The Shift

I miss my dad so much today I can hardly breath. The weight of it resting on my chest and my eyes burn with tears that I keep holding back. I miss my little friend Jennifer, working away in Idaho, I feel very alone without her, lunch and afternoon walks have not been the same without her. I miss my husband today, just being near him makes me calm and at peace. I miss my boys today, the love they give, the cute faces, the insatiable need to learn and be loved.

I miss them, I sit here and feel very alone, and wonder why we are all split from one another. I know the answers, but I hate those answers, I sit here and think of better ways in my mind for it all to be the way it should be. No answer is good enough, no solution works, just the reality of what needs to be done.

No need to feel sadness, but it’s there. Welling up inside, taking all I have to hold it back, to keep it from overflowing into streams of tears. I guess I’m a tiny bit soul sick today, and not matter how many chips I put in my mouth, I don’t feel any better. I just feel sicker.

Oddly enough, I had a moment yesterday where I looked in the mirror and saw someone else. I saw someone I wasn’t used to seeing. Looked a lot like me, but wasn’t really me, was it? Standing at attention for my karate training with Sensei Paul, he makes me look at myself in the mirrors on the wall. I hate it, but yesterday, I saw myself. I saw me, I saw that girl that has been hiding behind the fat girl for a long time. I couldn’t even do what he was asking me to do, I just was looking at someone else in the mirror, this girl who looked like me, but better.

For so long, I have gotten used to not really looking at myself in a mirror, I got used to the shame. I got used to avoiding eye contact with others, in hopes that if they did see in my eyes, they didn’t see my shame, and didn’t see how I wasn’t good enough. I have noticed the fidgeting with my clothes is not as often as if used to be, and I am beginning to have pride in myself; things that have been very foreign to me for a very long time. Sensei Paul makes me look at him when I punch and kick, and its been so hard for me, but I do it, it has begun to help me build my broken self-esteem. I am grateful to him for that.

I am feeling the shift in my life, the shift from just existing, to wanting to live life. The need to follow my dreams races thru my veins, the need to be with those I love, the need to take care of me, the need to be me, all just raging thru me. I am tired of just existing and accepting, it’s so hard. I am emotionally drained from it all, and if I could just lie down and sleep for days and days, I think I could wake up and begin again as a new me. But I can’t, I have to keep pressing ahead, lack of sleep, all the rolls I play, all I do, everything continuing to move on, and let the molting process complete itself, so one day, when I look in the mirror again, I am that girl that I am supposed to be all the time.

I’m tired today, tired from it all, and I am just glad that I can keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep going. There will be a finish line to cross someday, I just have to keep moving toward it.

Sensodyne Toothpaste

I’m not old, at least I don’t think I am, but I have noticed some items in my home and daily activities that have started to tip me off that I am changing from High School Grad, to Aging-Mom

I can remember visiting my grandma at her house in Montrose, Colorado, and I remember opening the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and seeing the Sensodyne toothpaste. For whatever reason, I knew it was old people toothpaste. Lately, I have two areas on my teeth that have been real sensitive, so I switched to using Sensodyne toothpaste. Old people toothpaste, yuck, it even smells like it has old-people-dust in it. Gross. Other items found in that cabinet have made their way into my house as well, like Preparation H, Stool Softeners, 4 kinds of tweezers, nose hair trimmer, and I even bought Dial Soap a time or two. I can’t believe it, I’m closer to middle-aged than College co-ed. So sad. I have even started to notice the white hairs popping up in everything that shows my reflection. Uggh.

You could always tell when my grandparents from Virginia were visiting, they always brought their Fiber One cereal and smelled of moth balls. I found myself at Walmart a few weeks ago, actually considering buying Fiber One cereal. I must be losing my mind, it’s like cardboard in a short noodle shape. I put it back on the shelf and got oatmeal instead. Ironically, I was considering buying moth balls to put in my laundry room, always smells musty and like a liter box, no other air freshener has ever worked, I though moth balls would be strong enough. Now I am half-way to becoming a Virginian…all I need is an accent and drive a Lincoln….which as fate would have it, we had a Lincoln Mark VIII we sold a few year back. Looks like I can’t change fate.

