Going out of Business

I have been dealing with some medical issues of late, that have gone from . "Well, given your family history it may be cancer..." to "Hmmm, have you tired vitamins?"

In my head I have run through the cancer route, given it is a topic I am acutely familiar with.  Diagnoses, maybe surgery, chemo, loss of hair, throwing up.  Looking at the upside, I could use some new scarves, I would probably lose weight, and the drugs that come with surgery don't sound all that bad.  

The downside of course would be death.  Leaving five children behind, three of them having lost all the parents they ever had.  A depressing thought to be sure.

For kicks, albeit morbid, I imagine my funeral.  I am curious who would say what about me.  Apparently even in death I am vain and narcissistic.

"she will be missed."

I hear the obnoxious whispering from a few people I do not even recognize, "Oh those poor children." If my ghost could smack them it would.  

After some poking, prodding, and numerous blood tests a verdict was reached.

"It seems that you are entering menopause Miss Evers."

The Earth stopped revolving.  I was already eyeing a Chanel scarf for my hair free chemo head.

"I'm sorry, what did you just say?"

"Well, given your symptoms and blood work there seems to be no other explanation."

I said, "No other explanation?" I looked at the wall to see where this crackpot know nothing Doctor got her degree, which online school of medicine printed out a fake certificate.  Harvard.  Great.

I started to tune out and her words faded away, "You can expect mood changes, irregular periods that could last as long as...."

My head was saying what the fuck? menopause? I am 43 years old.  So what, all my eggs are gone?  am I dropping the remainder all at once like a going out of business sale? mood changes? I already have mood changes, I live with teenagers.  

Snapping back to reality I looked at her with wide aging doe eyes and asked, "Are you absolutely sure it isn't caner?"

She thought I would be thrilled it was not cancer.

When I got into my car I cried.  Then I questioned if my crying was just a symptom of my impending lack of estrogen.

A young man smiled at me and I wanted to smack him and tell him I was no cougar, more like a dinosaur.

Yes I know there are wonderful books on this "stage" of life, yes I know what women will say to me.  Yes yes yes.  Fuck Gail Sheehy and her passages.  Can we please just slow everything down for once?

It is time to take up arms and not go gently into this dark night.  No way.  I refuse to learn how to crochet, I refuse to stop wanting to wear tiaras every day.  (I don't really wear one, I just want to.)

I will not buy a rocking chair or start covering my flabby arms.

Have I mentioned that I am only 43?

Yes my behaviour has been a bit erratic the last few months, and I suppose I could blame it all on my new found "Hormonal imbalance" but that is a cop out.  I have done and said things I am not proud of, but I am not ready to don a tee shirt that says, "Don't blame me, I lost all my eggs."

One upside I have noticed is that I have developed a certain hard edge that was not previously part of my self description.  I have little to no tolerance for certain attitudes, or people who are hell bent on blaming me for every pain in their lives.  Deal with it.

I have also noticed that along with my short temper has come a larger amount of forgiveness.  I am now able to express my feelings of hurt, but then move on and forgive.  These could be useful tools to have.

I have not yet, however forgiven my body for selling off all my eggs and hormones without discussing it with my first.

Maybe I need a second opinion.

Pay It Backwards

I remember this movie where a boy started a project at school and called it "Pay It Forward".  I have no idea if it was based on real life events or not, but I can tell you the movie left an impression on me.

Not because I finished watching it feeling the urge to pay it forward, but the movie managed to send out the opposite message.  If you do something good, something bad will happen.

A rather pessimistic look on things.  I would love to believe that for every good action there is an equal good reaction.  That does not always seem to be the case.

One of my many pet peeves, and I honestly do not have that many, is people who litter.  In my naive teen years I was known to clean my car out on a highway or two, until a sad Indian with a single tear drop changed all that.

If my daughter sees someone litter she will stop and pick it up and put it in our car until we get home.

Tonight I should have done that.  

I have noticed a change in me, I seem to be becoming less filtered with my ideas and opinions.  Some have said this is the beginning of menopause where we just don't give a shit anymore about keeping up with appearances.  Maybe this is true.  I may just be turning into Tawanda from Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.   Minus the insurance.

