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.

Just leave it alone!

Last night at 12:30 I was watching sort of a show on SciFi. I was listening, anyway, not sitting in front of the tv. Suddenly, it was a cop show. Where did my Sarah Jane go? Comcast! In its infinite wisdom decided that would be a good time to re-assort its channels. Why? There were plenty of numbers not in use, why throw them all up in the air and just leave them where they fall? And could I find a list somewhere to print? Or an apology from comcast, gee, sorry to screw up your show and all, but we need to do this right now. here's a new list of channels for you. sorry. That would have been nice. It was bad enough when NBC and CBS swapped. I know, that was a really long time ago, but I still have to stop and think what channel Days of our Lives was on, and which CSI goes where. USA took Criminal Intent, my favorite because of the smart cop. Bobby Goren. He can frisk me anytime. But it will have to wait, because I still haven't found USA. maybe tomorrow.

Walkin' out

This is my house. Well, my half of the house. My front door is around the right side, through a really disreputable gate, past a flower bed that's seen better days. The Christmas lights are still in that tree and around the windows, which are between living room and dining area inside the house. There's a dog leash wrapped around the base of the tree for hooking up Jager while anybody is working out front. he will jump the fence if you are in earshot but he can't see you. I think he's actually digging a tunnel in that aforementioned flower bed. So to get out of my neighborhood, I go across the lawn and turn right into the first field. Well, I did until like yesterday when the people who own the other half of the house put up a rustic rail fence with plastic screen nailed to it. I think they're trying to keep people from walking across the lawn. It would have been funny last winter if they had been here then, because when husby parked behind me in the driveway, I would scoot out across the lawn, between the tree and the house was just enough room for my little VW to get by. Bet they would have just loved that.
They have called the cops on us around 4 times already, once for the bonfire in the back yard when we burned the old fence, again after the cop who they sent sat by the fire with us for a while and didn't make us put it out. (this happens at least once a year. we have an above the ground firepit which is totally legal in our development. it's just that they see kids and assume we're going to burn down the neighborhood) Once when they saw Jager pulling a kid on a skateboard for about 9 feet in the street, the animal control guy came out to see if we were abusing our (gasp) ENORMOUS pit bull. And at least one other time because they saw me "dragging" said dog by his huge spiked collar. I had gone to the mailbox, he jumped the fence, and I was guiding him gently, no really , I was, back into the yard. Chris, the animal control guy said that she said I was holding him up in the air by his collar. he weighs 65 pounds.

This is the first field. You're looking at a court here, I veer right into that court and then up into the next field. For a big development with a lot of courts and streets with similar names, there are a lot of open field spaces that aren't part of anybody's property. They are full of trash and junk, and this one is full of dog shit. There's a sign, you know, about picking up said dog shit, but you know, there are so many Canadian geese, and their shit is the size of small dog shit, I think it's pointless. Seeing that sign just means watch where you walk.

Our development is called Birches West. No birches. might be west of something or other. All of the names of streets and so forth are astronomy terms. I don't get what sense that makes, but I like the street names. Regulus, Altair, Fomalhaut, Cirius, Ursina, Procyon. it does mean that you always have to spell your address.

My Feet

This is where it starts. My own 2 feet in my cool blue sketchers. No more car, no more driving, anywhere I have to go, I have to walk or take a bus or ask someone to take me. I hate it. I didn't drive until I was 24, I was afraid. I couldn't see through the winshield and I couldn't tell where the perimeters of my car were. I took the bus a lot back then, and walked. And rode my skateboard. I'm a lot older now, and I don't think I'd ride a skateboard if I had one, fear of falling. I might be able to ride a bike, but I don't have one. I want my car back. It's been 30 years since I have been without a car, and I hate asking people to do stuff for me, but I don't have any choice about it right now.