If I am in bed later than 9:30, I am grouchy, and the thought of being up after 7:30 seems like a waste of time. The only people I know who were like that was my mother who cleaned every Saturday morning, and my grandma, she always watched her humming birds out the kitchen window, always up earlier than any human should be. Why sleep in when you go to bed before the sun goes down?

It was never a priority to me that the towels got hung back up on the rack when I was done with them, eventually I would do it, but not until they dried into the shape they had been flung into on the floor. This agitated my mother to no end and I can still see the steam coming out of her ears every time she saw that. It a strange twist of fate, I hear my mothers voice come out of my not-so-old-mouth, every time I see Joey just throw a towel on the floor. I must be getting older, I have become a nagging mother.

When your 5 year old says you are old, lame, and you bore him, it’s a good sign you are aging rapidly. To top it off, if your 5 year old has to help pull you off the floor, chances are you are getting up there in age. When your two sons ask for fruit snacks and pretzels for breakfast, and you insist on a healthy, non-sugary cereal, or some eggs, you have crossed over. If I still had an ounce of fun left in my old bones, I would have considered the pretzels, maybe even melted cheese to go with it. But I have been brain washed with my age and can here the experts say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day…..can’t do fruit snacks shaped like dogs, cats, spiders, and pigs, need to stick to real fruit.

I’ve become appalled by the things of TV and the things I hear on the radio. Music shouldn’t be talking about smackin’ certain body parts on the radio at any given moment with my kids in the car. How do you explain that? What about the Real World MTV TV show? When did I think drunken debauchery and skimpy clothes, and making out with anyone that moves become morally reprehensible? Not sure, but somewhere along the way, pants that display your thong is not appropriate anymore. I lost my ability to be out of control, I think.

Maybe it’s normal for us all to buy Sensodyne tooth paste, eat Fiber One, and get up early with the birds. Maybe it’s normal to start to protect what you have, and make sure goodness is all around the ones we love. Maybe I am getting old and I should just suck it up and look into getting a AARP card and inquire about senior citizen discounts at my local stores. Next thing you know, I’ll be deciding which arthritis cream is best, and yelling at my grandkids to stop jumping on my couch cause it’s older than they are.

Life is a journey, and I can’t make the clocks stop or go in reverse, but I can always keep a positive spirit, besides, it’s only Sensodyne toothpaste and it works! It’s just toothpaste, not a sign from the devil that my life is on the downhill slope!

Life Annoyances

Here are a few random annoyances in my daily life.
Now, keep in mind none of these make a difference in the overall picture, but they can grate on a girls nerves after awhile.

There is a guy I work with, who talks to loud, which is fine, but he thinks he knows everything, when in reality, he doesn’t, and he has this annoying habit of smacking his hand on his desk when he talks on the phone. To make it even worse, it’s always his left hand, so it’s almost like he consciously loves to smack his hand down, so we can all hear his wedding ring hit the desk. This is usually followed by an irritating laugh, that makes me want to buy duct tape for his mouth.

People at work, who don’t even notice your existence when you speak to them. Why is that? I am standing at the copier, I smile, say hey, how are you? With no response at all, not even a weak smile or eye contact. Is this due to the fact that their hearing aid is defective, or are they really that rude?? Do I smell? Is my dress tucked in my underwear? Or do I have bad breath or a booger? Hard to say if it’s me, or the jack ass at the printer.

Tell me why you make a mess in the kitchen that the whole floor and other floors share? Is this to prove that you think you are too good to clean up after yourself? Or are you truly a barn yard animal? Not sure, but I have cleaned the coffee machine twice today and it’s only 10am.

When you are skinny, please do not point out to fat people how fat you are. Hello? Anyone? If you’re clothes size does not go into the double digits, you do not have a weight problem. Keep that in mind the next time you are standing to a girl who takes up a full chair and half. You may think you are trying to “fit in” with this fat girl, you aren’t you are making her feel even worse about herself, because chances are she knows she’s fat and she definitely knows you don’t weigh more than a loaf of bread.

When there is a laundry basket in the room, laundry should not be on the floor within a 10 foot radius. Yes, the laundry needs to be in the basket, this ensures I don’t have to bend over 300 times a day. The only exception to this rule is when you carry it to the laundry room yourself, or are paralyzed.

