Random Thoughts

So I have decided that this blog would be best served if I just weekly, spit out all my random thoughts. Empties my head. Entertains you. Hopefully. Once in a while I’ll try to throw in something meaningful.

** when you go to the chiropractor and he throws up his hands and says ‘I’m out!’, you know your back is messed up.

** Even though my oldest is 18 years old, I still have moments where I am like ‘holy crap! I’m someones mom!’

**Sometime when I am at home, I think “wow, this place really needs to be cleaned’….then I realize that it’s MY house and I am the person who needs to clean it.

**There is only a certain degree of stress a person can take before something snaps. Your sanity, your body….something has to give.

**I can’t remember a time I wasn’t married to my husband. That makes me feel warm and fuzzy and scared to death at the same time.

**I sing in my car. Really, really loud. And I imagine what it’d be like to be on stage singing.

**If an elderly woman is in a nursing home with dementia, should it be legal for her husband to vote for her because he knows ‘who she would want to vote for’??

**Trying to lose weight by drinking detox tea leaves you with nothing but a lighter wallet and a really nasty taste in your mouth.

So…that’s it for this week. I’ll try to write my random tidbits down so they make more sense next week. Maybe.

She’s Not Here Right Now

I did it. I took my daughter to college, settled her into her dorm and left her there. By herself. Her roommate won’t be there for a couple of days. I cried. I cried hard as I clutched my first born to me, making her promise me that she would be safe and not open her door to anyone, and that she would call me anytime day or night if she needed me to make the hour and fifteen minute drive to get to her. And I meant it. I would drive to her in a blinding snow storm if she needed me. I cried when I left, and most of the way home. I cried when I was getting ready for bed. I cried again today while texting her. Feeling deep pangs of sorrow that she was all alone. So just a little while ago, we video chatted. And it helped. Seeing her, knowing she was OK, she wasn’t sad or depressed. She was just chilling in her room, eating junk food, watching TV and playing on the computer. Finding herself. Figuring out who she is, and being OK with being alone because she is OK with herself. That in itself is a skill that most much older people never achieve. The ability to be alone and be happy. I mean physically alone, not emotionally. Her first night away from home and all alone. I would have been terrified. Not her. She took it on in stride.

It’s hard. It’s hard knowing she isn’t right here right now. She will be on the weekend. And many weekends after. But she’s not here right now. And my heart hurts.

It hurts because she’s growing up, it hurts that I can’t be right there with her. But I know it’s a process of me learning to let go, a little at a time. Letting her grow.

While this past summer was one of the worst in our relationship, since then, we have become closer then ever. Making this separation hurt all the more.

But I am proud. So proud. She turned around a life on a fast skid, out of control and made it into something positive.

I will cry tonight when I go to bed. I am crying right now. A mixture of missing her, worry and being proud. Walking past her empty bedroom is the worst. I want to crawl on it and just feel her. And she hasn’t even been gone a full two days.

It’s going to be a really long semester.

Things Obsessed

My husband, bless his heart, is a man who can become OCD. He is a man who always has to be doing something. He is currently working on his doctorate degree in nursing. He is a Nurse Practitioner. He also has a degree in funeral directing…because, well…he wanted one. He likes to be in school. He likes to be constantly doing homework or researching or doing something. The running joke in our house is that everytime we take a vacation (or he has time off of work) he enrolls in something. Last time he was off for a bit, he enrolled in the doctoral program. It’s a bit daunting, working full time as he does, taking on this course load. This semester he has to student teach and he was supposed to teach an actual class (at the request of one of his professors who thought he would be an excellent teacher-his goal when done with school). However, that paid job didn’t come through, which I think is a blessing. His time will be already stretched to the max with what he has, and add to that our daughter going off to college this semester (and what I plan on being bi-weekly weekend visits to her) and our son at home, well…time is going to be precious and hard fought for.

So this vacation, there was nothing to enroll in. However…there is always something to obsess over. He often finds himself stuck in Wikipedia loops where he goes from one page to another, stuck in a rabbit hole of information that started on as one thing and winds up as something totally separate. It takes up a good afternoon. And he absorbs much information to be used at a later date.

The newest obsession? His family tree. He has a copy of his family tree going back several generations to when his great-great something-something came over from England. It’s a great story, one that he wants to me to write up in a possible book. Which I will. When I am good and ready (not when told to do so…because honestly, TELLING me to so something is like pushing the ‘off’ button…ain’t ever gonna happen that way…just so ya know). ANYWAYS….he has become obsessed with finding out the stories of these people…his ancestors….the who, the what, the why….it really got bad when he told me we should go the Sheffield, England to explore his family tree some more. (after he sent an email to the Sheffield historian office asking for information).

