Fear Itself

“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror, which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”  FDR

Fear by definition is a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined.  What do I have to be fearful of?  Nothing it seems on the front cover, but open those pages and the story IS there.  No, no..  I don’t mean my writing.  I mean the fear of a past life and machine that comes back to rear it’s ugly head and look you straight in the eye with a resounding HA!!   

Just as with any movie, story or play that unfolds into the never ending adventure of what happened and what may happen, there are ups and downs.  Highs that are so high and lows that are so low, you thought they would never come back.  But those freakin’ lows always do. Fear is the ultimate key when those lows come back and even if you try hard to remember the good life you are creating, you don’t want to consider for a second that the past still directly affects the present.  My hope has always been that it will never affect the future; maybe somehow it will go away?  No, it only diminishes depending on how you handle it. 

I have been doing a lot of work on myself in the last couple of years and with a well timed epiphany last year and the love of my Sweet, I have been able to let quite a bit go.  It’s hard because I have recently found that my memories differ from others in my life and I have only now found the strength to talk out what I normally would have just been quiet about and just suffer in silence.  I am afraid of so many things in my life right now, but I also feel my strength returning.  It feels good, but doubt still lingers and the familiar fear is still lying under a thin crisp sheath, just below my heart. 

I have been so excited for my new grandbaby, but also a bit worried.  As with anything that happens when my children are concerned, the impending doom of the W machine and what havoc they may cause is always just waiting around the corner.  I thought as time passed that maybe they would just start to live their own life and leave me alone.  Now this maybe true, I don’t know but the signs are certainly there. I spoke with a very good friend of mine about this and asked her if she thought I was being silly for worrying that I might get blindsided again.  Should I not be so excited, will my heart get broken again?

My beautiful friend, who has been there since we were in junior high school said, “I know that you have been through a lot, but you are worth everything that the good people in your life think of you!”  The tears began to dry and I rubbed the snot from my nose.  A calmness took over and then she said “F%&k them!”  I love my friend… hahahahhaaa.  So I will stop the worrying and go on with my excitement and if it happens that my heart does break?  I have experience with the bandaids, oh and the nutritional value of a good Cabernet!

My life as it stands today is a far cry from the millennial heartbreak of the last twenty plus years.  I have learned in the last three years that a good life led is an individual endeavor to be completed by no one but you.  In my case, me.

 

Happy Birthday Son, I miss you and love you

Once Moodie Bluedie, now finally Alive!

Fear, courage, guilt, innocence, anger, compassion, happiness, sadness, defensiveness, defender of all, frustration, hope….

I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t have someone to answer to or something to answer for.  I also can’t remember a time when everyday I wasn’t filled with a bucket of emotions that came in waves crashing at me, receded then crash again.

The emotional theatre had created its first season’s playbook and I felt each one, some even at the same time!  Let me just say, it was not a pretty scene.  Not sure how I got to a place where I let the opinion of others or their treatment of me mold me into this meek vicious person, but it happened.  Before I knew it?  I was…   Mooodie Bluedie!

The OH so welcomed diagnosis of early stages of menopause (Peri those medical types call it) only added to the emotions that had taken residence in me from a young age.  The stories that could be told were what melodrama’s are made of and so exhausting at the time. yet so comical now when I talk about those good ole days.  Prime example:

Youngest kid and I are embroiled in actual face to face verbal combat.  The kid is seventeen and bubbles of emotions are flying around our heads but not popping. YK yelling that something isn’t fair, yet again? Me trying to calm him and myself down..  tooo much..  pressure building.. gonna blow….

Me:  Shut up when you’re talking to me!!  (pointer finger raised and shaking as if on a pulpit)

Him:  Whaaat?  (head shake’s and then pops back in total confusion)

Me:  Go to your room!

Ahhhh, memories!!  Where’s Barbra when you need her?

