My friend Gail wrote a reply to some of my blogs this morning and I truly believe, just as she said, that God works in mysterious ways. One of those ways is finding a friend through flickr.
I stumbled upon Gail's flickr site over a year ago. I was having a particularly rough day and was in desperate need of some cheer. I really don't remember how I found her, but I remember saving some of her flower pictures as 'favorites' and receiving my first email about a day later. Throughout the next year we have talked about pictures, family, work and even a little bit about faith.
Here's a sample of our most recent conversation:
"in my heart I know that some day [my son] will probably understand that "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." When we pray, although it makes NO logical sense, it helps us to think that we are not in this thing we called life alone. We may not understand God, and that's ok, we hardly understand the people we see with our eyes everyday!"
Her words really resonated with me and I cannot express how much I needed to hear that.
Thank you Gail.
May 23, 2008
Jacket Season
I used to think that Summer was my favorite time of year. It probably had something to do with more vacations, the waning of my allergies and a more consistently blue sky. But now that I can take a vacation whenever I want, I have my allergies under control and I live in Seattle (where blue skies are relative) I've come to realize that Spring is by far my favorite time of the year.
In Seattle especially, spring is when everything comes out of hibernation. The flowers bloom, the birds return and everything turns from brown to green. It is a magical thing to watch.
In Seattle especially, spring is when everything comes out of hibernation. The flowers bloom, the birds return and everything turns from brown to green. It is a magical thing to watch.
May 19, 2008
No More Roseburg
With George needing his antibiotics twice a day for two weeks, Logic and I won't be able to drive down to Roseburg for a four day weekend as we'd originally planned.
We haven't been to Roseburg since Christmas, so it would have been nice to see his family but at the same time, I'm relieved that it didn't work out.
We would have driven 6 hours home on Tuesday only for me to turn around and fly to Michigan on Wednesday. And with the anxiety-filled weekend I just finished, I think I might need some down time before my big trip.
I wish I didn't get like this. When I'm not in the puddle of anxiety that sometimes surrounds me, I can't even remember what it was like, but as I'm wading through the muddy waters, it's as if it never ends. I can't recall what it feels like to not be anxious.
With Roseburg aside, my next dilemma presents itself: what am I going to do with 4 days off this weekend? Sometimes too much is just as bad as not enough free time. It gives me time to really sink into the anxiety in a way I wouldn't have time for otherwise.
We haven't been to Roseburg since Christmas, so it would have been nice to see his family but at the same time, I'm relieved that it didn't work out.
We would have driven 6 hours home on Tuesday only for me to turn around and fly to Michigan on Wednesday. And with the anxiety-filled weekend I just finished, I think I might need some down time before my big trip.
I wish I didn't get like this. When I'm not in the puddle of anxiety that sometimes surrounds me, I can't even remember what it was like, but as I'm wading through the muddy waters, it's as if it never ends. I can't recall what it feels like to not be anxious.
With Roseburg aside, my next dilemma presents itself: what am I going to do with 4 days off this weekend? Sometimes too much is just as bad as not enough free time. It gives me time to really sink into the anxiety in a way I wouldn't have time for otherwise.
Whiskeymarie's Fucking Awesome Chocolate Chip Cookies
I had to make them on Sunday, even though I was melting from the heat. They were worth it.
May 17, 2008
Exhaustion, a UTI and God
A few nights ago I noticed that my cat, George, had been licking himself more than any respectable boy kitty should, so I mentioned it to Logic and then went about my business. When I woke up this morning George was doing double-duty. He would go to the litter box, come out and clean his nether regions only to go back into the litter box again. Seeming like a disaster waiting to happen, I called the vet to make an appointment for later that day. When our 2:40 appointment was confirmed I was off to dance and yoga.
Class started off as usual; Dom taught us the first set of 8 counts and then we warmed up before learning the rest of the dance. By the time we started stretching, I felt a little tired. Could it have been the beer I'd had the night before? Was I dehydrated? It's possible. Or it could have been that the routine was grueling and I wasn't listening to my body when it said SLOW DOWN!!!
We finished the dance and were running through it a few times before being broken up into groups for the performance. Everyone was going full-force, trying to tweak some moves here and there to make it their own and I was right along with them. Until I couldn't breathe. My lungs and chest were tight so I decided to take a break and get something to drink. As I walked in circles on the edge of the dance floor, chugging my Gatorade, I thought about how hard the routine was but also how much I liked it. I wanted to get back out there and give it my best. And that's what I did.
