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This morning I was writing a new blog post. Here’s how it started off:
“I feel really upset and bitchy and I don’t know what to do about it. It’s extremely rare that I’m ever this… angry. Unsettled. Indignant. Disappointed. I can physically feel the energy buzzing uncomfortably under my skin, and I just want to… aaargh!!”
I purged a bit further, but it was all useless crap. That’s why it never made it past my Drafts folder. The whole day sucked. Not for any valid reason – just because my normal optimism was gone and stuff like anger came and parked its ass in contentment’s regular spot. I was stuck on fugly. But I’m adamantly opposed to people using their bad mood as a freebie excuse to be unpleasant, so I spent a lot of energy pretending, and isolating myself to protect others from my toxicity. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make it any easier to stop feeling hard done by.
Then, tonight, I got an email from Wendy, who was my best friend and practically my twin sister all through high school. Many, many years ago, she hurt me deeply at a time when my entire world was falling apart, and we went our separate ways. When I was back home in January, I met with Wendy for the first time in more than a decade and we had a pleasant visit. We didn’t connect again until recently when I sent her a quick happy birthday email, which led to a few touch-base emails traded back and forth since. Here’s some of the one that I received tonight:
Since our visit Mom too has been diagnosed with Alzheimers. It’s ok – I know that you are saying “oh Wen”, but I’ve come to accept it for it is what it is and I can’t change this. I knew in my heart that she had it too before she was diagnosed I just kept closing my eyes to the signs. She, like dad, do not know they have been diagnosed with this. She hasn’t been herself for sometime. The straw that broke the camels back came in Feb when I was sick. I had ecoli in my bloodstream and also was suffering from 8 kidney stones. I was in and out of the hospital and she couldn’t keep it straight what exactly was wrong with me. During this she suffered a fall and had a fractured pelvis. This landed her in the hospital. During her stay her disorientation was horrible. She thought the doctor had shot her, she wouldn’t stay in bed they literally had to tie her to her bed and keep her in the hallway by the nurses station so they could watch her. She was angry and not herself at all. She recovered from the pelvis injury, came home and her mind has become clearer again.
Wendy has four young girls under the age of ten, a husband who sometimes has to go overseas for weeks at a time with his job, a bipolar and schizophrenic brother, and parents who live two provinces away who now have advancing stages of Alzheimer’s.
I have absolutely jackshit to feel angry or indignant about.
‘Be kinder than necessary because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.’
(a bastardized quote from questionable sources, but I still like it.)
I have come to believe that there is virtually nothing that is impossible for us as humans. It just takes time.
Click here and watch this. ALL of it. Reasonably carefully. It’s about the new Wii gaming system that uses handheld controllers that register movement as part of the game play. But watch it even if you have no interest in Wii at all.
I love the fearlessness of the minds that think these things up.
My head never seems to shut the hell up. Rarely will something overwhelm or dull my senses enough to make me stop thinking. Alcohol works nicely, but I inherited my Scottish ancestors’ ability to handle a ton of liquor, and I can’t afford to drink enough to make me truly drunk. Plus, I’m too chicken to give up that control. Years and years of trying meditation has only gotten me to the point where I can laugh when I, predictably, realize that I’m thinking an awful lot about trying not to think at all.
Internal dialogues are the most common theme for the mental babble. Left to its own devices, my head will happily carry on entire imaginary conversations with someone – what I would say to them, what they would say back, blah, blah, blah. Or, it will analyze and nitpick to death real conversations that I have actually already had – what I should’ve said and shouldn’t have said. Those are like a drunken fisherman’s story, where it gets fuzzier and more inaccurate with each cycle through, and I end up sounding more ridiculous to myself each time around.
Or my head will go on a literary kick and dictate entire essays, blog posts, letters, etc., to me. Amid my fascination and curiosity of where this material is coming from (because *I’M* sure as hell not thinking it!), I can sometimes get lucky and pluck a useful line or three out, and remember them long enough to write them down. Then comes the work of trying to fill the gaps between with my own, deliberate, thoughts. Blech. They’re not nearly as good. I have scads and scads of snippet notes that I can’t get smart enough to expand on.
