Look What I Got!

For the last 8 years when it comes time to pack away the holiday decorations I always take a moment to wonder where I will be the following year. 

I suppose I have been thinking about moving out of this house for that long. 

This year we all know it is our final holiday in this house.  The last time we will spend putting up the decorations in the usual places they have taken over for ten years.  When I pack them away this year I will do a better and more careful job as I know they will not just be sitting in the attic for a year. 

Like the rest of us, they will be packed up and moved to a new location.  Next year the decorations will have a new home and be put in unfamiliar places.

This morning as the "children" gathered and opened gifts and laughed and talked I sat back and watched.

I saw a daughter who has been living on her own for quite some time now happily talking with her boyfriend.  I saw a son who has recently moved in to his own apartment kiss his girlfriend with affection.

A daughter who will soon be moving to Europe, with no known return date.

A daughter finishing high school and packing up for college.

A daughter who no longer crawls into my lap, but rather rebuffs my affection, for the comforts of text messaging her friends.


I saw myself, moving on with a career I love, a peacefulness in solitude, and where there was once an empty hole in my heart I saw a fullness.  No one has filled that space, but with time it has closed.  With patience it has healed.  With hopefulness it waits to open again someday.  With contentment my heart is peaceful now.

I looked at a family that has grown.  Children who in spite of me have become amazing adults.  I looked for a moment and saw them as the children they once were.  The chubby cheeks, their beliefs in a magical person that brought toys and treats to them.  I saw myself and Eric sitting there with coffee watching as they screamed in delight and rushed over to show us what Santa had brought them.

Today they turned their appreciation and gratitude to me.  They know.  They may not believe in Santa, but they believe in family and in love.

The older children who have moved out took their own ornaments off the tree to bring to their new houses, as was the plan from the very first ornament they each received.  We spoke briefly about each of them coming to take what they want from the house, as I will not be taking much.

I will pack away the ornaments, the decorations, the memories.  I do not feel sad.  We have all grown up, myself included.

We are all ready to move, to a new houses, new jobs, new schools, new countries, new loves.

It has taken us 8 years to get to this point, and now that it is here, it feels good.


It took me forty four years, and the last eight to come into my own. 

It took me letting go, so that I can continue to grow.  Letting go of a house, ornaments, grown children, and a lost love so that I can truly be with my family as we all are now, and will be in the future.


I will still have moments where I look at my children and see the faces of their youth, but I wont linger there, I wont cling to visages of the past.  I will see them for who they are now.  I will do the same when I look in the mirror.

I am very excited to see my reflection in my new surroundings. 

It is time.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

"Someday Amy that mouth of yours is going to get you in trouble."  These words were uttered by my mother, starting at about the time I was five I believe. 

I have a tendency to say things bluntly at times.  This has tempered in the years that I have lived in Texas and I have adapted a more Southern way.  The Southern way is just as blunt, but somehow sugar coated.

Instead of saying, "Wow that coat looks like shit on you."  The Southern way would be, "Fabulous coat Honey! I think it is ready to be passed down to your daughter.  OOH! This means shopping for us!"


I currently and for the last few days have not really been able to speak.  My voice is shot.  This usually happens after a long weekend of working, smoking too much, lack of sleep, or just my karma telling me it is time to keep my mouth shut.

A funny thing happens when you literally can not speak.  You are forced to listen.  At first it is frustrating because you want to put your own ego or agenda in the mix of a conversation.  A very annoying feeling, especially if you are in a conversation where you believe yourself to be correct and the person talking to be incorrect.

I have no voice.  I am now in a position to listen.  To really hear what someone else has to say.  To put my own thoughts aside and take in their point of view.

About 12 years ago when Eric was really sick during the holidays I called in his family to come celebrate with us, seeing that it might be the last holiday we would all be together.  I developed laryngitis.  I felt fine, just could not at all speak.

This allowed for Eric and his siblings to bond without interruption from me.  This allowed me to not get pissed off at his brother and just let things slide.  Still that year I managed to put my foot in my mostly quite mouth.  A discussion of photography came up, a topic I am greatly interested and opinionated in.  I managed to muster out a few words of how I dislike one particular photographer.  Sure enough come Christmas morning I open a gift from Eric's brother and it is a calendar of photos from the one photographer I publicly declared in half whisper that I loathed.

Even with no voice I was still able to be arrogant, ashamed, and left with no room to back peddle at all.

Right now what little voice I have is being used for work.  Arranging a model for a photo shoot, talking to my mom, and calling back clients. Reassuring all that I do not have consumption, bronchitis, or mesothelioma.  I just have a sore throat most likely from talking too much and not listening enough.

