Sometimes Things Don't Go According to Plan...

So I had planned on writing a slammin blog posting while at work today. It's a Friday: there's lots of down time. I don't usually ost at work because, down time or not, I like to be alone and really able to immerse myself in thought when I write. I'm not saying I have to, but it is my chosen path. It is hard for me to concentrate and really sink my teeth into a piece with phones ringing, file drawers clapping shut, and a copier/scanner/faxer that has decided to be bipolar. However, in a jam, I can mostly go to my quiet mental place and churn it out. Today, however, there are two maintenance men working away not two feet from my desk. With their BAMMING, and their sawing,and their "They painted over the hinges! I told them not to paint over the henges!" it is quite hard to find a quiet place of any kind. so, between answering the phone and having to yell ("NO! HE'S NOT HERE RIGHT NOW CAN I TAKE A MESSAGE? NO A MESSAGE- DO YOU WANT TO LEAVE A MESSAGE? HE WON'T BE IN UNTIL 11:00. ELEVEN. YES I'LL TELL HIM YOU CALLED.") and answering emails...I'm lucky this made it here at all.

I do plan on posting a real one later on tonight, as I have recently been very inspired by thinking back to some stories my mother told me of her childhood growing up on a farm and just the overall way I believe life might have been in my hometown back then. I'm excited to be able to sit down and really delve into it. I just wrapped up my on site class last night and have only my final to complete for my online class. I plan on doing that when I get home this afternoon and then I will be DONE! Oh, how I have longed for summer! It's going to officially begin this weekend and I'm not looking back. It has been a stressful semester and I am very glad that I made it out alive.

Until later, have a splendid Friday everyone :)

My Mother. My Friend. My Inspiration.

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his. ~Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

My mom is a neverending song in my heart of comfort, happiness, and being. I may sometimes forget the words but I always remember the tune. ~Graycie Harmon

The above quotes perfectly sum up my mother to me. She is everything I could ever want to be, but never will attain. She is the strength in my heart, when I thought I had given everything I had. She is the smile in the corners of my mouth when I thought I would never smile again. She is the friend I can turn to when all others have turned their backs. She is the arms that held me, not because she had to, but because she wanted to. 

The truth is, I could write forever and still not express the way in which I feel for her. When I was a child, she would stop whatever she was doing to tuck me in at night. She would sit on the side of my bed and read my bedtime stories from an old book with pictures of vintage looking children; little girls in their pink, frilly dresses-little boys in their blue coveralls. I remember laying there being so soothes by the sound of her voice. A teacher by nature, she had was a fantastic story teller. She had a way of making each character come to life; a play taking place in a little theatre on the foot of my bed. She sat with me as I said my prayers, asking the Lord to bless my family and not to forget my stuffed animals.

I could take anything to her that had broken and she could fix it. Many a decapitated barbie doll passed through her hands, which mended the plastic body and handed it back-good as new. I used to think that she could have fixed the world, if only the right people had asked. I still do.

She supported me incessantly in whatever my dream of the moment was. I wanted to be a dancer. She paid for me to take dance lessons for eleven years. I wanted to play the clarinet. She bought me a beautiful instrument that carried me into a new phase of my life.

When I discovered at age seven that I wanted to be a writer, she watched me as I wrote a ten page masterpiece titled "The Killer of Love" (based on the familiar Harlequin romance novels I saw her and my grandmother reading of course). Her and my father acted out their given parts with enthusiasm and vigor. She encouraged me to keep writing when she bought me my first type writer and supplied me with plenty of paper on which to craft my next work of art. As I grew and my writing grew, she gave me journal upon journal to document my thoughts. She told me of how she used to write when she was my age and gave me a notebook full of her teenage thoughts. It is something I treasure to this day.

She is always the first person to be proud of me and never fails to show that to other people, never in a boastful or negative way. It used to embarrass me when I was a teenager, as I am a fairly modest person. As time went on, I learned to enjoy it. She was proud of me. What shame was there in that?

