I want to eat what I like
I want a drink when my long day is through
I don’t want to gain any weight
I want to look just the same as I do

I want to play in my garden
I want to watch “too much” tv
I want to fool with my computer
I never want to run out of money

I don’t want my parents to die

But I want to be brave if I must

I try not to obsess about so many things

But try as I might, it’s a bust.

So these are my hopes and my dreams

And I don’t think my list is that awful

My dreams run me crazy but I don’t really mind

’cause at least what I love is still LAWFUL!

Alexa

Don’t you hate it when your child is sick? They whine and complain, they ‘hurt’ but cannot explain exactly where or how, they cry, wanting more ‘mom’ time but refuse to do as you plead with them to do. They cannot understand the meds they dislike. They don’t want to be ordered about. They are not quite honest about what is at stake and how they really are dealing with the day-to-day.

You want to scream. You want to run away. You want them to grow up or let you parent. Either side would work better than what you have in the here and now.

I just visited such a household. It was difficult. Who raised this jerk? I’m sorry. I know he cannot help it. I know his mom is almost ashamed, as is the sister who had to take on the task of raising this child. However, if he will not admit something is wrong when the TV show comes on, he should not be allowed to suddenly be at death’s door when it’s time to help with the dishes or the laundry. You cannot have it both ways. Neither can a sick kid, but that’s just my opinion.

What I know is I spent a horribly frustrating time with family, some overindulgent and some just plain angry and frustrated with the attention needed by one member being under the weather. What is the solution?

The obvious one is that you wait until the illness is past. That always helps. Everyone can relax. But, what if your child is brain-injured? That child will never really ‘recover’ from this illness. Those parents don’t get the opportunity to ‘wait it out’. They live this 24×7, and have no outlet unless they are fortunate enough to have a huge support group. A huge support group. Huge.

I am seeing commercials about health care. Morgan Freeman is a spokesperson for ‘something’. I get the message. We need to help each other more often than we do. I understand that volunteers are needed. I know we should be doing more for our own. What I do not have the answer to is: how?

How does the normal family get the much-needed help when someone in their household is not going to improve but takes a majority of your time and energy? We are all so busy now. We have so many needs to fulfill.

I came home a crying fool. Afraid I had not done enough for my family unit. Sleep-deprived, angry, upset, scared. What I left behind is the mom who still has to deal with this while I fly away. I did laundry, cooked meals, cleaned the house, made beds, pushed meds on a kid who refused to take them, ran errands, and did medical appointments so that she could finally get a break. It completely wore me out. I am spent. Finally, home, I have no energy left. I have a full week ahead of me and don’t know how I’ll manage it. Tomorrow she starts with more doctor appointments, meal prep, housework, and laundry. Taking the medicine we need is not easy. He needs medicine. She needs rest, medicine, and they both refuse it because they are not capable. He needs to be fed and clothed, not simple. He wants things his way; she wants him to wear his underwear UNDER his clothes, not on top. She wants him to eat and is exhausted with the work that entails. He will not drink his juice, wants specific foods and because he is not well, she wants to provide but is close to illness herself as a result.

When I left, we all cried. I promised to come back soon. I always make that fruitless promise. I cannot afford to keep flying there but these people are so important to me. My family is so scattered. Travel is expensive and of course. I have to pay someone to care for my pet, my home, my routine, in my absence. Money. Medical. Misery. What in the world is happening in our lives? Who should be taking care of this, of us, of lives in illness when something has prevented us from having family members to do it? Moreover, with those family members, where do you draw the line? They cannot do everything. We cannot expect anyone to do anything. What is the solution?

Forgive my soapbox here, but why is our country continually working on a new health care program instead of making the program that our elected officials have, the national norm? Shouldn’t everyone have the same option at the same price? It certainly makes sense to me.

So, my stepmother will continue. I know she is exhausted. And the recalcitrant sick boy is my father. How does something like this happen? Until we find solutions for our family members whose mind has eroded, we are all sick.

This season mostly cars and coyotes have hit the deer hard. as more and more housing is pushed onto former farmland, too many cars are on the road where once a slow country road existed.

