Shadows and Images

It's grey today, over cast and sprinkling just a little. It's also much too cool for the first week in May. I did my laundry today, not that exciting but when I was done and heading home, for some reason I turned right instead of left. Left was home. Right was a trip through a ghost town. I was the only one who could see the ghost or hear the echos, but they were there.

I drove past the Harley dealership. It used to be Roy's Western Store. My FAVORITE place to stroll when I was a child. Even before I got my pony, I knew that store well and they knew me. There was this turquoise suede Western saddle that I would drool over every time I went in there. I bought my Breyer farm horses from there. I only had two or three. I wasn't into collecting plastic horses, not when there were real ones to ride. I saw all that with just a glance over there. I saw the parking lot with beige puddles of water that you had to dodge when walking into the store. I didn't see all the yellow lines that are painted on the now paved parking lot of the dealership. I saw my first duck, Peeper, in the bottom of a cardboard box with a big red light on him. I bought him for 50 cents. I had so much fun with that duck. I saw my friend, Tammy Schafer with her wiry strawberry blond hair, being my shadow, as usual, running her hand along the silver on the fancy bridles hanging on the wall. I saw all that with one glance.

Further down the road another left turn had me driving past Scott Picardy's house. Scott was a very special best friend of mine for years. I met him in 2nd or 3rd grade. I was in trouble and my punishment was to stay inside and miss recess. Cruel and unusual punishment for my crime, whatever it was. Scott was inside because he was sick. He had Cystic Fibrosis. It was years before I understood that it was a death sentence. Riding past his house I heard his laugh. OH he had a beautiful deep, raspy laugh. His smile was big like caricature drawings of Jerry Lewis smiling. Almost all my memories of Scott involve that laugh. He died at 22 years old. They said that was a long life for someone with CF. But it wasn't long enough.

I drove on past the very elementary school where Scott and I met. I heard the voices of my childhood classmates, smelled the hamburger and gravy cooking for our lunch and felt my feet running out through the battlefield, as we called the back field. I played SO much baseball there and kickball and tag, lotsa lotsa games of tag. My friend, Sandy, fell from the swings and broke her arm. The chain broke and she went sailing through the air. Learning about the accident my dad stated the obvious, "Why do they have pavement on playgrounds?" The cracks in the pavement were great for playing marbles. I wonder whatever happened to my collection?

A right turn at the corner had me passing Luana's childhood house, the one where we went for Brownie's and Girl Scouts. GOD I hated Girl Scouts. I could hear her mom and Patti's mom as they tried to teach us how to sew on buttons. Whatever. I hated doing that girly stuff to earn patches on a sash that I hated to wear. On meeting days we were supposed to wear our uniforms to school. It was a dress, no WONDER I hated it! Another left turn, then another and I was at the corner where my ex-husband, my high school boyfriend's house was. His parents moved away years ago. The lot next to their house was sold and a much too big house was built in the place of my ex-father-in-laws beautiful vegetable garden. He was a funny man, I liked him. My ex-mother-in-law, not so much. I could hear Rob's voice, his nervous chatter the night of our first date when he took me to show me the house. It was being built and didn't have the flooring. He talked SO much, which is really funny because he truly is a man of very few words. The pine tree his parents planted in the front yard the year they moved in, is gone, cut down. Rob's basketball hoop is still up. He played on the school's varsity team. Yup, I was the girl from the other side of the tracks' and he was the rich jock. His dad was my dad's boss at work. That romance/marriage was doomed. Our son will turn 30 this May. The marriage didn't even last 3 years. We were SO young. I still had my braces on when we got married. One quick look over and I saw the first date and smelled the fresh paint of that new house, back in 1979.

I followed the curve and crossed over Borton St. to pick up the drive where it continued on the other side. I drove past Luana's house that she lived in when we were in high school. OMG, the nights bringing her home when we were SO drunk. Her mother hated me. She thought I was a bad influence on Luana. The truth is Luana is the one that taught ME how to drink. She taught me how to sit outside of a party store and pay someone a buck or two, to buy for us. Our drink of choice, Slo Gin and Orange Juice. We would pour out part of the juice from a gallon jug of OJ and then dump a 5th of Slo Gin in. We would drink from the jug while driving around town. We would sometimes end up at parties where everyone knew what we drank because we had reddish/pink stains around our mouths. She was popular in school. Her dad was the Biology teacher and coached Forensics and Debate. Hanging with her I met the 'theater crowd.' I went to some weird parties with the drama group, lol. Luana died February 2nd, 2011 of Pulmonary Hypertension. She was only 48. Just by glancing at her house, I saw us parked outside 7-11 waiting for the right person to ask if he would buy for us.