If I did not have a cell phone where I could text all the words my mouth can't utter I would be 100% in the listening zone.

I think I need to spend more time in that zone.  It is good that I can not speak.  I only benefit from listening more and actually choosing my words more wisely.


I have a friend who challenges me always to think more.  No matter how I may beg for her advice or tutelage, she will usually come back with, "Think about it."


You can talk to me.  I will listen.  I will take the time to put my ego aside and hear what you are saying.  I will think about it.

Sometimes all we need is someone to just listen.  No more.  When my voice is back I will make more of an effort to check my words, Southern or  not,  and take a moment to listen.

Yes I Can't Do That

After eight full hours of prepping twelve models along with a team of at least fifteen people it was time to watch the runway show that would last about three minutes.

It was one of the most unusal shows I have worked on.  My part was all in the prep for the main stylist.  Hand bobby pins, curl hair, wrap hair around a long tube, apply makeup.

Around me were body painters, models in various stages of readiness, crew getting the lighting, music and red carpet ready.  The entire venue was filled and sectioned off in  areas of makeup, hair, body paint, costumes, and blisfully an area that had hot chocolate.

The cast of characters were unique, talented, funny, and creative.  Some of us have worked together before.  Some I just met for the first time but have wanted to work with.  We exchanged tips, knowledge, and business cards.

Minutes before the show when my last and final job of making sure the models all had lipgloss was over, I sat down.

A conversation was struck up with the woman next to me about her work as a body painter/artist.  We have worked together before.

She leaned over and said, "So how did you get on this gig?"

"Well, I got the call two nights ago that they needed extra help and..."

"You are a "Yes Whore", yeah, me too."

A Yes Whore.  I laughed.  I had never heard the term but I knew exactly what she meant.

"Can you do this shoot?" Yes

"Will you give up your day off to come in for this client?" Yes

"Do you know how to make hair look like _________?" Yes

"Can you pick me and my friends up from the mall and take us to the movies?" Yes

I have always known that I have problems with setting boundaries, and I tend to become over enthusiastic with projects, commitments, and scheduling.

I had always thought my problem was my inability to say "No."  It is in fact my eagerness to say "yes" that causes me to feel an internal pulling of a hundred different directions.

This is not to say that every time the word exists my mouth I do not mean it.  By being a "yes whore" I have learned to do some great things in my field. I have been given opportunities I would not otherwise have, and I have met very interesting people.

I have also over booked myself.

I do not want the invites to stop.  I will  continue being a "yes whore" for a while, until I feel confident enough in my field to say, "I wish I could."

The hours of prepping, observing, socializing, networking, and even burning my finger on a curling iron paid off for me in the eye opening way of discovering I am a "yes whore."

Knowing when to say "yes" and saying "no" are very different things.

Yes, I know the difference now.

I've Been Here Before

Before falling asleep last night I did something I do not normally do.  I switched my phone to silent mode. 

Normally I sleep with a fan on the floor for ambient noise, and since we have no heat in the house currently, I have had the sound of the small space heater.  Last night all I had was silence.

I lay on my side and looked at the small Christmas tree in my room and thought about how small my room feels.

Curious that my room felt larger when I shared it with someone than it does now when I am alone.  It occurred to me that the entire house felt smaller.  Almost stifling. 

I woke up in a dream that had started without me.  There she was waiting for me, as if she knew I was moments away from sleep and closer to her in a dream.  She took my hand and said she had something to show me.

We were in a familiar place and I laughed, delighted at where we were.  I made a comment that I needed to to take pictures so I could show some people where I was.  I grabbed for my phone to find it did not work.

She laughed and held me closer to her as we sat on the cold ground looking up.

The woman in my dreams showed me the stars in my dream.  A sky uninhabited by anything but beauty.  More constellations than I had ever seen in my waking life.

She showed me and expansion of my view to the world, and took me out of the smallness of my actual room and actual life.

She kissed me with the intention of love and made me laugh with the  unrestraint of a child.

Within her arms I felt safe to look further, be larger than my small little room, and live with a certain amount of spontaneity I would not feel untethered.

I walked barefoot in the cold grass just to feel the place where I had once spent so much time, a place that has become mythical in my mind, and brought back in my dream.

She left me in a room that I had begged her to take me to.  She sat me down on a small bed and told me to sleep while she was away.

She let go of my hand, my own arm remained outstretched waiting for her return until I was too tired to wait any longer.  I closed my eyes and fell asleep in that little room.