The problem with mental chatter combined with a busy life and getting older, is that I’m sometimes confused about what I have actually already said/written, and what I’ve only thought about saying/writing. Up until recent years, there wasn’t much question because everything got expressed out of self-preservation. The damned chatter would wear me down until I gave in and physically said/wrote whatever was banging at the walls of my head, in the hopes that it would go away and leave me alone. (Of course it never did, and it just created more material to analyze and critique.)
But I’ve gotten better able to argue back in my own, deliberate voice, and now some things don’t make it out of the box.
“No, what I said was fine – fuck off and leave me alone.”
“If they took it the wrong way, tough, let it go.”
“Quit being so chickenshit and trust that they know me better than that.”
Miraculously, I’ve been winning more and more of these arguments with myself! I just, um, can’t always remember which ones….
Now, if you’ve read to this point, you may be thinking “this woman is schizophrenic” or something similar. Trust me, the possibility has crossed my mind before as well (as my own thought – not chatter). But the more I talk with others, and the more I read (blogs and otherwise), the more reassured I am that if I am certifiably nutso, there’s plenty of perfectly normal-seeming people who have the same chatter going on in their heads, too, so we’re not alone. Interestingly, everyone who has been able to relate to what I describe has been someone who I consider to be: a) above average intelligence, b) perceptive and intuitive, c) creative, and d) down to earth. Huh. Not bad company to be in, if you’re going to be a psycho.
Anyway, back to my reason for this post. (Rambling and inability to be succinct aren’t uncommon, either!)
I could have SWORN that I wrote a blog post about this woman recently, but I can’t see it here now. Attila The Mom commented on my “Epic” post and it reminded me that I had both mentally and physically written at least three different drafts for a post about her since her “Meow” post, but I can’t find any of them now. So if I’m repeating myself and being redundant, please let me know – it’s been that kind of a month. And if I already posted about this and I’m repeating myself, it’s been that kind of a month so just let me know.
I had tried to write about our oldest son, and how he has the ability to drive me up the wall and hurt me like neither of our other two children. One draft recounted a recent incident where Ari made me cry, and when his siblings sprang to my defence I struggled to explain to them that I was crying for him, and not for myself. I’m not going to try to recapture any of that again now, because most of it was crappy writing and probably why I (apparently) turfed it without finishing it. The whole point of it all was ultimately this:
READ THESE POSTS ABOUT THIS AMAZING WOMAN AND HER FAMILY
Hell, read her whole blog like I do, because it’s certainly worth it, but at least read those posts for an overview. Against far greater challenges than I ever face, she is the kind of mother (and writer) that I’d like to be, and she impresses the hell out of me.
And how can you not be charmed by someone who says, “I have the body of an 18-year-old, but it’s in the trunk of my car and it’s starting to smell”?
Hey, I have the body of an 18-year-old, too. It does whatever it damned well pleases, doesn’t listen to reason, gravitates where it doesn’t belong, and has absolutely no respect for the person making the rules and paying the costs.
As does the brain attached to it.
This has been a long, draining, stressful weekend. Not a bad weekend, but a very brain-melting one. I’ve been wrestling with CSS, HTML, PHP, ASAP, SOL, Do-Rae-Me, La-Dee-Dee… hell, I don’t even know any more. My head is mush. I’ve gone manic. Our boxer dog has been looking at me like *I* need to “Go lay down!” for a while.
I actually found myself surfing to Cosmopolitan.com online today. I’m not sure how it happened – one minute, I was allowing myself a few minutes of StumbleUpon while I waited for the kettle to boil for some tea, and the next I was reading a Cosmo article. When I suddenly realized what I was doing, I started to sob and walked a-waaay frooommmm the coom-puuter…….
But not for long enough. Hours later, I was composing a long overdue reply to a friend, and I was typing the words “deer ass corer”.
Really.
On purpose.
And they’ll know what I’m talking about.
A few bizarre emails later, I figured I’d better quit before I made a complete and permanent ass of myself, so I grabbed a bottle of wine and settled in to watch the movie “A Beautiful Mind”.
Yeah, like that worked. With this head? Fifteen minutes into the multi-award-winning film, I started flipping channels. Flip, flip… jezus, a bajillion channels, and nothing useful. Flip, flip…
Finally, unexpectedly, I found my salvation:
“Blue Collar Comedy Tour: The Movie (2003)“
YES! Brilliant! This is EXACTLY what I needed to restore order to my insanity.