I have always enjoyed watching the wildlife in my yard. It’s such a treat to be able to observe so many things and learn from nature.

a few weeks ago a neighbor called me. as we chatted she said, “I’ve seen too many dead bambi’s this year, hit by cars down our hill.” I concurred and we wondered aloud how the mother deer cope when this happens. oddly, you don’t really put our emotions into wildlife. they are animals. they are wild. they don’t talk to us about feelings so I guess we often decide they don’t have feelings, other than physical pain.

this season we had 2 moms with new babies. a young doe who had one bambi and another doe, a year older, who had twins. I’ve written about watching the babies all play and challenge each other in my yard, mom’s letting them get the lessons they will need, but close enough to protect if necessary.

one day, all of us noticed another young bambi, lying beside the road, hit by a car. you can’t help but feel sad. the deer were always here. the builders have put up fences, forcing the deer onto a curved road, on a hill. a recipe for disaster and disaster is met repeatedly.

we wondered to whom the bambi belonged. I learned very quickly that our doe that only had the one baby this year was now alone. that was difficult. what I watched unfold made it worse. the doe who had the twins would not allow this young mother to be around now. whereas they used to all be in the yard together, now the mom with the twins would run the other doe away. I felt so bad for that mom who had just lost her bambi.

putting my emotions into a wild animal. I know better. I admit freely that I have no clue if the mom even remembers her baby was killed. I have no clue.

watching this kept haunting me. finally, I realized I was remembering a mean neighbor from my childhood. she was just plain unpleasant. I told my mom about her and my mom just told me to ignore the woman but to stay out of her yard so she wouldn’t have any reason to complain. all of the kids in the neighborhood knew she was a meanie. we talked about her as we passed her house, some of the boys were taunting, showing they were brave.

we heard that she was pregnant. Well, that seemed weird. she hated kids; why would she want to  be a mother? this turn of events completely stymied our innocence. a few months later I overheard my mom talking to another neighbor. they were planning to take some food over to this ladies’ house. that night my mom explained that the woman had miscarried. I really didn’t comprehend that, I was in 5th grade. my mom explained that the neighbor wasn’t pregnant anymore and that actually her baby had died. then she told me more: this was the 4th time this same lady had lost a baby. my mom told me that several of our neighbors kept their distance from this woman over the years and that bothered my mother. she explained that sometimes when someone in your life has severe heartache, people pull away. almost as if you can ‘catch’ that heartache if you get too close.

everyone felt sorry for her but I was still angry over the way she had treated me and my friends for over a year. why would she want kids if she was mean to all of them?

my mom became a friend to this neighbor. she told me later to always try to look inside people more, to understand why they act the way that they do. she told me that I would probably find a really good reason and it was probably something to do with personal pain.

the neighborhood rallied to this neighbors side. they took turns bringing food because she was still in bed. it turned out that she would not have the opportunity ever again to have a baby. everyone felt sad about her pain. everyone did things to try to comfort her and her husband. when she finally began to venture out, the neighborhood went out of their way to encourage her. through such severe pain she gained friendships and support she had missed before. my mom said people were feeling guilty, trying to make up for their attitudes toward this lady for so many years. sometimes pain brings people closer, even though that pain is what pushed them away in the first place.

I thought about her over the years, wondering how her life turned out. again, I was a kid, still learning that not everyone has a baby just because they plan.

yesterday I saw the doe. as I watched, I saw one bambi. I went onto my deck, looking for the other. they can hide so easily. then I saw another deer. I still saw no bambi. just the one, missing the twin. that was when I realized that we had lost another bambi. I’d been hearing lots of coyotes the last couple of nights. this disturbed me so much that I stayed on my deck for about 15 mins but the twin never showed.

today I saw the doe again, with the lone bambi. I saw the other doe too. I watched because she had not been allowed in the yard since she lost her baby. now I had 3 deer, one a baby and 2 adults. as I watched, both of the mothers began to walk toward the bambi. I knew someone was in for it. then, together, the two older deer began to wash and groom the little ‘left-over’ bambi. both of them. I was astonished. somehow there was no longer animosity between these two mothers. I continued to watch, mesmerized. then, the bambi began to lick the mom, then the ‘other mom’. it was beautiful. the three survivors. I no longer knew which mom was which.

maybe the mom who had the twins had been threatened by the mom whose baby was lost. I don’t have any way of  knowing. you can’t put human emotions onto wildlife. I just know that today, the two moms who had lost a child each were able to co-exist again.  I guess it was their way of bringing food over to the house, offering comfort and support.

sometimes it takes true pain to give birth to friendship. sometimes you feel it’s ok to allow someone in if they have suffered in a way you can understand. of course, you can’t give human feelings to wildlife.

