You Know You're Getting Old When...

You're at a high school football game.... and you're Enjoying it.

It seems like just yesterday when those kids were SO little, and we adults watched and laughed to ourselves as they ran around the basketball court sometimes throwing the ball ALMOST high enough to make a goal, or the "officials" had to point to the direction they were supposed to run down the field, and the gear they wore weighed more than they did.

Once they grew a little bit, there was no greater sense of satisfaction than when they scored a goal, or made a great play on the field. It made all the driving, all the nights of practice, and all the midnight study sessions after practice worth it.

Now we are almost to tomorrow, they will be those cheerleaders we see on TV, those star football players that we wait in line to shake hands with. They will make those amazing three point shots from across the court. I can Hardly Believe It !

It's not just about sports, it's one incredible moment when you look down and see babyhood and adulthood at the same moment, in YOUR child... a dream materializing.

Beer Is Good For You

OR, HNT is WAY TOO SCARY for me.

Mary, Mary Quite Contrary

Mary, Mary Quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockleshells,
And pretty maids all in a row.

For some reason, every day this summer when I have been out in my yard, this nursery rhyme has come to my mind. (And yes, I know the history of this little rhyme but let’s skip past that for now.) In some strange way, the plants and flowers that I cultivate (or try to cultivate) reflect me... So much so that when I got really depressed this last month or two, two of my favorite plants died (yes I was watering them). So here’s a short tour of my “garden”... (My friends and family have all submitted to a tour of my yards to observe each newly bloomed flower or sprouting plant, I think I get this tendency from my father).

My Neck of the Woods

This is “my neck of the woods.” It is what I see when I go out on my porch to read, or nap, or smoke. I love my little patch of woods (despite the hours of leaf raking that are ahead). I am familiar now with the birds, squirrels, and other creatures that frequent my yard. The hand made shed is sturdy, the trees grow tall and strong, and the wildflowers abound in the spring. It is filled with life. But what you can’t see, is that under the first few inches of topsoil, there is nothing but rock, or gravel really. This means that planting any new plants, or even digging a hole for a birdfeeder post, is an arduous task at best. Not to mention the difficulty of planting anything under all of those trees. Left to its own devices, this yard becomes a small jungle of underbrush and the woods behind the fence become overgrown and intrusive. It is an inviting place, yet the things that come to live here must be carefully chosen to handle the roughness of the soil, the shade of the trees, they must be tough, and constant pruning is needed to keep things in order.

The Garden

I love this cana. It is most beautiful in the evening when the sun is setting. The soft light makes the red and gold radiant. She grows tall there, alone, but healthy. The beauty of the bloom is rough though. I am not sure if it is the caretaker’s fault, but the petals fade quickly and one must be actively looking to enjoy her beauty.

I love these little guys too. They were a surprise because that was not what I planted in the planter ! However, a nice surprise they were, purple IS my favorite color.

This is a rather ordinary flower, but I like her because she is the sole survivor of the drought in this area. Also, despite my best efforts, the soil here does not want to allow things to grow, but grow she does.

Last but not least, is my late bloomer (aren’t we all ?). One of the few successful plants in this little part of the garden, she may not be fully blooming, but definitely still attracts the butterflies.

How does My garden grow? With difficulty in tough times, but blooming anyway creating little spots of colorful joy. Maids all in a row? Definitely not. Sometimes what I plant grows, sometimes not. Sometimes they grow and die unexpectedly. Sometimes I have unexpected bloomers, late bloomers, bloomers who do not look the way I expected them to, but all in all, they make me happy.

Circles

Light and Dark,
Always a Mark.
Sun and Moon,
Crazy Loon.
Lock for Key,
All That’s Free.
Open Wide,
Nothing to Hide.
Protective Hedge,
Deadly Ledge.
Female. Wife.
Giver of Life.
Within, Without,
Never a Doubt.
Infinite Unity,
Mystic Duplicity.
Heart and Mind,
Chains that Bind.
Cycle of Time,
Rhythmic Pantomime.
It’s not the Circles
that are Wrong,
It’s the Lines
that make you
Weak or Strong.

MM
August 31, 2005

What I Learned

I learned to love someone that I fear. I learned to love someone that is cruel, and seems to be gratified by my pain. I learned to love someone that annihilates my sense of self. I learned to love someone who does not love me. I learned to desire the love of someone who could not, would not, meet my needs. I learned to be silent, and not speak the truth. I learned this from my father, and my mother who loved him.

