Hockey Lessons

hockey lessons

Geez, I had a good day on WP.  Not a lot of visitors, or likes or comments, but like double the normal amount of views.  I have no idea what caused it, someone was reading old posts.  But it gave me a lift, it’s nice to see interest, although a few likes would have been nice, lol.  But then, maybe it was someone who didn’t want to register. 

Whatever.  Brene Brown says the world needs us to share our creativity, and this is mine, at least it’s my most passionate creative effort.  So I am happy for a day when twice the normal amount of my blogs are read. 

I got my hair done tonight. It’s such a treat to have it done.  Feels like pampering myself.  My hairdresser has two young girls who play hockey, and since my son played for 10 or 12 years, we have a lot in common.  I so remember our lives being wrapped around that sport.  Crazy. Hours in the car, driving all over New England for a one hour youth hockey game and turning around and coming home.  It would have been great family time, if my ex hadn’t been such an ass, and had to “coach” my son by telling him about everything he’d done wrong and “motivating” him by telling him he sucked at the game.  Poor kid.  I tried to stay out of it, because that only made it worse.  But there were times I couldn’t.  To sit in that enclosed car for 2 or 3 hours and listen to him verbally beat up my son was unbearable at times.  So I’d interfere, and redirect my husband’s anger at me, and off my son.  About the time my son got bigger than my ex, and a lot tougher, my ex stopped.  It also helped when I moved out, because he needed my son as an ally. 

Luckily, my son loved the game, and played anyway, and actually became quite good in spite of his father. (It’s no coincidence he hasn’t talked to his father in about 5 years.)  Many years he played up a year to the next age group.  He’s a big strong athletic kid.   He finally had to quit to be free of his dad, but he learned a lot of good lessons.  How to think on his feet (hockey is one fast game), what team work is, commitment to something, to other people.  How you can’t bullshit your way through life.  If you throw bullshit around in that game you’ll get hurt.

And how to skate like the wind.

Well, life lessons for a young man from hockey.  Some for his mom too.  Maybe even for his father, if his father can sit down and own what he did.  But I doubt it.  He seems so stuck on a life that didn’t work out the way he wanted, despite his best attempts to control the behavior of everyone around him, via threats, and yelling, and brow beating, withholding….

He never understood that the only control he ever had over my son and I was the amount he loved us. And that never showed up at all. Both my son and I tried endlessly to earn his love, his approval, to meet or exceed his expectations. Never could. Not when he changed by the minute what he expected or wanted from us.

I don’t understand the mind set. Well…I do. He believes love is something you earn, not something you deserve just because you are. He used to tell me to “use” my love for my son to motivate him. To give it and take it away as a reward or a punishment.

Can you imagine? Geezus.

It was the main reason I left him, almost 9 years ago. I had to give my son a choice, I had to let him know there are other options, other ways to live that are joyful. I wanted him to know that living in a household where two parents can’t say a kind word to each other, and the father has a temper tantrum on a regular basis that included throwing things, and making messes for me to clean up, wasn’t normal. I needed it for me, but if I didn’t do it for him, I would have lost him, I know.

So, wow, I wasn’t expecting this blog to go here, but it did….

Better times started the day I moved out. There were rougher times, but that was the beginning. The end of the fighting, anyway. Except in court, we did that for long enough.

We have such a good life now. Just blessed, really. It all turned out well, I think we learned our lessons. I know that love is the overriding emotion in this household. And that’s the only way I would have it.

Love and light, all…..

 

 

 

The Ordinary, The Mundane

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It’s odd, now that I’ve been out of the relationship drama for over a week, how I have to search for something passionate to write about.  I am sick of writing about that drama.  I am sick of living it over and over.

I’m leaving it behind me.  I leave the two of them to deal with what’s left of the drama.  I feel like I did my job, I got the truth on the table, and whatever happens will be a result of people dealing with the truth in a positive or negative way.  But I no longer am part of it.  Thankfully.

