Tomorrow is Here Again… And for One More Year… Things Get Personal.

I knew it.  I just knew it.  Even after last year… once again… today is December 30, 2011… and tomorrow is here again.

I wish I could figure out a way to make that particular “tomorrow” disappear.

You see… I am stuck.  Stuck in some sort of a Star Trek time loop.  Or maybe a better comparison would be what happens in one of my favorite movies… GroundHog Day.

In some ways… waking up tomorrow is a once-a-year kinda thing.  But in many other ways, it seems like it happens every day.

I know.  I am talking nonsense.  At least up until now.  But tomorrow is the anniversary of my wedding day.  New Year’s Eve… 1965.  My childhood sweetheart and I got married.  The two of us… 21 and 19… had known each other for eight years.  Eight years since that day we met. 

Is being 13 and 11 too young to fall in love ?  We thought not.  Way back then… Paul Anka had a song on the charts called “Puppy Love.”  Of course, it was all about young love, how it feels, and how so many others saw it as childish.  But we knew better.  We knew it was the real thing.  We really did.

And so… beginning with December 31, 1965… and every New Year’s Eve for the next eighteen years… we lovebirds were just that.  Lovebirds.  Right up until we weren’t.

Adultery raised it’s ugly head.  The cheating, the sneaking, the disguised meetings.  Somehow it all escaped me.  Somehow I had no clue… until I stumbled upon it.  There they were… my childhood sweetheart… and my best friend… boinking.

Recently I saw a story about Sandra Bullock.  Her short-time hubby had been cheating on her.  And when she found out… she filed for divorce.  And since then… she has used two words to describe herself. She said she felt “permanently broken.”  I have used those same words for years.

It is so funny… the ironic kind of funny… that when someone shares with me that she is feeling the same kind of reaction… when she is beating herself up in much the same way… I can be so very understanding… so very able to listen, to console, and to be there in a sisterly way for her.

But for me… the same things don’t seem to work the same way.  Permanently broken.

Going to Bed Early… Yeah… That’s What I’d Do…

I read a very sad story earlier tonight. It was about a woman who lost her very dear sister-in-law about a week ago, and then this afternoon… a very good friend of hers died. Two deaths of people she loved… pretty much in the space of eight days or so.

Of course I was very sad for her. As I read her story, my heart hurt for her… and what she was going through.

Later on… perhaps a few hours after reading and sharing her hurt… it hit me. Not hard… because in a way… nothing hits me hard. But… then again, just about everything hits me hard.

I seem to have this sharpness and numbness in me… at the very same time. Not sure what that means. If I were to try and put it into words… I would call it some sort of a “terminal aching.” It just always hurts.

But… reflecting on those two deaths… sure, there was all that hurt she felt. But you cannot hurt unless you have someone whom you love in the first place… to lose. Looking at it that way… how wonderfully fortunate this woman was… that she had known these two people… two women that she loved so dearly for so very long.

I live in a cave. I feel I really don’t have any friends… or at least none that I could really count on if the sky started falling, or if all hell broke loose. I have a few people who I feel “closer” to… and sure, if I called them, or stopped over to see them, eventually I would be told how they “loved me.”

I wonder what it is like to have friends. What is it like to have people who truly love you, who truly care about you, and really make sure you KNOW that they do ? I don”t know. I used to know, and I think I can still remember. It was very long ago.

The last time I felt loved… really loved… was in the late 1970’s. I was married then. I loved being married. But my “dearly beloved’s” fifteen-month affair that I accidentally found out about… ended all of that. I haven’t felt whole… since.

I know a lot of that is my fault. I could be “stronger.” I can even admit that I probably “should”… be stronger. It is so much easier being stronger for others. I wonder where I was the day they taught the class on learning how to “care” for myself ?

I have a daughter. She is 38. She lives perhaps fifty minutes away. It’s funny what ones “perspective” does to things. Those same forty-five miles or so… is just a short ride for me to make.

The time goes by so quickly when I drive to meet my daughter. Funny how those same forty-five miles can seem like such a long journey when my daughter looks at them. She has her own life… she tells me. And yes, I’m sure she does.

I turned 67 this past February. Don’t know how much time I have left.

Really don’t much care. Not that I would do anything to hasten that “final day…” but if someone told me that tomorrow was going to be my final day… I would probably sleep in… maybe go out for a nice lunch… prolly have blackened catfish… then come home, watch a replay of “The Good Wife” on TV, make sure Mollie T, my kittie, had plenty of food and water… and then go to bed early.

I don’t think I will ever again know what having anyone really care about me will be like.

Right now it is about 2:45am. I was already getting ready for bed… and then thought about writing this. I first thought that I’d go to sleep… since I was already climbing into bed… but I decided to write this… anyway. I knew that if I left it until I got up tomorrow… the feelings would be all fuzzy, and this would be nowhere near as authentically “me” as it would be if I wrote it now.

Life is Never Easy When You Have Two Heads…

Why I thought it would be… I’ll never know. Keeping everything all bundled and bottled up inside just one head… ouch… it used to hurt. So… I grew another head.

