100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 56

Breakfast:  Eggs, bacon, hash browns
Lunch:  Taco Taco, small burrito, two crunchy tacos, huge soda
Dinner:  Crappy, limp salad, a couple of spoons/tastes of some truly heinous clam chowder, some oyster crackers and three lemon wedges
Snack:  The better part of a pound of cherries on the way home from my crappy day, some Kruncher chips

Breakfast with my friends, great coffee, lousy and surly service.  What the hell is wrong with people?  Seriously, the world seems to be full of seriously cranky people, which is somewhat comforting because I can be very cranky and cranked-up, although I keep it to myself, well, most of the time. 

I ate out three times today and accept how messed-up that is.  The lunch one was a place where you are not allowed to give tips, and the counter guy there left his counter during a lull and went around asking everyone if their food was O.K., and if they needed anything, which is totally not the kind of sweet service one would expect in such a humble place, but there it was and the guy was so nice.  When I had ordered and paid for my food, I saw a sign for a lemonade drink that had fruit, as in actual fruit and juice, in it and asked if it had been sweetened, and when the counter guy confirmed that, I mentioned that it looked really great, but that I had to avoid sugar and his reply was, "Well, in that case, just to help you feel better, that stuff is nasty, nasty, nasty!"  He referenced it again when he wandered by to ask if we needed anything.  Such a nice touch.  It happened again later at the drug store when a young guy came up to me and asked if he could help me find anything, which he could and which he did, telling me a couple of cool stories about rock climbing in the process of being super-duper helpful. 

The world is full of nice people like that, which makes the perpetual corps of doofuses (or, is it doofi?) just that much more noticeable.  Dinner with the friend that needs hauling everywhere had the same kind of person.  Sad service and really bad soup.  And, you know, when it comes to receiving service, I am a very low maintenance diner/customer/client/ordinary person.  I never send stuff back when dining.  I am a good consumer so that I never, ever, ever have to return anything to a store.  I do not request any kind of special attention and just go with the flow as much as possible so as to avoid even the merest suggestion of any problem.  I am just as non-confrontational in public as I am in the more private parts of my life.  That makes me sound like a doormat, and I guess that I mostly am that.

Whatever.  You know, I get to where I can stand up and then it just drifts away, that feeling that I have the ability and self-responsibility to do it.  Just...drifts...away...poof...there it goes.

And, it is not helping that I was clearing out some of the junk that I never revisit from my computer files and stumbled into the writings of a friend who lost her son a few years ago.  I read and then went back in time and read from the beginning of that loss, the tragedy and pain of losing that lovely boy.  Then, I was no longer weeping for my own losses and problems, but for the absence of that sweet and wonderful boy and all of the people and places and things that we no longer have in our lives, individually and collectively, all that stuff that makes life worth the struggle, at least it did before it came up missing. 

I know that my sorrow is not unique, at least in the larger aspect of a life, mine, yours, the lives of everyone.   You know that saying about how happy families are alike in their happiness, but unhappy families are unique in their unhappiness.  Yeah, like that.  But, even though our individual pain is specific to the qualities and experiences of each of our lives, the entirety of sadness connects us because we all feel loss and sorrow and pain pretty much the same, as only human bodies and minds and hearts can...that is what connects us.

So, my friend's pain at losing her son is sort of my pain, too, because I knew and loved him in my own way, but it mirrors all of the suffering of my own life.  I feel the same qualities of pain for her loss as I do for my own. 

It is like this stupid visual disorder that I have and that other people, not many, but more than enough, have and when someone reads about what another person's symptoms are like and how it fucks up their life, someone else might say that they really do not have anything to complain about because they view their own symptoms as being less somehow, and that is total bullshit.  The difficulty each person has is equal in significance to that of another person and to compare them is pointless.  We all suffer at our own level of discomfort, pain.  And, it is, it is how we are connected.  

So, I am feeling sad about all of this stuff again, and instead of trying to get rid of it, I think that I might want to, might actually honor it a bit tonight.  I do not intend to wallow, but I am going to allow myself to feel it as fully as possible, immerse myself in the experience, re-experience it as completely as I can, acknowledge it and then let it pass through me, fall away from my physical body and into the earth, my planet, our Mother, where it can be honored and transformed into something good, something wonderful, something life-affirming.  I can do that.

I did not draw this GP, but I did pay for it in a collection of clip art and it (and the slight alteration I made to it) perfectly suits my general lack of understanding and intelligence today.  Yep.  It does.  But, I can transcend it, yes? 

