sueeeus

I’ve been alive forever.

Oh Barry.  You have such a way with words.  I sit in my living room, clinging to the few precious minutes that I have to myself before I collect my children, and your voice fills my head and my heart, transporting me back to the girl I was so many years ago.

The timbre of your voice, like velvet, fills me and warms me.

My home lies deep within you, and I’ve got my own place in your soul.

I feel within me the stirrings of beauty, the dawning awareness of the magic of music.  Music fills.  Transforms.  Transports.  Breathes life to a parched heart.  Gives hope.

Music fills your heart.

My young mind is taking in the world around me.  I am filled with emotions.  I am going through the metamorphosis of child to young woman.  I feel everything.  I see beauty.  I am filled with wonder.  I am awestruck by the magnificence of God’s green earth.

I write the songs that make the young girls cry.

I yearn for love, although I know not what love is.  I ache for something that I can’t put words to.  I have an emptiness that I can’t describe.  To belong.  To be cherished.  To be wanted.  To be understood.  I don’t know who I am, but I feel.  Oh, how I feel.  I am emotion.  I am music.

I am music, and I write the songs.

I want to wrap my arms about the world and fill it with all the love that I have, that I am.  I want to wash away all the tears, comfort all the sorrows, and heal all the brokenness.  I am love, and I want to sing.  I am music, and I want to sing.

It’s from me, it’s for you.
It’s from you, it’s for me.
It’s a world wide symphony!

That girl, so long ago, still lives within me.  Who was she?  What were her hopes and dreams?  The years, like layers of dust, have accumulated and obstructed the clarity of youth.  My sense of beauty is tarnished.  My sense of wonder is shrouded.  My sense of awe is eroded.  My sense of self is masked.  But the music!  The music takes me back.  The music reveals my soul.  The music sets me free.

Now, when I look out through your eyes, I’m young again, even though I’m very old.

What does a twelve  year old know of life and love?  Everything!  The innocence of youth allows hope to exist unfettered and pure.  To see and understand eternity.  Eternity!

I’ve been alive forever, and I wrote the very first song.
I put the words and the melodies together.
I am music, and I write the songs.

What did I know of the path ahead?  What did I know of the cares of the world?  We were poor, and though it tugged at my heartstrings to see my mother’s anguish over how to make ends meet and somehow maintain a semblance of sanity amidst the bedlam in which we lived, I didn’t understand.  Worldly things were not my concern.  There was a roof over my head, food on the table, shoes on my feet and clothes on my back.  So I was rich, and I was free!  I could dream!  I could hope!   My heart could sing!  I could get lost in the music.

I write the songs that make the whole world sing.
I write the songs of love and special things.

Now I am my mother.  The cares of the world are on my shoulders.  It’s up to me to see to it that my own children have a roof over their heads, food on the table, shoes on their feet and clothes on their back.  So they can be rich, and they can be free.  So they can hope and they can dream.  So their hearts can sing.  So they can get lost in the music.  There is a sense of wistfulness that the woman I’ve become has replaced the girl that I was.  But the music takes me back, even if but for a moment, and reminds me that I am still the girl that I was.

I am music, and I write the songs.

I’m beginning to unravel and better understand certain things about myself.  I’m naturally forgiving.  I don’t hold resentments and grudges.  I think I used to.  I must have.  Maybe it’s something that develops with age.  Maybe it takes a certain maturity to face oneself in the mirror and take responsibility for all things.  Things didn’t happen to me.  Life is a compilation of experiences, and those experiences have to do with choices I’ve made along the way.  Sure, they intersect with choices that others have made along the way as well.  But I”m the captain of my own ship.  I don’t have to react to anybody.  I can choose my course.

Maybe it’s more simple than maturity.  Maybe it’s just sheer exhaustion.  One reaches a point, swimming against the current, so to speak, when one can no longer go on.  So we just stop fighting, start treading water, and simply try to stay afloat.  Maybe it’s just survival.

Whatever it is, I am glad to let bygones be bygones.  There is peace in doing so.

In all of this, however, I recognize the need for vigilance.  Forgiveness is one thing, but it’s also critically important to learn from one’s mistakes and not go on repeating them, time and time again.

I’m in a healing mode.  I don’t know what the future holds.  I don’t know much of anything.  I do know that the life I’m leading consumes my emotional, mental and physical resources.  Treading water, staying afloat, is all that I can do right now.  One day at a time.  One step at a time.  One minute at a time. I’m doing what I need to do.

I will say this.  I love being a mother.  Love, love, love.  I may be barely afloat, but when I think of my kids, I feel a smile steal over my face.

How I love them!

They are my everything.

