Tag: family

There Is a Sadness…

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…that sits with me. It has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. It came with the knowledge. There is a period in every human’s life where we live blissfully unaware. Unaware of the things that change us and shape us into the adults we will become. I have always believed that we are all born with the same potential. We are all capable of achieving great things for ourselves and for those truly gifted, maybe the world. People in general, are also hopelessly flawed, {{{sigh}}}. In a quest to fix themselves they often push their failed dreams and inspirations onto their children, or there is mistreatment, judgment, and abuse. I love my family but like most families we had our ups, downs, and weirdness.

My knowledge came the day my little girl soul realized I was not loved or wanted as equally as the others. I have been treated differently my whole life. I am that kid that colors outside the lines. I am that kid that daydreams in your class because I am beyond what you are teaching. I am at that kid that craves to know WHY over everything that I find curious. I am at that kid who will drive you to the brink of anger but, I will not understand what I have done to put you there. I am that kid that relates to you by telling you a story of a similar nature to how you are feeling so I can avoid being told…you can’t possibly understand how I feel. I am a terrible listener, because the truth is I probably can’t or don’t want to because I always felt that NOBODY ever cared how I felt. So, sadness came to sit with me.

SADNESS and I have known each other for a very long time. I am fairly adept at managing it but occasionally just for a change of pace, life intervenes and then I find SADNESS holding my hand, making my decisions, borrowing trouble so ANGER can come for lunch.

Lately, I have been putting myself through the ringer. My older sister passed away in August. While we were not close and really had not been a part of each other’s lives for quite a while, I loved her. My inner child pines for days gone by, when we were children and all of the world’s wrath had yet to unfold on us. (DARK? sorry that’s how I feel) but we all know that life consistently rolls forward with or in this case without you. I hate to cry but as I age, I find myself getting really good at. I do not enjoy when I feel myself welling up over shit that I would not have spent more than a few seconds of apathy on in my youth. Who is this old lady that inhabits my soul? I told you ANGER has come for a visit. The realization of me being the only peep still carrying the colors for my family feels wrong. It makes me feel all the feels, which, if you know me, makes me very uncomfortable with any of it.

I feel a hope rising within me. While sadness and anger are a part of everyone who lives, it is time for them to go back on the shelf with the other time worn emotions of my soul. Negative emotions suck too much energy out of who I know I am. Yesterday, my usual sense of being returned. Things are getting better. I no longer have to be the kid who fixes other people’s problems. IYKYK. I am seen. I am heard. I am wanted. I am LOVED.

Brenda 2004, Mom 2007, Pops 2016, Celine 2021. My family. Tears flow for the love I no longer get to share with the ones who have gone on before me. Until we meet again. You know, I love you, right?

The Bubble

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Everyone that you know in and around your life, myself included live their lives in a bubble. Wait, hear me out. As adults we generally have a decent dedicated small circle of friends and family we lean on, look up to and hang out with. These people are part of our bubble and in turn we are part of theirs. It reminds me of math class when the teacher makes the circles on the chalkboard showing where common variables are within the innermost middle of the bubbles that are intersecting each other. This is life. The bubble changes size many times in the course of a lifetime. Variables change; people come and go, loved ones die.

I have an older sister. She was recently diagnosed with stage four cancer. Our family bubble has always been lopsided. Not perfectly formed, difficult to maintain. Our mother was a wounded soul, who brought that into a family dynamic. Those wounds braided themselves into the fabric of our lives. I often found myself at odds with my older sister. Yes, there were times we truly got along. Sadly, there were many more times when I just didn’t want to be part of her bubble. I have always loved her. I have not always liked her or appreciated her. It is a wonderful thing that love never dies or gives up.

Because I am an ass that holds a good grudge our relationship has been strained for many years. I take full responsibility. She didn’t reach out to me about not feeling well until the rowboat she has been drifting in life with started to take on more water than she could bail. There has been contact throughout our grown-up lives but nothing really meaningful. She moved out of Massachusetts in the late 1980s. Only rarely to come back this way. Weddings, funerals, the occasional “I miss the family” tantrum, and in the grand scheme of things just because she wanted to be loved by her bubble, her family.

