I Want To Be Melissa Rivers’ Sister

One day or another

I turn myself inwards, hiding from the world.

I don’t want to go out and make small talk, my friends don’t feel like real friends tonight and

blood, it turns out, happens to be thicker than water, even when blood types are opposite.

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The news on television is too scary to watch and I take on too much of it.

That’s when I have to force myself to extricate my sensitive soul and feel alright

snuggling under the blankets for a day, maybe two, listening to music or trying to name my new pink pig stuffed animal, stroking her soft cotton skin.

Imagine a soul without a name. What shall I call her? Suggestions?

The sun is setting earlier and earlier, things are the same but they are not.

I see a very long Winter ahead of us, I don’t even have the energy to groan.

I can’t blame it on Fibromyalgia either. I won’t.

My birthday month is on, even early, I don ‘t care about getting older, I still love birthdays and I am not vain.

Wrinkles are graciously earned, gray hair are few but I don’t hide them anyway. I am the warrior that they present, I earned them.

My children are now adults perfectly able to take care of themselves without us, both a blessing and a curse. I still miss them as I see mothers posting their first and second graders first day back to school pictures, excited grins and new outfits.

I think we have done well in parenting them, we are both so proud of them, we shine.

Suicide, brain tumor,  starving herself, no will to live, and now Joan Rivers? I don’t know but now I wish I could be Melissa’s sister

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so she has somebody with her, to support her.

Nothing is fair, deep down, I still expect them to be at the end.

That’s the very immature part of me that won’t grow up. I can’t seem to learn this lesson even as it presents itself over and over again. Why? Why CAN’T I learn this?

I too, would wait for my mom to wake up, cracking a joke. But, my mom would NOT want to be brain-dead, that I know.

We all deal with pain, grief, discomfort, sadness and people really DON’T reach out to give a hand, I think that is what shocks me the most.

No one makes the time, they have themselves to consider first, last and in-between.

I am not sure who I am anymore, who I’ve become.

Maybe, just maybe, I’m disappointing myself, maybe I have become one of them too.

Nothing would surprise me anymore.

Nothing does.

The Art Of Keeping Pancakes Warm

Pancakes (Photo credit: Creativity+ Timothy K Hamilton)

Emotions often overlap, sometimes they are hard to distinguish, or they are hard to separate, sometimes they coexist, they hold each others hand, their fingers intertwined. Sometimes there’s a base and if not resolved things pile on top of it like a stack of freshly made pancakes, each one giving off heat. The first pancake starts the flow of the heat which rises into the air. Soon, we add another pancake and then another to make a stack; each pancake produces heat adding heat to the bottom, the first  pancake, not taking heat away from it.

Usually its easy for me to figure out what I’m feeling, I generally pride myself on knowing how or what I feel, not that I think it’s a fabulous trait to have because many times it is overwhelming. Recently, In the past few weeks I seem to have lost that trait, I have absolutely no idea how I feel, I don’t feel anything strongly, hate, compassion, appreciation; I don’t feel anything at all. If I feel anything its emptiness in a very cool, detached way, like reading a book of a different culture that I have no interest in whatsoever. I feel like a different person, cool, calm, detached.

This is not me.

If I stayed like this my life would be a million times easier but somewhere, deep in the bottom of my soul, I know, that there is a catalyst waiting to happen, a word or a memory, that will make all my emotions come flooding back. For now, I’m probably resisting it and I can’t lie, it feels like a vacation. A dull, boring vacation in a zombie time zone but for a roller coaster woman like me, I’ll take it. I will jump in with gratitude In one split second because now, I don’t want to analyze it, think about it and most of all, deal with it. If this is a break from dealing with heavy things, I’m in, thank you very much.

We have all gone through love, hate, grief but now I feel numb. I choose numb now because numbness gets me through the days. I am not sobbing on the bed, my cheeks and eyes are not swollen and red, I’m taking a breather.  I know, soon enough, that dam will break and I will probably learn new information that I need to be ready for because once again, if I choose to hear the new information, my life will change forever.

For as long as it lasts, numb will be satisfactory. I know it’s not a steady job, just temporary, a respite from unhappiness and doubt but if happiness and knowledge elude me than I would be honored to take up residency. There’s also: Sad, Mad, Love, Grief, Hate, Happy, Sensitive, Unaware, Raw, Grieving, Disbelief, Guilt, Sorrow, Pain, Game, Delusional, etc….No person is just one thing. We are all complicated beings, we all make mistakes. We are faulty human beings so pick whichever traits you want or have, learn from mistakes and then move on. Do the best you can in the present. Don’t look to the past, don’t worry about the future, your destiny is here with you now, staring you in the face, the sweet smell of pancakes wafting in the air, warm amber-colored maple syrup poured from a white pitcher to enjoy on your pancakes while you contemplate. Treat yourselves well.