This went on for several years and many other stories of how I was crazy or what was I thinking came out of this time. Mostly it was from all those people that resided with me during the Royal Oaks period.  Finally the menopausal emotions subsided, I was then left with the emotions that were familiar and now stood out to me.  I didn’t like them.  I had gotten through stage one of “the pause” with a houseful of people that left me alone to do it with a cheer of good lucks. Did anyone notice that the only thing I wasn’t feeling was alive? I didn’t until then and I was intent on finding it.

Finally, years later into my quest, the first time I felt alive was the first time I was on the back of Sweet Significant’s Harley.  I still had scars from the previous life and although the wounds were no longer open, they were still there like red thick squiggly lines across my heart.  Nothing Vitamin E could cure although someone once told me that Cabernet had all the vitamins I needed and no prescription was required.  Hmmm..  

Anyhoo, Sweet called me up one day after we had been seeing each other for a couple of months and asked if I wanted to go for a ride and although I really wanted to stay at home and have a pity party with that bottle of Cab, (purely for the nutrition of course) I said absolutely. I could hear his Softail from my living room and went outside, he drove up onto the grass in front of my apartment, handed me a helmet and with his beautiful never ending smile, he said, “jump on baby.”  The exhilaration that ran through my body, breath and blood was nothing that I have ever felt.  We drove through the delta loop and as we rounded the swerves and curves in the road, I just threw my arms out wide and felt the wind the from the ride blow right through me.  I lifted my face up to the sky and felt the sun kiss my forehead and cheeks. 

The vast openness of the land flying by and the sweet smell of the country air made me smile.  We then stopped at a restaurant to have lunch and chatted the way you do when you’re learning about another person.  We then got back on the bike to finish another loop of open road.  It was just what my soul needed. It was a great scar diminishing day.  It was the first day that nothing that had been holding me down had mattered.  I was beholden to no one that day and what a great feeling!  I wanted more…

I realized that responsibility is not emotional chains and baggage of obligation to someone else, it is a character trait that is beholden only to me.

Now the emotions are still there but they don’t swirl around uncontrollable, they are tucked away and only come out in appropriate situations. Peace, a little time to take a step back, getting the hell outta dodge and not to mention a very well timed epiphany.  Here I am and Oh boy! I will be a writer!  I am a writer!  It is no longer in my dream box under my bed.  All things are possible and I am Alive!  

 

It's a Dogs Life

My parents always watch our Pom puppy when we are away.  So as soon as we get home I usually help Sweet with the unloading then I go and get our Pupperton.  I walk in my parent’s home and he is in the backyard with the other dogs.  When I say the other dogs, I mean my parents dogs, which are his mom, pop, grandmother and brother.  This is Oliver’s family.

I look through the screen door and call him, he comes running and jumps in my arms with licks and kisses.  The other dogs come running as well and are jumping at my feet.  I talk with my parents for a little bit with tales of our travels and they tell me about Pupperton’s fun, I put him in his travel crate and then we make our way home.  When I get home, Sweet and I give him a bath then he is usually tired and passes out from all the playing he did.

Sweet and I were traveling on and off this last week and as stated above the same ritual went on with the addition of my daughter’s dog that is Oliver’s aunt, who stayed with us for several days in between trips.  They played and slept and ate and it’s just a Pom festival!  Until Middle Kid comes to get her then he is alone with us and again passes out from the fun.

So this last time when I picked him up and watched them play through the screen door.  I made an offhanded comment to my mother saying that Oliver would be bored with us since he has been visiting a member of his family for the last two weeks and that he has a better relationship with his family than all of us!  Mom and I laughed then Pupperton and I left.  On my way home, I thought about what I had said and wondered if it were true. Mom didn’t deny it and my thoughts turned into memories of when I was little and how we used to go over to my aunts and uncles homes. Visiting and playing with cousins, spending weeks at a time in the summer, birthday parties, holidays, reunions, marriages and sadly funerals.  Then it all ended.  We grew up, grandparents passed, people moved, second generation began having children and families.  Jobs, school, successes and tribulations got in the way. 

