Life Stages

When looking back at memories, I tend to categorize them in stages:  elementary school, high school, twenty's, thirty's, before kids, after kids, before the move, after the move ... I'm guessing you do too.  We all have our different categories because life comes at us in stages.

I've lived through a lot of different stages - hard not to when you get to be my age! - but I know there are a few more other ones coming.  And I don't think I'm going to like them one bit.

My Dad died in 2014, right before Christmas.  That's one of those stages :  before Dad died, and after Dad died.  Then my son last year, before and after.   My sister has been battling pancreatic cancer for three plus years, and things have taken a downward turn.  And then there's my mother, she's 82 and still living in the huge four bedroom house they bought back in 1966.  She's getting too old to care for it all by herself, and yet she doesn't want to leave there.

Some of the stages that are coming my way aren't going to be fun. 
Some days I think I'm ready for them, that I'm grown up enough to handle what's coming.
And other days I know that I'm not ready.

My kids think I'm strong, and in many ways I am.  Or maybe it's that I show them my strong side because I need to be strong for them.  It's how it's always been. 

I have my break down moments, but as my dad always taught me, you gotta "pull yourself up by your boot straps" and keep going.

We all need to do a better job of "keep going". 
I need to keep that in mind this week as I move through it,
and to just keep going.

Closure: Memories of Ron

When we experience significant events in our life and the situation - whatever it is - comes to an end, there is some kind of closure needed.  Sometimes we get that closure right away. And sometimes when you think you've had your closure, later in life it comes back at you and you need to find your closure again. 

For years, I have hung on to a lost love.  Not openly there, but the memory has lingered on for years and years.  Probably because there wasn't closure.  Ron was 10 years older than me.  We met through work, and there was instant everything between us.  Unfortunately, the timing was very bad - I was engaged to be married when we met.  Through a huge family drama issue, I attempted to call off the engagement and the wedding.  But the bottom line is I didn't have the heart, the guts, the right stuff to cause that much hurt to my parents and my future in-laws. 

I was torn, tugged in many directions, but when it came to the bottom line, I couldn't walk away from them, so I walked away from Ron.  He and I were both hurting over it. And while a wedding should be a joyous occasion, I was going through the motions because it was expected of me.  The hardest part was having to see Ron every day at work, to feel the pain of his anger, and my own stinging emotions because I couldn't be true to myself.

As time passes and we move on with our lives, the hurts move them to a different place and in our normal busy-ness, we think about them less often.  It doesn't mean they aren't there, they just aren't as visible. It's like putting a sweater in the closet.  It's there if you took the time to look for it, but most of the time you don't need it in the here and now.

Lately, I've been doing a lot of reflecting, and Ron has come to mind over and over again.  I thought writing down the details, the feelings, would help me gain some closure, but it got me all worked up again.  I wish now that I had made the time to explore that relationship, had stood up to family when I knew in my heart I wasn't ready to be married.  Thank goodness for the internet!  It took me about an hour to discover that he'd left our home town and moved to another state.  From the looks of it, he married and had children, and possibly divorced after that.  I was able to sneak a peek at some photos (oops, I shouldn't have but I couldn't help myself!!) 

There was his face.  A face I was very familiar with.  The years didn't change what I'd remembered about him.  Such a handsome man!  And he has daughters.  They look like him.  I stared at his face for a long time and remembered all we shared.  It caused me a bit of painful sadness and I barely slept all night.  Would I dare message him? What would I say? What could I say? 

I knew in my heart that he would move on.  I sometimes have wondered if he even remembered me, let alone think of me from time to time.  And I came to the conclusion that I think it's better to let things be, no need to stir up something from so long ago (40+ years!!)   He appears to have a good life, good things going for him. 

So here's my closure, I'm putting these memories at rest.  I wrote in my journal about our relationship, and my feelings, and putting them into words has helped a lot. 

Ronnie:  If you ever come across this, feel free to message me, I'd love to catch up!

Hypergraphia

I have always enjoyed writing in a journal; taking it to blogging felt like a natural move.  However, there are always things that shouldn't be made public knowledge.  Everyone should be entitled to have some kind of privacy, or their life kept private.   But I'm bouncing back and forth with the ideal.

In the movie "Bridges of Madison County", a woman left journals of a wondrous four-day relationship (affair) with a man while she was married.  It was a beautiful love story, and all the more beautiful because she chose her family and her love for them over a different kind of love. 

As we age, we tend to remember things from our past, and I have been writing them down as I remember them.  But do I really need to share it with the world?  Am I writing it down so my kids have some kind of understanding about the woman I was? or how I became the woman that I am? 
In the bigger picture, does it really matter? 

And yet something is driving me to write it all down.  I can't say that I understand the desire to put it in writing, and yet I keep remembering these things and it seems important that I write it down.

My only personal perspective on it would be if I found out my own mother had written up a diary as such, would I want to know it all?  And then I remember that my mother married her high school sweetheart and they were together 50+ years, just what sort of things would she have written ???   As a child, she was raised on a farm, maybe reading about those days would be more interesting .. :)

I, too, married my high school sweetheart, but it didn't last.

I loved another man, but we weren't destined to be together at that time.  (However, I still think of him and wonder what my life would have been if I had taken another path.)

I married a second time, but that didn't last either.

I married a third time, and that went south as well.

After that third one, I noticed a trend, and made the conscious choice to never take that road again.
That doesn't mean there wasn't another love, though.

In the long run, though, does it really matter what happened and why??

Does anyone really want to know the reasons?
Probably not.

