Letting go of what I didn't have in the first place!

My oldest grandson is graduating from high school this year. He is an amazing human being. He was from the day he entered this world. He sees life in unique ways and has always chosen to walk to the beat of his own drum. I saw on Facebook that he won a number of awards at Senior Day at the school he attends in Virginia. The pictures of him are awesome. He is so tall and grown and I am so proud of him. He graduates at the end of May. Life broadens out to meet him with the multitude of choices all vying for his attention.

And this is what I am letting go of because I cannot have the expectation any longer in my head. I did not know he was having a Senior's Day where he would be getting awards. I find out about it on Facebook in posts that are not even directly meant for me. He is graduating in a little over a week and I have no idea what day. I have been out of the loop for so long when it comes to high school graduations that I cannot remember the traditional stuff like when they are usually held. There are no phone calls to share the news of this day with me or to invite me to attend if I want to make the drive. I have been invited to attend graduation with the caveat that I understand things are going to be busy and there won't be much individual time. My expectation was that as these life events came into my grandchildren's lives I would know, someone would tell me and I could make a decision about being able to make the trip. My expectations have been that I would be involved in some small way. My assumption is that the mistakes I made in the past have cost me this opportunity to share in the joy and build-up to these times in the lives of my family in Virginia. I love all of them so much. I know they love me.

I wrestle with this sense of loss and inevitability as time passes by. I mourn it. I expected to be included and expectations are of no real value. Looking at the pictures of Forrest in his cap and gown gave me a thrill and I thought why my daughter did not call or mention to me about this day. Maybe I have broken something between us that is irrevocable and for that I am  full of sorrow and wish it were different between she and I. But it isn't. My job is to let that expectation go like a balloon leaving the hand of a child as the helium lifts it higher and higher. It is my job to accept life on its own terms and leave it with God. This is such an awesome time in my grandson's life. I burst with priide and love him more than he will ever know. My heart is happy for him. I'm letting go of what I did not have in the first place which is peace of mind with things exactly as they are today. Letting go by the grace of God!

#$&** and Happy Thoughts

The cellphone I use is old. It works fine. It does not have a camera and does not have a query keyboard for texting. It suits my needs perfectly and I have never been where I could not get a signal. Says a lot for this old, flip phone of mine. BUT today I wanted to change the voicemail greeting. A simple thing, right? Easy! NOT!! I have worked diligently to figure out how to find the settings for changing the greeting on my voicemail. I have viewed numerous websites, used codes, updated voice commands, gone round and round the numerous options available to me and could not find the voicemail options. In desperation I succumbed to deleting messages from my voicemail and VOILA! at the end of the messages I was offered options for making changes. Oh I should put my head down on my desk and cry. Really? I have to delete all the messages that are old before getting to the options for voicemail. REALLY?? Too freaking much for a complicated mind such as mine and ridiculous that the options should be hidden under a pile of undeleted voice messages. Maybe that is where my glasses are also. I have not been able to find them for days. Maybe I am nuts or developing a gap in my brain into which the memory of how to find things has fallen. My message is changed now. Ta! Da! Just think what it would have been like if I had a new phone with all the bells and whistles. Oh the horror of the thought. Technilogically challenged in a technilogical age, doomed to obsolescence...poor me! A little bitty phone got the best of me again. Please, beam me up, Scotty!

Happy Thoughts - had lunch with two of my best friends today. They happen to be married and a bit older than I; though not by much. As usual the time with them was delightful and went by all too fast. I travelled to New Bern to see them. There was a show of old, remodeled cars going on so downtown was packed. Flowers were out in containers at the entrance to shops and a light rain fell leaving the smell of rain in the air and raindrops twinkling in the sun as they clung to potted flowers. Great food at lunch. Great company at lunch. Familiar banter back and forth, laughter, sharing of opinions and mutual respect for one another. I call that a happy time! I am blessed!

Tomorrow is Mother'sDay! I never know how to deal with Mother's Day. This year is going to be relaxed and comfortable with little to dwell on other than it is Mother's Day. Simple! I cannot bear complicated Mother's Day feelings. For me tomorrow is an easy does it day!

%&$*^ cats have run all around me meowing and pawing at me. I fed them (though it was not time) and they have chilled out completely. They must be related to me. Caught a glimpse of a brilliantly red cardinal on my birdfeeder today. Took my breath away for a moment. He flew off quickly. He did not know I could not come through the wall to snatch at him. Boy, that bird was a looker! High fashion red, healthy and proud of it. Probably got eggs all over the place by different females, of course. He got my attention!

Ciao!

Oh the irony of it all...