I learned that if I speak, no one will listen. I learned that people notice you when you are cold and aloof, and reject you if you try to relate to them. I learned that I am insignificant, and disposable. I learned that my feelings do not matter to anyone but me. I learned to fear losing the protection that silence gave me. I learned this at school, in between the three R’s.

I learned to be alone. I learned to be silent. Silence has shaped, and limited, all of my interactions in the world. It shaped my successes, and my failures. It created a wall between me and the world that no one, not even I, can penetrate. I learned all of these things, and became locked in my cage of silence by the time I was in 5th Grade. That one year stamped me forever.

What I learned became the template for my relationships with relationships with men, a self replicating circle that has ravaged me mentally and emotionally. Turning me into a passive creature, accepting what people give, or don’t. Locking my feelings inside of me until, at the worst times, they come bursting forth leaving those around me feeling shocked and confused, and could it be... Afraid? Was it their fault that they did not know what hurt me, what I needed, what I wanted, what I couldn’t accept? How could they know, when I could never voice it?

This Explains a Lot

The Truth

The Truth is… I Am dissonance.

The Truth is… I have beliefs that I don’t live by, expectations of others that I cannot myself meet, and a perspective of how life should be that I do not experience. I have, since the beginning of my memory, existed in a constant state of ambiguity. My mind constantly whirling, trying to reconcile incongruency until, finally, I collapsed into depression or exploded in rage. Rage against the world, myself, and God. Sorrow for all that I could be and was not, all that I should have had and did not, all that I knew and could not say.

The Truth is… I have, by each choice I have made in my life, created my own suffering. I am not a victim. I have authored my own fate, chosen my own path, and chosen my own traveling companions.

The Truth is... I don’t enjoy conflict, controversy, drama, brokenness, aloneness, and pain. It has brought me to the brink of insanity and death more times than I can say. But it has been the only possible outcome. And, the truth is, that I have not only created it, but embraced it. Accepted it as the path that was meant for me. Accepted it, but Believed that it shouldn’t be so...

The Beginning

I fully expected my 33rd year to be significant. It is a mystical number, and that coupled with a new freedom in my life, filled me with hope for all that the year would bring… experiences that would change my life. And, as we usually do, I believed that these experiences would be happy, or peaceful, or joyful, or something that felt good. Or, at the very least, that the journey would be COMFORTABLE. I anticipated being able to loll in the achievement of self actualization like a fat, lazy cat in the afternoon sun. To my dismay, although not to my surprise, it was the year that I experienced the most significant emotional, physical, and psychological pain of my life. Not the Worst, but the most Significant.

It was a year of constant, nagging, low-grade suffering. Suffering that slowly seeped into every part of my life like water through sand. It crept into my mind and my soul as the darkness creeps into the dusk until, Suddenly, it is dark. It crept into the very marrow of my bones so that even my body ached as my Spirit withered. It robbed me of my health and blinded my mind’s eye. And so the path that I had sought to travel, and the strength to travel it, simply disappeared. But I kept walking, sometimes crawling, aimlessly through the dark.

And then, one day, clarity brutally stabbed itself through my heart, creating the most exquisite pain that I have ever known. I came to the realization that I have been traveling in circles in the dark for almost 20 years. Worse yet, I remembered that I know the way Out of the circle, and have for a long time. I have even left it, several times, but always returned. I didn’t think that I could forgive myself for insanely repeating the same mistake Over and Over and Over again. AND, even worse, I have caused pain for others by my actions, or lack thereof. Some of those may never forgive me and rightly so. I don’t deserve it.

These realizations caused not only pain, but shame of such intensity that I felt I could not bear it. And I Knew, with no uncertainty, that I could not live in this condition and feared that I lacked the strength of character to change. I wanted to die more than I have ever wanted it before.

“When I think of pain—of anxiety that gnaws like fire and loneliness that spreads out like a desert, and the heartbreaking routine of monotonous misery, or again of dull aches that blacken our whole landscape or sudden nauseating pains that knock a man’s heart out at one blow, of pains that seem already intolerable and then are suddenly increased of infuriating scorpions stinging pains that startle into maniacal movement a man who seemed half dead with his previous tortures—it ‘quite o’ercrowes my spirit.”
C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain