MUSINGS

I'm graduating college. I'm finally graduating college. I'm graduating from university. In 8 days, I will be a college graduate. Sorry, I'm still trying to convince myself that this isn't a wild, Percocet induced dream.  My one and only daughter will also be graduating this month, one week after me.  She has fought one hell of a battle the last year and a half, she's done an amazing job.  My little family has been through trial after trial the last couple of years.  Dark shadows clawing at the health of my husband, my child, and perhaps even myself.  The strain on our home has been overwhelming, but we still have a house and we still have our vehicles and we still have food.  And for now, we still have a place to work.  We all got this far, we'll continue to fight until the shadows abate. I still feel strange doing this at 40.  I know there are a lot of people proud of me for returning and finishing, it's not something everyone gets to a...

I know I'm off my game quite a bit.  I used to post every month, usually twice therein.  I'd like to use the excuse that school and grief have really taken me down but that's not entirely true.  Yes grief did play a roll.  When my dad passed away I found a little hole in my soul that I had to take a minute to let heal.  Art school is demanding, I'm not even going to pretend it's not, but it doesn't permeate everything and I did take this summer off.  Truth be told I've had a hard time putting it all out there these days.   This was my outlet...my place to lay it all down.  In the beginning I didn't think I had more viewers than a couple friends who basically already knew I'm a headcase.  I noticed over time that I had a few more than that.  It didn't bug me...it's kind of like going to Catholic confession...as long as you don't see who you're spilling it to, it's OK.  I was good till one of my friends called me out because I m...

Right now...I feel like I'm covered in them.  The usual array that show up here and there because I'm clumsy, a deep deep one just below my elbow (makes doing common things challenging), and a fresh one in the webbing between my thumb and forefinger on the same arm as the elbow bruise.  A beaten and battered heart that is taking a lot longer to heal up. So.  This time last year my father passed away.  I didn't announce it to many people, even though I shared the funeral details on social media...most people didn't connect that the person was my own dad.  A little over a month ago my old boss and mentor passed away, unexpectedly to me.  I hadn't seen him in quite a while and didn't know if his illnesses had progressed.  Most recently my former father in law.  He was in my life for the last 17 years.  Ex left the state about 4 years ago, that left me to bring the Girl to see her grandparents and make sure she spent time with them.  A one...

What would you think if someone asked you to protect their child over yours? I'm going to let that sink in for a moment. Now the word "child" is relative in this particular instance.  I don't necessarily mean child, as in small one, but child as in the offspring of another.  An adult is still someone's child, even at 30. A little further into the question:  What if the things the other person's child did directly affected yours?  This person is fully aware of their own actions and believes him/her self to be totally in the right.  The parent could be asking for mercy due to their own personal issues and are somewhat unaware of their child's behavior.  The kind of parent who believes their child will simply change their ways based on a call and a little fussing.  Would you still take this parents request into consideration? Sometimes there are extenuating circumstances that prevent a person from doing what they should.  Family illnesses, tra...

I'm weird.  I always have been.  I was the strange kid at my tiny little 300 student school.  I was Catholic, wore a lot of black, listened to alternative rock, & didn't run with what crowd there was.  I'm still weird, but for totally different reasons these days. Yes, the fire red hair & propensity toward psycho-billy style is a little non-mainstream.... Being immersed in a lifestyle that you weren't raised in or exposed to is very hard.  I can get my head around the society junk, the appearances & whatnot.  Everyone wants to be thought well of.  I can wrap my head around being publicly polite to people you may not exactly like, that's what Southern folks call manners.  Now, what totally escapes me are the games & manipulation.  The truly fake accolades, the association with fake people for silly reasons, ignorant back & forth over petty things... it just blows my mind.  The spreading of exaggerated informat...

As much as I feel like I need   to express the weirdness of this particular holiday season, I'm just not in the mood to.   Yes it's strange, yes I'm having trouble getting into it, but that's what happens when you lose a family member and your kids are grown up.  Instead, there's been something rolling around my little brain pan of late so instead of Christmasy blues...we're going to pick on Americas most popular uber-conservative family:  The Duggars. First off, let me say:  I'm not bashing them, I don't hate or dislike them, and I'm not about to rip apart their way of life. OK, now that that's out of the way.  There's a lot of controversy with how they live and who they are.  Yes they are very devout Baptists and live according to the Patriarchal Movement.  This is a belief that holds the notion the father is the head of the household and the mother his "helpmeet".  Gender roles are very specific and held in high regard.  Thi...

I have so much flying around in my brainpan these days.  This holiday season is going to be a very strange one.  There are family separations that I don't understand, and some that I do.  I lost my father this past month and my stepson, the Boy, lost his maternal grandfather earlier this year.  Those gaps will be very hard to fill.  There are so many more things going on that I just can't wrap my head around.  Death, that makes sense.  There's a level of ignorance happening around me that I can't abide and it's caused riffs that don't make sense to me. I was a reluctant mother.  That is not something I've exactly hidden.  I also took the necessary steps to make sure I never had anymore children regardless of what doctors, family members, and friends told me about it.  I know what happens when a woman follows gender roles or wants a baby to get a paycheck from some unsuspecting sap.  I was never going to follow those patterns, the ...

