So Many Changes

You never really realize how many changes you have gone through until you talk to someone you haven’t spoken to in a while.

I’m on the phone this morning, making coffee (you KNOW I like you if I talk to you before my morning coffee.) and just generally putting around the kitchen when the caller asks about a few things. There was a lot of “oh yea, I don’t do that anymore” and “oh yea, I don’t live there anymore.” Then, explaining what I am doing and where I am living.

So many changes over the past 4 months have left me feeling like I’m making a whole new life for myself. While that can be a good thing, it can certainly be daunting as well.

There are people that have a knack for this change thing, I don’t happen to be one of those people. I look at change as being quite possibly bad, and some see it as being quite possibly good. Those two people typically end up in a relationship with one another in some manner, they are either related or married.

Speaking of being married, I was told the other day that a person was married and now they consider it to be overrated. I don’t know about all that. I think marriage can be a wonderful thing, depending on the choices YOU make. Making other people pay for your bad choices isn’t very wise.

While I type this, I sit in my new bedroom that is all nice and comfy, in an apartment that I had waited entirely too long to get. I’m grateful.

Tell Me About Yourself

While having a conversation today, I was asked to tell people about myself. I reeled for entirely too long, thinking about if I tell them about my children, my home, my family, the fact that my pinkie nails grow longer than any of the others, or maybe even about my minor tea addiction.

I believe this question is far too open ended. What do normal people say to this? Do you talk about yourself like “yea, I had cherries for breakfast, I love long walks in the park, cute dogs, and the smell after it rains.” Or do you give facts like “I have 3 kids, I was born in Dallas, graduated High School at 17…”

I will tell you what I said after my brain sifted through logical facts and stupid information that I really shouldn’t tell people. I said I had kids and have been here for 18+ years then babbled about I enjoy traveling and other almost false information.

If you really want to know a person you need to ask more pointed questions like “how do you like your coffee?” or “what do you do when you get angry?” Those will give you more direct information that you can use some follow up questions on.

A Little Closure

So, if you read my blog you know my childhood home was sold, and though it didn’t hit me right away, it did inevitably do so, and I was forced to deal with the truth of it all.

If you have never been in this position, let me explain what it feels like.

I’ve never had a person that was my “rock,” my rock has always been a place, and it was this place in particular. I knew it was always going to be there no matter what, and regardless of what I looked like when I showed up, it seemingly didn’t care.

So, when it sold, I lost my “rock” and now I feel like I’m swimming with no life raft.

Don’t get me wrong, I have some great people in my life, but this “rock” has been consistent since I was a child. Not very many things have been important to me for this long.

Yesterday I had coffee with the neighbor of that place, and she is as affected as I am. She would often come over and visit, and it has been part of her life for nearly 20 years. I almost feel like she gets what I am feeling.

She told me it looks exactly the same, they haven’t done anything to it, and the day before she heard someone mowing.

There was something about this conversation that made me feel better. While she was talking, it occurred to me that this place can forever remain in my heart, even though I never get to visit it again. Nobody can take away the memories of the place, and no matter what they do to it, nobody can remove the feelings I have towards it.

So yesterday I got a little more closure on it, and found out that even she is moving, so I won’t even get to spy on my “rock” anymore, though it sounds like I have a year of spying left.

I also learned yesterday that there are some crappy coffee shops in this world, so if you want something safe, just get a caramel mocha. Apparently they are hard to screw up.

But You Have To

This morning I woke up feeling a little nostalgic. While drinking my morning coffee, I sat thinking about the first group I ever posted my poetry in, and how surprised I was that ANYONE liked it.

In lieu of that, I wrote to a lady that I thought was taking over that group, only to find out she didn’t, so I didn’t get to reminisce with her about the group. or how we met over 12 years ago through it.

So, I stalked the group for a little bit, lost interest and started thinking about some of my old writings. At the same time, the lady I had talked to earlier asked if I had published a book lately. I told her I hadn’t published in nearly 2 years, and though the words “I need to get this next book out” keeps falling out of my mouth, I never have actually done it.

Though I totally know I have a concentration problem, I also know that things happen when they happen and some things cannot be rushed. I’m not really a procrastinator, I just literally get distracted with something else for a while and then remember I need to focus sometimes.

I never brag about my writing, and in fact if you talk to anyone that actually knows me, I don’t even TALK about my writing unless it just happens to come up in conversation. But, that also leaves me with nobody knowing what is going on, if I’m even still writing, if I’m going to publish anymore books, and then I have to answer the questions by people that actually do care.

She and I converse about my next book idea, and even the title, and she says to me “Ok, you can get distracted today, but you have to publish this book.” She’s right, I do, and I will. Most likely in the next month or so (they take a while to put together, even when completely written.) and hopefully by October it’ll be published.

On a whole other note, she told me the best question EVER to ask someone is “what is the first thing you thought of when you woke up this morning?” My answer is most always coffee, but apparently hers changes day to day. Does yours?