My life is becoming mine again.  What do I want?  What do I want to do?  Who do I want to spend time with? What will I give my sisters and my mother and my son for Christmas?  When will my bff and I make Christmas cookies?  What will my son and I have for Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas day?

Just the mundane, ordinary, questions of life that involve happiness, family, joy…

A huge sigh of relief.  It was like being in high school again, so immature, so unnecessary, so draining.  It’s over, and life returns.  Back to where I was two years ago, before S ever entered my life.

Happy to live a mundane life for awhile, lol.

 

In Other News…..

Lovely evening. Sitting outside on my deck with a glass of wine. I am dead tired tonight, I couldn’t get to sleep til about 3 am, despite having taken 2 Ambien. I shouldn’t have answered the phone but the voice mail was a little scary, so I did. As usual, the conversation went nowhere, I hope I don’t have to do it again. I can’t do this stuff anymore. Too f’n old for this drama.

I realize I’ve not written much else than my issues with S this week, and I actually have some other pressing kind of stuff, that I’d like to put a voice to.

First, I lost one of my best friends from childhood this week to cancer. She was the sweetest, most loving person ever. She couldn’t say a bad word about someone ever. Just warm, loving, always made you feel good about yourself. As children we lived about a block and a half apart, and used to walk to school together. You know how those friendships often go, you are friends as small children, but tend to grow apart. Suzi and I never grew apart. We remained really really close until I went to college, got involved with my ex husband, and did too much dope smoking. But over the years a few times Suzi reached out to me, like a warm embrace welcoming me back home. When my marriage was at it’s worst, and I had basically no friends left, because my ex didn’t like any of my friends, and it became easier to let them go than deal with him, she found me after a couple decades of silence. I just cried, I was so happy to have someone reach out to me with love. We kept in contact off and on, and then last summer reconnected in person when I went to my 45th high school reunion. Suzi was one of the organizers, generally the photographer. I saw her and noticed she was wearing a wig, and was quite thin. I mentioned it to the friends I was staying with, but they didn’t know anything.

Yesterday at lunch, her best friend, who was also a good friend of mine in school, messaged me to let me know. I sat in my car and cried. Still do, when I think of the world without her.

Then my mother….aye yi yi. She’s 94 and suffered a massive stroke which left her unable to communicate, and partially paralyzed. I thought she was doing pretty well when I was down there 3 weeks ago. She was walking well, talking better. Her health, outside of the effects of the stroke, is good. But apparently last week, while I was in the panic over S’s silence and disappearance, my mother decided to leave the assisted living place she’s been in. She got about a block away before they noticed it. She walks very very slowly, with a walker. They told my sis that she kept taking her pictures down and packing her suitcase.

We thought she must have a urinary infection, which causes confusion in the elderly. But regardless, she had to be moved to a higher care facility once she left the premises. Turns out she had no infection, but we assume was communicating in the only way she knew how that she was unhappy there. And I’m sure it’s because she was left alone all day, if you can imagine being alone all day, unable to communicate. But I wish she’d understood the consequences of her actions, because now she is in a memory care facility. Smaller, which is good. And it’s nice and clean, and my sister knew the place, and had been there, and liked it. But…the doors are locked. Mom can’t go outside. They told my sis, who is down there at the moment, that she walks around all day looking for an open door. She doesn’t like her room. And is now even more unhappy.

My sis can’t bring her home now, because for one thing my sis is at her VA home, not in FL. And her daughter is getting married in a few months, in VA. And, my sis has been that route. Mom requires help with everything….it’s a full time 24/7 job and almost did my sister and her marriage in to take care of Mom for 6 months.

But it’s breaking our hearts.

I wish I could just sell my house and move down there. If I could do that, I’d be able to help my sis take care of her, and we could bring her home. I’m going to finish getting the house ready and get it on the market in the fall. It probably won’t sell, that’s not a good time to sell a house up here, but I can try, and see what interest is generated. And then if I do by some miracle sell it, I will be able to help my sis and we can make Mom’s life at least pleasant for the time she has left.

