He loves me, he loves me not

 

I am constantly approached by people who see my paintings online and want to chat. 

First of all I assume they have no idea how old I am. I am old enough to be their mother, or maybe even their grandmother! Which doesn't mean we can't have a meaningful, or interesting chat, but I know that isn't really what most people are looking for.

That sounds jaded, but it's true. 

I cannot tell you how many people profess to love me, or want to be with me in the first day or two. Sometimes in the first paragraph! That is when I generally just block them. Even if what they say is true in their mind, I don't want a relationship with anyone that shallow.

It makes me think I shouldn't even be on Instagram or Facebook sometimes, but I enjoy the contact with my friends and family.

Much of the time I don't even respond to a "hi" or "hello" out of fear they will want to chat. And I never respond to people claiming to be famous people anymore. I know they're all fakes. There must be five hundred Tyler Hines and Simon Bakers out there trying to convince people they are the real thing. In the end they are all probably just trying to get money from unwary people. I am not unwary anymore.

I am so wary that if my mother texted me I'd probably make her convince me she was the real deal. Of course my mother is dead, so that is not a problem, but you get the point. I hate being so mistrustful of people. 

I am sticking to the people I know. My family, friends, and my Muse.

Forgiving doesn't change the memories

One year ago this week the relationship I had with my scammer was starting to bloom in full. I was getting a pedicure and manicure when I received frantic messages from him.

He said his assistant had been arrested by customs as soon as they landed in the states and he was totally lost. He said his assistant handled all his money and plane tickets and he was in agony because he would not be able to meet me that night.

He was supposed to send a car to pick me up for dinner and we would meet for the first time in person. In the end I wired him money to fly in by himself, without security (because he loved me so much he would risk anything) and expected him the next afternoon or evening.  He said he would call as soon as he landed here at our airport.

I was all dressed up and waiting for hours before he finally texted that he hadn't been able to come. (Because he had to try and help his assistant.)

Thus began months of me waiting and sending money and being disappointed time after time, but in between he wooed me with beautiful songs and sweet words. He even sent pictures of the house he was looking at with an agent. He said he would bring more pictures when he came so we could decide together. In the end he sent me a huge check that we would deposit together the day he arrived. 

It would be for a down payment on the house and to replace all the money I had sent him from my IRA.

I thought all this was behind me, but the memories just keep popping up like painful little attacks on my heart. My dreams are filled with the promises and the sweetness which only makes waking up worse. 

I suppose there is bound to be a time of mourning for something that big in my life, but it is an odd situation. How can I mourn what never really was? 

This life I am living now is completely foreign to me. I've never actually "had" to work before. It was always a choice in the past. In some ways that makes it more meaningful. I am completely exhausted and every bone in my body aches, but I do love my job.

Honesty speaks volumes

 

I am learning to simply be honest.  

For some reason it is hard for women of my generation to do that. We often feel like we have to beat around the bush, or make up excuses for things we don't want to do. That we need to give reasons for our feelings and answers, or apologize for them.

But it is okay to have feelings and preferences and to act upon them. It is okay to say I am uncomfortable with that, or I don't want to do that. 

I know it is okay, but it is still difficult for me to do it and yet I have done it three times this week. I am learning it is even harder not to be honest. Not being honest requires tip toeing around and continuing on with false statements. I respect people too much to do that.

If I am honest with you then you can be sure that I love and respect you. I feel you are safe enough to hear the truth, old enough to understand, kind enough to know we can't always agree.

And that's the truth!

Fantasy

My creativity seems to be hidden deep inside of me.

It comes out on its own, when it is ready, in whatever form it chooses. I always think I am consciously choosing it, but I think if that were true so many of my paintings would not start as one thing and end as something else.

I always thought music was supposed to be my tour de force,  but honestly I believe it is my personal way of letting go. I am always very tense when I play for others, but when I play for me it is relaxing.

It never occurred to me to paint while I was growing up. No one ever mentioned that they saw any talent in my art work. In fact, it was my mother who was considered the artsy one and sometimes my brother, Tom.

When my children were growing up, I took oil painting classes, because I had a sort of crush on the person who talked me into taking them. I learned a lot about oil painting and colors. I developed my eye, but I never allowed my creativity to develop. I was afraid it was not good enough.