Trash

So, I got moved. I’ve had a chance to actually be home for a little while in the past month, and actually gotten some things done. My living room, for example, is completely finished, with the exception of a television mount that I’m not even going to try to do myself, and a couple of pictures sitting on the floor I’m not sure where I’m going to hang.

A lesson I learned in all of this, is if I’m ever going to put things into storage, I’m just going to throw it away. So now, a story..

The relationship that ended over 2 years ago left me a little damaged. Enough so, that the thought of going through the storage things would irritate me. Months ago, I had to get something out of storage and took 2 unsuspecting men with me to help get it out. I saw one thing that reminded me of that relationship and began throwing things around, even broke the item that reminded me, while the men stood back and were like “oh, you broke this Josephine, but that’s alright, I think I can fix it with some super glue.” I took it out of his hand and informed him we’d be throwing it away.

So, when it came time to actually go through all of it I was a little tense. Before the storage items came to my new home though, I had a little talk with myself about not letting the people that are helping me see my crazy. When we started going through boxes and I would see something that would have typically triggered me, I simply put it in the trash box and went on with my life. After a few times of this, it just became the norm that I wouldn’t allow myself to feel anything, it was just trash.

Needless to say, nothing was broken in the move, at least by me.

Now I’m down to about 5 boxes, and really just over unpacking. I have everything I need out, so I’m thinking these 5 are trash too. I’m just going to give it a day or two to make sure.

Change

You know, at this moment I don’t even like that word. I’ve had so much change over the past 4 months. So much so that I’m sitting here with a cup of coffee looking at a ton of work that really needs to get done and not even giving a rats behind that it isn’t.

I know that it is necessary in life, but at this point of my life, I’d like it subtly, slowly, and maybe even with a little warning.

But, this is not the blog of complaining, so I’ll stop.

I realized recently I had lumped an entire family into a category. That category was “do not look them directly in the eyes, do not speak to them unless they speak to you, and avoid them at all costs, even if you have to turn around and randomly start running.”

They earned that honestly, and even probably relished in the idea that they never had my attention, concern, or even thought. It is my mothers family, and I’m adopted, and they didn’t ever accept my presence in the family. I don’t know if it is because of the person that was supposed to be my aunt married the dude that was married to the woman that had me, or just because they are complete morons, but here we are.

The only thing I know for certain is they have disliked me since childhood, and as an adult I learned to pretend they don’t exist. I was never cruel to them, and even spoke to them a few times, but when push came to shove, they were dead to me.

In fact, my mother started talking about one of them one time and I quipped “is she still alive?” I was asking seriously, everyone thought I was joking.

The problem was I did it with the ENTIRE family, I just lumped them all in, including another aunt I could have had all this time that wasn’t like the others. I realized this mistake in June.

I show up to my mothers house and sit down, and this particular aunt is there. My mind forgets to go into “these people are dead” mode, and so I do start paying attention to what she is saying and doing. It then occurs to me that she is different. She’s engaging with me, asking about children and where I live, about my job and car, with a genuine interest in the answer.

Just then I realized I had made a mistake lumping everyone into the same category. The last time she was here I even apologized for my behavior and told her that it was just a coping mechanism for me.

We took one another’s phone numbers, and added one another on Facebook, and now I have an aunt. I don’t know what kind of good an aunt can do at my age, but hey, at least I have one.

Moving and Other Hell

Originally when I moved to Idaho I did it to try to fix some of the things I had realized I’d done when I was younger. Avoidance doesn’t make people want to understand you, so I decided to move back “home” to show relatives who I really was and what I was made of. I kinda failed at that, since I don’t particularly like people, and my 20+ years of avoidance had made them lose interest enough that there wasn’t really any coming back from it.

What really happened in Idaho is that I got to raise children, make a ton of friends that are like family to me, find out my biological father was a teenage friend of my brothers, and find sisters through DNA.

Recently I had a chance to move from what I thought of as hell to a “normal” apartment. Things that had been in storage for over 2 years would be taken out and thrown into this apartment as well as things I currently had, and with just me to coordinate, move, and unpack, I knew I was in for hell.

Add into the fact that months earlier I had told a friend I would house sit for her while she vacationed, and it happened to land on the weekend I was moving, and oh yes, my parents decided to sell my childhood home and have a huge yard sale that very weekend, and you begin to see the diversion and virtual train wreck without me even needing to describe it.

I got to pack for a couple of days, then move for a couple days, then sit at a yard sale while going to my friends house every night for 4 or 5 nights, and didn’t even get the chance to process literally anything.

So this morning when I was wondering how in the world I could forget to make my car payment, I stopped beating myself up and realized I had too much on my plate to even consider remembering everything, and just made the damn payment.

Now I sit in my half unpacked house and have decided to give myself a break. If I want to unpack a little, I do, if I don’t, then I don’t.