While in search of my diet coke I pulled up to a McDonalds.  I noticed the car in front of me roll down their window and throw a cup out on to the grass.

I got out of my car and picked the cup up.  

Not being able to leave well enough alone I walked over to his car, noted the small children in the car and with as much sugar in my voice as I could muster I handed him the cup and said, "Here, I think you dropped this."

He took the cup and said, "Thanks."

When I got back in my car I was feeling pretty good about myself.  Until I saw the man ceremoniously dump three half full slurpees out of his window and on to the ground while giving me the finger.  I pulled up to get my own diet coke and asked the girl, "Did you just see that?  There is a trash can five feet away and he has children in his car!"

She blew it off and said, "He's and asshole". 

I concurred and drove around the corner.

I wish I could say my story ended there.  I am not happy with myself for what followed and even writing this shames me.

The man was waiting for me.  He had my car blocked and he began to dump every piece of trash in his car out of his window.

I honked and gave him the finger.  My window was down, as was his, and he yelled, "Why don't you clean it up?"

I screamed, yes screamed, "This is what you are teaching your children? Great exapmple!"

His retort was, "So clean up after me you white bitch."

Now I really wish that is where the story ends.  I really wish I had gotten out of the car and cleaned up after him.  What had I started ?

Where was my path of least resistance when I needed it the most?  Where was my zen?  Where was my brain?

My brain went immediately into racist mode and I screamed back at him, "Why don't you go the fuck back to Mexico."

Yes.  I did.  I said that.  No, I yelled that.  In a parking lot. His children probably heard.  

Where did that even come from?  I am not racist.  Or so I thought.  Was my mind just looking for the first insult it could muster?  And if so, why a racist one?

Everything I did was wrong.  If I could go back I would have picked up his trash and put it in my car and been silently pissed off at the stranger who littered.  At that point I did not see him as a "Mexican Who Litters"  I just saw him as a Litterer.  

Instead of my original good intention to pay it forward, I left a parking lot filled with more trash, literal and verbal.  Feeling not at all good about myself.

Pay it forward?  I think not.  All I did was cause harm, mostly to my own psyche as I sit here now and question my knee jerk reaction. Emphasis on jerk.

When I was a child there was an elderly lady who sat out on her front porch in a vinyl woven lawn chair and would yell at every passing car.  She would yell to slow down, or speed up, or call them names.  Clearly she had lost her filter long ago.

I do not want to be that old lady.  I was scared of her.  She always told me I was up to no good whenever my brother and I walked past her.

maybe she was prophetic and I am up to no good.

My trying to pay it forward resulted in disaster.  My own mostly.  

I am ashamed.

Been A Long Time

One of my daughters has a friend who happens to have a hot Dad.  I shared his picture with my friend Hilary.

Her response was, "Please tell me he is single and you are interested."

He is single, and as much as I like to tease my daughter about it, I am not interested in him.  My response to Hilary was different.

"I am afraid darling that I am out of his league."

She sighed, and said, "Remember when no one was out of our league, and it was the opposite?"

Yes, I remember.  

It is not a matter of how thin I was (though in this culture that helped) or how long my hair was, it was not that I thought of myself as the best looking girl/woman in the world.  What made me feel that way was confidence.

This feeling was back in a time when my height and weight were proportionate, and perhaps that helped give me the confidence to be the person I was.

Was. 

Proud, strong, optimistic, spontaneous, sexy, flirty, fun.  

I can hear the naysayers in my head now saying that I am still all that and more.  I can hear the voices clearly, the ones of my friends who love me no matter what.  How I love them for that.

I wish it was enough.  I wish that all their voices would give me back that confidence I once had.  If you met me now, you would not think I am a woman lacking in confidence.  I am extremely good at faking it.

There are areas of  my life where I am honestly confident.  My work.  I know I am good at what I do.  My writing, my photography.  All those aspects I never question or doubt.  They help make me feel alive and defined.

Much of the rest of the time I feel invisible.  This is a theme I have been writing about for some time now, and I know that I am the only one who can make myself visible again.  

I cut my hair today.  No one noticed except for one of my children who happened to be with me at the time it was being cut.  I am not talking a trim, I am talking a big giant cut, a big change.

I can not help but feel sad that no one noticed.  

