The Holy Trinity

Speaking from a strictly personal experience, I know this mystery is what sets us apart from other faiths, even other Christian faiths. Also, there are beautiful elements and qualities in other the world religions that set them apart from the world, too, but this, along with transubstantiation, is what really marks us catholics apart from all others.

It's the mystery of three persons in one. 

Before anyone starts going crazy on me, I'm not really one to be talking about this in length as I am just a mere layperson in the context of worldly scholars, studied theologians, and various experts. And, if anyone has read any number of my posts, they would know that I am not a saint. I am not even backed up on my scriptures, and I struggle with my own things just like everyone else.

Also, I suck at explaining.

But in trying this out, in stepping into territory that I am wondering/starting to believe was part of my call here on earth due to the abilities I have been given (yes, acquired--but then, from whom do they come?), I branch out here. I try to explore the beliefs I have come to know here, the way one explores the traits of a most trusted friend, to offer my meager contribution to the plethora of opinions, beliefs, and even precepts that are out there (and perhaps explain why ours are there---the universal Church of Christ aka the Catholic Church.)

I don't do this to convince, either, because I have already wasted too much time trying to awkwardly share my thoughts before and ended up leaning too heavily to the convince-the-proverbial (theoretical) audience side. And for my part, it causing pandemic confusion at times and simply funny looks at others. Past efforts have been wasted, depending on the reason from where I wrote something or on another's ability to understand, and I, for one, am done with it.

I don't do this to convince, either, because I have never been one to push my thoughts and feelings down someone's throat. What's more, is that I have been surrounded in the past or immersed into situations where I am the one getting ideas shoved down her throat. I don't want to do that to others. I want to stand up for what I believe, I want to demonstrate the strength and the force with which I believe because I came to be lukewarm in my testimony, but without infringing on the freewill others.

In addition, if I believe in what I am sharing, and the proverbial audience is to be changed (or at least contemplative), then it will not be because I am so good at my job. It will not be because I am brilliantly persuasive or because I have all the answers, because I'm not and I don't. If something is to be changed and I am talking from the heart, the words will speak for themselves, no matter my style of delivery or vocabulary or use of language. It will be because something else is reaching through my words in their honesty, and I will be responsible for the integrity of my words, but not their effect. The effect, which is what I tried so hard to control in the all the ways I used to write, is not something I can control, I have finally learned. It is the result of the soul recognizing a truth in another soul, which gives an interior brightness and clarity or simple understanding. And so it is, that if effect does come upon my words or after, it is He to whom I should give glory, whose spirit inspired even the smallest bit of understanding from any single member of a so-called reader crowd, and not myself, because anything good that comes only comes because it was made possible by a greater and more loving creator. In ever having told my story, my faith has been and will always be an integral part of it. The difference, I stress, is intention.

So, before I dive into the mystery of the Holy Trinity, I stop here, if only to collect my thoughts more and to make a humanly-flawed attempt at an introduction, after which, "discussion" of the mystery will resume. It is time. It is time to give glory to the One who has given us all.

Old thoughts, a letter never sent, good reading

Why would I want to go see what you bashed me with? On a site that I'm not interested in seeing? You tend to keep thinking I NEED help, when in reality, I've carved out a pretty hard ass road ALONE and acquired some pretty damned solid morals within my faith in spite of myself, keeping an open mind to all forms of wisdom: great works of art, of music, quotes worth immortalizing, literature.


I don't claim to have more wisdom than anyone or any 90-day program, but I find a very solid sense of the same things you are learning with this program in the skill set I already have and it just grates me that you keep telling me you think you know what I need. I think you just need to stick to knowing what you need because you're not very good at knowing what I need. Most of these programs are carved out of the same principles found in every good-moral book: the Torah, the Koran, the Bible, even great philosophers and literature giants. I'm not trying to impress anyone, You. I'm done dancing to the tune of everyone else's fiddle, and...


...just what am I supposed to do about everybody's hate? I will eventually have to go back sooner or later, and when that transpires, everyone's just gonna have to get over it sooner or later because the people MOST immediately affected by my oh-so-demonic move are already moving on. Also, I'm just not worth the hassle. They are not the ones I screwed over! I'm not divorcing them, I'm not tearing up their relationships, I'm not ruining their lives. The people who still hate me have a responsibility, like it or not, to tell me directly, to approach me, to confront me about, or shut the hell up. I don't want to be mean, but I am physically exhausted and emotionally drained from all the ways other people have felt so entitled to be that angry that even in their ANGER they try to control what they cannot because they lack compassion and understanding in spades. Even in seeing just how and what I brought on myself, here, even now, all these thousands of miles away, this truth cannot be veiled.


I understand that their anger stems from being hurt, confused, misunderstanding, hell even cultural differences and I can't blame them. I can't begin to tell you the torment I've felt over this, the hot tears I've cried, the soul-wracking sobs that come from being 1 person who suffers the opinions of many, but what does you telling me about everyone hating me do for anyone? Does it make you feel better? Do you think you are telling me something I am not wholly and completely 100% aware of? Is it supposed to make me feel worse? Teach me a lesson? Bestow something else, anything else, any other morsel of fruitful bearing, wherein it would just be better to move on? What good does it produce? How does it help you or me or anyone move on, feel better about the things that have transpired or heal deep wounds?


Hurt? Hell yeah, I understand that one. Pissed, yeah, for sure. But telling me not to come back? I still have reasons to come back and if you don't want to be one of them, I can and will respect that, but taking suggestions that don't really come out for my well-being is exactly the suffocating thing that I defied by leaving. All the friends that were close to me/us were friends first and foremost because they had important traits/qualities we found in each other worth saving, worth investing, worth smiling and laughing about, telling jokes, celebrating with. I'll take anything they have to say. But no one is going to tell me how to be me.


As for the lingering gossipy few, there are plenty of lakes around for them to take a long walk off a short pier. Everyone in that area of the world has something to say and I, for one, am not going to walk around like Hester Prinn with the scarlet letter branded to my forehead on account that I'm some abhorrent troll. In fact, I'm not even going to walk around as the least or the most of anything. I will not give a shit. Any. More. The very same noses that have been needlessly, bit-grabbingly poking up into my business up 'till now are all the very same noses that were okay to love me as long as I was doing exactly.... what.... they wanted. And you know what? None of them were around when I needed to talk and none of them stood by me along the way. I didn't make the move I did to protect and gainfully keep any semblage of popularity. The question is: why do YOU care if people hate me?


And as a last-ditch effort, I defend myself. If what I did, by leaving, was so horrible, then what about the good things I left there? Why isn't anyone thinking, well, you know, she was a good woman in X, Y, Z regard or remember the good things, or---for crying out loud---my children! Even though there was probably some silent, collective cheer when my girls went back to live with their father, I can tell you he didn't raise those girls all by himself and they didn't get to be sweet, spunky people that all my friends and all the nose-pickers claim to have say over without their mother! In fact, far from it. And. I was a good waitress. I used to teach there. I made friends from every gammut and circle I crossed. I was reliable. I threw my all into anything musical. I was a fairly productive member of society there. Everyone USED to like me. I knew I would have a lot of explaining to do, that my motion was severe, that it would sever many ties, but only did I expect to answer to those closest to me. I already committed far more than my share of energy in treating everyone with acute equality and niceness (even if they didn't deserve it) in attempting to get along with anyone at all costs. I'm done with it.


