Went to see The Odd Life of Timothy Green today. Sweet movie that we all enjoyed a great deal. But as a person who has had 4 miscarriages - - I will admit to you that I cried like a baby in the beginning of the movie, as the parents describe "their child" and put the descriptions in the box. Oh amen! I've so been there. Despite my attempts to not engage in it, I went from positive pregnancy test to guessing at gender and thinking about names and calculating due date and maternity leave to high school graduation and thoughts of the future for each and every one of those pregnancies. And then as soon as I had each of my miscarriages, I purged all those pertinent dates and thoughts from my brain. It hasn't been that long, and I couldn't tell you a single one of my then-thwarted due dates or anything. Internal defenses to certain events are an interesting thing.
On the way home from the movie, both my kids started crying about our dog that died a couple years ago. How they miss her, wondering where she is buried (btw, if anyone has an explanation for I explain allowing a family pet to be cremated by the vet's office that might make sense to a 9 year old, I'm all ears), and how life isn't fair. Oh ain't that the truth, children! They had me crying too.
A much different vibe than our usual movie trips, but really a lovely movie.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Feelings ... wo wo wo feeeelings ...
Anyone else remember that classic song "Feelings" by some guy? No wonder I reject feelings - I was scarred for life by that song!
Anyway, it's been hard to come up with a blog topic lately - mostly because I've been way too scattered from being busy to think of much coherent, but also because the crap that floats through my brain is all on those topics I don't blog about. I used to be able to say that I would be glad when the election is over, but I swear the political b.s. (lying, scheming, and making no effort to further community or national goals because we're too busy name calling) just goes on continually nowadays, but of course it is way worse in a presidential election year.
Last night at my Al Anon meeting, there was a reading about the need to think before we speak - that airing things out unfiltered can cause untold damage. True enough. But what struck me was the flip side - that by thinking TOO MUCH before we speak, we (and by we I mean I) tend to deny our feelings and miss our opportunity to express them - which can cause untold damage to ourselves and our relationships. I was raised not to have emotions, much less express them. It hasn't been too hard to learn to express positive emotions but if something makes me feel a negative emotion, I have no ability to open up my mouth and talk about it.
What is interesting to me is that I can sit in meetings and think - for instance in response to this reading - wow, I'm doing great because I don't vent at people and say hurtful things. Yay me. And then sometimes these other realizations happen and I think - crap ... I am one damaged piece of work. But I did give myself a little pat for having this realization.
The next reading was something about how the program allows a safe space for folks who have long stuff their emotions to feel those stuffed feelings - and it characterized it as those emotions boiling forward like hot lava pouring out. Well to my Midwestern Lutheran Scandahoovian self, this stopped me in my tracks. I'm good. No need for hot lava here. You can just keep your full range of emotional health, I'll just be here. Holy crap, who thinks that the 'hot lava' experience is a motivator to work the program to get in touch with your inner emotions? I am not miserable by any stretch, I'm mostly content even - I should also say that I'm not convinced that I have a hot lava pool in me anyway - but I am certainly not feeling anxious to move one step in that direction just in case.
So feelings - I have them. I feel them. I can identify a whole spectrum of them in me. I even know the script for talking about the negative ones (you know, the "when you do [whatever], I feel [whatever], and it would feel better to me if you would do [whatever] instead." But I can't visualize how to make myself do that any more than I can visualize how to make myself do a back flip.
Anyway, it's been hard to come up with a blog topic lately - mostly because I've been way too scattered from being busy to think of much coherent, but also because the crap that floats through my brain is all on those topics I don't blog about. I used to be able to say that I would be glad when the election is over, but I swear the political b.s. (lying, scheming, and making no effort to further community or national goals because we're too busy name calling) just goes on continually nowadays, but of course it is way worse in a presidential election year.
Last night at my Al Anon meeting, there was a reading about the need to think before we speak - that airing things out unfiltered can cause untold damage. True enough. But what struck me was the flip side - that by thinking TOO MUCH before we speak, we (and by we I mean I) tend to deny our feelings and miss our opportunity to express them - which can cause untold damage to ourselves and our relationships. I was raised not to have emotions, much less express them. It hasn't been too hard to learn to express positive emotions but if something makes me feel a negative emotion, I have no ability to open up my mouth and talk about it.