I have always been the odd duck. I prefer Swan, but whatever. I was the middle child. I am an introvert. Go ahead and have a good laugh, but it is true. When you experience me in public that is the mask I learned to use for survival. I prefer tangible things that don’t have emotions over people who make life messy. Being this way makes me appear angry and judgmental sometimes. I have never been good managing my own emotions. No one ever taught me. My mother was ALL over the place. Happy one minute, raging against the machine the next. Growing up was? Let’s just say I am adult survivor of our shared childhood traumas. Enough of that. Time to get to my point.

Celine is my sister. She has stage four Breast Cancer. I know very little about her adult life from the past 25 years. My choice. In an effort to create my own (bubble) life, my own version of happiness, I simply did not reach out. I cannot change the way our paths have gone. I am unsure about how I feel. We have spoken. I am at odds. I am angry for us. I am angry at myself. In my efforts to avoid feeling or dealing with my emotions, I hurt her. When in fact I just wanted to exist in a place where peace reigned. Foolish mortal. I cannot undo what has been lived. I am sorry I wasn’t … present in your life. I am sorry I missed the good, the bad, and the ugly.

I have no idea how much time she has left on this plain of existence. I hope she finds peace in her final days. I do indeed LOVE her. I hope our loved ones on the other side of the veil greet her with the love she missed in this life.

Out With The Old…

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In with new? So more than a few years ago ‘the Spark Joy movement’ started by Marie Kondo swept through the USA and I am sure other well-meaning societies too. Who doesn’t enjoy a quick, easy to use technique for changing a life path? After I threw out numerous bras and panties my hubby asked me to spark my JOY another way. I find myself at the end of another year in this walk of life. We are just a few months into 2025. Just WOW! I moved into a new age decade July 2024. I am now one of the millions of people who are referred to as “old, older, ancient…” I think you get my drift. I would like to say that I am middle- aged but since I know I won’t live to be 120 years old that is a bold face lie on my part. I have always been dramatic about getting older. I have I often feared that time was/is my enemy. I chose that path when I could’ve been enJOYing the walk all along.

Time is the greatest liar. It is misleading and lurks in dark corners waiting patiently for you to notice that you have spent it foolishly. Time can be on your hands, running out, getting away from you. It can be spent wisely and foolishly. Time can be “on your side” or completely against you. It is a cruel prankster and often baffles the person trying to manage what little time they have left to accomplish all of the things on their bucket lists.

I recently read somewhere that if a person is really lucky, they have about 4000 weeks or roughly 77 years of life. This information caused me to spin into the far reaches of my quiet spaces and worry about my time. How have I spent it? How many weeks do I have left? Does my bucket list need to be updated? Are there bridges I am willing to burn/cross to live within my peace? I honestly don’t know how to answer these questions. I never once in my youth thought that I would be where I am now on the cusp of yet another birthday, dreams unmet, waistline, sigh, let’s just say I am setting that pipe dream free. There are so much more great things in my life that are far more important than my body shape. I have held onto that pressure for way too long. And then it hit me…

I AM LIVING MY BEST LIFE just by being in it, being involved in what goes on around me, loving the people in my life. My hubby and I are rediscovering how wonderful we are together and not just as married peeps but as friends. He is my ride or die. The number of weeks left to my life is not what is important, it is who you spend your time with. Take that vacation, hug that loved one, tell your friends how much you love them, spark JOY for yourself. Be in your moments. At the end of a life well spent there should be no regrets, no should’ve, could’ve, would’ve.