I really don’t care how long you have worked here, it doesn’t elevate you to a status of All-Knowing-Being, but it may get you an office cause people are trying to appease your cranky old ass. My job is no more or less important than yours, but I am younger, so when you finally croke, I will have dibs on your office.

Snorting snot is not a great sound, and when you do all day, it makes me want to invest in nasal spray for you. Not to mention it makes me want to vomit, so if you want to clean vomit from your desk, keep it up buddy.

When at the place of employment, please don’t check out all the ladies boobs. Yes, they are nice, they look good in many outfits, and if you are a boob guy, great for you, however, I hate feeling like I need to wear a turtle neck with a jacket just cause you can’t keep your creepy-gawking to yourself. Eww….I’m married, I don’t need some other married guy checking out my rack at work, so not appropriate. Please hit the local bar at lunch if you can’t control your boob-fetish all day. I’m sure at the bar, the girls there want their boobs stared at, and if I was there off-hours, I may want mine stared at too, just not at work when you are trying to asking me about lender process.

Make plans with people several days or weeks in advance, not the day of, and please please please, don’t call me 18 times that day to re-arrange the plans for that day. What the hell…make up a plan and stick to it. No changing, no wishy-washy mess, just make the plan. Life is so short, please don’t waste the time agitating yourself and everyone else over and extremely minor details, it just doesn’t matter. Plus have consideration for others, I don’t want to rearrange my entire day, just to hook up with you cause you couldn’t call me or return my calls for the past 3 days. This makes me cranky, I have other things to do, now I have to rearrange for you, then you call me 45 more times to rearrange the arranged and I have to rearrange the rearranged. Help me Lord, for Christmas these people are getting a little black book to keep track of their rearrangements.

So many other annoyances in life, like people who don’t use their turn signals, and crumbs on counter tops, and un-flushed toilets, but so little time.

I touched on a few that could turn my hair gray, if I didn’t have a sense of humor.

Time

Time seems to slip away faster than a raging river the older I get. The worst part is I realize each day, as it is slipping away, almost too late, that each moment is more and more precious. I think back of the time wasted, the time that dwindled away, the times where I made nothing happen, just wished the time away, just wished it would past by faster.

Each day I sit at work, I feel the clock in my soul ticking louder and louder. Not enough time, not enough time, not enough good moments. Sitting here rotting away, turning into another clone of the machine, and inside I am screaming, please don’t take me, I don’t have enough time for what really matters.

I sat outside today, for just a moment, a moment that was too short, just long enough for my skin to warm and pink-up in the sun. I closed my eyes, smelled the soon to come summer, and prayed for a way out, a way to save more time, to use my time in a way that fills my day with moments and memories that mattered. Sun warming my eyelids, my scalp, the sun down my back, and the smell of the trees around me. I can hear the sounds of cars around me, the sounds of the ladies chatting not to far from me, and it all seemed to fill my head with un-needed noise. I am constantly battling that creepy black feeling in my heart that this is as good as I will ever be. But that can’t be, there is more, God has promised me more, I know He has.

I find myself sitting again, here at my desk, my head swimming in a dull headache, and it’s taking all I have to not stand up and scream, enough, no more, I mean more, my life means more!! I swallow those feelings down, hold them down until they drown, painfully hold back the tears, hold them back hard until my eyes and head hurt more. I wait for it to pass, and I go back to what I have to do to get my job done. I keep running “attitude of gratitude” thru my mind, I keep telling myself to “HAVE FAITH”, “keep your chin up, roll with the punches, keep a good attitude”. It will pay off, I will make it. God has a plan for me, and I have time to wait for Him to allow it to surface in the well of my soul. He won’t allow me to waste the time He has given me.

I let waves of peace wash over me, breath in deep breaths thru my nose, and remind myself God is Love, and I can do all things thru God who strengthens me. And peace comes to me, running thru me like a flash flood. It mellows to a lovely lake, in which I just relax, let God take over and do the best I can, the best I know how, and hope the same for all the others out there like me.

I read somewhere that sunflowers always keep their face to the sun, that they follow the sun. I have always taken that with me, which is why I place sunflowers here and there in the places I occupy, to remind myself to keep my face to the sun, to follow the sun and keep my head high.