What is interesting to me is that I can sit in meetings and think - for instance in response to this reading - wow, I'm doing great because I don't vent at people and say hurtful things. Yay me. And then sometimes these other realizations happen and I think - crap ... I am one damaged piece of work. But I did give myself a little pat for having this realization.
The next reading was something about how the program allows a safe space for folks who have long stuff their emotions to feel those stuffed feelings - and it characterized it as those emotions boiling forward like hot lava pouring out. Well to my Midwestern Lutheran Scandahoovian self, this stopped me in my tracks. I'm good. No need for hot lava here. You can just keep your full range of emotional health, I'll just be here. Holy crap, who thinks that the 'hot lava' experience is a motivator to work the program to get in touch with your inner emotions? I am not miserable by any stretch, I'm mostly content even - I should also say that I'm not convinced that I have a hot lava pool in me anyway - but I am certainly not feeling anxious to move one step in that direction just in case.
So feelings - I have them. I feel them. I can identify a whole spectrum of them in me. I even know the script for talking about the negative ones (you know, the "when you do [whatever], I feel [whatever], and it would feel better to me if you would do [whatever] instead." But I can't visualize how to make myself do that any more than I can visualize how to make myself do a back flip.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
another tick off my bucket list
Had the good fortune to see one of my favorite singer songwriters in concert tonight at one of my favorite places - the Minnesota Zoo uses their outdoor amphitheater for Music in the Zoo in the summertime and my sister and I went to see Mary Chapin Carpenter. She has long been a favorite, since the first time I ever heard her music, and she has long been on my list - for whatever reason - of celebrities I'd like to have a beer with. Well no beer tonight, but I am very happy to like her just as much after the concert - she seemed nice and friendly and grateful and funny.
Got me thinking about other groups I've seen in concert ... I have a pretty limited live music experience. My first concert was Styx during their Kilroy was Here tour. I was a senior in high school. Then I saw the Nylons and Billy Joel in my early 20s. When I was in Seattle, I saw some groups I don't recall the names of, but I did see one concert by The Proclaimers (awesome!) and I saw Pearl Jam at the Gorge in George, with Neil Young (Eddie Vedder was so drunk it was kind of disappointing). I saw Harry Connick Jr (he is a wild performer and so fun - and adorable) during law school and I also won tickets to some concert with three pop/rock groups who had big songs around then but I can't for the life of me remember who those groups were...and I don't think I've seen anyone since then (1999).
So maybe having a beer with Mary Chapin was a bit of a stretch for my bucket list, so I'll consider it satisfied with tonight and our front row seats. Worth every penny!
Got me thinking about other groups I've seen in concert ... I have a pretty limited live music experience. My first concert was Styx during their Kilroy was Here tour. I was a senior in high school. Then I saw the Nylons and Billy Joel in my early 20s. When I was in Seattle, I saw some groups I don't recall the names of, but I did see one concert by The Proclaimers (awesome!) and I saw Pearl Jam at the Gorge in George, with Neil Young (Eddie Vedder was so drunk it was kind of disappointing). I saw Harry Connick Jr (he is a wild performer and so fun - and adorable) during law school and I also won tickets to some concert with three pop/rock groups who had big songs around then but I can't for the life of me remember who those groups were...and I don't think I've seen anyone since then (1999).
So maybe having a beer with Mary Chapin was a bit of a stretch for my bucket list, so I'll consider it satisfied with tonight and our front row seats. Worth every penny!
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Marriage...
Any other Princess Bride fans out there? "Mawwaige ... mawwaige is wha' bwings uff togevah, today." Love that movie. Love to mimic that marriage ceremony. Probably be good if no-one ever asked me to get my internet credentials to solemnize their marriage - between my love of bad imitations and my track record with weddings (Sean and I were married by a judge in a pumpkin suit), I'd probably be a risky bet.
Two different people made me think about marriage this week. Lots of times I take it for granted - being married - and one of my friends commented this week that she had long thought if she just got divorced, then her live would be stress free, and then she realized all the new stresses that would come from being divorced in her current stage of life. And I thought to myself how easy it is, when you are annoyed with your job or your work or your house or whatever, to just think of that green grass on the other side of the offending fence. It's deceptive sometimes.