I am even more sad that I care so much about it.

Sure I could post a picture online and scream, "LOOK I CUT MY HAIR". and let the comments roll in. But that is not what I am seeking either.

What I am seeking is the Nike motivation of "Just Do It" that does not seem to be happening.  That inner oomph that kicks my ass out of bed with gusto.

I want to rid myself of the excuses and fears and be all that I can be, without joining the Marines.

I want to be noticed.

Not by you, or strangers, or my daughter's friend's Dad.

I want to be noticed by myself.

To look in the mirror, or at my body, and say, "Ahhh there you are.  I have missed you and welcome back."

I Can Do This!

I have been accused of relishing in drama.  This accusation was stated some time back and I have been ruminating on it ever since.  Wondering if it is true.

Do I create drama?

I believe I have found the answer.  It is not a situation of drama that I thrive in, but rather one of chaos.

I will call upon my good friend Webster to step in here and define.

Drama:a state, situation, or series of events involving interesting or intense conflict of forces

Chaos:: a state of things in which chance is supreme; especially : the confused unorganized state of primordial matter before the creation of distinct forms

By my nature I am not a person of conflict with other people.  Within myself there is always conflict going on, regarding my thoughts, actions, beliefs.  Even that does not qualify as drama.

I am a person who tends to thrive in chaos.  Chaos has a chance to unfold and become un-chaotic.  Then in a cyclical fashion it will begin again.

I  use the example of my house.  Many times chaos abounds, the house is messy, I am often frantically searching for my car keys or some other lost object.  The house will eventually be cleaned, until it reverts back into a state of chaos once again.

There is no drama in that.  A sink full of dishes causes no drama.

The house that I grew up in was always filled with chaos.  People coming and going, family, friends, my brothers all playing different musical instruments in different rooms creating a cacophony of sounds.

My house and my children are much the same way.  I hear the door open and close and always wonder who is here or leaving now.  I enjoy this.  I thrive in it.  Chaos has an electric charge that gets me up and about and wandering in the midst of it.

Drama brings me down to a state of being where all I would prefer to do is hide until it all goes away.

Like a child seeking comfort from a storm when drama arrives I will hide.

"Mommy, there is Drama outside and it's loud, I'm going to stay in here with you."

Chaos on the other hand says, "Wake up and see this thing forming.  Watch these dynamics floating about your midst. Take witness to the change and the formation as things drift about, reach out grab something and put it in its place."

 I can sit in the midst of chaos and laugh at it all.

Drama is a breed entirely of its own,  Eric having cancer was not drama.  Yes it ended in tragedy, but the battle of it was more chaotic than dramatic.

I may cause drama on occasion and most often when I do, I am the one who suffers the most from it.

Not too long ago I wrote about my sisters in law and the drama that they were in.  I was not a key actor in that play.  My part was minor and would most certainly end up on the cutting room floor.  I was witness to it.

I did have drama with my brothers that I took part in the creation of.  I hated it.  I knew it would end, and looked forward to the end of it more than anything else.

I feel at peace having discovered that I am not a person who thrives in drama.

I choose chaos.

When I wake up in the morning and look in the mirror my head of curls is usually in a very chaotic afro like state.  I may choose to tame them with a flat iron, or wet them down so they might reform into the neat spirals, but I know by the end of the day the afro will be back and chaos on my head will resume.

My children love my hair and all the crazy things it can do.  I also love it.

What other choice does a woman like me with chaotic curls do but embrace it?

From drama I will remove myself as quickly as possible.

Chaos is a call to arms, and I gladly pick up my sword, or broom, or hair product and proclaim, "I can do this!"

Huh, What an Epiphany

When I was about ten years old I would often sleep in my Mom's room.  I liked being close to her and feeling the safety of her presence.

She had a poster tacked to the wall, (this was long before she became a photographer and then owned an art gallery.)  The poster read "IF you love something set it free, if it comes back to you, it is yours, if it doesn't it never was."

Even at ten, I thought, "Well that's a bunch of crap."

But this was the 1970's with free love, no boundaries, and the beginning of the self help movement.

I too have been guilty of being a self help junkie.  I have read books, shook hands with Tony Robbins,  learned to dance with my anger, love my body thru meditation, masturbation, and mastication (slowly of course).