The older I get, the more our relationship tends to change. There is a time in every child's life when the veil of perfection that has shrouded our parents is lifted- and we see them for the first time as humans who make mistakes. It is a bittersweet moment that comes with realizing that before your parents were your parents, they were just people-like you; moving through life trying to figure it out. They were people who loved you when it was difficult, even at times when, to someone else, you might have been unlovable. It makes me want to put my arms around her to shield her from anything or anyone who might hurt her. I suppose this is how she feels towards me, as if her love has been superimposed onto my heart.

My mother sacrificed for me, as did my father. She would often go without so that I might have that doll at Christmas or that dance costume for the recital. She never failed to tell me she loved me. She never failed to encourage me to dream the impossible dream. She always held me higher than herself so that I might reach the stars, herself perfectly content to remain in the ground. She let me have my own adventures, consuming me with the thought that I could be whatever I wanted to be; yet she remained in my shadow-always ready to come out and rid my world of the people who told me I could not.

My mother loves me with a love that has yet to be matched by any mortal heart. She loves me wholly, completely, unabashedly for who I am. She never tried to make me into someone I didn't want to be. I can only hope that the love I give her in return is enough. Though she deserves so much more than I could ever give.

If your reading this, Happy Birthday, Mom. I love you.

Remembrances of a Golden Time...That I Never Knew Was Golden

I never had a good relationship with my grandmother. We were never especially close. She was controlling, manipulative, and vain. It always upset me when my friends would talk about spending the weekend with their grandparents and they seemed to have literally had a good time. My grandmother made it clear from a young age that she was displeased with the person I was. I was a chubby kid. This was not acceptable. She told me this with all the monotonous repetition of a broken record that no one takes the initiative to fix. Most children remember their grandmother telling them how perfect they were in every way. They remember affectionate smiles and warm embraces. The most common words I remember being told was to "suck in" my tummy.

I recall childhood instances when we would be out to lunch, my mother and I talking and laughing when suddenly, the laughter would be interrupted by a parting of lips: "Do you see that woman there," she would say, "if you don't get your act together, you will be just like her. Do you want that? Do you want to be like her?"

The words ring out in my brain, echoing from the long term memory file folder with "Mema" etched in salty tears. That was what we grandchildren called her. It always struck me as peculiar that I was called her "grandchild". She didn't seem to think I was very grand. She spent the next seventeen years tearing away little shreds of my self-esteem. She would often ask me if I actually enjoyed living the kind of life I was living. She brought diet pills to Thanksgiving dinner. She would discuss me and my lack of interest in changing my ways to various people, some of whom had never met me.

During my fragile middle school years she pulled me aside and told me that if I didn't do something to change myself, no boy would ever love me and I would be lucky if they were my friend. Again...the echoing of her voice haunts me. She never failed to compare me to my thinner, prettier sisters. Why couldn't I just be normal?

Over the years, I built up a high level of resentment for her and her failed attempts to "fix" me. But more than that, I believed her. I soaked up every negative thing she said to me; the Bounty quicker-picker-upper of emotional burden. She taught me how to hate myself. She gave my self loathing a voice with which to do the damage she had somehow managed to leave undone. It worked. I always realized that I needed to get a handle on my body. I just felt it was so far out of my control. I was too young to understand that the neighbor who molested me at five years old, stole much more than my childhood innocence. His foul touch and her sharp tongue created the perfect environment to breed a downhill spiral.

When I was 17 years old she was no longer able to live alone or care for herself. After years of being bounced around a small handful of nursing homes, assisted living communities, and children's houses; none of which could handle her presence, my aunt and mother decided to move her back home and pay caregivers to stay with her around the clock. It was a job that used to belong to my mother before she required 24 hour care. She was the only one who stayed close to home. We spent our live at her beckoned call.

I was going to college and working a really crappy part time job as a cashier when they brought her home. I was so dissatisfied with my work that I approached them about being a caregiver for her. Soon after, I quit taking sweaty money from the bras of old black ladies, to spend the weekends caring for an old white one. That was what she was to me: an old white lady. I hated everything about it at first. I hated being away from my family, I hated being in that house which seemed to suck the very life from my body, I hated being trapped there with her watching her watch me and hating what she saw. We fought a lot. I said she couldn't do something according to the list of rules I was given. She said God would punish me for my sins. She said I was a disappointment. I said she had disappointed me my entire life. She said I was hopeless. I told her she wouldn't know hope if it danced at the foot of her bed. She fired me two years in at the end of September.