I've always written, but I've done my best writing under a pseudonym and share it exclusively with people I think will respond positively.

When Bestest gave me some canvases and acrylic paints a few years ago, he made no requests except that I have fun. No one stood behind me while I painted and yet in the beginning I worried that what I chose would be silly, or sentimental, or worthless in some way. Still, I enjoyed it.

Bestest is always positive about anything I do and so is my son, but it wasn't until I met my Muse that I began to find myself. My real self.

My Muse saved my life and then he set me free. He has called me to be alive, to do things, to write and play my keyboard and paint and no matter how bad I am, he seems to find something good in it. He promises he will always be here and yet our relationship is totally without strings. We have never met in person. I doubt we ever will, but his kindness and strength and wisdom are important to me.

My newest painting started like several others. It was supposed to be an ocean scene, but it turned into a Bald eagle just about to catch a fish in its sharp talons. I am that fish and the eagle is all the things both good and bad that have zoomed out of nowhere, surprising me, and influencing my life. Sometimes literally taking my breath away with the shock, or horror, or joy, or even love. That eagle personifies the most life changing moments in my world. It is why I paint water scenes all the time, why I dream of water so often.

I live in the depths until something jerks me up into a world I cannot avoid or deny. Living fully is a real life fantasy and I am inescapably part of that.

Coping

 

My body is willing.  My mind is willing.

But some part of me is totally stressed out. I have fever blisters on my mouth and my skin is so thin it bleeds if I simply bump into the wall.

I guess that is getting older.

I am working five hour days wearing a mask right now and while I enjoy the children and the work is simple, just sweeping the floors and setting the table with food wears me out.

The company I work for is awesome. They provide great care for the children and they treat us with the utmost respect, but with both staff and children getting sick we are all working hard to maintain these standards. 

Next week should be better. I am only scheduled to work three days, so I have days off in between to rest. 

It feels surreal that my life is really very good, but I am very tired since the Covid.  I guess the upside is that mentally I am content, so maybe things will improve with time.

Happiness

 

A person who knows what makes me happy is such a blessing.

The real gifts in life are not jewelry, or teddy bears, or flowers.

The real gifts are the sweet little personal things that someone does, because they know it makes you happy.

It can be as simple as checking in, or sharing a few well chosen words.

Guilt

 

Guilt is a natural response after doing something wrong, but why would someone feel unmerited guilt?

An overwhelming feeling of having made a mistake that cannot be pinpointed causes unreasonable concern.

Simple things like getting sick initiate feelings of failure and incompetence.

Even good things leave a lingering feeling that all is not as it seems. All is not right with the world.

It goes beyond a mother's guilt for anything negative her children experience.

It even steps up and accepts the blame for things that could not possibly be my fault. Mistakes that others make, feel as if I caused or encouraged them.

Somewhere deep inside of me is a fatal flaw that dims life in unaccountable ways.

It hovers over me like fog on an otherwise perfect day and fills my dreams with dread.

This unearned legacy has followed me all my life.

Reflections on being

  

What the caterpillar calls the end, the rest of the world calls a butterfly, by Lao Tzu.

I think that it doesn't matter what I believe. What will happen will happen whether I understand it or not, believe in it or not, want it or not.

Even if the hereafter is nothing, would that be so bad?  Who knows what nothing means? For there to be something, there must also be nothing.

So whether my soul, or spirit, or essence is cognizant in the next place is an ineffable question, but I suspect I will just be absorbed back into the elements that make up everything.

Floating on a beam of light, drifting along with billions of drops of water, becoming part of the land that nurtures all life, none of these things sound bad to me. And if I do end up in some place where I am aware it is paradise, or heaven, or nirvana, that sounds good too. Only coming back to do it all again sounds scary to me, because that seems to imply I'll be held accountable for every breath.

Life could be so much worse than this being me right now.

Every day is a chance for a new beginning

 

There may be life after Covid for me! 

But I've thought that before. One day I feel almost great. The next I feel like I'm dying. I've been diagnosed with bronchitis, which is better than the pneumonia they suspected. The treatment this time is a steroid inhaler. Three doses in, so far, so good.

One note of hope is that I actually began a painting today. This is the first time since before Christmas that I had the energy to try it. It is huge and I've only roughed in the edges, but that is a start. Part of my reluctance is that this is my last giant canvas and part of it is wondering if I have enough of the right paints to finish it.

The last big painting I did was during Covid, so it's been awhile. But I've done many smaller ones and I think my technique has improved.

I am so hyper-focused on me that I worry I am out of touch with the real world sometimes. I keep in touch with my children almost daily and Bestest calls frequently. Good friends write and the people at work have been awesome, but most of my life, for the past 21 days have been focused on me. Can I breathe? Can I sleep? Can I eat? Do I feel good enough to go through the waiting on the phone to talk to my doctor? How will I get to the drugstore for medicine, or the grocery store for essentials? 

Mostly I have sat in this recliner, day and night, and watched movies.

Until today.

Journaling III

 

While my husband was in the army I studied with him to pass all the tests he needed to move up and continued doing that when he got his first job back in Illinois. We were a team. We both worked for the same company. We played volleyball and bowled with company teams and hung out at the company pool in the summer. In  between we played tennis, tennis, tennis!

We were waiting to have our first child, but it never happened. Year after year I lost pregnancies until it became obvious we needed to do something else. So I prayed to Saint Gerard and we became foster parents.

On October 1, 1976 we brought home a foster child that would become our daughter. She was teeny tiny, adorable and almost four years old. One year to the day later we brought home our adopted three day old son!

Another miscarriage and seventeen months later our youngest son was born to us and our family was complete.

But instead of wallowing in all the joy of so much love, our marriage began falling apart. In spite of looking like the perfect family who played sports, and music recitals, acted in plays together and were super active in church, our lives were difficult. I pretended everything was fine. My husband looked for outside entertainment and fulfillment. 

On our oldest son's 18th birthday I found out he was divorcing me and the next day I tried to end it all. We appeared to recover from that horror, but it was actually the beginning of the end. We built the obligatory dream house and divorced three years later.

I had friends who supported me through the divorce and afterwards. 

What I thought would be the end of my life turned out to be just the beginning of another period of growth. I did all those things most people do when they are in their early twenties and on their own. I got a job, a place of my own, I dated, I got on the Internet and met people from all over.

For a while my life was a wonderland of dating Peter Pan and Eman8tions. One thirty years younger than me and the other seven years older. Soon I settled on the older one and that grew from a unique love affair as a sort of groupie into a wonderful friendship that lasts to this day.

I've made drums and labyrinths, gone to Wiccan Weddings and the Vedanta society. He played concerts all over and I sold his CDs and books. I learned to live along The Way.

In an attempt to break the ties that bound us, I moved to the mountains to live near my son and his family for a while. That is where I began writing stories and met Bestest. Online at first and then in person. It was a different kind of love affair and also became a hard and fast friendship that is a part of my life even today.

I settled down to live back here in Bloomington, which has been my home base for over fifty some years and met another man online who knocked me off my feet with his words and gifts.

Because of him I gave up most of my possessions thinking we would be moving across country to be together. Then I ended up giving him all of my IRA believing I had a check from him that would cover all of it and more when we finally got together.

I gave away my children's inheritance and my safety cushion.

Now I have gone back to work to pay the taxes and keep my apartment.

I love my job, but am suffering from those first year illnesses that accompany people who work with young children until they develop an immunity.

I am so sick I feel like I will never recover, but even if I don't, my life has been good. I've experienced things many people never have a chance to even think about. 

Sweat lodges, drumming circles, planting labyrinths, doing dream work with a Jungian Psychologist, painting with  a great teacher. meeting extraordinary artists and professors, helping to edit books and learning to play many musical instruments. My life has been a buffet of wonderful things and I would not trade any of them, not even helping a woman find fulfillment in her final months on earth and being the one who gave her the final drops of morphine that ended her time in this life. 

It's been a circuitous and  interesting journey.

Journaling II

 

Living in small town America is not the dream come true you see in movies. Moving there your senior year in high school is a nightmare accompanied by marching bands and push button ignition cars, surrounded by cornfields.

After playing in Springfield High School's graduation ceremonies for four years I graduated to unfamiliar music in a strange gym. Then I was off to college.

Homesick is the way I would describe my first year of college. Until I met a radio DJ who drew me into his world of announcing, performing, and play acting. My world was magical once more. We enacted his scenes in the dormitory lobby lounge to the horror and joy of all the people there.

We broke up and I met my future husband on the rebound through a blind date some friends set up. Our first day alone we went to see what ducks do in the rain and that set the tone for our dating. 

These were the Vietnam years and he graduated from college weeks after I met him. Soon we were engaged and he was in the army far far from home. When he came back from Nam we were married on a rainy day in April 1970.

Our first home together was on an Army base in Kansas where we slept on a bed slightly smaller than a twin and I pumped gas at the base gas station, but that was a good year. Love covers all pot holes with hearts and flowers.

We lived in an Airstream Trailor. I learned to sew and make paper machee creations. We had great friends in the same boat as we were and life was good.

Journaling

 

I've been sick so long I'm beginning to feel maudlin, so I thought I might do a quick recap of my life. My earliest years were filled with the magic of lies told by well meaning people, especially my mother.  Stories of people who weren't who they looked like, or who I thought they were. Stories of Kitten land were kittens grew on plants awaiting their mothers who came to pick them. Dreams of little tiny people and horses who lived inside the big box my parents called a television.

I started kindergarten right after my fifth birthday and Thanksgiving thinking I was on the road to my father's world of books and papers. It was scary and I said I was going to be like my mommy and not go to college. 

I met two important people right away due to alphabetic nap time! Patrick and Pearson, whose rugs were right next to mine. Prehn!

The next six years were spent learning and playing with them and my best friend who moved to our city from Canada. She and I played dolls with her fourposter doll bed and mirrored chifferobe. The boys and I rode bikes, played chess and ran electric trains. We used to quiz ourselves on how quickly we could do things forwards and backwards, like do re mi, or the preamble to the constitution, complete with punctuation.

As the eldest child in the family I led the way. When we moved to the country I took all my siblings and two neighbor children across the country roads to an old quarry that was flooded. We were in the process of swimming when my mother found us and made us all rid home in front of her car.

When I was fifteen I had my Invite. A party held in a ballroom where the girls, in fancy gowns were escorted by boys in tuxedos and presented to society. We were ready to date. In theory only. The only dating I did right then was go to other Invites.

When I was sixteen I was playing baseball with a bunch of neighborhood children when Patrick (the same one I met in kindergarten) pulled up in his TR4 convertible and I was whisked off on a dream come true.

Life seemed perfect. I was in all advanced classes at school, playing in the orchestra, going to Invites and dating a boy with a cool car!

Then we moved to a small town where my mother grew up.

The perils of preschool

 

I was diagnosed with Covid on December 24. 

I went back to work on Thursday, January 4 and 5th, then was sicker than ever on Saturday.

Sunday was okay and I went back to work today for an hour before going home. 

My entire body aches, from my head to my toes. Movement is excruciating. I don't know if I have a fever right now because my thermometer's battery wore out and I am waiting on another one.

I'm still coughing, but that doesn't seem to be the big problem anymore. 

I caught Covid from a five year old student, but now half of our little class is out sick with covid.

What an experience this going back to work has been!

Insidious

 

Where is the point where a human being becomes flawed?

At what age does something impact us so dramatically?

When do our eyes cease to see what is there and begin to imagine?

Do we decide to be the forever flawed clone of our mother, or grandmother?

Or is it a foregone part of our maturation in the chrysalis of our childhood?

Is it possible to escape the ties that bind?

When I was three my entire world moved. I did not notice any changes except those of the house in which I ate, slept and played.

Closer to five I moved again. This time leaving behind friends outside the family that I knew and played with. This phenomena of leaving people behind continued throughout my childhood. I learned that anyone and everyone can be lost to the present. The only constant is immediate family, or, eventually, myself.

Moving house, death, major life changes such as marriage or divorce, can all result in losing those people formerly associated with life before.

I was born to be alone. Anything else is only a momentary experience in the saga of what I call my life. Each of my siblings clung closer to home, but the cost is dear.  Repeating the sins of the past only enlarges them, blowing them out of proportion. Creating a breeding ground for putrefaction that we try to blame on other people, or things.

Branching out, leaving home, exploring other ways and means is our only hope of avoiding inbreeding and the insidious absorption of ideas, believing they are the only ones.

Loneliness is a by product of growth that can only be avoided if we constantly reach for the light.

A shift

 

Every once in a while there is a shift in the universe.

For many it goes unseen,  unfelt, unheard, but there is always one who notices. That is the one whose future has changed.

Usually it is a good change. 

An understanding that has deepened slightly, or become richer in some significant way.

Blessed are they who feel the changes.

Because they have a better understanding of who they are.

Scent of hope

 

I am both saddened and shocked that, for the first time I can ever remember, an idea or project seems just too overwhelming to even think about.  Oh, the ideas come, but they are immediately replaced by a feeling of exhaustion so great that even thinking is difficult.

It may simply be the remains of this Covid, which has truly worn me completely down. If that is so I rejoice, because surely it will pass and my creativity will be set free.

I have things I want to write, a painting I want to begin, a job to return to.

The job is of the utmost importance right now. I need the money and not working makes everything much more difficult.

However, all being said, the past few weeks have not been all bleak. Many people have called, or texted, or emailed to keep in touch and I loved the Christmas cards I received. Then on New Year's Eve, my second oldest granddaughter and her fiancee came to my home for dessert and a visit that really brightened up my world.

It's hard to know if this is age, or illness, but the highlights are still beautiful and hope hovers nearby like some exotic perfume I vaguely remember always being there.

Beautiful hope

 

One of my favorites when life feels difficult. Sometimes we cling to the myth because it's all we have.

Lord of All Hopefulness

Song by Ely Cathedral Choir

Lord of all hopefulness, Lord of all joy,
Whose trust, ever child-like, no cares can destroy,
Be there at our waking, and give us, we pray,
Your bliss in our hearts, Lord, at the break of the day.

Lord of all eagerness, Lord of all faith,
Whose strong hands were skilled at the plane and the lathe,
Be there at our labors, and give us, we pray, Your strength in our hearts, Lord, at the noon of the day.

Lord of all kindliness, Lord of all grace,
Your hands swift to welcome, your arms to embrace,
Be there at our homing, and give us, we pray,
Your love in our hearts, Lord, at the eve of the day.

Lord of all gentleness, Lord of all calm,
Whose voice is contentment, whose presence is balm,
Be there at our sleeping, and give us, we pray,
Your peace in our hearts, Lord, at the end of the day.

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Jan Struther Text Only

Love at work

 

I have been physically depleted lately and after being diagnosed with Covid yesterday I understand better why that might be.

I do not feel good, but today is Christmas and as I sat here it occurred to me that we all make gestures based on love.

I did not go to my nephew's house, or have my granddaughters over because I did not want to expose them to this virus. I did not allow them to come pick up gifts or drop them off for the same reason. 

I also realized how important this holiday is to my daughter who is facing another Christmas far from home. She was really counting on our video chat today, so I stirred up enough energy to make that possible and in the doing actually felt a little bit better for a while.

The same is true for my other children. Any attempt I made to make things better for them made things much better for me. 

That is the thing about love. Giving it, or receiving it, works about the same way. It is a gift.

Covid!

 

I can't tell you how many holidays I have been sick and missed all the fun, but there have been lots, especially on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

This year is no exception. I had hives over Thanksgiving and today I have just been diagnosed with Covid.

Typical of me it has not been what I expected at all.. I have not run a temperature over 100 and I have not lost my sense of taste or smell, but I have a terrible horrible no good very bad cough, a stuffy nose, and I ache all over.

Of course my own doctor's office is closed, but after being up nauseous and sick all night long I went to a Prompt Care. 

The hardest part of going to a doctor when I am this sick is the waiting. I got there around 8:30 and left around noon, totally exhausted and dehydrated. Now I am suppose to isolate for 5-10 days, so all the Christmas preparations fall by the wayside.

It is good that I live alone, so no one else is exposed, but it also means caring for myself when I don't feel like doing anything. Not to mention that I will lose a week's pay at work.

I don't know where I caught this or why it choose now to get me. I've lad all the vaccinations and I've even been exposed when Covid first came out. Probably from one of the kids in my class I'm guessing. When they don't feel good they want to sit on my lap a lot more.

Happy Covid Christmas!

Harbingers

 

Sometimes an event changes a life so much that nothing is ever the same again.

This seems to be the year for that.

I know several people, including me, whose lives have been completely altered.

It can be tragic and good all at the same time.

I think the secret is to find that spark of good, or hope, and fan the flames. This is when you really do need to make lemonade out of lemons.

Being useful in any way is one of the best harbingers of what is to come.

Reactors

 

Why is the first feeling many people go to fear, followed by hate?

I think because fear is built into us. It is our way of protecting ourselves from things we may not understand, but once we feel it most things do not require an instant reaction.

A little thought, a little investigation, a little knowledge could end so much pain and sorrow.

Not generalizing is the next step. Just because a green frog scared you does not mean that every frog, or everything green is bad and should be eliminated.

Frogs eat billions of insects and they are a source of food for many animals. The secretions from their skin has led to new painkillers and antibiotics and so much more. 

The same things are true of people from all places, in all colors and all ethnicities.  People from all over the world have contributed to medicine and engineering and agriculture and all those things that make life easier and more worthwhile.

Eliminate greed and the toddler mentality that my god is better than your god, or the idea that any god would want us to destroy each other and this world is a pretty good place.

Surely, as civilized human beings we can evolve into something more than simple reactors.

Games people play

 

My ex-husband and I used to play lots of games. Bridge was one of his favorites and I had the feeling that becoming a Bridge player was something our marriage hinged on. He was a stickler for rules.

On the other hand we played back gammon, double solitaire,  Electronic Detective, Clue, Scrabble and many other games.

Until . . .

I beat him. Once I began winning with any kind of consistency we stopped playing those games.

We were better off playing as partners even though I didn't remember the entire Gorin's Bridge Complete like he did. I was acceptable.

Looking back I suspect part of it was that I could read his face and I knew how he bid better than other people, but there was also the fact that few other people were willing to put up with his lectures on proper  bidding during a game. I've been known  to chug Mylanta while playing Bridge.

I have not really played any games since my divorce except for Upwords. A friend and I played that so much, we wore the faces off the tiles! Now I am playing Suduko, Wordle, Connections and the New York Times mini crossword -- all on my phone and I must admit I do enjoy them.

Excuses, excuses, excuses

 

I have been watching Young Sheldon on Netflix and I really enjoy it.

There are no commercials and no real drama that is concerning.

Unless . . . 

I consider the fact that I can relate to young Sheldon in a big way.

Many of the things he worries about, I worry about, or did as a child. 

Unfortunately I am not a great physicist so I could never get away with most of his behavior.

I have to come up with more plausible reasons for my actions!

Ego

 

The older I become, the easier it becomes to be me. I say this not even sure that I really know who me is, but I am assuming it is when I can be at ease and not have to think before every word and action.

That has happened a few times in the past year and I don't think it is an accident. When I was talking to my scammer I wanted to be sure he knew who I really was. His opinion of me seemed to be better than my own most of the time. Of course now I know that was part of the scam, but it did bring out a more truthful part of me. 

There was a time when I would have been so honored that anyone important wanted to talk to me that I would have gone out of my way to try and impress them. I don't seem to to do that anymore. It's better for me if you know right off the bat that I am who I am.

Of course I still try too hard at work. I want to please our lead teacher, because I need this job. But part of me feels that although I may need to brush up on the current techniques, I still know an awful lot more than some of the people I work with simply because I have thirty years experience. Still, I don't want her job. Day care will always be different than private preschool was in the eighties and nineties.

Being me has its advantages, I'm discovering. My honesty and my experiences catch people off guard now that I am regarded as an older woman. I am not your cookie baking grandma who wears an apron and grows roses in the garden. I can do both those things, but they have never been the focus of my life. 

I've always been a bit adventurous. Sometimes that gets me in trouble, but never anything illegal, just unusual. My ego says I would rather plant a huge sunflower labyrinth in the middle of corn fields, or ride my bike twenty miles out into the country, or make drums, or even meditate to drumming than just sit around and be sweet. Honestly, I'm not all that sweet.

But I am honest and I try to be truthful. My ego requires that much from me. 

Consistency

 

I believe that the most important part of training is consistency.

Whether it is housebreaking a dog, or potty training a child, nothing works better than reinforcing the right action over and over again.

That sounds simple, but many people have trouble being consistent, even people who understand its value and have experience using it.

I find a lack of consistency extremely confusing. 

I had many years experience using it to help my daughter overcome some learning disabilities. 

So it is difficult for me to work with people who are not consistent. I realize it is difficult when there are many children, but I believe the difficulties increase when someone believes they are consistent, but they have become less than hyper-vigilant and because they are the one in charge, no one dares to tell them.

