Category Archives: all about me

today I have the courage

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I am not a hat person. In fact, I believe that I look ridiculous in hats. Wandering through the accessories department I want so much to just pick up a hat and try it on. Preening in the mirror I would see this gorgeous creature not ridiculous me wearing a hat that is obviously too small for my big head with even bigger hair.

I am not a hat person.

My daughters, on the other hand look great in hats…any hats. They put them on and transform into whatever characteristic the hat conveys and they strut around confidently wearing their hat. It’s the self confidence that they have, I know. Yes, I have been jealous of that confidence my girls have while at the same time congratulating myself and their father for being the awesome parents that we are to have raised up such dauntless human beings. If only I had that sense of self back when I was their age. I would have been wearing hats all the time.

Alas, I am not a hat person.

But the other day I decided to try on a hat…

and…

It fit! A ladies’ hat that fit my fat head! I kind of liked how I looked with it on too. So I bought it. Then I wore it today…all day…everywhere.

Perfect day to wear such a hat too since it was hot like seven inches from the mid-day sun hot.

I have a hat. It is graceful and feminine and has a wide brim with a red ribbon around the band. It gives me a certain dignity, as if I were attending a state funeral or something. People are generous in their compliments. Someday I may get up enough courage to wear it, instead of carrying it.
~ Erma Bombeck


this is mine

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Years ago a family member declared that I was a Golden Retriever. I was insulted and hurt because a Golden Retriever is a dog and having been called a dog to my face by classmates through junior high school and high school the last thing I ever expected was a family member would, you know, call me a dog. But then it was further explained that it was my personality that was like that of a Golden Retriever based on one of way too many pop-psychology personality inventory exercises that were all the rage in the late 80′s and 90′s. Truth be told, I am, for the most part, a loyal, non-demanding, accommodating, adaptable, sympathetic, co-dependent, peace-maker kind of person who does hate confrontation and change. I am also desperately afraid of heights, an overly cautious driver, bad tempered, depressed subjected to almost paralyzing anxiety attacks (especially when someone else is driving) and not always such a good parent. All of that…and a lot more…is me. I admit it. I own it. I have never tried to hide who I am. Thankfully people who know me best, people who love me best accept me for me…and choose to focus on all the stuff that makes me amazingly awesome.

The co-dependent-y, Golden Retriever in me is the person I have been since I was a very small child. It was who I had to be. I was the nurturer. I was the care-giver. I was hurt…hurt a lot…hurt way too much by people I should have been receiving nurturing and unconditional love from. I survived the only way that I could denying my own feelings, my own frustrations, my own fears, my own anger, my own opinions, my own accomplishments, my own self. And like a Golden Retriever, I remained loyal, reliable and trustworthy and kind hoping…hoping for just a little love, a little patience, a little praise would come my way. What Golden Retriever doesn’t want that?

But the years have passed and I have changed a little…for the better…for me. I am still a nurturer…hello…wife, mommy, Mi-ma, nurse! I still am sensitive. I still hate change. I still want everyone to just get along and like me. But I am not so much the doormat that I was as a child and a young adult. I no longer wait desperately for the approval from the adults of my childhood and young adulthood. I don’t have time because I am too busy juggling this circus life of mine. Well, except for when I re-arrange schedules, cancel a much needed medical procedure, turn down extra work, cancel 16th birthday dinner party plans and anniversary plans, miss my child’s Tae Kwon Do belt testing and basically drop everything because I want people whom I love to be happy and to love me…just like the loyal dog that I am. Here you can’t help but recall that old saying about teaching old dogs. I know that I can’t.

Almost eight years ago I began this blog for a number of reasons that boil down to one basic cause…I did this for me. I don’t write to share my family life in pictures and words with family. I don’t write to make money to support my Starbucks habit. I don’t write for free stuff. I don’t write under the pretense that I am a great writer…or even a good writer. What goes into this blog is simply for me. I write what I want to write about. I share what I want to share. Yet, surprisingly, I have an audience. A pretty awesome audience that literally spans the globe, many who have been here since the very beginning. And surprisingly most of you aren’t even related to me.

Still, this, this blog, is mine.  It is my perception of the life happening around me, the life I am living. It is my thoughts and my thoughts alone…except for the couple of times that I have allowed someone else to write their thoughts and their perceptions. This is mine. The adventures described are how I see them through my eyes. Another person living the same event at the same time most definitely will see it differently but here in this blog what they see or feel or hear or understand is not a part of what I am writing about. I’m writing about my own reality here…even if one might perceive it to be melodrama…

Sidebar:
Melodrama?! Seriously? This is melodrama? This life I am living now? Honey my life was a fucking melodrama when I was younger than my grandchildren…you know, when a child’s parents should be making it all about the innocent child and not their crazy, fucked up-ness. I look at my grandbabies and I shake my head over the fucked up-ness that is the adults I was wholly dependent upon then. There are no excuses…none…seriously don’t even try…not when you are talking about the life of an innocent, wholly dependent child fucked up by the adults she depends upon to meet her most basic needs. What I write about now is boring, stupid, vapid shit in comparison to say my life as a three year old…no, this now is not melodrama.
Not.
At.
All.

You don’t like it? Well, there is so much more out there on the Web that I’m sure one can spend their time on. But this microscopic slice of the interwebs is my reality and is mine. I thank you for reading it. I thank you for commenting on it. I thank you for respecting it and respecting me and my reality here on my blog.

truth be told

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The conversation starts this way, “Have I done something to upset you or piss you off, because you hardly ever say hello and talk to me? What’s going on?”

