post-turkey Saturday

Well, it's the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and I felt like I absolutely had to post this today to counter the depressing post I did Thanksgiving eve/incredibly a.m.! I was all bummed out the evening before Thanksgiving, feeling alone, without kids, very divorced, etc. But I recovered the next morning...and I'll copy & paste my response to a comment I had from that depressing Wed. night blog which will explain things:

"thanks, anonymous...for reminding me that life ain't so damn bad...and we can actually fall in love with it again -- and true confession, I got up at 8:30 this morning, made my stuffing, packed it into my turkey, and during this process my 20 year old son who's staying with me right now home from school woke up and came downstairs, kissed me good morning, told me he loved me and said happy thanksgiving! Pretty quickly, all was right with the world again! And while it may not be a Norman Rockwell painting today, it's gonna be just fine. My house already smells like Thanksgiving, so I'm halfway there! ;)"

Yes, I rose on Thanksgiving to a wonderful morning filled with an "i love you" from my son, a kiss on the cheek, and hours filled with cooking, tasting, and communing with my son. It was pretty special. And while I still missed my middle son terribly during dinner and thereafter, my oldest son was with me also and we had a good time nonetheless. I am truly thankful for life's simple pleasures, and the love of my children just can't be beat.

Today turned out to be a supremely beautiful day! I don't know what the temperature is outside, but it feels like spring...smells like fall...and I took my puppy dog out for a walk and I think we both wriggled all over with delight at how great it was. I'm once again in love with the world, even with all its strange limitations, relationship issues, and periodic loneliness. And since, as a single woman alone, I can do pretty much whatever I want to today (the beauty of living by yourself--yippee!), I'm going to drag out all my Christmas decorations, put up my tree today, decorate my tiny townhome/hovel with the tons of holiday stuff I have, and revel in the fact that the holidays are here and that it's my favorite time of year! It will be strange to be alone this year at Christmas. Alone as in...no kids at home anymore, no husband or significant other to share the holidays with, just me & my puppy dog to weather each day. But there will be family, friends, co-workers, etc. to share some special holiday times, celebrations and stuff with. And who knows what the new year may bring...lord, it could be anything!! If there's one thing I've learned in the last year, it's that life is wildly unpredictable and you'd better be ready to deal with whatever it throws at you. It might suck, it might be great, it might be in-between. But whatever it is, be grateful you're alive and have family & friends to share the really important moments with.

Enjoy the weekend, everyone...I'm off the check Christmas lights for my tree -- wish me luck!
Keep on breathin'--
Mary

Thanksgiving...

Well, it's now actually Thanksgiving...12:05 a.m. to be exact as I start this blog post. I've spent the whole last eve doing a little of the stuff you do before Thanksgiving day. I made a pie...cherry pie to be exact. My youngest son's favorite, and his specific request. His feeling is that a store-bought pie is nowhere near good enough...it's gotta be Mom's special pie. Only problem is, my oven in this depressing townhome that I call "home" i live in right now has the shittiest (is that a word?) oven I've ever baked in!!!! Soooo, my pie looks like the worst thing i've ever baked. And my son will probably say, "Mom...what happened to your pie???" Hopefully, it will taste like something other than what Mrs. Smith would have sold in the grocery store. I lovingly compiled my pie crust ingredients, rolled each piece out...top & bottom ...and then hoped for the best, knowing that my oven came apparently from the oven hell store. Oh well, it's the thought that counts, right??? I'll hope my baby will understand.

So, while making this pie, which didn't really get started until very late in the evening. Hey, it was Wednesday night! Lost & Invasion were also on the list, okay??!! I guess I paid attention to my primetime TV shows, "babysat" my son's puppy dog who was with me during the evening (my son is home from college for the holiday, and his 6 month old Australian Shepherd puppy was spending the evening with me too since my son was out playing poker with his buds), policed his dog as well as my baby...my 6 year old miniature dachsund, who was royally pissed that another dog was invading her territory and upsetting her applecart in a MAJOR way!. Anyway, the pie got made, I ended up watching Sex in the City and somehow internalized some of it and got somewhat depressed in my single, alone with no one else to keep me company state of being...and now here I am. Talking to this damn blog as if it's a friend of some sort and is listening to me bitch about god knows what else my expectations might be.

How the bloody hell did I get to this place??? Oh yeah, I divorced my husband of 22 years about 6 years ago, started all over, got married again...that fell apart when he (aka, Asshole) showed himself to be other than what I thought he was...and then I started all over again. Am I feeling sorry for myself? HELL YES!!! I think I deserve to do so. Not that I need to drag anyone else into it. Hence, blogging here...which doesn't necessarily drag anyone into it unless you...who are reading this now...choose to do so. But damn it, I guess I just need a venue in which I can bitch for a while.

But soon, I will close this out, head to bed...set my alarm so that I can get up and start my turkey cooking, having tossed together all the ingredients for my stuffing...which only I will eat, since I choose to put oysters in it. And then set the table for two grown sons who could care less if they eat at a table with place settings set out, napkins folded, all the "right" stuff on the table, like civilized people do...or are supposed to do, like my mother taught me. And I will miss my middle son, who has chosen to reject me because I supposedly rejected him when I told him I wouldn't allow him to live with me and continue to do all the socially unacceptable things he was doing on a day to day basis...yes, I will miss him more than i can even describe. More than my breaking heart could ever tell in a year-long tale of heartbreak and despair. And I will pretend with my other two sons, ages 26 & 20, that we are happy and that this is good, and that Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful for the things we have and the blessings that God has chosen to shower on us. I will try to block out the searing pain of missing my middle child, and tell myself that in time it will all be okay...even tho I don't really believe that to be so. It will never be the same. It will never be that fucking Norman Rockwell painting, that scene we all thought we'd achieve someday when we married, had children, and thought that life would be complete with the picket fence...and all the fixins.

Well, my son is home and I need to finish this off. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Mary

Wed nite

i'm a "Lost" and "Invasion" watcher

Yeah, a primetime drama watcher...you know, that "escape from reality" watcher of primetime Wednesday night stuff...yeah, they just figured out that Larkin's baby is still okay on Invasion...

"I know what's in the water, Russ"...

Don't you just love this stuff?! What the hell is the connection with the black guy and Mr. Bad Guy Sheriff man? Love this week to week stuff...

Daffodil

...amazing mindscape

There's a band that did a lot of their early stuff back in the 80's, early 90's, called Queensryche...not a band I listened to a lot, but they had a great album called "Empire" that came out in 1990 that had some incredible songs on it. One of those songs was called "Silent Lucidity"...it's still played on radio these days...i love the song. It has a dark side, but a really cool flip of the coin type side that rises above the darkness.

There are so many good lyrics in it -- "It's a place where you will learn, To face your fears, retrace the tears, And ride the whims of your mind." Ride the whims of your mind...yeah, i can relate. "If you open your mind for me, You won't rely on open eyes to see." That's probably my favorite part of the song. Have you ever been with someone who you felt you could open your mind to, and then close your eyes and be totally connected? It's really rare...REALLY rare. But so incredible when it happens. It's like unbelievable sex, without the touching. Don't get me wrong -- i'm all for the touching too! ;) But the mind connection...wow. So good it almost hurts.

"If you open your mind for me, you won't rely on open eyes to see. The walls you built within come tumbling down, and a new world will begin...A soul set free to fly, a round trip journey in your head. Master of illusion, can you realize, your dream's alive, you can be the guide..."

Couldn't have said it better myself! ;)

Have a great humpday, everyone! Keep on breathing!!

Daffodil