I woke up from my sleeping dream to find my arm stretched out on the empty side of the bed.  A smile as I could still see the sky the dream woman had shown me.  An image I wish I could share.  My feet still felt cold and wet from the grass of my dreams.

A room is just a room.  A house is just a place to hold our stuff.  My room grows smaller because I am growing larger in my thoughts, in my desires and in my possibilities.  I have filled this one space for too long.  It is time to let go of it.  Time to move.  Time to walk in the grass on a cold night on a familiar mountain and stretch my hand out in hopes it will be grasped by the right person.

I have become more than this small room.

It took turning off the world, and opening my eyes to a dream to see where I am and where I am headed.

Limbo

I received an email from f someone I knew in another lifetime.  A life time called, "high school."  Through the various ways of connecting with people now, and reconnecting he and I have reconnected.  I always liked him and thought he was a good guy, so I was surprised to hear that he had had the opportunity to apologize to an old flame of his.  He made amends for his behavior, a side of him I did not know.

I congratulated him on  this achievement as we do not always get the chance to step in to the past and  say, "Hey, I was a real shit, and I am sorry."  Wasn't everyone a real shit at some point or another?

I am also fairly certain that I spent a few hours with this guy sitting in his brother's car listening to music and making out until the battery died.  Should I apologize to his bother for killing the battery or to my friend who I am not entirely sure it was him I am remembering?

Along with apologizing comes, we hope, forgiveness.  When is the right time to actually forgive?
For me I find it much easier to forgive but never forget.  Then I have others who I choose never to forgive, and their crimes are hardly worth the punishment.

Does a young child forgive her father for turning his back when she announces that she is gay?  She is a grown woman now, accomplished, talented and a good friend.  She seems at peace with what happened to her.  I am more angry for her.  But has she forgiven her father?  Or has she placed him in this weird limbo area where we tend to put people who hurt us the most.  The place where we can not forgive, will not forget, but still want to keep in our hearts in some way.

I want to yank him out of limbo for her and scream in his face.  I want to barge in to his office (in dramatic fashion of course) and get in his face and ask how dare he turn his back on his own flesh?  As a parent I do not understand it.

My other friend felt peace at being able to put an issue to rest and fully release it from Limbo and throw it in the past where it belongs.

How many people am I keeping in Limbo?  Holding them captive for the wrongs they did me, or I did them?

I can feel anger for my friend and her direct it at her father, but he is not in my Limbo.  He is in hers.  I like to leave my Limbo alone.  Let them be. 

Does it matter if the crime committed was over 30 years ago?  The crime of not remembering loving someone.  The crime of not loving someone enough.  The crime of being young and stupid.  Does it hurt to know that I loved someone and they have no memory of it at all?  Yes.  I could lie and say it doesn't matter. but in truth it stings that I meant so little that not one moment was remembered on their behalf.

Now I wonder who I have stung.  One person I know and I have been working at making amends.  But, truly, does it matter? 

I know you for you are right now.  The memories are faded and the person you are in my life right now is all that matters.  I hope that I am not in someones Limbo, or that if I am they release me.  We do not need to harbor all that.

Open the door, release the pain, accept the childhood errors, forgive the folly of youth, choose to remember it, but lighten your heart and let it go.

Might Could

In Texas there is a phrase that people use that, as a writer, annoys the crap out of me.  "might could."

"Y'all wanna go get something to eat?"

"Yeah, we might could do that."

I am sitting here in the comfort of my bed, door slightly open to let the cold air in, and I just want to sit here.  I have resisted the urge to fully embark upon snuggling under the comforter and going back to sleep.

I made my favorite kind of coffee and have been listening to random music.

In other words I have been slacking the morning away.

I need to pay bills.  I need to look for a house to move in to.  I need to do dishes.  I need to go grocery shopping.  I need to contact a few clients.  I even need to shower.

Instead I am sitting here doing nothing but playing around on the computer and thinking.  Thinking about yesterday and what an amazing day it was.

I took the children to get our Christmas tree.  We go to the same Christmas Tree farm every year where we sit on barrels of hay in the back of tractor pull and are let out in the fields of trees.  The children have been doing this since they were actually young enough to be called children.

Now my car is stuffed with the ever growing teenagers, children who are adults, and of course two dogs.  From the moment we got in the car the average age level dropped.  Christmas music was played on the stereo, giggles emitting from the back seat.

In the field of trees my mostly grown children, ran, laughed, and even leapt over what will be next years crop of trees.  They wanted hot chocolate, and to run through the maze made of hay.

It was cold and the wind biting.  They all huddled together to keep each other warm like a pack of puppies in sleep.