And then I woke up this morning to several Facebook posts from another friend, announcing her impending move out of the house and divorce, and already scouting for a replacement wife for her husband so he can be happy since she can't seem to make him happy. Shocking way to start my day. Those friends are from long ago and I've only seen them once in the past 10+ years, but I was there when the relationship began and was one of two witnesses to their wedding, and it made me sad to think that this is the end after 18 or so years. Later today was informed that perhaps the end is not as near as it appeared last night. Perhaps after a night to sleep on it, that green grass didn't appear quite so green, eh?
I was married once before, to my first boyfriend. We got married when we were 23, after dating for 2 years. On the day of our wedding, he was just an ass to me that I actually considered calling it off. I realized then that this was not a marriage that would last and I remember very coldly thinking that I would marry him, have my children, and then dump him - and in that way, I would get my kids and get to keep his family. I was not "in love" on my wedding day. We should have broken up. My parents weren't crazy about him, so they would not have presented any arguments against calling off the wedding, but I didn't tell anyone what was going on in my head. Thank goodness no children were conceived in that marriage! I was so bloody naive to think that divorce would have been any kind of solution, post-children. Marriage ended after 2.5 years when we separated, filled out DIY divorce papers one night over supper at Perkins, and the divorce was final just a month shy of our third anniversary. One of the best things I ever did - ending that fiasco of a marriage.
When Sean and I met, it was a whirlwind. I didn't expect to even like him, when our mutual friend fixed us up, and the fact that we even had a 2nd date is a testament to Sean's efforts. But about a month in, I knew it was a good thing. The biological clock business started in my head (I was 36). And three months after our blind date, we picked a wedding date in the fall, while out walking the dog. He hadn't even proposed yet! I told him, long before he proposed, that I wasn't getting divorced again, and if we got married, it was forever for me. That still holds true, as we wrap up our first decade of marriage, but I am the first to admit that marriage is hard and certainly not the romantic b.s. that pop culture would have us believe.
I think divorce has it's place, just as I think there are lots of marriages that never should have happened, but it still makes me sad when good solid people struggle in the trenches of their relationship. There is no stock answer either - what works for one person, doesn't always work for another. The reality is that there is green grass, and nasty thorny weeds, and everything in between, on both sides of the fence.
Two different people made me think about marriage this week. Lots of times I take it for granted - being married - and one of my friends commented this week that she had long thought if she just got divorced, then her live would be stress free, and then she realized all the new stresses that would come from being divorced in her current stage of life. And I thought to myself how easy it is, when you are annoyed with your job or your work or your house or whatever, to just think of that green grass on the other side of the offending fence. It's deceptive sometimes.
And then I woke up this morning to several Facebook posts from another friend, announcing her impending move out of the house and divorce, and already scouting for a replacement wife for her husband so he can be happy since she can't seem to make him happy. Shocking way to start my day. Those friends are from long ago and I've only seen them once in the past 10+ years, but I was there when the relationship began and was one of two witnesses to their wedding, and it made me sad to think that this is the end after 18 or so years. Later today was informed that perhaps the end is not as near as it appeared last night. Perhaps after a night to sleep on it, that green grass didn't appear quite so green, eh?
I was married once before, to my first boyfriend. We got married when we were 23, after dating for 2 years. On the day of our wedding, he was just an ass to me that I actually considered calling it off. I realized then that this was not a marriage that would last and I remember very coldly thinking that I would marry him, have my children, and then dump him - and in that way, I would get my kids and get to keep his family. I was not "in love" on my wedding day. We should have broken up. My parents weren't crazy about him, so they would not have presented any arguments against calling off the wedding, but I didn't tell anyone what was going on in my head. Thank goodness no children were conceived in that marriage! I was so bloody naive to think that divorce would have been any kind of solution, post-children. Marriage ended after 2.5 years when we separated, filled out DIY divorce papers one night over supper at Perkins, and the divorce was final just a month shy of our third anniversary. One of the best things I ever did - ending that fiasco of a marriage.