Cob had a school picnic in a nearby suburb yesterday, which gave us a chance to take a drive together – to and from. I love drives with just my youngest as he and I often have wonderful, candid, philosophical discussions.
On the way there, a sad topic was brought up. The mother of one of his schoolmates has been missing for over a week, and she still hasn’t been found. We discussed how, as horrible as a thing it would be, hopefully she just had a mental breakdown or something, and ran away from her family, rather than anything physically tragic happening to her.
Cob attended the three hour long picnic, and I amused myself by parking in the furthest corner of the school property and watching a movie on my laptop. On the way home, he said that his friend Rob had been there, and that there wasn’t any more news on his missing mother.
“Did someone ask him about her, or did he bring the subject up?” I asked.
“Rob brought it up. Well, kind of,” Cob stumbled out.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we were all wandering around a bit, and we saw where you were parked,” Cob explained, “which led to a discussion about parents, and the phrase ‘totally epic mom” was used. That’s when…”
“Wait, what?”
“I, um, well, called you a totally epic mom,” he squirmed in his charmingly deliberate way. I looked at him and grinned. He stared back and made a rude face. We went back and forth like this until, finally, he caved in first. “Whaaat?”
“Hang on, as parents we don’t get many moments like this. Clarify for me, please – what does ‘epic’ mean, exactly, in this context?”
My lanky, barely-shaving sixteen year old son grinned the grin that makes my heart squeeze, and started chuckling his father’s chuckle. “‘Epic’ means really great,” he said impishly, then laughed at the look I exaggerated for his benefit. “Oh, c’mon. I’ve told you before that all my friends think that you and Dad are the coolest parents. You don’t have nearly as many stupid and weird hang-ups as other parents do.”
I was tempted to ask what weird hang-ups we did possess, but I’m not entirely stupid.
“Epic, huh?” I said with the hugest grin on my face.
“Yeah, yeah…” he muttered, starting to get embarrassed.
“I suppose I shouldn’t push my luck and make you regret telling me this, huh?”
“Nope.”
What an amazing gift to receive from my teenage son. Especially, I have to confess, since his older brother has… um… how shall I say this… well he’s at the other end of the behavioral spectrum, often choosing to deliberately withhold his thoughts and words from me, and then knowingly hurt me with them when he doesn’t.
After savoring the moment for a minute, I dragged myself back to the point of origin. “How did all that tie in with Rob and his mom?”
“I basically said that you were the best mother anyone could have, and he said, ‘No, my mom was.’ He said ‘was’. It was really sad.”
My heart bounced back and forth like a pinball – feeling huge joy at how blessed I am with my family, and huge sadness that not everyone has the same. I felt selfish and guilty about it for a while, but I finally let it land and stay on joy as I drove home having more of a wonderful conversation with my son.
My husband met me at the door when I came home today. “So, how did it go?” he asked anxiously.
“I think I may love another man,” I said, still kind of stunned, and blinking back tears of bottled-up emotion.
Doc chuckled appreciatively and put his arms around me. “I was worried that it wouldn’t go well for you. Tell me what he said.”
So I told him. But before I tell you, let me catch you up a wee bit…
Last Thursday I got my final jaw prosthetics. Okay, fine, for all intents and purposes, they’re glorified “false teeth”, but dammit, considering how much money they cost me and how many surgeries and torture I had to go through to get these suckers bolted into my jaw, I’m calling them what the specialists call them: prosthetics, so if that sounds pompous to you… well, bite me.
The previous “final” prosthetics worked well but they made me look like a horse. I got those abominations on The Big Day, which was supposed to be a joyous climax after years of pain and preparation, but instead it was a huge disappointment for all involved, including my dentist. He told the lab that he had hired to custom-make my prosthetics, that they had to do them all over again, and we went back to the drawing board to make the mould they were to follow.
These new final ones are… not bad. A work in progress. I’ve been struggling to get used to them, singing along to the radio to try to lose some of the lisp that I now find myself with. I met up with some friends right after I got them and they assured me they looked good. I tried to believe them, but there was hesitation in their replies. Was I imagining it? How paranoid am I?