If not the past, if the good things I did in the past are somehow now negated, then so be it. I won't point out that I sent my girls to live thousands of miles away with their father pending a whole year. I won't mention that it was me respecting their choice. I won't point out that I could have made any number of battles for keeping them with me, could have made one vague excuse after another and won. I won't point out that I have come to rearrange my whole life around his job so that the girls will have parents that aren't split by plane tickets and geography. I won't point what a superiorly royal bitch I could have really been and wasn't.


The fact is and still remains that no one knew what was going on behind closed doors and worse, no one cared when I tried to even approach the subject. Just toss, toss, toss it under the rug. Don't talk about it, it's not that bad, it's not what you think it is, you're not thinking about it right. Ad nauseum.


People didn't see and people didn't care, so people didn't have a right to judge. The timing of it was messed, the action severe, but I point out: you didn't really give all that much a whoop anyway. But as I sat here once, with all the steaming hot indignation I felt, I couldn't help but see the ironic injustice of it all. All those who yelled at me from their social thrones on high, from their bacteria-cultured cells, through Facebook, behind my back (thanks for telling me)---the ones so hellbent to pin me to the wall---weren't there for the least or the most of the previous 12 years. None of them, not one, dropped by to help out when I was a single mom, alone and scared. Didn't come in to say hello when I had a dearly beloved husband sick and dying in the hospital. No one uttered a word of sympathy or pity in the whole existence of an altered life with an incapacitated husband, nor appreciation. Barely a word or gesture or measure of greeting, understanding, compassion at any single moment or angle of grief in my worst moments and muted support at the best. I wish I were exaggerating.


So then who.... tell me..... was there? Who could have possibly taken my hand and been able to give me the kind of real help and support and/or shove in the right direction I needed? Who was going to be willing to to be loving to me before my adjusted way of living went so far off track that I really felt like there was no one? How could anyone not of dedicated stamina help me figure it all out without exacerbating the world I made for myself? Who was there to think of anymore when I had no one? And who was going to help me so long as I was not willing to help myself?


No matter how many "shouldas" and "wouldas" and "couldas" that are infinitesimally born of the one and same problem, the fact is that I couldn't believe how changed things had become and I just finally had enough. I was fed up with being the kind of woman I swore I'd never become.

Prince William And Kate Middleton

At the start of July, after picking up the girls at June’s end, visiting Vieux Montreal the same day and seeing the jazz festival being set up, characters on stilts, paintings on sidewalks, water fountains, charming town squares, sex shops (oh yes, quite the education for my girls who merely only saw the words over a business door and blushed—no, we did not go in! What kind of mother do you think I am?), novelty boutiques, and Chinatown, we left Marc in Saguenay for work and went to Levis to see the prince and his bride for their first of appearances in their Canada tour.

We waited a total of about 9 hours to see them, at least 5 of those unnecessary as we came WAY early in the morning to make sure we got a good spot and noticed that we could have come a lot later. Still, it was good to be safe, and finally after about eight or nine hours, they came into the barred-off circle of people, a crowd of probably four- to five-thousand people, and shook hands with as many people as their security team would let them, Prince William taking the far side, Kate Middleton coming around our side, who the girls wanted to see more.

I let two other little girls with flowers, whose mother I had been talking to for the afternoon, go in front of me to share the front-row space with my girls and all four of their faces were all over the newspapers the following day, and the television news. Marc had seen us all on the live coverage at work and had been super excited and jumping up and down.

Waiting outside the fort doors at Levis, QC. It was quiet for quite a while.

The girls were beside themselves when Kate finally made it around to them, and from what I could see, Ms. Middleton was very gracious. I really have to say it was nice to see someone exhibit a down-to-earthness that seems so easily lost on celebrities, at least from all the testimonies I’ve ever read about famous people who lose it or who are such jerks in person, and especially because up until that day, I really couldn’t see the relevance of the British royal family. However, I could definitely sense that she was just being a person who “happened” upon celebrity status, rather than being an altered ego of herself, like stars or celebrities or are driven by the sensationalism of their own career. And I am happy to admit that I can see that what Kate Middleton brings back to the royal family is something very akin to hope for future generations. With a rather classy, classic style, she is a new, refreshing kind of role model for young girls; and she seems to be as in awe of her status and reception as her fans are. What’s more is that it’s exciting, especially as a mother, to have such a wholesome thing to look up to. Yes, I can say I’m happy to be a convert, if only because it made me realize how cynical my attitudes have become.

So, Why The Do-Over Do-Over

I had originally attempted to answer this question in another post, but ended up getting off subject in the worst way. Mainly, the emotional way. Nevertheless, I realized almost right away that my post entry had way less to do with the answer to that question than the emotions and defenses I was feeling at the time.

But rather than focus on just how embarrassing it was (somewhat still is), or how I felt a certain integrity not to re-edit it because there’s a certain element of standing by a work, even if it is flawed; or how learning about saying what you mean and meaning what you say mixes in with the old habits of overcorrecting and likely met with a variety of personal reactions (of which I had plenty), I’d rather just say it here like I intended to originally.

Besides, if I corrected the old one, it wouldn’t show up as a new post here, but rather stay buried in the year-ago collection of blog posts and get lost; and I feel confident that it’s not going to really matter to the least of my critics, nor do I care if it does—I just want to be able to look back and be satisfied to reread that I addressed it.

So, question. Why, I was asked, did I even have a do-over wedding-type shindig only to leave my husband 8 months later. How could I even think about doing that when so many people were present to witness the celebratory wedding we never had. It has been one of the top most lingering questions to keep surfacing this last year. It wasn’t just the one question itself, but also all what the answer represented, and a rather decisive maneuver to address it on my blog when I finally could answer it fully and honestly.

Answer. Number One. (And keep in mind, this was NOT an easy answer, nor an easy decision to come to in the very first place.) It was the quickest way to put a whole big patch over the whole thing. All the problems we were having. All the problems we were pushing under the rug. All the problems I tried bringing to the table and we never fixed. All the problems we tried scooping under the rug and never got counseling for. All the problems that bled into new ones, bigger ones, problems that we didn’t bring into our own lives (cancer and medical) breaching into ones that we did (too long a list now). Problems that metastasized into big, leprous, itchy tumors. Problems that caused us to consider divorce, not once, not twice, but at least three serious occasions in the past and in front of friends. Flatlined moments only dug out of long enough to fool myself back into the shredded union.

Number Two. I never thought, in probably a million years, that my life would flip over upside down on its head just months after. I was just not looking at the situation in my marriage honestly and was desperate to hide it, change it, make it work somehow, feel renewed, and give each other amnesty. I was hellbent on making it work ‘till the day I died, even resolving to be a Stepford wife if need be. I would take the final swallow in choking down what was left of me and operate at a shell level until the girls graduated and only reserve the real stuff for them (because it was the only way to compensate what K refused to give me--passion.) In many ways, I was like the wife of the alcoholic back in the day—the one who convinces herself that it will still work, that the terrible things going on inside her marriage only exist for a “tiny” reason, and compartmentalizes the situation so she can put it “over there” for an unspecified amount of time, until the next time. Only we were both part of the problem and I was compartmentalizing for two people—me and him. And I wouldn’t discover how bad it was or how hard I was working to choke it all down until I met someone who was able to drag me out from under all the layers of crap and point to the light.

