Time

This seems like an appropriate night to write about time.  Time passing.  Time going too ssllloowwwwllyyy.  Wasting time.  Patience.

You get my drift.

I think my perception of time has changed so much in the past few years.  Partially because of the transitions in my life, you know, like kids growing up and the changes that come with simply getting older.  But my perception has shifted mostly because of death.  Obviously Bill's death.  Friend's and family's deaths as well.  Too many deaths.

And it's made me think.  Or actually it's made me quit thinking and start feeling.  Kind of this strange intuitive feeling that I can't define very well.

I just can't follow conventional thinking anymore when it comes to time.  Societal or cultural time frames don't feel authentic to me.  They feel contrived and forced.  Seriously, who can really tell me when I should start or finish or wait or get over anything?  That's my choice and it's dictated only by me.

In the past few years I have also learned that I am so very gullible.  I take on too much.  I get my feelings hurt easily.  I often have undefined boundaries.  And I have absolutely NO patience.  (now stop that snickering, my dear friends who pointed this out to me!)  Because of these characteristics, time is not my friend.  Usually.

But I'm starting to learn.  Slowly.

 I think I'm also realizing that I've been a little too precious in my adult life.  Bill took awful good care of me and I don't think there were many times I didn't get what I wanted, when I wanted it.  Or if I didn't get my way, he was awful good at convincing me why I shouldn't.  And then I tried to accept that something didn't go my way.  Within the life we so carefully created I was able to manipulate time to best fit me and what I wanted.  This contrived control made me have the most unrealistic idea of what was considered a normal time frame for just about everything.  I think that's where most of my impatience comes from.

What the heck is considered normal when dealing with time anyway?

It's a struggle for me, this patience thing.  I'm a doer by nature, a fixer, and an extraordinarily impatient waiter.  When I make up my mind about something I'm all in.  Right now.  Waiting is painful and feels like failure to me. I'll say it again:  when I make up my mind about something I do not wait.  Ugh.  Not the greatest attribute.

Yeah, I'm a jumper for sure.  

But I've come to realize that there is a world outside of my old world and there are, gasp, other people who I must defer to.  And the deference includes sometimes accepting a different time frame than my own.  And that's not a bad thing.

Patience is my goal.  Nothing more.  I told a friend one time that he must "trust the process of life and not rush trying to live."  Maybe I need to take my own advice.

Lessons, Episode #2:

Do not feel obligated to explain yourself to another person.  Ever.  If you have to explain yourself it's likely due to the fact that the other party is hell-bent on misunderstanding you anyway.  Stay silent and let the irrational exist with the irrational.

Which leads me to the second part.....

Don't misinterpret silence as guilt.  Or weakness.  Or ignorance.  Silence can also mean that a person has met their bullshit limit and has chosen to gracefully turn and walk away.  Self respect?  Maybe.  Self preservation?  Most definitely.

And then part three....

Do not let another person's emotional catastrophe make you feel responsible.  Read that again.  You are NOT responsible for anyone's mess.  Only your own.

Bad Music and Memories

I like music.  I can appreciate pretty much any kind.  My play lists are ever-changing and diverse.  There might be some 90's rap alongside John Denver and then Erasure.  I like to think my taste is rather eclectic.  More than once I've had someone remark on the variety of these play lists.

The other day I was listening to Seals and Croft.  Yeah, I know....  But  hearing Seals and Croft (or Peter, Paul, and Mary or Gordon Lightfoot or The Doobie Brothers) reminds me of my childhood.  You see, my folks were music people too.  My Dad, especially, had an appreciation for good music.  His record collection was epic and diverse and his stereo equipment was always state of the art.  At least for the era.  (Sometime ask me about why we had a Beta VCR instead of the usual VHS variety.)  I remember him laying on the floor of our family room, HUGE headphones on his head, eyes closed, listening to his records.  Looking back, he was probably trying to drown out the sounds of us kids!

So yesterday as I was standing at my kitchen sink washing the breakfast dishes and listening to Seals and Croft's Greatest Hits I was instantly transported back to the family room in my childhood home.  I could see the rough plank cedar walls, the Hot Diamond wood stove, the orange sofas.  I remember dancing, twirling, singing in this room to so much good music.  I was a kid.  I was safe.  Everyone in my family was somewhere in that house.  We were a family.  It was a rather idyllic childhood, I suppose.

Then I was struck with how unable I was to duplicate that type of life for my kids.

Damn.

When Bill was here we had impromptu concerts nearly every night while we cleaned up the kitchen after dinner.  I'm sure the kids will remember that.

But it's not the same anymore.  Which then starts me down that slippery path of self-doubt.  What else can't I give them now?  Just how messed up are they going to be because of my inability to be both Mom and Dad?  Will they feel that same safety and security that I did as a child?  When they look back on their childhood what will they feel?  Happy?  Or sad and abandoned?  And while we're on it, are they even eating enough vegetables?  Do they know the stuff that's important?  Gosh, do I even know what's important?!  Yeah, once the loop starts playing in my mind I have a hard time stopping it.