 

Now all these years later, I have cousins that I don’t know.  Some of them, I don’t even know their names and they aren’t sure who I am either. Which is sad because I am also trying to keep my own family together.  It’s trying when this one is not speaking to that one, or someone said something that ticked another person off so much that a phone number is blocked from calling.  Alliances are formed then diverted, Facebook messages are sent that says somebody defriended you or you have been blocked from requesting them again. I could go on but I think you get it.

Please don’t get me wrong, we all still get together for the occasional wedding, we email and text the ones we still have a relationship with and of course the facebook.  But it’s not the same and I still have scars from the explosion that was my life and my children’s childhood.  I still get hairs on the back of my neck when I hear my kids talk about that side and how they are a family.  I want to shout out, so are we!!

I thought more about Oliver’s simple family when I nearly escaped the seduction that is my children’s fathers machine the other day.  I call it the W machine and it used to be a part of me and my family so I can tell you from experience it will roll along grabbing, snatching and snarling at anyone that dares to get in the way of it’s definition of a superior and all knowing family leadership and yet the bite always comes with a smile. 

I have been a part of this viciousness since I was sixteen and even after divorce and the remarriages, the machine continued to grow and the teeth got bigger and more righteous.   

Weird that all that time I thought that I had to live through those daily assaults from him and the new Mrs. W.  I actually thought that this was my life and I just had to be strong and deal with it, not that I was completely innocent in the opinion war.  HA!  Though me thinks great fodder for a yummy protaganist!

Not until I met this woman that had been leading a group I participated in, did I realize that I didn’t have to be.  We had started on a discussion of relationships, emotions and the social unit.  I brought up some stories of my life intending to help the person that started the discussion.  Then Whammo!

The instructor looked at me and plainly said, “You are in charge of your own emotions, no one can tell you how you should react to something nor judge you on it.”  I stopped cold.  Whaaaa?  How come no one told me that before?

She went on to say, “If I jumped on this desk and screamed, shouted and pointed to a mouse in the corner.  Would you yell at me to calm down and not act that way about seeing the mouse?  Or have your own emotion about the mouse?”

Of course I told her that I would probably jump up on the table also and yell louder than her while instructing the remaining souls on how to catch the mouse.  After I left the class, it resonated so loudly with me that I told Sweet about it and many others since.  I am allowed my own emotions! I have been freed!!   I will no longer have my actions defined by others and am free of the W machine.  As I was dancing with my scarf (saw it in a movie and thought is was time to use it) swirling in the kitchen and enjoying the release, Sweet asked in his infinite innocent way.  “Why would you think you had to answer to anyone?  Blah… (dancing stops and eyes look to the side) 

I tell you all this because I learned a few things about this thing called family with my new epiphany.  It doesn’t matter who is talking to who, who is right or wrong, who did all the work, who didn’t.  Opinions and gossip no longer rule the day.  In the simplest terms I note, a bloodline makes no difference, a family is the people closest to you to whom you care, hope and pray for, laugh and cry with, fight and love for no matter what. It’s all about who is running around the backyard with you panting, barking, biting and who’s arms you can jump into with licks and kisses!

A delicate flower of spring

A delicate flower of spring is how I have often described Middle Kid.  She is tough, mean at times and has a tongue like a sword.  She is also caring, loving, loyal, beautiful, funny and just plain delicious.  I can hear the laugh that grows from her belly and pours out of her smile and dimples.  I wouldn’t have it any other way and as I sit here thinking of her and the baby that is growing inside of her, I get so melancholy that my stomach often jumps with love and pride. 