I knew where I was heading, to the river. I just took a trip through my memories to get there. I hadn't been back at the river since the day we buried my dad. Everyone went to the graveside service but me. I couldn't; not give him up again. I said  my goodbyes at the church. I said my final goodbyes by the river where we used to launch our boat. If we weren't there launching the boat, we were there on his motorcycle, seeing how many boats were going out. His motorcycle rides always led to water. Sometimes they were a 10 minute ride to Smith Park Boat Launch in Essexville, sometimes they were 3 1/2 hour rides up the the Mackinaw Bridge and Lake Superior, then taking the long way home along the shoreline of Lake Huron. In the fall it would be riding along Lake Michigan to head over to deer camp to see how the site was and what would be needed for October 1st, opening day of bow season.

I turned off the van. The water was so brown and rather choppy. One small green motor boat was making a slow go of it heading back in to their boat launch. This boat launch didn't get used much anymore. A new one was built on the other side of the river with a large parking lot, three docks and security to watch your vehicle while you were out on the Bay. There were large chunks of ice here, the day we buried dad. I remember watching seagulls walking on several ice floes. I looked at the dock and I remembered the April dad couldn't wait to get the boat in the water. So here we were, maybe 51 degree weather, another cold dark day and dad wants to put the boat out. We were all bundled up. My brother David had his snowmobile boots on. I remember we all had big jackets on too. It's dangerous to go out on the river that time of year because there is SO much debris in the rushing early spring waters, but dad wanted to go out. The poor man had to launch the boat himself with three kids, 5, 6 and 9. NOT a lot of help for him. He was barking orders and giving directions but we managed to get it done. Went out on the water but only went out to the mouth of the Bay and back. It was just too rough and there was just too many logs floating in the water. Now came the process of putting the boat back on the trailer, again, with three kids. Dad was trying to tie the boat to the dock and explain to me how to direct it onto the trailer, once he gave me the signal. Mark and David just stood around staring, not knowing what to do. Dad was starting to lose patience because every time he backed up, he stepped on David. So he kept saying to David, "Back up, move, BACK UP...out of my way.." Suddenly, there was a sploosh sound. No one saw it happen, but we all heard it. We turned around and there was only a few ripples in the water where David went right to the bottom. His snowmobile boots might as well have been made of cement! Without missing a beat my dad said, "Damn it." He knelt down calmly and stuck his hand down in the water where the ripples were. He grabbed my brother by the hair and pulled him out of the water and onto the dock. David was screaming as soon as he cleared the surface. That water was cold and murky, brown like today. Dad was laughing. The whole thing didn't shake him up until he looked at me and said, "Don't tell your mother!"

I sat staring at the dock, thinking of all the fishing trips, all the sunburns, all the days of swimming that all started with that boat launch. It started raining a bit more but I got out of the van anyway. I walked over the the cement benches, the ones boys from my senior class made in shop for the park. They are sinking and you can't even sit on them. I looked around at the park and how it changed. It had a Merry-Go-Round, a swing set, a tire climber and one of those odd swinging gate contraptions that make you dizzy, when I was a kid. All the tires are gone and the wooden boat they built in the 80's is gone as well. No Merry-Go-Round and no swinging gait. I remembered all the bike rides to that park. I remembered walking my beloved Golden Retriever, Lacey, to that park. How she'd start to shake as we got close. She LOVED the water and couldn't wait to jump in. I started looking at the trees. There were still some huge willows but many of the biggest branches had been sawed off. The trees were odd looking, sorta like a cactus and a willow tree had a baby. I tried to remember where in the park was the tree I used to climb. Then I realized that theses gnarled, old willows were baby trees when I came to park as a child. With all the ghost I saw today, realizing HOW much time had passed from my first visit to that park until today, I started to weep. In an instant I could slip back there and watch my brothers and I as ghostly images, playing in the park. I felt no sadness all day, even though it was grey, even though I saw ghosts of people who are no longer in my life and some who are no longer on this earth, I wasn't sad until that very moment, looking at that old willow. I felt a rush of loss, a rush of panic, a rush of wondering if anyone else had any of these memories. Would they all disappear when I'm gone, taking all the ghosts with me. That made me terribly sad because they were such beautiful memories. I decided that my son Nathan is right, it's time to write them all down. I'm not sure where to start but I do know that I started today, right now, as the rain still falls and the laughter of my ghosts still echos in my mind.

Locks

My first death was my grandfather. I was never prepared that he might die, never explained to about what a funeral was or how to act. My father said, "Don't cry because you'll make me cry." Being a dutiful daddy's girl, I choked down my tears. I was 11 years old. 

