Haiku Horizons, Show

*

Scared, fetal show, curl

no support, worried, nerve wounds

The blame is off me.

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(How could I learn to jump if everyone told me I could not fly?)

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Show-off, smirk, liar

evil, petty, star, money

No heart, cold as ice.

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(What is the meaning of success to you?)

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Trying to leave you

Show me how, pink butterfly

So weak from drama.

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Life is not easy, both parties need to try, weakened by drama. Help each other out.

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* Zemanta photos are not in use this week

 

Haiku Horizons, Space

Crowd me with clutter

Gasping, struggling for white air

Give me space to dance.

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Ocean, Spacious, Sky

Diamond peaked waves twinkle, stars

Be One with Nature.

#455129613 / gettyimages.com

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She struggles for space

cloying boyfriend glued, shadow

Try to rip layer.

#161805651 / gettyimages.com

 

 

 

 

 

How The Movie “Boyhood” Is My World And Possibly Yours Too

If you haven’t seen the movie, Boyhood, jump off the couch, grab the car keys or head to your local bus station and go. Now. This is a movie you don’t want to miss. Trust me. It is possibly the best movie I have ever seen and yes, the most realistic one as well. You may see your own life pass before your eyes, especially if you are a mom and have kids. It is everything you have felt, understated. No, it isn’t a tear-jerker, a comedy or a romance. It’s pure genius.

#450746136 / gettyimages.com

 

It is sad just because it has been a week since I have seen the movie and I am still thinking about it and relating it to my life. It’s a film about growing up so I cried because my children are not children anymore. They are both adults, wonderful adults, yet my daughter left her pink doll at home, the one she used to sleep with but now sleeps in a room at her sorority house and my son it seems, he just graduated high school will be graduating from college in May.

It’s about time passing so quickly that you almost can’t believe it has really happened and yes, I cried because I miss my dad. I had a really great dad, not those horrible step-fathers in the movie. My dad, died twelve years ago and my memories are fading and sometimes I can’t even remember what his voice sounds like anymore yet the pain, once in a while, seems brand new and raw.

Grieving is a long and hard process and just when you think you are past the worst of it,   out of no where, it knocks you out again at unexpected times. Times you can’t prepare yourself for, just like the ocean washing out sand castles at the beach that the sweet children built so lovingly. It attacks you from behind, it blindsides you.

I am the mother in the film, (though luckily I have a great husband)  but it scares me to see her alone. Her kids go off to college and she is left, not knowing what on earth she is going to do with her life. I am not glorifying her role as a mother, believe me, she makes incredibly poor choices but in the end, her children have left her and she sits in the kitchen, crying and alone.

#138709324 / gettyimages.com

Her son, her boy, whom we have seen grow up, physically and emotionally, heads off to college and while the ending is a little too perfect, we want it to be for him. We want a happy ending for all our children but we also want it for ourselves and that’s not the way real life works.

There is a part of us who wants our kids to miss us, to turn back for a brief second, to be their four-year old selves who “loved us best” just one more time. That is only for us and certainly not what they need or want and its pure fiction not reality. As they dash out the door with a grin and a wave we know that we have done a wonderful job parenting our grown up children.

All we want is for our children to be happy, we love them unconditionally but it does hurt every time they leave us. The movie is so magnificent  because we know that everything in this movie is so darn true. We love our children more than they will ever know, but from their eagerly awaited first step we also know, that at every turn, they are leaving us, as they should.

#172514698 / gettyimages.com

Sad Saturday

*In The Early Morning Rain

It’s 12:33 in the morning and I’m eating Froot Loops, with some mini Shredded Wheat and a bunch of blueberries tossed in that lack flavor. The rest of the family is doing a volunteer ambulance run and while they are helping people I know the roads are slick, black ice lurks sneakily in the dark.

