her way.

i am walking on the beach in Morro Bay last week with three people that i love dearly...as i stand still and watch the ocean waves rolling in, one of them creates a circle in the sand around me with her foot, flashes her smile and tells me that i am not allowed to leave it.

i oblige her for awhile but then inform her that it is time to head back to the car...and home. she thinks for a moment and then appears to solve her dilemma by drawing a line in the sand leading from the circle back down the beach, towards the car - which is maybe a half-mile away, but probably less - and instructs me to follow it, and only it. both feet, no stepping off.

she walks backwards, dragging her heel in the sand, her foot line twisting and turning - this cannot be a straight line, no....and i MUST walk it and never veer from it.  with my arms held straight out to my sides (to help balance the unbalanced, of course) i speed up and try and rush her progress, maybe make her trip and fall, but she commands me to stop when i catch up to her and laughingly orders me to wait for her to get ahead of me again before continuing.  as i totter along, i watch in front of me - behind her - hoping to subtlety direct her towards someone she will run into while not looking.  cause, well...that would be hilarious, but she mysteriously manages to miss everything and everyone in her path, rarely taking a peek to see where she was headed.  she is just following along the surf line. sort of...and backwards.



she switches feet, because the right one is cramping up, but continues on, still swirling and veering, twisting and turning her line in the sand.  she tries using her toes because she is getting tired and we still have a long way to go.  i taunt her and tell her she'll never make it. but i dutifully follow my path.

i hear laughter behind me and i turn - being ever so careful not to fall off my mark - to see an old woman walking the line directly behind me, arms out like mine, with her husband at her side laughing.  she looks at me, giggles again and says, "so, where are we going?!?"

quite honestly, it was one of the most joyous moments of my life.

the old woman follows along with us for a few seconds more and then takes her old husband's hand and they wander off closer towards the sea, smiling, laughing, playful - loving their lives. they left the line in the sand that was meant for me and continued along their own path.

we make it to end of the beach eventually. when we reach the rocks that we had to climb over to get to the car, the girl picks up and drags a 12 foot piece of seaweed over them, ordering me to walk only on that.  i'd take 5 steps, step off of it and have to wait for her to re-position it so that i could continue on.

she never stopped, she never gave up.
she led me all the way back.
and i let her.  because it was important....to both of us
i followed her every step of the way. her way,
and it made us happy.

waves

today is filled with waves of blue heaviness.
i feel as if i've discarded a best friend.
whom i hope i can someday recover, but not until i'm well.
that kind of heavy.  that kind of blue.
it's like everything visible to me is a dull reminder of something gone.
that kind of loss.  that kind of sad.
as if something that i truly love, but wasn't able to nurture,
just distanced itself from me, or me from it
to help in it's search of a better home than i was able to provide.

probably, it was right to go...things usually are,
because shit happens as it's supposed to.  right on cue, right on time...
or so i'm told.
i want to sleep so i can escape these feelings,
yet stronger is the need to avoid that moment of awakening.
the one where you feel physically pulled away from a place where you are truly loved and truly happy,
and dropped into a place where, as you open your eyes,
you realize with a heavy heart that you are still you.
that you did this.
that nothing has changed.
and the feeling of loss slithers back in.

i am the sole master of my domain...

i was checking in on someone yesterday, someone who is a somewhat visible person in my life, but hadn't really surfaced much in the last couple of weeks.  my intent was not to yell "POPCORN!" in a crowded room thus making this person think that i was whining about being neglected, although i suspected my inquiry might do just that...this person is, let's call it, "stretched pretty thin" in their life and probably feels kinda like a hamster on a wheel.  i could be wrong, but i'm pretty sure i'm not.

anyway, the point to my rambling is that i wanted to show this person that i was missing them, cared and therefore, sought to find out if there was anything wrong or anything i could help with.  my dilemma was in making sure they didn't misunderstand my intentions and feel pressured to contact me for a quick stroke or two.  really i just wanted to let them know i was thinking of them.  i made a pretty simple statement to them, but as i reread it i realized that it pretty much summed up something that is relatively new to me.  i am learning to group, accept and deal with things as they relate to my control over them.

what i said to this person was, "just making sure everything (read: in your life) that i can control was ok and everything i can't wasn't swallowing you alive. i'm here if you need me."  i know, nothing earth-shattering really.  a pretty straightforward approach and really no big deal. but it made me stop and think about this particular person's life and my concerns for them regarding it.  this person gives just about everything of themselves to other people in their life.  i would say it's a fairly content person, but maybe not an incredibly happy person.  don't get me wrong, content is nice...but i think happy takes content an imperative step further when dealing with your own...destiny, for lack of a better word.

stick with me while i compare the two:  content feels like coming home from work and seeing your family is safe and sound; happy feels like coming home to a safe and sound family that is excited to see you and asks you how your day was, showing genuine care - not trying to just get you out of the way so they can talk about themselves.

content feels like having someone ask your opinion of something and being allowed to give it - not really expecting that it will be considered, but hoping and glad to be asked; happy feels like being asked your opinion and giving it, knowing that your opinion truly matters and will actually carry some weight in the decision-making process.

