agotado...

Some things are just better described in another language, perhaps because we have worn out all the words we know. After 10 years I have found a new word to describe how I feel. I think I need a whole new language.
I know that I will not heal until I forgive. And I have tried. God knows I have read about it, prayed about it, meditated about it, chanted it, blogged about it, journaled about it...everything but done it. I have got to move on.

still thinking...

I wonder sometimes if I have just been so battered and bruised that I will never be really myself again. If the sore spots will ever heal...if I will ever be able to just "get on with it" and live my life. I guess time will tell. For now, back to my version of normal.

water, water, everywhere...

My basement flooded this week. First time ever, near as I can tell...it was a mess. Fortunately, I have good family/friends to help me out. Everyone pitched in (and bailed) and there was remarkably little damage. Amazing. Amazing especially my mood/attitude about the whole thing. Calm. Blessedly calm. I guess I am finally realizing that most things are inconveniences and very few are calamities. Still, I'd rather spend my time with sparkling blue water at a coast somewhere...with someone special...

rethinking....

I swore off of relationships a while back. Decided that I needed no one but myself, and that it was better and safer that way. May be time to re-think that one.

Charlotte's Web...

I had a pet spider last fall...a huge one that lived on the front stoop and shocked everyone who rang the bell. People invariably wanted to squash her--"Damn, lady, there's a big-ass spider on your porch!" and actually thought I was odd when I indignantly informed them that I knew and to kindly leave her alone. Of course, when winter came, she did what spiders do...and I was sorry to see her go. It was slightly less devastating than when I read Charlotte's Web when I was six, but still, I privately grieved...
This morning I noticed a web under the back porch eaves...and another spider. I am convinced that is it one of her offspring. This one has chosen a more private, sheltered area to spend the fall. Away from the ignorant cads who would destroy her world with one swoop, yet delightfully just outside the kitchen window. Welcome, Charlotte II...may we have a lovely fall together.

endings...and beginnings....

Summer has come...and gone. School is starting back, the kids are already "one foot out the door". It has been a quite a year so far. I seem to be purging. New job. New car. Hair cut. New carpet. Hopefully some new attitudes and the demise of some old thoughts. New gratitude. New perspective on who I am and what my life has the potential to become. Making room for more joy...

home again...

but I feel like I am in the wrong place...like maybe I have been in the wrong place for a very, very long time...

...naturally....

I am a tad stressed right now...life is going too fast and I really want to get off. Actually, I would have loved to have abandoned this ride several years back. No such luck. Thankfully, I am going on vacation next week. I may not come back.

wow...

I have taken so very many photos that I like in the past year, and a few that I actually love. My dear DC told me I should frame some and donate them...what a grand idea! It never really occurs to me to frame them, although I have done so and given a few extra special ones away from time to time. I just have to remember to do it more often.
Part of the problem is that damn photoshop. I don't know how to use it. And my friends take good shots and make them FABULOUS! So, I look at my good shots and think: "wow, if I could only photoshop this is would be GREAT!" But other than cropping and an occasional automatic color correct click, I am at the mercy of my own eye at the time. And actually, I think I like it that way for now--at least it makes me think about what I am shooting...
So here is a bird...unretouched and unenhanced...could be better, but I think its really cool!

Life is a beach...

Back from the beach, where I spent 4 lovely days walking, eating, and taking photos. My dear friend went with me for adult conversation and photo critiques; my younger son had an old buddy along, so they entertained each other. My oldest son took his GF and his BF and his BF's GF--needless to say we saw little of them. And for the first time ever--no daughter. It really made me appreciate how little time I have left with my kids. And how I need to get a life. Or maybe just immerse myself a little deeper into the one I am creating. I hope that I am finally moving beyond feeling bewildered, bereft, angry, and alone, and am becoming more comfortable with just being. I still have a ways to go, but at least its a start.

Return of the Jedi...

I am back...my computer fully functional again (finally). It's been a long time. I have been up, and down...elated, and devastated. Life goes on. It's good to be back.

Sprung!

It is absurd how the blooms are just exploding into being--like popcorn, really...I think everything will bloom at once this year...it will be positively obscene!

What a change 48 hours can make...blue skies, warm sun, spring in the air...and my first full day off. I love it. I think this working 4 days a week is going to agree with me.

In like a lion...

Well, despite my earlier optimism that spring was just around the corner (after all, it WAS 74 degrees here yesterday) March has arrived with a bang. SNOW! Huge, juicy globs of it all over everything much to the delight of the kids both young and old. I knew it was coming, not because of the predictions on the news or in the paper--neither of which I look at--but because I got the early weather warning alert this morning from my mother in Alabama, who had awakened indignantly to at least 2 inches of the "horrible mess".