I have felt totally listless all day and night. I lack energy and for the past seven years of having Fibromyalgia, this chronic pain-in-the-ass illness, I feel my whole body and mind stuck in a ditch, in neutral, spinning my wheels, going nowhere. I stay in my light, colorful, flowered patterned pajamas all day, I don’t even have the energy to change much less go out. My nose is stuffy, I ache all over, I am a floppy “Raggedy Ann” doll without her cheerful smile.  I feel older than the old person I am. There is no energy within me. None. The word “lethargic” sums it up well.

Who am I and who am I not?  Or, are the physical limitations and limited time having energy really getting to me? Of course, this horrid, freezing cold winter never helps me, it makes everything worse. Every year I start the same sob story about wanting to move to Florida or California, maybe even Arizona. I say it every year but we are still here in a very COLD town on the East Coast. I don’t fit in but at 57, that is the very least of my problems. The divider here is youth and money, lots of money. I lack both.

I need to go to sleep soon, my eyes are just about closing, my tummy is full with children’s cereal and sugary milk to slurp from the light green ceramic bowl.  I love these bowls, I have them in all different colors, they make me happy each time I use one. I take a few delicately pale pistachio nuts from a bag that is already open. Food is very important to our family, especially to me. It is imperative that we like our dinners especially on Sundays.

While my husband is unemployed, we deny our pleasure of going out to eat except for special occasions. Generally we eat scrambled eggs with cheese, and toast, my home-made pea and lentil soups, with a loaf of French bread, my husband’s eggplant parmigiano, chicken in the slow-cooker, lots of pasta, salads. We will go out only once to say good-bye to our son, heading back to college. I am not good at good-byes. It’s easier for me to leave than to be left. It’s one thing I can’t change, I’ve tried. Now, I accept it and my family accepts it too.

I’m humming the tune that is in my mind, the one that is the title of this essay. It is soothing to me, I’ll try to attach it here for you. Good night everybody. Thanks for sticking with me on this cold, dreary night, while the rain pelts down on the windows.

Photo credit: LAF 2014

 

http://youtu.be/3Fb19TaybZ0

Haiku Heights, Thanks

Haiku Heights #310 – Thanks!

Haiku Heights says Good-Bye!

I admit it, I’m not mature and I don’t

like change. First, my favorite, “Carry on Tuesday”

leaves, now this, I need 24 hours to get used

to change. Sigh. Oh well, thank you for 3 wonderful

years and best of luck to you.

Screw you haiku, thanks

 Everything changes; love lost

My lips pout like tears

Twenty Years From Now

My photos that have a creative commons license and are free for everyone to download, edit, alter and use as long as you give me, “D Sharon Pruitt” credit as the original owner of the photo. Have fun and enjoy! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A few days ago I learned a huge lesson when I accidentally ran into a good friend of my mother’s in the grocery store.  He asked about “the children” whom he has known since they were 3 and 5. I talked, half laughing and half serious about what they were doing, about how life has changed, how we see them less, and how grown up they are,  “He looked at me and said solemnly “Yes, this is truly the hardest part.” Thankful for his understanding, I asked him “when this stage will end?” seeking his sage advice.

He looked at me directly with his intense, blue eyes and he said bluntly” “twenty years.” I thought he was joking but he was dead serious. “Forget it now, leave it and after they get married and have kids they’ll come back but not until then.” After that, he left quickly.

I automatically moved my cart to the fruit and vegetable section and stopped abruptly between the bananas and nectarines and all I wanted to do was cry. The last week had been a difficult one, a confusing one for me and this was the culmination that I didn’t want to hear but needed to hear. Rationally of course, I knew this and was proud of my independent children but  emotionally I felt something was amiss. The son with whom I communicate with a glance or one word was acting strangely, apparently, he felt the same way about me. Neither one of us was direct.

I thought I should get an Academy Award for Best Actress, encouraging him to have fun on new adventures, understanding totally why he would stay up at school for the entire week of his break. Apparently I fooled myself but not him. He saw through me before I SAW myself yet I could also read him, he felt a little guilty as well.

What we have learned: Communicate Directly even if it feels hard to do. Do it sooner than later. Me and mini-me know each other so well, but this time, he knew me better than I knew myself. My son communicated with his dad, his dad knowing things but not telling me, he WAS involved even though he didn’t want to be and he refused to play mediator….needless to say, It got messy.

