Cleaning

I started cleaning my boys' bedrooms out today. It works really well to do that when no one is home to demand that we keep that old broken toy. You know the one... the "favorite" that''s been collecting dust for a year, untouched until you pick it up to put it in the trash sack. Then it's, "My favorite! You can't throw that away!" Threw away a whole garbage full of broken "favorites," today. It always feels good to clean out the closets and cabinets. At least that's how I feel when I'm done. Never feel that way before I start. Cleaning is absolutely, my most dreaded chore. Give me laundry. Give me a lawn to mow. Give me anything except the cleaning! Yuck!

Today's cleaning was even harder than I expected. I discovered how much I am still grieving my older boys', when I walked into their room to clean out all the junk left behind when they moved out. I couldn't figure out why I was feeling so sad, and then I realized, how much I really miss them. I felt like a parent whose children have died and they just close the door to the room and leave it as is. That's what I'd done. Today was a sad day. A day of facing regrets about my parenting, a day of regrets about what my boys have turned out to be. I day of wishing I hadn't stayed married for so many years, wishing I had protected them from their father's anger, wishing I had given more or given less... whatever it would have taken to get a different result.

One piece of trash at a time. One dirty sock at a time. I pick up one thing and leave the room with it. Only in entering and exiting a lot, do I gain the strength to keep cleaning. It all turns out okay. I'm not done. yet, but my will power is tired. At least I got the majority of it straightened.
All of this writing just to say, "I miss my boys!" They may be jerks. They may treat me badly. They may be a pain in the ass, but they're my pain in the ass. I cared for them from birth until April. Now they are gone. Now they stay away.

I miss them!

The Sewing Machine

When I was young, my mother was "of course," a stay at home mother and home maker. Being the mother of 4 girls, two of whom were twins, was a very busy and thankless job. One of the many things my mother did, which we never appreciated until now, was to sew our clothes. My twin and I had to have matching outfits, and my older sisters had to coordinate with the "twins," clothes. Especially for special occasions like "Mother's Day." How ironic that she had tons of work to do to celebrate her own celebration. My mother had a 1958 black Singer sewing machine. She could sew the world brand new clothes on that thing! We weren't allowed to bother her while she sewed. I remember though, the sound of that old sewing machine. The whir of the motor and the clack of the pressure foot meant Mom was sewing. Periodically she'd have us stand still while she fitted and pinned. Most of the time, though, you could just hear the hum of that machine reverberate through the house. I think my mother liked to sew. She always enjoyed creating things. When my mother sewed, the world was a peace. The house grew calm. We kids gathered around her with books to read or color in. I remember being sprawled out on the floor beside her, reading the "Childcraft," nursery rhyme book. That book was good for a whole day of reading, so as long as she sewed, I was content to lie there beside her.

To this day, the sound of a sewing machine brings peace to my soul. Perhaps they should put that sound in those sleep sound machines. I wrote about that sound on Facebook. A couple of people wrote that their hearts respond like mine. Most of the women, however, wrote that they feel frustration and failure when they hear that motor hum. For them, a sewing machine reminds them of their not quite measuring up to the maternal standard of our mothers. In our generation, every mother sewed. Every mother made matching clothes for the children on holidays. All the children hated the clothes! It was a game we played with each other, a dance of responsibilities and declarations of independence. "Look what I made for you!" "I want 'store-bought,' clothes!" These two declarations rang out in almost every middle class home on the cul-de-sac the week before a holiday.

And yet, the soft purr of the sewing machine floods me with sweet memories... when Mom happily took care of our world. There was nothing to fear. Peace reigned in our lives... at least for a few hours.

More Letting Go

I've been thinking and talking with a friend. She thinks I should give my husband the house. Just let it go...not have that burden any more. While I know that I can't just give it to him, I've been thinking. Wouldn't it be nice to not have all that upkeep? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to afford to travel and do some fun things instead of putting every penny into the house? If I put the house on the market, would I regret it long-term? Would I be throwing away an investment? I have to admit that the thought of living in a rental makes me cringe. But then, most of how I live now used to make me cringe. I've adapted. It's okay. What if I rented a small house or an apartment. Would I then regret having no investment in a house for the future? Is the market going to improve enough to justify hanging on to it for awhile? Would the value of not having the expense and work, improve our lives enough that it will be worth it? All my other beliefs about life have turned out to be mirages. Maybe this suburbia home-owning is also. Maybe it doesn't make my life better. Maybe it's just another burden. Maybe I would feel a whole lot better not having a house.

We all say that we Americans focus too much on owning things. We say that we're too consumer oriented. We need to quit acquiring things. They aren't worth having. But we think that other people should cut back their consumption. "They" are to blame. "Not me." The truth is, we really do think that the person who dies with the most toys, wins. Maybe I need to let go. Maybe that would be the best.

Just some meandering thoughts this morning.

I'm wondering

I'm wondering why it's okay for my attorney to not present my case. I'm wondering why the attorneys and the judge have to go into private offices to talk instead of speaking in front of their clients. I'm wondering why the clients never got to hear the conversation or contribute to the conversation. I'm wondering why my attorney showed up. I know why I was there. It's my life we're talking about. I thought I knew why my attorney was there: to represent me. I was oh so wrong! Can you sue an attorney for not representing you? Can you sue an attorney for plotting with the opposing counsel to screw you over? These are the things I'm wondering tonight!