content feels like thinking you matter in a way that is important to a bigger picture; happy feels like knowing it and seeing the positive changes you have made in the world by just being you.

try and look at contentment as being hungry and having access to a well balanced, well cooked meal - and happiness as being hungry and having access to a well balanced, well cooked meal that you know was prepared with your likes and dislikes in mind.

basically, i think we are content in believing our contributions in life are necessary to someone-something-somewhere; but aren't we truly happy when we know it, when we feel it, when we live it?

we've all heard that other people can't make you happy - only you can make you happy and i totally agree. i realize that all the things i've mentioned that contrast being content with being happy make it seem that you need to depend upon other people for your happiness...but go back a step further, who do you choose to spend your life surrounded by?   because our lives are so constantly intertwined with other people, it's nearly impossible to not look to others, in some capacity, for happiness.  do you choose people that help you to feel content within yourself?  do you choose to surround yourself with people who bring out your capacity for happiness just by being near them, thinking of them or knowing that they are in your life?  i really believe that we shouldn't have to toil for happiness itself, i think if we live our lives the best we can, being the best kind of person we can and showing others our appreciation for them, happiness should just happen.

if you have someone in your life that creates happiness for you, enables you to be happy in some way that you wouldn't be without them, someone without whom your life would be a darker place - tell them, show them, make sure they feel it from you.  i think we forget that love should be alive; a growing, living, continuing thing, not something you feel, mention and then put into your back pocket until next time.

finally, back to one of my original thoughts - i do realize i'm a bit all over the map here, but it's how my brain seems to function - be sure to tend to your own knitting before instructing someone else on how to do it.  make sure that everything that you control is ok.  then see to the people you love, make sure they aren't being swallowed up by all of those other things you cannot control.  we all have things beyond us...all we can do is accept that fact, learn to identify what they are, do our best to deal with them in ourselves and then cushion and support those we care about that might be in the process of being swallowed up by them.

directed toward this one particular person i mentioned earlier, but meant to everyone that considers your friendship with me something other than ordinary...know that you are a special person, regardless of how those around you sometimes act - towards you or towards whoever else happens to be in their line of fire.  know that i appreciate you and understand so much about you because we are alike in so many ways.  know that i am here to cushion you and support you when dealing with all the bullshit life tends to throw. (whoa. was that my first curse word?)  know that i am your friend and you can count on me.  know that i love who you are.

omg i'm so pms'ing right now

i must be.

for different reasons that i won't go into right now ("jeebus", you say, "you mean there are actually some things she doesn't tell the world?") i have been sitting here with tears rolling down my cheeks for 20 minutes thinking of how fucking blessed i am to have some of the most amazing people in the world care for me.  there is such a range of people that i love with absolutely all of my heart.  they come from all over, some i have personally hugged 'til they couldn't breathe and some i have only dreamed of hugging that hard.  i wish i could find the words to describe how completely full my heart is right now.  i canna esplain...i can only let it spill over and flood me with warmth and happiness and love. omg, i just fucking love you guys...

ok, ok crap and jeesbus-rice, aunt flo - show up already, this nancy shit is for chicks.

just to remind you, if you ever need it.

i so deeply appreciate the person that you are.   the depth of your goodness sometimes overwhelms me and simply floods me with love for you. with open arms you let me cry, you let me laugh, you let me love, you let me be and then you love me still.  you are God's gift to me and you are forever deep in my heart...i love you.

i love...

my friends.

old and new, young and old, buoys and gulls. if you are here and we are old friends - thank you loving me in spite of myself; if you are here as a new friend - thank you for taking the time to get to know me, i hope to get to know the real you; if you are here and i haven't met you yet - don't keep me waiting...catch up and let's get going!

you make me happy and keep me smiling even those times that i just don't feel like it. you fill me with a warmth that makes me feel giddy inside. you make me laugh, sometimes you make me cry - but it's only out of love. i love the conversations, long and short, spoken or written, deep or silly. i love the things whispered in confidence or shouted to the rooftops. i love the unspoken things that pass between us. i love that i can count on you whether i'm happy or bitchy. i love that you know that you are special to me. i love that you trust and love me back.

you see who i really am.
you love me anyway.
you are forever.

sign on and say hey...anytime.

word for the day: necessary

i've been stewing about this cleaning of the bedroom thing for two days now and have come to the conclusion that there really is nothing i can do to *make* him clean his room. he's too big to drag around by the hand and force him to pick things up. my choices are to clean it up on my own - this might actually prompt him to take a full can of garbage and pepper his room with it...he's that stubborn; let him live in his filth - which, granted, isn't horrible...i *can* see the floor, there isn't food growing in there and he's right about the fact that a clean room isn't "necessary" to a productive life; or i can attempt to show him the error of his newly acquired, let's call them "logically free-thinking" ways.

let's take the first option...if i clean his room it causes two problems: one, *I* have to clean his room - ew. two, honestly i would only be doing it to piss him off - he despises his room when it's clean...he says it's depressing. safe to say this isn't the best option. next...