That was it. Or so I thought.

I swore I would never go back. My mother swore I would never go back. My father wouldn't speak her name, much less speak to her face.

January rolled around and the lady who stayed with her at day time during the week quit. I needed a job, so I went back. Excuse me-she allowed me to come back. We still didn't get along every day, but I knew that at five o'clock I could go home. I felt I could fake it for at least nine hours a day.

Before long, I felt like I didn't have to fake it. I genuinely started to care. We watched birds. I tried to convince her there was not a squirrel stuck in her bird feeder. We watched Gunsmoke and bonded over the handsomeness that was Matt Dillon, wondered in suspense as the Cartwright boys escaped one mishap after another, and laughed at Lisa & Oliver as they tended their Green Acres. But I think the memory that stands out the most is the first time she ever watched Steel Magnolias. We laughed and cried, then laughed some more. Every now and then, I would look over at her as she laughed. At that moment, she could have been five years old again. She laughed without inhibition. Her head was arched back and her eyes seemed to glisten; her small body a quiver with the sheer force of her happiness. The sun was coming in the giant picture window on the side of her and it was that perfect time of day where the rays casted a golden glow that shrouded the room, as if God himself was saying, "This is important. Remember this." I did. I think that was the happiest I had seen her in my entire life.

When we got the call one lazy Sunday afternoon in early November that she was not having a good weekend, I didn't think much of it. They said she wasn't eating. No big deal, some days she ate like an anorexic bird. We made sure to at least get Ensure in her system. When I got to work the next day, I knew something was terribly wrong.
I called the local Hospice center, where she had been a patient for over a year. When the nurse came out and checked her, my concerns were realized. At first, I was immediately panicked about where I was going to find another job. I know that sounds horrible, but it really was my first concern. I don't think I allowed myself to believe that she could actually die. I tried to keep it together. I tried to ignore her ragged breathing. I tried to look past her blank expression. I tried to erase her skeletal frame. As I sat alone with her, in that house, with my mother in the other room; I sang her favorite songs. I kissed her forehead. I held her hand and tried not to fall apart as I told her I forgave her. I felt like a lifetime had passed between us, and I didn't want to let go.

November 18, 2009

I wasn't there when she died. My mother, cousin, and I had gone to town to run some errands. My mother was relieved because she didn't think she could handle it. I never told her, but I really wanted to be there. She was surrounded by family and people who loved her all singing her favorite hymns; but I wasn't there. And I wanted to be. 

I never cried at the viewing. I never cried at the funeral. For the first weeks after that, I never cried. Thanksgiving happened, then Christmas and with the hustle and bustle...time just kept going. How does it do that? How does it have the nerve to keep going after someone has been ripped from our lives and we can barely keep going ourselves? I longed for people to stop looking at me with sympathetic smiles. I yearned for the day when we would no longer receive cards in the mail expressing sincere condolences. I was ready to move on. At least I thought I was.

I never thought it would be this hard. I couldn't have perceived missing her this much. I don't miss the drama. I don't miss the stress. I don't miss the fights. But I do miss fawning over Marshal Dillon. The Cartwright boys must feel abandoned and confused or at least they might if they were still alive. I hear a song that we used to sing together and I'm right there with her again. I miss walking out of her bedroom and saying, "I love you," only to hear her say, "I love you more." Those words echo in my mind too. They aren't always as loud as the others, but with time and love...I might not hear the others at all. These are memories I will always have of a time I can never get back. Of this, I am grateful and, can honestly say, I wouldn't change a thing.