By the time class was over I was contemplating skipping yoga. It is my all-time-favorite thing to do but I was pretty beat up from dancing and wasn't sure I'd have the energy. Then I remembered that I had a new yoga mat. Really wanting to test it out, I decided to stay.
My regular instructor wasn't in so there was a sub. As nice as it is to have variety, it's just not the same when Jessie's not there. And this particular instructor had something to prove; class was intense. So intense that I had to revert to child's pose and lie on the floor quite a few times throughout the hour-long session. When it was over I finished off my Gatorade and quickly crossed the street for my 'energizing' smoothie. But even that didn't help. By the time I got home I was weak and shaky. And to make matters worse, the vet had called while I was gone, wanting us to bring George in as soon as possible because she was worried about his symptoms. So Logic did the grunt work of stalking the cat and managing to close the cage without George's crafty escape.
I didn't find out about this until I was driving home when I got a call from Logic saying that the vet wanted to keep George for the afternoon and do some tests to make sure he didn't have a blockage or anything. (He'd already left me a message but I hadn't seen it yet.)
Something about leaving the house that morning, knowing I'd be taking George that afternoon and finding out that he'd already been rushed up there without me threw me off. So between my workout exhaustion and cat-related drama I was not feeling so well.
I tried to eat, I tried to lie down, I drank and drank and drank water. Nothing was helping. My body was starting to act the way it does under anxious circumstances and as much as I tried to distinguish the difference between discomfort and fear*, it wasn't helping. Next, I tried to take a shower thinking the isolation and relaxation would help me to clear my head but I was so tired that I kept shaking, which only induced more anxiety. I finally got out of the shower and had enough time to grab another Gatorade before collapsing on the bed. My mind was swirling and my body was reacting with a knotted stomach and a tingling/burning sensation in my arms that felt as if my veins had just been injected with vinegar.
I'm a stubborn one and I was determined to talk myself down from this panic attack without resorting to my helper pills*. I opened the mental vault to my therapy session notes and skimmed through the pages:
~Focus on breathing - do ujjayi breathing techniques and listen to my breath.
~Imagine that my thoughts are floating over rocks on a river bed - not stopping or getting stuck anywhere - just floating on by. (this one is usually awesome, but today I had no such luck. Anxiety was on to me. It knew my favorite tricks and came at me with new material.)
~See my body's physical reaction to anxiety as its way of getting the toxins out of my body and leaving me with only the good.
~Try to pinpoint what is upsetting me and remind myself what has helped in the past.
After 90 minutes of trying these techniques and about 10 minutes of sleep I decided to be compassionate with myself* and take a helper pill*. It was a struggle to even get up, find my medicine, cut the pill in half, drink it down and go back to bed. I felt so weak that passing out seemed like a real option. But I managed. And as I laid back down on the bed I started to think about the one 'solution' that I specifically skipped over: prayer.
Prayer and I go way back. Back to the beginning, when I was taught that it would help me in any circumstance:
~Having a bad dream? Pray about it.
~Want to make the dance squad? Pray about it.
~Driving a long distance and want to get there safely? You guessed it...Pray about it.
But when I deliberately decided to chuck the ole Catholic Church to the curb a few years back I have been questioning everything I've been taught and filtering out the things that don't make sense. Prayer is one of those things. I didn't believe that God only answers the 'prayers' of the people who believe in him. I didn't agree with the idea of an answered prayer being God's Grace but an unanswered prayer being the Mysterious Ways in which he works. Who is this God and why does he answer some prayers and not others? And why does he insist on being so mysterious?
These questions, among many others are the reason I questioned my faith to begin with. Some of it just didn't add up. And I wasn't willing to just blindly believe in what I was told. So I started questioning everything I'd been taught. My recycle bin filled up quickly and by the end of it, I only had a few things left in my Faith File. One was that I truly did want to believe in something. That there is Something out there (whether we go to him in the afterlife or not). I had a decision to make: either revert back to the faith I was raised with and feel like a fake or traverse the rugged terrain in front of me, hoping that all the hard work would pay off and I would eventually find something that made sense.