Yes.

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 48

Breakfast:  Nothing
Lunch:  2 hot dogs, relish, jalapenos, yellow mustard
Dinner:  Baked cod, baked potato (sour cream, butter, tons of pepper), cole slaw

Planning ahead for dinner, there would be no serious food during the day.  So, I had funny food, a pair of hot dogs from the gas station, one of my favorite guilty pleasures of all time.  In decades of having them, I have only gotten sick one time and that was earlier this year.  I have to admit that it put me on alert, but it never made me think of never having them again.  It is only every few months that I do so. 

My son-in-law's sister loves them, as well, and it was one of the ways that we bonded, because she did not really like me all that much.  She did not have much of a chance, though, because I am relentless and will wear you down until you simply cannot resist me.  It would be nice if some people just liked me for who I am, but if I have to persist, then that is what I am willing to do.  In my sixty-four years, there are only a handful of people who have not succumbed to my will, one of which you can guess, Dear Diary.  Yep.  No amount of anything has helped there.

So, anyway, dinner was to celebrate the birthday of a friend who I met on pilgrimage to England and Wales a long time ago.  She moved to the D.C. area to be closer to family a few years ago and when she comes back it is always worthy of celebration, but this time it coincided with her birthday so that is what we did.

The restaurant is kind of a bar/tavern that grew.  Years ago it was a nice place to go for lunch and have a nice burger or reuben sandwich and excellent fries.  Well, tonight, it looked the same from the front, but once inside, it was like stepping into an alternate universe.  I mean, the place was huge.  And, it was packed.  And, it was expensive.  Holey-moley.  It ended well, but tomorrow's trip to the fruit festival will find me with less cash.  Probably just as well, since the food there is supposed to be amazing.  Like, truly.

All in all, not a bad day, food wise.

However, I did learn a few things.

I learned that I could have an outstanding week, bi-polar issues aside, and I think that it was because I stood up for myself.  Twice.  Once last week when the most recent attack took place, and again this morning when an attempt to do it again happened.  I will never win even a moment's peace here, but, crap, I stood up for myself and the world did not end.  I know that retaliation is coming.  Not only because it always does, but because I overheard part of a telephone conversation.  At least I know part of what is coming.  Forewarned is forearmed, and all that jazz.  Anyway, I have to practice this standing up and make it a part of more of what happens around here.  After this thing this morning, I just sat there, here actually at my desk, and threw myself on the mercy of the Universe.  Oh, please, allow something or some way to manifest so that I can move on.

Which brings me to the second thing I learned today, and it is that it is fine to hold on to my dreams.  Wishes, hopes, dreams, they are all worth having, even when they are impossible, even when you probably do not deserve to have them come to pass.  Yeah, even then.  Sometimes they are all that keep me going, that yearning for a better life where there would not be all of this mess and stress.  The truth is that I could pack my crap and leave any time I wanted.  O.K. that is true, but it is not the whole truth.  Diary, you know what binds me here and when that is resolved, well, we will see what happens.

I learned that if your friend, the nun, tells you a story about one of the people she serves in her community and makes a stupid comment about how not bright one of the men is because he is a member of a minority, that I can ask her what that means and just let her talk until she realizes that her assessment of him is more related to inadequate educational opportunities than lack of intelligence.  However, there was nothing I could do to dissuade her from the whole race thing.  I mean, if you cannot count on a nun to be fair and balanced, then who can you count on? 

I learned that even when a friend is generally despicable, I can still find a way to be a friend.  It was not easy, but I did it. I think that feeling so good helped, but this has been a concern for me for a long time and it was nice to take the high road and try to get over some of the other stuff.

I learned that even when I feel like stabbing myself with a fork, that I can get through a dinner with her and still be friendly and conversational, even when the other her bails and moves to the end of the table to avoid her, the first one.  Hours later, still making me smile.  However, she...the first her...is not going to be a part of any of my future travel plans.  I go away to get away, not to take any of the stuff with me.

The birthday girl invited me to visit her and when two other of our friends overheard (not the her), they invited themselves along and the birthday girl was delighted.  I said that I would meet them all out there, D.C., since they prefer to fly and they decided that they would love to take the train, as well.  Sigh.  I am not all that worried, since I have months to make other arrangements to go alone and not hurt the feelings of anyone, all women that I love.  It will work out.  Yep.  Oh, and the learning here is that I now realize that I am not willing to spend my away time with anyone.  I mean, how selfish is that.  Really selfish.  I have some serious work to do here.

