Like Flypaper, You’re Stuck to Me

Posted on by learning to live like water

This poem was written as a writing prompt for SoCS (Stream of Consciousness Saturday).  The prompt this week w as  your/you’re/yore.   Here is the link to Linda G. Hill’s site, who hosts SoCS, if you should want to join, or read other posts.  https://lindaghill.com/2016/08/26/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-august-2716/

socs-badge-2015

I know it’s Sunday, lol, but I just didn’t have time until this morning.  So here it is….

Like Flypaper, You’re Stuck to Me

You stick in my mind
Like flypaper
Covered with bits of
Memories we shared

Have you forgotten?
Your silence is fierce
More than your presence was.
It doesn’t quite let go,

No, I know you haven’t
Forgotten me.
Avoidance is your thing.
You’re fearful
Of losing what
You don’t really have.
You’re pretending
That our sweet time together
didn’t matter,
To make someone else
feel more important.

It doesn’t matter now,
But what was, was.
It mattered then,
It was sweet
It was good.
Your silence doesn’t change that.

Taking from me
Doesn’t give to her.
Your reasoning is flawed.
The days of yore
ARE,
They just are.

Love always, all ways.

 

By Deborah E Dayen

The Dream At The Door

Posted on by learning to live like water

Dreams at the door

A dream knocked on my door
One day.
I asked it in, for tea
Or coffee
Or a glass of wine
Or water.

Whatever it wanted.
I wanted
to hear what it had to say.

The dream talked
A voice in my head,
whispering in my ear.
It slid it’s hand up my back
And made me shiver as it
wrapped itself around my head
and my heart,
And assured me,
Sweetly,
“You can do this.
It will be a breeze.”

Of course, I didn’t listen
At first.
But the dream stayed with me
It wouldn’t let me go
Like a halo of possibilites
It kept telling me I could.

I would lay down,
it would wrap around me like a lover
and whisper
“You can, you really can.”

I’d take a shower,
It would slide down my skin
Caress my arms, kiss my legs
“I know you can…..”

Little by little I gave up
Resistance.
I let it begin
To unfold.
One tentative step
After the other.

Until I found myself
HERE.
With the dream,
Still stuck to me
Like sheets after
Making love on
A hot summer afternoon.

On the cusp.
The dream unfolding.
The joy chomping at the bit.

And the dream,
Like a satiated lover,
Said,
“You could.
I knew you could.”

By Deborah E. Dayen

Picture from Google Images

Gettin’ In The Groove

Posted on by learning to live like water

It took me awhile to get in the groove today. But I did, finally. I slept well last night, but woke up still exhausted. I guess it’s just emotional exhaustion. Goodbyes, so many. So many well wishes on FB. Of course, there is one person who has remained silent, but I suppose that’s for the best.  Whatever….   I hate leaving things on a bad note, that’s all.  But again….maybe it’s just for the best.  You know, I heard from Addie, the man whose heart I broke a few times, but not from the man who caused me to do it.  But you know, that’s who they each are.  I was really pleased to hear from Addie.  He’s always been there for me.  He understands what love always means.

I got a good amount of stuff done today. I think I’m ahead of the game. I got more stuff thrown into the pile of stuff getting hauled to the dump. Also got my floors vacuumed up and downstairs. I’ve been neglecting the normal housework stuff.  Got the two rugs I’m taking rolled up. And have about half the kitchen packed. So really…not that much left to do. I have to finish my clothes but not until I know what’s going in my suitcase for driving down.

I decided starting in Monday we will be on paper plates and plastic cups so I can get the dishes packed. And when I come back from CO, no more cooking. Pots and pans are gonna get packed that weekend, and finishing my clothes and bathroom stuff. I’ll have to stay at my friend Susan’s who is driving down with me for a couple nights before we go.

But I’m ready. I have the plan, I have the schedule. I think I’ve thought it through and not left anything out. When I get to FL, my friend who lives there, and my friend who lives across the state in Daytona will be there. Susan will stay until Monday afternoon. So I have some people to help me move in.