I really do need a job and to get out of the house more. There will be major changes in our lives but they are not here yet. We need to sit tight where we are and I am not known for my patience. Any type of separation for an emotional doll like me feels like someone just lashed out and slapped me in the face repeatedly. So this piece is my own personal time capsule.  All my life my goal was to be a mom and raise two wonderful young people and I know I succeeded. Now it’s time for me to do new things, walk away slowly, knowing I did a great job. I’m smiling now, things make much more sense and I’m the one looking back and leaving, it’s so much easier than being left. Let’s take it up again, in twenty years.

FWF Kellie Elmore (Let It Go) R for Language

a drawing of a 4 piece jigsaw puzzle (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve been letting myself, allowing them to have power over for me for so many years that I want to hide my own head in shame. When it’s their heads that should be sinking, face first in the mud. Not me. What was wrong with me that I took their shame, their disgusting habits, roles and personalities and made myself a part of it? I did nothing wrong, I was a child, sweet innocent child who was always afraid, always too sensitive and I was blamed for that. Bitches, bastards how dare you put the blame on me when you know very well that you were damaging me? If you didn’t know it, you should have. I won’t cover for you anymore, I won’t lie and I won’t gossip either but I owe you nothing, I’m not covering up what for you did all those years. YOU did them, not me.

Do you get the picture now? You should have thought of that while you were tossing around in the streets with other women, and you the “less guilty one,” you were rolling around with other men but your excuse was because you never “played the martyr.” So? I never played the tuba, it doesn’t make me a saint. You were just as much at fault, especially because you made a point to turn us away from him, “well, I never said i didn’t I just said nothing.” So of course, that makes it okay to you? No bitch, it doesn’t. Ever hear the phrase “Mea culpa” I didn’t think so and if you have you’d probably say, “Oh, I didn’t think that applied to me.”

Did you think we would never find out? Or did you want us to find out because eventually lies play out and truth unfolds, I remember the exact second, I knew something was up and I was alone. Hearing his voice, defensive over the white round kitchen table, the swiveling yellow chairs, feeling that cold feeling of dread and walking slowly to my room. I was “shaking and trembling” and I didn’t know what happened but I knew something was very, very wrong.” At least one of you had the decency to come after me, but she just did it so that she could bring me to you to tell me. Isn’t that right, dear mum?  Don’ t even think of correcting me, I remember, I remember details. Every. Single. One.

How you picked me up when I was sick at school in a different car, I knew then. How? I felt it.  Who was this man ? Why was he here driving us home. Something was off and I felt it. I forgot it for many years because it had no context in my world but then when all the nasty truths came out, the jigsaw puzzle was complete. It was exactly the same fit, corners lined up, this went into that. Click.

For fucks sake, you were surprised last week when I said “I trusted nobody?” How could I if I couldn’t trust my own parents. yes, what great role models you became.  Mum didn’t even want to have children she admitted that, although she does delight in the grandchildren and dad, he wanted children enough, he just wanted to fuck every woman with his buddy around the world and then some. A lovely example of parents, don’t you think?. Why do they question same sex parents or single parent adoptions with such rigor when they should be questioning heterosexual parents with even more scrutiny. Look at the divorce rate. Are you kidding me?

The two of you, scavengers, thought you lived outside of the norm of rules. or was it because you were caught? Okay big shot, don’t dangle we would have gotten divorced if I hadn’t fooled around either…to me. You tore us apart, me especially, do you want us to give you both victory medals?  Yes, you saintly  couple you said your vows again after you haphazardly patched things up and you had the best of time after that. Weren’t you sweet. But what did you leave behind? Two broken young adults, one definitely more mature then the other. one, emotionally invested and used, traded back and forth like a piece of gold, come to me, no, come to me, back and forth, like a pawn, struggling to come out of your serpent ways, many years later.