Alrighty, another heart.

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 47

Breakfast:  Eggs
Lunch:  Japanese, very late, mid-afternoon
Dinner:  Diet Rite, cheese popcorn, orange sherbet

It seems that I have given up, yes?  I feel like I am still invested in this process, but the facts, and my ginormous butt, bear false witness to that.  Still, I begin every day with a joyful spirit and enthusiasm to eat well, get some extra walking in there someplace and prove to myself that I am capable of making and keeping a commitment.  Ending each day is much the same, enthusiasm-wise, but with the bitter knowledge of how I end up laughing in the face of my determination.  Hah!  Take that, Resolve!  Ho, there, Steadfastness, where do you think you are going?  Whoa, Tenacity, stop dilly-dallying and get everyone back on track.  Why do you think we made you the leader, just so that you could sit there, stick there and wave a pom-pon once in a while?

There are too many players in this whole thing...no wonder I cannot get it all together. 

I should be really upset about my lack of doggedness, but I am not.  I have had one kick-ass week and I am still feeling great.  I think that there is a new bone-on-bone place  rubbing away in my right hip, the nerve pain has amped up a bit on my face, and someone who is not me found a new way to manifest his inner, mean, (expletive-laced) bastard, but none of this seems to make any difference.  Not even the crazier than usual local folk who come to chat with me at work, and most especially the guy who came in to interview me as a potential employee of his to help him with his attempts to avoid being shut-down by the government because they do not want him to get the patents and produce the things he has invented that will save the world. It was a very interesting hour with him, I have not committed to being hired by him, declined his invitation to exchange telephone numbers and addresses and will not be going to his house to help de-bug it from the eavesdropping equipment the secret operatives have installed there, even though they taunt him by calling him on the telephone and telling him to put down his book and leave the house.

Truth be told, I think that the crazier than usual folk are my favorite kind of people.  They have found me at work and at the gallery.  It is never an inconvenience to have them stop by and chat away like they are making any kind of sense to be, because the whole world is not making any sense and it is my guess that those guys have a head start on the rest of us.  You know that saying about how just because you are paranoid, it does not mean that they are not out to get you.  Yep.

I am not a fan of Karen Kingsbury, but I accidentally watched a film made from one of her books this evening, and I like it.  A lot.  Like, really a lot.  I wonder if I am bi-polar and in the manic phase.  Really, that would explain so much. 

Whatever the cause of my decent moods, bless it.  And, even though it was not the best kind of choice to make for dinner, I am please by having eaten only orange food.  The only thing that would have made it complete would have been an orange soda, but the diet ones taste kind of icky and the regular kind tastes kind of not so great for my blood sugar.

Whatever is going on here, it is chasing the complaining right out of me, which is always a good thing.  And, I have a new Richard Laymon book to shiver my timbers tonight.  I hope that there is lots of gore in my immediate future.  So, on to the GP.

More hearts, I think.

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 29

Breakfast:  Eggs, 4 strips of pre-cooked bacon (yes, I am lazy on top of everything else), 4 squared of chocolate
Lunch: A lot of wonderful food, but slightly too much of it, at one of those really good buffet places.
Dinner:  Glass of red wine to help wash down the shame of lunch

I am doing this differently today.  Since I am not doing anything useful, I thought that I would write this in segments, as drafts are allowed here.  That is one of the things I most like about Google.  Whatever the product, you can always save in draft form.

So, anyway, I am just about to get ready to take one of my ss women to lunch.  I have limited these excursions to three hours, but she drags them out for at least an additional hour, which is still much better than the usual six to twelve hours she prefers.  I feel exceptionally mean about making these time restrictions.  She has only one other friend.  That friend is often cross and impatient with her, but if you have only just the two friends and one of them (me) has other things scheduled during the week, the one that is left is still your only other friend.

Now, with this time thing, I am going to be one of her cross and impatient friends, too, I guess.  I do not want to be that kind of friend.  It sucks to be that kind of friend.  But, I have to be, otherwise I would never have any time for myself.  This friend, today's friend, would prefer that I pick her up and take her places two or three times a week, not for appointments or anything, but just for social contact.  If I were not responsible for three other people just like her, I might be willing to do that.  But, I cannot, I simply cannot do all of that.  I can squeeze three such visits/trips into a week, but they cannot be all for one person.