Again, being stubborn, I chose the difficult path. And that's where I've been ever since. It's a real bitch this path I've chosen; with narrowly carved roads up winding canyons in the dead of a desert summer. I can go days and days without seeing another person and when I do it is often from a distance - since they have their own path to take. This path is extremely isolating. All the things that I knew are no longer comforting and I find myself delirious with exhaustion in an attempt to find answers that are true to me.
Which brings us back to today. When I am having anxiety, I question my strength because all of my solutions revert me back to the path that I chose to leave. I get upset about something or feel out of control when I've pushed myself too far and I suddenly find myself stuck on a ledge without the proper spelunking equipment. Feeling scared, do I choose to pray or grapple with my fears in the silence of my own, anxiety-ridden head?
Actually, in these situations I typically go for the hand. Instead of praying or trying to think out my problems I pick up my journal and just start writing. Sometimes it takes me a while to have the courage and the strength to find my journal and pour my heart out on the always comforting page. Today was no exception: it took me more than two hours to get to the point where I could write without worrying that I'd lose my balance and only have one available hand to pull me back up onto the ledge. But after those two hours I grabbed my journal and wrote.
I must have written at least five pages, transferring the anxiety from my head to my hand and then to the paper. Once I started to write I felt a sense of relief. Finally I was able to get all of those worries and fears out of my head. It provided me with so much relief but it also surprised me with a little insight as well.
On page four, after spilling out all of my concerns I suddenly asked myself: "Why does the thought of not praying to God make me feel so alone? Do I believe in the concept of prayer? And if so, how do I justify the audacity that it would take to do so and to believe that God is going to help me while so many other prayers go un-answered?"
I went on to write: "Emile Durkheim believed that religion was vital for society to succeed and that it would crumble without its rituals and beliefs. He thought that people needed religion to be socially conscious and without it, no one would care about another and greed and chaos would rule supreme."
Then I countered that with what my hand transcribed from my subconscious. My mind was completely blank as I wrote this next section:
"I'd like to think that people are mostly good, so in thinking about prayer and it's relationship to religion, I'd like to think prayer doesn't need to be tied into religion. It doesn't need to be a part of society to keep it from falling apart. It doesn't even need to be the kind of prayer that I've been taught it to be. If prayer could be whatever I want it to be; whatever I feel it in my heart to be, than I'd like it to be my thoughts for others. Just thoughts; no request for resolution. In my ideal prayer scenario, I would wish something good for someone else and instead of expecting an answer, I would focus all of my energy on that person and hope that they are given some sense of comfort and peace as a result."
I let my anxiety reach epic proportions not because I fear the worst, but because I am searching for a source of comfort and when I look into my heart I find a gaping hole where religion used to be. So the next time I find myself in an anxious situation I would like to try to pray again. But not to the Catholic God or anyone else's God for that matter. I want to pray to the one who will hug me and hold me tight. Yes, I will ask for his help but not in the sense that I expect him to solve my problems for me. I will pray that God can provide me with love, comfort and peace of mind too. I don't need him to solve my problems for me. I just need him to hug and comfort me while I figure them out for myself.
~Quotations used to signify things that my therapist and I have talked about.
P.S. George is home now. As soon as I finished writing in my journal I decided to call the vet and check on him. They prescribed him some medicine and confirmed that he had a urinary tract infection. Poor guy.
Class started off as usual; Dom taught us the first set of 8 counts and then we warmed up before learning the rest of the dance. By the time we started stretching, I felt a little tired. Could it have been the beer I'd had the night before? Was I dehydrated? It's possible. Or it could have been that the routine was grueling and I wasn't listening to my body when it said SLOW DOWN!!!
We finished the dance and were running through it a few times before being broken up into groups for the performance. Everyone was going full-force, trying to tweak some moves here and there to make it their own and I was right along with them. Until I couldn't breathe. My lungs and chest were tight so I decided to take a break and get something to drink. As I walked in circles on the edge of the dance floor, chugging my Gatorade, I thought about how hard the routine was but also how much I liked it. I wanted to get back out there and give it my best. And that's what I did.
By the time class was over I was contemplating skipping yoga. It is my all-time-favorite thing to do but I was pretty beat up from dancing and wasn't sure I'd have the energy. Then I remembered that I had a new yoga mat. Really wanting to test it out, I decided to stay.