There is a Blog for Everyone

I know this might seem a little like-DUH- to most bloggers/blog readers, but it is a legitimate new thought for me. I have found myself thinking a lot recently about how to get more people to be aware of my blog and its existence. I thought that maybe I wasn't writing in a way to reach people...how does a blogger get on the "Notable Blogger" list again? Then I had an epiphany: There are billions of blogs out there, floating about in the abyss of the cyber world. There are just as many, if not more, blog readers (you know the type, like to read, but don't have the time to blog themselves...I used to be one. Creeper.) but I will not appeal to them all. There is no way, nor would I want to do so. You know why? Because that would make me run of the mill. That would make me generic in some way. I will just continue to write about what I love: I will write short stories. I will write about margaritas. I will write (inevitably) about someone I love. I will (most assuredly) write about someone I hate. I will be inspired. I will try to inspire others. I will laugh while I blog and will, no doubt, cry too. I will live my life and document the pieces as I see it, from my puny-yet real-perspective.

When I was growing up (wait...am I done?)

While I grow up, I have been known to say "I'm sorry" quite a lot. Even if it wasn't necessarily my fault. I felt that I needed to bear the brunt of the blame. I'm not really sure why. If someone didn't like the way I did something, I would change it. I look back and become really, majorly frustrated with myself for doing this. I am at a point in my life where I refuse to continue to apologize for being ME. I can not, do not, and will not change, conform, degrade any part of myself for the pleasure of someone who never did that for me. I will not befriend people who put the "narc" in narcissistic. They physically make me sick. I will not allow myself to feel bad for leaving said people behind. I shake off the losers like dust. And I do not look back. Or maybe I do and this is what I'd like to change because, let's face it: it is hard to say goodbye and really mean it. This time I will do it. I will mean it.

So, I'm gonna go give myself a bear hug and really start to embrace this burgeoning Lizz within. I was told recently that I am hardcore. I'm going to try to live up to that now.

:)    (<----Old habits die hard)

The End of the Semester Better Bring A Margarita...or at Least A Parrot's Bay!

     So just a quick blog tonight to check in and say hello! I wish I had the mental or physical strength to actually post something inspiring and worth reading, but I just finished my LAST thesis before Summer break and I really..........don't have it in me tonight.

     On one note, I want to thank all FOUR of my followers :) Some people might laugh at a number so small, but I say...Ya have to start somewhere. My friend Jayne from injayne'sworld only started out with 5 followers and has added many since then. Perhaps you'd like to add yourself to her list? You wouldn't regret it- just visit her blog at http://www.injaynesworld.blogspot.com/ and check her out. Especially if you are having one of *those* days.

     After speaking with a young I love deeply earlier this evening, then settling in to watch Idol Gives Back I leave you with two thoughts:

1. Love yourself. Plain and simple. NEVER let anyone treat you in a way that makes you feel less of yourself. There will always be someone who revels in your falls. You must find the people who will help you up and smile with you through the good times too. These people will never be the same. Remember this.
2. We are so blessed to have the things that we have. There are people out there who are in dire need of help and-call me crazy- but I fervently believe we can give that to them. You don't have to donate a dime of your money (although it would help). You could volunteer, or donate food to a food bend. You could help teach a child to read or color a picture with them. The smallest simplest things we do DOES make a difference. WE make a DIFFERENCE. If we so choose to...and I choose to. How about you?

"A journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step."

Every Day at Three

       He visited the graveyard every day. At exactly three o'clock -rain or shine- you could always see him coming up the gravel walk, flowers in hand, his tattered plaid overcoat a more obvious sign of his age than the wrinkles around his eyes. What beautiful eyes they were; sage green with tiny gold flecks that always seemed to sparkle whenever he was truly happy- usually when he spoke of her.



     They had met right after high school, during that awkward time when no one really knows what they want or how to get it. He would never forget the first time he saw her. She was sitting at the end of the bar at the Milk Maid, a local diner that, he would later discover, made her favorite strawberry milkshake. There she was, perched like a southern angel, drinking the pink concoction that perfectly matched the sheen she wore on her lips. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine what it would be like to kiss those lips. When he opened them again, he found her staring directly at him. For a minute he was sure she'd caught him staring, but at that moment--he couldn't seem to find it in him to care. Instead he got up, walked over, and asked her for a date. She politely refused at first, but somehow-between his smile and his charm-he talked her into it.