Never Give Up on the Person You Are Meant to Be

Thoughts…

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that I am thinking at about 4 a.m. Today is not like any other day for me. Today for the first time in forty years I am having major surgery. I am nervous but confident that things will turn out as they need to. Somewhere along the path on my journey through life I figured out how to be a good person. I know? Right? I don’t know how things are going to play out but let me say this; I LOVE YOU. I love having you in my life. I enjoy our time together and you are valuable to me. You have taught me how to listen and to be heard. You have taught me it is okay to be myself, even if sometimes that self is an ass. You let me be a part of your lives and for that I am so blessed. Growing up I always felt like I was not worthy enough to have friends. Wow, how wrong could I have been? At this moment in my life, right now, today I am the most content I have ever been. My life is surrounded by good vibes and great people.

The pandemic we are all trying to live through has been tough on everyone for many varied reasons. I have let a few people slip out of my life quietly but on purpose (TOXIC). Knowing your value is being wise enough to let someone or something leave your plane of existence when it is not HEALTHY or helpful to a life worth living. I struggle with my own sense of self worth and love. I DO NOT need the burden of carrying around someone else’s negative juju. It is amazing just how light that can make you feel. There is no reason to be nasty to them just LET THEM QUIETLY stop being a part of your parade.

Because I felt unloved in my youth I felt alone in the world. Because of YOU I have learned how to be loved. Because of you I am no longer feeling alone. I love having you in my life. I love being in your lives. Thank you for taking the time to try solve the riddle that is me. Because of you, for you I shall live on in a much better place than the one I started out in.

My fear is that I will lose my voice. I love to sing. It s my therapy. Singing brings my world into tune. It makes me feel beautiful both inside and out. It is my happy place. Thank you for putting up with me singing in the most inappropriate of places. Thank you for being patient with me. Thank you for being pleasantly surprised that I can carry a tune. Thank you for just being my friend, my family, my framily.

Love the people in your life. You never know what you mean to someone else. You are someone’s everything. You are ENOUGH. You are loved. You are my world.

Never Give UP On The Person You Are Meant To BE.

The Heart of the Matter

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I have experienced great loss in my life. My kid sister, my Mom, my Pops, my cousin Mike. I love each of them dearly in entirely different ways. Both my cousin and my sister were on the younger side of life. My world was shaken to its core the day my sister died. Losing her changed me in ways I never imagined a person could change. I am kinder. I am in my moments. I tell people I love them. I HUG. I am less guarded with my emotions, which is both a blessing and a curse. I am not perfect nor do I want to be. Some days I am still a shit. I can be hateful but I try to be the better version of myself everyday.

I am writing this because I am trying to reign in my emotions. I have had a tough couple of days which in all honesty pales in comparison to the last couple of days in life of someone I love, my Auntie T. I love this woman. She is my Mother’s kid sister. She has always been the cool Aunt. The one who took you on adventures when you were a kid. The one who bought you the Christmas gift your parents didn’t know you needed. She took me to have my picture taken by a photographer before I started Kindergarten. I was petrified of the camera. She was so patient. I am part Native American so who knows maybe our ancestors knew a thing or two about soul stealers? When I was a little girl, before my Auntie started a family of her own, she was my magic. There was always something about her, almost like an energy, a force of nature.

As life sometime goes, in the process of growing up you also grow away. Life is a selfish journey sometimes and though no one is at fault we all move in directions that sometime remove us from the people we love the most. My teen years and her own growing family changed our dynamic.  We were busy moving in our own circles. Our lives on very separate paths for a long time…and then my sister died, and my mother was not well. Over the next few years I grew closer to my Auntie again. I guess I never realized just how much she has meant to me until she told me that she needed heart surgery.

My own mother had heart surgery when she was 48 or 49 years old. She almost did not survive. My mother smoked. She was obese. She struggled with mental illness. The real problems with her recovery were linked to a 3 pack a day smoking habit and the amount of psyche meds she was on. She was in a medically induced coma for several days and her body did not want to breathe again on its own.  Eventually my mother got better and after a very long 10 months she was back to herself. The vision of my mom lying lifeless after surgery lives in my memory. Needless to say I was very afraid for my Auntie.