This isn’t to say that we haven’t had our moments!  Oh you betcha!  Screaming matches, slamming doors, tears, nose to nose confrontations that I won of course.  Pets passing, school bullies, brothers (need I say more?), divorce and remarriages.  Unfortunately for the only girl in the family besides myself, her Dad and I put her and her brothers through so much just so we could one up each other and boast or defend how much we loved each of them.  She always took it to heart.  That’s not to say that we didn’t have the best of times too!  I want to remember those times forever and I pray that her and the baby have three times the moments we did.

Things I remember….

I remember her in my arms and wrapped like a burrito.  The wide brown eyes looking back at me and after telling her Hi, the wide dimpled, toothless grin.

I remember MK (age 3) and First Born (age 4) in the backyard of our first house with McDonald Happy Meal plastic pumpkins on their heads with the handle around their little chins playing pirates in the dirt with sticks.

I remember the years of Wednesday night female bonding (age 7, 8, 9) where it would be just her and I (the boys were with their dad) doing whatever we wanted.  Out to dinner, doing homework, talking and laughing, dancing, singing, shopping, cooking, watching our favorite TV shows, her wearing my shoes and walking around the house.

I remember when we would shop for her birthday (age 12) and she would walk around Mervyn’s and look for the items that she had hidden over that past year throughout the store.  Gifts that she wanted to buy for me, her brothers, stepsisters, grandparents and even her dad.  I had to wipe her tears and convince her that although it was nice to buy them stuff, the trip was for her birthday.  Then she would convince me that that was what she wanted for her birthday, give them presents.  It made her happy.

I remember her first day of high school and stopping at the coffee shop for first day of school mochas then driving right up to the front of school and giving her hugs and kisses with a tear in my eye waiting for her to get out of the car.  MK sitting in the car frozen and staring forward, not wanting to get out, me leaning across her to open the door from my seat just to get her out and walk in.  She closed it again and with a nervous giggle and saying “I don’t want to go”.  Us repeating this two more times before I could get her out. 

I remember her first car that she purchased on her own by saving all her money from the bobby sox umpire earnings she had mastered all spring and summer.  The piece of crap blue Camaro that looked like it had been decorated for a mexican fiesta parade.  The fuzzy dice hanging from the mirror, the red cloth bobbles that surrounded the inside, the bouncy head dog that she got rid of, the sarape blankets that were used as seat covers.  She loved it!  I was worried…

I remember the first night that she moved out so excitedly and I cried all night in bed just wondering if she had food or was warm.  Yep, first night.  Don’t think I didn’t get crap for that one.

I remember her first big girl job after she had moved back in to save money.  We would get up and have breakfast and coffee, getting ready for work together and leaving the house with our coffee mugs.  Kisses and hugs as we got in our cars and driving away.

I remember her wanting to move in with me to take care of me after my divorce.  Resting my head on her shoulder so I could cry.  Bringing her crazy friends over to cheer me up with bar b q’s, swimming in the apartment pool, dancing in the kitchen, watching movies and most of all just watching them laughing and talking about their 20 something party stories.  So much fun!

Now here she is about to have her own baby, living with her Sweetheart, working two jobs to save money.  My baby girl….    *tear*

My delicate flower is grown up and her spring is unfolding into a beautiful garden to which I pray no thorns will ever poke.

Yosemite Trip * Day 3

Well today we slept in until 8:30 this morning!  Yaayyyy!  Not sure where Quentin was but he wasn’t screaming nor was his screams echoing throughout the park.   Nope, just the morning voices of other campers and birds.  

Anyhoo, Sweet and I had a nice breakfast together of leftover pizza and coffee.  I made my coffee from the Folger’s singles that I found at Safeway.  Best invention ever!  I just heated water in my tea kettle and then steeped it in my old covered mug I use in the car for traveling.  FAB!!  Then once it was brewed, I poured the resulting sweet nectar of morn into the camping coffee cups.  Magda and Jeremy went to the showers and their son and his girlfriend took Memphis for a walk because he wasn’t feeling too good.  May have been all the Cheezits that I gave him last night.  Ooopsie!

