I have a plan...

Today I made a plan.  I formulated, calculated, wrote, re-wrote and edited.  It was a writing kind of day. The plan I made seemed to come together with a few extra pieces thrown in.  I'm trying to go back to college and finish a degree, finally.  I think I am ready.  I'm done having babies and changing diapers and being interrupted.  I'm ready.  I remember leaving for college the first time.  I never really thought anyone would care if I left home and went to college, no one seemed to make any fuss and I had written and re-written, calculated and edited all the applications myself.  The day I was to leave, my mother gave me a garfield coffee mug and a little pig made of bread dough behind a chicken wire fence.  It was then I knew that I was noticed, that it did matter that I was leaving and that she had remembered the things that I loved at the time.

She was always so quiet, my mother.  I never knew what she was thinking most of the time.  If she worried about me like I worry about my sons and daughter. If she ever tried to figure me out.  By the time I realized how much she cared, I had finally begun the process of being okay.  Maybe it was part of the plan.  She left me because she was ready to be okay.  Finally.  Go with God, it's what I told her and I meant it.  I wonder if she knew how much I cared.  If that was all part of the bigger plan.  I sure hope so.

The Vernal Equinox of 2011

Spring. It's sprung.  My grass is green, thank to daily deposits of fertilizer from my pack of 4 legged friends and a whole lot of rain!  Today I am wearing Spring colored clothing.  I vowed today not to put my hair back in a ponytail (that lasted till 1:45 p.m!) and to look more feminine. In my line of work black is the standard.  Black shirts, black pants, black shoes and the dark circles under my eyes complete the whole black look.  I started to wonder, as I decided to do this blog, at influences that are part of my day and my mood. And I looked at "black".  The color itself, if you close your eyes and visualize a black crayon, is solid.  Thick.  All ecompassing.  I used to think of the color black when I was trying to sleep, in an effort to make my mind stop racing, sometimes it worked, but usually not.  What I've deduced on this first day of Spring 2011 is that more light needs to enter my life. Lightness in color choice is a start.

I'm moving to beige.

Things that make you go "hmmmmmmmmmmm"?

Remember the Arsenio Hall show?  I do. I miss looking forward to a laugh.  Not just your ordinary laugh, but a deep belly laugh that made your cheeks hurt and your sides ache.  Painful laughing--it's almost an oxymoron!  I'd get my household chores done, as many kids tucked in bed as possible, settling back with something to drink and a blanket to just get lost in the funny.  There needs to be more funny in my life.  It's not that my life isn't a comedy of errors, or that if I didn't laugh, I truly would be crying non stop, it's that I miss that "ah ha" moment when some sort of funny magic happens.  The OMG, I didn't know anyone else thought that way and as my friend Nikol often says "holy mother of pearl" (that's actually freaking HILARIOUS)!  The cares and worries of the day fell away, the build up to the "ah ha" moment headed for the cresendo and you were left with an uplifted mood that lasted quite a while.  Better yet, the late night show shared on those rare occassions with a good friend who totally "got it" as well - a shared moment of hilarity. I remember Arsenio's collection of jackets - a new one each show.  And I remember he too would be slapping his knee laughing his ass off at whatever witty, truly funny, thing that made him go "hmmmmmmmmmm".  And me too.  I'm missing the thing that makes me go "hmmmmmmmmmmm".

1st Day in the life of my blog..

Today is St. Patrick's Day.  I'm not Irish, it just seemes as good as any day to start the journal I always said I was going to keep.  Plus Irish folk I know are pretty cool people and if I drank green beer, I probably would start today.  It's been "one of those days".  I keep trying to get "finished" with "this" and "that" and all the rest of the "stuff" over there.  I'm not making good headway.  Do I think I have bad luck?  Sometimes.  Do I trust people too easily and believe that people are inherently good and that I'm not going to get hurt/let down or disappointed today?  Yes.  Did I get hurt, let down and disappointed today?  Yes.  Each day the hurt that I held in quietly and destructively for so long leaks out more and more.  It seems so anxious to escape that I keep my eyes closed as long as possible each morning to stem the tide of  leakage.  Bubble gum in the dam.

I hope that when I look back on this blog as time goes by that I am able to be happier.  That I learn to let go, with love, of the hurt.  Hurtful people who's wounds are just as fresh today as the day they stabbed me in the back, hollowing out another hole in my heart.    That I learn to let go of people that I can't "fix".  That don't fit into my life, just overwhelm it, swallowing all the air I need to breathe.  I never feel like I can take a deep breath, that if I let that breath all the way out, I won't be able to draw it in again. Lately I find myself holding my breath in my sleep, as I gasp awake at yet another terror called consequence.  Heart racing, angry and scared at yet another dreamless night of ragged sleep  interrupted by the rude awakening of responsibility.