I actually have a record player.  Bill bought it for me as a present one Christmas.  I have lots of records too.  There's something comforting and nostalgic about hearing the scratchy sounds of the needle at the beginning of a record.  And I keep both a dime and a penny near the turntable because you never know when you'll find a skip and need to weigh the needle down a bit in order to listen without interruptions.  My kids know where my records are and they know how to use the record player.  Maybe that's one of the important things they need to know about?  Maybe they will look back and remember their Mom dancing wildly around the living room, singing Duran Duran songs slightly off key (I never said I was a good singer).  And maybe they will have that safe feeling too.

Lessons Episode #1

Never trust anyone who purchases a pot/container/basket of flowers and allows them to die from neglect.

Trust even less if person allows the dead pot/container/basket to be displayed for weeks and/or months after the flowers die.

Dylan McKay (and other related things)

I was talking with some friends the other day about what we had been watching on TV.  One friend (who's name rhymes with "Glayna" but I won't tell you her actual name because I want to protect her identity) said that she had been time traveling back to the 90's and visiting that favorite zip code, 90210.  Oh yes, you can now watch reruns of "Beverly Hills, 90210" on Amazon.

I am all over that.

Now a little known fact is that 90210 was Bill's favorite show.  At least at that time in his life .  Every Monday at 8:00 PM he could be found waiting breathlessly in front of the television, ready to join his dearest friends, Brandon, Brenda, Dylan, and all the rest of those spoiled, rich kids and all of their teen aged drama.  Except Aundrea, because she had to falsify her address in order to attend West Beverly High.  She was the token poor kid.  But I digress.  Bill especially liked Dylan.  He might have actually loved Dylan but I'm not totally sure.  It was a very sad day for Bill when Dylan's character left the show.  And don't even get me started on the highly anticipated return of Dylan at the end of the show's run.  Gosh.  The excitement.

Anyway.

So I started watching the series again.  From the beginning.  In order.

It's awesome.  The clothes are all coming back in style!  The hair!  There are fanny packs and scrunchies!  The spandex under the jean shorts!  The high-waisted jeans with crop tops!  Oh gosh.  Even the lipstick colors are popular again.  And I'm pretty sure that I heard Donna say, "Dope!" when referring to her first impression of Brandon Walsh.  I'm not lying.

As I was watching the pilot episode I kept thinking, "Man, I gotta call Bill and see if he remembers this part."  Or, "I have to remind Bill about Betty the Surfer Girl." and "Oh man, I wonder if he remembers Dylan's hotel suite scam and how Brandon was such a goody-goody dick about it."  Over and over I had these damn thoughts.

Hmmm.  That's not going to happen now.

I guess I'll just keep watching and remembering.  I'm sure there will be an episode that sparks a memory about what I was doing when it originally aired.  Like I was probably wearing my black lace bodysuit, tucked into my button fly Levis, with my black Dr. Martens (no socks), and watching with a bunch of baseball boys while sitting on sofas of questionable origins.  In a sketchy apartment, no doubt.  (On a side note:  those baseball boys did love them some 90210 and Melrose Place!)  I'll remember going to the bar afterward and drinking pitchers of PBR (using my tip money and thinking I was way cool) and playing pool.  Mostly I just watched the pool playing and ran the jukebox.  We always played the same songs.  Might've played a few rounds of VP (video poker to you novices) too.

I will remember it all.  But I'll be sad that those memories won't have anyone besides me to appreciate them.

And I will be thankful that I already know the outcome of the whole Dylan/Brenda saga.

To Write...or not

I think today is the first day of fall.  That means summer is now, mercifully, in the past.  I say good riddance to that shit show.   But I also don't want to think about the passing of another season and the ushering in of a new one either.  Someday maybe I'll write about why.  Not now though.

I haven't been writing lately.  I've been thinking about stuff to write about plenty.  That's never a problem for me.  Lately though I've been concerned, paranoid maybe, about letting other people glimpse into my mind through the words I put down on paper (or a screen).  Seems like it's not just my paranoia either.  Too many times in the recent months I have had someone ask me if I was writing about them.  Doesn't seem to matter what the topic is either.  Those unfounded assumptions can lead us to some uncomfortable and unnecessary places.

So I quit writing because I got tired of explaining.  I know that I don't even owe anyone an explanation but, my people-pleasing nature and all, makes me feel like I should at least try to assuage the paranoia.  Realistically my balls are big enough that I would have absolutely NO problem calling a person out if I really wanted to.  By name even, if I felt like it.  I just don't ever feel like it.  My writing is not meant to hurt anyone or manipulate or lean towards the malicious side.  Trust me when I say I could fill volumes with accounts of idiots and liars I have dealt with.

