Somebody to fart on

A friend of mine says that's why you need a husband, to have somebody to fart on in the night. When somebody pointed out to her that you could have a dog for that, she said, oh, sorry, I forgot the dog. You need somebody to fart on AND let the dog out at night. I think she has a point.

For a while, I worked the very late third shift, and as a result of that, very rarely shared a bed with my husband. At first it didn't matter much, we were pretty much at odds anyway, me having recently left him for a while and all. While I got more uninterrupted sleep sleeping alone, there was a funny, hollow feeling just the same.

In the early days of our relationship, one of my kids commented that it was funny that he clung to my back in sleep, something like a furry armed limpet. My son said "stuck" to your back, Mom. I had never liked that. I had always believed that I couldn't sleep with somebody touching me, side by side was okay, but from the first night we spent together, we have been like that. Stuck, grafted, clinging to each other in the night. Going to bed mad is pointless when you know that the minute you are unconscious, your body is going to stick to the other person's and you will wake up melded together just like always. He also pets me in his sleep, kissing the top of my head and stroking my hair. How do you tell somebody to quit that? Gestures of love and tenderness ungoverned by a conscious mind. How can you doubt that somebody who does that loves you? He's more than a person to fart on in the night, but that is totally descriptive of a loving, trusting, open relationship, when you can repeatedly do something basically disgusting to another human being and they don't mind. I think Ivy had it right after all.

down here in the pit

So, I'm down here in the pit. It's pretty deep, and I've been here for a lot longer than I would have ever thought to be. I tried walking out. I tried staying in. Nothing I tried worked very well or for very long, and I am having trouble recognizing the face I see in the mirror.

So, today the person I have known the longest in my life, she who bore me, asked me to look for my ways out. She asked me to trust her. She suggested that perhaps the rescue would come in a form I might not recognize.

I'm going to begin today to look for release, in forms that I may not easily recognize. Not very long after I made the decision to look, I had a message from my sister, the first in a long time. I will read it, I will listen. I will document. Wish me well, gentle reader. Maybe---just maybe---

safe

It's late, but it almost always is. I don't think I'm a vampire, but sleep eludes me. It used to be my one luxury, I could stay up until any o'clock if I could sleep until 9. Not no more. After the latest almost year-long bout with insomnia, it seems that I don't have to sleep as much. Maybe I just got used to running on empty. I'm vigilant for signs of depression, I'm constantly on guard against the anger, I try to remember to eat right, I try not to carry things around in my head, but let them out, let them breathe, let them air---oh, that's what I'm doing wrong.

I thought I was safe. I fled, not once but twice, but I felt safe back here. I vowed to my husband I'd never leave him again. And then every fight for a while, he told me to leave. He begged me to leave. He was afraid that I would leave. I guess once he got the concept down, once he understood that there were some things I wouldn't stand for, now he knows I would leave. But now I won't, despite the knowledge now that there are some things that are simply not available here.

I don't know what it was about him that I fell so hard for. Looking back, it seems like the man I fell for could not possibly be this man, he doesn't even really look the same. And his gentle humor, and his consideration of me, and his clear intelligence have been burned away by all the strife and stress and poverty, it's a wonder how money can change a man. or lack thereof. It was pain that changed my first husband, chronic, unaddressed, unmedicated pain that turned him into a careless drunk, left me alone and the kids at risk because of his inattention. this one changed like that too, drink and drugs and the society of post-teenagers, the abdicating of his parental role. he sat in the room or outside with all these kids, friends of our kids, and they drank and, and----well, then he lost his job over a drug test. and I feel like I tried to drag him back to me, kicking and screaming, tried to loose their grasp on him. he is so easily led. astray, anyway. I'm banking my future on that my man is still in there somewhere, that when the chaos and kids are gone, the money too tight for beer or pot, he will still be in there somewhere. and that I can find him.

It will never be the same. We got off on the wrong foot after all, having our first bad sex on our wedding night. we never managed to live alone after the first 5 months. my youngest son felt that I had abandoned him, and in retrospect, he was correct. but somebody loved me. I mattered to him. He wanted me. just for me. and it had been too long since someone had looked at me like that, I just fell. Hard, on my ass. and all the signs were there, no diamond, no wedding, the loss of all my worldly goods in the storage unit fiasco, his abuse of cars, how incredibly weird he gets when he doesn't eat, all of the warnings that this was not the stable relationship I needed.

Ahh, what good does this do now? do I feel any better? not yet. will I continue to complain? probably. will I stay? I think so. I have to keep at least one promise I made.

There's more room in a broken heart

It's not that I mind the broken heart, after all I am a mother of grown children, and even the best behaved break your heart a few times. It's just that I loved the level best that I knew how and it wasn't enough.

There were angry words, and there was blame. There were statements that hurt on both sides, but there was no lashing out at least. At least there was no tearing of old wounds, no bleeding, none of the hurtful things that he had said before, the more painful because there was some truth in them. I don't know what I could have done differently without changing who I am. But I wish this had never happened.

It happened because of lies, of blame, and ultimately because neither one of us was honest about our feelings from the beginning. I know I am not his mother. But his mother is an angry drunk, and was passed out on the couch every single night when he needed her most. I'm the one who held his head when he puked, following her example. I'm the one that wiped his face, and one time, his ass. I'm the one who loved him, always believed in him. And it wasn't enough.

and we move on

today, I became an adult. despite my chronological age, I have simply never grown up. I have on occasion wondered why that should be, how can I look in the mirror and see the wrinkles and gray hairs and saggy chin and all the other things that indicate gravity exists, and still not have the mental and emotional maturity that would let me identify myself as a woman. Why the label "girl" is the only one to ever pass my lips even if I was thinking the other. I think I know what happened, and I think at last I know the why.

My parents are aged, but not old. They are timeless to me. And that's weird, because everything grows and changes and life effects change in all things. Well, they have some aches and pains and some troubles with vision, hearing, and orientation to time and place, but they are essentially unchanged from my childhood. Not just my perception either, checked with my brother to see if this is his experience with them as well, and yep. No change. No development. Nothing. All is as it has ever been.

The problem with this is that all is changed around them. I spent a month with them, running away from my own life, scared, traumatized, angry at what my family had become, hopeless, doubting myself-- I tried to be cooperative, I tried to fit in, I tried to be a member of the family. I actually sought to find out what they wanted me to do and then do it. Quiet. Non-argumentative. Totally not the careless rebel I had always been. But all for nothing, all for no avail, because I can not be judged on my current actions, but on the 52 years that have come before.

I can't please them. I don't know what they want. I ask, they tell me stuff, but somehow, either we are using different versions of English, or there is no way to actually communicate. I was anguished. I knew, just simply knew that I was wrong somehow. How can you not make your parents proud? How can you cause them so much pain, cost them so much money, embarrass them in front of their friends, what kind of piece of shit must you be to be so awful to these nice people? And they are nice, God knows they are nice. until you shut the door.

Went back today to collect the things I left behind when I fled, yet again, on the edge of my mother's tongue. suddenly I was in high school again, I was in college again, I was a young wife again, and nothing I did was right. Why can't you just behave, she asks. Why can't you just--- why can't I just what, Mom? what is it that I'm doing wrong this time? I won't cut my hair. I won't wear polyester pantsuits. I won't sit on my ass and eat fast food until I look like a whale like all my friends did. I don't raise my kids like you raised me, hitting and ridiculing, never explaining, never teaching the things I desperately needed to know. How do you choose a mate? What do you do when love fades? Who do you turn to when everything turns to worms? You, Mom? You, and hear you tell me that I'm sick, that I'm damaged, broken,--and now you have some proof that there may actually be something wrong, beat me up with it over and over. You will never amount to anything if you don't get fixed.

I picked up my boxes and put them in the truck. I closed the door to my old room in my mind. I said to my father, I'm moving out dad. I'm gonna get married and have some kids. he says, well, it's about time. It's about time you grew up.

I grew up today. I have finally, finally accepted that I don't know how to please my parents, I don't know how to make them proud of me. Their approval matters, but it is no longer the be-all and end-all of my life.
I drove to where my husband works, and I parked the truck. I went to the bookstore, then I came back and climbed up on the hood and sat there and read a book until he came out. Not ladylike, not the least bit. But it's my truck. And I'll sit on it if I want to. And I don't care what anybody thinks about that. or my hair. or my jeans. or my husband, for that matter.
I'm ready to take responsibility for myself. It's never too late.

the New Old World

this is sort of what the star will look like. all I have here is crappy plastic beads and sewing thread. hope you can get the idea at least.

these are some illustrations of where the beads go in the basic star, and how to make it different. the method is still the same.

Daddy's computer won't let me upload a formatted document, so I'm just going to re-type it. trust me, it was pretty. bulletted lists and so forth.

materials needed:

small amount of beads in 2 colors

beading thread

beading needle

Thread Heaven or beeswax, what ever you have on hand is fine

Scissors

Something to put the beads in while you're working with them. trust me, they will try to escape.

step 1. cut a manageable length of beading thread and prepare it by stretching and conditioning it.

step 2. pick up 5 beads in color 1. tie the working thread and the tail thread together so you have a circle of beads.

step 3. pick up 3 beads on your needle. the last bead you put on your needle is the point of the star. pass the thread over the top of that bead and back through the same direction you went through the first time. pull it up tight against the circle. pick up two more beads on your needle and go into the next bead in the circle.

step 4. repeat 4 more times.

this completes the star portion. If you want a bigger star, just use more beads in each leg of the points. if you want a more elaborate star, go around again. the possibilities are infinite!

step 5. to make your star into a pentacle, it is necessary to put a circle around it. make sure your active thread is coming out of one of the point beads of the star you just made. string enough beads to reach to the next star tip without distorting. Lay it down on the table if you need to. There is not a set amount of beads for this step. make this step with color #2 beads.

step 6. continue around the circle in this manner. how you finish will depend on what your finished item is intended to be for.

After your circle is in place, you can use the method you used to make the star points to make your item bigger. I have used this pattern to produce a sort of netted basket to hold a tiny flask of scented oil. You can use big beads, or wooden beads to make a trivet for your kitchen.