I remember, a few years later, crying when a puppy of ours died. My older sister and her friend made fun of me. That made me feel weak. It began a life of making myself hard or at least showing the world that. 

In high school I would go to movies with my girlfriends, it would be a tear jerker and all my friends would be crying. I would mock them. I wasn't girly, I wasn't going to cry. 

When I was 19, my dad, wept on the couch as he explained the pain he felt having to be the one to end grandma's life, to unplug the machine. He shielded his face from me, so I wouldn't see the tears fall. I reached out for him but I didn't weep with him. I ADORED my grandmother, but I never wept for her. Heartache after heartache in my life, I managed to stifle the tears.

I just ended a very sad marriage, last September. It was a mistake, I knew that after 6 months of marriage but was already pregnant with our daughter and vowed to 'stick it out.' The last 10 years were especially empty and cold. We were only roomates. Never fought in front of the children but never really spoke to each other either. One day my daughter said, "Did you and dad ever hold hands?" Turned my stomach. I had managed to stay together 'for the kids' and proudly showed them exactly HOW a marriage shouldn't be. Still, I packed my bags and left without a tear.

I couldn't help but cry when my dog, GeezeMoe died. Even my dad couldn't stop that. Moe was just to dang loving of a dog. The kind of dog personality that cat lovers mock. Not at all a guardian dog but the kind of dog that runs into the screen when the slider door is open and makes a shocked face of misunderstanding. Or the kind of dog that would run into the coffee table, flip it over and everything off it on his way to greet you - as you return from the bathroom. His tongue ALWAYS out five inches, he was just a good dog and totally full of love. I did weep for that.

Tears came when my dad went into hospice. Tears flowed as I stood in the snow, staring up at the snowflakes shooting down in the night, like pictures of light speed, the night I told him he could go, it was time. But all out crying, no. The day of the funeral I knew it was going to come but had NO idea of the force of it. I had NO control, none.I could NOT stop crying. I made noise. ME the mouthy daughter. The one who sassed the assistant principal. The fearless one. daddy's favorite - uncontrollable guttural crying for the entire funeral.

I think, if I had not lost Moe just weeks before, it wouldn't have happened. I need to mourn my dad, mourn him hard. I had a terrible January, Moe died, my van broke down and eventually was junked and then dad. It was too much but it had to be or I would have fought it. In the past I have appeared cold to the world because of a promise, the promise of a little girl, to her daddy, that I wouldn't cry. He was gone. I didn't have to hold the promise anymore. Hell, I'm weeping now as I write this down. 

I know what it's like to have a parent close off to you and how that feels. (my mom was the cold parent) I know what it was like as a kid, to shut off that part of you that gives a damn, just so it doesn't hurt. I have done that for years. That's how I have survived siblings warring with me, ex-bestfriends who steal my boyfriend and ultimately the end of a cold, empty marriage to a man I had adored. A man who broke our trust and my heart. I took the fall, the kids don't know why I left him and neither does my family. Didn't do it to protect him but my children. They will find out soon enough who their dad is, in the meantime, I look like mom who packed her bags and went on vacation.

But losing Moe, allowed me to grieve. I had no choice. He meant too much to me and I still needed him, but he had to go. I even told Moe it was ok. When I looked in his eyes, two days before he died, I told him he was a good dog and if he was tired he could go. As I stood in the snow, that cold January night, after telling my dad he'd fought the good fight, I realized that Moe was practice for the words I HAD to give my dad. I had to let him know he could/should go. Just like with Moe, I wasn't really ready and never would be. 

I have spent so many years burying feelings so it wouldn't hurt when they weren't returned, that I was beginning to feel like I wouldn't love again. I have gone on some dates with some real nice guys, some very nice looking guys, and kinda was meh, about the whole thing. I was concerned that I didn't really care to date. I was being told by people that 'it took time' 'you just got divorced, you need time to find yourself.' Um, no, I'm 50 years old, pretty sure I know myself. They didn't understand what it was like to lock off your heart to protect it from being broken. But when your dealing with SO many emotional issues, you can't hold that lock on manually and I found out, without my hand on the lock, it slipped, just a little. 

I had a moment last night with a guy I have been dating for a few months. I have thought for some time that I must be sending him mixed signals. I'm so 'odd' around him. I used to be the kinda girl to hold his hand, slip my arm around him while we are making dinner, slide both arms around him while standing on the deck looking at stars. I'm not this time....I will respond in kind when he touches me but I won't touch first, I won't let myself melt. Aware of this, I was annoying myself and trying to diagnose my own issues. Well, yes, it was obvious, I wasn't ready. I didn't feel it and didn't know why and well, duh, because I was holding that lock on with both hands. Let go to stroke his hair and that lock would/could slip a notch. I kept thinking 'well, he's nice but there's no butterflies or bells so maybe this is just gonna be a friendship, yada yada yada." But that moment, last night, that I allowed that lock to slip, just a notch, I felt that twinge in my heart, that skip you get when your in love and your happy with that person...just a twinge of it, but I recognized that feeling and enjoyed the high that went with it. 