So, I spent a lovely day in the kitchen making soups, biscuits and cookies, and wiping up melted puddles while my kids and their friends alternately played outside and warmed by the fire while playing Guitar Hero. It was delightful. A houseful of warm chaos.

So now I am counting on it going out like a lamb--in all aspects. You listening, March?

Torn...

In about 3 months I am scheduled to be in Peru, going up the Amazon to jungle villages to deliver healthcare to the people there. I have wanted to go on this trip for months...until now. My son's prom is during that time, and while it seems petty to give up the chance to help others for a child's prom for God's sake, I just don't feel right about missing it. I will also be missing his spring concert. I already missed his fall talent show to go to Peru on a mission trip. How could the timing of this trip suck so completely? Mother guilt. It isn't like I couldn't go on another trip--mission trips are easy to come by if you are willing to pay to go...I had wanted to go on this trip primarily to travel and work with this particular group of people again...but now that seems like a small and insignificant reason to disappoint my son. And it would--he specifically asked me not to go--not to miss his prom. And to be truthful, I just don't feel like I have it in me to go this time. So I feel like a selfish bitch. Still, another pediatrician is going on this trip, so it is not like I would be leaving them high and dry--I just wouldn't be traveling with my old group. But, I somehow sense that the dynamics of the group would not be the same now anyway--hell, only 2 of us even sent Christmas Cards to each other...its not like we have a lifelong attachment.
Guilt. My lifelong companion. It sucks.

spring?

One little violet...not even purple or lavender,just delicate white...peeking up through the discarded hay in the pasture. Spring. It's coming! I am so very ready that find I myself searching for any little sign and rejoicing in it..especially tiny, anemic violets struggling their way toward the light of the sun...

I am so ready for spring. February always saps me in ways I don't understand...drains me of my energy from the very deepest depths of my being. I feel fat, lethargic, pale and pasty. Worse, I feel worthless and empty. This year I have added the desperate desire to sleep--hours and hours on end, interrupted by my thoughts that the only way to ever really get my house in order would be to simply move out of it and leave it all behind. I guess I am in a funk. Couple this February angst with the inevitable realization of just how quickly time is flying by--how just last spring it seems I was taking toddlers to ride horses and practice T-ball and now I am handing them condoms and praying to God that they use them. Sigh. I watch myself disappear in importance from my children's lives and wonder if it is supposed to feel this way. It is wearying, this aging thing. I really don't know that I have the strength for it.

disappointment...

This was a weekend that I had looked forward to for days, and it didn't turn out to be anything even remotely pleasant. In short, I was disappointed by people I love and trust...not just because they "didn't acknowledge me on Valentine's Day"...they seldom acknowledge me on any day, much less that one, but because they simply were inherently rude and inconsiderate of me and my time. I was treated as if I was an unimportant constant here for the using.
Doormats are doormats because they allow it. I guess it is time for me to stop being so available and accomodating. Clearly, its not working for me.

condor...

When we were in Machu Pichu one of the others remarked that he wanted to see a condor...I almost lost it. The only person I had ever heard say that was Miss Jane Hathaway on the Beverly Hillbillies. Evidently, the condor is not extinct, but is extremely rare. Seeing one in the Andes is supposed to be incredibly lucky, spiritual, mystical, etc. During our 4 or so hours there, we saw two, flying together. Our guide said that in his 20 years as a guide he had only seen 4 total, counting these 2. Our trip leader had only seen 2 in 17 years. This was a big deal. And I was left wondering: what does this mean? I really believe that such things happen for some reason--to give some message--but evidently the message is not for me. It is like the universe speaks in tongues that I can't understand. Four months later I am still wondering what, if any, significance those birds had. They circled over our heads for a good 10 minutes before disappearing into the clouds, making damn sure that we all knew they were present and with us.
And once again, their message was not for me.

me...

Not exactly how I planned it to be at this age, but I'm liking it just fine.

new love...

You know how there are dreams you had as a kid that never got fulfilled? And if you were lucky, you did your damnedest to make sure that they were filled for your kid. Still, it wasn't the same. I have fulfilled one of my lifelong dreams. And it is sweeter than I ever imagined.

fog...

It has been such a busy week--I have felt like I was in a fog. I LOVE my new job...everyone is so friendly and helpful. The patients are nice and amazingly intelligent. The parents are accepting. I actually have time to sit down and talk with them and to enjoy getting to know them. I feel so good about where I am and what I am doing...it feels very right.

welcome 2009

I am so excited about the new year...a blank journal waiting to be filled. For once I don't really want to think about what it may hold--sure, I know a few givens, have a few plans, but for the most part this is one of the most unplanned years I have had in decades. And I am excited about it.
The fortune tellers in Cusco were busy and to tell the truth, if I had spoken Spanish I would have had to have had a reading...they were so serious, so mysterious. But I am glad I didn't. I kind of like this innocence, and I want to enjoy it while it lasts.