Number Three. All of the layers of junk we had gone through, both inside and outside our marriage, whether it happened to us beyond our control or we brought it on ourselves in some way, was something I wanted to put behind us. I just wanted to really start over. I thought it was a great idea. I was inspired. I thought it would be a great way to throw away all the left-over ickies of life first afflicted with cancer and joint problems and then later infidelity. Or, like I said, a day of amnesty in our marriage and bumpy lives together. I wanted something normal and I really felt that it would be a good way to say a big ole “f*** you” to old attitudes, to people who couldn’t support us, nosy people, people who added to the demise of our relationship (including ourselves), and just celebrate something we never, ever had: a real wedding. I really believed that if we could give ourselves this treat, that we would feel more at liberty to be who we wanted to be with each other.

But….

It would take more than living in a small town and blaming everyone else to get past that. It would require a good, hard, honest look at myself. And it would take an even harder realization: that we already were what we were going to be, and that we contributed to our own demise. We had turned 180 degrees away from the day we got married.

Nothing can really happen without counseling and lots of support, which we received so little of, and when each of us had changed so much as a direct result of ignoring the issues. It was a small, isolated northern town with nowhere to go, nothing to do, very little aspirations, and people who care more about themselves than others or drinking themselves into oblivion. And where we had no family, no blood family anyway—the ones who love you regardless—people only can only go so far for you or, as in some cases, when there is something in it for them—like a snooping Tomcat or a glimpse at my boobs or ass, which I did nothing to bring on. Nothing. It was difficult to find help without judgment and we did not surround ourselves with people who could help us professionally or emotionally. Resources without traveling a good distance for them meant there was at least some risk of losing privacy, And we both had our own, separate hard times with reaching out to others. By the end, we didn’t know who to trust, and we only had ourselves to blame.

This I must say, though. Not every single person we met or knew there was like this, nor did they fit into this description, nor is it totally accurate or fair. But I am not talking about those people, and there were quite enough of the kind that did fit this description to make it difficult to live in a community where we, as a couple, depended on a support system that consisted of friends who could be as fickle as the wind and/or in no way obligated to us. Family absolutely mattered but ours continued to be far away and in the background, and we were only family to friends until their real family came home for the holidays. By the end, I just gave up trying to talk to people.

It should have been a sign in and of itself that I was not putting out the kind of quality person I wanted to be surrounded with by being defeatist about the things I could have done to save our marriage, but I had become so very tired of taking on more than half of the quality control for our union and excessive guilt three times over that I finally quit owning all the guilt of the whole marriage and started living like a person that knows it takes two to make it work. I just wanted to strip down the appearances we made even to each other and live a real life. I wanted K to make the call to the counselor, the psychologist who came in once a month from the teacher’s union. I wanted him to be the one to put in a last ditch effort to save us. To help me help us. To take some responsibility in an emotional matter. I wanted him to take the reins for a while, but not just in tasks, but in love and in passion.

But it takes two people to want this. Love is an action word. Be it that I’ve made mistakes—Lord knows I’m no angel—I know what devotion is; and I know that even in spite of myself, I backed up my fluffy words with actions. Anyone who can say that simply providing the basic necessities should suffice, well I would say I tried—oh god how I tried—to make it be enough, but it just doesn’t. Not for this girl, not for most passionate women. Not for me. It was not an easy decision to make.

And finally, when I could no longer deny it and no longer wanted to, I left. Bam. Just like that. Because it was my choice and because I’m a grown-ass woman (as my father might say.) Because I honestly didn’t think people would give two shits. Because people with family there just don’t realize how lucky they are. Because I was tired of haggling all of this AND my place in society without so much of a bottom line, a safety net, a support system, or a family. Because I was tired of allowing everyone else to make decisions for me. Because, as stupid as it sounds now, I thought it would be good that K wasn’t left alone. (In terms of the night I actually left, which itself hadn’t gone like I’d planned.) But most of all, because I was tired of grieving over my other half letting me go like a trap door on a stage long before I decided to leave and not caring about it, even when I brought it to the table as a concern.

Be it erred thinking or truths in reality based on perception, all of this was what was under the layers of the onion that our marriage became. I still grieve this because I believed in our love. I believed in our ability to make it work, to keep getting to know each other, and to get over obstacles. In all of my crazy quirks, mannerisms, nuances, plain dumb idiocy, forgetfulness, dizziness, airheaded and Gemini-ish blabbermouthy youth, never was I unrealistic about getting married or putting the work into it necessary to survive. Not even when any single link in the chain of the medical age robbed our lives of a real beginning, where the chain of THOSE events were never-ending. Nor did I forget the moments of magic we had once upon a time and in the beginning. But maybe I shouldn’t have had to do it so alone. Maybe I shouldn’t have had to do it so. damned. alone.

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em?

I think I finally cracked (yes, you may ask, again) because instead of trying to locate the source of the buzzing mosquito, black fly, horse fly, or worse at the cabin we've been staying at--and believe me, there are several of each--I found myself trying to hum the same pitch of the buzzing and then hum the interval of a third over that pitch. There is only one reason I can think of for doing that, and it beats the alternative of continuing on a hopeless insect killing spree: submission.

However, there is no way around the construction on the house. At least three or four days out of five, I have woken up to the house literally being jarred by M.A.'s uncle, Y. pounding a hammer, nailing with the swift and loud air gun, sawing; and there's no humming a pitch to that. It has been positively stressful. More than I'd like to admit. But with the whole last year being what it has been, I've been desperately trying to shut my brain off to things that would normally spark my temper. Some days, I feel like I've ingested drugs or some other toxic or otherwise substance because I almost choose to not be my regular self.

And what has this last year been? This "last" place, last home to live in before moving west, for the beautiful, jaw-dropping scenery that it is, has been the third place we've been "stationed" at in a year, and at least the hundredth (or so it feels) place in time and space to have rested our heads without being able to call home. In a word: hell. Yes, "home" has never truly been ours, no matter where it's been, since we got here a year ago, because we have been bouncing around other people's homes, for better or for worse, for reasons beyond our control; and the loss of our independence has been staggering.

I lived with people back when my ex was sick and hated it so much that I swore to myself I'd never do it again.

It's times like these where all of my education about the good, kind, all-loving, all-powerful, all-merciful god we have goes out the window and I feel myself believing like a Puritan or something, and that this is just him showing his wrath in this kind of, "oh, you haven't had enough yet, here you go."

Yet I am trying to hold onto yet another thread--the thread of getting back west and getting back on our feet. M has a career waiting for him, me the opportunity to get back into the workforce and get some more schooling. It seems sickeningly unfair that we have to leave the beauty and culture here to grab at the opportunities anywhere else, yet many positive things await us out west.

Most importantly of all, the two young people I treasure the most in this world will never have to be apart from me like this ever again.

The Things We Do

So I talk about a lot of emotional stuff on here because that's what I do. I blab on and on ad nauseum about, because it's interesting to me. It's interesting how the mind works and how sometimes it works against your emotions or for them. For me, it's the other way around: how my emotions work against my brain or not.

But for the sake of my occasional attempt at humor, and at least to share what I found amusing, I was thinking about what we women do to maintain our shape. In the artificial way, while we are either on our way up or down the scale. How we suffer through suffocating undergarments that come up to our boobs, how we struggle to peel out of them to go to the bathroom at, say, a wedding reception. What it takes to fasten everything together. Support bras, support hose, girdles, Spanks, garters, wires, even high heels to some degree. Everything it takes to look thinner, taller, shorter, more curvy, more sexy, less bumpy, less frumpy than we are (and should accept but can't because it's hard) and all only to have to peel out of it all at the end of the night.

