It’s National Poetry Month…and therefore I must share poetry. Some days I’ll share my own and some days I’ll share famous works and others I’ll share works of lesser fame. Who knows what the day will bring?
Today, because it’s on my mind, a poem about adoption (I’m an adoptee and a friend called tonight to ask about my experience): (click on the image to enbiggen)
Honestly, I’ve been carrying this candle around room to room with me because it is helping me breathe. Go to Essentiallynaked.com and get the Rosemary Mint or Woodland candle. They are both wonderful! (And I don’t know which one I’ve been carrying around because I took both lids off at once and the kids moved them.)
The phrase of the day is “oddly good.” I used it in reference to a weird apple fritter donut, but my family has taken it up as their own. So MANY things can be oddly good.
We are having a fancy dinner tonight! All sushi, all the time. And cocktails. Because it’s not a date without cocktails. Well, not an evening date without cocktails in any case.
We ordered WAY too much food for ourselves for one night, but sushi does not do well sitting in the car, even in this coolness, for the length of a movie, so we had to leave it behind. Woe. But then there was The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and we were all happy again.
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” –Maya Angelou
…today I’m overhauling my blogs and who knows what craziness might occur. 🙂 *hugs*
I am starting to think that what I really need is a mental health blog. Or to combine all my little blogs into one big blog so I can stop repeating myself from different angles. Who knows.
A friend of mine committed suicide this weekend. We weren’t close lately, hadn’t been for a couple years, but once upon a time I lent her all my books about depression and gave her my number and talked to her about my experiences with therapy and brain chemicals that just don’t work right . Through her, I lent her husband the book “How to Help When Someone You Love is Depressed” that I’d gotten for my husband ages ago. She still had a few books that hadn’t made it back to me. I guess they never will. These aren’t the thoughts one generally shares, I know, but somehow they are the ones my brain is holding onto right now, instead of blubbering insanely about how sad it all is and how hard I tried to help her and how I failed to keep up and how I regret it and how I am never ever the person I mean to be when it comes to other people and how I should have kept up with her when she went silent. Because once I get started with them, the tears start, they don’t stop.
THIS YEAR. I CAN’T TAKE THIS YEAR.
One of my good friends from junior high died this last year: breast cancer. My ex-boyfriend from high school was accused of sexual misconduct with a student and I can’t quite bring myself to admit that I really do think it’s something he did, because then I’d have to admit out loud to my family and other people how awful he was (in college I had girls email me out of nowhere and ask me to join their therapy group because ….) and they don’t need to hear that. Then there was my mom and the hospital last summer. And another ancient friend’s husband died unexpectedly from pneumonia. Another one’s brother died and I somehow totally missed it and I feel awful about it, but don’t know what to say now. Another friends son had a terrible car accident months ago and is only now walking. And then the husband of a girl here in town that was one of those friends-of-a-friend that you always hear about that you feel like you know even though you’ve actually never met them? The one you’ve heard dozens of stories about? Yeah. Her husband died trying to save someone after a car accident. And now this.
I told my spouse that I needed a Self Care day. He was busy, of course, because we are NEVER not busy these days, and said the wrong thing and that made me cry more. He apologized and said the right things later but I ….well… I am broken at this point. And thanking God or the Universe or Whatever I’m Believing In This Week that I asked the doctor for those anti-depressant, anti-anxiety meds way back in October. Because I don’t know what or who to believe in these days, but SCIENCE seems like a good thing. Quantifiable, you know. I don’t, I just don’t know. Nobody is available on a Saturday to talk, so I’ve been making due with a bunch of movies (The Decoy Bride I need to own and Wild Targets I’m going to rewatch and A Good Woman I’m in the middle of, but it’s kind of bland so far despite good reviews – I’m thinking I just don’t like Scarlet Johanssen) and a bottle of wine and a box of chicken quesadillas.
Thank you for listening and thinking about me. I know we don’t see/know each other in person, but you mean the world to me, you really do. *big big hugs*
More old family photos, a set on Flickr.
Most of these are from the trip we took to Europe in 1983 — I was 7 and got a camera for my birthday for the trip. My parents occasionally took photos of us, but most of the photos I took. The other one is one of our engagement pictures (the color weirdness is due to the fact that it sat in my Dad’s office window for 15 years. I think it’s the only copy we have of this picture).
It’s my middle son’s 8th birthday today. I love him so much! We had special cranberry orange muffins (from a package, not homemade, that was part of the request) for breakfast and played Quirkle (his new favorite game – from his Aunt Kay). I will be bringing his class homemade white cupcakes with colored frosting & mini m&m’s on top after lunch. After school I’d planned on having one of his friends over for a while (but haven’t heard back from the mom yet). Then we’ll have pizza for dinner and his present from grandma after.
Well, around day 11 I got a fever and tried to rest by not exercising. Didn’t help. Food wise I did okay.
Day 12 I was still feverish. I also tried to rest by not exercising, but I HAD to work the school book fair, so that wasn’t really restful, was it? I did okay at breakfast and lunch was a salad at the school (oh happy day!) Sadly, dinner was at the pizza buffet with my mom watching me eat (she hates that I eat practically nothing at a buffet, so I tried to eat more to make her happy, which makes me unhappy. it’s a bad cycle.).
Day 13 I was feeling better, walked a bit back and forth and back and forth to my mom’s house. Ate next to nothing for breakfast. Lunch was a sandwich and chips shared with Greg from the fancy Fresh grocery (running errands can be fun if you do it right). I spent an hour and a half at the sink washing dishes, which completely wore me out.
Day 14 was a busy day (and a “no exercise” day because it was the Sabbath) with early church, dinner at a friends house, then a late youth group planning meeting afterwards. I did a lot of fast walking here, there, everywhere, trying to meet all the needs of Hospitality.
Day 15 I realized that if I was going to get back into exercising that today needed to be that day. But I woke up completely drained, kids had to be corralled into doing their work, Nick was literally at work, and by the time I was awake and alive enough to do anything, dishes & laundry beckoned. I worked on that (not finishing, no) until it was time to leave for the super-extra-long rehearsal (I’m playing clarinet for the ensemble playing “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” at a local high school). Came home, at dinner, collapsed in heap.
And now it’s Day 16. I’ve woken up late, everyone’s late this morning, in a panicked rush, and I’m posting this because it’s been sitting on my desktop for days and I’ve been adding this in dribs and drabs, so no photos.
Question: Should I start over on the book or continue where I left off? Most of the other ladies in my group are doing worse than I am and one is starting over. I just don’t know.
Lisa Holcomb 