Besides, none of the four people for whom I do this is willing to just go to the park and sit or take a lunch from home.  They are not interested in going to a mall or some other public place and just sitting and talking.  They all want to eat out and go shopping.  They can afford it, I cannot.  What they cannot do is to drive themselves.  For that they need me.  Well, I hope that they need and want me for more than that, but the truth is that I am not sure that it is for anything more than the driving aspect.  Even if that is so, I can still do this with one of them during the week.  Whilst I can often manage to avoid spending anything when they shop, it is nearly impossible to avoid having to fork out money at a restaurant, and it is absolutely impossible for me to take food from home along.  I try to eat before I leave to fetch them so that I will not arrive someplace and be ravenous, and then find the least expensive thing on the menu, but it still adds up.

I have no idea where she wants to go today.  She want to surprise me.  Yeah, she is sweet like that and looks to make these outings fun for me, too.  She buys a coupon book every year from some non-profit organization and likes to use those things to try new restaurants.  One of them, last month, was a hour and a half drive away, but it turned out to be one of the best places we have ever been.

Off to have fun!

It is official.  I totally suck at having a backbone.  I do and it is time that I just gave in and admitted it.  No freaking backbone, and to illustrate how that is, today's three hour lunch just ended at seven and a half hours.  It included a trip to a medium box store, where I found heirloom Roma tomatoes and a Black Krim.  Both are strong and sturdy and double-stemmed plants and are in the ground and awaiting a nice, deep watering in the morning.  Yeah, even people without backbones know not to water this close to nighttime.

As for the three hour limit on taking someone out, I really do give up.  I will save it for the times when I really cannot afford a minute more, as well as limiting these excursions to once every other week. 

So, I am wondering what the friendship of some of the people in my life means and where those relationships are going, if they are going anywhere.  The one who screwed me over is pretty much history.  We will still have to see each other at the gallery, but the connection is severed, at least on my end.  Frankly, if he could treat me like he did, there never existed any kind of relationship between us.  All in all, no loss for him and only some residual sadness for me.

And, today's friend, the older woman that I take places, well, what is that all about anyway.  I have to decided if I really am her friend and how I am going to accept who she is and just get the hell over myself.  I can do that.

Today's GP is an angel, just in case you cannot figure out what it is.

Yes, this really is an angel!

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 9

Breakfast:  2 corn dogs, 2 mugs of instant cocoa/no sugar
Lunch: Nothing
Dinner:  2 cans of chicken soup, 2 slices of whole wheat toast, buttered, 2 mugs of decaf green tea, 3 RS sugar-free chocolates

It was a slow day, although it began at 2:00 a.m., when I woke gagging on mucus and then kept up by hunger.  I finally gave in and had the corn dogs and cocoa because they were the most quiet and least scent-creating things to make at that hour.

Went back to bed and slept until eight, back to rest, read and mostly doze at eleven.  Finally got up at 3:00 p.m.  Ate dinner at, around 7:00 and am ready for bed again.  I was not hungry, even after not eating, but made myself heat up the soup.  Then, heat up another one and have toast with it.  On a roll for twos, I guess.  The Russel Stover chocolates were for medicinal purposes only.  Honest.  The sugar alcohols are slightly, ummm, well, they help you, well, I just have to say it, poop, and with so little fiber in my body today, my colon will thank me tomorrow, fersure.

It was nice to sleep so much today.  You just cannot discount the benefits of naps.

I am taking all of my meds.  I have stopped with the antihistamines because I think they are blocking the fluids in my middle ears from draining.  Just popped a couple of generic decongestants, and hope that works.  I really am not fond of waking up with the whole mucus gagging thing.  Enough fun already.

Off to bed.

Oh, og, oog, I called yesterday's friend.  As assertive as I was with her at lunch about making a big freaking deal about who pays, she is just the same old person today again.  We have an agreement that we each pay our own whatever, lunch, snacks, beverages, stuff.  And still she creates a little scene each time, dragging in whatever poor, hapless clerk, waiter, salesperson is stuck taking care of us.

So, yesterday I took a stand, one that I have taken twice before, but she is such a backslider about this stuff.  The stand is that if she fusses about paying for my meal, that the meal (or snack or whatever) about which she is fussing and making a scene will be the last one that we have together.  Today I had to make the same standard for telephone conversations.  Lordy.  It is too much.  My guess is that, from her relating familial things, this is the way they all do business.  Everyone having a long, torturous scene over who pays for whatever.  Same thing for where to go or what to do together.