This isn’t my first turn on this pony ride, so I know that the mind can play tricks on you and it can take a period of adjustment, no matter how perfect a prosthetic may be. I reminded myself of this every time I accidentally bit something I didn’t mean to (my cheek and tongue are hamburger), and I made a point of looking in the mirror dozens of times over the weekend to try to get used to my new face and make myself happy with what I saw. But I couldn’t quite do it.
I’ve felt very unattractive for the last while. I’ve chalked some of it up to the hideous horse teeth that the last prosthetics were, but a lot of it comes from the humiliating process of having my face, with every wrinkle and imperfection, examined, analyzed, and discussed in painful detail. Yet again. Like I said – this isn’t my first go ’round on that particular pony.
It turns out, it won’t be my final final (how many finals is this, anyway?) ride either. This has been a very long and frustrating adventure, and I’m tired. I had almost convinced myself that I should just suck it up and settle for the face that the lab gave me on Thursday, and just have that long-desired end. After all, it doesn’t look bad. It’s okay. It had been worse.
I grew up in a culture that says you’re supposed to be grateful for whatever you get, and not inconvenience others. And for God’s sake, don’t ever be vain or selfish in any way! But, ya know, I’ve spent an assload of money and suffered immeasurable pain to re-build not just a proper functioning jaw, but also a smile that I will have for, ideally, the rest of my life. I’m kinda slow, but it finally dawned on me that I shouldn’t have to be asking my friends and family, “Are you sure this looks okay?” I should be looking in the mirror and being fricken thrilled with the results!
So I went back to my dentist today, so he could make the adjustments that will let me chew something other than my own flesh. But I also tried to psyche myself up to ask him to help me one last time, to see if I could get more… aw, fuck, I’ll just say it – more attractive results than just “not bad”.
I squirmed at the mere thought of expressing less than complete satisfaction, and asking for more help. To say that he has gone above and beyond is a gross understatement! Outside of loved ones, he’s given me the most respect, care, and effort of anyone *by far* during this ordeal (actually, ever, from any medical professional), and yet he’s been the least financially compensated. This chafes at my sense of fairness like you wouldn’t believe! And as for the lab – they’ve already made whole new prosthetics once at their own expense because I we weren’t satisfied with the first ones, so….
This is the kind of situation that my old, deeply ingrained, childhood doctrine really feeds off. I already feel like I’ve been a bother – an inconvenience – and it’s difficult for me to convince myself that I should expect, want, or push for more. Now I was going to try to convince a businessman who has already been incredible, and who has undoubtedly taken a financial loss on my case overall, that I deserve more of his time? More of his effort? More than just “okay”?
I love this man. Not jump-his-bones love (although he is quite cute), but there’s certainly some hero love adding up. He was incredible today. I didn’t even have to ask him. He wasn’t satisfied with the “okay” appearance either, and he said that unless and until I’m completely happy, we’re not done. He’ll make the lab do it again. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll go to another lab. There just was no question about it. No hesitation. No impatience. No judgment.
He’s already been paid, less than he’s earned, and yet he’s willing to continue to help me. But it’s not that he’s willing to still help me, which alone is staggering enough. It’s that he’s standing in front and saying he’ll fight *for* me, even though there’s no more money, and even when I’m not so sure I have the confidence or the energy left to fight for myself.
I don’t know how to deal with that. It’s just one of several new, unprecedented things happening in my life, that are changing who I am.
Just have time for a quickie for now….
Many of you know that I’m as Scottish as anyone born this side of the Atlantic can be. I’m a first generation Canadian who was born redhead and freckled and named “Heather MacDonald”, after my parents emigrated from Scotland with my older brothers.
And although I don’t play golf or penny-pinch, and I outgrew all my kilts as a wee lass, I have been known to be stupidly proud and stubborn, and able to drink large quantities of alcohol including Scotch.
I mentioned earlier my appreciation for creative advertising. I’m a complete sucker for witty, intelligent, funny people, and if they happen to be male and attractive, I fall into deep trouble.
I could watch this video over, and over, and over….
It also makes me think of one of my favourite bloggers.
