Category: Uncategorized

it was amazing

There is a ginormous eclair sitting on the countertop behind me that is SCREAMING my name.

“Eat Me!” is pulsing out of the white bag on the counter, getting louder and more urgent with each repeat.

But, I don’t want to eat it yet because after I do, there will be nothing to look forward to tonight

#ilovegluten, #friendswhobake,

 

I can do this with USGS maps on my computer:

hours of fun

I have, in my home, at this moment, several loaves of bread from one friend’s bakery, a yummy ciabatta from my other friends’ bakery, and the remains of 2 dozen New York bagels.

I LOVE that my friends bring me gluten.

Years of baking completely gluten free has turned gluten into a sort of heroin for me.

Sometimes, I will treat myself to a fresh out of the oven baguette. I inhale almost all of it – pick pick pick. So then, when I start to gross myself out (but not enough to stop eating) I throw the rest of the loaf into the woodstove.

That way, I can honestly say that, no, I did not eat an entire loaf of bread.

New York and DC you have created a monster.

My badass canyon climbing dog has decided that he is now a lap dog.

Elvis thanks you.

I do not.

This last year has been about friendships for me; who’s in, who’s out.

There has been great beauty in all of it and also deep, excruciating pain. The beauty and the pain have come hand in hand – gain a friend, lose a friend.

There are places in my heart that are still so deeply wounded that I can’t yet write about them.

Some day.

Last week I had the glaring contrast of letting go of a beloved friend and embracing two gals for whom my heart will always have space and love.

The ones that I’ve lost help me appreciate the ones that I’ve gained and the women that I have, the deepest love, shine a light on the flaws in other relationships.

In other words – the friends who show up provide a glaring contrast to those who don’t. And once seen, those discrepancies cannot be unseen.

Years ago, my friend DD said to me, “If a friendship isn’t feeding your soul, then let go of it.”

That’s been really hard for me. I want people to like me. I want to be seen as a nice person. I hate feeling like the bad guy. I hate thinking that people perceive me as angry or crazy – someone to avoid.

I can beat myself up pretty badly.

And that’s where the flip side of the coin comes in.

I have people who have supported and loved and laughed at, and with, me. I have people who love me despite my ugly.

Some might even love my ugly, or at least they tolerate it.

The relationships that feed me help with the loneliness and pain caused by the ones that don’t, but nothing can make the grief vanish. Just like the people who hurt me so badly can’t take away the love that I receive from others.

I so wish that I could just forget about the hurt, the betrayal, the isolation. I wish that reveling in the love erased the not-love.

But, if that could happen then the opposite could happen too; the pain could erase the warm embrace given to me by so many.

And we wouldn’t want that to happen, now, would we?

 

 

 

Out of the hospital

Thank you universe

no jail

I’m in a fucking heap this afternoon and I am just going to whine here for a moment, so if you don’t feel like listening, that’s fine with me.

I feel beaten down. I want a break. I want something good to happen.

I know I have plenty of good and at the heart of all of it are my people. I am blessed and I know it and I’m not being bombed with chemical weapons, whatever. Blah blah blah.

My reality is that I have been and continue to be pummelled.

My 87-year-old father is in the hospital with multiple issues, my son is getting sentenced to jail for this fucking accident on Friday, and I can’t get past how I’ve been treated this year by people who supposedly loved me, because all of these people are around.

I feel pain. I’m tired. The teary floodgates have opened and I can’t stop the waterworks.

All was contained today until I got a call from the son of a friend who died (not recently) asking me about scattering his father’s ashes and I know that MXB should be a part of that and we can’t both be a part of it so I bowed out.

It was the right thing to do.

But how much can a gal take? I know that I keep referring to the last several months when my world imploded; the breakup, losing the home, boys moving out, accident, giardia, concussion etc. But the reality is that this started long before that with my mom’s cancer and my dad’s life-threatening heart and lung issues.

I want to go to Florida now – I know it would help them. But I can’t go because of this week’s sentencing.

So then I have to face the reality that my son is likely going to have to do jail time and I really didn’t plan that when I decided to have children.

I feel crushed beneath a boot heel.

Last fall, when the shit hit, even though I was crippled with sadness and there was too much on my plate for any one person to manage, I knew that I had the fortitude and tenacity (god, I love that word) to make it through.

Today, I don’t have that confidence. All I have today is a wall of disbelief and a petulant sense of deserving better.

I want to kick and scream and throw shit and then not have all of this crap happening any more.

Like I said, I want something good to happen.

I’ve had Utah.

Without Utah, I wouldn’t be walking and talking.

I have incredible people. One showed up today with a Sally-green spatula for my kitchen which made me smile.

But I just feel like I can’t do any more. My reserves for tackling this next round have been completely depleted. And yet it’s here. I’m in it.

It’s thick and murky and sludgy and I just want to lie down and let it consume me.

I am tired of fighting the fight.

I am tired of having to be resilient and strong and tenacious.

I want to wake up excited for the day, not weighted down before I am even out of bed.

No one deserves the suffering that they must endure, but I’m at the point where I’m thinking I fucking deserve something better than this.

I’m tired.

I’m tired.

I’m tired.

 

My best friends from 6th grade will be here in that much time.

We were tight in 6th and 7th grade and then all went to different schools.

We think the last time the 3 of us were together was maybe junior year in High School.

C, I’ve seen a couple of times over the years. Pre-children. Last time we spoke was 3 or 4 years ago.

J, neither C nor I had spoken with her since junior year in high school.

This winter, we had one conference call and now they are coming here.

How great is that?

They’re city girls: Manhattan and D.C. They have jobs that require an education. They hear car horns on a regular basis. They have husbands.

Our lives are all so different.

And it’s so cool that we all went in different directions, haven’t talked for all of these years, and after one conversation decide that we still like each other enough to want to hang out.

I’m so excited I can barely stand it.