It is too much.  I cannot have this keep happening.  I just cannot.  And, it is not because I am feeling so crappy.  Hell, even when I am well, this just wears me down all the time, all the long days that she needs for all her stuff.  I am certain that this makes me a selfish, opinionated freaked-out brat.  So be it.  Fuck.

Today's GP (You know, I think that making one of these is the highpoint of each day.  How sad is that.):

100 Days toward a healthier life - Day 7

Goodness.  A week.

I am better today.  Feeling more sick, but with a greatly improved outlook.  Maybe a better attitude, as well, not sure.  But, more hopeful, at any rate.

Breakfast:  2 eggs, over easy; 3 strips of well-done, although not too crisp, bacon, fat blotted off; tiny bowl of fruit, small cubes of cantaloupe, watermelon, 2 slices of some kind of red apple, not the crispy kind and two red grapes.
Lunch:  Pho, with the works, flank, brisket, tendon and tripe; 3 spring rolls; can of diet coke.
Dinner: The spring rolls leftover from lunch.
Lots of water.

Today was morning coffee with my friends.  It began as coffee and maybe someone would have a roll or a muffing or toast or something like that, but it has morphed into actual breakfast.  So, breakfast was at a restaurant, the second time we have been there.

The group likes to try new places.  Some are worth a return visit, some not.  This place, today, is kind of weird.  The staff runs hot and cold and you would think that you could not tell such a thing from only two visits, but apparently if the staff is just weird enough, you really can tell, even on the first visit.

The first time there, I was the first to arrive.  Another woman and I live way south of everyone else, so we get to drive the longest distance.  We live on opposite sides of the county and cannot ride together, but we are always the first to get wherever we are going.  So, I get there and the hostess welcomes me and asks something like how can she help me and I reply that I will be dining with five friends.  She stares at me.  She looks down at her desk/counter.  She looks back up at me and asks, "Do you mean now?"  I mumbled something like, "Ummm, yes."  However, in my head I was saying, "Nah, I was thinking sometime in August, maybe on a Thursday.  And, maybe you could pick me up, because this is a heck of a long way to drive." 

Anyway, she huffed and puffed and tried to blow my house down, but my house was in another county and she failed, which did nothing to improve her mood.  She did, however, lead me to a table that would accommodate five people and said to let her know if all six of us showed up and she would find another chair for us.

Today was slightly better, but just as amusing.  So, anyway, I had this great, hardly carby breakfast and then went shopping for stuff to do with my mentee and stopped in for fat quarters and some other fabric at a friend's store.

Then, I went for pho.  Oh, man, I love that stuff.  A huge bowl of steaming broth that cooks the meats and the extras, pure and unadulterated bliss.  Comfort food of the highest order.  The noodle shop I visited today (one of three that are my favorites) tosses in a couple of perfectly crafted meatballs, fine textured, strangely spiced.  Ahhhh.  Just one more reason to visit Vietnam.

It was too long a time walking and doing and looking and talking to my friend.  She sent me home with a Michael Cox book; I think it is Glass in Time, but I cannot really remember.  I took the book and myself to bed, got 21 pages read, then the drowsing cat beside me drew me into my own nap.  Waking, I felt much better, still do.

Feeling too ill to do much of anything useful, I checked all the computer stuff and one was a link to the Peace Pilgrim.  I read the article Steps Toward Inner Peace.  You know how things come into life, awareness, just when you need them?  This was one of those occasions for me. 

One area with which I have been struggling is one of the older (than me, even!) women for whom I provide social contact.  Actually, I consider her a friend, but that is how our relationship began, gosh, maybe eight years ago.  Wow.  Anyway, she has her own special personality and I have been feeling drained and weary the past dozen or so times I have taken her out.  She does have another friend, and is close to her family, even though they live far away.  They talk on the on the phone and her sons are always sending her photos via their cellphone.

But, I am the one who takes her for most of her shopping, particularly to the mall.  This mall is a near-hour drive from here and the days we do that are long, often ten or twelve hours.  It is great and we have a good time, but the days are just too long and I am guessing that it is because I have not been feeling well for a long time.  I feel stressed just thinking about how a simple lunch turns into an eight hour ordeal. 

I mean, how selfish can I possibly be?  Yeah, that selfish.  However, reading that article, well, it was like a reinforcement of all of the stuff that is important to me, stuff that I have not been practicing very effectively.  Anyway, I called my friend and had the nicest, and shortest, conversation I think that we have ever had, at least since the early days of our friendship.  I had the opportunity to be exactly what she needed.  Man, that feels nice.  We can go to lunch, walking in the mall and get her some groceries tomorrow without me feeling all ashamed of myself.

