Strangers on a Plane (Friend-Working)

I have a new friend. We met a year ago today on an airplane. She was flying into Boston for work, and I was on my way home from a school reunion. We’d both dressed in our ‘plane’ clothing and had books to read, with no intention of anything other than keeping ourselves individually occupied during the flight (like most people do).

Somehow, we started talking. Then our conversation continued off the plane and into my waiting friend’s car until we dropped her off downtown. The conversation was an assortment of personal observations, interspersed with information on what to do in Boston.  If I hadn’t had to rush home that day, the three of us would have probably spent the afternoon together.  I knew nothing about her as far as the basics go (age, marital status, number of children, etc.); I just knew that we talked well together, and I enjoyed it. Before we parted, we exchanged Facebook information. I told her to take a picture of herself near a specific statue and post it for me before the day was over (which she did. Good girl!).

After that, there were the occasional comments on posts, the ‘likes’ and the random base-touching that everyone on Facebook shares.

Two days ago she was in town again. Through Facebook she let me know ahead of time in case we could get together. I picked her up from the airport and we got to spend a few short hours together in a whirlwind tour of Boston.  

How great is that?

At one point I thanked her for reaching out to me to let me know she’d be coming back, and we talked about how some people could consider it unusual to randomly take up with a stranger like we did with each other.  I think she said that even her husband was slightly surprised that she was making plans with ‘that girl she met on the plane’.

She is my friend.  I knew that almost as soon as we started talking on the flight last year. If her trips to Boston continue as annually as they seem to be starting out to be, I expect to see her each time she’s in town (I have her next two visits planned out already), and I need to start thinking about a trip to Minnesota (but not until the statue of Mary Tyler Moore is back up).

Who ever really knows what will come out of meeting or interacting with a person for the first time?

Friendship is often taken for granted; the first reason is probably because most of them begin geographically – who lives closest to you, or whose desk is closest to yours in class.  Then, friendships become almost situational, circumstantial, and organization-based – who you work with, people who share the same marital or parental status, and activity/theme/church-exclusive groupings.

After we ‘grow up’ we narrow those groupings further down by cherry-picking the people we want to spend the most time with and call only those people friends. We become regular in our habits and lifestyles, and even in those isolated relationships.

For some, friendship turns into responsibility, where it becomes conditional and based on how much time is invested.  Or, it becomes compartmentalized and sorted – like everything else in our lives – in order of importance.

It’s a shame that we forget how to play when we get caught up in our own situations. Do you remember how easy it was to just jump into play with another child at a park? As grownups, we forget how easy that was – or, how actually necessary it still is. We get so bogged down with life that we even forgo outings with friends for a night inside to relax, forgetting how much more we can get out of just playing. I know there have been many times that I’d made arrangements in advance with friends, yet when the night came up I “didn’t feel like it.” The result is always one of two things: I don’t go out and later on wish I had, or I do go out and realize “I should do this more often.”

We even whittle down our groups of friends. Do our friends have to be organized? Bounded? Limited? I find it funny that even on Facebook, where friendships take so little maintenance, that people feel the need to shorten their friends list simply because they have too many and they don’t talk to all of them enough. Too many friends?

There is no such thing as too many friends. If you know that it is really true that a smile can change someone’s day, then you have to be able to see the possibility of one distant acquaintance saying the right something to you at the right moment that has a great impact on you.

We become complacent in our friendships, forgetting how necessary they are until there is some major and unfortunate upheaval in our lives (like divorce or death) – it is only then that we realize how important it is to have friends around us, when we are looking for someone to lean on, and we learn that anyone can be a true friend.

Old friendships provide ground-bases and the comfort of familiarity; new friends provide new perspectives and experiences. Keeping some of them closer than others does not de-value the possibility of impact from those in outermost circles.

There have been so many personal habits adopted as good business tactics (establishing connections, proper greetings, maintaining contact, communication and even apologies). Making the business more personal will improve the business itself. The funny twist is that now these good habits have become largely business practices only. Business journals emphasize the importance of networking, developing contacts and interacting with as many others as you can to improve your career or business, but what about friend-working? Friend-working improves your life.