My regular instructor wasn't in so there was a sub. As nice as it is to have variety, it's just not the same when Jessie's not there. And this particular instructor had something to prove; class was intense. So intense that I had to revert to child's pose and lie on the floor quite a few times throughout the hour-long session. When it was over I finished off my Gatorade and quickly crossed the street for my 'energizing' smoothie. But even that didn't help. By the time I got home I was weak and shaky. And to make matters worse, the vet had called while I was gone, wanting us to bring George in as soon as possible because she was worried about his symptoms. So Logic did the grunt work of stalking the cat and managing to close the cage without George's crafty escape.
I didn't find out about this until I was driving home when I got a call from Logic saying that the vet wanted to keep George for the afternoon and do some tests to make sure he didn't have a blockage or anything. (He'd already left me a message but I hadn't seen it yet.)
Something about leaving the house that morning, knowing I'd be taking George that afternoon and finding out that he'd already been rushed up there without me threw me off. So between my workout exhaustion and cat-related drama I was not feeling so well.
I tried to eat, I tried to lie down, I drank and drank and drank water. Nothing was helping. My body was starting to act the way it does under anxious circumstances and as much as I tried to distinguish the difference between discomfort and fear*, it wasn't helping. Next, I tried to take a shower thinking the isolation and relaxation would help me to clear my head but I was so tired that I kept shaking, which only induced more anxiety. I finally got out of the shower and had enough time to grab another Gatorade before collapsing on the bed. My mind was swirling and my body was reacting with a knotted stomach and a tingling/burning sensation in my arms that felt as if my veins had just been injected with vinegar.
I'm a stubborn one and I was determined to talk myself down from this panic attack without resorting to my helper pills*. I opened the mental vault to my therapy session notes and skimmed through the pages:
~Focus on breathing - do ujjayi breathing techniques and listen to my breath.
~Imagine that my thoughts are floating over rocks on a river bed - not stopping or getting stuck anywhere - just floating on by. (this one is usually awesome, but today I had no such luck. Anxiety was on to me. It knew my favorite tricks and came at me with new material.)
~See my body's physical reaction to anxiety as its way of getting the toxins out of my body and leaving me with only the good.
~Try to pinpoint what is upsetting me and remind myself what has helped in the past.
After 90 minutes of trying these techniques and about 10 minutes of sleep I decided to be compassionate with myself* and take a helper pill*. It was a struggle to even get up, find my medicine, cut the pill in half, drink it down and go back to bed. I felt so weak that passing out seemed like a real option. But I managed. And as I laid back down on the bed I started to think about the one 'solution' that I specifically skipped over: prayer.
Prayer and I go way back. Back to the beginning, when I was taught that it would help me in any circumstance:
~Having a bad dream? Pray about it.
~Want to make the dance squad? Pray about it.
~Driving a long distance and want to get there safely? You guessed it...Pray about it.
But when I deliberately decided to chuck the ole Catholic Church to the curb a few years back I have been questioning everything I've been taught and filtering out the things that don't make sense. Prayer is one of those things. I didn't believe that God only answers the 'prayers' of the people who believe in him. I didn't agree with the idea of an answered prayer being God's Grace but an unanswered prayer being the Mysterious Ways in which he works. Who is this God and why does he answer some prayers and not others? And why does he insist on being so mysterious?
These questions, among many others are the reason I questioned my faith to begin with. Some of it just didn't add up. And I wasn't willing to just blindly believe in what I was told. So I started questioning everything I'd been taught. My recycle bin filled up quickly and by the end of it, I only had a few things left in my Faith File. One was that I truly did want to believe in something. That there is Something out there (whether we go to him in the afterlife or not). I had a decision to make: either revert back to the faith I was raised with and feel like a fake or traverse the rugged terrain in front of me, hoping that all the hard work would pay off and I would eventually find something that made sense.
Again, being stubborn, I chose the difficult path. And that's where I've been ever since. It's a real bitch this path I've chosen; with narrowly carved roads up winding canyons in the dead of a desert summer. I can go days and days without seeing another person and when I do it is often from a distance - since they have their own path to take. This path is extremely isolating. All the things that I knew are no longer comforting and I find myself delirious with exhaustion in an attempt to find answers that are true to me.
Which brings us back to today. When I am having anxiety, I question my strength because all of my solutions revert me back to the path that I chose to leave. I get upset about something or feel out of control when I've pushed myself too far and I suddenly find myself stuck on a ledge without the proper spelunking equipment. Feeling scared, do I choose to pray or grapple with my fears in the silence of my own, anxiety-ridden head?