It’s almost like he can’t let his mind just go…just zone out, not think of anything. Something I can do with wild abandon. I can sit in my chair, zones out and quiet and suddenly ask him weird questions like if a satellite fell from space and landed in the ocean would it make a wave big enough to sink a ship? Because my mind can wander and think up stories and do writerish things. Him? Not sure his mind can just wander off. It’s need purpose and direction and focus. I guess I should be grateful that one of us can do that. Because it will never be me.

I wish I could find his ‘off’ button, but I don’t think he’d like it. Just to be free flowing. Un-obsessed. And really, when I think about it, I’m not sure I’d like him un-obsessed. It’s who he is. The thinker. The doer. The man I married.

So Happy Anniversary, My Mr. OCD. It’s been a fun ride so far. Let’s see where we go from here.

In My Own Back Yard

A tragedy happened Monday, I am sure some of you might have a heard. A fire broke out at a house on Lake Ontario. Webster fire department rolled up, ready to battle the fire and render aid, only to be met with gunfire. Yes, these brave men were being fire upon. Ambushed. Two were killed. Two more were injured. One man drove himself to the emergency room. These brave men, who sought only to help save lives and property, were lured to a house for the pure reason of being murdered. The murderer? A dirt-bag who name need not be mentioned. An evil incarnate sub-human who had already spent 17 years in prison for BEATING his GRANDMOTHER to death. Yeah, we are talking a real upstanding citizen here. And it all happened not an hour from where I live.

This is not the kind of thing that happens here. Yes, there is crime in the city. It’s a city. But this kind of unadulterated terror? No. Never.

All the events that have happened in the past few weeks on a national (and a local) level, the amount of stories I’ve seen involving shootings, it just takes my breath away. My heart hurts. I just don’t understand. I don’t understand what this world is coming to.  Is this the end? The beginning of the end? No one knows when the end is coming, but can we feel it? I am not an overly religious person, but I would be lying if I said I hadn’t recently sat and read the entire book of Revelations and tried to understand. I try to make sense of what is going on in the world around me, understand the why’s and the how’s, but there are just some things that will just never make any sense to me. I will never understand why or how someone could enter an elementary school and open fire.

I do know that I am holding my family closer, loving them deeper and am prepared for whatever comes in the future. I just wish that the present wasn’t so hard.

Days of Christmas Past

Long ago, when I was young, Christmas was a HUGE deal in my family. Back in the day when the entire extended family converged onto my grandparents house for a week-long celebration, starting on Christmas Eve, and going through New Years Day (which was is my grandmother’s birthday). Aunts, uncles, cousins galore. I remember the front room of my grandparents house, the ‘red’ room for its red Victorian decor, would always be decorated for the season. A Christmas tree in the bay window, evergreen and lights down the curved staircase. And presents. So many presents, that they spilled out into the middle of the room. We’d sneak in and shake them, all of us kids. Trying to figure out what goodies awaited us.

Christmas Eve was a tradition. We would attend Christmas Eve service at church, as was my grandfather’s edict, and afterwards we’d come home and have a huge meal. There would be laughter and food and one present. Just one. And then it was off to bed to await the early morning of unwrapping gifts and a huge breakfast of waffles and bacon and eggs and whatever else my masterful grandfather would decide to prepare.

Morning would dawn and everyone would gather in the red room and we’d all dive in. Presents would be torn apart with paper flying everywhere. Peals of laughter would echo off the hard wood floor and down the hallway. My mom opened the nightgown I got her and commented on how she loved the fabric, my aunt cried when she opened the ring she had been paying on that my uncle had paid off and wrapped in a giant box to surprise her.

Breakfast was a communal affair, around the big dining room table. Laughter always. Everyone talking to everyone. To the person next to them, to the person across from them, to the person standing in the next room. It was joyful.

The following week would be relatives coming and going, and New Years Eve would bring many of them back. Back to play games like Trivia Pursuit and the Victorian parlor game Peter Coddles and His Trip To New York (a great old game). Laughter, singing…always singing. One year, all my aunts and uncles got together and made of tape of them singing for my grandmother. It was one of her most treasured gifts. A one-time only family album.