And then I got to thinking about this on a dating level. Even though I, as a mom, should be anti-pre-marital sex (I certainly don't have room to preach, Miss Prego at age eighteen sans hubby,) it's a reality that becomes cumbersome once you realize that the canoodling in the bedroom will regress to peeling off and out of the time-honored tradition of gut-sucking contraptions of our feminine masochism. And then that poses a real challenge. Do you politely giggle and get out of more canoodling-graduates-to-sex? Or do you put your date to the test and make him watch you make a banana of yourself? And there's always the good, old plausible "Let me change into something more comfortable" whisper in his ear to buy time in the bathroom so you can make a banana of yourself in private.

I mean to say we haven't moved very far from the corset, have we? And do you know how we used to get into those? By getting laced up from the back. Someone else would have to lace you up inside steel boning and metal eyelets, put their foot into your back, and pull! Hard! The only protection between skin and digging corset was a thin tank top (chemise) and then they would tie that sausage casing up. Yeah, someone was thinking of the furthest way to torture a woman and still get her to smile--because you know those women still smiled. They would smile while they suffocated. And you thought you couldn't breathe in a pair of Spanx! Honestly, who thought up this stuff?

And so I thought further.

It had to have been a man, only for the simple reason that men are problem solvers. They tend to think towards an answer in a path of least resistance or in simple terms.

Fictional Male Character 1: "How do we get to see the most boobs for the least amount of work or pain to us?"

Fictional Male Character 2: "I know! Let's squeeze the crap out of the middle and tie it really tight so that the ends come out like turkey stuffing!"

But no! This sexist approach does not work. According to my lackluster research, it was supposedly Catherine de' Medici, wife of King Henry II of France, who had apparently banned "thick waistlines" at royal court in the mid-1500's. A woman! I gasp verily!

While there is actually no concrete history on who owns part of the corset's invention, and while this simple track of laughing to myself while peeling out of my own pair of Spanks not too long ago has gotten me into a complicated dive into the history of the corset, it bears pulling the thought to the surface merely for a laugh. Just think about it next time you walk into the underwear boutique...

Step, step, step

It's easier to squeeze a whole pig into a sausage casing than it is to get people to change, you know? I need to tap into some more sarcasm in order to deliver the material, of which I have by the stashes and butt loads, but stepping into comedy probably just isn't my thing. In fact, I'll say it's not my thing. That way, it exempts me from expectations.

But take this into account. (Along with everyone's self-entitled right to free speech.) I am a complicated, complex woman. But alas, I also admit to being controversial. I didn't mean to be, but it ended up that way because I was really a bitch in disguise.

See, I tried to hide my feisty temper because I was afraid of what people thought, too afraid to face the consequences, and in the early days, just was WAY too angry to balance a good dose of ranting with a dose of good humor--it always just ended up in some mean fashion. Or at least it seemed that way after the fact. Like, when I was getting called into the office at work for an entry that contained absolutely zero incriminating evidence toward individuals or businesses mentioned (printed, mailed, and not labeled by a jealous (I guess?) co-worker.)

But I when finally could say I got over my case of the whiny, backed-up jitters and reactionary emotional epilepsy, I breathed the fresh air and realized that because I could take responsibility for my actions, I could also air opinions. AND... that I'm willing to air my take on things whenever I so choose because that's just what adulthood and a grand lack of willful maturity affords me. Yay!

So when I hear stories that my former, self-righteous boss, who took it upon herself to lecture me for a decision I made some ten months ago or so to leave the life I was living, the same woman who was trying to "improve" me in merely my job and I resented that because of her snobbish, two-faced attitude, made a face in reaction to a decision my best friend made, I feel obliged to snark back from my blog, if only to do the dork thing and retort what I would have said, could have said, and will now not refrain from saying from afar. Yes, while she was right in only one tiniest regard in the diatribe I received from her all those months ago, she is still the same little fish in a little pond, who looks bigger because the pond is so small and still has learned nothing about love, compassion, or the way forgiveness works. That is the biggest grievance at all. And it basically boils down to the old addage: if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all. And keep your eyeballs to yourself.

Karol Wojtyla

Karol Wojtyła

What can NOT be this guy. This, yes, priest. Ambassador. Man. Leader. Servant.

Holy man.

Isn't it he who called us to the call Our Lord already gave us: a call to holiness? Yes. Yes he is. I wish I was better read on him. He had SO many amazing things to say, so many things I wish I could have been the one to say, strength that chokes me to my core that I still don't have, courage of a great king. Now I guess I can see how a kingdom can weep at the loss of their king. In so many ways, Pope John Paul II was the best kind of king. The kind of king who knows how to employ the position he was granted, the kind of king who radiates love, joy, warmth among his subjects, the kind of king who knows that being the greatest lord over his subjects is being their greatest servant. Think about it.

That being said, I have a very good feeling that it would be mortifying to call him that. I am quite sure, as pivotal and legendary as his presence has been over twenty-three years, and probably more given that men like this don't just jump into the scene in some kind of random political shot (I wonder what his college mates would have to say about him), that he would have never considered himself kingly at all. In fact, based on what little I've read about his life, his youth was very afflicted with his mother's death, his brother's death, and dodging death during the Nazi occupation of his native Poland (I gravely simplify here.)

But I got to see him in 1997, when millions of young people were in Paris, France for the World Youth Day. His bullet-proof "Pope Mobile" passed by us twice and he was so close I could feel light. I was so unexpectedly overcome with emotion that I nearly missed taking a picture, the few that I have of that day so precious to me that I stuck them in an 8-page photo album with no other photos. Even at that age, I was not easily star-struck. I had been to a few rock concerts, passed Billy Cosby at Universal Studios in California, rubbed elbows with a few Hells Angels in South Dakota, and smiled as my dad recounted that Dennis Hopper came through town and almost brought his bike into his shop to have a look at it. I had even followed enough movie stars in magazines to be disenchanted with the whole Hollywood lot. I have just never easily been impressed--like truly, inside-my-chest exploding impressed. But the amazing metaphysical exchange I felt in Paris has never left.

His life echoed the lives of the saints, the ones called Doctors of the Church (St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Catherine of Sienna, St. John of the Cross, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, to name a few) and based his mission on the Law of Love, being that we are all under whether or not we accept it, it is true that the closer you are to Love Itself (the pure love that is God), the more you deny yourself and move through cycles of rejecting earthly things, from the basic to even the more complicated, like human attachments, imbalance even in prayer, etc. (And it has to be in cycles--or stages--because a loving god isn't going to just make you chop off your whole life like your right arm. He gives us the space of our lives to learn how to do it in trials we can handle because, get this, He respects our free will.)

And Jesus himself talked about being a servant at the Last Supper. He surprised all the disciples by washing their feet (a servant's job, and a gross one at that) and instructed them to do the same. In the tradition of teachers (rabbis) mastering the Law of Moses and gaining followers who liked their way of teaching, teachers of the Jewish faith had a certain status and were not expected, least of all, to wash someone's muddy feet. They were probably more likely to get their feet washed by the person hosting the party. Well, the servant of that person.