I'm way more practical now then I was at 26 when I fell madly in love with my ex. I was thinking I'll never feel that kinda love again, and really, I guess I'm right because at 26 I was wearing love blinders and the blinders are off. But the lock is coming off as well, slowly but there's no rush....can't help but think that Moe helped me with that too because he was my only love for several years...gawd I need another dog,lol.

I just came from a wake, a true in the garage drinking beer wake, a celebration of a man's 87 years on this earth and honoring his dying wish, NO funeral, a party in the garage. He died in front of the tv, watching his beloved Tigers playing ball. Had me thinking of my dad and of Moe and well, and feeling a kinda melancholy today. Well, not really a melancholy but mixed emotions. Like when you take care of a wounded bird. When it's well, you want to release it back into the wild but you've grown attached to it. But there comes a time to release it. You are sad you've let it go but your feel very good about setting it free. Moe help me set my heart free. Dogs are amazing that way.


“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

C.S. Lewis 




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeW0Sl0tNS8&ob=av2e

Boulevard Of Broken Dreams

One of my friends posted a picture and cute lil' quote about dreams,

"If you don't build your dream, someone will hire you to build theirs." Tony Gaskins

To which I quipped, "Great, I need a new job."

Then she posted how she had a dream for 25 years and finally realized it. That it is possible.

To which I replied, "Happy for ya but it doesn't always work out that way, at least not for me."

Then I had to stop and think, what is my dream? I...don't..think..I currently have one??? My wish list is filled with debt and paying off debt, surviving living alone, financially. Well, that's not a dream.

For years I was plotting getting out of this marriage, moving on. Well, I'm out, now what am I plotting? Nothing. I'm surviving, well at least trying to. I have wanted to get out of teaching for some time. I have halfheartedly applied for different jobs, on and off for the past two years. No surprise nothing came of that effort. For the past 6 months I put a little more effort into it, still nothing. For the past two months I put a lot of effort into it. I haven't even gotten an interview. In two months I will be on summer break, with no pay. I have NOTHING saved up and no car. I also have NO plan. I am trying not to freak out but I'm getting scared. Still, needing and wanting a new job is not a dream. In fact, the job I want and am seeking isn't a dream, it's an end to a means. I don't want a dream job, I want a job I can survive on. That's not a dream, that's reality. So where is my dream?

I dreamed of owning a farm. I dreamed of owning farm animals, working the land, making my own food and becoming less dependent on someone else for my food. I almost had it, on my wee acre. I loved owning my animals, caring for my animals, living an abbreviated version of my farm dream. That dream was tainted by living with a man who didn't love me. A marriage with no intimacy, no affection and no friendship. When I planned on escaping that, I hadn't planned on walking away on my partial dream life. I'm adjusting. Today on my last day of spring break, I have been online desperately seeking a job. I have five dollars to my name, to last me until Friday, payday. I have 3/4 of a tank of gas, pheew, but not so much to eat here. I won't starve but my Friday paycheck is spent already. I have rent due, my electric, gas - again, and what is left is for food. Nothing for a haircut, new clothes, socializing, or adding to my new home. And so it has gone for last six months. I'm driving a vehicle I borrowed from my mom in January. She wants it back. I have nothing in savings, nothing. I have no credit, no way to get a vehicle. Jesus, I'm 50 years old with two college degrees, how the hell did I get here?? Where do I want to go? I am very bothered about my financial situation but more bothered by the fact that right now, I have no dream.

I've always been a dreamer, a daydreamer, it was always a great escape for me. I've never been dreamless. I dreamed myself out of a trouble childhood, adored by my daddy, despised by my mother. I dreamed of 'something more' when I was in a marriage based on a shotgun wedding when I was 20 years old. I dreamed of growing old with the man I adored while I was a single parent. I dreamed of farming and sustainable living when the man I adored turned into a stranger. Then I dreamed of my escape. I'm out, is that why there is no dream right now and only wishes? Has the part of my heart that has grown numb to the thought of love also snuffed out the fire in me that allowed me to dream? Or just like running out of love, have I used up all my dreams?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87o9EpJYN_Y

Breathing

I just finished a book that has me awash with emotions, mostly I'm profoundly sad. I always feel that way when I finish a book where I have fallen in love with the characters. I love this author but this book felt so dark. How does someone do that, write with words saying one thing but somehow setting up an emotion that you can feel on every page? I am in awe of that talent.