My chakras have been put back in balance, my room has been feng shui-ed, I have breathed the breath of fire, walked barefoot to gain energy from the ground, and made an image board.

I am still just as screwed up as I have always been.  In my own adorable laughable way I accept myself and my flaws.

Why is it I wonder do I get so irritated when someone else feels the need to point out my flaws and offer to "help"?  If I ask, that is one thing, but usually I do not go seeking negative feedback.

Every generation is supposed to improve upon itself, while making the former generation obsolete.  They take what we have created, and add to, destroy, or fix it.

I realize that I am aging when I have little tolerance for the younger generations proclamations of their version of the truth.

The only truth I can clearly see is that life is in a constant state of Koyaanisqatsi.

I have tried to raise my children to seek out their own truths, and yes to experiment.  Try on personalities while you are young.  Do new things, but do it with the knowledge that it may end up being full of shit.  There are gurus on every street corner.  Teachers are among us always.  Every person we let into our lives should teach us something.

All lessons are not monumental, all things we take away from our actions may not have lasting effects.  We may walk away from something, or someone and say ,"Huh, well that happened."

A friend of mine since high school once told me that she always thinks of me when she hears the word "epiphany".  This surprised me to some degree, and I admit it was an epiphany in and of itself that I tend to have many epiphanies.

Recently stranger reached out to me on a photography site and said that I am brave, and compared herself to me by saying she is afraid. The epiphany I gained from this was that I was afraid to respond to her and offer words of encouragement.  I wanted to tell her, I am afraid too, all the time.  I am even afraid of fear.  Yet I like to snuggle up and make myself afraid by watching scary movies.

I am not qualified to advise people on their fears, or the choices they need to make in life.  I can only say that I do understand, and that I know it can be scary.  I can also be blunt and say it may really suck, or it may not.  Either way you wont know until you have done the thing that fears you.

In my house I have created an atmosphere of protection, my nest.  It is a safe zone, where my children are free to tell me the things they wish to share.  I have been told of the drugs they have taken, the times when they got drunk, lost their virginity, questioned God, questioned their own body images, and questioned their friendships.  I listen, and usually I will ask what they have learned from it all.  Sometimes I say nothing at all and just listen.

I may throw a note of caution in, I am their mother, and that is part of the job.  Protect the nest and all who reside in it.

On the poster that hung in my mothers room along side the words of letting something free, was a picture of a bird.  A Jonathan Livingston Seagull kind of bird.  I also pondered this as a child, "Well who would expect a bird to come back to you, that's just stupid."

Eventually I stopped sleeping my mother's room and I hung up my own inspirational posters.  I do believe they consisted of John Travolta, Scott Baio, and Carol King.

One of my children has written quotes all over her walls in her bedroom.

Eventually posters come down, and rooms get painted as we let go of the things that once served a purpose.  We let go of the ideas we loved, but they still belong to us, even of they never return.

If I never in my life have another poster of John Travolta it does not mean he was not mine.  If my children find fault in me and feel the need to point it out, I will call upon my plethora of resources to calmly listen to their concerns, their truths, and listen.

Or with all the knowledge and self help I have stuffed into my brain over the years I may forget it all and tell them to shut up.

Look how far I've flown.

Do you take you for better or worse?

Twenty-one years ago today I set sail on a honeymoon of a lifetime.  I was twenty-two years old, married, and in love.  Before  250 witnesses I pledged my life to this man.  I had dreams of us growing old together.

Seven years later we parted as friends.

Two years after that I again pledged my life to a man.  Only this time my witnesses were our children we brought from our individual previous marriages and the one we created that at the time of our vows was gestating happily. I had dreams of us growing old together.

Four years later he died, and I am the keeper of his ghost and our family.

Thirty-one years ago my own father passed away.

One might think I have bad luck in choosing men.  I disagree.  I have been blessed.

I have always been fortunate in my relationships.  A serial monogamist.  A good friend said that I am the kind of person who is meant to be with someone else.  She said, "You couple well".

She also predicted I would be married within five years of Eric's death, and a guru at an ashram also said he saw me married within a year.

That was three years ago.

I have not taken many lovers over the last eight years, but the few I did take on did not work out.  I remain friends with most.