As always I had my camera on hand to capture as much of it as I could.  There is no way to capture the feeling I felt watching them play.  Seeing them just enjoy the moment.

Yes I have bills to pay, clients to call, a shower to take, and numerous other items on my never ending list.

Or. I might could sit here with my coffee and the memory  of a cold morning spent with my adult children running around a Christmas Tree farm all of us "acting a fool."

Love Colored Glasses

A number of years ago I began a writing project with a friend of mine.  We called it "Narcissus and Goldmund."  Each choosing the persona that suited us the most.  At that time I was Goldmund.  In the book by Herman Hesse, Goldmund is the artist while Narcissus is the thinker.

Goldmund leaves the confines of the monastery to search the world for answers, while his Teacher, Narcissus stays behind.

The writing project with my friend fizzled out.  Lack of time, interest, or desire is possibly the cause.  I went back and read what we had written and was amused at much of it.

My friend's monastery has since burnt down and she has had to take up new residence.  I am moving from my own for an uncharted destination.

I have done many things since that writing project began.  I have shed many tears both good and bad. I have seen and welcomed people in to my life only to watch them move away, grow apart, die, or just move on.

Although I have had a few relationships none have been right.  None have stuck.  For this I blame myself.  I know I have made great strides in my grief and in my acceptance of who I am. But every now and then an unexpected curve ball gets thrown my way.  Just when I believe I am truly ready to open my heart, I discover I have chosen the wrong person to receive it.

I have already admitted that I now know I am capable of saying horrible things with the intention of hurting.  I am still shocked when I do this and seem unable to control it. Even if it stems as a verbal self defense to what has been said to me, I should still be able to refrain from it.

I have tried in vain to move away from the negativity that has been brought to me.  I have had to give up even my own personal name as it was taken from me.  I will soon be giving up the name of this blog as that too has been taken from me.

I have been accused of being a narcissist, and using my writing as "a pathetic cry for attention."  I am guilty of allowing the pain to continue.

Now it must stop. Removing myself is only one step.  Reclaiming myself comes next.


Thirty-four years ago I began my writing career with these simple words, "Dear Diary."  I have not stopped writing since.

I am still Goldmund wandering around in search of art, knowledge, understanding and above all; love.

 The best attention I can get is from myself.

I will now pick up, dust off, and put on my "love colored glasses" and look once again at the world and myself in a more independent yet open manner.  For that, I need no name.


http://narcissusandgoldmund.blogspot.com/

With This List, I Do Shop

I will be leaving for work in a few minutes off to some location to turn a young girl into a bride.  She and her friends will talk while I work.

They will talk about the dress, flowers, rings, honeymoon, and possibly some inside family gossip.  I will ooh and ahh when I see the dress, as I do every single time I help prepare a bride for her big day.

Her big day.  Weddings are considered to be the big day for the woman.  It is assumes she has dreamt of this day her entire life.  I have heard clients, friends, and coworkers describe their wedding down to the detail long before they even have met a partner to marry.

I had my own wedding dress picked out in high school, and years later when I did get married that was the dress I wanted.  I walked in the store with the picture I had ripped out of a magazine during high school and handed it over.  It was the only dress I tried on.

I was told recently by someone that I need to make a list of everything I want in a partner.  Down to the smallest of details of what kind of books do they like to read.  Then this same friend said, "Or make a list of everything you do not want in a partner."  I found it interesting that she said "Or"  and not "and".

Last night a friend of mine went out with her best friend to cheer her up after a failed attempt at a relationship.  My friend told me that she does not understand why her friend keeps picking the wrong person, or why they people she chooses do not immediately fall for her.  Her friend is smart, funny, cute, hard working, and would be "a total catch."

Maybe she needs to make a list as well?  Maybe we all need to make lists?  Would it help to meet someone and be able to mentally cross things off the list, or check them as you got to know them?

There would have to be room in the list for flexibility.  Bargaining of sorts.  Yeah, okay so they don't like dogs, but they really love their parents.  That has to count more than the dog factor.

I think the idea of making a list of what you want from a partner is smarter than making a list of which guests will be invited to the wedding.  Eventually it will not matter if your dress cost five thousand dollars or seventy five dollars. What will matter is how excited you are each day to see that person.
When you are laying in bed with the flu you will not care what flowers you held on your wedding day, you will care more that your partner is sitting lovingly next to you rubbing your back.

Make a list.  Make many lists.  Just know that lists are made to be changed.  When you have met your "one" you will throw that list away faster than the rice is being tossed as you walk down the aisle.

My friend of a friend may not have met the perfect person yet, but I can tell her with certainty that there is someone somewhere with a list that describes her and only her.