I don’t believe in coincidences as random occurrences; I believe that they are meant, and that every interaction with a new person is significant. I’m fortunate to have many friends in many different circles (and I enjoy mixing them up together). I have one friend I’ve known since high school; we’ve never really hung out, but we had a random hour together at a bus station shortly after graduation that I will never forget, and she will always be very special to me (I see her only very occasionally now); I have another friend I ‘met’ through a misdirected email – two years later I met her for the first time in person at my wedding, and now 15 years later with no face-to-face contact since (and no marriage, either), we are still very close.

(Don’t get me started on my ‘regular’ friends!)

You never know who is destined to be a part of your life, whether it be solely in the memory of the encounter itself or an actual, lasting friendship (even with limited contact). Their significance lies in the connection felt between you – and, yes, this can be simply a matter of situation and timing, of different stages each are at in life at the time.

Look around you. Smile. Talk to people. Anyone can be your friend.

Everyone can be your friend.

Even a good one.

(Thank you, Jennifer.)

The Man That Got Away

I have a playlist that begins with Judy Garland singing that song, "The Man That Got Away". The next song is always “One Less Bell to Answer” by Marilyn McCoo and the Fifth Dimension; the next song is always Marty Balin’s “Hearts”.  I started this playlist back in the days of mixtapes, before I even had any type of first-hand experience with good-love-gone-bad, and it segued its way onto my first mp3 player and onto my iPod now. Those three songs in particular – the staples of the list – have always drawn me in with that relatable sadness, even without the practical knowledge.

The man … the one ... that got away.  We all have one, right? That one demon, lurking behind the scenes, the one who the mere thought of can send your mind into a tailspin. You can be the most ‘together’ act on the planet, yet within seconds of contact with this person you are Sophie Fisher in Music and Lyrics (portrayed with painfully embarrassing precision by Drew Barrymore) when she runs into her old flame – an incoherent, babbling mess.

What is it about this person we’ve held onto? And why is it that the mere thought of that person can wreak such havoc with our minds?

As much as I’ve loved those songs my whole life, I resented most of the lyrics – it’s the same resentment I have towards everyone’s favorite movie line from Jerry Maguire: “You complete me.”

That’s not how it should be!! (I feel strongly enough about that to add two exclamation points!) I concede to a point that there is a certain romance to it, in the way that if you feel very strongly for another person that you know that they return the same depth of feeling – but to think that another person is needed to feel complete is actually quite sad. 

Feeling that way means that you will spend your life searching - for your own personal puppet master.  Life is about having experiences, and not waiting for ‘the right person’ to come along and give them to you. What if you never find that ‘right’ person? Will you settle for someone who’s almost right? How is it that we are made to believe that the quality of our lives is dependent on other people? In the name of love?

People grow and change on a daily basis (then again, some don’t); how is it that we feel the right to put upon someone else the responsibility of making us happy? Wouldn’t that restrict their own evolution?

The personal changes we go through that come about through experience can also directly affect a romantic entanglement, if the two aren’t moving at the same pace. Some relationships are only meant to be temporary.

I can hear many people arguing with me now that “if two people want to stay together, they will work at it.” While that statement isn’t totally wrong, it’s not totally right, either; not in the way that most people mean.

Love of any kind is effortless. You know that, because it happens that way. Can you really be specific in answering the question, “Why do you love - ?” Your answer is always a curious combination of reasons; however, if you took stock of the people around you that you care about you will find that you have pretty much the same reasons for caring about them – just in different amounts, but the person you ‘love’ always has one little element that you can’t quite explain, something that puts them in higher regard than the others. Did you have to work at that? No, it came naturally.

The ‘work’ a relationship needs is simple consideration for your partner - and that is how you need to look at the other: as a partner. Neither is 'in charge'. Whoever takes the reins in some instances cedes them in others, playing off of each other's individual strengths and still allowing the other to be his or her own individual. We are only able to provide this consideration for another if we have the same consideration for ourselves. This is why we must each be complete on our own. This is the element that makes relationships effortless. You can’t pour from an empty cup – that is work, and that is the ‘work’ people are really referring to regarding relationships, whether they know it or not. If you are not whole on your own, it is hard to be what makes someone else whole. Whether you desire to do that for them or they expect that from you, it is a heavy responsibility.