I am hungry, so I will have a couple of snap pea pods and go to bed, to read and more dozing with the kitty.

I even felt well enough for more guilty pleasure:

And, what the hell is wrong with the label function?

Simple thoughts

Did you hear the one about the old babe who had a PVD/Posterior Vitreous Detachment and then had a second one four days later?  Well, it seems that having that little heart thing a month ago, plus the joint pain, plus the nerve damage, and the high blood pressure was not enough to help her see (pun coming) that she needed to regain her healthy body and the general health that comes with it.

She needed to be faced with the risk of having the remains of her sight lost due to the little bleed-outs in her retinas and the detachments and the flashers before she was able to take all of this crap seriously.  Lordy.

The simple things in a life are what seem to matter the most.  Forgetting that is just a darn shame.  Big problems are reduced when a client keeps thanking you over and over and keeps asking to shake your hand just because of that little thing you did for them.

When the next client does a little of the same and tells you that you are a nice person and that you are the first person with whom he has felt comfortable in a very long time, well, that is the icing on that cookie and that cookie is one that you can safely enjoy without further assault to your vision.

It is a lovely thing when the person who felt most threatened by your volunteering has become one of your most ardent supporters, which is important in an increasingly uncertain, local government, economic environment.

That he has a larger pole up his ass than you do is an opportunity to mind your own hubris before it can come back and bite you in the ass.  Frankly, it is a blessing, and you get to be grateful not only for his transformation, but for the gentle reflection he offers to your own attitudes and behaviors.

So, anyway, there is this guy who comes into the library on a fairly regular basis.  I do not know who he is, but I see him there all the time.

Today he has a new haircut.  I see him walking towards me and I think, "Man, that is so cool...he is manifesting his inner Beatle."  The mop-top bowl cut is actually quite cute on him.

Then, we pass and I turn to look at the back of the new haircut and I think, "Man, do you not have any friends who are good enough friends to share with you that, from behind, your head looks like a furry penis?"

It is very sad, very, very sad, when a local organization, one dedicated to the needs of veterans, accepts the help of a good person in utilizing a significant part of their facility to bring in much needed funds, and then after learning from him, decide to eliminate him from the program he designed, built and successfully ran.

It would be fine if the reason for dumping the good person was other than intentionally using him to develop the program so that they could take over and run it themselves.  Had they been upfront about their plans, no one would have been surprised or hurt in the transition.  But, seriously, to use someone like that is just plain shameful.

I am dedicated to that organization and when I heard what had happened I went to the source, where the suspicions of the dumped, good person were confirmed.  Bad enough to do that, but how much worse to be so blasé, so matter-of-fact and unashamed about it.  I could not be more shocked if it had happened to me.  I am hoping that writing it down will help me to process what seems like a complete betrayal of principles, beliefs and honor.   I am stunned and see no future time when this is not going to bother me.  I have also severed my connection to them, which makes me more sad that I can even think about.

I want to be light-hearted about this, you know, how breaking up is so hard to do (feel free to sing along), but I thought that I could do my little, peripheral stuff there and it could be a sort of connection to my brother, and there just is not any reasonably light aspect that I can find, which is another disappointment for a positive view girl like me.  Heartbroken and a little scared that such a thing could happen.

I get to play with the babies and their mommy tomorrow.  She, the mommy, was ill last week and I could give her only one day.  Maybe she will feel well enough to play outside with us.  More likely, she will use the time to catch up on all the stuff that was put aside so that she and her babies could play outside every day.

She is a lovely mom and I adore her.  I think that we will surprise her with home-made pizza for lunch.  One of her favorites.

I am a big girl.  I can pull up my big girl panties and get on with whatever needs getting on.  Still, today's disappointment and subsequent split with one of my favorite organizations is so sad.  People get to be human.  I get to let them do that.  I get to accept people for who they are, because, you know, we are all simply doing the best that we can, here on this pretty, little planet.  I get all that.  But, if I really do, then why does my heart ache so much about something that did not directly happen to me?

I have to release this.  Holding on to it serves no one.  Besides, it feels as though I am giving some of my power away to them, and they do not deserve to have anything from me.  This totally and completely sucks.

Wondering

I have been home a few hours now.  Tonight was the evening version of Saturday Morning Coffee with the Chickies.  My friends.  My pilgrimage buddies and then coffee friends and then hang-on-for-dear-life friends.   We do this each year near Christmas.  It is great and some of us give presents and some of do not and no one ever seems to notice who is giving or not, much less care about it.