In addition, he said "no servant is greater than he who sent him [the master], nor is he who is sent greater than the one who sent him." This has always seemed a little wordy to me, but in layman's terms, Jesus was telling them a simple truth: no worker is bigger than his boss

A Good Run

In the bustle and flurry of post-concert frenzy (mingled with passerby students finding classes at the prep college there,) I choked back brewing emotion. Mostly unexpected, I heard my voice cracking to find the words I just didn't know in French in order that I might express my profound gratitude and pleasure of being welcomed into and being part of such a superior group to the conductor. After months and months of struggling to communicatemy thoughts and feelings in another language and make a fair amount of successful exchanges/interactions with multiple scores of situations (and being usually very talkative in my own language but experiencing the frustration of being limited,) I found myself surprisingly short of vocabulary in any language. Truly a sign, even if it betrayed my outer confidence, that I was indeed choked up about the full-on realization I would not be playing with this group--or probably any like it--for a long, long while.

When, in my frustration and stop-loss emotion, the conductor acknowledged as much by stating in very clear English, "You can say it in English if you want." I looked at him just gob-smacked. I said, and I quote (I fell from grace and defaulted to my backwoods kid ways,) "You can speak English?" I mean, of course he could. He's an educated man and English is just as much a requirement to live in Quebec as French is over the rest of Canada, but I felt taken back, a little irritated, and overall astonished. Here I had been putting all my effort into assimilating, taking risks, making an ever-lovin' fool of myself, donning the mindset of a French person to secure the respect I felt for a land that is slowly losing its culture and language, only to insult a very talented, very accomplished musician and conductor who was probably speaking English before I was born.

Whatever manner and composition I had or was trying to regain was smashed into pieces in that one little moment with one rather unknowing comment. There was no recovering. No wonder I couldn't explain the cock-eyed twitch in his neck and posture. So, I did what I do best. I "quirked" it up, exhaled a laugh, and told him what a great experience it had been. (Uh-huh. Sure.) Then I finished with the flourish of fumbling my way out and made my way through a group of people. So much for a refined exit.

Then, I ran into my fellow bassoonist and a few friends. We talked lightly of being done for the season, while inside I felt the finality of forever, and while these kids had been adults in my eyes, before us stood the difference of them having their entire lives in front of them and me getting a 15-year-old start to mine (musically speaking.) In the tiniest fraction of a second, their eyes revealed a sobering moment, realizing that I may or may not ever see them again. It depends on whether or not we cross paths for the single lessons remaining I have at the conservatory with Paskale. Not wanting to be the Debbie Downer and leave that as their last picture of me, I smiled with new excitement as I shook their hands and said, in broken French that I knew would be bad and didn't care to correct, "N'oubliez pas moi!" Then I walked out of the Cegep for what will probably be the last time.

Adventurous Day From.... Well, Not Hell, Exactly

Ok. I've been chugging along the concert pace the past few days, performing not one, not two, but four (so far) concerts--one per day--and taking part in the rehearsals beforehand, making the time spent on site and on the road stretch out into full, every-man days.

It's been FABULOUS! This is the kind of life I imagined for myself when I was just a young thing. Playing professionally on a stage. Granted, it's not long-term and it doesn't pay, nor is it solo work, but I will not complain--how can I? The caliber of music has been a fantastic experience--and at my age now and in the unfolding of my life, I very much prefer playing in an ensemble to solo work. (Especially because bassoon isn't the most enthralling solo instrument--even I have a hard time sitting through a bassoon recital.) And as for pay, well, the quality of music and professionalism is self-paying.

But today unleashed a whole new monster of testing my confidence in all of my abilities, from music to language to chartering foreign territory to engaging socially!

Over the weekend, my very significant other accompanied me to the various concert locations--Metabetchouan (an hour and a half away) and Jonquiere (about an hour), and we made full days of it. However, it caught up with us and he needed to rest before work at 4 p.m. today and I needed to be at the hall, also in Jonquiere, but by 9 a.m this morning.

In addition, an appointment he made for our dog was scheduled for 8. For him to accompany me again, at that hour, after having gotten in late last night, we would have had to either a) get up ridiculously early and drop the dog off before the 9 a.m. concert call, leaving my poor boyfriend to twiddle his thumbs all day in an auditorium full of kids, no nap, go straight into 8 hours with homeless people and come home at 1 a.m. With no defined plans of when to pick up the pooch OR...

...b) still getting up early, doing the same thing to get to the hall, but leave him the car to pick up the pooch, go back home (a round trip of approximately 2 hours), get time to rest, return to pick me up, bring me back home (another 2-hour round trip), and take the car to work (another and third round-about of 1.5 hours.) One of the issues being a single car and two people with stuff to do. Another one being gas mileage. The other one convenience.

It's not really complicated. It's just that in supporting each other and loving each other to the hilt, we want to be there for all the things the other one is doing. Especially in a case such as my music. But without too much conversation about it, we decided that I would go alone, I would drop the pooch off, and I would get myself to the concert.

It would prove to be a fun, harrowing, tiring, and even!... a little emotional challenge to get there and back.

So.

I left the house in good time with a crudely hand-drawn map and made my way. The problem from the start was that I was not very familiar with the route from a driver's stance. Between here and in Chicoutimi, I got it. I know a couple of roads for getting there, I'm good in the city, and I've learned basic landmarks--the conservatory, Marc's work, his dad's place, the cathedral and the university. But to Jonquiere I've only driven solo there once, and that's where I had to be.

As for where I was going once I got there, it was easy as pie. Take the exit off the highway and go straight. Until the prep college and find parking. But to get there, well, I was nervous, and I had to find the veterinary hospital, where I've never been, and get back on the highway. If you've ever had to watch for landmarks and if you've ever missed them in a place you don't well, you know the feeling you get about a hundred times (give or take a few) thinking you've passed it.

I was thinking about the landmarks outlined on Marc's map (I love his handwriting!) when, just as I was to get out of town, I came to a line of stopped cars about quarter of a mile long. What was stopping us? I focused on the front of the line. Blinking lights drew my attention. *Bleep! I had budgeted stopping time for everything else, but not this. A train! A bluh-hee ole train! Yeah, sure I've driven over tracks in around La Baie, yeah sure I learned how to avoid them in my hometown fifteen years ago, but now? Now?! I hadn't even made it out of town and this would eat into every precious minute of road time and increase the pressure of finding the vet without missing it.

I looked at the clock on my CD player that still hadn't kicked in (a sensor/battery thing.) I waited. I despaired. I drew in a breath and exasperatedly exhaled. I looked at Emma, who was panting and careening to see out the window. Up ahead, cars were pulling out of line and making U-turns back. Yes, there was another way to the highway. I calculated the space between me and the cars around me and followed suit, going all the way back around, into town, and getting back on the other access to the highway. After an eternity (of about 5 extra minutes), I was finally heading out of town. Finally. I glanced at the map. I looked and looked for the exit that would take me to the vet. I looked and looked for the sign that said "Refuge Des Animaux," the only landmark I knew to watch for before taking the vet exit. Why, oh why didn't I pay attention to these drab buildings and dispersed houses before?

I was in danger of getting rammed because Quebecois drivers are 1)c-R-aZ-Y and 2) probably all working people, familiar with the road, but I was desperate to see the dog pound sign, so I just tried to use my old fast-scanning skills acquired when I waitressed, and I found it. Then I was careening for "the" exit and after that, the vet. When I saw an intersection approaching in the distance, I really freaked, I thought I missed it. After all that success before 9 in the morning, my heart dropped anew. Trees were blocking the approach for near a mile, I didn't even know if the intersection would take me back to the highway (since I'd just come from there), and I would have lost major time getting back to the highway the way I'd come, never mind miss the pooch's appointment. Thus, I theoretically saw myself missing the concert (oh, the horror!!) and doing who-knows-what with the pooch.