Have you ever known someone who changes like a chameleon with every new relationship he or she is in? That person is denying individuality and sense of self in sacrifice to 'the relationship'. That is also a measure of work, and eventually the effort it takes will become too much.

Happiness is a choice. It is for everything else; it is also a choice in a relationship – and that choice can only be made by each party in the relationship. You can’t sell anyone something they don’t want to buy; you can’t convince anyone of anything unless they already believe it on some level. If someone doesn’t want to be happy, they won’t be, no matter what anyone else does for them.

So, here I am. I know what I just said, and I believe every word of it. And there is still that … nudge of occasional melancholy when I think about that one. Am I unhappy? No. Am I lonely? No.  So, why, then?

I was talking to a new friend, one who doesn’t know me as well as others do and who does not know him. She said, “It’s because you’re human.”

You know what? That is not an answer I can accept. First of all, I’d already accepted my ‘human-ness’ when I admitted to being hurt by the end of the relationship (and, boy, was that a hard pill to swallow!); secondly, it’s really not an answer, because it still perpetuates the idea that it should be 'normal' for us to want to give our power away.

I believe that we are here to experience life, and that includes its polarity. I definitely got both sides of the experience! Doesn’t dwelling negatively on the past imply regret? I don’t regret the relationship. I learned a lot about myself then – and even more afterward. I can even honestly say that I enjoy what I’ve gained since then (even if the lesson hurt at the time).

I have this crazy, flip-side way of thinking occasionally, that questions whether or not my fascination with the ‘man that got away’ music could have actually drawn the experience into my life in some strange, cosmic way – I can picture my higher consciousness laughing at me, “Well, you asked for it!” 

(Although I have to admit that when it did happen, I was at an age beyond when I thought it would have! I guess I expected myself to know better when I was older.)

I do realize, too, that (because I am human) the lower, negatively-charged thoughts can spring up when I’m overtired, stressed, or hormonally challenged. Spiraling downward on a bad day or during tough circumstances is normal – another reason we need to keep ourselves happy all on our own to prevent the downslide from going too far down.    

My friend asked me if he knew I thought of him that way. I had two simultaneous thoughts: He has to know; I’ve made it painfully obvious and Does it matter? This is not about him; it’s about me!

I did give that question further thought, though; more from the perspective of whether or not I would want to know if someone felt that way about me.

Honestly, I don’t think I want to know. It would make me feel bad – or worse, it could make me feel pity.

That last thought was a slap in the face – I do not want to be pitied! Yes, my ego is standing straight up at that thought. I don’t deserve anyone’s pity – for anything. Especially not something that my ultimate happiness, my existence, doesn’t depend on.

If I am responsible for my own happiness, then it is not the thought of him that gets me down occasionally; it is something in me. If it is some kind of lack I am feeling, it is up to me to fill it, because it’s no one else’s job to do that for me. I do realize the freedom in knowing that, too.  

I’m actually more complete now. So, then, what did I lose?

“But fools will be fools…”

-- shut up, Judy.

We are not here to ‘catch’ other people.

And that means that no one 'gets away.'

So, I’m good.

(I still love those songs, though.)

(You should hear me sing them!)

hbr

Taking Leave

86 hours ago I got a phone call from a hospital nurse, telling me my 22-year-old daughter was in the ER with injuries from a car accident.

I have spent 80 of those hours here in the hospital with her. The first five hours I was here were spent in the ER waiting to find out the full extent of her injuries, standing by her bed watching her cry in pain, immobilized on the stretcher with a neck brace, not even moving her hands. I couldn’t even touch her, except for a few brief, teeny kisses on her forehead and to brush her hair out of her eyes.

I’m not whining. I’m recounting what has been happening. We are very lucky that none of her injuries are serious or permanent. Other parents are not so lucky. We may have six months or so of dealing with the aftermath of this, but six months out of a life are a drop in the bucket.

I have been here in this hospital, stressed, worried, scared, sad, helpless, sleepless, freezing, unshowered, unmedicated, useless, sober, and under-caffeinated. They unfolded a bench for me as a temporary bed which only makes my already tired muscles and back stiff. There was no sleep for the first 24 hours, and very little since then.  20-minute catnaps here and there have been a blessing.