I’m looking so forward to the three day weekend. Going to go to my boat slip tomorrow and collect some money for the rental of it. It always does me good to go there, by the ocean. I may spend the afternoon hanging out somewhere down there. Maybe I’ll run into some old boating friends. One of my best friends texted me late today and invited me to spend 4th of July with she and her husband on their boat. I was so happy and excited. I told her, I was feeling a little down because I didn’t have any plans for the weekednd, and now I have plans to do my favorite thing in the world, spend it on the water.

Guess the universe was conspiring in my behalf, lol.

So….lots of stuff going on, and when I sit here with a glass of wine, I think that a breakup should not be the thing on the top of my list to be focusing my attention on. I am praying for a peaceful night, a good night’s sleep, some time to regenerate some nerve cells, lol. I was on my last one tenth of a nerve and that got frayed pretty well last night. Now, at the end of the day, I may have a few more that are working again.

Well, time to go inside, the mosquitos are coming out and I guess they’re hungry, because they are eating me up, despite the mean old woman I am, lol.

Happy 4th of July, everyone!

The Psychic/Angel Reading

So, I had my psychic reading. It was pretty amazing, and I’d totally do it again.

The medium started out telling me I had two native American guides behind me, (I think that means they kind of have your back…) one male one female. The first thing she did was tell me their advice on something very personal, which I’m not going to put here, but it was lengthy, on target, out of the blue, and believeable. Then she said, “I’m hearing a lot about Florida…”

OMG, my two friends and I jumped! That is so the focus of my life right now. Trying to get my house ready to sell, planning to move to Florida. Hoping my mother will still be around when I do, being near my sister, never ever having to deal with a New England winter again.

She said, “they say it will be a really good thing for you. They say it will offer you many opportunities, and you can choose any or all of them. And it will be easier for you financially there….” It was pretty amazing. She knew nothing about me except my name before this.

Then she had a female presence, over me, which means older than me. She asked if my mother was alive and since she is, we determined this was her mother. She said, “She says she was a good cook, loved to cook from scratch, grow her own vegetables, etc. But never got to pass that information on to your mother or you.” I said, “Because she died when my mother was 4 years old.” Now, considering my mom was born in 1921, this makes my grandmother’s death in 1925, living on an Indiana farm, of course she made everything from scratch and grew her own stuff. The medium said, “She said she didn’t want to leave your mother so young, but that it was part of both of their journeys. It made your mother strong, and able to deal with so many things in her life..” She suggested I pass that along to my mother, and I might when I see her again. I will have to decide if it would be well-receive by my mom, but since it is something her mother asked me to do, I probably will.

Which is what my sisters and I have always said, that Mom is able to adjust to any situation with such grace. Obviously, the one she faces now the hardest, not being able to communicate and being partially paralyzed resulting in the loss of so much of her prized independence. But I do believe that because of her mothers death so young, and subsequently living with a variety of aunts and uncles, that she learned how to adjust to different living situations, and to make friends and make people love her. Because everyone loves her.

The medium said she was showing her two faces, identical…did I look like my mother? No….My mother looked just like her mother. The medium said, “It seems as if it was close enough that people remarked on it.” Oh yes, in fact, it caused problems with my mothers older sister, because everyone commented on how much mom looked like my grandmother, and never mentioned her older sis, who as I understand it, was quite jealous of the fact and the attention it brought Mom.

It was pretty cool to have a communication with my grandmother that I never met. And to know she is with me.

Then she had a male presence which was undoubtedly my father. First off, she had advice on the same personal situation as the native American guides, which validated that it was my father, because it was exactly what he would say to me, lol.