Out of a force of sheer stubbornness, I kept driving. I knew that if the veterinary hospital magically appeared, it would be on the left. Et voila! There it was. I was still too pinched for time to relax, but I was still relieved. I zoomed into the parking lot like a professional stunt driver, parked, and shuffled a cute but very hairy and dirty Emma in through the front doors. "Le pression" did not stop there. For me or for Emma.

Inside, a man with two very large, very beautiful dogs stood at the reception counter. First thought: oh shit, this is going to take longer than I thought. Second thought, oh, poor Emma. She was cowering by the door and positioned funny. She was peeing on the rug. Great. I picked her up and held her close to me to feel my body and felt her shaking. I knew I should have kept a hold of her once we were inside. Poor thing.

Finally, it was my turn. I had already negotiated small interactions in French, and I always prided myself on being professional with service clientele in English, so I sucked in my breath and surged forward. Maybe it was the panic I was masking, my head in a million other places than there, but the words came out far more fluidly than ever before.

"Oui. Bonjour. Mon chum a fait un rendevous pour son chien, Emma."

Just like that. Wow! I saw two 'me's. The one who just has shit to get done and lurches headlong into doing what needs to be done, and the other me who hides behind the other one sometimes and always joking around. The Goofy Me was looking at Serious Me in that split second, slapping the Serious Me hard on the back and laughing heartily. (Have you forgotten? I'm Gemini.) (Yes, that's my excuse.)

For the following 2 minutes--oh yeah, I was counting--discourse en Francais was had, the nice girl behind the counter at first unable to find the appointment at all. Great, another obstac- Oh, wait, not quite yet. What's my phone number? Oh. For a Marc-Andre? Yes. There it was. She found it. Whew. What? Est-ce que veux... quoi? (Do I want... what?) "When someone brings their dog in, they cut their fur" she explains in French. Ohhhh!! Yes! Yes, please, and more 'merci beaucoup' from me before she took Emma.

Out to the parking lot I stride, in the parking lot I break into a run. I didn't have time to revel in my success--there was still about twenty minutes of road to get to the hall in about ten minutes' worth of time and I quit believing I had any time at all.

Gently gunning my V6, dual exhaust on bald tires, I took a risk. I could either check out the intersection that was right there or go back and retrace my steps like I had planned, adding who knows how much more time to time I didn't have. I chose the intersection. Good gamble. Jonquiere ahead on the signs, with arrows, no less. Just like that, I was back on the highway and started to see familiar buildings.

It wasn't over yet.

It wasn't over until I was standing in the green room with the other musicians. I looked at my clock again. Sometimes it comes on after a while. Nope, not this time. I had a general idea of the time, but I needed exact minutes. We were down to the particulars now.

I sped where I could, taking a ginormous risk on top of already driving without a current license (the story involves waiting for my permanent resident card and the antics of a nationalistic province) and *squeak* no insurance (I need my license), but I was also too scaredy-pants to push too far. I waited for the indicators, read the green highways signs, and finally, finally...

...found the exit. "THE" exit. I zoomed all the way down the strip, parked fast, walk fast, and did so in lumbering strides with my purse and block cement bassoon case in hand. I got to the door, around the corner, into the green room, and down the stairs. I made it.

* * *

After three days of concerts, I can only say this: man, I've grown. But when I came out, again in a rush to get the car back to Marc, the skies opened and I was drenched before I crossed the street. With scrap tires, I was hydroplaning all the way home. Only to find I had missed him. He'd gotten a ride from his uncle.

People Who Dialogue In Between The Lines

Yeah, you know who I'm talking about. Those people that can't say a straight line and mean exactly what they say. The ones who claim to say things at "face value" but communicate cryptically or put their terms in broad, analogical, sometimes poetic terms to hide that they can't actually articulate (admit) what they're really feeling. The ones who also undercut spoken dialogue with an entire undercurrent of loaded phrases or words, leaving some half-intelligent person to wonder if there was a subterranean attack launched or if their words meant nothing.

I am one of them.

Yeah, that's me. I have said or have written things that I know will hurt people in vague ways so that I don't have to take responsibility for the outcome of their effects.

Face value.

Why am I admitting this? Well I got on here to write something else, a quote actually, nothing original, found a friend's pragmatic entry on a site, and found it absurd that I could feel contempt for his efforts when I was nowhere, and I mean nowhere, in a place to be looking down on him. It made me remember that "coming clean" about truths that are actually easier than they seem is not that big a deal. Well, in terms of relative sanity anyway. (This would be an entirely different ball game if I had been, say, and ex-con.) It's always harder to be the one working so hard to keep certain truths at bay than it is to be the one judging them, and so if coming here and in doing all that I did by coming here last summer was for anything, it was for ripping through the barriers and screens of my own secret truths and freaking exercising new muscles of genuineness and authenticity.

And also, I'm just getting tired of it. Tired of the cycle of trying to be better than somebody else (the proverbial anybody else.) It's just old. Old news, old like a 1920 newspaper, and twice as mind-numbingly irrelevant. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of hearing my voice on it. I'm tired of hearing the same words come out of the same vocal pipes, and I hate how I sound. I hate how I seem to be so damned insecure that I have to find some vastly-wide sweeping words to zero in on a point that doesn't even work. I'm tired of putting on a facade that I think will somehow make me better. I mean, really. Double-U. Tee. Eff.

With this increasingly inescapable theme of pointing fingers and blame ("for every finger pointing at you, there are three pointing back"; "take the plank of wood out of your own eye before helping someone else with the sliver in their eye"), it has become an irreplaceable, incredible, life-changing tool that, although once a childhood anecdote (or so the repetitiveness of those sayings would seem), is now re-encrusting itself into a sheer, undeniable and fundamental truth in the core of me. I've blamed just about everything and everyone I could get my proverbial hands on, and quite frankly, it doesn't work. I've known for some time that I've had a problem communicating as well as I could have, even in spite of trying to be the "fantastic-est communicator ever," and it boils down to lack of ability to truly articulate my thoughts and feelings. It has always been easier to give a picture of what I'm thinking instead of trying to sit down, think about it, and put them into nouns and verbs that express my feelings and don't actually implicate someone because I'm trying so desperately hard for the situation to NOT be my fault. I actually relied on this tactic too much, and that's the problem. I mean, it's part of my personality, but when it comes to balancing the two sides (there it is again!), the sweeping fru-fru of descriptive language far out-weighed the boring (or agonizing) truth.

And it doesn't even matter how genuine I am, I know I still f*** up and will most likely be f***ing up for a while. I'm trying not to think about that. I'm just trying to think of how to be more articulate, and that requires being honest with myself and being accountable.

That being said, I've been on the other end of loaded words. I think it's seeing this that has, in part, made me realize that I'd much rather struggle to define and articulate my thoughts than hand over one more loaded, double-edged slice of poetry. (The other part is seeing how much pain I've caused by doing that.) I've been the half-intelligent person, too--the one I referred to at the beginning of this entry. I'm fairly intelligent, I'd like to believe, but I don't always catch the intended double meaning, but because I've been afraid to miss it (for fear of looking like a simpleton), I learned how to take almost everything with double meaning in certain situations, with certain dynamics. Screwed up, ain't it? Well, don't laugh too heartily just yet. It was a default program I set up to avoid looking like an idiot.