I know… it sounds funny. And yeah… my everyday expenses would go way up. Just think… two trips to the dentist. Twice as much to get my hair done. And Yikes… just the cost of all that extra lipstick and eye-liner.

But… I did it. I thought I had to. I thought I had no choice.

More About Me and my “Sis”

I’ve always wanted an “older sister.” For many, many years… growing up… I was always the oldest. Always the one everyone went to when they wanted help, needed help, or just needed someone to talk to or bounce things off of.

The problem was… it was a very lonely way to live. I was there for them… but who was there for me? They, my brothers and my sister, well… they had me on a pedestal. I didn’t complain… way back then… because I enjoyed being “the ‘go-to’ sibling”… and, I was good at it. With all of my hidden insecurities… it also gave me a way to feel good about myself.

Then one day, I started to change. Little by little I started to “venture out”… and finally gave birth to myself.

The problem, for me anyway, finally came when “they” came to think that I was no longer UP on that pedestal. Why ? Because “they” felt I was no longer the “me” that they needed me to be. I dared to change. I dared to be myself.

The problem grew as “they” found that I had what they thought were my own set of imperfections. Unfortunately, those imperfections did not sit well with them. They decided I “wasn’t the way I was supposed to be.”

It was very lonely up there… on that pedestal. And when the cracks in my “image” widened, and I began to quit trying so hard to be the one they wanted and needed me to be… and moved instead more towards “being myself…” that’s when all hell broke loose.

~ . . . . . . . ~

Then… there’s this “tough love” thing of theirs. My siblings and their “tough love.” Funny… I never used “that” on them. Wonder where they got it from ?

Some days I feel like I’ve been here forever. Some days I feel like I’m just plain “lost.” In truth… I’m both pretty old… and perhaps pretty young, as well.

Some have told me I’m an “old soul.” Some wonder just how much of a looney I am. I guess it’s all up for grabs… the jury’s still out… and I’m not sure they’ll ever return a verdict.

Speaking about “verdicts”… my problems unfortunately got both better AND worse… when I quit thinking about THEIR verdicts concerning me, and moved more into the world of where I gave more thought about MY verdict about myself.

Yeah… once I started thinking about ME… all hell broke loose.

Ten Year Old Female says… “Can’t You See I’m In the Shower ?

OK… what’s the problem here ? Can’t a girl get any privacy ?

I feel so “violated.”

Here’s the story, folks. My Mom and I are moving tomorrow. As some of you know, our two bedroom apartment was flooded last January 10, 2010. All that water came in through the ceiling at 3:30AM when the pipes from the fire-sprinkler system froze and burst.

Water everywhere.

So… over the last seven months… (yeah… that long !) we have been living in a ONE bedroom apartment. Actually we’ve been squeezed into that one bedroom apartment for seven months and 21 days.

So yesterday… in preparation for moving, Mom took down the shower curtain in the one bedroom, and moved it ten doors down the hall to our “old apartment”… which I guess is or will be our “new, old apartment.”

But… those of you have read Mom’s blog posts regularly know that I, Mom’s kittie, Mollie T Cat, love to take showers. Usually I just sit in the kitchen sink and put my head under the dripping water that my lovely and talented, and oh, so gracious Mom runs… just for me.

[Sorry about all that baloney in the last sentence about Mom, but I gotta stay on her good side, and all that nonsense helps. She just eats that stuff up.]

Anyway… the movers are coming tomorrow. All these blasted boxes from the two bedroom… shoe-horned into this one bedroom… will be moved tomorrow.

All of these boxes have been fun for me to climb around it, and hide in, but they sure do make Mom more that a little nutz. And heck, you and I both know she’s on the edge to begin with.

So… here I am… sitting in the tubbie… underneath the shower… waitin’ for Mom to turn on the water so I can take a shower… and… She Won’t Do It !

What’s a showering kittie like me supposed to do ?

Pretty Blue Flower… or Is It a Weed ?

Sometimes when we search for happiness… we so often think we need to travel all over the world to find it.  Perhaps… just perhaps… happiness may not be found by “seeing new places” but by seeing “with different eyes.”

This flower, for example.  Is it a pretty blue flower ?  When seen in this light, it sure seems to be.

For some others who see it “in a different light”… it may simply be a dandelion.  It’s the same thing each time.  It’s the same image… just accompanied by a different thought.

It is quite a powerful talent to have… to be able to look at things through a different light, or with different eyes.

A powerful talent, indeed.  But it’s one we all can have… if only we look deeply enough inside ourselves… and in just the right places.

“When you change the way you look at things… the things you look at… change.”

I’m Gonna Have a Baby Sister…

One of the things I shared in a previous post… was how I never had an “Older Sister.”  And… myself being the oldest… as I was growing up, I always wished I had an “older sister.”  So since I didn’t, I decided to “become” my own older sister.

Lately… I have been thinking about adding another member to the family.  I actually DO have a daughter.  She’s thirty-eight.  But, I never see her.  Well, almost never.  And when I do… it is only because I “push” the issue… if that makes sense.

