and the high school graduation picture of my Mother that sat on the shelf above my bed in the "front room.'
when I close my eyes, after mopping off the face full of tears I can see it all as if I were in that room right now.
For my sisters here is a little more.
The gold leaf mirror that hung over the rocking chair where Dad always sat next to the table with black legs and the brass circle top that Mom now has in her house, Nana's rocking chair by the little end table at the entrance to the dining room below the sea scape picture and the photo of the thatched cottage Papa was born in that Mom took on our trip to Ireland. The forest green slip covers on the couch and chairs with little maroon and gold something or others all over them. The sheer curtain panels that hung between drapes that matched the slip covers. The matching circle pillows with ruffled edges. The family pictures that hung on the opposite wall - in the middle Nana and Papa on their wedding day, him in his Navy dress uniform, her in that beautiful classic satin gown - the same one on Bonny in their wedding photo, also hanging. Gerard in his Marine dress, looking healthy and happy. The gold rug that was worn in certain places, bubbled slightly in others, especially on the landing of the stairs below the family crest. I could go on and on, but you who gain no comfort from that would get bored - And I am crying and need to blow my nose - seems appropriate to stop.
I will say that losing that house is one of the most painful things I have had to endure. Knowing that I do not have it to go HOME to, leaves me feeling orphaned somehow - I think the crack in the side walk must miss me tripping over it....
It is tough tough stuff - I am not sure I will ever recover from having to weed through the belongings of my family and decide what stays, who gets what, and what, reluctantly, painfully goes in the industrial strength trash bags.
Watching the goodwill truck pull away with our furniture in the back felt like being stabbed in the chest, breathing was hard standing there on the porch of 43 Willoughby as the exhaust hit the freezing February air, my inhale stinking of driving away for good.
It sucked and sucks still - hurts, will hurt me until I myself die.
I'll say it again, it is not the crows feet that suck about middle age, it is the loss of your family, the loss of what was.
I hope I haven't depressed you all - not my intention - I just have to get in it to really get in it.
If I am on team Barbara today, "I gotta go there to know there."
And, this morning I have the luxury of going there BECAUSE KEVIN I couldn't shower and go to class.
One day he will sit by a hissing radiator and long to hear my pounding fist on the locked bathroom door and my screaming voice "GET THE HELL OUT OF THE FREAKING SHOWER KEVIN!"
It's the circle of life y'all.

ism

Good Morning folks,
Wow what a rainy day in Virginia - have I mentioned I don't do the rain well?
I realized this morning that I have worked a new "debism" into my catalog. Lately, whenever a re-occurring annoyance is acknowledged, I say "this is the plight of my life"
I say it a lot teasingly. For instance, living with Gretel who leaves a trail of shit behind her wherever she goes "Mimz your messes are the plight of my life."
I think I dig it so much because I can work it into song "you plight of my life, you give me shit to always pick up" - see what I mean? Works well for sarcastic singing, which I do constantly.
I have a lot of "debisms"
"for the love of God"
"Whatever"
"the thing is" or "the thing about it is"
"I mean, REALLY?"
The list goes on and on....
If you are in my life and have convo's with me, you are bound to hear these words regularly, with precision and articulation, they are verbal exclamation points, question marks or periods, like - "whatever" = ........
I think it is kind of hilarious the way people have their 'isms' and that they become identifiable pieces of their persona.
And with that the clock is stalking me, it's incessant ticking is telling me to get ready for work, no time for blogs.
I mean like whatever, the thing about that damn clock is that it annoys me, it never has enough minutes to go around and timelessness is the plight of my life, for the love of God how I wish there were more hours in the day.
Ha.
Have a great day.