I tend to write in generalities not in specifics.  I write about the culmination of many experiences and how I process them not about an isolated incident.  Except donuts--I will for sure write about specific donuts and where to get them.  Good old Hemingway said it well when he stated, "There is nothing to writing.  You just sit down at a typewriter and bleed."  That's how I write.  Don't like it?  Don't read it then.  Makes you squirm and feel uneasy?  A tad bit guilty?  Not my problem either.

I've spent a lot of time this (past) summer reading or listening to books about "becoming your authentic and true self."  Or something arrogantly along those lines.  I've read about setting goals and discovering what truly inspires you.  I've learned about abandoning past mindsets that no longer serve you and establishing new priorities.  I've rethought my habits and rituals.  I've even read about changing my eating patterns and exercise habits.  And the commonality shared in all of these things?  Well besides the reading part?  It's writing.  Writing down the changes.  Writing the goals.  Writing the worries and fears.  Writing it all out.  Writing seems to diminish the enormous presence of the unfamiliar or the scary stuff.

So I will write again because I'm good at it and it is me.   And I will write about what is on my heart and in my mind.  I will run and exhaust my physical self so I can better hear my soul speaking and put those clear(ish) thoughts down on a page.  I will write to make sense of life.  If that's even possible.

Good Time Girl

Bill played 4 years of college baseball.  That's 4 years of wild debauchery.  Instead of sex, drugs, and rock and roll it was more like sex, beer, and baseball.  Not necessarily in that order either.  But one of the most foul (ha ha, pun!), yet provocative players during these years were what Bill referred to as "Good Time Girls."  These were any handful of girls who, like their name suggests, just wanted to have a good time.  Now let it be known that during this time I was a good, solid, responsible girl.  Sure I had my wild times but generally I was a Good Girl.  Definitely not a Good Time Girl.  Looking back I think I was a little envious of these girls' ability to throw out a mindset like my own and just concentrate on having a good ole time.  

Then I got married and had babies.  And then I had more babies.  And I stayed at home and was a really bad ass housewife and mom.  Bill worked hard, really hard, and this carefully constructed life worked for us for many years.  I felt loved and safe and respected.  I was still a good, responsible girl.  I took care of everyone and everything.  I did this for lots of years.

And then Bill died.  That changed everything of course.

A good friend and I were talking the other day about how our dreams and priorities have changed as we've gotten older.  Like what we did for fun as a 25 year old vs. what we do for fun now.  Or what we would look for in a husband at 25 vs. 35 vs. today.  We talked about how our taste in friends had even changed over the years.  Maybe how we'd outgrown some but found new, better fitted ones, for our current place. Everything changes and evolves.  Nothings stays the same.  If you actually take the time to think about this and ponder it you might be surprised at what you figure out.

It was a good talk anyway.  One that got me thinking.

How had my priorities changed?  What did I like now?  What did I like to spend my time doing?  Who did I want to spend my time with?  And the answer I came up with?  I want to be a Good Time Girl!  Well, not exactly like one of those girls from 20 years ago, but my updated version of one.  My liver can't take the constant abuse of all those parties and I need my precious hours of sleep.  I also am not a good whore, but that's a story for another day.

What I mean is I want to concentrate on having fun.  Fun is my priority.

OK, OK, settle down.  I never said that I was going to abandon my kids and run off or anything.  Everyone in my household will be properly cared for.  The responsibility thing runs deep in me.  Too deep maybe.  What I'm saying, though, is I don't think I need that safe and steady thing anymore, or at least not in the way that I needed it when I was younger.  When I was younger I wanted stability and consistency.  I didn't want Good Times--I wanted Safe Times.  Little personal risk.  Some other person to hold me up and maybe shoulder some of my responsibilities.  I wanted a responsibility sharer, if that's even a thing.  Someone who shared paying bills, raising kids, keeping a home running, standing by me while I grew up.  I think I'm explaining it mostly right.

But since Bill left, I have figured out that I am kind of a bad ass by myself.  A lot of the things I didn't think I could do were actually just things I didn't want to do.  Big difference.  And a lot of the things I thought I had to do I learned that I didn't actually have to do.  I'm finding that fluidity and flexibility and yielding to change are all necessary to my survival.  And my happiness.

So I'm going to embrace the idea, or at least my idea, of becoming a Good Time Girl.  I'm not quite sure what that means yet but I think it probably will include some late nights, lots of laughing until my stomach hurts and beer comes out my nose, excellent talks with fun people, and probably a few painful mistakes along the way.

Funny thing about pain......I don't know that I even feel it acutely anymore, it's become such a constant for me.  Not sure if that's good or bad.  But I do know that I'm going to try to suppress my Good Girl mindset for now and fully embrace the Good Time Girl methodology.  Whatever that may be.