second option: what message does letting him blatantly defy me send to the other two sweet wonderful accommodating children that do clean their rooms when i ask? is it just a matter of time before they put their humongous feet down and refuse to clean their rooms in an act of sibling solidarity? this option does not sit well with me as the MOTY that needs to keep her children respecting her authority in order to not go completely insane, resulting in the packing of my shit and leaving them all with their dad.

option three: he says i'm being spiteful, he says i'm ignoring the respect he has and does show me and painting him unfairly as a derisive little punk. i will admit, the term passive-agressive *has* entered my mind the last two days as i contemplate all of the things i do for him that are truly "unnecessary", but i think i'm gonna run with this option...

i think it will show him that he can't have it both ways - that if one path is chosen, another is foresaken. sacrifices must be made, repercussions will follow the liberating act of overriding authority with "logic"...he needs to be ready to embrace everything that his decision entails and that it's NOT spiteful, it's NOT passive-agressive, it's NOT disregarding his goodness...

it's NOT personal, it's life.
right? RIGHT?!?
f me if shit and two isn't eight.

i need a little pick me up.

whew. much better.

as you were.

she's just always been there.

my grams had a stroke a few weeks ago and is in a rehab place for the "elderly"...not a good story. apparently she's had a few of them and just didn't know it. hasn't really been impaired in any way except maybe mentally a bit, but she's my grams - who would really know? seems they are giving her some anti-psychotic drugs that she doesn't need that are, in fact making her psychotic and mean. i'm sorry - this really shouldn't be funny, but the thought of my little hunched over gram hanging onto a bathroom safety bar for dear life, granny panties down around her ankles, kicking at her attendants' shins to keep them from bothering her while she trying to have her "BM" (her very pc and sensitive way of saying shit) cracks me up. she's always been a feisty old bird, but i guess she's become a real gem these days.

i don't have the whole story (of course...no one in my family can GATHER a whole story, let alone actually relay it to someone else.) but my understanding is that "they" (the professionals) believe that she is showing early signs of alzheimer's and dementia (again, this is my gram...she's truly been weird, feisty and quirky for as long as i can remember) and are treating her as such. the drugs they are giving her are making her a bit hard to control so they then sedate her with more crap. what the hell, seriously? i'm getting the idea that this isn't all that uncommon.

the problem (well aside from all the bruised shins and my poor gram's sanity) is that she got a wild hair and decided to up and move to humboldt county a couple of years ago and is three hours from the closest of her family. 3 hours - what a ding-dong. my mom can be a tad unstable at best, has put in so much time taking care of my grams and cannot afford to pay attention (which is rather important when driving the roads to humboldt county); my aunt works herself to the bone just to afford living in an un-electrified cabin on a hillside somewhere in the depths of the oregon coast about 5 hours from my gram; my uncle lives in the sacramento area (about 6 hours away from her) and has the stability, but not the time, plus i wonder if he isn't in denial about my grams health and just can't seem to deal. her grandkids are scattered around the state and have their own dysfunctional lives to attend to. this leaves my little gram all alone and probably scared spitless that she will die alone among all these mean people that JUST WON'T LET HER SLEEP.

ugh. have i gotten to the dysfunctional parts yet?

i can't imagine my life without her...she has always lived close, she has always been a major part of my upbringing, she has always been the one that "got" me...even when i was pretty "ungettable". we were raised in a home 50 yards from her and my gramps - she's just always been there. she's funny, she's quirky, she's insatiably curious about sex; she's sharp as a tack and as smart as a whip; she's warm and sweet and bakes yummy things (well except that period just after they found out my gramps was diabetic and then she resdesigned EVERY tasty thing she's ever made into a nasty "diatetic" abomination - it passed along with my gramps, God rest his soul); she prolongs the ending of a visit by beginning a batch of strawberry jam "just for you" JUST as you are loading the car to leave; she has the balls to giggle and excuse herself when she cropdusts you (at nose level, of course because she doesn't want you to have to get up from the ever-so-comfie futon she's just sure is the best thing since sliced bread - even though EVERYONE jumps to their feet when she starts to walk anywhere because they know what is coming) and your silly kids that can't stifle a snort (but almost die trying as they really don't want to inhale "that"), as she shuffles to the kitchen insisting that you have some "fresh homemade" five-week old fig newtons that she traded some fudge for at the old-folks' home bake-sale "just yesterday" - uhhhh, yea...i don't care how much milk you drink, those never go down well - especially after that gas thing.

my point is that she is my grams, i love her dearly and it pains me to know that she is surrounded by people who don't "get" her.

"can you feel the loooooove tonight?"

ok, my boys are now 15 and 12 and as gross as they have ever been. overheard in a conversation between the two of them earlier today:

"knock it off chode!"

"shut up, queef!"

"you're a douche."

"you're face is a douche"

"dude, at least MY face isn't a coinpurse."

"MOM! BENNETT SAID MY FACE WAS A COINPURSE!"nasty little chodesmokers...