Embrace The Suck

Hum"Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. The self same well from which your laughter rises was often times filled with tears." Kahlil Gibran The other day in the car where he was pretty much a captured audience I asked Sweetie, "Am I funny?" When he started to laugh I had one of those moments where you instantly have 2 thoughts at the same time and in that same instant need to process them both AND pick a reaction. He laughed. I thought to myself, well damn I must be funny if just asking him brings on a guffaw. And I also thought, he's laughing at me, not with me. I chose to believe the former because it was a sincere laugh, and didn't seem to be a stalling tactic. So he tells me I can be funny. Really funny. And what's funny about that is that I'm not sure I can see it. Which is the whole reason I asked him in the first place. Because in the span of a couple of weeks people have been telling me I'm funny, that I make them LOL. So I've begun t...

[Note: I wrote and posted this a couple weeks ago. Then I woke up in the middle of the night and decided to pull it off. Not sure why but it just didn't feel right. Well, since them, I've done a little more digging and reading and have totally embraced the whole wounded inner child philosophy. I'm sure every one who's ever read it thinks John Bradshaw's "Homecoming" was written just for him/her. As a way to get past the sadness that seems to have settled on my shoulders, I've embraced this work with the goal of reconnecting with and reparenting my inner child who, for whatever reason, was wounded and neglected somewhere along the way. ME/me] "So like a forgotten fire, a childhood can always flare up again within us." Gaston Bachelard To say I've had an epiphany might be a bit of an exaggeration. But I think I may have a new understanding of some different aspects of grief I've been experiencing. I'm not sure if this is the righ...

"I am prepared for the worst but hope for the best." Benjamin Disraeli I found myself missing my father today, ironically for a reason that drove me crazy when he was alive. In fact, I feel certain there were times when a hurricane was brewing in the Atlantic and it was still unpredictable, that I swore my father's "be prepared for the worst" motto was a little over the top. Dad had a plan for just about everything he did. And if he didn't have a plan but a new circumstance came up, he'd sit at his desk and make a plan even if it took him a couple of days. In one of the boxes I went through when I was cleaning out his stuff I found ledgers filled with itineraries, expense estimates, miles traveled, etc. from trips he'd made in the 1940's. Dad was nothing if not prepared. And when it came to hurricanes his list of things to do was fairly long. In recent years he was no longer able to do most of them, so the responsibility fell to Sweetie and I. A...

"Seventy-six trombones led the big parade With a hundred and ten cornets right behind ..." Seventy Six Trombones from The Music Man Can you hear it? Can you hear me tooting my own horn like a whole brass band? Today I received my first royalty check for "Saying Goodbye." (See sidebar). It wasn't a large check, only $ 10.79, but it lifted my spirits pretty high off the ground. I am now, whether I want to claim it or not, a writer ... a paid writer. How cool is that? An interesting note came in the email that announced my earnings. Saying Goodbye is being used in a course on "The Psychology of Grief" at the College of Idaho. The anthology has received praise from reviewers and other readers, and it is being used in the classroom at the College of Idaho as part of a course on “The Psychology of Grief.” Here's what Professor Jan Adams had to say: “This is a book that meets a need for teachers of death and dying classes. Most of the books currently ava...

I can't believe I forgot to tell you what I remembered while washing my hands before making dinner. You never know when or where you might find some little tidbit of wisdom you never knew before. It happened for me on Saturday afternoon in the women's room of a Bob Evans restaurant in Leesburg, FL. As I was washing my hands I noticed a little sign stuck to the bottom corner of the mirror. I figured it was the obligatory, employees MUST wash their hands sign, you see in all public restrooms. I'd like to think that employees employ this rather simple task without being reminded EVERY time they walk in the bathroom but I guess when you're messing with stuff like EColi it's better to remind than pay the consequences. So I was looking in the mirror at myself which is very narcisstic I know, but I can't help myself. When I pass a mirror I always give my chin a quick once over so I can cover up if I should find a stray hair that has somehow grown a quarter of an inch ...