Actually, in these situations I typically go for the hand. Instead of praying or trying to think out my problems I pick up my journal and just start writing. Sometimes it takes me a while to have the courage and the strength to find my journal and pour my heart out on the always comforting page. Today was no exception: it took me more than two hours to get to the point where I could write without worrying that I'd lose my balance and only have one available hand to pull me back up onto the ledge. But after those two hours I grabbed my journal and wrote.
I must have written at least five pages, transferring the anxiety from my head to my hand and then to the paper. Once I started to write I felt a sense of relief. Finally I was able to get all of those worries and fears out of my head. It provided me with so much relief but it also surprised me with a little insight as well.
On page four, after spilling out all of my concerns I suddenly asked myself: "Why does the thought of not praying to God make me feel so alone? Do I believe in the concept of prayer? And if so, how do I justify the audacity that it would take to do so and to believe that God is going to help me while so many other prayers go un-answered?"
I went on to write: "Emile Durkheim believed that religion was vital for society to succeed and that it would crumble without its rituals and beliefs. He thought that people needed religion to be socially conscious and without it, no one would care about another and greed and chaos would rule supreme."
Then I countered that with what my hand transcribed from my subconscious. My mind was completely blank as I wrote this next section:
"I'd like to think that people are mostly good, so in thinking about prayer and it's relationship to religion, I'd like to think prayer doesn't need to be tied into religion. It doesn't need to be a part of society to keep it from falling apart. It doesn't even need to be the kind of prayer that I've been taught it to be. If prayer could be whatever I want it to be; whatever I feel it in my heart to be, than I'd like it to be my thoughts for others. Just thoughts; no request for resolution. In my ideal prayer scenario, I would wish something good for someone else and instead of expecting an answer, I would focus all of my energy on that person and hope that they are given some sense of comfort and peace as a result."
I let my anxiety reach epic proportions not because I fear the worst, but because I am searching for a source of comfort and when I look into my heart I find a gaping hole where religion used to be. So the next time I find myself in an anxious situation I would like to try to pray again. But not to the Catholic God or anyone else's God for that matter. I want to pray to the one who will hug me and hold me tight. Yes, I will ask for his help but not in the sense that I expect him to solve my problems for me. I will pray that God can provide me with love, comfort and peace of mind too. I don't need him to solve my problems for me. I just need him to hug and comfort me while I figure them out for myself.
~Quotations used to signify things that my therapist and I have talked about.
P.S. George is home now. As soon as I finished writing in my journal I decided to call the vet and check on him. They prescribed him some medicine and confirmed that he had a urinary tract infection. Poor guy.
May 12, 2008
Cake
Logic and I went to see Cake at the Paramount last night.
When I found out they were coming to town I was excited but as time progressed I started to question whether I really wanted to go. I love them and have for a long time but the Sunday night thing was almost a deal-breaker. (god, I'm old)
Anyway, Logic hurt his knee over the weekend (going to the doctor today) and it was a struggle getting him to the show but once we were there we were glad we went.
At first I wasn't sure if I could get into it; they sounded so good that it felt like I was just listening to a cd. But then John started playing with the audience and the band played around with the arrangements. The disco ball helped too.
It turned out to be a great show.
When the band left the stage you would have thought there was an earthquake. People were screaming, clapping and stomping so loud that the building felt like it was actually shaking. They made us work for the encore... taking their time coming back to the stage, but it was worth it. They played three more songs and gave the crowd a voice lesson.
Today I am listening to the three albums I have at work and smiling at the memories that were made last night.
May 10, 2008
Being a Mom
Logic and I occasionally talk about having kids. Sometimes it will come up after we spend time with our family and other times it is when we see a real brat in a restaurant. The first scenario leads us to think that we might want them, the second has the opposite effect. But whenever we have 'the talk' we both agree that we'd be screwed if children really are like their parents. Logic was a difficult child and I was a handful as a teen. Put those together and we'd have one helluva nightmare on our hands.
But with Mother's Day tomorrow, and the recent death of my Grandma, I can't help but admire the women in my life and think there might just be enough of a reward to outweigh the difficulties that come with being a mom.