As usual, when I am sad, I feel sad for everything. Things come flooding over me that I chose not to deal with and sometimes, like tonight, things come over me I didn't know I wasn't dealing with. Love or being in love, or rather not being in love? Actually, I guess the feeling is not really empty but void, does that make sense? I'm wondering WHY I'm not in in love right now. I have two men, skirting about the fringes of my heart, like bees seeking out nectar from a flower but there's none there. The petals are open but the flower is empty, nothing to gather up. I wonder why? I am wondering if it's at all possible that there's simply no more nectar? It's not that I am closed off or guarded but just 'out of love.' I was madly, madly in love with my husband when we were dating. I adored him, worshiped the ground he walked on. He was my crush. I had never fell so  hard for a guy and thought it was mutual. But in the last ten years, decided he loved that I loved him but he didn't love me. He tried, to his credit, I think he wanted to love me and loved me 'in a way' but not in love with me. I think I used up all my love on him.

I know folks who say they have had a great love, say they will never fall in love again but I feel like love has drained out of me. Is that possible? I can't even work up a good infatuation. That's sad because from what I remember, it's great fun to be in love. All those tummy wriggling feelings when you see him, when you think of him, to those deep I'd take a bullet for him feelings. I can't even feel THOSE when I think back on how much I loved him. I can't even feel what it felt like. I'm sad not because I don't think I'll ever love again but because I don't seem to care that I will never love again. Love IS such a splendid thing, really, everyone should have it but why not me. I have it in my head or is it my heart, that I had that love, used it all up and can't do that ever again.

I want to be sensible and think well maybe I am afraid of being hurt again. Maybe it's a trust thing. I only need some time. The truth is, even though I have 'only' been divorced since September, the marriage was over years and years before that. I mourned all that, went through all that while I was still married. I should be at a place where my heart is open, and well, it is, but it's like a gate to a forgotten garden, left open, swinging a bit, open but not inviting. That makes me sad. IF someone told me this about them, I would be sad for them. Yet I am sad because I'm not sad. Boy am I messed up. I need a dog. Maybe loving at pet again will soften the ground in that old garden. Maybe a dog can help furrow the over grown soil and bring the garden back to life.Dogs like to dig yunno  I guess I am more hung up on the fact that I got this from a book of fiction, not at all about someone being divorced and empty but a totally unrelated story to my life, yet it stirred this up. I should be sleeping, tomorrow is gonna suck yet I lay in bed with all this bubbling in me and felt commanded to write it down. I have never felt that before, a strong urge to write something, like I had to get it out of my body. I don't fancy myself a poet or a writer or even a storyteller. Not my goal in life, come to think of it, not even sure what my goal IS in life anymore. Holy Hannah, pretty sure I need to write the author and thank her for touching me so deep in my soul.

I'm hoping now that this has spilled out, I will be able to get some sleep. I have to be up in less than 5 hours, not cool, I'd never make an author, lol, if this is what happens to you, words build up in you like bad fish and have to come out, lol. Ok, that's not poetic that's gross, let's try words bubble up inside you and beg to burst free, hmm, that sounds like gas. I feel like if I had someone to talk to right now, feathers would come out of my mouth, form a bird and fly away. Ugh, maybe I have too many poetic friends at the moment, they are a bad influence on me with their deep thoughts, insightful words and correct grammar, ha ha ha. I'll  never be accused of that! Ah, not feeling so dark now, maybe there is something to this journaling....maybe now I will sleep, restfully. Maybe tonight I will dream again. I miss my dreams.

And so it goes.....

So, what is it with me and blogging?? I tried this a year ago to chronicle my new direction, learning to spin. Then I lost the farm. I revisited this blog just before I turned 50 and decided to continue this blog, chronicling my new life in the city and how my world has changed. I looked to 2012 with so much hope in my heart. That was before 2012 decided to feed me a big ole crap sandwich! January 7^th, my beloved dog GeezeMoe, my dream dog, my Swiss Bernese Mt. Dog died of cancer. He was diagnosed only days before. My dog was at my ex’s house.  Dang baby was bonded to the other two dogs and had too much anxiety when left alone. I was working on getting him moved in with me. I had no idea our time was so short. He went to the vet on Tuesday, got the diagnosis. I couldn’t get out to their house until Thursday. I had been on the phone and emailing other Berner owners, getting advice, planning on a second opinion, but I had to see Moe first to know, to see that look. Thursday my bouncing tigger was happy to see me but moving so very slow. He came up to me and simply pressed his head against me, but he wouldn’t look at me. This is a dog that had no clue about personal space yet he was avoiding eye contact. He slid down by my side and simply lay enjoying my touching him. Later he moved behind the chair, I followed him. I lay on the floor with my head on his. I told him how much I loved him and he was a good boy, a very good boy, it was ok if he had to go. He picked up his head; I lifted my head. He looked me in the eyes, straight in the eyes, then he closed them, put his head down and let out a big sigh. I stayed for another hour, just holding him and left. Saturday morning daughter found him behind the chair, he was gone. Barely time to wrap my head around the diagnosis and he was gone. I was crushed, as any pet owner is when our beloved crosses that rainbow bridge.

