Filed under: Emotions, blogging, love, marriage, memories | Tags: 2001, blogging, love, marriage, september 11th
September 11th, 2008
(How petty are my problems on an anniversary such as this.)
But that’s life and everyday problems don’t go away, it doesn’t take away the loss we all felt on that day, but again, many buildings will fall in the course of our lifetimes, hopefully all of them being only representations of our own relationships.
I tried to make my blog private last night but I lack any kind of administrator savvy and really cannot figure out the right way to invite you to read and comment on it, feedback was that you couldn’t even log in. Well that isn’t helpful so f*ck it, it’s back. Funny thing, I never had a problem with the anonymous world reading my thoughts, never really thought that too much of that anonymous world was really reading it (stats showed otherwise though). There is only one reader I don’t want here anymore but again, trying to privatize my blog is like trying to keep quiet or trying to be someone I’m not and that is the very struggle I am dealing with right now. So read on, read on, I don’t care. I was mainly irritated because said person has privatized all of their internet offerings and I was trying to level the playing field, again, I don’t care ultimately. It’s a “I was here first kind of thing” anyway. Free speech and open expression was my MO first, so have fun with yours.
With that said I want to be open and carefree with what I post here. I always know when I want to say something big, I end up not posting for days, here it’s been a couple of days and the posts are busting out of my head making it hurt… I’ve got to make room and I’m going to. It’s September and I’ve posted now 252 times and I find I still have to remind myself of why I’m here… for me and that is the only reason.
So I think of the state of the nation on that day seven years ago and I think of the state of my marriage seven years ago and can make so many metaphors and correlations. I’m not talking about the actions of the terrorists or trivializing the extreme loss of life, I am only speaking of the place that I was with Mike and where we went from there. On Tuesday, September 11th, 2001 terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center and stopped the world from spinning on its axis and 3 days later we left all we knew for a new life here. Did we lose each other on the way, or was there nothing there in the first place? Did we change that day, did we all change that day?
When do we stop changing?
Filed under: Emotions, Introduction, Living, love, marriage | Tags: love, marriage, memories, Mike
July 24th, 2008
You and I aren’t the same people we were when we fell in love.
And how could we be? We were so young and so fearful of what would become of our feelings for each other. We guarded ourselves behind gossamer veils of pretension that meant so little when it came to embracing passion. Giving in to the newness, wanting to make first contact and wanting to freeze every moment in time, forever. How do you hang on to that? And can you, or should you rather? That isn’t a place for permanent residence because other things clamor for attention, like trust and security. But that sense of protection can come quickly, either by choice or by happenstance. And with the latter, you are thankful that you have met your soul mate, lucky that you can stop looking, or better, you have found each other. You hold each other and you can almost see it all laid out before you, as if the future is playing out and someone else is playing the part, someone so much better versed in the script and dialogue. When you embrace you can’t see into that person’s eyes, instead you are looking past them– ironic, because you have never felt closer and there is no where you would rather be. The dark, starless night is bitter cold, dense with lost time and you never want to leave that place, or that memory behind because it is who you are wanting to be and who you remember wanting to be.
Who is with you now? Do you remember the hesitation as you picked up the phone and remembered a lifetime as he spoke those words to you? Trembling inside because the loneliness was washing away, the pain was fleeting. And when he left you after that first reunion, you didn’t touch the ground for weeks, for months, not even now. The coy smiles, the bright eyes, the electric touch of two people finding that connection between heaven and earth and each other. It is the giving in completely to fate, the stripping down to the bone, the unmasking… that is what will let love in. It can’t be scary, it will be blind, or at the very least like searching around in the dark shadows cast by moonlight. It will lead to the brilliant dawn, the cold still bites at your naked body, but the sun will warm you and keep you close, as two hearts now beat as one.
We aren’t the same people we were when we fell in love, but that love is better now, stronger because we made it through the shadows into the light. The expectations of what this love was going to be built from the ground up, deeply rooted in trust and understanding, is something greater now. It isn’t complete yet, and in time it will grow higher towards the sun, and its roots will expand ever deeper into the ground. And the stars start to show through the night’s cover because love is ever changing, always constant and forever. You cannot go back to the person you were when you first fell in love, and why would you want to? You would lose forever the growing, the learning, the memories of an awkward and fledgling romance turned true love. Don’t look to turn back the memories of love, instead look to what you could become, chances are it will become more than you ever dreamed it could.