Take my relationship with my mom, for example. As I previously stated, I was a handful as a teenager. I was mad for having to move to Montana during my Sophomore year of high school, among other things, and I chose to focus all of that anger on my mom. After taking a particularly brutal assault, she suggested that maybe I was taking all of my agression out on her because I knew that no matter what I said, she would still love me. I wouldn't admit it at the time, but she was right. And the next few years of our cohabitation would prove just how strong her love was. I would yell and scream and insult her every chance I got and her love for me never waivered.
Shortly after my 18th birthday I moved out. Amid tears and hurt feelings, my parents were supportive of my decision. And to my surprise, I spent more time at home than I did when I lived there. It was the beginning of a new phase in my relationship with my mom.
Of course, after moving out from the comforts of home, I started to see all the little things that my mom had done without acknowledgement for all those years.
I started to see her in a new light. She was not just my mother anymore, but this amazing woman who made unlimited sacrifices and had an all-encompassing heart.
Living on my own was quite an awakening in many respects but there was one particular factor that changed our relationship completely. That factor was anxiety.
When I started having panic attacks, there was nothing my mom could do to help. For the first time in my life, I had to take care of something on my own. As hard as it was for me, I think it was even harder for my mom. Her faith gave her all the comfort and support she needed and she couldn't relate to my ambivalence for it. She wanted to pray with me and try to resolve my fears through religion. And while I wish it could have been as easy as kneeling down and doing some serious praying, her answers were not mine.
I had to find alternate ways to solve my problems. Prayer was eventually replaced with meditation and instead of church, I found my weekly comfort in yoga. Even though my mom could see that I was finding comfort in these new forms of spirituality, she had a hard time understanding how those answers could be any better than her own. It was scary and exhausting for both of us, but in my search for new resolutions we've learned a lot about each other.
I can't pinpoint when it was that I finally started to appreciate all that my mom has done for me, but I know that I haven't even come close to understanding her love in all its capacity. As I look back on the last few years, all the anxiety and fear has been worth it if for no other reason than to bring us closer.
Ten years after all the fighting and even some hair pulling, I am so proud of the progress we've made. And should I ever decide to be a mom, I know that I'll do just fine. Mine set a pretty great example.
But with Mother's Day tomorrow, and the recent death of my Grandma, I can't help but admire the women in my life and think there might just be enough of a reward to outweigh the difficulties that come with being a mom.
Take my relationship with my mom, for example. As I previously stated, I was a handful as a teenager. I was mad for having to move to Montana during my Sophomore year of high school, among other things, and I chose to focus all of that anger on my mom. After taking a particularly brutal assault, she suggested that maybe I was taking all of my agression out on her because I knew that no matter what I said, she would still love me. I wouldn't admit it at the time, but she was right. And the next few years of our cohabitation would prove just how strong her love was. I would yell and scream and insult her every chance I got and her love for me never waivered.
Shortly after my 18th birthday I moved out. Amid tears and hurt feelings, my parents were supportive of my decision. And to my surprise, I spent more time at home than I did when I lived there. It was the beginning of a new phase in my relationship with my mom.
Of course, after moving out from the comforts of home, I started to see all the little things that my mom had done without acknowledgement for all those years.
I started to see her in a new light. She was not just my mother anymore, but this amazing woman who made unlimited sacrifices and had an all-encompassing heart.
Living on my own was quite an awakening in many respects but there was one particular factor that changed our relationship completely. That factor was anxiety.
When I started having panic attacks, there was nothing my mom could do to help. For the first time in my life, I had to take care of something on my own. As hard as it was for me, I think it was even harder for my mom. Her faith gave her all the comfort and support she needed and she couldn't relate to my ambivalence for it. She wanted to pray with me and try to resolve my fears through religion. And while I wish it could have been as easy as kneeling down and doing some serious praying, her answers were not mine.
I had to find alternate ways to solve my problems. Prayer was eventually replaced with meditation and instead of church, I found my weekly comfort in yoga. Even though my mom could see that I was finding comfort in these new forms of spirituality, she had a hard time understanding how those answers could be any better than her own. It was scary and exhausting for both of us, but in my search for new resolutions we've learned a lot about each other.
I can't pinpoint when it was that I finally started to appreciate all that my mom has done for me, but I know that I haven't even come close to understanding her love in all its capacity. As I look back on the last few years, all the anxiety and fear has been worth it if for no other reason than to bring us closer.