At long last. I hate both of you. I will leave you here in the dust to die. You killed me when I was a child, I’m not looking back at you now. I believe you have said all that needed to be said. I’m not looking back nor am I looking forward. Gonna take some time for me by myself to think, just me not the wife or the kids. I’ll come back to them in a few days when my head is cleared from all your crap. Gonna get a ride and disappear so I can get my head together. As for you 0ld folks I’ve cried my last tear for my past. I’m done and if you don’t believe it, watch me, just watch me go.

Leaving Us, Lost

Newborn child, seconds after birth. The umbilical cord has not yet been cut. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Children will always leave you, from the minute you cut the umbilical cord until the day that you take your last gasp of air. When your child is born you are swept away with joy. Is it a boy, a girl?  You cuddle that dear baby close to your body and cover its head with sweet, soft kisses. Your life has now changed forever. You try to inhale the smells and remember them. Unfortunately, like everything else, we hold precious in our hearts, memories fade.

Babies turn into toddlers and their first independent steps they take away from you are greeted with great excitement and applause.”She’s walking!!” we say proudly to anyone who will listen but we don’t think about this as a step of independence, we are merely celebrating a milestone in our brilliant child’s life.

I can say, with confidence, that as much as you want that uninterrupted night of sleep, it comes with a price. You will miss those sticky grilled cheese hands and arms around your neck and those sloppy grape jelly kisses a lot when they stop. One day you are swinging hands in public, the next your child is muttering “that’s embarrassing.” and they pull away. The rules have changed, your children have changed, now you have to change, quickly.

Childhood is so important and then comes middle school and high school when your children are tweens and teenagers. Groan, I know. It is important for them to grow up and for you to let them. You will go through, as my husband called it “the teenage tunnel of darkness” hang on tight, folks, it will be a bumpy ride. The arguments, slammed doors, taunting, fighting, will probably make you feel like you wish you had the money to send your kids to boarding school, but they need to go through this to become independent and their own person. This is their way of leaving their comfort zone, by fighting and doing things you probably don’t even want to know about and they will lie as well. Your kid? Never! I said that too. Believe me, I don’t condone this behavior, but it smacked me in the face. Once, when I asked my son how he would describe high school he said : high school is one big lie.” I will never forget that. Ever. I was so stunned that I was speechless. Wrong time to be speechless, believe me.

I am grateful that my two young adults, 18 and 20 are so independent and comfortable with other adults.  For that, I thank the strong sense of confidence we instilled in our children and sleep-away camp. Our children begged to go to sleep-away camp where their cousins went, we agreed to give it a try. They LOVED it and so did we. When it came to college, it was easier, for all of us, having been separated before.

How we feel doesn’t matter in this equation anymore. It’s true and we need to accept it. My husband and I like being alone, together. It reminds us of the days before children without all the anxiety and stress. Staying home and watching television is date night, we don’t feel the need to go out, we can relax at home. Our babies are not babies anymore, they are young adults. Do we miss the love that they used to show us? Yes, I know I do. Things change, we have no choice but to adjust. It is not always easy; sometimes it takes a little longer than it should and yes, sometimes I cry in private.  Children will always have you in their hearts but they will leave to find and follow their own lives. When they leave, they are looking forwards to their new lives which leaves us, their parents, looking backwards for sweet memories.

singing the icy cold blues

Icy blue (Photo credit: GustavoG)

i’m either coming down with the mamas blues or the cold/ flu blues because something just doesn’t feel right. oh lord these bitter cold temperatures are really hurting me, hurting my chronic pain bones and muscles. we went outside for five minutes, i started coughing and couldn’t stop. now my eyes are welling up but you know me, that could be for already missing my son who is leaving tomorrow to go back to school. the anticipation of him coming home after birthright was so intense and seeing his smiling cheerful face at the airport and after looking at his photographs and the way he spoke, he grew up a lot. he could understand how i felt too.  i just need a little alone time for transitions, 24 hours at most for this. he’s leaving home again but i think it’s mostly because he was overseas and i was so eager for him to be back in the u.s. and the excitement of it all. sharing my old memories with him.