-          And I am absolutely sure that I have it the easiest out of any person here in this hospital, staff included. 

It is Sunday morning. It is now four days After Accident. We have had some big accomplishments: on Friday my daughter got out of bed and sat in a chair, then on Saturday she worked her way up to walking (with a walker and nurse support) to the end of the bed and back, then they all walked to the bathroom. Today, she ‘walked’ out into the hallway. And she pooped. (She didn’t want me to put that up as a Facebook status, so I made her a sticker for her to wear on her johnny that says, “I Pooped!”)

Last night, my mother came with my 11-year-old daughter (who has been with her since the night of the accident. THANKYOUMOMYOUARESUCHABIGHELP!) and I was able to go home and take a shower and change.

It’s not yet 7 a.m., and my daughter is sleeping. It even looks like she’s sleeping well. She got almost 2 and a half hours good sleep, and was able to go back to sleep after a wake-up for medication, vitals check, and trek to the bathroom.

We are working up to her getting moved to a rehab facility tomorrow, and are looking at 6 months to initial recovery. Lots to do and prepare for.  I should go to sleep, too.

I can’t sleep; I’m wired. I’m so overtired, I’m punchy. We have reached an in-between moment, the down time between that period of stress-to-relief and the beginning of resolve – the work, the nitty-gritty, the aftermath.

And I’m too wound up to sleep.

Nothing productive ever happens on a Sunday morning. Phone calls are out of the question – the businesses I would need to call are closed.

I’ve decided to ‘take leave’ for a little.  To let go of reality and amuse myself. Take a mental break. 

There’s nothing I have to do right now, and I’m going to have to buckle down in a few hours.

Hey, I can’t sleep.

(This is usually the time where I start planning my “I was unsupervised” defense.)

I don't want to talk about my 'feelings'. Already did ("One Mother's Gratitude"). I'm ready to shake the Etch A Sketch and begin over.

I was fairly certain that no one here wanted me to start pushing any of the gazillion buttons around here, or playing with all the gadgets.

I’ve had my eye on this one for a while now. I’ve come up with at least 12 uses for it already:

So, I grabbed my cell phone and walked around.

Deren doesn’t want her picture taken (she has no idea how much it is killing me not to), so here is one of her feet under the blankets, with the walker in the background. When she has her own walker, she is planning to pimp it out. I'll be buying pink tennis balls later.

The WOWs (I know they can’t be called COWs anymore) are parked outside my daughter’s room. Another temptation. Even moreso, because I know how to use them (if the nurses here knew that, they would have moved them by now).

This kind of shower should be in every home.  I’m not sure which excited me more: the bench, the dual showerheads, or just the lower level showerhead. Shaving and … showering would definitely be enhanced!

Because I was in the bathroom, I had to take a selfie, and nothing says “Classy Bathroom Selfie” like a bedpan in the background.

I went outside for a bit. On the sidewalk they have painted footprints – I’m not sure why, exactly, but they are there. So I measured my step against them. I figure the person who posed for these was a male who was about a foot taller than me. If I walked with my legs that far apart, the docs would be chasing me with a suppository.

This is Kathy. She can kick your ass in physical therapy and make you happy about it at the same time. She is the perfect blend of drill instructor and mother (not ‘mother’ like me). My daughter loves her.

This is actually kind of comical.  Her activity level is written as “not OOB yet” – not ‘out of bed’ yet. I read it as a reference to our upcoming vacation next month to Old Orchard Beach. (Okay, maybe it’s just me.)

I have been wearing these hospital fashion socks since we got in a room. It's a good thing, not just because my feet are cold. If they were normal socks, I'd probably be 'skating' in the hallway.

This is ---

Damn. I was just getting into it.

My daughter’s father just got here. There’ll be more visitors, more therapy, and more to do.

Back to reality.

Hope I sleep, next break.

(For your sake, too.)

Thank you for playing!

One Mother's Gratitude

Two days ago my daughter was in a car accident. Her little Honda Civic was T-boned on the driver’s side by a Ford F150 moving at about 45 mph.