Court

It's really not very comforting to have your own attorney tell you to give in before a hearing! Each hour that passes, lops another link off the chain of hours between me and Monday morning. I am breathing less and stressing more. I keep trying to compartmentalize. I have work to do tonight. Talk about losing things! I could lose my supper, which I've already eaten, over this court appearance. I wish SOMEONE had confidence in things going well. For some reason, my ex/sort-of ex and his attorney think that I'm a bottomless pit of money for them to steal. They know what I make. Just because I make enough to get by (barely with no emergencies), and he doesn't, doesn't mean I have a big chunk to give away! Are they crazy? Okay, I'm trying to breathe. It's not working. I feel like I'm about to be gang raped and my attorney is going to help hold me down! This isn't good. Did someone say "tranquilizer?"

Where Is It?

My son and I have been having a weekend of "Where did I put it?" We were riding in the car with his friend and he put his handcuffs on his arm and attached it to the headrest. I'm driving down the highway at 70mph and I hear,
"Mom, I can't find the keys!"
"Where did you put them?"
"I don't know. I just had them a few minutes ago!"
"We haven't stopped the car, so they must be somewhere in the car."
The two boys frantically search the back seat, the floor by the back seat, between the bottom and back of the seat, between the console and each front seat. I'm thinking,
"How can you lose something when you've been confined to a seatbelt in the back of a vehicle with the windows shut? Did one of them open the window?"
They can't find the key. I tell them we'll be home in a few minutes and we'll look again. In the meantime, they remove the headrest so the arm is free to move around. About 10 minutes later, my son says,
"Uh-oh!"
"What did you do?"
"I just cuffed my arm to my ankle." I'm thinking,
" Why wasn't I a better mother and already have the second key in my safe keeping so this wouldn't happen? "But this is teaching him to be a bit more responsible. But if I were a better mother..."
It's so fun, that mom guilt trip! I ended up not taking the trip and realizing he needs to grow up and be responsible some time. Anyway, when we stopped the car, I searched the back floor. There were the keys, under a pair of shoes. I'm reminded of the commercial which labels
"mother" as "finder of all lost objects."
That pretty much describes me.

We have been home for a couple of hours now. I started to repair a door. Found the screw driver, found the screws, looked on the workbench for the strike plate. You guessed it. It wasn't there! I could swear I've walked past that thing a hundred times, seeing it out of the corner of my eye, and planning to put that in today. Can I find it? No! I imagine,
"Where did you put it?"
"I don't know."
"Where were you when you last saw it?"
"I thought I was standing at the work bench, but it's not there."
"Well it has to be somewhere in the house in plain sight if you've seen it a hundred times."
......I need a "mother!"

Swimming, Sexuality and the Womb

Why is swimming nude such a sexual/sensual experience? The reality is that when we swim, we're surrounded by fluid, just as we are in the womb. So why is that sexually arousing? Does our pre-birth experience, include sexual arousal on some level? Why is sexuality considered such a taboo in most public arenas, if that is the state from which we are born? Is it because after we "grow up," we are afraid to admit our vulnerability? Our physical state? Our "animal instinct?" Is it just in the "religious" world that we don't admit to our sensuality/sexuality? Does the rest of the world get this, but we "Christians," pretend our sexuality doesn't exist? What is moral? What is amoral? Some friends and I questioned some of this tonight. Those in the group who live within the sexual norm for our society are the most unhappy and most unfulfilled. Those who live outside the norm, and are considered by some to be amoral, are the most fulfilled. What's up with that?

Last Week

For the past year, as I've lost so much and given up so much, the thing that has bothered me the most has been my struggle with my faith. It was who I was, and now it is not there. I have felt like Alice in Wonderland, falling, tumbling and spinning while grasping at anything and everything to stop the fall. I've tried to regain my balance, to find some kind of center, to hang on to some thing that would give me a sense of who I am. The loss of my faith has been the loss of my identity. Last week I hit bottom for the umteenth time. Last week I wanted to die. Last week I even planned my death. It scared the hell out of me. Last week, I was so scared, I went to stay with a friend rather than be alone. Last week, I cried for two and a half days. That was last week. As I cried and struggled through those days, I wrote to and called several friends, trying to find a reason for wanting to live. I found one reason and one reason only, my hope that one of my children will not be screwed up by my husband's and my actions. I knew that if I died, I'd screw all my children up for the rest of their lives. That is the only thing that kept me alive.



My friends to whom I wrote and with whom I talked, pretty much said the same things they've said over and over again. Somehow, last week I reached the point where I could accept what they said. It was like I finally grieved the last of the worst of my grief for myself, my faith, my identity. A dear friend wrote that I need to live for the sake of living fully, and suddenly I could imagine that. I didn't feel a need to have a great purpose of serving a god I can't believe in now. I don't know for sure, but it seems that I have grieved the worst of my grief for my faith. I don't need that ultimate purpose to get me through each moment. I can now look forward to the future without some specific event dangling like a carrot in front of me. I look forward to just living a normal life tomorrow and the next day, and the next day, and the next day.