     Times were tough and uncertain for many people. There was a raging war, rationing, money shortages...everywhere you looked there were people trying to do their part. Trying to make things right again. Children collected scrap metal and bottle tops, so much so that on any given day you could spy them on the street, tugging their little red wagons behind them. It was so odd to him. What used to carry memories of childhood, now carried a burden much too heavy to be pulled by any child. One crisp, autumn afternoon he got the news he had been dreading since the U.S. entered the war. The next week he boarded the bus with the rest of America's youth; all looking equally scared as hell. None of them had any idea what was coming.

     He arrived safely and was immediately glad it had been an undisclosed location. He would not have wanted to know that this was what awaited him. He was also glad his family didn't know where he was. He could picture his sweet mother crying at the sight of him hunched in the corner eating something resembling pig slop. They expected him to fight a war with this in his belly?

     His thoughts often drifted back to her. Her blonde hair falling just-so around her heart shaped face, the way her milky white skin seemed to glow beneath the pale moonlight, the way she always twisted her pearl necklace when she was scared..or angry...or anxious. She never let a day go by without writing to him though. It seemed a letter or two would arrive nearly other day. He looked forward to those letters with all the nervous energy of a child on the first day of school. She wrote about everything. Picking flowers on the side of the road, riding her bicycle to Downy's Creek for a swim, the newest tricks she had taught Rocky-her prized cocker spaniel-, and of course those impetuous trips to town for a strawberry milkshake. She made him laugh out loud at her declaration of being the driving force behind the success of the postal industry. He missed her. He returned home some time later to find himself more in love with her than ever. He asked her to be his wife and she accepted...without hesitation this time.

     Life, all at once, took over. She taught school. He did carpentry. They had children. The years seemed to fly by with rapid succession; a blur of diapers, lunchboxes, permission slips, graduations, Christmases, play costumes, laughter and tears. He treasured every moment spent with her in his arms. The children went to college and moved away, inevitably beginning new lives of their own.

     Time had drawn them both in a different light. His hair was graying and she had the slightest traces of lines on her face. He watched with amusement as she fretted over them in the bathroom mirror. She could never have been more beautiful, he was sure. He went with her to the doctor the next day. They didn't usually think it was necessary to things as a couple, especially doctor visits. One of them sitting impatiently in the doctor's office was more than enough. But today it was raining and she hated driving in the rain. So off they trudged, hoping that perhaps the rain would clear and they weren't headed towards an all day ordeal.

     If he had only known, he would have held her tighter. He would have loved her without abandon. He would have taken her place. He still had no idea how he missed that red light. He was always such a conscientious driver, but something must have distracted him because the next thing he remembered, he was waking up in the bleakest of hospital rooms with nothing by his side except a beeping machine. When the doctor came in and told him what had happened, he wondered if anyone had ever actually died of a broken heart. Were there records for such things?

     He spent his time in various ways. Some days he would sleep until noon. Some days he would walk the half mile up the road to the Burger Barn, this ridiculous chain restaurant that prided themselves on clogging the arteries of thousands of southern people, all out for the ultimate burger experience. They had torn down the Milk Maid a few years ago and stuck this abomination there in its place. He'd still make the trip though, just to sit where they had once sat together and drink a strawberry milkshake. They were nowhere near as good, but almost just as pink. Every day at three o'clock, he would comb his hair, put on some fresh socks, and slide into the plaid overcoat that she had given him on their 25th wedding anniversary. Sure it was worn and, he knew, completely out of style; but none of that mattered much to him. She gave it to him and for that, he would always love it.

     He would walk up the long gravel driveway leading to her section of the graveyard. He always liked to clear away any dirt or leaves that may have collected since the day before. He would bend over-an increasingly hard task- and nestle the flowers beside her picture on the tombstone. It was one of his favorite photographs of her. It was taken right after their wedding ceremony and her eyes still seemed to gleam with all the happiness of being a young bride. He just stared at her. After all these years and eternity in between, she still managed to take his breath away.