If you have followed along before, you know that I tend to look to Google for answers -- and I found this:  "Hypergraphia is a behavioral condition characterized by the intense desire to write or draw."  or this:  "graphomania [the excessive urge to write]"    Does this mean I can blame it all on some kind of "condition" ????  lol

Someone else said journaling empties the mind.  Perhaps getting out all the old stuff will be making room for some new stuff!   At least that's a positive spin on it all :)

Either way, I will indulge this oddity
and continue my journaling whenever I get the urge.

For those of you who find this topic boring .. my apologies. hehehe

Life is Good

Two days off and it felt pretty good!  Because of our Arizona heat, my morning walks are nearly an hour long; poor Sadie doesn't last that long so she gets a ride in her stroller -- and she likes it!

I've spent part of my days sewing masks.  My daughter and her family will need a supply of them for work, and possibly for when school starts as well.  These are unprecedented times, and there isn't going to be what we used to call "normal" any longer.  I don't know what the new norm will be, just different. 

Sewing the masks is fun, a way to let some creative juices flow.  At first, I was just using up old fabrics I had laying around, but now?  I'm out shopping for something really cute!  And because I like to keep some onhand for my own use at work, I have quite a nice collection!  My daughter works in a hospital, the girls she works with thinks hers are cute and asked me to sew a few, so maybe I'll get a few dollars back to cover some of my supplies.  :)

I've been on an emotional roller coaster lately, and I suspect it's due to the fast approaching anniversary of my son's death.  I have debated over and over again if I should take the day off or go to work to keep my mind busy without dwelling on ... things.  I'm off the day before, so work may be a good thing. 

Added to those worries, I'm worried about my sister.  She's been battling stage 4 pancreatic cancer for three years now.  She has had spots on her liver, and has gone under the cyber knife to eradicate those spots, which has caused decreased liver function, causing ascites -- a build up of fluids in her abdomen, causing a lot of pain.  Being observant from afar through her cancer, and my father's cancer, I can tell you it's a total roller coaster affecting just about every aspect of living.  It's not easy!  And there's not much a person can do but be supportive.  My sister is lucky in that her high school girlfriends are very supportive and have been there every step of the way with her. 

Life sure isn't easy, but there are always good things with the bad. 

My nephew just learned that he's having a baby girl in December! 

Life is good.

Walking the Beast

Weight loss is never easy, and it gets tougher as you age!  I've been trying a new program with a wellness coach that is provided by my BigBox Store.  It has a place to journal, to make an action plan, and a way to track your activity minutes .... you get the picture.  When you log data, you get feedback via text and Julie has been very encouraging.  However, after a year of this, I'm no further along than when I started.   Which is very depressing.

I've learned a few things about myself, especially during the last three weeks.  The scale is a lousy measure of success.  There are so many fluctuations and every low makes me feel like I'm a failure.  Which in turn leads to feeling bad about myself -- and what do I do when I feel bad?  I eat!  So I'm sabotaging my efforts. 

Today, as I was walking the Beast, I realized that I need to have something that I can actually measure, something that will make me feel like I've accomplished something.  When I started three weeks ago, I reached a mile at 22 minutes. Today, my mile was 18:45.  Now THAT is a measure of success!!!  So I'm going to track my mileage and try to make good changes:  distance, time and incline will be the three measurements for success. 

Sometimes, changing a person's focus could be the better choice!

Update 6/10/20:   On Monday, my mile was 17:50 -- so a good success, and the heck with the scale! It made me feel good, and that's what counts.

Stay safe out there!

Missing Our Chats

Dear Brian,

There's so much going on lately, and I haven't written in a while because rehashing all the stress just makes things that much harder.  I don't know what the world is coming to -- there are protests and riots, looting and shooting.  We're still in the midst of the pandemic, but they're starting to open things up slowly.   But even at that, things are at a new normal.

Every day at work, I'm wearing a mask, and sometimes gloves, to keep me, my co-workers and the customers safe from the coronavirus.  I'm required to answer health questions and have my temperature taken each morning at the start of every shift.  Retail stores are forced to limit the number of shoppers in a store.  In some places, folks have to wait in line to get inside and make their purchases.  

Supplies of everyday goods, such as toilet paper, paper towels, cleaning chemicals are all slowly rising back up.  Some days, you can get what you want, other days if you need something, you settle for a different brand of some things.  Food supplies are leveling out as well.  In April, our store shelves were completely wiped out of canned goods, most meats, fresh vegetables weren't available every single day.   There are still some days where you have to settle for something you might not have normally bought in the past. 

Grandma finally took herself out shopping for groceries after not leaving her house for three months! Incredible, and quite hard to believe.  In addition, she hasn't had any of the family "hanging out' at her house, so she's alone many days.  I worried about her getting depressed, so I made sure that I would read or listen to some kind of news to have things to discuss on the phone.  We've been chatting almost an hour every day now.  

Our first monsoon was before June 1, so about two weeks earlier than normal.  Our high temps - extreme heat over 110 degrees - was also about two weeks early.  I'm afraid this will be one of the hottest summers on record, or the wettest.  Or both.

I had a major breakdown on the first day of our heatwave.  I opened the back door, and a waft of that hot air hit me in the face, and I was right back to that awful day last summer.  I sat down and cried.

But what hurts the most is not having you here to share all this with.  We used to have good convos about life events, and the weather.  I miss your jokes about whatever topic was around.  I miss sharing our same likes when it comes to people, and customers.  

Let's face it. 
I just miss you.  

Very much.

Love, Mom