Talking is an art form for me. I was born into a family of talkers. I learned at an early age that to get attention in one of our family gatherings it was important to get into a conversation, hold your own in that conversation and be able to talk to another group all at the same time. This was made truly chaotic as each and every family member seemed engaged in the same behavior creating a cacophony of voices and laughter. Friends brought into one of our gatherings would watch and listen in stunned silence often asking later how we possibly communicated in such a manner. This was on my father's side of the family. As the years have passed it has become undeniable that a fair number of us are not exactly poster children for mental health. Perhaps we were practicing for the mania that would later display itself in more than a few of us. Others of us slipped into long term depressions or heard voices and yelled at things that were not visible to anyone else. Others of us turned to drugs and alcohol which was my ticket into the family looney bin; Southern eccentrics to a fault if I put a spin on it.

Talking, storytelling, free advice, street corner b.s., long discussions about pretty much any topic and, following in my father's footsteps, talking to myself, have been my way of expression. The irony is that I am sick with something that is affecting my voice. I am in speech therapy. Friends find this hilariously funny! Talking creates exhaustion and muscular stress. My voice gives out when I am working and on the phone. Blip! I am talking and then I am croaking, at best, or unable to get a word out which is worse when a customer is on the other end of the phone.

Resting my throat muscles, my voice and suppressing my talkative nature is incredibly difficult. Everyone I know comes to mind and I think of something I need to tell them. I'm telling you this woman needs to communicate. It is in my blood. I have been sick in so many ways that I have lost track. This illness comes when I have begun working from home and am on the phone taking customer service calls. My perfect job, right? Flexible hours, helping people and talking to them is right up my alley! BUT the irony of it all is that my one prized possession, my voice, has turned traitor on me. Accepting things for what they are is not easy. Don't let anyone tell you it is easy. They are lying through their teeth. This is tough and I am not accepting it well. Oh, I'm not saying I can't talk at all but if I don't rest my voice and follow doctor's orders I can see that in my future. "Woe is me" sounds dramatic enough right now. Forthunately I am sleepy and ready for bed. I wonder if I talk in my sleep? Just sayin'!

Stuff

Sitting here at my laptop I hear the washing machine kick into the rinse cycle. I hear the faint murmur of the t.v. show my husband is watching in the living room. The keys click as I keyboard and my big black cat meows from atop my printer. The water in the washer slushes around...back and forth with the agitated motion designed to clean clothes better.
 Jeez! The black cat is scratching at the back of my chair and increasing his meow to include a note of drama. The last time he climbed the back of this chair he caught me with his paw and claw. I screamed out and he ran off in fear for his life. NOT!! What he wants is food although he is, by no means, starving and the Siamese will let him do the fussing until I go feed them a little something just to get some peace and quiet. So, yes, they are spoiled. Feeding on demand and I am the pawn in that game.
It has been another cloudy, windy and sprinkly wet day. It is cool. Very cool for the first part of May. Most of next week is more of the same. I like it. As I have grown older I have developed a love for gray, cloudy days with cool air and a light rain. When I was much younger I was a child of the sun often staying long hours at the beach when I lived in Florida. My daughter, who was about 2 years old at the time, would play and play. We lived on the Gulf Coast. The waves were tiny and the water was deliciously refreshing. She and I spent hours hanging out and getting deep tans. I did cover her with sunscreen but I let myself crisp into a dark tan. Oh, those were the days! I was barely 20 years old. I lived with a guy who was a nice guy, we smoked Jamaican reefer and sat on the porch watching the squirrels run along the electric line across the street. We hung out. My daughter fit right into the scene as she was born knowing her own mind and was able to chill out big time. It was a fragment of my hippie-dippy life. Of course, as I have done many times since, I blew up the whole thing and moved on. In retrospect my decision to move on was disastarous. I have paid the price for my choices at that time in my life many times over up to this very day.
No need to focus on the past too much. Pain and joy intermingle. I have been a difficult woman to bring into submission and finally into acceptance and a bit of peace. I spent many years in utter turmoil taking my kids along for the ride without a true understanding of what that would mean for them. I loved them so much but I could not tame the beast in me or at least I did not tame it for a very long time. Forgiving myself has been an incredibly long journey. There are times when I am not sure I have fully finished that job.
So, no Mr. Owl tonight. The wind is up and the light rain continues. I wish for a screened veranda with a hammock that I could sleep in on nights like tonight. Lordy that would be so fine!
Kisses! Good night!

