Embrace The Suck

"Give love and unconditional acceptance to those you encounter, and notice what happens." Wayne Dyer I've had these thoughts in my head for awhile. I should have written them down weeks ago. A little background: Apparently it was no big surprise to anyone but me that when I moved back into my childhood home to care for my father in the last years of his life all my codependent traits flared back up with a vengeance. Slowly at first because when I first moved back I felt my adult persona still in charge. I sort of faced my father as a women in her fifties rather than a child of five. But as the years pass, my isolation grows and my inner age diminishes by years. While in conversation with my therapist during my most recent funk, we began to discuss codependence - again. "Oh that,"I recalled. "Didn't I already deal with that? Didn't I already pack up my people pleasing insecurities and guilt like sweaters in June, then stuff the box to the back of my ...

"Why can't we get all the people together in the world that we really like and then just stay together? I guess that wouldn't work. Someone would leave. Someone always leaves. T hen we would have to say good-bye. I hate goodbyes. I know what I need. I need more hellos." Snoopy Elton John sings that "sorry seems to be the hardest word." But I think he's wrong. I think the hardest word to say is "goodbye." This morning, after a week that seemed like it had less than the optimal 7 days, I took my big sister to the airport so she could fly back to Washington. I don't know how many miles it is between Washington and Florida but I know the distance between sisters is way too big. Oh sure, we have cell phones and Internet access, but tell me, is there anything better than sitting knee to knee, sharing iced teas and life stories? As we stood on the sidewalk, shivering in the record-breaking autumnal morning chill, we hugged - the kind of hug that s...

"Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant with the weak and the wrong. Sometime in your life you will have been all of these." Dr. Robert H. Goddard (American rocket engineer 1882-1945) Saturday was a pajama day for me. I placed my butt on the couch, turned on the TV and only moved when someone called from another room ... M A R R R YYYYYY! I had a ringside seat of a reality series that was being shown in its entirety on the WE channel. The show was called the Baby Borrowers. It was an experiment of sorts - if you can call parents giving up their children to teenagers who don't have a clue about child rearing for three days an experiment; it looked more like torture for both the real parents and the wanna be parents. Here's the premise. A group of teenage couples from all over the country, are in "love" and want to have a baby (I never heard marriage or commitment mentioned - just the baby...

Post Surgery 12:30 AM Dad: Mary, I'm all wet. Mary: Hmmmm. Dad: Call the doctor. Mary: It's after midnight. He's asleep. Dad: Let's go to the Emergency Room. Mary (out loud):Hmmmmmmm Mary (in her head): Oh, my God, I can't face the emergency room tonight. Dad: I'm wet. It burns. Mary (in her head, sounding like Prissy from Gone with the wind): I don't know nothing about leaking penises. Mary: Hi Dr. Mona, sorry to bother you at this hour. Doctor: No problem. What's going on? Mary: Dad's leaking. Dad's in pain. Doctor: Oh, he's just having bladder spasms. Mary (in her head): JUST??? Doctor: Is he bleeding? Is he feverish? ..... Crackle. Crackle. Pop. Silence. Mary: F#!&*K !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JACK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Jack: Yes dear. Mary: The GD phone isn't working. What do I do now? Jack:Huh?????? The phone rings again. Doctor: As I was saying. Why don't you just remove the catheter? Mary: I don't know nothing about removing no c...

In the days since I last posted anything, I can honestly say I've thought about writing. I've had some ideas, but never made the effort to put fingers to keyboard. However, I have been knitting and have a bag full of almost 50 teeny tiny baby hats to send to Save the Children. Today was one of those days spent sitting in hard, uncomfortable chairs in a hospital waiting room. Gratefully, it wasn't as long a day as it could have been. Any day, though, that starts before 7:30am is going to be a long one for me. Dad had a tumor removed from his bladder. An aggressive cancer that will probably return. But at his age and with the condition of his heart, these cystoscopic surgeries are really the only treatment option. I know Dad is the one who should be getting the sympathy, not me. However, in my normal it's-all-about-ME mentality I've got to say even though I signed on for this job, I just never figured I be on such intimate terms with my father's pecker. He's h...