I prayed. Small thing, right? Not for me. Not for the girl who feels invisible, even to God. I was relieved when the text came through my phone that my Auntie had pulled through surgery ok. Maybe just this once God heard me. I went to visit with her today. She is doing well. She is so much more healthier than my poor mother ever was. She has a long recovery in front of her but she will make it. I hope she has many well lived years ahead of her. Never underestimate what you mean to someone. I have always tried to be the best example to my niece and nephews because of my Auntie T. She knows I love her but I don’t think she knows how important a role she has played in my life. Thank you for being you.

You are loved more than you know.

You are stronger than you realize.

I Love You.

Sunflowers
Soulshine
and love

 

 

Unwritten

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All of my tries are outside the lines…The time has once again come for me to tweak my story. I get so caught up in “fixing” myself that I get lost. I am tired, almost out of good groceries to snack on AND if I am being completely honest with you, I want to be found. In spite of myself and all of the incorrect beliefs that I have lived most of my life by, I have all of the things I yearned for in my youth. I am loved. I am happily married to a great guy. I have friends that I care deeply for and likewise. I am gainfully employed. I live in a nice neighborhood in a house that is neither too large nor too small. I am a middle-aged woman. I am in the throes of Menopause. I am beautiful in a way that is more important than physical attractiveness. I am ENOUGH! I am tired of trying to live up to expectations I set for myself back in the days of my wild youth in the middle of teenage angst and acne. Those foolish expectations have proven to be unattainable time and time again. SO!?!

Why do I continue to make myself miserable? This weekend I looked through photos of my life. In most of these photos I am, well, I am as I am now semi-round. There is a discernible twinkle in my eye. Here lies the real me the one the naked eye cannot behold. In these pictures I see the loves of my life: my Mom, my Dad, my sisters, the rest of the members of my family who have passed on or moved too far away for me to keep in touch with, except through the modern miracle of social media. It is in the memories of these moments captured in technicolor that bring a smile to my soul not my dress size. I was loved anyway.

I am no longer interested in the pursuit of {insert impossible dream here} a foolish ideal that will make my life magically fall into place. I am not sure what will be in the next chapter of my life but I look forward to new pages everyday. Tomorrow is still unwritten .
Here’s to the next story of my life.

 

Repeat As Needed

Loss, grief, and LOVE

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I have been here before. Surrounded by people I love but lost in the vastness of my own despair. People are talking to me but their voices carry over my head like the sounds you hear while submerged in a hot bath tub trying to soak away the worries of the world. Muted tones, blurred words. My pain raises in my throat like a lump of hot coal. My throat burns as I try to swallow. I suppress the urge to cry out. I choke on my own grief. Tears spill out, roll down my cheeks and expose me. This is my reaction to someone else’s loss. Why? The question I ask myself every time someone I love loses someone they love.

Grief is a strange thing. Emotions crash over me like waves on a sun soaked beach. People in the business of Psychology will tell you grief has stages. I always thought that was horseshit and feathers until I joined the club. This club has many members and no one is here willingly. If given a choice most people want more time with their loved one; to live another day, to love with every ounce of their being, to laugh until they can’t, to hold onto the magic of them, to make one last memory, to acknowledge their stronghold on your heart.

Seldom does anyone get those chances. Love the people in your life while they are with you. Get angry, fight, be involved, just don’t forget to STOP and LOVE and LAUGH and EMBRACE. Make a memory. Have you ever seen the movie Artificial Intelligence ? I can not watch this movie without crying. It portrays happiness in it’s purest form and grief so raw it burns. This movie pulls at all the important emotions that make life worth living.

I’ve spent many years unable to accept kind words or deeds done in memory of my loved ones because my soul was too broken and numb. I was unable to hear anything above my own anguish. Perhaps that is why I cry when I am faced with a loss that is not mine.  I still struggle to maintain a peace within myself over the loss of my family. I often wonder if I will ever feel whole again. Never under estimate what you mean to someone else.
the-most-beautiful

Framily

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I often forget, well, I don’t really forget I get complacent and take for granted all of the things I am grateful for. I had a terrific weekend. I went to a parade in Plymouth MA with a friend. It was a lovely day. A little windy but bright and inviting. I sang to the breakfast crowd at Will & Co. Café. I have a habit of breaking out into song in the oddest of places but I was loving life and I wanted to share my joie de vivre.