My poor, poor pride, eh?

My world might have been a little happier a place if I'd chosen not to give those loaded words double meaning. It certainly would have helped alleviate the nasty little habit I got into of giving words double meaning that didn't exist. I chose to write this nasty little confession because I had originally intended to explore this very same trait in another friend, but just could not. For one, me being snarky just doesn't help anything or anyone. For two, let he (or she!) who is sinless cast the first stone. I haven't gotten nearly the start on being genuine as I had hoped when I came here, when I chose to make my life something else, because I just felt so bad about all the pain, uproar, and damnation it caused that I couldn't see past the guilt. But there is a whole other world past my narrow, 2-dimensional point of view, and I'd rather be the person who gets railed at in my blog than to continue even one teeny, tiny little step back in the old direction. Because for every and any bit I could throw out, it is a bit that makes me a self-righteous hypocrite, and, well, we really don't want too many more of those kinds of entries now, do we?

My new toy!

I would like to interrupt this drama broadcast to deliver a special bulletin.

I got a car! Woo hoo!

Yeah, I've already posted the few pics I have all over Facebook and Photobucket for my friends and family to see, but it bears repeated action here (OH yeah, I'm gonna post them here, too!) because I am just that damned excited.

Last Friday, my boyfriend and I narrowed down the list of Kijiji car ads in the area to two choices and phoned to see the cars. After looking at them both (the make of the other one escapes my memory) and doing so with our mechanic friend, we settled on a 2001 Pontiac Grand Prix for $1500. I know, right? Totally good price!

I know what you're thinking. I got shafted. For that price, that year, heck even just because I was paying for looks. Well the answer is yes and no.

The guy who sold us the car hadn't moved the car in 9 months, and upon initial inspection, it was... OK. Our mechanic friend just wasn't as sold on this pretty one as he was the other car--which had a really good motor, good transmission response, good suspension, and working lights, but was a pearlescent mint green and in need of a new windshield and brake pads (which the owner had purchased but hadn't replaced and was throwing in for the asking price.) The Grand Prix got a similar-but-less "test score" from our mechanic friend with us, but it also had a good motor, good transmission, suspension, working lights, good brakes, even the oil was pretty clear and all the fluids good; it had just been sitting the whole winter. And with that comes risk.

And I would find out (today, specifically) that the garage found about $2500 worth of work to be done. Ouch-like. Some bearings have to be replaced, the mufflers are cracked, and the tires are as scrapped as Kojak. But the guy had also cut the ABS line because he didn't like ABS. Wtf? Granted, I hate ABS, too. I'm old school that way. But really! And the emergency brake--he cut that, too. Really, how dumb do you have to be? It's one thing not to like it (I catch the brake lever with my foot every time I get in the car--maybe he did, too), but it's completely another to disable a major safety feature. Yikes!

But... it could be a lot worse. $2500 is not a lot to put into this machine when you consider that A) the major parts are good--the engine and the tranny, the brakes and the suspension, all which would have been singularly, hellishly priced and B) to have "walked" away with that car for that asking price and have none of the problems be life-threatening (save for the duel mufflers that are cracked--which means not letting the engine idle lest the fumes choke the children.) No problem! We're going to be taking care of the issues on the list long before my girls get to ride in back.

And anyway, it was my first choice. I hadn't expected it to be in as good of working condition as it was, but when I got see it and finally test drive it, the steering was good, the brakes, acceleration, turn signals, and gleefully most of all, POWER! (V6 engine with dual exhaust--oh yeah,) reeled me in big time. I know I should have been more concerned that the ABS light came on, and the check-oil light, and made sure that all the joints and bearings were greased (lubricated), but when I opened her up on the highway, I could hardly care. All things could be fixed. But this... this was an engine, a machine, to be reckoned with. And she roared like a lioness at dawn. The best part was being able to open her up on the highway--gently--and thump some tunes out of pretty damned good sound system, for being factory and all...

In the meantime, all the girly things that matter about a car are there--working buttons and functions, CD player, well-maintained upholstery, heater, equalizer, pretty colors (black and silver), sporty look (without the sporty insurance!), and nifty little drink holders that flip out from the console both for front and back seat passengers.

Most of all, VERY most of all, it is a reconciliation with my independence. It has been twelve years since I owned a vehicle. I mean really, really owned it, in my name and everything. And the last one barely counts because it was a ratty old 1977 Ford F150 that my dad had taken from my brother and fixed up for me the day before I went to move into my very first apartment 6 months pregnant--I didn't earn it, I didn't pay for it, and in the end it spent more time on the side of the road than it did on it. This... is mine. No lease, no having to return it, and it's pretty effing sweet, even with the cracked rear light cover and spots of rust on the door.

Head wounds

"I can see that you bottle things up," she said. "You need to talk about things. You can't be a stuffer, like I am." I was facing the aunt on her couch, acutely aware of the mint green walls of her living room. It had been what, a day, a week since my girls and I plus our bags were dropped off here?

Hmm.

I wanted to make this work.

But I just couldn't shake my reservations about this woman. I looked at her and my eyes pleaded for someone to fall on, someone who could understand the hellish nightmare of uncertainty, injustice, confusion, and pending loss of a know-nothing, newbie immigrant.

Granted, I was only an American coming into Canada, but still. I had nothing. I had only been there a year with no status, no job, no provincial driver's license and it had been a year of major upheaval and transition--my husband's 2 other cancer episodes, moving five times with a toddler, a new baby, his just-barely-there new career, and all the post natal emotions which hadn't even subsided by this third diagnosis. There hadn't even been the time, much less the money, to start or pay for application of residency. So. To recap. I had no job, wouldn't have been allowed to work (immigration rules), and had no car with which to even escape. I relied totally and completely on everyone else.

And here I was. In the house of a stranger, wondering how I got there, how I got to that place in my life, no more assured of where I was than my own children. (I had been an independent woman before, hadn't I? I guess writing bad checks and scrambling to make ends me for me and my baby barely counted as independence, but it was hard to remember. It seemed like a lifetime ago.)

I looked at her. I was going to try this anyway. This getting-to-know-her thing. She was family albeit not the kind of family I knew. Maybe there was some value to us sitting there on that couch that winter day, her trying to get me to talk; and what did I know? Except for not to judge at first glance? But I was oblivious. Things? Stuff what things? I didn't even know what she was talking about, much less what I was thinking or processing.

I sputtered a response that somehow had nothing to do with my then-current state, something scattered and half thought out about the way I grew up. I think that's what she wanted to hear. I was able to pry into something more than just my current state. I waited for her response. This would be anecdotal or wise.

I don't remember what she said.

Whatever specifics that were exchanged, all I remember is being left with a feeling like she didn't understand what I was going through. I should have used that opportunity to tell her, to scream it maybe, "My life is a freaking nightmare and here's why!" I guess I just thought that she would be like every other basic compassionate, observe that I was young with two very young daughters, and put it together herself that being newly married and facing what our whole family was facing was terrible!

But maybe that is quite a lot of information to assume someone could know or put together. She at least knew that her nephew and I were newly married with a second child because she came to visit us back when the baby was born. That had only been 5 months prior. Hmm. The fact that she missed it just exhausted me more, and I at least sensed that she wasn't perceptive enough to be the person I should be talking to.