She is my firstborn. I remember when I held her for the first time; within five minutes I was completely aware of an overwhelming fear of the responsibility I immediately felt for her. I’d spent the last two months of my pregnancy impatient to deliver her, and in those first five minutes I was ready to put her back for a little while longer.

I had so many nightmares that first year as a parent. Every new experience was preceded by at least five mental scenarios highlighting how many different ways the situation could go wrong.

Eventually, I calmed down somewhat. Somewhat. At least on the outside. I was able to pretend to be totally excited for her when she got her driver’s license, and would ignore mental scenarios every time she drove away on her own – the worst one being the one where she got hit on the driver’s side.

And it happened.

And all I feel right now is gratitude. She has multiple rib fractures, a partially collapsed lung, and her pelvis is fractured in two places, front and back. She has spent the last two days relatively immobile, hurting to breathe and unable to rest comfortably - the rib fractures are on her right side and the pelvic fractures on her left, so she has no ‘safe’ spot to lie on; even the smallest movement hurt. She’s probably only had 3 hours total of sleep. Just today she was helped to get up out of bed for the first time and use a walker to cross a foot of space to a chair where she ‘had’ to sit for 45 minutes, in pain the whole time.

She was knocked unconscious on impact. She remembers up to two seconds before the accident and then nothing until she woke up in the ambulance.

I had no information about any of the accident until last night when someone showed me the article in the local paper. I saw the picture of her car and found out that she was trapped inside the car and that “two sets of the Jaws of Life extrication tools were used to free the woman from the vehicle.”

(Isn’t it surreal to read a news item about someone you know? “The woman”? No, that’s my little girl!)

I’d imagined this happening many times before, especially in the last 6 years since she’s had her license.

And all I feel is gratitude. The worst-case scenario happened in the best possible way; she was unconscious while she was trapped in the car and didn’t wake up until she was secured, she will not need surgery, none of her injuries are permanent … and she is still here, with me.

I hate seeing her hurting. I’m afraid to touch her except for an occasional, hesitant caress on her forehead. I don’t want her hurting any more than she is and I’m afraid that I might touch the wrong spot and make her hurt more. I’m in awe of the competent abilities of the nursing staff and at the same time I hate them when they move her and it causes her pain. I want them to do what needs to be done, yet I want them to baby her.

Like that first time I held her, I’m also afraid to take her home because I don’t feel qualified to take care of her. She can’t walk by herself right now; it can take 10 to 15 minutes for her to get off the bed and onto a nearby chair, she can't reach an arm out 6 inches to grab the cup of water and she can’t drink without a straw. She’s getting so frustrated at times at how much she can’t do. She’s angry at the pain.

I had to leave the hospital for a little while this morning. The handful of people I spoke to all wanted to know how she was doing. I went to the bank and was talking to my teller-friend and saw the picture of my daughter’s car again … and it all hit me – the stress, the pain, the fear, the resentment, the lack of sleep, the uncomfortable pull-out bed, constantly having to put a face on for my daughter ... the late-night hospital Sanka, etc. All of a sudden I was crying – I mean, I think I was crying, blubbering like an idiot with tears pouring down my face … but I was happy, I was so very happy.

We will probably be here for another two days. After this, she may be spending a few days in a rehab facility.  She is still going to be hurting and I’m going to have to watch her hurting without being able to make anything better for her.

But she was in this car:

                                                 (Brockton Enterprise photo. http://enterprisenews.com/article/20160721/NEWS/160728993)

… and she is still here. No matter what else we have to go through, she is and will be okay.

Thank you … thank you … thank you …

Thank You For Your Divorce

Yesterday I posted this picture of me and my parents on Facebook, but I neglected to mention how truly great this picture is – and not just because my hair looks fabulous.

What makes this picture especially great isn’t just that I’m with my parents at a family party: I’m with my DIVORCED parents at a family party. My father’s family. And this is nothing new to me.

They divorced more than 30 years ago, back when society was focusing on the ‘fall of the American family’ and worried about children from ‘broken’ homes. When mothers were just starting to be allowed to work outside of the home, and it was ‘a shame’ that single mothers ‘had to’ (thereby neglecting the kids) and ‘weekend fathers’ only took their kids to the movies.