It feels good to feel normal again. It's been a long time. It's been a lot of pain. I don't ever want to go through that kind of pain again. I've lost a large part of who I am, and just about everything I've valued. I may lose more. In fact I think I will lose more. Probably will lose my house. Maybe some other things I haven't thought of. But still, I am done grieving the worst of losing my faith, my god, and my identity. Due to the love of my friends, I have survived (barely, but I'm still here.). For my life as it is, I am grateful. For not destroying my youngest child, I am grateful. For my friends who have saved my life, I will always be indebted and grateful. Thank you all.

Strewn

(I love this poem. It is so true!)

It'd been a long winter, rags of snow hanging on; then at the end
of April, an icy nor'easter, powerful as a hurricane. But now I've landed
on the coast of Maine, visiting a friend who lives two blocks from the ocean,
and I can't believe my luck, out this mild morning, race-walking along the strand.
Every dog within fifty miles is off-leash, running for the sheer dopey joy of it.
No one's in the water, but walkers and shellers leave their tracks on the hardpack.
The flat sand shines as if varnished in a painting. Underfoot, strewn, are broken
bits and pieces, deep indigo mussels, whorls of whelk, chips of purple
and white wampum, hinges of quahog, fragments of flat gray sand dollars.
Nothing whole, everything broken, washed up here, stranded.
Light pours down, a rinse of lemon on a cold plate
of oysters. All of us, broken, some way or other. All of us
dazzling in the brilliant slanting light.

Barbara Crooker
Christian Center, June 30, 2009

Who is this?

Who is this person I have become? I'm having a hard time figuring her out.

Dating! Aaaaahhhhh!

I can't do it. I just can't do it! Too much emotion involved! Too much drama! I thought I was ready, but I'm really not. Why isn't it easier at this age? Why don't we get wiser? Why does it feel like high school again, like I'm never going to be asked to the prom, and then when I am, it's not by the one I wanted to ask? Why is it that the ones I'm attracted to, don't notice me, and the ones I am not attracted to, are wanting some long-term relationship? Why is it that?

I tried to keep things simple. I thought it would be fun to just have some dates to go to dinner, or go out dancing. It didn't really matter if they were perfect or not, just nice guys with whom I could share a decent conversation. That is not what the guys I've dated have been interested in. They want more than I can give to them. They want hope for a future with me. So now I feel terrible for rejecting them, and terrible because the men who I am interested in, don't give a rip! Any way you approach it, everyone feels terrible! Who invented this process? Why does anyone date? I'm amazed the human population has continued, considering that the odds of painful endings are much greater than the happy endings!

A friend of mine used to make her children eat one tablespoon of any food they didn't think they liked. She called it a "no thank you" portion. I think I've had my "no thank you" portion and I'm ready to quit, once again! Aaaaaahhhhhh!

Bathing Suits

I understand the concept of bathing suits. I enjoy wearing bathing suits. It's just the torture of buying them that gets most of us women. They have to fit perfectly in every way. They have to make our figures look like Barbie's even though Barbie's stats are impossible, unless you're Dolly Parton. They have to hold you in where you don't want to stick out, and make you stick out where you don't, but want to! They have to cover everything you don't want the public to see, and show the areas you want to public to see. They have to fit your diameter in every place perfectly unless you want to lose them when you dive.

There is no woman alive who likes to shop for bathing suits. You look through 300 suits, carry half of them to the dressing room where the not-so-nice clerk tells you that you can only try on 6 at a time. You explain that 6 are not nearly enough, but still she insists. So you take six, leave the rest by the door and pray that they are still there when you need them. Then you have to face the hard part, stripping down to your underpants and try them on. Meanwhile you're thinking about all the women who have tried them on before you, and trying to squelch your feelings of absolute disgust. You try on 6 and of course none of them fit, but you won't go out to the door with a bad looking suit on, so you get totally dressed again and trudge out to your pile that may or may not still be there. Only 144 more suits to go! Are we having fun yet? With each suit we try on, our self esteems take another hit because we didn't realize before that we sag here and bulge there. Ahhh! The rite of spring!

We hate this, and yet we must go through the whole process because of course the 150th suit is the one that fits just perfectly! We love looking beautiful in our new suits, but finding the perfect one is like torture as a POW. We'd rather have a gynecologic exam. We'd rather have all our teeth pulled. We'd rather have a total body wax, which is just about what most of us have to do to wear these tiny pieces of cloth that we actually claim to be wearable in public. We'd rather slit our wrists.

I bet you can't guess what I'm going to do in the next 24 hours. Yep! I have to buy one. Put it off all spring. Not only do I need to buy one, but it has to be one that I will wear on a date. You read that right. I haven't given up on dating. After recovering from the initial backlash panic, I'm going sailing this weekend. What was I thinking when I agreed? I was thinking about how fun it would be, not about the torture preparing for it. Now I'm off to buy a bathing suit. No pressure there! Am I crazy?