My friend Layla posed a question earlier today that was way more profound than this, but the gist was, "How do you keep going as a positive person/force in the face of the misery/futility in the world?" I answered her, as best as I could, maybe not giving it as much thought as I should've, but I meant what I said. The less-verbose gist of what I said, along with a Dr. Seuss quote, was that I try to think of myself as the person in need and consider the possibility of no one caring, no one doing anything to help another person, another animal, another cause, and how truly sad a place that would make the world. But, I've thought about it more since then. What actually, does keep us going?
I don't know how to categorize myself. I'm not an optimist, but I really do swear that I'm not a pessimist. I'm sarcastic and self-deprecating, but I have and always will think that there is mostly good in the world. I want to believe the best in others, which is why I continuously have my heart shattered into little bits, but I don't stop believing, so I like to think of that as insane optimism, actually...expecting different results from relatively the same variables.
I wouldn't say I'm a sucker, but I probably do have a higher tolerance than most for trying to extract the good or nonexistent from people about whom I care. I tend to sell myself short in this regard, because it seems like I'm constantly elevating people who don't necessarily deserve it to a pedestal, while relegating myself to street level and being okay with that.
I'm trying to work on that, but I refuse to become a true cynic. I have too much romance and poetry in my heart to harden it to reflect the things I've been through in the last few years. It would be so incredibly easy, much, much easier, in fact, to close myself off and refuse to let anyone in, and don't think I haven't considered it. But, my stupid idealist heart can't do it. As much as I want to rail against the male gender and point out how I've been wronged, my head knows I can't blame the whole lot. As much as I want to curse the fates and God and the world for finding myself with only a handful of immediate family, and a mother with cancer, and I miss my father so much, I want to climb to Heaven and drag him back down here, I don't. I comfort myself with memories and and the love I knew growing up, and I relent.
So, I can't answer for everyone, and I would never presume to, but I do know that you can't let one bad experience or even 10 bad experiences define and shape you. I'll tell you honestly, I have no idea who "I" am. I'm slowly working it out. I had the misfortune of leading a relatively charmed life until recently, and nothing will set your ass straighter than being knocked off that particular chair. I'm knocking on the door of 37, divorced, single, with a hopeful heart, and all I know is that I long for happiness and peace, in whatever form I might find it. We all deserve it, and I make no apologies for wanting it.
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Sunday, May 11, 2014
The Piper Squeqeath...
I'm sitting here, post mom-visit, trying to cool down the apartment and listening to Piper chew on her most annoying toy. I hid the other one, that had the most high-pitched squeaky sound. It's only on the top of the entertainment center, which she can reach, but thank God, she hasn't figured out that secret code.
My mom's hair is falling out, due to her chemo treatments. I try to laugh it off for her and not make it a big deal. It's a big deal for her. She loves her hair. She will drive through tornadoes, hurricanes, personal tragedies, it doesn't matter, she will get her freaking hair done. I hate to see her scalp starting to become barren, but I hate it more for her to see it. She runs her hand through it, and a wad of hair comes clean, and a shadow passes over her face. That, I hate.
It's ironic, in a way. We went to see "God's Not Dead" yesterday at her behest, and I enjoyed it for the most part. The acting was abhorrent, but the message, which was the point, was clear. If you believe in God, which I, and my mother do, your life and death make sense. In theory, you don't have to think about the horror of death and worry about your and your loved ones' faith. And that's fine. I have no doubt whatsoever, that if my mother died tomorrow, she would be in Heaven and live the eternal good life.
The thing that I have a problem with, and I guess this is where we all struggle, is, why do we, on earth, even saved, have to be left with such crappy, horrible results? I understand that everything happens for a reason, but in the last four years, I've lost my father, grandmother, and brother, and my mother has cancer now. God, we all have given our lives to you, and we are not bad people. Give us a break. If nothing else, I prayed that you might heal my father, and I understand that might've been out of your purvey, but save my mother for at least a few years, if you can. I implore you.