Then the medium said, “I hear someone yelling ‘Fore!!!’ Did your father play golf?” OMG, I jumped, the hair stood up on my arms. “Yes,” I answered. “Every moment that he could.” He once got a hole in one, I think it was his proudest moment next to the birth of his 3 daughters.

She asked if he was part of a group of men, like a club or something because he was with these men and was happy… I could only think of the Air Force, he was in the reserves til a few years before he died in 1988.

It was wonderful to hear from him, she told me how he loves me and is with me. These things I knew, he always made sure we knew he loved us, and I have always known he was with me.

She asked who did the Ancestry.com thing. That is my older sister…she was able to put together about a 4 page family tree. The medium said, “but I hear that you weren’t able to have those family discussions where 3 or 4 generations sit around passing along family stories…” And this was so true. I said, “no, we weren’t but we’ve gotten my mother to write down a lot of her life, and to tag all the photos we can find.” The medium said that there are legacy writers now, who interview elders and then turn their stories into books for them.

Which I think was maybe a message for me about the writing, maybe in conjunction with my 2 sisters, since we all share a love of writing, particularly my older sis and I. I spoke to my sis about it yesterday, that maybe when I move down to Florida, we could collaborate. Just throwing the idea out but she was receptive.

The medium also told us in the beginning that some messages are meant for more than one of us. At one point, she was asking another woman about someone in her family who had a name like a flower, a young person. The woman nodded but didn’t really respond as if she knew exactly who she was talking about. But I think it was meant more for me. My niece who died in a car accident 10 years ago when she was 24….her name was Aster. I had been hoping she’d show up and I think she did. I should have spoken up…I didn’t because it wasn’t my reading, but in hindsight I should have. Next time I will.

So…it was pretty amazing, satisfying, good for my soul. I have no doubt that my loved ones were there, or my guides (how else did she know about Florida??). Looking forward to doing it again sometime.

Counting My Blessings

Sitting out on my deck, having coffee outside this morning. It’s my first time this season.  It’s where I spend my hour to myself every morning when it’s warm enough.  It’s not really warm out yet, it’s ony 50°F, but I have a blanket around my shoulders and the sun is warm on my back.  There are few clouds in the brilliant blue early morning sky.  It promises to be a beautiful day.
There are a few things on my mind this morning.  I did a gratitude meditation, and have so much to be thankful for.  For one, that I have this place to sit and have my coffee.  That my health, while I am diabetic, and arthritic, is actually pretty good.  The diabetes is well controlled, the arthritis seems to be improving as of late.  It is really only in my hands that I have an issue with it.  I haven’t had as much as a cold in maybe a year, and even then, the last cold I had was very minor. So I say, I am blessed with good health.  Nothing that affects my quality of life.
I am grateful for my family.  My son who is doing remarkably well, is healthy, strong.  He has found his niche I think, and is making something of his life.  I’ve worked hard with him to overcome the affects of growing up in an abusive dysfunctional household, and he seems to be emotionally mature.  I am proud of him.  And grateful.
I’m grateful for my two sisters, and my mother.  We have always all been very close, even though we live at great distances from each other. My mother’s stroke, which has left her partially paralzyed and unable to communicate, has stressed and tested the bonds between my sisters and I, but we have always had our base in love and care, and when things get tough, we return to it, for comfort and love.
I am grateful for the presence of S in my life.  He has added a dimension to the joy in my life that seems to balance it.
I am grateful for my family of friends.  Last night I went with a friend to a high school play to see another friend”s daughter.   We got to the high school close to starting time, because we had waited to watch the Kentucky Derby before we went.  The friend whose daughter was in the play greeted us  at the door.  “Go down to the 4th row,” she said.  “You’ll see everyone, there are seats there for you.”  And there in the 4th row were more of our friends, and some of her family, who I am also close to.  I love being part of a group of people who have been best friends for 10 or 15 yars. Blessed.  Just blessed.
I ran into my old next door neighbor at the play.  I knew my old house had been sold in a foreclosure sale.  I am concerned about what my ex will do,he has lived there almost 40 years now.  He does not adapt to change well,which really is the crux of why he lost the home. I also know that he blames me for it all, (because if I hadn’t left him, and he hadn’t had to give me a settlement….yada yada yada) and so I am not in a position to call him and see how he is, what his plans are, to ease my mind that he will recover from this.  I know he is devastated, but I don’t want to be at the receiving end of his anger again, at least, not face to face.  He is probably going to lose his business too.
Truth be told, if I hadn’t left him, and then our son, he would most likely still be drinking, and would have gone through all the money he had to give me, (since he already went through much more money than the amount awarded me) and we would all be facing homelessness.  My being there, working with him was just a form of enablement.
But it’s sad, to see someone with whom you shared so much of your life, get to such a state.  Knowing that there was a time when he, we, could have had everything we ever wanted  Ego and greed and fear destroyed his life.  I pray that someday he’ll see the real reasons why his life unfolded as it did.
But this morning, I turn to gratitude.  That some light shone on me, and I have been able to create a joyful life.  Family, friends, a man who I thoroughly enjoy who boggles my imagination every time I’m with him, a home, a life.  I am blessed.
I can’t remember who said it, but some one said, “If you only have one prayer, let it be Thank you.”  This morning it is Thank you.