It is a nearly perfect of manifestation of what true giving and gifts are about.  No expectations to be dashed, no weirdness about what is received or given or anything.  It is as pure and unselfish an experience as any of us have and one would hope that all such exchanges could be.  It is a pretty fucking amazing thing.  Just amazing.  One friend gave me three...count 'em...Anna Lee mice.  Two kind of Christmasy, and one Halloween little mouse witch with a sweet, tiny broom.  Another friend gave sweet little things and a gift card for a book store.  I gave my ornaments and chocolate gelt, which I adore, not only for the chocolate, but for the whole historical aspect and have been doing so for, gosh, this old babe has been giving gelt for nearly forty years and not a single one of them spent as anything other than the pagan girl that I am, and Christian that I was.  Maybe I was a Hasmonean-wanna-be in a former life.   

Last weekend, or the weekend before that, I simply cannot keep any of this straight anymore, just four of us got together for dinner at the apartment of one of the sisters.  I met both of them, the sisters, on a pilgrimage to Ireland.  One of them, the apartment one, had been warned about me by one of the other travelers, that I was a witch.  I may very well be a witch of the rude, nasty and despicable kind, but she did not understand that the other person was telling her about my spiritual path.  She, the apartment Chickie, much later, told me that it was near the half-way point in the trip that she realized what she had been told and found, much to her surprise, by the way, that she liked me as a person.  Cool.  Groovy.

Anyway, back here in the States, she was part of the original coffee women and over the years, other people have come; some stayed, others left, not finding us to their particular liking, which is fine, truly, because that is the process by which we find the people who are essential parts of our lives.

I have become particularly close the the apartment Chickie.  I like her sister a lot, too.  In fact, we were friends first.  Anyway, the apartment Chickie does not drive, never has, does not want to, and, frankly, she is unsuited to being behind the wheel of several tons of metal and other assorted parts and bits and pieces.  We often go on to do something else with the day after the coffee group breaks up and wanders off to do whatever it is that they do.

So, anyway, at the whenever-weekend dinner, it was, hell, I will just use their initials.  Sheesh.  There we are, at M's apartment, with her sister D and her husband and our other friend S and her husband.  S's husband is recovering from a stunningly serious heart problem, which nearly took his life a couple of months ago.  He is not recovering well, but that is for later.  D is our friend who is dying of ovarian cancer.  She had had a big transfusion on that weekend and was able to stay for a nice, long time and when she left, the rest of us left, too, because it was just so sad to know that that night was likely to be the last time that we would all be together.

D and her husband did not attend this evenings lovely thing with all of us friends because she is too ill to leave her house.  Her sister, M, does not talk about D very much.  She gives the occasional update, but her heart really is not in it, you know?  I worry about both of them, but M does not talk about any of this with anyone and whilst it is her journey and I would never interfere, beyond what I have done to make sure that she knows that I am available to her 'round the clock, it is her journey and she gets to travel it in exactly the way she prefers.  I truly do my best to not worry about this, but it just does not seem like a good plan on her part.  Truly.  Sometimes it is so difficult to keep my thoughts about this to myself.  Seriously.

Anyway, it is time to write how I feel and say my goodbyes, whilst I still can.  Even if I do not make this happen in time, D already knows how much I love her and that all of us will be here for her husband.  A kind of goofy, but altogether lovely man he is, who lost both of his closest relatives in the past year, his mother and his only auntie.  He is the kind of husband that all of us would love to have.  Interesting in a not too painful way, a person with wide and varied interests, and, most importantly, a man who pulled up his big boy panties and was there for his wife in every single way that truly matters.  

And, then we have S's husband (the one with the miserable heart issues), who is not behaving well.  He has always been a joking and intellectually lively person, but two weeks ago found him taking a serious fall in his driveway, from which he is still sporting a black eye.  Tonight it was the worse that I have seen.  He kept repeating himself, over and over and some of it was inappropriate for general conversation and we all tried to make light of it, but it was so disturbing.  S talked about it when he left the room, and one of us is a nurse, the big-hot-shot kind and the two of them discussed what S needs to discuss at this week's visit with her husband's neurologist and cardiologist.

Things here, at the old homestead, are going from bad to more bad and I simply cannot muster any energy to deal with any of it because, in the scheme of things, like in life in general and the issues with which the people around me are struggling, my crap barely registers on any level of importance that anyone could devise.  My stuff is lacking in significance in the face of everything else and I am not able to cope with any of it.