I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about things we treasure and things we need to keep and want to buy.

my husband spied a small milk jug one day in a bargain store. it was just a quart milk pitcher, worn and scuffed from years of use, glass, with a handle. it was just a small pitcher. he had to have it. he said it would be to keep our milk in, in the fridge. women all over the world know why that open pitcher to keep milk in is not a great idea. additionally, the only time he used milk was if he had cereal in the mornings. I was the one who drank milk. we got the pitcher. once I had washed it, he dutifully poured our milk out of the milk carton and into the old glass pitcher. there! the trace of a smile went across his mouth. all was well in his world. mine was less well.

I once picked up a ‘hostess set’ that was 8 glasses in a heavy chrome basket. the glasses all matched. the chrome basket was ageless to me. I had to own it and the price was great. I use it for water glasses and iced tea glasses when my guests come for dinner.

a good friend of mine has a ’sprinkler bottle’ to sprinkle her clothes before she irons them. most of us remember those. our mom’s and our grandmother’s all used them. once in a while you’ll find that little bottle top, cork intact, with holes all over the opening. we know immediately what it is for but our kids don’t understand.

the odd thing to me is that we are picking up nostalgia. not JUST nostalgia, but nostalgia from our childhood, and usually from our mothers.

his memory of the milk pitcher was the one always in the fridge when he came home from school. my memory was of my mother hosting her bridge parties, white gloves, nice card table, coffee service nearby and the glasses with ice, for lemonade or iced tea, in their carrier.

my friend remembers her mother ironing and teaching her to iron her fathers’ hankies. her parents both passed away too young and I can understand her holding onto things like this.

interestingly, after the first use of the milk pitcher, it was relegated to the shelf, by my husband. I use the hostess glasses and carrier sometimes but not as often. my girlfriend never irons. not anything.

none wants to let go of those silly items. it would almost be letting go of our parents or our childhood again. my mom has passed. I want anything to remind me of her presence. my husbands’ mother is still with us but he doesn’t want the pitcher discarded, he just doesn’t want to use it after all. when he began packing, I offered it to him. it still sits on the shelf. my girlfriend has the stopper to the water bottle in her china cabinet, with her other treasures. close but not in use.

until very recently I had a pair of my mothers and my step dad’s tennis shoes. they used to come visit me at least once a year and we all three loved to garden. instead of carrying the shoes back and forth, dirty with soil and mud, they each left a pair. I was unable to let my mother’s sneakers go, after she passed. I needed that reminder. I needed to see them and realize she might be attached to them in some way, therefore to me.

watching a show on tv one day I heard someone remind me of what we all know: they are not in ‘the things’. they are all in our hearts. they live within us. we dont’ need the sneakers, the pitchers, the sprinkler tops. we just need our open loving hearts. I think we all have that, don’t you? that doesn’t mean that anyone should rush another to discard something precious in their own minds. we’ll manage that in our own way eventually. but my mothers tennis shoes and her husbands both went to a soup kitchen not long ago. they both volunteered all of their lives and so have I. when I walked in with them, a man and woman immediately asked if they were for someone special. of course they were. a man and a woman who needed better shoes. worn, but still able to serve as footware.

I know my parents smiled. I smiled. the man and woman smiled. we all felt just a little better. and, just as I had expected, it didn’t make me lose my mom or dad all over again. it made them go even further in my lifetime.

I’m not sure how much longer I’ll keep my hostess set. I do recognize that I’m keeping it because it makes me smile. the shoes somehow made me sad. now absent, they make me feel good.