In a whisper, you answered me. It was not what I wanted to hear.
Silent speaking allows for cruelty in its basest form.
You spat at me to calm down and be less happy.
I don't know what this means. You're always sad.
I cry myself to sleep at night, and I wake up puffy.
You sleep hard after a day of coldness.
My heart is open wide, and much punctures it.
You heart is a shell of glass and cement that is impenetrable.
Everything we experience enters our raw, beating heart
like vinegar, some of us more impervious than others.
My heart splays open like a science fair exhibit on
any given day.
The raw acidity pours in haphazardly,
and yet, occasionally, the little bits of hope and love survive.
I can't close my heart to the rare, raw bits that show, but
I can apply a bit of logic to those open pores.
You can't, because you don't have the luxury of choice.
My mom's hair is falling out, due to her chemo treatments. I try to laugh it off for her and not make it a big deal. It's a big deal for her. She loves her hair. She will drive through tornadoes, hurricanes, personal tragedies, it doesn't matter, she will get her freaking hair done. I hate to see her scalp starting to become barren, but I hate it more for her to see it. She runs her hand through it, and a wad of hair comes clean, and a shadow passes over her face. That, I hate.
It's ironic, in a way. We went to see "God's Not Dead" yesterday at her behest, and I enjoyed it for the most part. The acting was abhorrent, but the message, which was the point, was clear. If you believe in God, which I, and my mother do, your life and death make sense. In theory, you don't have to think about the horror of death and worry about your and your loved ones' faith. And that's fine. I have no doubt whatsoever, that if my mother died tomorrow, she would be in Heaven and live the eternal good life.
The thing that I have a problem with, and I guess this is where we all struggle, is, why do we, on earth, even saved, have to be left with such crappy, horrible results? I understand that everything happens for a reason, but in the last four years, I've lost my father, grandmother, and brother, and my mother has cancer now. God, we all have given our lives to you, and we are not bad people. Give us a break. If nothing else, I prayed that you might heal my father, and I understand that might've been out of your purvey, but save my mother for at least a few years, if you can. I implore you.
In a whisper, you answered me. It was not what I wanted to hear.
Silent speaking allows for cruelty in its basest form.
You spat at me to calm down and be less happy.
I don't know what this means. You're always sad.
I cry myself to sleep at night, and I wake up puffy.
You sleep hard after a day of coldness.
My heart is open wide, and much punctures it.
You heart is a shell of glass and cement that is impenetrable.
Everything we experience enters our raw, beating heart
like vinegar, some of us more impervious than others.
My heart splays open like a science fair exhibit on
any given day.
The raw acidity pours in haphazardly,
and yet, occasionally, the little bits of hope and love survive.
I can't close my heart to the rare, raw bits that show, but
I can apply a bit of logic to those open pores.
You can't, because you don't have the luxury of choice.
Saturday, May 10, 2014
So many emotions, so little life to express them
I keep hearing the phrase "woe is me" in my head, and then the Grammar Nazi part of me assesses that phrase as being incorrect. It should technically be "woe is I," and there you go, I can't even have a morose thought without fact-checking it first. And you know what, that's a little slice of the fried gold that is me. I have ADD thoughts and song lyrics and literary excerpts in there (in my mind) at any given time, and you either let me tell you what they are and deal with them, or I keep them inside and end up wandering the streets of Poughkeepsie, trying to sell people my hair. Your choice.
My mom is staying with me until Sunday, and I love having her here. Yes, she complains a lot, and yes, my apartment is not up to the Martha Stewart-living standards she would like, but I think, at long last, she is realizing that's not me. I've been a messy person my whole life. To clarify, I am not a dirty person; I am clean, my person is clean, but my living spaces and cars seem to amass with junk. I don't mean for this to happen, but as I proposed to her last night, "Would you rather be in a pristine living environment with no soul, or would you rather laugh until your stomach hurts?" She understood which was more important.