Ten years after all the fighting and even some hair pulling, I am so proud of the progress we've made. And should I ever decide to be a mom, I know that I'll do just fine. Mine set a pretty great example.
May 06, 2008
Happy Mother's Day. Or Not. Whatever.
I couldn't get out of bed yesterday. I'd been up until 11:30 the night before doing some spontaneous spring-cleaning in anticipation of Logic's return from Utah. When my alarm went off at 6:00, I could barely manage rolling over to turn it off. After the fourth 'snooze' attempt, I decided to call in sick. My plan was to take the afternoon off anyway so I could pick Logic up from the airport so it was easy to justify having the morning off as well.
I finally crawled out of bed around 9 and was making some final alterations to the newly-arranged living room furniture when I got a call from Tom.
We'd been playing phone-tag since October. Neither one of us was really making the effort to meet up, but after a good talk with a friend on Sunday morning I decided an effort should be made. I called him on Sunday afternoon as he was heading into the movie theater. He agreed to call later that day, but I wasn't really expecting him to. To my surprise he did.
He drove over in the afternoon and we sat on my couch. We talked for two hours - a new record for us. It was weird because it wasn't weird. We talked about nothing and everything and it was really nice. So when he called me on Monday morning, I thought it would be a quick "knock knock" joke, since we'd already covered everything else. But it wasn't.
He called to tell me that Grandma passed away. He'd just gotten off the phone with mom and he wanted to warn me that she was pretty broken up. He said it was really hard to hear her like that and he just wanted me to be prepared. I was shocked twice-over. Once for hearing that Grandma was dead and twice for receiving such a sweet call from my usually-absent brother.
After talking to Tom, I immediately called my mom. She, of course, was trickling the news down the list of her children and was on the phone with Jill. She called me back a few minutes later with a lump in her throat.
"I'm fine", she kept assuring me. "It's just hard to talk about."
After a few attempts at telling me what happened, she had to put my dad on the phone.
He said that they didn't really know much. It was assumed that she died of natural causes. She had recently been moved back to the nursing home from the hospital after a quart and a half of liquid was drained from her lungs. There was no sign of pneumonia but her kidneys were acting up. Among other things, she wasn't eating or drinking and her blood pressure was higher than normal. And yet, she seemed to be improving. We were all bracing ourselves for more trouble but didn't expect her to die so soon.
The real kicker was how my mom found out. When my Aunt Jo called to tell her, my mom was at the post office... sending out my Grandma's card for Mother's Day. It breaks my heart to imagine her walking up to the mailbox, stopping to answer her phone, and then needing to decide what to do with the card.
This Sunday is going to be a really hard day for her. I really want to be there but I also want to go to Michigan in a few weeks when my mom buries both her parents' ashes. I just checked tickets to New Mexico and they are outrageous.
I just don't know what to do.
May 01, 2008
Happy May Day!
Not to be confused with 'MAYDAY!' Here's a little trivia for you:
How did the word "Mayday" come to be a cry for help? Does it have anything to do with the "May Day" holiday?
Aside from the obvious fact that the Mayday '(used as a distress call)' and May Day 'the first of May, variously celebrated with festivities and observances', are both spelled and pronounced the same way, no, they are not related.
The Mayday that is an international radiotelephone distress call used by ships and airplanes is simply a phonetic representation of the French word m'aider, an imperative meaning 'help me!'. It could also be a shortening of the French phrase venez m'aider 'come help me!', which is somewhat less likely on the grounds that if you were in serious trouble you'd probably want use a shorter expression.
Mayday was adopted as a distress call by the International Radio Telegraph Convention in 1927.
~ Brendan Pimper
~updated source information: Jesse Sheidlower
How did the word "Mayday" come to be a cry for help? Does it have anything to do with the "May Day" holiday?
Aside from the obvious fact that the Mayday '(used as a distress call)' and May Day 'the first of May, variously celebrated with festivities and observances', are both spelled and pronounced the same way, no, they are not related.
The Mayday that is an international radiotelephone distress call used by ships and airplanes is simply a phonetic representation of the French word m'aider, an imperative meaning 'help me!'. It could also be a shortening of the French phrase venez m'aider 'come help me!', which is somewhat less likely on the grounds that if you were in serious trouble you'd probably want use a shorter expression.
Mayday was adopted as a distress call by the International Radio Telegraph Convention in 1927.
~ Brendan Pimper
~updated source information: Jesse Sheidlower
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