Then, just like that, I was beginning to feel like I was under a microscope. Instead of being relieved to find someone I could talk to, I just shut down (or realized that talking about my fears with this woman was just not going to happen,) and diffused her questions with lighthearted (if you could call it that) small talk, well-being of the in-laws, and... rent.

***

There seems to be a common theme in those times, and for several occasions and moments after. The way my brain was working. For all of the hard times I've had in my life, I've been able to look back now and understand that for what I was lacking in being able to acquire things/resources to make my life better, to help myself, it has been FAR less due to being wiser on this side of the fence than it is the compounded number of dramatic things to have happened in my life in those days, less than a year after having been behind the wheel of a rollover in August of 1999. My head was bashed around so bad that I was in ICU for three days with a concussion, and I've had to wonder just how much that head injury affected all/any of my abilities to process things in a logical fashion.

I have been hesitant and irritated to develop this theory too far. It doesn't speak to the choices I made, it doesn't excuse the shit decisions I've employed, and it wouldn't get me off the hook for anything. But I am curious just the same. A whole lot of unspoken, blurry time was spent searching for answers when I couldn't even recall the simplest exercises in memory (where I left my house key, my papers for school, even how the campus layout was from the year before) and then when my fog cleared--or what I thought was my fog clearing--my responses were always emotional, not always rational, and concentrating took on a whole new effort. I would get headaches from concentrating on something--the kind of pain I had after the accident.

Sometimes, even today, 12 years later, I will feel myself get dizzy from time to time. It's only slight, but it feels too familiar... I think that I would have made ridiculous jumps in conclusion for just about anything, but most especially when I was in a state of stress. Being the mom of two young girls, being young myself, and having a young husband in the hospital living with an aunt who upped the rent every month of our stay with her and threatened to call Child and Family Services on me when I couldn't fathom what or why out of thin air would qualify as stress.

It wasn't until I worked at the crusher of a local excavating company and had lots of time to journal, reflect, and otherwise beat myself up about stupid shit in my life that I actually felt such a clearing of my mind, I had to wonder if I snapped. Lucky for me, my snapping came in the form of realizing the world was opening up and I could match logic to emotion (a sweeping miracle for someone like me!) It was to be the beginning of being responsible for myself, rather than waiting for someone to come rescue me and live for me; and I was relieved for that. But it was extremely painful to take a look on my past with that puzzle piece in my hand and see with new understanding all that I could have done.

The aunt

So when we got in, it was a bit of a whirlwind. My so-called, so-very-different-from-me friends were right behind me in the doorway with some of my belongings. I had my 5-month-old in one arm, a bag and my 2-year-old's hand in the other. I budged into the tiny entryway area, hesitant to track in snow or grit, encouraging my girls to go into the stranger's home. Both girls took one look at the woman in front of them, who was already wobbling toward us, not helping us with our things, and clung to me. My baby twisted in my arm, turning her head over my shoulder away from the woman she did not know, and clenching my jacket. Even my sociable, bubbly 2-year-old was wincing and finding protection behind my arm. The friends who had driven me two hours to get there were dropping my belongings at the door.

The flurry of activity and rush to get out of the January cold subsided momentarily. In the arrested moment, I couldn't dispel the feeling that washed over me that this was not going to be good. Small, needless talk was made. Whatever introductions and formalities were exchanged between the friends dropping me off and this aunt of my husband's were so fleeting and perfunctory that whatever hope of good there could have been from this new arrangement disappeared as quickly as we came in.

I feebly, desperately thanked my friends, the wife-and-husband duo I'd been living with for two months prior. My gratefulness for them bringing in my belongings was washed away in a moment of desperately wishing I could turn around and go back with them. But it was done and I knew it. We were here. Now. And it hadn't been working out between the three of us and our three kids (my two, their one), so here I was. I knew they were probably just relieved to get their house and life back; not have a living zombie of depressing emotions moping around in their house and the wife of a cancer victim to make their lives depressing. It still stung, though, when the moment for them to leave came and all of us stood in the entryway with nothing more to say and they left without pomp or circumstance. Nor telling emotion. The way they swept out of there made me wonder just how relieved they were to have me off their hands.

It was kind of a theme in my life. Needing way more emotional support than anyone could give. It made me realize that I asked too much of people. So instead of figuring out how I could fix that, which I neither had the time for or the patience (and that time in my life being when I needed someone to feel sorry for me the most,) I just balled it up and choked it down, just like every other injustice I'd learned to tolerate. I did it again just then, in that moment the door closed behind my friends, and I turned to the next endeavor. The aunt.

* * *

Did she welcome us? Smile? I don't remember. What I do remember is standing in that strange new doorway, feeling as alien and wanting to hide as my own children, praying and hoping that this would be a welcoming new start. A place to find refuge from the tsunami that was my life just then. I also remember the aunt, with her waddling gait and cold black eyes, who didn't give me a warm impression at all. If she was trying, it got lost the moment my 2-year-old started to whimper and the aunt dragged her away from me telling her to come into the house, forcing adjustment on my little girl, rather than waiting for her to warm up with my support.

I remember her taking the baby from my arms so I could take my shoes off, but when I finished and stood up--all of a minute--she was in front of me with my two children. The picture of this strange woman, who I'd only met once before then, with my children beside her, was an eerie snapshot of wrongness. The aunt looked almost... what was that look... defiant. Without being able to put it into words, I just knew it didn't feel right. I moved in towards my children to comfort them and take them back. It was a silly thought and I shook it out of my mind as I stepped further and further into this strange house, strange life, strange world to reassure my little ones that Mommy was right there. But it was just the thing that haunted me, an inaudible and undefined feeling: take them back. It was a ghost of a feeling that would stay with me for my duration there. What was that? What was that exchange? It was just another of many more gut feelings I'd learn to set aside. What else could I do with no landed immigrant status to get a job, no car, no money, none of my family around?

Not one to be easily defeated, I followed her to I don't remember where. Did she show me around first? Did she show me my room? Did we sit on the couch that day? It doesn't matter. I proverbially and literally tip toed around everyone in that house---the aunt, the uncle, their daughters, who were practically my age and remarkably normal in comparison--and tried desperately to keep a low profile so I could do what I was trying to do, and get out.

It wouldn't be that easy.

On top of everything else, and I mean EVERYTHING else, I was 21 years old. To everyone else around me, I was still just a know-nothing kid, which pissed me off. It worked against me in every way youth works against even the most level-headed, ambitious, qualified or intelligent person.

It is for this very reason alone, I digress, for why I can never and will never tell a young person that their opinions don't matter or wave off concerns I know, standing on this side of the age fence, they will outgrow with some dismissive, diminutive gesture or guffaw. Even when my ear has been bent by the same person for the same things ad nauseum and I get frustrated because I don't feel like they're doing anything for themselves to better their situation, I still shut up. I just listen. And then I try to ruffle up some inspiration with a tidbit for them or use my creative ability to offer a suggestion or two, based on the limits of their situation. (You'd be surprised about how giving someone something they can really chew on will actually enable them to see where the options are for themselves.) The fact is, you just don't know what their life is like. You can make intelligent assumptions, you can make belligerent ones, you can make generalizations, you can be as self-righteous or as concerned as you want to be, you can even be really good at understanding. But at the end of the day, you don't wear their shoes and you don't put your head to rest on their pillow. That deserves understanding.