1. Maybe it’s because of the weather.
2. Maybe it’s because the holidays are approaching.
3. Maybe it’s because of life changes.
4. Maybe it’s because of shifting hormones.
5. Maybe it’s because of the commute.
6. Maybe it’s because of the job.
7. Maybe it’s because of politics.
8. Maybe it’s because of other people’s children.
9. Maybe it’s because of my children.
10. Maybe it’s because of school.
11. Maybe it’s because of the economy.
12. Maybe it’s because of the struggles my friends are going through.
13. Maybe it’s because of the struggles that I am going through.
14. Maybe it’s because I’m getting older.
15. Maybe it’s because October 27th came and went and I’m missing my brother.
16. Maybe it’s because I see my brother in my nephew.
17. Maybe it’s because I wonder how my nephew is, without his dad.
18. Maybe it’s because I’m missing my family.
19. Maybe it’s because my kids have been sick.
20. Maybe it’s because I’m sick now.
21. Maybe it’s because I didn’t offer work to any of the people waiting outside Home Depot, hoping for some work.
22. Maybe it’s because I said I wouldn’t help the guy standing outside the grocery store who asked me for food.
23. Maybe it’s because he walked away while I scrounged through my groceries for things I could give him.
24. Maybe it’s because I didn’t follow him and give them to him because I was late to pick up my kids.
25. Maybe it’s because I wonder why a healthy looking young adult is standing outside a store asking for food.
26. Maybe it’s because I wonder about the young couple who are working the intersection near my office.
27. Maybe it’s because I wonder why they have decent clothes and a different outfit every day.
28. Maybe it’s because I feel guilty for being judgmental.
29. Maybe it’s because there was a dead mouse in the toilet.
30. Maybe it’s because there were mouse droppings in the house.
31. Maybe it’s because I heard some scraping sounds near a heater vent.
32. Maybe it’s because it’s dark when I go to work.
33. Maybe it’s because it’s dark when I get home.
34. Maybe it’s because I miss my mom.
35. Maybe it’s because I miss my sisters.
36. Maybe it’s because I miss our family get-togethers.
37. Maybe it’s because so many of my nephews and nieces are already grown.
38. Maybe it’s because some of my nephews and nieces have kids of their own whom I’ve never met.
39. Maybe it’s because so many of my friends are retiring.
40. Maybe it’s because my kids melt down frequently.
41. Maybe it’s because of the struggles I see other parents  have with their kids.
42. Maybe it’s because I’m weary.
43. Maybe it’s because of the daily homework struggle.
44. Maybe it’s because of the challenge of managing childhood defiance.
45. Maybe it’s because I’m healing.
46. Maybe it’s because of technology overload.
47. Maybe it’s because of sensory overload.
48. Maybe it’s because the house is never clean for longer than 3 minutes.
49. Maybe it’s because the laundry never ends.
50. Maybe it’s just because I’m me, living the normal life that I live, and pretty much everyone is going through something similar.

shades of blue

Poppy held to her decision and severed all ties with George.  One day, when she’s had sufficient time to heal, she may mourn him properly, but at this stage, she just doesn’t have the mental or emotional capacity.  Steve arrived abruptly, with George’s sudden departure.  It’s all been quite a shock, really.  Poppy and Steve have been getting to know one another, as cohabitants do.  I wouldn’t call it a romance, by any stretch of any imagination.  It’s more like an arrangement. Of necessity.  Oh sure, she did jump into forever with him.  And she really does want to have a long and comfortable relationship with him.  Happily ever after, in fact.   Right now, however, it’s either sink or swim, and sinking is hardly an option.

In one sense, Poppy’s been very stable.  Oh, occasionally something will happen and she will have a momentary lapse of sanity in which she behaves erratically, but those moments are few and generally last no more than an hour. In general, she’s been feeling very good.

That being said, life with Steve has been a cautious, tip-toeing dance, for the first few weeks.  Steve seems to be a sensitive sort, and has his own idiosyncrasies.  For instance, he does not like to be rushed.  How can I say that, in such a way as to express it properly?  He.  Does.  NOT.  Like.  To.  Be.  Rushed.  And he’s a bit of a moody, broody sort.  So he likes to handle certain things on his own terms, and as long as one complies with his terms, there is harmony in the land.  Okay, so be it.  This is part of learning to live together.  Everyone’s got their own personal boundaries that need to be respected.  Steve, bless  his soul, is very clear about expressing his boundaries.  Poppy could stand to take a page from that book.

As the weeks progress, Poppy has also begun to notice that there may be some areas in which Steve and George are very similar.  She’s choosing not to overreact to this knowledge, but to take heed and reflect on it.  The last thing she wants is to encourage any of these tendencies.  So she’s keeping a close watch on this Steve character.  Watching him like a hawk, even.

~*~*~*~

Installment 2 of the Poppy Saga.

Characters:
Poppy the pancreas.
George who likes to gorge.
Steve the sleeve.

~*~*~*~

It’s been just about 4 weeks since surgery, and I’m doing very well.  The first 2 weeks are liquids only, and the next two weeks are soft foods.  It’s a bit challenging, learning to eat anew.  It’s probably similar to what babies go through, as they are learning to eat.  Things like the size of  each bite and how much it must be chewed before swallowing are critically important.  The steri-strips have finally worn off the incision sites, and the scars remaining are slight.  I’ve had a bit of a struggle with waves of depression, off and on.  I also notice that I tire easily, and I’ve been respecting this by allowing myself to rest when I need it.

I will say this much.  I loathe (ab.so.lute.ly loaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaathe) protein powder.  When I’ve finished the tub that I have, I will never buy another.  Ever.  EVER.

That being said, it’s such a relief, not to be hungry!  It’s also a tremendous delight to look at a small portion of food and know that it can and will be filling and fulfilling (although obtaining sufficient nutritional intake is definitely a challenge).  All in all, it’s a very exciting journey.  I feel liberated, and I am looking forward to finding and restoring bits and pieces of myself that have been lost through the years, as I progress through this excavation.

I hope to do a better job than all the king’s horses and all the king’s men did with Humpty Dumpty.