I stopped working today at about 3 PM and promptly fell asleep on my couch. At 4 I got up and decided to run some errands and get a few things at the grocery store. And now, I’m starting dinner, but also sitting with a nice Gosling’s rum and coke with a half a lime squeezed in. Feeling relaxed. Content. I have so much to do this week, the fact that I’m not working is incidental, really. But the fact is, I’m pretty relaxes about it because I don’t have to work.

Which still friggin’ blows my mind.

Well, I think I’ll go get some stuffed olives out of the frig, and have a snack with my drink.

Love and light, all.

Life IS Surely Calling Me

Posted on by learning to live like water

I was so tired when I got home last night. I wrote, because I wanted, as always, to try to record it while it was still fresh. This morning I remembered a couple other things that were kinda cool yesterday, and actually just coincidental, but then there aren’t any coincidences, so think what you will….

On the way to work I take the back roads through the town I live in, because they’re paving the main road and the pavement is a mess. But going this way, which is a road around the lake in town, there is a spot where they have closed the road down to one lane for construction. They have a stop sign at either end and the one lane section is about 50′ with jersey barriers on either side. Generally you stop and take turns with the cars lined up on the other side. Yesterday however, they had a cop there directing the flow of traffic and he was waving the whole line through. He was a big guy, and I’m gonna guess in his 50’s. At least, from a quick glance obviously not a kid. As he waved me through, making that “come on” motion with his hand, I looked at him. He changed his hand motion to an actual wave, with a big smile. The kind of smile that made me giggle, lol. I thought what a nice way to start the day, having some random man kind of flirt with me, lol! At my age you take it where you can get it, lol.

The other thing was that last night when I got into my car to drive to the restaurant where we were all meeting, I plugged my phone into the stereo as I always do. I always have all my music on shuffle, so it just plays in random order all the time. But I thought it was so cool, and really, such a message from the universe, that when I put it on, as I drove out of work for the last time, Beth Hart’s song called Life is Calling began to play. How friggin’ perfect is that?

I got to the restaurant in a couple of minutes, it’s very close to work. And sat in the car til the song ended. As it ended and I got out of the car, my dear dear friend who retired in January was walking up to the car, with a gift bag of goodies.

It’s been a long time since I spent a day feeling loved, and loving back. I hope it becomes the norm, because what a lift it gave me.

Just wanted to remember those two things too, about yesterday. I’ve put the song “Life is Calling” up before, but am putting it again, since I feel like it’s absolutely how I feel.

Love and light.

What a Nice Day

Posted on by learning to live like water

Wow. What a last day. It was awesome.

I got so many gifts from people. So many hugs good-bye. I had customers calling to say good-bye. Even the Fedex delivery guy. One of the guys I have worked with forever, who I call the little brother I never had, actually cried when he gave me a bottle of Champagne. Our electronics engineer, who is 30 and I call him my other son (his birthday is the same day as my son’s) must have hugged me goodbye 10 times today. He told me I’m his other Mom, his work mom.

My boss gave me my “exit interview”, lol. He was warm, and kind, and told me to stop in whenever I’m in the area and say hi. He was as personable as he can be.

We all went out for a drink after work. I had asked our sales manager if he thought his wife would feel well enough to come. She has cancer, it recently was found to have spread from her lungs to her brain and she’s been undergoing radiation and chemo. He shook his head and said he didn’t think so. But this morning he told me she was going to stop by, and I almost lost it, really. I love her, she is just such a smart, sweet lady and going through this hell, and took time to come by and wish me well. My friend who retired in January came too. It was awesome, just so awesome.

One of the men, who has been there the whole 12 years, told me he has seen me make such a metamorphosis in the last year, and told me he hopes I meet some wonderful man who deserves me, that I look so good. He’s so happy for me. His wife was sitting with me when he said it, he wasn’t coming on to me.

It hasn’t sunk in yet that I won’t go back there.