Once everyone was back at camp we inflated our rafts.  Fun right?  Once the rafts were filled, I sat down because I was getting a head ache with all the plans to get the cars where they were going to be, or which entry area, blah, blah, blah.  I opened a Fat Tire and picked up girlfriends US weekly.  OK the plan!

Jeremy and his son will take their suv’s to the Swinging bridge and then he and son will take the other truck to the raft opening.  We are taking Sweet’s truck to the Curry village parking lot and then we will meet at the opening.  Magda will wait with Girlfriend at the opening so when we walk up, we will know where the opening is at.So Sweet and I carried our raft from the parking lot and met Magda and Girlfriend there to wait for Jeremy and Son.

We all get in our rafts and our journey begins.  I was so excited because I have been raft floating down the Sacramento river and this was Yosemite right?   As I have said before, from the time Sweet and I met right up to now, we have gained 20 LB’s or so each.  With this trip, we had to pose the question: Can you put two fatties in a raft that was meant for one person?

Answer:  You can’t

That raft trip was so comical, their were times Sweet got out to pull me and the raft dragged the bottom because the water was so low in areas that we weren’t going anywhere and my Bum felt it.  Magda and Jeremy were having the same problem because they had a two person raft but they had the ice chest in theirs.  Son and girlfriend (the young skinny bitches) had Memphis (82 pound Black Lab) in their raft.  We all had trouble.  It certainly was an adventure!  Trying to get in and out of the raft when the water was low, trying to get in when water high and the water was flowing.  At one point I fell in because Sweet was trying to help me out of the raft and let me just say, one foot in and one foot out.  Splits!   I can’t stop giggling to which this is frustrating him and I ask “Did anyone see me?”  to which he replied “Everyone saw”  Then he smiled.  Sheesh~

It reminded me of watching a movie!  I may put that experience in a book someday, hmmm.  Halfway through I wanted to know how much longer.  Yep, I actually asked.  We finally made it to the beach (which the wind had kicked up and the sand was stinging our legs) and had a few beers.  Then all the girls climbed up to the closest path and walked the rest of the way to the swinging bridge and the guys floated the rest of the way. 

The plan worked and we were all loaded into the vehicles with a wet dog and made our way back.  So finally back at camp, we showered and changed to get ready to eat.  Today’s cocktails were vodka crans with lime.  Mmmmm..

The final night’s menu was Chili cheese dogs and the rest of the salad.  Oh so good!  Then of course the smores!!   Good times!!!  We sat around after that and talked and enjoyed the company.  The moon was shining, and then I went to bed.  I was so tired.

Yosemite Trip * Day 2

Ahh, sweet morning light when camping.  Birds singing, other campers waking and Quentin!

This child was up at six in the morning screaming and screaming, then laying in the tent next to Sweet while he snores.  Camping at it’s best!

Luckily, I had my notebook and began writing different notes for my book.  I found that it was actually easier to write in my notebook than on the computer because then I don’t self edit.  It was freewriting in all its glory.  Once everyone in our site was moving, Magda and I started breakfast.  Scrambled eggs, bacon and texas toast grilled on a flat pan.  Mmmmmmmm…

So today’s activity was going for a bike ride around the whole park so after breakfast we packed up our ice chest and loaded it on the back of Jeremy’s bike.  We all got on our bikes and were moving by eleven.  Now since I have been with Sweet, he and I both have gained 20 LB’s in two years.  No es bueno ;{ 

So needless to say we weren’t riding our bikes like the fairy nymphs we once were, then after stopping at Happy Isles for a beer and beautiful view, we took off again to ride the park. About an hour or so later, Magda realizes that she doesn’t have her camera and that Jeremy had rested the camera on her platform attached to the back of her bike.  Jeremy has been going to Yosemite since a wee child and he knows the park better than anyone I have ever known, they flew back to Happy Isles to look for it to no avail.  Sweet pretty much kept up with them and I tried until I didn't.  *need to rethink the gym*

I personally would have cried, but she soldiered on.  Her son’s college graduation pictures were still on the memory card and Fourth of July.  Awwww….

