March 2003 Archives

Awww... I've just been called "jaw dropping gorgeous"!

Compliments, like water to a plant

WHY don't I feel like this every day?!

It's a little disappointing each time I check the blog and find no new comments. Please know that you make my day with your comments. You don't have to have anything to say-- heck, say, "I don't have anything to say"-- just say hello-- but find a way, every now and again if not often, to let me know you've been by. It puts a great big smile on my face and a little chunk of happiness in my heart.

- - -

Thank God for new days!

I awoke with life-giving sunlight warming my face. Oh, the indescribable beauty of sunlight! I awoke with my children nearby (the sweet, loving kids, not the angry screaming ones). I won't dare say "best of all," but know what an immense relief it is that I awoke to a pain-free head and nausea-free stomach. That in and of itself makes me feel like a new woman.

The children and I shared a round of hugs and kisses, I love yous, jokes and smiles. They made beautiful Easter pictures as a gift to me while I took a much needed shower. Ahhh.... Rejuvenation!

If the energy of pain powerful as this could be directed toward making wishes come true then I would cease to exist.

I lay on my back on the bare mattress, listening to the laughing dogs of the night outside and the buzzing from inside my head, feeling uncomfortably hot under the comforter that I finally managed to drag from the basement dryer, leaving the sheet there to keep company with the towels I wish I had folded and put away each time I take a shower. Don't have that problem today, though. I lay with my pounding head and aching eye, sensitive to light and sound and the realities of life, in the same clothes I changed into yesterday evening. I haven't yet washed off my makeup, yesterday's dirt, from my face, a nightly necessity. Thirty-six hours later, and what have I done?

I lay on my back and feel oh so sick to my stomach. Ugly catch-22. I'm sure I'd feel better if I had something to eat, but I don't feel well enough to fix anything, and so I feel sick because I haven't really eaten. I feel sick that my house is the dump that it is, more sick because Mom saw it this way. My unwashed dishes, undone laundry, untidy trash has been seen, making their reality too real for denial or excuses. Thirty-six hours later and I'm still saying I'm about to fix it all, and I feel sick, realizing the time is gone and I've given up.

The kids arrive and I must get up. I barely say hello and one says, sadly accusatory, "Mom, why are you so lazy and don't get us nothing--" I interrupt. "I don't feel good," I say sternly and measuredly. "--like Mom's are supposed to, even if they don't feel good!" she goes on. "You never feel good," says the other, quietly. I am silenced. My pain and nausea swell.

"Can we have the snack cakes Grandma bought us?!" they say with the energy and excitement that I lack. I reply that I guess they may, but only one. They help themselves. MB makes her own popcorn. I look at them and feel the pounding pain of my head, the sickening disgust of my churning stomach and mind, and my eyes fill with tears.

Let's just watch a move tonight, shall we?

Three cheers for good friends!

A million warm thanks to Chris and Paul...

"Hi, it's me. I'm at work. I was just calling to say that today is the busiest day ever, by FAR, and I'm busting my butt for nothing-- no one is leaving tips-- but I'm still so happy. I'm walking around with the biggest goofiest grin on my face because of you. Darn you! Couldn't just leave me in my misery, could ya! I wouldn't have thought it was possible but you turned me completely around. I just feel good. Anyway, didn't have much to say, 'cept I'm HAPPY, and I miss you very much and I love you. Hope to talk to you soon. Bye."

Me, in a chat today:

"I'd be the happiest girl on earth with good company, enough money to keep my utilities from being disconnected, good books, good movies, candles, and chocolate."

Really, the first alone, be it a loved one, would be more than enough.

Egad! I left out rain and/or thunderstorms, and good music. What was I thinking? Of course, if I keep extending the list, well, it keeps extending. We'll let it rest with the loved one, and hope for the others.

I lay on the floor looking at the now silent phone, feeling its fading warmth in my hands. I closed my eyes and bit my lip, took a deep breath and tried not to cry.

I didn't.

But I am going to bed now, because I don't know if I can contend with this further and not succumb. It's been a sniffly sort of night, remember?

You know what song, for mostly inexplicable reason, touches me as the most romantic? "You Won't Be Lonely Now," by (ugh) Billy Ray Cyrus. (NOT a Billy Ray Cyrus fan) iTunes is playing this now for me and it just speaks to me somehow. Ohhhh.