When Sean and I met, it was a whirlwind. I didn't expect to even like him, when our mutual friend fixed us up, and the fact that we even had a 2nd date is a testament to Sean's efforts. But about a month in, I knew it was a good thing. The biological clock business started in my head (I was 36). And three months after our blind date, we picked a wedding date in the fall, while out walking the dog. He hadn't even proposed yet! I told him, long before he proposed, that I wasn't getting divorced again, and if we got married, it was forever for me. That still holds true, as we wrap up our first decade of marriage, but I am the first to admit that marriage is hard and certainly not the romantic b.s. that pop culture would have us believe.
I think divorce has it's place, just as I think there are lots of marriages that never should have happened, but it still makes me sad when good solid people struggle in the trenches of their relationship. There is no stock answer either - what works for one person, doesn't always work for another. The reality is that there is green grass, and nasty thorny weeds, and everything in between, on both sides of the fence.
Friday, July 20, 2012
Post #200
And here we are at Post #200 on this little blog o mine. I've been blogging since December 2011 and I think it's largely been a good thing. I toy with whether I should be courting followers, whether I should be trying to ramp up my writing to perhaps work toward a book of some kind, whether I should bare my soul and start writing about everything that is on my mind (see yesterday's post about the things I don't write a about). And then I just keep on with my usual rambling and am grateful for my 26 followers and their comments.
I don't have a plan for my blog, other than to keep writing it. I can imagine it may morph over time into something else, but I'm as curious as anyone about what that might be. In the short term, I think I have some gaps in my life story to fill in - I need to go back and review what I've written about so far and see what's missing.
I'm writing this on the new keyboard that Sean bought for my iPad. Oddly, it allows me to type off the screen so there are 2 words in each line that I can't see. Otherwise this little keyboard works just fine and is way better for blog writing than the touch screen. Wonder what will happen to those invisible words when I hit "publish"...
And that's it for the 200th post. Thanks for reading!
Thursday, July 19, 2012
No wonder
One of my favorite bloggers, Elan Morgan at schmutzie dot com, posted 25 Things I'm Afraid to Write About here. Boy did that get me thinking over the past few days. You know that lack of writing I've been doing (or not doing?), it is directly related to my self-censoring for mostly this very same reason.
Another blog I read had a post some time ago about how she isn't as troubled as she might sound at times, because she uses her blog to vent and doesn't write about the other, perhaps mundane but certainly more stable/pleasant, parts of her life. That also got me thinking.
So here we are:
Things I Don't Write About Because This Is Not A Private Journal:
1. My work
2. My friends and the negative parts of my relationships with them
3. My family and the negative parts of my relationships with them
4. Personal information about my friends and family
5. Sex
6. Politics and/or social issues and the politics around them
Well hell - what does that leave me really? When my head is full of thoughts on those topics, no freakin' wonder I find no words flying out into blog posts.
Another blog I read had a post some time ago about how she isn't as troubled as she might sound at times, because she uses her blog to vent and doesn't write about the other, perhaps mundane but certainly more stable/pleasant, parts of her life. That also got me thinking.
So here we are:
Things I Don't Write About Because This Is Not A Private Journal:
1. My work
2. My friends and the negative parts of my relationships with them
3. My family and the negative parts of my relationships with them
4. Personal information about my friends and family
5. Sex
6. Politics and/or social issues and the politics around them
Well hell - what does that leave me really? When my head is full of thoughts on those topics, no freakin' wonder I find no words flying out into blog posts.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Watch out world, I'm on an iPad now!
Test run of posting from my new ipad. Some months ago Sean bought an ipad and when I learned from the kids of this, I was told he bought it for me. Never tried it much but the kids adored it. Then a few weekends ago I thought I'd bring it along on a trip - and managed to not only crack the crystal but also smashed in the corner. Felt so stupid. So when Sean went to have it fixed, he got a replacement for the original iPad and got me one just for me! With freakin steel armor.
My laptop is full of bugs and crashes routinely, so he's hoping I can transition from a pc to an Apple and we can ditch the laptop ... We shall see. But change is hard and transitions are not my forte particularly when PMS is upon me, so that's all I'm going to say about that!
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