Ideally, I would be on the rich side and have a maid. It's not that I physically can't clean, it just that I feel my time is better spent elsewhere. Oh, how it used to piss off the ex-husband when I would say things like this, but I know better than anyone where the salvation of my sanity lies. I'll give you a hint: It's not cleaning the baseboards or figuring out where the eff the mop is and if it has enough squirty stuff. I can't deal with that stuff and have it look the way it should. I want to cook and decorate and make my place homey and inviting. Using my vacuum gives me a mild headache.
We all have our special talents. Domesticity in the strictest sense of the word, is not mine. I don't want to make my own floor cleaner or laundry detergent. I give the biggest props to those that can and do. I just want shit to be clean and me not have to deal with it. Yes, I'm a snob...a poor snob, but with standards, and yes, I'm a spoiled pain in the ass, but I was the youngest, and my parents taught me nothing outside making my bed and occasionally folding laundry. They once made me rake leaves, and I sang a slave spiritual until it got on my dad's nerves so bad, he told me to go back inside.
The more time I spend with my mom, my only surviving parent, the more I wonder what I'm gonna be like in 40 years. Will I have a kid (s) to hang out with me when I'm in my 70s? I'm in this weird dating limbo that feels like a Delorian and flux capacitors should be involved with Christopher Lloyd. I'm a bad dater. I vacillate between aloof cool awesome chick and needy, crazy "why don't you love me" chick. It's not a good mix. I simply don't know how to be. I loved, I lost, and I should be able to be normal about the next steps, but it's that normal part that's tripping me up. Whatever happened to being silently unhappy in a bad marriage until someone has a heart attack? That's what I was promised. KIDDING. I want to be deliriously happy, skipping through the daisies happy. I just don't know that I'm capable anymore.
My mom is staying with me until Sunday, and I love having her here. Yes, she complains a lot, and yes, my apartment is not up to the Martha Stewart-living standards she would like, but I think, at long last, she is realizing that's not me. I've been a messy person my whole life. To clarify, I am not a dirty person; I am clean, my person is clean, but my living spaces and cars seem to amass with junk. I don't mean for this to happen, but as I proposed to her last night, "Would you rather be in a pristine living environment with no soul, or would you rather laugh until your stomach hurts?" She understood which was more important.
Ideally, I would be on the rich side and have a maid. It's not that I physically can't clean, it just that I feel my time is better spent elsewhere. Oh, how it used to piss off the ex-husband when I would say things like this, but I know better than anyone where the salvation of my sanity lies. I'll give you a hint: It's not cleaning the baseboards or figuring out where the eff the mop is and if it has enough squirty stuff. I can't deal with that stuff and have it look the way it should. I want to cook and decorate and make my place homey and inviting. Using my vacuum gives me a mild headache.
We all have our special talents. Domesticity in the strictest sense of the word, is not mine. I don't want to make my own floor cleaner or laundry detergent. I give the biggest props to those that can and do. I just want shit to be clean and me not have to deal with it. Yes, I'm a snob...a poor snob, but with standards, and yes, I'm a spoiled pain in the ass, but I was the youngest, and my parents taught me nothing outside making my bed and occasionally folding laundry. They once made me rake leaves, and I sang a slave spiritual until it got on my dad's nerves so bad, he told me to go back inside.
The more time I spend with my mom, my only surviving parent, the more I wonder what I'm gonna be like in 40 years. Will I have a kid (s) to hang out with me when I'm in my 70s? I'm in this weird dating limbo that feels like a Delorian and flux capacitors should be involved with Christopher Lloyd. I'm a bad dater. I vacillate between aloof cool awesome chick and needy, crazy "why don't you love me" chick. It's not a good mix. I simply don't know how to be. I loved, I lost, and I should be able to be normal about the next steps, but it's that normal part that's tripping me up. Whatever happened to being silently unhappy in a bad marriage until someone has a heart attack? That's what I was promised. KIDDING. I want to be deliriously happy, skipping through the daisies happy. I just don't know that I'm capable anymore.
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