I went through the next week in a daze. Very sad at all I had lost in the last few months. GeezeMoe wasn’t living with me but I knew he was there and saw him once or twice a week. Now he was gone forever. The following Friday I went out to pick my daughter up from work and couldn’t get my van warmed up. I had no heat. Played around with antifreeze, bought a new radiator cap, yada yada…still no heat and it was overheating. Got it to the shop and was told “Time to put her down.”  I was 700 miles shy of 300,000. But the old 1994 Mercury Villager was simply done. My mechanic said the water pump was gone and the gaskets were shot, she was just too worn to repair. He used the words ‘system failure.’ GREAT! I was in NO position to replace this car, none. No cash, no credit, no happy!  Trying to figure out what to do, I bummed rides all week to work. That Friday I needed a ride home and talked to my mom about possibly picking me up. She said she couldn’t because she had to be at the hospital, she had a meeting with the hospice people. Hospice?? When did we start talking about hospice?? Sure dad had a stroke 13 years ago. Sure he endured a quadruple bypass and various other surgeries over the years. Sure he was even in with a brain bleed – a complication from a fall and being on blood thinners. Sure he had been in the hospital since August fighting an infection. Sure he caught MERSA since he was in….but hospice? Now?? Mom offered me the van she used to haul dad around. She had a second car for when she didn’t have to take dad around. I hightailed it out of work and to the hospital for that hospice meeting. I don’t know what I expected but sitting there, thinking about my dog, my van and now my dad…I was thinking 2012 really sucked so far but then the nice hospice lady said something to my mom that caught my attention. She was explaining why dad needed hospice now and she said the words, ‘system failure.’ My dad worked on cars, he would have made the same connection, system failure. Dad was also about 700 miles shy of 300,000. His body was just worn out. It was time to let him go. Mom understood and agreed, dad was transferred later that day.

I went back over to Brian’s House, the hospice center later that Friday evening. Mom had left. Dad looked to be sleeping. I just sat there. What I felt weighed heavy on me. I had friends telling me for months, that I needed to let my dad know I was ready to let him go. Thoughts of this last conversation have tormented me in dark dreams for years. I knew I owed it to him, to us…I need this too right? I sat there listening to his labored breathing; afraid to wake him up yet relieved I had another out for our conversation. The T.V. was on, blaring Jeopardy. I watched without watching; just staring at the blue tube. With his eyes closed, dad laughed at a reference on Jeopardy to Poncho Villa. He and my mom had visited my brother David and his wife Lu in New Mexico when David was stationed there. Lu was always teasing my dad. They had a fun relationship. One of their jokes was about Poncho Villa. I can’t remember now what the joke was or how it started but all either one of them had to say when they were together was Poncho Villa and the other started laughing. Hearing him laugh at the sound of that name showed me that my dad was still ‘all there.’ I stood up and touched his shoulder saying “Hey dad how was your ride over.” He said through slurred speech, “Rough “then closed his eyes again. I stood for a moment, took a big breath and said, “Dad, I know you’re tired, you’ve been fighting for a long time. You have put up a good fight but maybe it’s time to go see grandma. Mom is ok, she will be ok. Are you ready to go see grandma?” That’s as close as I could come to saying the words, to tell him it was okay to go. He opened his eyes, turned his head towards me and clearly said, “Yes.” I rubbed his shoulder and said in a whisper, “Okay then. “He looked away, looked out the room door into the hallway. He looked for quite a while and then closed his eyes again. I waited for a while longer, and then left. It was snowing hard, the kinda snow that when you look up it looks like the galaxy going through warp speed. I just stood there, I don’t know how long. It was freezing and snowing so very hard. I went into the van and wept. So Moe was practice? I had to tell him goodbye too. They didn’t give us a time for dad but he died just over a week later. My mom, sister and I had been there all day. We left about 9:30pm.He died just after midnight. He waited to be alone. He couldn’t do it with his girls there.