They were among the pioneers, if you will, of the new structure of family when nobody knew how to handle it – including them.

I’ve said many things about both of them (and I’ve given them much to say about me, too!), and I’m sure I will say more, including what I want to point out now:

They may have not always agreed with each other’s decisions. They both moved on with remarriages and new lives. And they both still managed to remain our parents together. They were better than ‘just civil’ to each other, I’ve never felt like the breakdown of the marriage was my fault, they never used us kids to manipulate each other (even when their respective spouses tried to get them to), and they continued to be parents together during my highs and my lows (even when they disagreed).

They both showed up. Like real parents. Because they were real parents.

I hated the label of being a ‘child from a broken home’ – not because my home was ‘broken’, but because I was almost expected to fail because of that label, and I thought that was unfair.

A word about ‘broken’ homes: divorce doesn’t break a home; the events leading up to it do. Divorce is a remedy, like it or not. My parents did better by me by divorcing than if they forced themselves to stay together with the state their relationship was in.

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for not putting me through that.  That would have really made our home broken.

I got to watch them rebuild themselves – that was, has been, and is an invaluable lesson. I can only imagine how they must have felt, not just going through the end of a marriage (in their early 30s with four kids), but going through it at a time that there was such stigma attached to it. That took courage.

Thank you for supporting me, together, and for your support of each other. Thank you for always being my parents (whether I appreciated it or not).

I was a child from a broken home. I am almost 50 now, so I can say with authority that if there is anything wrong with me (heh heh heh!), it’s not the fault of their divorce.

It is never too late to say 'thank you' to someone. This was a long time ago, I know, but it should still be acknowledged. This was not a failure.

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for getting married and having me –

But thank you more, for your divorce.

Playing With Friends

I’m an adult now.

--Okay, I can’t even write that without giggling. I should qualify that: my driver’s license says I am, and my kids say I look like one.

Every so often I get to go out and play with my friends, my old friends from the old neighborhood and school (not just high school, but even before that). Little mini-reunions.

A word about reunions: GO. I don’t care if you ‘never hung out with anyone in high school,’ or if you ‘don’t care to see any of those people again,’ or even if you subscribe to the ‘no looking back’ theory. I hear some of you talk about being old, and it is never a celebratory statement. (I hate that, by the way, because we are the same age and I am not ‘old’!) The people of our past encapsulate whatever time period they were a part of. Collectively, they hold (in a sense) our youth; we, all of us together, are each other’s time keepers. Spending time with them in a group is like an injection of that youth, because we see each other as we were, and that brings out what we were at that time. Remember, too, that we now have the advantage about being very selective about which parts of our past we choose to dust off and bring out. Childhood without the drama. Pure, unadulterated childhood.

I won’t go on; this isn’t the first time I’ve talked about this, and I’d hazard a guess that it won’t be the last.

How we started these ‘mini-reunions’ was sort of by accident. Many of us still live close to the area we grew up in. One friend that I knew from high school, middle school, and my old neighborhood was playing in a band locally. A few of us went to see him, and ran into a few other friends from school and we took a picture. The funny thing was that all of us in the picture had gone to middle school together, and the picture was posted on Facebook as a mini middle school reunion.

-- To those of you that feel that the internet and technology have destroyed all forms of human contact and communication: keep an eye out for my rebuttal blog.

That first picture got a lot of attention and comments like How come no one told me? and When are you doing it again? After that we began planning these gatherings, and because we are at the age where when we talk about old friends we are combining all of them from every year and overlapping period, anyone who had anything to do with any of us is invited.

That was 3 years ago, and we’ve managed to squeeze in 5 or 6 of these gatherings since then, each one getting a little larger.

Last night we had another one of our mini-reunion gatherings. It was actually our biggest one yet, and extra special to me because an old family-neighborhood-school friend was going to be there who hasn’t lived in this state in a number of years (a big number - decades). And we had our ‘regulars’, ‘new regulars’ and even newer faces show up. Every time a new face comes in, it adds so much more to the night.