When Doc’s mother died of cancer, his dad was completely lost without his wife of almost 30 years. You’ve heard the expression “a shell of himself”? That described it perfectly. He couldn’t stand rattling around alone in the house, and within a year he met and then soon married his second wife, Grace. It raised some eyebrows, and some ire, in the family, but Doc and I were just relieved and pleased that he found peace and joy again.
They had been married for 17 years when Grace died of cancer three years ago. Dad’s been stronger than the first time he had to bury a wife, but still very lost and lonely.
My father-in-law does not do well being alone. He is a man who needs someone to share his life with. He gets negative, and needy, and as much as I love and respect him, he can sometimes be childish and unreasonable in his loneliness. That’s not a dig at him at all – god knows I can’t imagine EVER living through what he’s lived through. If I were to ever lose Doc, you may as well pad the walls and fit me with a white jacket with extra long sleeves. I’m quite sure I wouldn’t be mature about it one bit.
Dad lives about an hour away from us, but he won’t drive to our house – the traffic on the highway between us is too heavy and stressful for him. And that’s fair – it’s a stretch of road filled with suicidal idiot drivers, and unpleasant for us to drive as well. But the reality is that our lives are very full and busy (with what, it’s not always clear, but they are), and we haven’t given him as much of our attention or time as he would like.
Doc’s dad phones fairly often, just to chat, but it’s not always easy to find anything to talk about. Same with when we go and visit him – after the initial round of “What’s new?”, and “Heard any gossip lately?”, it’s a bit of a chore to fill the spaces. Dad’s world is very small now, and ours is very… different… than his, so there’s little in common. This time of year brings some welcome relief to that, because it’s CFL season (Canadian Football League) and we’re all Roughrider fans, so that gives us one extra thing to talk about, instead of just the weather. We’ve tried to make some extra effort and we’ve gone to his place to watch the games on TV with him more.
One night, after watching the Rider game here at home, Doc phoned his dad to ask him what he thought of it. The phone rang, and rang, and rang. No one home. Strange. Dad has a very predictable and mundane daily schedule. There’s only a handful of people he socializes with, and they go to the local Tim Horton’s for coffee at the same times throughout the day, and he’s home and in bed early at night. He occasionally takes road trips to visit relatives, but he hadn’t mentioned going away when last we spoke.
A little while later, Doc tried phoning again. Ring. Ring. Still no answer.
Huh.
The next time we thought to try again, it was late in the evening, past Dad’s normal bedtime, so we were a little puzzled and concerned, but we didn’t call.
Two hours later, his father phoned us.
“Uh, yeah, you called? Hmm. I was out. Oh, the Rider game? Was that today? Huh, I guess it was, wasn’t it. I forgot all about it.”
Upon hearing this, I roared with delight. It turns out that Dad has a girlfriend. 
He’s had PLENTY of women throw themselves at him since he’s been widowed. At the age of 79, slim, healthy, and charming when he wants to be, he’s a hot commodity in the senior community. He’s entertained us with stories of some of the more aggressive and surprising (and enterprising!) old gals who’ve tried to corner him, but he’s an old-fashioned romantic who has no patience for silly games and drama. He just wants someone genuine to love who will love him back.
We were going to go watch the Labour Day classic football game at his place yesterday, and maybe BBQ something for supper. He called me before we left and told me not to worry about bringing food. “My best girl made something for us,” he said with a chuckle.
His “best girl” is named Barbara, and we met her last night. They’ve been “seeing each other” for two months.
They sat on the couch beside each other, not touching, but oh, my god, it was adorable to watch. Where before it had been an effort to find something to talk about with him, now it was an effort to keep a goofy grin off my face. They were like fricken teenagers, with sly smiles and innuendos zinging back and forth between them. I looked at Doc and he shrugged and grinned, thinking the same thing I was: WE’RE the kids – WE’RE usually the ones making googly eyes at each other and nuzzling and touching and forgetting the presence of others. We weren’t ‘uncomfortable’, per se, but boy was it weird to feel like the old married couple in the room.
We asked him the usual conversational questions, and his replies were all variations of the same thing: he doesn’t have time; he’s been so busy. Wait a second, aren’t those our lines?!?
Everything he said had “we” in the sentence, and a glance and a smile at his girl.
I’m still grinning.
Nothing – absolutely nothing – fills me with more joy than seeing the people I love be happy and goofy in love.