The funeral was a blur. I can tell you I wept, hard, through the whole entire thing. I could NOT get control of myself. I had lied to dad; I was NO where NEAR ready to let him go. I wanted him out of pain but I wanted a cure, I didn’t want to lose him. I thought about writing my thoughts out over the weeks. I made a comment to a friend about cellos and she told me that I need to write when was in pain. It would help. Not sure that’s true as I weep all over my keyboard.

2012, really, really? This is how you’re gonna do me? This was supposed to be MY year. This was my new beginning, my do over year. I guess it goes to show you that new doesn’t always mean better. I’d like to say that things have improved a month after my dad died; they haven’t. I might have to sell my horse, my last holdout to my country life. The folks at the barn where I am boarding her raised barn board $50 and have been making hints about how this isn’t working. Great…oh and yeah, remember in an earlier blog I mentioned that I was currently a preschool teacher but that could change.  Yeah, well, they laid off over 20 people and cut wages 5% across the board.Yeah, NOW I can’t afford to wait to find another job. I don’t mean to make this sound like a pity party but yunno, I think you’d have to admit, I’m entitled to just a bit of pissing & moaning, for a bit.

There, just blew my nose and washed my face, let out a big sigh because life goes on. I have to have a life; I have to live the life I have because life does in fact go on. I have a friend bugging me about changing my Facebook profile picture. It’s currently a picture of my dad, waving goodbye from his motorcycle. This friend said it was time to see my pretty face again. It’s not, but it will be. This guy telling me that a month is enough cannot make it through the week without mentioning something from his past that he is STILL dwelling on. His mom died at home with him. His dad had already passed and he was an only child so it was just the two of them. His girlfriend bailed on him shortly before his mom passed. A week will not go by before he comments about one or both, the girl leaving or taking care of mom all by himself – she died five years ago! See, I do still need some time to mourn my amazing father but five years later, I hope I am not dwelling on it. I think it will be awhile before I can get through a January not thinking about how crappy this one was, but I know I will pick myself up and dust myself off and move on. I always do.

I love the sorrow of cellos.

I think the way the bow moves

reminds me of how you feel when you breathe with a broken heart,

how the breaths ache,

dragging across your heart like the bow across the strings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKzQ4ZB9V8M&list=FLSyrzg6bIht8rVSWRqu3aOA&index=8&feature=plpp_video

The Cusp.....now what?

Ok, what is it about Friday nights and NEVER having anything to do?? Just hangin' out with some chilled Muscato...and thinking.

Tomorrow is New Years Eve. 2011 will be a thing of the past. I will shake it off and move on....now what?

Really, NOW what?? What am I looking for? Am I looking for anything?? Do I want a relationship? Do I need to change careers? What's my next step? Do I have to have a next step right now?

So I spent a few days with a guy I have been seeing for a month. This is the first I have been dating as a grown up. NOT sure what I am supposed to be looking for or what all the rules are. I am not sure I am giving him the feedback he's looking for. I am guarded. While I thought I was just being mature, careful and wise...I think I am simply waiting for the other shoe to drop. Eventually its gonna drop, right?

Oh snap, there I am with expectations again. I expect the other shoe to drop so I act accordingly. I expect there are supposed to be fireworks and bells and roses and little bluebirds singing around my head when I spend time with him. There's not BUT I enjoy my time around him. He is strong, smart, funny and adorable, where's the bells?? Where's the butterflies in my stomach? Do you not get those as a grown up? Did I have my one fireworks and bells relationship? What about feeling safe, comfortable, relaxed, enjoying my time? It's nice to be around him. I look forward to seeing him. That's something to build on right? There's not rush to be a label - boyfriend/girlfriend, fiance', roommate....just enjoy the now.

Sounded real good until....someone else, someone who used to be in the picture, started emailing me again. I found I was thinking about him. Oh, crap....great, now what? I don't think this guy is good for me, he hurt me and he walked away when I needed him. So why? WHY do I think about him?? Am I self destructive?? Stupid fireworks.....

ACK...really, what is that sound Snoopy makes when he is disgusted or upset?? I am trying to make that sound right now. I am not 26, I need to pull my head out of the clouds. In the movies, the girls ALWAYS walk away from the great guy, leaving him behind, to run to the guy that makes their head spin. The movies don't show what its like to live with THAT guy. They never show the girl saying, "Well, yunno, he makes my heart go pitter pat but really, there has to be more. I'm not gonna throw my world away for a racing heart." I think they need to show that more. Now THAT would be a reality show.