My friends (the people I love most in this world) allow me the indulgence to be. I am pretty sure that I have never expressed my gratitude adequately enough. I apologize. You are everything wonderful to me.  I am so lucky to have you in my life. Family is sometimes made up of people you are not related to but who you can relate to.

In recent years I have lost my sister, my mom, my dad; me, but in a different way. It’s  difficult to be thankful. I spent so many years feeling trapped by the constraints of family and its obligations that I never put much thought into what would become of my world when these minor inconveniences were no longer of my daily life. Being part of a family is tough not being part of a family is tougher. I now know what it feels like to get invited to a party where I am the only who shows up in drag. Oh that isolating swirl of emotion that sets you aside from those around you, wonderful really.

I wish I could turn back time. I would hold my mom in my arms and tell her how much I love her because I never told her enough. I would tell my dad he was my hero. I would HUG my kid sister. And I would be thankful for every ugly, angry, happy, loved moment of being part of something.

Do you  know how blessed you are? Find out. Sit back, be quiet. Drink in the laughter of your loved ones. Embrace what you have been given, make a memory and hold on as long as you can. somethinggratitude

 

 

 

 

The Ripple

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If you are very fortunate in life there are people who “get” you. My personal list happens to be on the short side. My life’s path has been blessed by many people, and yes, some of you have been really lovely but let’s be honest most of you don’t  “get” me. The pool of people in my life (people that I hold near and dear to my heart and soul) is rather small. I have never been quite sure if  I can attribute that to my unwillingness to meet new people or to the fact that most people are too judgmental and hurtful. Recently this pool of mine has lost some members. There was no lapse in coverage or a failure to renew. Their life cycles just stopped spinning.

Now, even though it is not true, I feel like I am spinning all alone. My cousin Mike was a kind, unique human being; and just like a flash of lightning he is gone.  Once again I find myself in the place of regrets, with thoughts unspoken and deeds undone. How did our lives end up on opposite shores? How do I tell you how much you have always meant to me? I can’t.  I can only hold onto my belief that somehow you know how golden we once were, before life and dreams of adulthood separated our paths. You will always live in my heart where I hold onto all the wonderful things from my life. You always made me laugh. You always listened when I was certain no one heard.  You were more than a ripple in the wave of my life. I owe you more than I can ever pay forward. You were one of the reasons I learned to fly. I hope you know that you are loved. I will forever miss you. Rock the Heavens. Lord knows they could use better music.

A ripple seems like a small thing until you realize how big its impact is. Be the ripple in the waves of someone’s life. wave

 

Holiday

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I wasn’t sure if I could make it through today. I was not looking forward to this Thanksgiving. I gleaned something about my myself and my Pops. He is in the things that I do. He lives in my heart and soul not in any one thing he ever gave me. That cowboy hat I have in the closet does not hold his essence; I do. He is not in the Army trunk that once housed his khakis. He is in my thoughts while I peel the potatoes for his favorite stuffing. He is in the warmth of the kitchen as things simmer. I can hear his laughter amongst the laughter of my guests enjoying the football game.

NEW TRADITION ALERT! I decided I was not going to make a turkey, so I didn’t. This year for the first time I prepared a spiral ham.  I needed to step away from all of the memories that I associate with this holiday. Many of them are NOT pleasant. I wanted to be free. Many past Thanksgivings have been ruined by my quintessential family:  arguments, flying food, insults, drunken behavior and trips to the ER for stitches. Thanksgiving makes me grumpy and short tempered. I do all of the work. I am the one who allows herself to get frazzled. I am the one who obsesses about everything being “perfect”. No one else cares. They just want to eat, relax and have some fun.

I let go of my old tired tradition and ate, relaxed and had some fun.