Filed under: Commentary, Emotions, marriage, soapbox | Tags: Emotions, marriage, Mike, soap box
April 16th, 2008
If you have ever been around me, especially at work, you know that I have a big mouth, I say what I want to say and I use the power of my voice and my large vocabulary to talk anyone under the table. That’s my super power I suppose, yay for me. No flying, super strength or cunning, no, I’ve got the power of the spoken word. There is only one person I know of who is more wordy, more boisterous and more opinionated than I: my husband, Mike.
My mother-in-law puts it like this, and remember this is her pride and joy she is speaking of, “Everyone else is normal, it’s you.” When she is saying “it’s you” she is referring to the fact that he is so over the top when it comes to tackling challenges, defeating the competition, obtaining a new skill, even day-to-day routine activities like how he does his hair and how his military training taught him to expertly iron a shirt. I’m not picking on him here, I’m pointing out the facts. He is worldly, chock full o’ information, can readily understand what the hell the Science Channel is talking about, and has mastered every subject he has taken in college.
So, what am I complaining about here? Not complaining really, just needing to get this off my chest and what other venue is there but this one, somewhat anonymous, oddly vast? It is the constant need for him to fill me up with his chatter, his knowledge, smidgens of fact, nuggets of smarts. Is it that he is smarter than me that bothers me? Am I jealous/envious/intimidated by his brain power? Unlike him I have not memorized every lyric to every song ever written. I cannot tell you what the periodical chart abbreviation for Plutonium is. I am not completely sure/nor do I really care what the difference between centrifugal and centripetal force is. I mean, I know I learned that at one point, probably from one of his ramblings, but I don’t retain knowledge, never have.
I think that is the real problem to this problem, I shut him off now and he knows it and he gets mad at me for doing it. He takes a lot of energy to listen to. I’m sure I do too to a point. I’m a moody person, I have needs too. That is the root there, I liked to be listened to too. I have to be a very attentive audience. He almost demands that I not only understand what he is saying, I acknowledge that I am paying attention/understanding and here’s the one that gets me every time, that I agree with his point of view. And here we introduce the argument segment of the problem. I can’t possibly disagree with him. In his defense, he assumes I agree with all of his points of view because he believes that I am also a very intelligent person so we must see eye to eye. This is an illogical argument. Okay, there’s one thing I am smarter at, logic. Neither here nor there in this problem.
So I have become accustomed to just smiling and nodding and even that is becoming increasingly hard to do. He sees through my veneer of weakened interest. I don’t know how to fix this or at least to stop doing this. I use my little voice now. I don’t disagree or agree, I don’t give my input, any input is just filtered through and spit out at me or disregarded usually. I don’t like using my little voice because when I am able to use my big voice I end up unleashing it on some unsuspecting soul, like a co-worker. I have an opinion and I like debating but what I have to say is just as important as what you have to say. There is no winning in a conversation yet I always feel like I’m on the losing end nevertheless.
My little voice may just turn into my silent voice.
Filed under: Emotions, Etsy, holidays | Tags: Etsy, jenn, marriage, SadieAndLeo.etsy.com, stilettoheights, wedding
April 9th, 2008
If you didn’t already hear the news, Jenn of stilettoheights is getting married today! Please send her happy thoughts as I am sure most of you already have.
Jenn is such an inspiration in my life and some of you may not know that we met on Aaron’s blog, quickly found we had a ton in common and communicate through blogging and Etsy just about every day. Her art work adorns my home and I just wish I had more wall space, patience for hanging and the funds to frame everything I have. Her artwork speaks to me the way I have always longed for an artist’s work to speak to me. I studied art in college, my whole life for that matter (we are all constant students of art, knowingly or unknowingly), and yearned to know the artist. Really know the artist. Our friendship started with the commonality of taste and expression but has grown into appreciation and support.
I never would have taken the plunge onto Etsy without Jenn’s encouragement and guidance. I wonder how long I would have stayed in my art coma? I feel like I burden her sometimes, like I take and take and maybe I shouldn’t be so needy. I hope that I have given her the love and support, even half as much, as she has given me over the past year.
Our friendship is very Griffin & Sabine, we have never met in “real life”. I want to take a trip out to Ohio this year to see her and she wants to come out here when I have the baby (still not pregnant, calm down). And we will do these things, when time and money and all of those stars align. We both know we have the best intentions and we both know that we are slaves to our commitments and obligations. We will do these things and we will meet someday.
So, we celebrate Jenn and her Bubs, now Hubs, and her spirit and love for making the world a more beautiful place because she shares the beauty she has within.