There is great suffering in my town, many people who do not have the means to take care of the basics, much less anything extra.  I see them in my work and whilst I am working my ass off to help where I can and to find additional resources and connect people with them, it is just endless and I wonder how much good I am doing or if it is possible to do good at all.

I still cannot be holiday anything, and this evening's thing is the exception (the one and only, single thing I have done for months), because to not go and do and eat and share would have brought too much attention to myself, the feeling and being apart from everything that everyone else holds dear right now.  Pretending that I am cheerful and happy to be around people is so exhausting.  I am doing lots of volunteering, zoning in on something besides myself and it does fill the time.  I guess that it does do some good in town and I am, gosh, just so grateful that I have the resources to help, but I need this fallow time, some time to try to heal and maybe come back to who I was or who I want to be, yeah, who I want to be.  I am not empty, in any sense, but I am weary and exhausted to the bones, the ones that bedevil me and for which there is not adequate pain relief.

I cannot be the only person who feels adrift in all of this holiday stuff.  It is difficult to hold my tongue when I hear or read about how someone is stressed about not giving the exactly perfect gift or receiving some longed-for ideal present.  Or is distressed because other people do not have the same beliefs about how they feel holidays should be celebrated.  I weary of listening to the sadness someone feels because not everyone else, Christians or not, prefer to wish one another a happy holiday instead of merry Christmas.  I mean, seriously, Christmas is ruined because everyone else is not Christian or refuses to lock-step with their personal beliefs?  And, I just keep struggling with my own judgments about how others judge all those other people.  It is a vicious and pointless exercise and I just feel nauseated about it.  I do not want to be perfect or any such damn thing, but I would so love to not give a crap about how miserably some people are treated or judged.  Just pointless.

Frankly, if I hear or read about one more person bemoaning the commercialization or the Americanization or the Disney-izaion of the holiday I am going to scream or hurt myself.  I swear.  I really do.  If you are doing exactly what you want to do in your life, whether or not is it a holiday, then why do you give a rat's ass about what someone, anyone, else is doing?  If you have that much time in your life, to waste it worrying and fretting and judging other people, there is a possibility that you are not actively doing enough for other people or your neighborhood or your community or working to make your little part of the world a better place for everyone, every group, every creature, every issue.

I think that I must no longer be fit for being around other people.  If I start talking about any of this with other people, it might not even be a personal choice, as those other people might be very happy to kick my sorry ass right out of polite society, which, in itself, is kind of an oxymoron these days.  Crap, there I go judging again.  I am hopeless and best find a cave in which to live.  Posthaste. I am not fit company.

O.K., I thought that I was finished, but I am not.  One thoughtful, tender and well-intentioned thought stream.

Do your own thing.  I will do my own thing.  Leave my thing alone and I will offer and extend the same courtesy to you.  If you do not like my thing, please keep your opinions (to which you are entirely entitled to hold) to yourself.  Please, I am begging you, do not concern yourself or fuss about how I shop, what is in my grocery basket or shopping cart, how, or if, I cook, how many convenience products I use, what cleaning products I use, how I do the laundry, what I drive or do not drive, how I dress, whether or not I make all my own personal crap, how I garden or do not garden, how I educate my children, where I work or how I spend my money.  Please do not worry your pretty, little head about what I read, where I go, how I vacation, how organic my food supply or lifestyle is,  where I live or how many utilities and services I use, what my belief system or spiritual path might be, or how I manifest, or do not, what those beliefs may be.  If I have forgotten anything, please add it to the list of things about me which should not have to bother you.

I will do exactly those things, and more, for you. 

Oh, one more thing.  I have, for as long as I can remember, said Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas.  I did this even when I was a serious and dedicated and faithful Christian, because I always recognized that my religion, spiritual practice and faith community was not the only one in the world, and because I did not want to marginalize anyone with whom I came into contact should they have beliefs different from my own.   It always seemed like, plain, simple and ordinary courtesy.  Just saying. 

Besides, the winter holiday season is chock-full of some of the most interesting practices, both spiritual and secular.  Many of them are fun, but all of them are informative to anyone who desires to be a well-rounded, educated and interesting person.  Open your heart and be a part of some of them. 

The more you learn about other people, how they live, what they practice, the less fearful you will be about those who seem to be different than you.  Educate yourself, inform yourself, move beyond only what you have been taught or experienced.  Yeah, just open your heart...if you are brave enough.  Courage, baby.