It was a surreal Halloween this year.  I didn't decorate.  I didn't cook or celebrate, or even give out candy to the few kids who came to the door. I didn't have a little one of my own to take out & trick or treat with.  She was out of state doing teenage things & mama was left home to her own devices.  So what did mama do?  Went to a local metal show & a wedding. Halloween night hosted dinner with the Honey, something we don't get to do often anymore.  If we have the time, we don't have the cash... If we have the cash, we don't have the time.  We took advantage of families being home & went during trick or treating time.  It was nice to not have a half hour wait on Friday night.  He ended up dropping me off later that night to go support my friend's band & get some time in with one of my favorite lady friends.  Plenty of fun was had, got my fill of loud, obnoxious punk & figured out I speak "white girl" Span...

My head is spinning. Yeah, yeah, what else is new right? I've been walking around my old campus rekindling old connections and creating all new ones, both with people and the school itself.  It was surreal at first.  During the summer while I was there, it was a bit daunting to look around me and not quite recognize what I was looking at.  You see, they are renovating and making new spaces and updating the whole campus.  There's a strange refreshing similarity/difference blend going on that sort of sneaks up on you. All the old hangouts have pretty much either been demolished or turned into something completely different.  The popular cafe when I was in college back then has long since been gone, it's a Papa John's (of all things) now.  The dorms I lived in are gone, the one he lived in is gone now too, I was witness to a portion of it's destruction just this past week.  It's very interesting to watch history be washed away and replaced.  Symb...

I really love being married.  I enjoy calling this man "my husband".  I love every aspect of our life. Those are not phrases I would have uttered years ago.  As a matter of fact I didn't just not utter them, I went out of my way to express the opposite.  Not a great way to spend a decade with another person.  Many times I was asked why I got married, some people even assumed I was pregnant pre-wedding.  (for the record I was not, that happened a year in)  I did what I believed was best at the time, there was love there, my mother pushed, he asked, we talked...poof!  Teeny wedding in the park.  I can't remember, but I'm fairly sure the justice of the peace pronounced us "man and wife".  The idea began stirring in my little brain pan last night...what's the difference between "man and wife" and "husband and wife".  I get the notion that "man and wife" is a not-so-archaic way of saying "Ugg find wife!, Ugg bring her ...

I had two and a half paragraphs written up about money and how I am the queen of bill collector calls, etc.  I even had a Pink Floyd video ready to go.  Then Mother's day happened.   I guess I pour all this out to find some clarity or maybe it's all just psycho-therapy.  At this point it's one of the few things that keeps my head straight and bits of the anxiety at bay.  I've been studying human behaviors and why people do things or say things.  A good friend of mine and I psychoanalyze one another on the regular, she and I tend to be each others' mirror.  There are some behaviors I'm familiar with simply because I've seen/dealt with enough people with those patterns.  There are others that I've seen but throw me off to such a degree that I have to recover from the shock of being exposed to it.  One thing I have learned about myself:  I am no good at being a step parent.  I have completely failed in the 5 years I've had an ...

Over Labour Day weekend I attended my second ever high school football game, ate my umpteenth home made cupcake, frosted my sisters hair, and taught my daughter and my niece what it is to be a Southern Woman.  Yes those two are both in caps, why?  Because it's a title, that's why.  Yes, to my own embarrassment I have only attended a couple of high school football games, this last one being one for my God-child.  My school was too small to offer football, but we did have basketball and I was at most of those games on any given Tuesday or Friday night.  I don't know how it is up north, but I do know down here, we take sports and togetherness seriously.  Most outsiders probably think we're obsessed with the game itself (I'm sure for most that's true) but there's also a sense of community that comes with those events.  Multiple parents yelling at referees, moms and dads watching their hard earned cash get covered in dust, sweat, and a little blood, all...

I got remarried this weekend.  It's been 4 years since my first marriage ended with my ex walking out and moving in across the road.  We sat and had a talk later that week and he told me we would never get back together.  When he told me that, I said, "OK, it's over".  I haven't looked back since, and after some recent events, I'm grateful I haven't.  I was told several times that the second time around is the best, so far, I believe every word of that. In the last couple of years, I've been called names, my spirituality has been questioned, my resolve has been tested, and so has my faith in it all.  I went from believing that love was just another 4-letter word, to knowing that it is real.  I have found friends in unlikely people, seen the true colours in others, and rekindled relationships that were long overdue.  I walked into my divorce with the notion that I would never, ever remarry.  I assumed that he was the best I would ever do or ...