Filed under: Friday Time Capsule | Tags: Dad, divorce, flea market, greasy spoons, high school, marriage, Mike, Mom
February 10th, 2008
Sunday mornings were set aside for my Dad. When I was in high school I wasn’t exactly the out-all-night partying type. I was the kid who usually worked all day Saturday morning and into the afternoon, sometimes even into the night and if I wasn’t working I was at the library or hold up in my room pouring some kind of creative cocktail. That isn’t to say that I didn’t stay up late, because I was a night owl. I was convinced that my best work came out at night, as if vampirism had something to do with my creative expression. No, I wasn’t “into” that kind of thing, it’s just a funny simile. But Sunday mornings were for my Dad, no matter how tired I was or how late I had stayed up the night before. If I didn’t have to be dropped off at the book store, my job at the time, Dad and I would go for breakfast at one of his many favorite greasy spoons, Mary-Ann’s in the downtown Derry strip, Bickford’s on South Willow in Manchester, that place heading into Nashua, damn if I could remember the name of it, it wasn’t just an eatery, it was also a florist and a country gift shop. They had the best waffles that side of the Merrimack. The greasier the better with my Dad. He never cared how young I was I always drank coffee and he didn’t care how much sugar I ate. After our breakfast feast we would go to the flea market in Derry, the one with the big purple elephants out front. We were Grand View Flea Market goers for life. When I was really small, Dad would truck out all of his antiques and goods and we would set up a table. Later on we were perusers only, I would shop the antique jewelry and always buy the cheap Chinese imported shoes and trinkets. Dad would carefully inspect bottle collections, Hummels, baseball cards and juicers. He was the pinnacle of a Weekend Dad and had been the only Dad I knew.
I never blamed him for my parents getting a divorce, did we blame Mom? We didn’t really know what to think. My sister was given this book from a family friend, I am going to say it was from a happily married family friend. Who else gives a kid a book on how to cope with divorce? I am pretty sure that she read it and then it sat on a shelf until I discovered it one day. It was good and I remember the illustrations being spot on. There is one thing I really remember from its pages, among all of the “it’s not your fault” psycho-babble, a lot less Sophie’s Choice, a little more Good Will Hunting. I remember it having a whole chapter on how your Dad is going to treat you better than your Mom. Yes, that’s right. Dad will treat you nicer, give you more of what you want, be more forgiving and loving because of the guilt he feels over leaving you. Uh-huh. And Mom is going to be the disciplinarian, the meanie, the parent who is so desperate for the life they had before that she will punish you, make you the absentee father, and make you feel guilty for not being able to leave. Tell me that won’t fuck with a ten year olds head. Thanks friend of the family.
So I carried that belief around with me for a long time. Some say that there is such a thing as self-fulfilling prophecies and I only don’t support that theory because it makes me so angry. Because of the validity of it. Ugh. How are we to make our own way if we are just subscribing to beliefs we cannot separate ourselves from? Why not just give up? Trying not to prove these things just made these things more evident. My Dad never yelled at us, let us stay up until we couldn’t anymore, let us eat whatever we wanted, let us play and run and ride our bikes everywhere. We didn’t have chores at his house but we wanted to help. We didn’t have rules but we stayed in line anyhow. We were allowed to drink soda and eat Devil Dogs but we made sure we got vegetables and fruit in too. My Mom gave us lists of chores, we had bedtimes, we couldn’t leave our street, we never had anything good to eat in the house. We rebelled against the Monday through Friday. We had a hard time falling asleep on those Sunday nights because we knew that we had to wait another week for happiness again. And who did we blame? We didn’t blame the divorce, we didn’t blame Dad, we blamed Mom. Self-fulfilling prophecy.
When I was older the weekends turned into just Sunday mornings and that was just me and Dad. If I had to be dropped off at the book store, we would have bagels and talk at the Brooklyn Bagel House almost near the Londonderry line. We didn’t talk much of consequence but we did get to be together and I thought at the time I was doing it for him. I never felt bad for him, well maybe that did come into it sometimes, but it was a mixture of that and obligation. I didn’t know at the time that I was really doing it for me and my need to be close to him. As I got older, much older, I let the blame go altogether. The more I learn about men and women and their relationships and especially about marriage I have come to learn that some people just never belonged together. Sad? Sure. Mike and I have been together for almost as long as my parents were married. Eclipsing that is almost bittersweet. It is hard and it is a struggle and there are compromises you don’t always want to make, and sometimes you just want to pack it up and walk away. And that’s normal. I’ve come to realize that divorce, no matter what you stand is on it, is normal too. It’s not necessarily giving up, it’s being honest and making the ultimate compromise, good or bad. Should my parents have worked it through and stayed together? The funny thing is I have never thought that. On the contrary I was always solid on the idea of them not being together. Maybe because I was so young when they split, or that it is the only life I’ve ever known, but I always knew it was right.
Not a Sunday morning goes by that I don’t yearn for a greasy spoon and a flea market.