Hmmm, my life IS a reality show. So, really, I don't have to make a decision today. NEITHER guy has laid 'claim' to me. Both have pretty much left me hanging, wondering what our status is. It's just those dang expectations...they keep nawing at me...tormenting me, blurring my vision.

Never expect,

Never assume,

Never ask and never demand.

Just let it be.

Because if its meant to be, it will happen,

The way you want things to be.

But I do have to have some input, right? I mean, I need to express SOME of this to at least ONE of the guys, right. I can't just totally just let this happen to me. I need to be putting something into this - you reap what you sow and if I don't sow anything....

So 2012, what have you got up your sleeves for me? Will I soar this year or still be grounded? Will I take flight or stall? Is there something I am doing to prevent flight? Will I just keep a holding pattern or try a few loop de loops?

Now what?

New Year, New Beginnings....

Today, I turned 50. I didn't feel any different when I got up, except I wanted to do SOMETHING, something to make the 'transition.'

September of 2011 I divorced a man I had been with for 25 years, 21 of those married. Details of why I ended it are not important. I needed to for health reasons, mental health. See, I married my crush. Don't do that, don't EVER do that. If you put someone on a pedestal, they have no where to go but down. It won't be pretty when they fall, it never is. I went through years of being angry, being disappointed and then being very, very sad and suddenlty, I disappeared. What I recognize now, being on my own for a few months is that I had tried to be someone he could love instead of being me and being someone he would love. MY mistake. It wasn't a conscious decision, it was an unconscious act by a person who didn't value themself. I was young, I was in love, I was wrong. While he still deserves a slap in the head, I deserve two. Lesson learned.

I expected this year, this birthday, this Christmas, this moment to be different. Damn those expectations. “If you expect nothing, you can never be disappointed." Sounds simplistic, sounds a littel bitter, but I started to be disappointed today. I have just started to have a life again. I have friends that I am going out with, I met a guy, I was KINDA expecting to do something with them. Well, no, now that you ask, I did NOT share this expectation with them, just - expected it. Having a birthday two days before Christmas has ALWAYS cramped my social life. Either people are doing last minute things for the holiday or family holiday things, I know this but.....I thought THIS year would be different. I started to be sad that I had nothing to do. I started to slide into a 'lil pity party because here I was turning 50 and had nothing to do to celebrate it.

Then I realized, ok, yeah, sucks being alone on a birthday, especially an '0' birthday, But I look at where I was last year at this time, no hope...trapped....very, very sad and empty. Baby steps...but forward motion all the same.

This summer I had to give up my sheep, my rabbits, my chickens and my dogs. I have held onto my horse, for now, boarding her at a friends. I gave up my wee acre, my raspberry bushes, my strawberry plants, my wee little vegetable garden. Gave up my farm fresh eggs (that I was trading for fresh raw cows milk) gave up my plans of learning how to spin my own wool and my dream of sustainable living on one wee acre. That was hard to walk away from. I left my home in the country and moved into my own place, in the city. A very tiny, tiny house but MY own. I have never lived on my own, ever. Since I was 19 I have never NOT been with a guy. This birthday IS different, this Christmas IS different, this year is ending MUCH different than last year and OMG next year will start much differently than this year did. I don't really have any resolutions?? Someone asked me about my bucket list, I had one this time last year, dreams of what I would do before I die, but today, there is no sense of urgency. Could be I am at peace with my life, myself?

I started this blog to chronicle my attempts to start spinning and stepping up my homesteading to become more self sufficient. That is still a dream of  mine but instead of mourning what I have lost, I take joy in what I had. For 10 years, I had a small hobby farm. I hatched chicks, I grew and preserved my own food. I dug in the dirt and made life! I built fires, learned how to compost and explored the realm of farming. I LIKED it, ALL of it. I miss it but I know it will be a part of my life again.

SO, with the new year approaching, with my '0' birthday coming to a close, I take this blog into a new direction. Let's see how 'I' grow over this next year. Let's see how I make my dreams happen. Let's see how I embrace this new life, making the best of city living. Let's see how this country girl drags county back into town, kicking & screaming all the way. Let's see if I stay here...because the world is MINE now. I can do anything. I currently teach preschool and live in the city but..I could pack it all up and move to Burma. I could backpack around Europe for a year. I could finally learn how to play guitar, take voice lessons.

So tonight, just feels like any other bored Friday night. All my friends are busy. But each one made a point of saying Happy Birthday to me today. I will be joining several of my dearest ones tomorrow, for a holiday dinner. I will have my grown children joining me on Christmas day. I truly am at peace with today. 50 didn't hurt as much as 30, its just harder to say :-)

And just for the record, chocolate cake goes splenid with Muscato! Just sayin'