The Little Girl Who Played with Fairies

     They would only come out if you were very still. She learned that a long time ago. So often she would stand in the middle of her circle made of sticks and she would close her eyes-that always helped her- and be very very still. Her mother would tell her not to be so stubborn. Those were no fairies she saw-only bugs with a light in their behinds. She thought this was rather amusing. What was her mother thinking? There were no such things as that! She would sneak out in the warm evenings and follow the path that lead her to her secret place. If the moon was out, she could follow its pale beams all the way without need for a flashlight. She made sure she had enough supplies that would tide them over until her next visit. She would go every night if she thought she could get away with it, but ever since her mother married Jim, things had changed and she knew not to press her luck. They were both light sleepers.

     So off she went carrying plenty of match boxes, thimbles, old wooden spools she found in the basement, and cotton balls-they loved cotton balls. They made excellent pillows. She made sure to tuck them in their usual places-the knot hole in the old Weeping Willow, beneath the fragrant blooms of the gardenias, right next to the log that nestled in the shallow water of the pond, and one last one on the lillypad for the stubborn one who never would come all the way to shore. What was she scared of anyhow?

     As she held up her nightgown and waded into the cool water she felt the tickles of the tiny brim as they seemed to play hide and seek around her ankles. She placed the matchbox on the lilly pad and stood there for a moment, wishing beyond anything that if she was very still and closed her eyes, she could open them to find herself a part of their world. Suddenly she saw a little yellow fleck of light from the corner of her eye. She turned quickly and waded back to shore. She hoped she hadn't scared them away, but minutes passed and she never saw a thing.

     Giving up, she decided to go back to the house. It was an especially clear night with a beautiful moon and she was sure that if they came back she would see them from her window. As she walked up hill she never ceased to be taken aback by the sudden image of her house in front of her. It always seemed to appear out of nowhere. This used to excite her-like an old friend popping in to say hello. Now days it just loomed over her, dark and silent like so many other things seemed to be. Except tonight, something was different. A small square of orange light beamed forth from her mother's room. She began to walk faster and with purpose. She knew she had been caught and nothing good could come from this.

     As she walked in the door, she expected to see him right away, standing there waiting for her to speak, but he was nowhere to be seen. No one was. All was quiet. Maybe she had been mistaken. Maybe her mother had simply awaken from another bad dream and went to splash some water on her face. She was okay. She was fine. She turned the corner to head up to her room, when suddenly he was before her-popping out like a clown from the scary jack-in-the-box she hated a few years before. She could see her mother behind him in the kitchen, her pink bunny slippers looking up at her as if even they couldn't believe what she let him do.

    It seemed that all at once an explosion landed on her cheek. Her breath caught in her throat and she stumbled backwards, against the wall-looking at him. She was wrong. This was bad. This was very bad. She saw him come towards her and she knew what was coming, but she also knew that running would only make it worse. So she closed her eyes and she stood very still, making believe she was with them, in her circle made of sticks. They ran and laughed and played. They bathed in thimbles and slept in matchbox beds with cottonball pillows and no one ever hit her.

     When she opened her eyes it took her a moment to remember where she was. It only took a second for the pain to remind her of just what had happened. At that moment she just didn't care. She grabbed her bag of leftover spools and a blanket and ran back down the path the way she'd come. When she arrived, she spread out the blanket and layed beneath the willow tree. As she stared up at the sleepy, swaying branches, she couldn't help but think of how much in common she had with the tree's name. She had never let it make her cry before. She was strong that way, but something shifted in her tonight. Something made it okay to let it all out and as she weeped, a small light flitted by and landed on her sore, tearstained cheek. She made sure not to move an inch, but it moved and landed right next to her on the blanket. She looked at it closely. It was beautiful! It was glowing! It was...a bug with a light in its behind. She breathed. So her mother had been right-it was just a stupid bug. She thought about getting up right then and running away. She thought about going back to the house and taking what she knew would be coming to her. But she didn't. Her mother had been right about this, but she had been so terribly wrong about many other things. She stayed and remained very still, so sure that she would open her eyes and be a thousand thoughts away.