So that put a dent in the fun and we went back to camp and had lunch.   The rest of the afternoon was spent out at the Swinging bridge to swim and oh the water was freezing but yet refreshing.  Sweet wouldn’t get in because he forgot his water shoes (oh, I forget them apparently) so his nick name was Sissy Foot while we all had fun.

Back at the campground after we had all cleaned up and hung the suits on the line.  We had Blue Death’s made by Magda, very interesting cocktail.  Sweet then grilled all the steaks and we had three different salads with some wine then the piece de resistance!!!!

Essss mores!  Love them!!  By my sixth smore, tired.  I went to bed.

A home remembered

I have been going through old stories that I have written for school, myself or just to jot down a memory and came across this little story that I had written to remember the week we buried my grandmother in 1994.  I had completely forgotten that I had written it and it was a nice surprise and still brings the memories flooding back.  It’s funny about memories, they can trigger smells, songs, feelings and emotions often thought gone or filed away in a long forgotten part of the brain.  I want to share this with you and please let me know what you think or share your story with me.  Enjoy and Thanks for stopping by!!

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It was the spring of nineteen ninety-four and in the alcove of my home of two months; I made my way to the front door.  A difficult task while carrying the bat bags of Little League, Bobby Sox and T-Ball in one arm while cradling Stretch Armstrong and holding onto a couple of McDonalds bags with the other. The vibration of the pager against my hip made me jump as I tried to grab the keys to open the door.  All that I was holding came crashing to the floor and I stood there just staring at the result giggling with my beautiful eight year old daughter as she looked up at me. “Who paged you mommy?”  She said with more curiosity about the pager than who was behind the page.

“I haven’t looked yet, but it better be good because it scared the bajeezus out of me!”  She giggled a little more then bent down to help me pick things up and at the same time yelled for her brothers to come help as I opened the front door. 

With everyone finally settled at the table and lunch in front of them, I dialed the number to call my Mother who had been the page from earlier.  “Hello Mother, what’s up?”  I said distracted, as I looked up movie times in the local paper.  “Grandma died.”  She said plainly.  I froze.  The only thing I could think of at the time was which one?  I had actually voted in my head as to which Grandmother it might be.  Crazy.

The funeral for my paternal Grandmother was the following Thursday and we were all expected to make arrangements and be at the Big House on Monday.  The drive from my home to hers became more familiar and yet just as unrecognizable as I got closer to her town and neighborhood. I realized that I hadn’t been to see her in years nor had I really seen anyone.  I felt justified for my reasons while a knot began to form in my stomach and I could feel the migraine begin.  I became melancholy of what I had missed and at the same time afraid of what I was about to see again.  I felt the need to turn and run as I had always done.  I could mourn her on my own, right?

I pulled up in front of the house with mixed emotions and I sat in the car just staring at the house that had been so much of my childhood.  My babies were already out of the car running to my Mother and Sister with kisses and hugs and I looked up from the chin lean that had started on the steering wheel after hearing my name.  Cousins, aunts and uncles had begun to come out with smiles and arms wide open to welcome me.  It was then that all the years of pent up anger began to melt away and I wondered if maybe all this time I had been wrong about my memory of what the childhood had been.  Had I stayed away for reasons that didn’t exist?  Still not sure. 

I began to hear Vincente Fernandez singing in the air that I breathed; I smelled the familiar spices of cumin and burnt chipotle peppers wafting through the air.  I smelled the grass as I moved and mothballs as I walked through the front door, then smiled with tears forming in my eyes.  That week, preparing to bury my grandmother, we hugged, laughed, danced and reminisced.  We remembered family and I was home.