I'm so teary-eyed tonight. First it was talking to His girls (how I miss them!), then it was watching the American Idol contestants sing "Proud to be an American" (What have I come to, to be choked up by such a hokey thing?!) and now this song. WAY too emotional, if you ask me. Yucky me. (sigh)

Fairly good day at work today, and here are the top twelve reasons why:

What is with tonight?!

I swear I've never heard the three children scream so much, or so loudly, over such stupid stuff. It's grating on very raw nerves.

Ex and I had an ugly fight; stuff like that seems to get to me more than it does other people. It really gets to me. Suffice it to say I'm not feeling well in any form.

Where's the comfort on nights like these? Does it lie in simply knowing comfort is out there, somewhere, and does it matter not that there's none here?

"I know this--a man got to do what he got to do. I can't tell you. I can't tell you. I don't think they's luck or bad luck. On'y one thing in this worl' I'm sure of, an' that's I'm sure nobody got a right to mess with a fella's life. He got to do it all hisself. Help him, maybe, but not tell him what to do."

"Sure I got sins. Ever'body got sins. A sin is somepin you ain't sure about. Them people that's sure about ever'thing an' ain't got no sin--well, with that kind a son-of-a-bitch, if I was God I'd kick their ass right outa heaven! I couldn' stand 'em!" (-said by the preacher)

(John Steinbeck)

"But I don' feel good."

Ma advanced on her, mealy hands held out. "Git," Ma said.
"They's times when how you feel got to be kep' to yourself'"

"I'm a-goin' to vomit," Rosh of Sharon whined.

"Well, go an' vomit. 'Course you're gonna vomit. Ever'body does. Git it over an' then you clean up, an' you wash your legs an' put on them shoes of yourn." She turned back to her work. "an' braid your hair," she said.

"No life can escape being blown about by the winds of change and chance..."

--lyrics from a song in the movie The Prince of Egypt
Full lyrics below

Top Twelve Things That Happened Today
(I couldn't narrow it to ten.)

He forgave me.

My mom sent me a funny and clever email. A long lost friend sent me an email.

The kids played outside a lot. They made a new friend.

J. asked for an Oreo and I gave him one. A few minutes later I saw him staring at the cookies again. "You want another cookie?" I asked. In all seriousness he said, slowly and thoughtfully, "I'm thinking about it."

I opened the windows and had fresh air in the house.

I took a nap.

It rained. How I love rain!

I read more of my book (The Grapes of Wrath) and took a hot bath.

He called, just to let me know He was thinking of me and loves me, and I got to talk to the boys. They were so cool, and so very nice. That was great.

I made salmon cakes for dinner, and to my great surprise and pleasure, all of the kids tried them--and even more!--proclaimed them good and ate them! I hadn't even intended to attempt to get them to taste them. Salmon is good for you, and now there's more diversity in their diets and another dinner in the repertoire.

The kids and I watched two movies we hadn't seen in a long time. One, The Prince of Egypt, is one of my all time favorite movies.

A friend forgave me.

Gut-wrenching cries carried me into the morning.

How many times that night did I say no? How many times did I say, "I'm not going to do anything that might mess this up" or "I'm not willing to take even the slightest risk; He is way too important to me"? How many times did I tell him I thought he should leave? How often did I repeat that I wouldn't do anything to hurt Him and that the last thing I'd do is anything with one of His friends? I wouldn't, I said. I won't, I said. I believe that you're (probably) telling me the truth, that He won't care--I know you know Him far better than I do, and because He trusts and respects you so greatly your oaths and assurances carry a lot of weight with me--but I'm not taking any risks; I don't know for sure and I won't do anything of the sort until I do. No no no no no.

I can't. I won't. I can't. I won't. No.

How many times? As many as can be fitted in an hour's time.

But perhaps there's the problem--I let it continue for an hour before I firmly told him to leave. He seemed relatively benign, he needed a place to sleep, and because he is His best friend, I wanted to treat him as such, as He would want His best friend treated, which I didn't figure included telling his friend to leave. But still...

And what good are all of those words if I relented, even if only for a minute?

One moment relented discredits all the good intentions and brings the words to naught but empty puffs of air.