If a friendship is maintained the relationship was successful.  It does not matter if you are no longer in love, or in bed, or on the same schedule anymore.  As long as there was something real, than it was successful.

I turned to John for advice the other night about a recent relationship that ended before it ever began.

John went in to a long discussion about me, not about me and my partner, or me and my past, just me.  He asked me hard rhetorical questions.

One of which was, "Do you want to be here?"

I was really hoping he meant my bed where we were sitting.  I always want to be in my bed.  No, he meant "here" the literal.  Alive.  Do I want to be alive.  Do I want to stop existing and start living again?

For a brief moment I felt as tho I was in a tent revival and some strong guys were going to pop out from my bathroom to catch me as John pressed the spirit of Jesus into my head.

It's not that easy.

I started to ask a question and no sooner did the words form that I had the answer.

The question was, "Why do I keep choosing the wrong people?  The emotionally unavailable or geographically impossible or too young for me?"

The answer is; it is not that I am choosing the wrong partners.  I am the wrong one.  As long as I continue on this course that I have made very comfortable I will never find a person who fits me.  The fault lies within.

Today someone said to me they thought life sucks and that it kicks the shit out of you, but he is prepared to kick the shit out of life instead.

Although I admire his fortitude that is not the approach I want to take.  I want to find me again.

Yes, I want to be here.  Fully here.  It may mean I end up fully here alone, and it may not.  But either way I want this life I was given.

I will for now, take myself off the shelf and out of the market.

Until I find out who I am now, I will always be the wrong partner.   I will never be able to fully give to my partner my heart when I am not yet in love with who I am.

Now, I must work on waking up, coming out of a long comfortable fog and learn to love myself again, so that I can be here.

When I am finally here, the world will know it.

Has Anyone Seen My Hat?

There is a time in the early Texas summer that makes me feel life is good.  The time is brief and you'd best put a hitch in yer giddyup or you mighten miss it.

The time is early morning.  Before the heat has decided to fully descend and settle.  If you are lucky, as I am right now, there will be a breeze.

My children and the cicadas are still sleeping.  The neighbor's rooster is not, but like me he never sleeps.

The wind mixed with the dull hum of everyone's AC unit is all I have for company.

My favorite coffee  cup is next to me and my feet are up.  The heat is just barely touching my toes.

In a few short hours I wont be able to walk on my deck barefoot because it would be walking on a stovetop.

In a few hours I will be inside with my blackout curtains drawn and doing all I can to pretend it is not so hot.

I have often lamented the heat of Texas and its original settlers.  They must have arrived in March clueless to what was coming.

I often question why anyone would stay here.  Texans love their Texas and I have met more people from here that would never leave than I have the opposite.

I have asked myself why I stay here.

The answer is simple.  Because I have to.  I have roots.  Not the familial kind, the kind that come in the form of a mortgage, a bad economy, a job that requires a clientele.

Roots that dictate garbage is to be put out on Wednesday night and recycling is every other Thursday.

I planted five little trees here and my roots are by proxy to them.  This is their state, their home.

Texas  does fascinate me.  The small towns with the ornate courthouses.  The barns with state flag painted on them. The ghost towns hidden away at the end of dirt roads.  The sprawling cities that don't seem like cities at all to me. The secret water holes that people actually call "water holes" and they are not much of a secret.  A town that is all German smack dab in the middle of the state where you can buy hand forged iron door knockers and have german potato salad served hot.

I once met a man named Bob who tipped his ten gallon hat and said, "Call me 'Cowboy Bob' most everyone does round here"  and yes he had a mustache that did the most amazing curl.  I can not imagine Cowboy Bob walking along the third street promenade in Santa Monica, or ordering a pie in New Jersey and not knowing it was pizza he was ordering not apple.

Cowboy Bob would not sit well at a table covered in brown paper and have beer battered crabs unceremoniously dumped in front of him.

Cowboy Bob is exactly where he needs to be.  He is as much a part of his surroundings as they are him.

I envy Cowboy Bob.  He knows his place. He loves his place.

Me, I was born a southerner, raised a Jersey girl, and settled in Texas.

Wherever I lay my hat is home, I just have so many hats to choose from.