Sometimes I sit and think of memories on my parents property and get sad, but didn’t actually cry about it until yesterday. I text my sister, because it occurred to me that I had gone literally a month with the information and it just hit me randomly. It’s going to be hard not having a home base. It’s going to be even harder not to have that place that was so familiar to me I could tell you how many trees are down by the road, and about the time I tried to thin out what was supposed to be my mothers Christmas tree farm.

There were bad memories there too, my childhood there was less than stellar, but my adulthood there was amazing.

Now I have to find my own “home base” and feel secure in knowing that I’m in charge of not only where that is, but if I choose to get rid of it.

Life is full of changes, and I get that, but apparently I like to do all mine at once, and drive myself crazy trying to figure out how I’m going to deal with it.

But for now, I’m taking a break. Lets all take a break, just breathe, and be kind to ourselves and one another.

Maybe Overdone?

So, I have a new lease on life. It is especially new since literally everything in my life changed in the past month or so, and I’ve found myself actually doing things that I probably should have (definitely should have) been doing over the past 2 years.

But, no going back, and now I’m actually doing it, and actually happy to be making the necessary changes.

The past two weekends I’ve gone out of town. The first was to my sisters house, where I get to relax, not worry about anything that is going on where I live, and just be myself. This past weekend, I went to a hot spring and enjoyed the stinky water, a massage, and other fun activities. That trip was 3 days, and by the end of it, I was sore, sunburnt and ready to go home. Of course nobody else was, so we took our time getting home until finally we arrived sometime yesterday afternoon.

A couple of things occurred to me on these two trips, besides the fact they were the polar opposites of one another. The first is that I don’t really mind people. I’m fairly social and have some great socializing skills, and can even use them as necessary. The second is that even though I don’t mind people I don’t enjoy being around them 24/7, which I think is why I wanted to come home. Motels are noisy, and people in them are noisy, so you never get to actually feel like you are alone. When you do get two minutes to feel that way, someone drops something upstairs, or people walk by your room talking about where they left their dog, or what kind of sunscreen is best.

Another thing I learned is that when you come home absolutely everything smells like that water, and though you may have enjoyed it there, at home it is just stinky.

Anyway, I am home and rested and ready to take over the world.

The Power of Knowledge

I received a phone call the other day I never thought I would get. It was an ex from 20+ years ago. We said hello, then the small talk, then the questions like “what do you do for a living” and, of course “are your parents still alive?”

I sat there listening to him talk about what his father did after his mother passed wondering why in the hell this dude was even calling me. What could he possibly want? Why would someone from the past be calling me, and especially this one? I never wanted to hear his voice again.

When he was done with the stories, he went into talking about us. He brought things up like how I drank my coffee, and the very first time I ever called him a bitch. He told me when my birthday was, and how cranky I got when I overslept or was late to something.

“Why did you call me?” I finally ask him. He asked then how I liked living where I am and whether I could imagine myself moving back down to where he is. I laughed.

For the life of me, during this 45 minute conversation, I couldn’t remember his middle name, when his birthday was, or even his eye color. I do remember finding out he was cheating, and seeing them together before we were even divorced. I remember trying to find a home for me and my infant son, and one night sleeping in a motel parking lot in my car because I had nowhere to go.

Those things I remember like they happened yesterday.

They say you don’t visit the past because you don’t live there anymore, and I couldn’t agree more.

I don’t want to hear about how great your life is or how you are working everything out, I don’t want to know that you have a wonderful friendship with your ex wife, the woman you were having an affair with while we were married.

Not that I want to hear the bad things, I would have rather had him never call me so I can just imagine that he was stubbing his toe every day and falling down stairs every single time he came across them. That made me feel better.

Don’t call your ex and ruin her visions of you stubbing your toe every day.

Burn

So the last time I wrote in here I told you about how I seem to burn myself while cooking and haven’t ever been able to figure out why. So, I have 2 fingers with blisters on them, they had broken and now are starting to heal when obviously I cooked tonight. You know what hurts worse than a burn? When you burn a burn. That feeling just absolutely is indescribable. Now I have healing blisters, yet it is red and angry like I could get another on top of that, and hurts to even think of moving. Let me tell you how this happened.

I’m boiling water, when I realize I need to start straining that to finish preparing it, so I pick up the pan and dump the contents into a strainer. Now, these noodles had just come out of boiling water, right? So best to not touch those! I didn’t, just what I was thinking when I was manhandling the pan with still a touch of hot water in it. I went to sit the pan down, yet wanted to move a plastic item out of the sink, so I put my left hand into the sink while simultaneously dumping the hot water into the sink. You guessed it, the water went right onto my recent burn and I ended up dropping both the pan and what I was moving out of the way.

I don’t know what it is about me that I cannot seem to cook without somehow burning myself.

What can you do to make your burn feel better? You can’t. Cold water will work for a minute, but you move it out for even a second and you’ll be quickly reminded you have a burn.

I was talking to someone today and he asked me “how often do you cook?” I wanted to say something sarcastic like “how often do you build houses or repair cars?” But I decided to actually just answer. “Only when I get hungry.”