Technologically Challenged - Paranoid of the Establishment and Such

Blogger, which is the venue from which I do this blog, offers the use of Google+. Google+ sounds great. The chance is that I would see comments that are being made...if any are being made. So I thought to myself, "Self! Try out that Google+. What can it hurt?" Turns out that trying to sign-up for Google+ was like nailing jello to the wall for me. I needed to make circles of friends. The profile I have now on Blogger is one that I like but my profile will change if I choose to use Google+. Then my inherent "old hippie" suspicion of the establishment kicked in and I began to think that I might not like being seen so much or would I even know if I were being seen and I did not want to change my profile or my picture and do comments matter that much to me? After all there is the No Comment thing at the bottom of the blog and anyone wishing to leave a comment can click on that and do so. So I became even more suspicious of the motive behind wanting me to use Google+ SO BADLY. I go by the theory that if an organization wants me to use a product so much that they make extravagant claims then the product must be detrimental to me or there is something I am not understanding. Actually I was not understanding how to get set up and they were using my real name because Elizabeth is a pen name and I don't really want my real name hanging out in outer space when I don't even know I launched it. My real name is not that common. I am protective of my privacy in that weird and twisted way that makes zero sense considering I blog about my life. Lets face it. Blogging is not saying "Come see me soon." I am particularly private about my residence. I don't mind people knowing where I live. I just don't do visitors well. Family, o.k. That's about it. Am I anti-social? Nope! I just like to have control of my little piece of the world. I've got a bit of PTSD. It shows when I think of having visitors. How I went from Google+ to this conversation is a mystery to me. I suppose it is the whole being visible to the "public" or it could be that I am too technologically challenged to figure out how to sign up properly or to lazy to work at it or, and this is the best answer, I don't truly give a tinker's damn about it. Not yet, at any rate. Maybe another time. Maybe when I write something that is truly worthy of reading and want to strut my stuff. But then again...I may well choose another name and change the profile to a "not me" profile. Imagine me writing as a "not me". That's a great idea for a blog. Not tonight. I have suffered the trauma of considering Google+ as a viable option. The stress of hiding while trying to show myself has left me sleepy and ready for bed. Poor, foolish paranoid woman avoids helpful technical suggestion out of fear of the unknown. Good grief! I'll probably sleep with my dagger a bit closer to the bed and dream of Matrix-like attacks marching on my blogger page claiming it for a pseudo-world of whacked out machinations. WHAT!! I have no clue what that is suppose to mean and I don't care...nope! I simply don't care. My brain is waving bye now! Sleep tight all. More will be revealed.

A Yearning for Sonny

A friend posted in Facebook that she had a bad night last night and a bad day today. She said she was snuggling with her dog in the bed and that made her feel better. I thought of Sonny. He was my doxie for nearly 16 years. I felt the familiar yearning to see him again. He slept with me. I often gave him the best part of my cozy little bed. People who do not understand the relationship a person can have with a beloved dog think giving the dog the best part of the bed because he has already gone to sleep and you don't want to wake him up is insane. Well, to be honest, it seemed so to me at times also but I rarely disturbed Sonny once he found his "spot". In the last months of his life he began sleeping right in the middle of the bed leaving no room for me so I would move him gently to one side. He was blind and had progressive congestive heart failure and was probably a wee bit deaf. Moving him startled him at times but I had to sleep and I always petted him and we talked about the time when I would need to let him go. I promised him that I would be brave and let him go when there was no more quality of life for him. I remember my last night with him. He was struggling for breath and trying to rest. I gave him a pain pill to ease his discomfort and I stroked him and whispered to him how much I loved him. We went to the vet the next day and, as I expected, I came home and Sonny did not come home. He was off running free from pain and suffering. He may have met Rico and Sugar, two cats he grew up with, as soon as he crossed over. I was left here to grapple with the realization that the love I shared with Sonny transcended our differences. We were the best of the best...true family. I am not ready to start a new relationship with a dog at this moment though I know there will come a day when I will meet a dog who calls my name and I will call him mine.

Good-night, Sonny, sleep well in your new home! I love you!

Early Morning, Blurry eyes

went to bed close to on time last night. woke up almost 8 hours later. this is a freaking miracle for me. opened the blinds a bit to see slices of a blue sky with large, puffy clouds and the sun strutting herself coming up high enough to shine into my window through my neighbor's pines and water oak trees. i am a tree freak. a trend in our neighborhood is to cut down trees that are inconvenient. each tree taken down hurts me deeply. our park has been protected by these trees during storms and hurricanes. i have lived here 13 years and not one tree has fallen on one home. debris? yes, goodness knows, pines make debris an art form. they can be a monumental inconvenience but does that mean cuting them down for our convenience is justifiable in the scheme of things. call me an eccentric. call me a tree hugger. trees are beautiful. they give far more than they take. well enuff of that sermon from me. i have my opinions. i won't beat the page to death writing about them further.

prayers came to my mind the moment i opened my eyes. God is magnificent. God is my abba (father)! God is the God of theAngel Armies! Praise God from whom all blessings flow. I know! It does not always seem that blessings flow from God to you. The only way to know someone is to spend time with them. The better you know them the more you trust and understand them. word!

gotta get ready for work. i'm craving caffeine big time. i think i'll hit mickey d's before getting started this morning. i wish each of you a very groovy day filled with glittering joys and peace of mind.