We all sat together at the table and talked. And laughed. And just enjoyed each other’s company the same way we did back then. As it got later in the evening, the crowd in the restaurant got younger, and they probably looked at us as if we were ‘the old table’, but we didn’t know it; we were just kids hanging out with other kids. And drinking legally.

I was bouncing around the table, taking pictures and trying to make sure I got a chance to get in on every conversation, but at one point I just sat there and looked around. It’s really quite a rush to be in that kind of space, seeing so many familiar faces together again, feeling that energy …

If I were a filmmaker I’d recreate the same scene this way: the setting would be a school cafeteria, and all of us would be about 10 years old. The friends who brought their wives or boyfriends would be shown showing up separately, each another 10 year old bringing another ‘new friend’ to the table (they’d be holding hands as they came over - the ‘old’ friend a step ahead, pulling the ‘new’ friend on in). The conversation, though, would be exactly the same as it was last night, full of ‘remember whens’, talk about jobs, marriages, divorce, children, grandchildren … and life.

That’s what it felt like, sitting there and looking around the table. The odd dream of the blend of then and now, familiar faces with new stories. Time travel without technology. Every moment (past, present, and future) occurring at the same time. Proof that time is not linear but simultaneous, each period stacked one on top of the other like 45’s on a spindle, with easy access to whenever you want to be. The collapsing of time and space.

I still see all of us as we were, even if our conversation is more adult (somewhat). I feel me as I was when I spent most of my time with them, too. There is a happy surprise in seeing someone you haven’t seen in a while who, while they are talking about new things, does something or says something in a way that is old and familiar. They haven’t changed. We haven’t changed; there is just more to us.

But the best of us, the kid in all of us, is still there. And even if we find ourselves unable to incorporate that child into our adult lives, we still have the opportunity to visit him or her once in a while.

It’s rejuvenating.

Get it while you can.

The Pity Party

Tonight I got disappointed.

Not hurt, not beaten … just disappointed.

When I’m ‘on my game’ I’m a fucking cheerleader and downright annoying.

Correction: I’m annoying most days (it’s part of my charm). I’ll talk your ear off, and always about what I want to talk about.

I can argue the same point from at least 16 different perspectives (I can do better, but 16 is the average). This is what makes me most annoying to others – except when I’m viciously angry; I hear then that I’m quite hilarious (not to those I’m angry at, though – only the people that hear my rants).

Those 16 (or more) perspectives come from an intense desire to not be misunderstood. I use them always, when I’m trying to cheer you up and when I want you to listen to me.

My father gets the credit for that. I worked very hard to be understood by him, while desperately hanging on to my rose-colored glasses that he hated so much.

(I still have them, by the way.)

It was my first ex that gave me the title of Fucking Cheerleader. I truly believe that life is beautiful and that everything is going to be okay – even wonderful. He didn’t always want to hear that.

I will tell you the same thing.

Even if you don’t want to hear it.

Which is what makes me annoying.

Not because you say I am, because I don’t care what anyone else thinks – and that’s not defeat talking; that is the self-realization about whose opinion really matters.

Mine.

And right now, I’m disappointed about something. Something truly stupid.

And I’m using more than my average 16 viewpoints to show myself that I really have no reason to be pissy.

And I don’t want to hear it.

It’s annoying.

Ergo, I am.

Do you know that when you’re upset about something, that it’s good to let it out? Set a timer, they say. Give in to your feelings long enough to get them off your chest, but not long enough to wallow. I planned to give myself the time it took to drink two beers, figuring that one of them - the time allotted or the alcohol itself – would do the trick. Or at least make me sleep.

Twice I got up to grab a beer.

I couldn’t even do that. I was too pissy to have a beer. How is that possible? I can’t even put the ‘party’ in a pity party? Lamest pity party, ever!

To my kids, my parents, my exes, my friends, and anyone else forced to listen to me when I’m trying to cheer you up: know that me being on my own receiving end of my pom-poms is much worse than you getting the brunt of it.

It’s really not a big deal, Susie.

Tomorrow is a new day, Susie.

These things don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, Susie.

You have so much to be grateful for, Susie.

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Shut the fuck up, Susie.

I think I feel better now.

Thanks for listening.