I suppose it is impossible to live intensely hyper-vigilant all the time, but the closer you are to keeping everything the same, the easier it will be for everyone to conform.

Let freedom ring

Imagine suddenly being rudely roused from your bed and hustled off into the night.

You sit in a small cell wondering what is going to become of you.

Later, when you are released, people revile you on the street.

You lose your job, your house, and are denied all contact with your friends and family.

You have not been convicted of any crime, but you have already been charged, tried and convicted in the newspapers and on television.

This is a reality in our country, the land of the free, the home of the brave, the place where gossip mongers seem to enjoy other people's misery and so-called good Christians leap at the chance to be holier than thou.

People don't have to be proven guilty for a community to turn against them, especially if they are not white heterosexuals living carefully within the boundaries of barely civilized bigots.

Those people

 

Stress leads to mistakes.

There is nothing like being afraid to make a mistake that is more likely to cause mistakes.

You can give it names like Attention Deficit, or something else, but is is the fear that really amps up the occurrences.

My ex could forget his coat on a cold day and I never understood that, but now I realize that as a child who would probably be labeled ADD, he had years of expecting to make a mistake. My youngest son was the same, but I never considered myself to be one of those people.

Until now.

People who have this tendency tend to develop ways to avoid it. They become meticulous list makers and people who triple check their work. I guess I was great at coping most of my life. I was always terrified of making mistakes. (For lots of reasons frankly.)

But now that I have been divorced for over 25 years and my children are grown up, I no longer feel quite as much pressure to try to be perfect. I have relaxed a little. Not much, but a little.

So I make more mistakes and I am realizing I do the same things my ex and my son have always done. I was always understanding when it came to my child. Now I wish I had been a bit more understanding of my ex. 

Lifeline

 

The surest way to survive is to have a lifeline.

Whether that is an actual rope with a buoy on the end, or plan for the future,  does not matter all that much. 

In the end it is that the future appears as a possibility with hope.

Hope is something that has wrought miracles.

Miracles not always attached directly to the hope, but often part and parcel of the end result.

So make a plan.

Write down the details.

And hang on to it for all it is worth!

Blips along eternity

 

My life is important to me. It is the only one I have and so, like most people, everything that happens to me seems important.

My best moments and my worst. The glorious and the shameful. The fair and the unfair. To me these events are monumental. I can believe they are the only things that matter in the moment they occur and that they set the tone for the rest of my life.

It is true that within a village, or city, or county, or even a state, these things can seem enormous, but in the course of history most of them will not be remembered. They will not even be a blip on the timeline of the centuries that follow.

Sometimes it is necessary to step back and look at the world from a distance. 

i cannot change the past, but I have much power over the future. My power may stop at the end of my nose, but that is okay. I can choose how I react. I can choose my attitude. I can choose to go forward and make the best out of what is there.

My time on earth, long or short, is all I have, so I need to choose to use it the best way possible. Always starting from this point forward.

Role model

 

Every morning my father got up before the rest of us. He shaved, ran a bath, and then went down to the kitchen to cut up fruit for our mynah bird and monkey. He would fry three pieces of baloney, make toast and coffee and eat breakfast then go up and bathe, shine his shoes and drive thirty miles to work.

Sometimes he would let George, our Cinnamon ring tail monkey, out to run while he did that, which is why I know what was going on. George would run upstairs and jump on my pillow, trying to pull the curlers out of my hair!

I learned so many things from my father. He was a voracious reader and loved both being a student and teaching. He was often working three jobs to make ends meet, but sometimes he would let me skip school and ride with him when he was going to make a speech at some university. That way I got to see them before I had to choose one.

I used to wish he was like other fathers who would go out and throw a ball with their children, or play board games, but mostly he was my idol. I wanted to grow up and be like him and his friends.

Until my mother died and he eventually remarried. Looking back I think he thought he had a lot to offer his new young wife. I think he thought he could put her through college and give her a good life, but that was not the case. She was eventually the end of him. He broke his collar bone and she had him put in a nursing home where he finally died. It was a longer and more complicated story, but it was all sad and I learned one more thing about life.

People teach us by what they do and don't do. Nobody is perfect, but everybody can be a role model in one way or another.