I'd forgive someone else of the same offense, but I cannot forgive myself. The whole world can say it's okay, but it is not okay

And that's why gut-wrenching cries carried me into that morning, too.

At the grocery store, MB asked me for a treat. As I mulled it over, knowing that it was a bit expensive, she said, "Mom, money won't make you happy you know!" She's right, and I bought it.

MB has been singing "Proud to Be an American" all night long. At home, she informed me that every day at school after they say the pledge of allegience they sing the national anthem, so she and I sang it together. That was something!

I've never had a car cost me so many tears.

In the less than three months I've had my car, I've literally been without it half the time. (It seems to prefer repair shops to my driveway.) Three-fourths of the time I have had my car it has been unusable or in the least, frighteningly unreliable. The last two times I wrote out a hefty check and drove my car from the repair shop it died on the way home. We're headed into round five of repairs today.

I'm not mad at myself for choosing this car; I know I did the very best I possibly could have. I do, however, harbor a fair amount of anger toward the b

"I feel guilty," he said, out of the blue.

"Because I drink more than you want me to," he stated.

Arriving home after school, MS promptly presented me with artwork of various sorts containing the following messages:

"Thank you for coming home from Texas today. I missed you!!"

What a sweet, sweet welcome.

The first time I went to Texas to see him I found out on the last day of my trip that I had come into an unexpected sum of money precisely equal to what I had paid for my plane ticket.

The second time I went to Texas to see him I found out on the last day of my trip that I had come into an unexpected sum of money precisely equal to what I had paid for my plane ticket, 'though the price of the ticket varied considerably from the previous one.

I believe this means something.

Happy happy happy happy happy happy happy!

(For those of you who know me well, I'm sure you'll find this a welcome change!)

Last night was too eerily and painfully similar to what I once determinedly promised myself that I would never sit through again. Extraordinarily painful, for me.

I am going to assume that just because there are strong similarities, and the feeling evoked in me was the same, that the two are entirely different and unrelated. I can't afford to let myself think this could be in any way similar to what I fled from over a year ago, and I cannot and will not break my promise to myself.

Each day here is better than the one before, and the first one was pretty darn good!

I'm very happy and I've learned a lot, and I hope these factors will make my "real life" a better place to be when I return to it.

It's been awhile since I've had someone challenge me the way he does. It makes me uncomfortable, mad, defensive, sad... but ultimately, done with consideration and springing from love, I am extremely grateful.

Before I left for Texas, where I am now, I meant to make this statement on the blog:

The next two weeks will teach me either to never ignore my head or to always listen to my heart.

It appears my heart was right on this one.

- - -

"To know a thing you have to trust what you know, and all that you know, and as far as you know in whatever direction your knowing drags you... damn this old world that won't hold still for us! Damn it anyway!" --Ken Kesey

I can see remnants of her-- the little pieces she left behind and the indentation where her presence once weighed. I run my finger along the edge of her story, the cicada shell of her life. I let my mind sail the shards of time to travel to that place, but it is a tale best heard by my heart, which takes in the the events, the emotions, and the essence of the persons within and conveys it to me in its entirity in one sweep of sadness.

J. told me "Boys are scaredy cats."

It's raining/sleeting/freezing rain/snowing, and it's falling noisily. The kids probably won't have school tomorrow, but how will I get to work? (My secret hope is that it will be so slick in the morning that I can't make it to work. I need the money, but I want the time with the kids more.)

MB has "strep throat" and scarlatina (scarlet fever), if I understand correctly. More missed school for her, and the school has already sent notice she's missed "too many" already (unspoken threat of social worker involvement).

Have you seen that Shirley Temple movie, I think perhaps entitled The Little Princess? The one where she's this deprived orphan of sorts, and one day wakes up to find her sparse, dungeon-like room redone in splendor and filled with beautiful things? I felt like that tonight. I entered my home as usual and began my after school routine, with one addition: jaw dropping. My living room was full of furniture!

I couldn't stop staring, and I can't stop smiling.

Birth weight of my children:

8lb. 9oz.
8lb. 11oz.
8lb. 9oz.

I'm going to Texas! I'm going to Texas!

The wisdom in this (somewhat scary) decision is debatable, depending on how you look at things, but dang it, I'm going to Texas and I'm happy.