I found myself looking at some old cookie cutters recently at a thrift store.  my mom had them all. we baked cookies together. my stepdaughter and I did likewise a few times. now, I make cookies occasionally but oh those cookie cutters were calling me. as I stood there, handling the few that I have somehow lost, knowing I could again have all of the ones my mom used to have I glanced out the store window. there was a family standing across the alley at a restaurant back door, near the dumpster. a man, woman and 2 children. the man and the little girl wore shoes I could easily recognize. I smiled again, tears popped into my eyes as I put the cookie cutters down. walking to my car I swelled with the love of my family and again felt that smile.

the next day I made cookies. I made every shape possible. I spent hours baking. then, I took 5 dozen cookies to the soup kitchen, with 4 more pairs of sneakers I had stopped wearing years earlier and ’saved’. everything made sense. the cookie cutters didn’t know they were missing some of their counterparts. I didn’t notice that I was missing old sneakers. I just noticed the warm feeling I had inside, all the way down to my toes when I sat down, drinking milk out of my hostess glass and eating leftover cookies.

sometimes all you really need is love.

I have repeated the platitudes most of my adult life. “Change is good.” one of my favorites for the last 10 or 12 years has been about downsizing when you downsize you end up with the very best. Boy, I have given advice. Now, I am living those scenarios.

I find myself needing to get rid of things. we call it downsizing. I need to sell things. We call that ‘freedom from clutter’. I think of my aunt. she has way too much ’stuff’ and cannot bear to let any of it go in case she needs it later. I completely understand since my apple didn’t fall too far from her tree. but now, it’s my turn.

I will be moving within a year. I need to see different places and things and meet new people. this home I have loved and hoped to live in for many years is now a painful reminder of a marriage ending. time to move. selling isn’t easy; neither my home nor my belongings. I have become addicted to all of it.

as I plan a sale for my collectibles, I have cried and cursed. this isn’t fair. this shouldn’t be happening. why am I selling things when he doesn’t? my list is endless of what he is not doing correctly. doesn’t matter. I still need to sell. I need money. I need to pare down. I need to stop holding onto so many things. I need to lighten my load.

planning this huge sale has been so tiring. It has also proved to be not only emotional but I find myself unable to continue. I have stopped so many times, thinking I just cannot manage to do more. Finally, I began to assess, maybe this is a bad idea. Maybe I am stopped because I shouldn’t start. maybe, maybe, maybe.

I actually (mentally) called the sale off. I had already distributed flyers and started online ads. that meant re-tracing steps to retrieve flyers. yuk. but, as I looked at my treasures, I just could not imagine. and my husband plans to rid himself of nothing, other than me. hmmm…

Friday I stopped cold. no sale. I’ll pull everything back. this is the decision. I cannot let go of more than my marriage. just too much. I’m stopping this.

that was a godsend to me. I took Friday to re-assess. as I looked around the room, at prices on my treasures, I began to think of my future. I won’t have much space. I can’t afford to move as much as I’ve always moved in the past. I DO need to be rid of things, but which things? so I looked with a more critical eye.

I’m 61. I have no income. I will relocate to another state, find  a place to live and go through all the machinations by myself. as I looked at so many things I have held for 20-30 and even 40 years I finally got it. I don’t NEED any of this anymore. I will never want to unpack all of this again. not only will it save me money but it will save me grief and heartache. I need to let go of so many things. this is just the beginning. I can do this. Moreover, I can be proud of myself for not needing so much stuff anymore. yes, I will keep a few treasures. not many tho. I will sell what I’m able and then sell again. I will move into a much smaller place and be happy for having less to unpack. not that most people would be able to tell the difference. I’ll still have way too much stuff. but, a year from this Christmas, when I begin putting things out for my holiday, in my new home, I imagine I will not think too badly about what isn’t there. I’ll be grateful for what I have.

Change.

I was many things, many times; mostly unpaid.
Paid experiences would be 20 years as a flight attendant for Eastern Airlines, Inc., then a sales position, then creating my own business in Colorado. I left Colorado to follow my new  husband to Salem, Or.  Now residing in Washington, my husband is having an affair, I fear the loss of my home, and am recovering from a serious injury.

But. you have to keep moving.  As I believe Richard Pryor said one evening, “I’m afraid if I stop, I’ll die”.  I’m sharing thoughts and telling a bit about myself here.

Welcome to the fray!

I rarely use caps.

I try to maintain my sense of humor.

I look for the bright side of things.

I’m going through some real crap but who isn’t? I get through it all with my laughter. I have more of that than money. I hope you can enjoy some of the things that make me laugh. it’s fun to laugh. it’s important. it’s the only thing I can really control. and when I can’t;  it’s even better!

thanks for dropping by.