One of the “empty’nesses” in my life right now… is not having anyone to spoil.  I think some of the happy’est times in my life were ones where I had both someone to love, and was able to spoil them.

An additional thought along parallel lines… is something that some therapists occasionally suggest… when the person they are counseling is somehow unable to “take care of themselves.”

Now… I don’t mean that they don’t REALLY take care of themselves… perhaps a better way to put it would be that they have lost the ability to actually “care” for themselves.

Once in a while when this happens, the therapist makes the suggestion to go out and buy… or better yet… “adopt” a doll… a “baby”… a “smaller helpless self…” to take care of… and while doing it… learn to “take care of themselves…” learn to “love” themselves.  Somehow, some way… I have lost the ability, or just the habit… of really, truly loving myself.

So… searching I went.  I have been looking for quite a while.  Where could I find a “baby girl doll” to invest myself in… to see, and to hold, as if I am actually seeing and holding myself?  Obviously, just any old baby girl doll would not do.  And then… I stumbled upon…

… this beautiful precious baby girl.  It is incredible what you can find on the “Interweb” if you look long enough.

I am thinking of naming her Jennifer.  I have always liked the name Jennifer, and even have a very good friend I made about ten years ago… who is named Jennifer.

I know.  Right about now you are probably thinking that I need to be fitted for one of those “white jackets” with the arms that tie behind me, and be given a new place to say… one that’s about ten by ten… with padded walls.

But… I don’t know.  Is it really all that crazy of an idea ?  Or could it be just a “unique” way for me to visualize, or perhaps “actualize” an infant who can be both my own younger sister, and my own infant self.  Someone to take care of… someone to spoil.

So… how silly is it ?  Am I too old to have a baby ?  In some ways, most assuredly so, but perhaps in another, very unique way… maybe it isn’t so strange after all.  I already have the rocking chair.  Not quite sure about the breast-feeding part yet.  That may take a bit more “doing.”

What Do You Do… When Somebody “Gets Your Goat ?”

Serious question here.  When somebody “gets your goat…” what do you do ?  Do you go out and buy another goat, or do you just remain “goat’less ?”

I remember once… quite a while ago, when somebody really got my goat.  I was ticked.  And it wasn’t the first time they had “gotten my goat.”

So I thought… that’s not gonna happen again.  I am NOT gonna have you get MY goat… and then be “goat’less” again.  So, I went out and bought TWO goats… so I’d have a spare for the next time my “goat got gotten.”

Well… ya gotta know what happened.  We split up.  No more of any of that “gettin’ my goat” stuff.  But… since I now had TWO goats… just in case… I thought… “what the heck am I gonna do with this extra goat ?”

And then, wouldn’t ya know it… my two goats got “romantic” on me.  Yeah… they “did it.”  They had a kid.  So then I had THREE goats.  Well, technically, I had two goats… a mom goat and a dad goat… and one kid.  What a deal !

But… I guess it’s just all a part of living in this frustrating world… and having my goat get gotten… one too many times.  Arrrggghhh !

Here’s Lookin’ at You, Kid !

Ahh… Miss  Mollie T is at it again.  My wonderful guard cat… simply worn out from working the entire night… keeping all the elephants away from our cozy home.

I am not sure if she is just close to dozing off to sleep, here, or if she is all drowsy from barely starting her waking-up process.

There is, of course, another possibility.  Mollie T wants me to “think” she is sleeping, but she is actually “watching” me.  You see… just before she went off to kitty-cat dream land… she came over to me to have a little “kitty cat chat.”

It seems that I had done the unforgivable… or at least close to it.  Miss Mollie T, of course, lives the life of luxury.  Those of you who are “in the know” are aware that just as dogs have owners, cats… have “staff.”

I am Mollie’s “staff.”  So what did I do that was so “un-staff-like ?”  I allowed the bottom of her food dish… to become “visible.”  Ya see… it’s not enough to simply have food to eat.  Mollie’s food… must be of sufficient quantity that not even one little square centimeter of the bottom of the bowl is visible.

So… she is watching… ever so vigilant, and ever so sneaky about it… to see if I will eventually get my poor old body up… waddle over to the bag of kitty food under the sink… and transfer sufficient quantities of food back into her dish… to cover that itty, bitty square centimeter of the bottom of the bowl that is visible.

Oh… the life poor Miss Mollie T is forced to live.

Let There Be Peace On Earth

I don’t know why certain songs are played, sung or celebrated only at certain times during the year.  Often-times the prettiest of these are saved for the “holidays.” 

For me, that usually means Christmas, sometimes Thanksgiving, and maybe even New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day.  Why many of these songs are hidden in these particular time-spots can appear to be rather logical.  After all… many of them ARE “holiday” songs.

But there are others of these songs… these celebratory or plaintive songs… that can be, may be, or even should be sung all the year through.  

If only what is requested, hoped for, or even prayed for by the above song… Let There Be Peace On Earth… could be seen by more than myself… as something to be celebrated all year ’round… how truly wonderful that would be.