I have everyone’s phone number and emails, so I’ll be sending a travelogue to a mass text on the way to Denver.

I put a post up on FB this morning saying it was my last day of work. I got so many comments wishing me luck. There was one from Addie, telling me to send lots of pictures. I haven’t talked to him in months, except a short text when I sold my house. It was nice to hear from him. He’s such a good sweet loving man. I wish I could have loved him. I’m glad he found someone who could.

So, it was a really memorable day. I really tried to just stay in the moment, not get too caught up in the goodbyes. I think I did ok.

It’s on now, to finish packing up this life. Officially retired. Amazing.

Love and light.

My Last Day of Work

Posted on by learning to live like water

Today is the last day of my old life. Tonight my colleagues and co-workers and I will go out for drinks, after work, and with a few exceptions, I won’t talk to them again. It’s weird. Just….weird. People that have been part of my life every day for so long. Some of them I will miss a lot, some of them I won’t, lol. A few of them will probably stay in my life in some way.

But today, tonight, I say goodbye and move on. I can’t believe it’s here. I’ve been planning and dreaming for so long. A few years ago, I told one of my co-workers who is also a good friend, I didn’t see how I could retire because I could never pay a mortgage without working. He’s the one who informed me how much less expensive it was to live in Florida, how much less a home would cost, and taxes would be. He knew I had a lot of my money in my house here, and said, “you could sell that house and buy a home for half of what you recoup from your house, and invest the rest.” I remember looking at him, thinking, “I COULD do that! I really could do that!!!”

Now, here I am doing it.

It won’t hit me, I don’t think, that I don’t have to go to work every day until I am settled in Florida because I have so much to do here between now and then. And even then, I plan to find a part time job, 25 hours a week or so. But not maybe til the end of October. But maybe I’ll really get into making jewelry, maybe I’ll try to get something published, who knows. Maybe I’ll do reiki and make jewelry and that could be my income. We’ll see.

But I will be by the water. I will live like water. The warm waters of Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico will become my second home. Who knows what the future holds?

Last day of work. WOW. It’s here.

And so one chapter of my life ends, and one begins. And I’m feeling blessed, very blessed that the universe saw fit to bring me to this point.

Love and light.

A Final (for now) Word on Lies

Posted on by learning to live like water

I lay awake last night remembering so many lies I’ve been told. From about 2:30 til 4, the parade of them was constant. From my ex, from S. I wanted to turn them off, stop remembering. I kept asking myself, “Why are you dredging this up now? Again?”

I suppose because I saw the post from Liz Gilbert and it so touched me. But it also, apparently, triggered me.

Finally, I remembered to begin my gratitude list. And repeated over and over the list of things I’m grateful for, until I finally fell asleep again.

Odd thing is, that some of the things for which I’m most grateful had to do with the men who so betrayed me. I’m grateful for my son, always first, most. And the man who couldn’t, can’t, stop lying gave him to me. I’m grateful to know I can love so much, so passionately, still, and the man who broke my heart into a million pieces gave me that.

So…..there’s always a place for forgiveness, because in all the loss, there was gain. And the things I gained, I would not give back for anything.

‘Tis they who pay the price for their lies and deceit and betrayal. Not me. My life goes on, richer, and fuller than ever before. Their lives…..well, I expect they will remain closed to the things they are closed to. That their default setting of lies to people will continue to keep them alone. Even if they think they are not alone, the lies about the lies about the lies continue to dig a deep hole in their soul.

I fell asleep with only love in my heart for all the people in my life. To waste a life telling lies, manipulating people, never knowing the joy of love unimpeded by ego, is sad. It’s not my life, it’s theirs and their choices.

I guess the hours awake thinking of it helped me to reconcile it. As a wise woman once said to me, “I guess it was something you needed to be awake for.” I apparently needed to dredge up a little more, and deal with it. Since there are no coincidences, there’s a reason I had to see that post just before I went to bed. I had more work to do, I did it. I’m better for it.

Love and light, all.