dan and i both like when the kids are at school and we have time to ourselves and i don’t have to make 3 different meals that gets old so fast. but tonight, i just want to cry because everything moves so quickly, that what i had been waiting for, was over like a snap of my red, frozen fingers in the icy air that stung like a bunch of angry wasps or bees.

our daughter has been back to her college for a week already and she couldn’t wait to go back to school to be with her friends. i didn’t blame her, she was bored out of  her mind here and we were getting a little annoyed too. sitting in her bedroom watching tv and eating was doing us all in. if her brother hadn’t gone away for 10 days he would have been bored to pieces also. two very different personalities, he always needed to be entertained, always, “mama, play with me” endlessly while she (more like me in that sense) could play by herself with her toys and dolls and stuffed animals for quite a long time, happily.

two children, well, young adults, our son is 20 and our daughter is 18, they will always be our children to us, but they are not children any longer. i used to have a lot of their baby pictures around, special ones, but last year i put them away because it hurt too much to see them. when they loved and needed me best. i needed to realign my life away from the past and guide it to the future.

i try to keep my life, our lives in the present but once in a while, like tonight, one can get a short stabbing pain or two, getting older, watching our amazing children having fun. i think sometimes we are envious. once in a while i focus on the sadder things to come in the future but i work hard to “not meet trouble halfway.”  i know now i will readjust my focus, for 15 minutes and do something soothing, i will feel better physically tomorrow. i will listen to music to energize or soothe me. maybe i will write without punctuation, without editing and capitals, i always loved e.e.cummings., the poet, when i was young. i can turn my head back now and laugh. everything is going to be alright. we are all responsible for ourselves. please don’t forget that, me, and every single being.it’s so important. may your life be a good one, may you help it to be even better.

What if I just kept Driving? (Writing Raw Prompt)

THEBIG429 Cadillac photo group Cadillacs in the rough photo group (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What if I just kept driving and didn’t stop at the supermarket like always. What if I went past the county line and the library and the big grocery store in the next town and I didn’t look back. What if the old Cadillac was filled up with gas and I was the only person in it with no plans and a full tank and a pack of peppermint gum. I had cigarettes in my handbag, some money in my wallet, and I just followed the signs to whatever seemed like a fun sounding town.

I had no idea where I was heading. Lord knows I had NO sense of direction but no one was going to make fun of me here or tease me about it, it didn’t matter at all. I couldn’t get lost because I didn’t know where I was heading in the first place. My husband and the two kids criticized my driving and my lack of a sense of direction ALL the time, they got so nasty about it I just refused to keep driving with them. Why bother when all they would do was laugh at me? I didn’t need that, not all the time, anyways.

Maybe they would feel a little lost on there own when I wasn’t home fixing up their meals and arranging their music lessons and get togethers with their friends not to mention the PTA library fair and keeping house and grocery shopping and preparing three, sometimes four meals a day.  Let’s see who they criticize now.

I knew where I was heading, to the only place I loved, to the place where  a girl could relax and feel overpowered at the same time. I bet you know where, if you know me at all. Right. The ocean, why I have loved the ocean since I could walk and toddle on the sand. When my mama and papa would hold each one of my hands in theirs and swing me over the waves until I learned to do it myself. I would sit on the rocks and stare at the almighty ocean with it’s bursting fire of waves and splashes of that foamy soap on top. I loved to watch how far the tide would come up to meet the sand, I walked for hours picking up seashells, even the broken ones were pretty, to me.

It took me seven hours to get there because I really didn’t know my way and I am sure I got turned around more than a few times but I got there alright. On my own without asking anybody anything. I wonder what George and the kids would feel when they read the note that I left under the orange juice glass on the table. It didn’t say much, just that I was leaving for awhile, and they should take care of each other. I signed it, Love, Mom because I would miss my two boys but in my heart I really wasn’t sure how much I would miss George. I had been with George for over 22 years and yes, part of me still loved him as the father of my children, that would never change but part of me wanted more than he was capable for giving and I knew that. It was a choice I had to make. Do I settle for the known or do I throw everything away and start fresh? That was the reason for this trip, it would take some time to sort through it all, I knew that.