My Greatest Gift

I booked tickets to go to Florida for a few days.  Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?  Out of the deep freeze to sunny Florida for a few days of warmth. And while it is….it isn’t a pleasure trip.

My mom had a stroke last fall, massive, at the age of 93.  And she lived through it, but cannot talk, read or write, which is hard enough.  She needs full time care, which my older sister is lovingly giving her.  But we all know Mom is ready to go.  She eats little, sleeps a lot.  She is still her pleasant happy self, as happy as she can be in the state she is in.  I am happy that she is surrounded by people who love her.

Yesterday my sis texted me that she thought I should plan to head down there in a couple of weeks, so I can say goodbye, and see her again before she goes on that mysterious journey.  I am going, of course.

I have known for some time that anytime I see her could be the last.  I don’t feel like anything has been left unsaid with her, but of course, to get one more hug from her, to hear her say “I love you” one more time will be wonderful.  (She can say “I love you” because she doesn’t have to think about it.)  She is a wonderful mother, as loving and kind as you can imagine.

She is also a remarkable woman.  Her own mother died when she was 4, in 1925.  While her father traveled from town to town looking for work, she lived with a variety of aunts and uncles.  She always said she missed her mother, but she never felt alone because she was part of such a large extended family.  They were kind to her and her sister.

My mother went on to work her way through college, got a degree in economics, and met and married my father, to whom she was married for 45 years, until he died when he was 68.

While she and my father gave me and my sisters many gifts…of the intangible kind….the greatest gift they gave us was the gift of unconditional love.  Both of them loved us without condition.  Neither my sisters or I ever went to bed wonderingst if our parents loved us.  Love ruled our house.  We took it for granted, which is how it should be.  No child should ever question whether his parents love him.  Every child should be loved by their family just because they exist.

This is how a child learns that they have intrinsic value, just because they are.  It is their rock to stand on, it empowers them for life.  It allows them to set boundaries on how they are treated.  If someone treats them badly, they don’t believe they deserve it.  They know it’s wrong.  They also learn that every life has value.

I have known, intimately, a couple of people who grew up without this.  Their road is so much harder.  They can find it, they can eventually come to the conclusion that they DO have value, but the journey there is harder, longer, generally more fraught with pitfalls and potholes.

As I go on this journey to Florida, I will try somehow to let my mother know that I know.  That I also love her unconditionally because she exists.  And that I am so, ever so grateful, that she was my mother in this lifetime.  Of all the blessings I have been given, and they are many, this is one of my greatest.

Go in peace Mom, whenever you are ready.  I know you will never be far from me.  We’ll meet up again, in that place where there is no time and space.

I love you.