So, do I tell her the truth? I mean, does she really want to hear what’s on my mind? It’s not too pretty. Which is why I have withdrawn a little…okay, a lot.

My attempt to protect others from the cra-cra that sometimes settles inside of me is, as usual, misconstrued as that I am mad at someone…think I’m better than someone….just like Jr. High. Except for the fact that no one really thought that of me back when I was in Jr. High…or High School. Living in a small town and a mom who liked to manically over share every weekend at the local beer garden pretty much made my withdrawal seem okay…and probably added to the sympathy for those poor kids of hers.

Hmmm…wondering here if I am more like Mommy Dearest than I want to admit that I am. No, not the bipolar disorder…the over sharing…then again I don’t have a local beer garden to do that in. There just isn’t such a thing here in my own small town. Yeah, there’s bars but not like back home…where you can actually bring a baby, or the kids into the bar, er, beer garden/tavern…to eat dinner while enjoying second-hand smoke. and awkward conversations with your parents tipsy friends.

My kids are so deprived and sheltered.

Lucky!

Oh wait, I’m off topic aren’t I?

Back to Jr. High…as in this is so like Jr. High girl drama.

Ugh!

When I was in college someone confronted me like this accusing me of thinking I was better than her and everyone else in our clinical group. Bewildered, I tried to explain that all I was doing was just keeping my head down while trying to get through the nursing program. My anxieties and demons had SO MUCH FUN with me back then convincing me that I wasn’t good enough, smart enough, strong enough. I was double wrapped in that cocoon then!

No, I’m not mad at her. She hasn’t done anything to me to make me mad at her. That is what I tell her while I roll my eyes inside my mind. It is indeed true. She hasn’t done anything…to me. I just need to be curled up in my little cocoon for just a little while. It’s why I hang on to it like I do…you know, for those times when my own anxieties and demons show up…and to protect myself from the crazy shit the drama queens who can’t move past Jr. High often try to stir up.

just a small town girl

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This week’s Focus 52 prompt is all about “my town”.

Show us where you live! Is there something you absolutely love about the place you live? Capture it and show us. Maybe you have a favorite place, favorite store, favorite hangout … take a few minutes this week to grab some photos to share.

I was not born in a small town but I have spent a good portion of my childhood in a small town(s)…in my humble (and somewhat limited) opinion, there was nothing more small town than Imperial, Clinton and Oakdale, Pennsylvania, where I lived from 5th grade through high school until I packed up and ran away headed to my birthplace in California. As a kid I hated small town life…I think that is the expectation of your average tween and teen though. In your limited world view there is nothing to do and no where to go in a small town. Everyone knows everyone and everyone’s business and as a kid you are only known as so and so’s kid…that could be a good thing or a very bad thing. If you knew my Mommy Dearest and my step-dad you would appreciate how hard it could be sometimes. But to consider my brothers and sister’s accounts it could be even harder if your oldest sibling is some kind of straight arrow, over-achiever who leaves right after graduation (and pretty much never comes back) so that no one can witness all of her major screw-ups and failings that are a part of growing up and becoming a real, bona-fide grown-up.

THANK GOD no one was able to witness that kind of craziness!

But, yeah, I am pretty much a small town girl, living in a small town world…even if I spent a good portion of my adult life falling in love, getting married, getting educated to pursue my life’s ambition and raising a family in a pretty big city in the Bay Area of California. But life can be funny sometimes as here I am for over nine years living the small town life.

Take note, if you really want to mess with your kids pull up stakes from life in the ‘burbs of Silicon Valley and land in a town where there is a cow pasture right across the street from the high school. Holly can tell you how amazing that is.

Truth be told, Manteca isn’t really a small town. It’s actually a city with a population of over 67,000 people. But it remains a city with a small town attitude, a small town way of thinking and a small town way of living…which is a good thing, but sometimes can be a bad thing…but it is a mostly good thing and a pretty great place to settle down and raise a circus. We are surrounded by orchards, vineyards, dairies and farms…and murals depicting all that, and more…and yes, there is a cow pasture directly across the street from one of my kids’ schools.

keeping it simple

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I know that plans and reality may be two different things, but I think my demands on life are minimal.
~Moshe Dayan

Last Sunday, while still feeling more green than usual, I bought myself some flowers…some beautiful flowers…because I can.

It’s nice when you receive something special like a simple bouquet of flowers…even if they are a fistful of dandelions from the backyard…especially if they are a fistful of dandelions from the backyard. It’s amazing how something so simple can make you feel special and remind you that today someone was thinking about you during the busyness of their day. It’s as if you have been enveloped by a warm, bear hug or been warmed by the clasp of hands…fingers laced.

Such a simple thing.

Such a needed thing.

A thing that often is overlooked, ignored and lost in the clutter and bustle of our day to day plugged-in lives.

Lately the simple is what I crave the most but when I try to articulate it it becomes all the more complicated. So, while at Safeway, doing my weekly shopping so the indigent tribe-peoples under the Big Top won’t starve, I bought myself some beautiful flowers.

I picked out, for myself, a simple bouquet of white tulips…because they were simple…because they were beautiful…because I can.

I’m glad that I did.

This week’s Focus 52 prompt is minimal.