"Mommies are just big little girls." Author Unknown Photo by: Jan Treague (downloaded from FB) My granddaughter looks like she is about to pop. At 37 weeks she is counting the days until Gracie comes out and play. Can't say I blame her! Today I'm grateful for new life, new love, new beginnings. I'm grateful for awarenesses that can bring change. I'm grateful for slow-cooked, pot roast that makes my tummy smile. Wishing for you eyes to behold the bounty of each new day. Merry ME

"Make you the world a bit better or more beautiful because you have lived in it." Edward W. Bok Sweetie and I made it home safely, but not without some excitement. The funeral was held in an historic Episcopalian church, red door and all, with only about 7 rows of pews on either side of a main aisle. The church was overflowing which was a great tribute to the woman who was being remembered. Over 170 people whose mean age was probably around 75 and girth, well let's just say large, were packed in like sardines. Walkers and wheelchairs and canes were left in the back of the church. It's never a good sign when an ambulance is called and one of the attendees is taken away on a stretcher before the service even starts. [As an aside, it's clear that central Florida, is a haven for people of retirement age. The mobile home parks were only outnumbered by the number of cardiologists advertising on big billboards along the highway.] I was uncertain as to how I might react a...

Greetings from Winter Haven, FL, the old home of Cypress Gardens soon to be new home of Legoland. Sweetie and I are on a short road trip. We're here to attend a family funeral. Not the best of occasions to jump in the car and go, but not the worst either. I say that even after having been warned of the possibility of dysfunctional family fireworks exploding on or near church grounds tomorrow. I guess every family has to have a little drama. The thing about a road trip in Florida is that all the roads look pretty much alike. Six lane highways lined with pine trees packed full of cars coming and going in all directions. The I4 corridor through Orlando is a particularly slow stretch of highway. Once you turn off I95 you can pretty much plan on stop and go traffic and all vestiges of the word expressway to disappear. Sweetie did all the driving which is a good thing because I might have been hypnotized before we passed the St. Augustine Outlet Mall. There were, however, some interesti...

"A really companionable and indispensable dog is an accident of nature. You can't get it by breeding for it, and you can't buy it with money. It just happens along." E.B. White, The Care and Training of a Dog The Humane Society of Jacksonville has come a long way since the days of over crowding and stinky cages. Now you don't just pick out a dog or cat you like and take it home, there is a process you must go through. New pet owners are screened and matches are made in a similar fashion to online dating. Instead of Match.com the HS calls it Meet Your Match. To participate in the service prospective adopters need to take a compatibility survey, again not unlike E-Harmony only they don't ask questions about you most romantic fantasy. The adoptees are also assessed - Couch Potato, Constant Companion, Teacher's Pet, Wallflower, Busy Bee, Goofball, Life of the Party, Go-Getter, Free Spirit - so at the end of the day, you should be able to hook up with the idea...

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that frightens us. We ask ourselves 'who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." Marianne Williamson Indeed the tea party and all the anxiety that went along with it is over. It was a long week. I spent time in fear and one night I felt incredibly sad. Yet, in the end I let things happen. I can't say that I actu...

"If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." My parents I grew up hearing this adage quoted over and over again. Funny thing is, now that I'm an adult I realize the two people who repeated it to their children had tongues like vipers that could spit venom a foot away. As I grew up I learned how to say nice things, how to say not-so-nice things, and how to be quiet in the face of lightening quick mean retorts. The best mean things I say are always shouted at the top of my lungs in the privacy of my car, about an hour after an encounter. Preceded by tears and followed up by tears. Yesterday I had a few opportunities to perhaps stick up for myself, be assertive, make decisions that worked for me and in general take control. Instead I shivered in my shoes and cried. All day I felt embarrassed, weak and inefficient. I felt like Little ME was expecting me to do something and I didn't know what to do, but stew. It wasn't until I was in bed that ...

"Good intentions are at least, the seed of good actions; and every one ought to sow them, and leave it to the soil and the seasons whether He or any other gather the fruit." William Templeton, Sr. I had every intention today to start baking for a tea party I am hostessing at church next Sat. Instead I seem to be in a small state of panic and feel on the verge of a rather lengthy boohoo. I am really not sure what's going on. I'm going to ramble a little and see if something becomes clear. If you have any insight, feel free to leave me a comment. So a few weeks ago I had this great idea to have a tea party at church on the day before a big celebration for St. Mary. Since that Mary is the one I picked to honor through an annual baby shower held just after Christmas, one and two equaled, in my mind, 15 or "let's have a party." Sometimes I get these ideas, speak them out loud, attribute them to the Holy Spirit or voices sometimes considered mental illness. A...