New Year’s Day brought my grandmother’s birthday. Lasagna was to be had. Food, laughter, more singing. Time with the family. Family we didn’t see every day, but we did see several times a year. Back when we didn’t need a real reason to all come together.

Then, things just…changed. My grandparents moved into a smaller house…families grew apart…kids grew up.

I hosted Christmas’ like these when I first moved into my house. Christmas Eve I would have a large formal meal for my aunts and uncles and grandparents. Many people would fit into my house, and many gifts would be exchanged. That, too, changed. It changed with the death of my grandfather.

I’m not sure why it changed. I’m not sure who decided. I never said we weren’t going to have our Christmas Eve get together, but everyone just decided they didn’t want to. I still host my mom, two aunts and my blessed grandmother. My step-son, daughter-in-low and three grandkids also come. But the younger two, now 16 and 18, often voice how sad they are that we don’t have the big party like we used to, when I would put the Santa tracker up on the computer and the little ones would watch his progress.

But, time changes. People change. This year, it’s the usual people. We’ll have pizza and wings. We’ll share and few laughs and then they’ll go home. It’s always bitter-sweet. So happy to spend time with them, but so sad that it’s changed to what it is.

But all the same, I have my family. I have love. I have all that I can want. And I can’t ask for anything more.

The Forgotten

I work in a nursing home. A very nice nursing home. Our 30 million dollar building was built 7 years ago and has 266 beds. We have beautiful carpeting, tiled floor, and living room with fireplaces.

I work as a unit secretary. Greeting all who come to our ‘neighborhood’ as they are called. There are 6 neighborhoods in the facility.

My neighborhood is all decorated for Christmas, complete with several Christmas trees. Today, Santa came to visit the residents. Everyone got a gift. They were thrilled. For some, it is the only Christmas they will have it all.

Sadly, some residents, and elderly around the country, won’t be celebrating Christmas with family. They are the alone, the forgotten. They will sit in the facility, watching other resident’s leaving to spend the day with family, or watching other families come in and spend the day with their loved ones. But still some, sit alone.

While you are doing your holiday running around and shopping, perhaps you can pick up something for your local nursing home. Wrap a nice gift of body lotions and body washes and donate it for a resident who has no one. If you can, stop in to visit someone. A nurse there can tell you who could use a nice visit.

It’s sad to think these people, who have given so much in life, worked hard and probably raised a family, are alone. Even though we provide a family atmosphere, there is no replacing a genuine connection with someone.

I ask that you consider volunteering. Even a few hours a month. There is so much you can do as a volunteer. Read to someone who can’t see, have coffee and chat, help with an activity like baking or crafts. The simplest gesture is the one most appreciated.

 

Ready to Take on The World

It has been a rough year for me and my daughter. Really rough. We butted heads more times than I care to admit. She was asked to leave our home more than once. She made questionable decisions, bad life choices and pushed us away. But a miracle happened. I don’t know how, or why. But she came back to us. Our bound doubled in strength. Our relationship took on a new aspect, one of friendship. After making it through the grief of losing her cousin, a task only she herself could do, she has came out the other side stronger, wiser, more mature. She is re-enrolled in college and plans on moving into her dorm on January 2nd. She is excited for her future and ready for the challenges that lie ahead. My little girl has become a grown-up. A living, breathing grown-up. And I LIKE her. I mean, of course I love her and always will, but I actually LIKE her. I like to talk to her. I like to be with her. I will always be her mother, but I am now, in my mind and hers I hope, a friend.

A while back, I was in the kitchen cooking. She was the only other person home. She came out, hopped up on the counter and started talking. We talked for over an hour as I made cookies. It was probably the best, most honest, wonderful talk we have ever had. I talked to her like an adult, a peer, not just her mom. I realized that she was going to be just fine. Better then fine, she was going to be amazing. She admitted to making some bad choices, and I admitted that maybe I could have handled them better then I did. But we reconnected, our bond growing stronger. It was…beyond words.

I am excited to see the person she will become. To watch her mature and grow is the greatest gift I could have ever asked for. I have watched her evolve and change, and am joyed to be able to say I’m proud of her. I am sad to see her leave for college, as I will miss her. I don’t see her a lot now, but at least I know she’s ‘around’. But I will miss that urgent call as I am leaving work begging for McDonalds. (OK, her brother might do that, but he is less likely to do that).

There were times this year when I didn’t think I would see this day. It was scary, it was heart breaking. But now, I am at peace. I am ready to watch my little girl take on the world.