Good luck, Goodbye, Bobby Jean

I remember 1985/86 like it was yesterday sometimes.  I remember Bruce Springsteen and my favorite album of his, Born in the USA.  I loved all the songs on there including the tear jerker Bobby Jean.  When I was almost a teenager someone I cared very deeply for moved away and I never got to say goodbye.  I never got to tell him how important he was to me.  He left in the summer of 1982.  I missed him for years.  I thought of him during the Bobby Jean song.  I wondered just how many people simply up and disappeared from the lives of friends without a word or any closure.  

I found my Bobby Jean again in 1990.  I went to visit and we fell deeply in love.  I came home after that visit a different person.  The visit was in the spring.  I couldn't handle being away from him and he wanted me too.  I gave my 2 weeks notice at work in late June.  My friends there tried to talk me out of it for the most part.  They did support me, they just didn't want to lose me. One day in July. The 7th, to be precise, I left.  I took a suitcase, some tamales and some cheese to the Greyhound station in Chicago where I got on a bus bound for Pensacola FL.

I married him and we've been happy.

I listen to Bobby Jean now and feel sad in a very different way.  I am Bobby Jean.  I left without a word to my oldest friends.  I was just gone one day.  I never gave them a chance to say goodbye and I never got to say goodbye to them.  It hits me now that maybe they did care and maybe I should have said goodbye.  Was I sparing them or me?  I think now that I was very selfish in not saying goodbye and having closure with them all.  I was there one day and just gone the next.  I try to avoid uncomfortable situations.  In running I created an uncomfortable situation.  

It's over now, and I know none of them will read this,  none of them will know that I do feel bad for not saying goodbye to them.  Take the time to say goodbye to people you've known when you move on.  Take the time to tell your friends and family that you love them and care for them.  

I always felt sorry for Bruce when he sung Bobby Jean.  I never meant to be Bobby Jean.  I've lived a song.  I guess that's a dream in my bucket list I can cross off.  Bucket list?  Does that mean I have to make a bucket list since I've crossed something off one?  

 

I wanna be a teenager again for just a month or so

Being a grown up sucks so much!  There are all these grown up problems, how to parent, bill paying, jobs, menus, grocery shopping, making sure said child (read teenage bottomless pit here) has food and doesn't ruin his life doing bone headed things.  I could go on, but if you are a grown up then you know how much it utterly sucks at times.

I want to be 15 or 16 again for just a little while.  I remember the teen years sucked too, but I'd go back armed with the knowledge I currently have and realize that everyone had their head up their asses at that age and no one had any clue about life or any mystical wisdom about the future and no one really cared if I was a geek, a freak or a nerd...we all were equally idiotic.

I'd go back armed with all I learned about Math, Science, English, History....etc and just have fun.  My homework would be done and it would be done correctly.  I wouldn't have to feel like I was staring down the barrel of a gun looking at a simple algebraic equation.  I'd be secure in the knowledge that it would be right or mostly right.  I'd also like to sneak out of the house just once.  I never did that.  I'd also like to clue my friends in on the whole being a teenager sucks but being a grown up sucks just as much in its own right.

I feel as clueless as a teenager at a school dance most days.  I know that I need to wear a dress (pay the bills), I know I need shoes (food) I know I need a clue (parenting).  the clue will be the hardest to find.

I realize in a few years time 50something year old me, will look back at 40something me and think....wow did that idiot have it made, I wish I could go back to my 40's with the knowledge of my 50's and really do things right.

Sadly teenage me, nor 40something me would listen to wise me.  We'd run screaming for the hills, much like I currently feel like doing.

BTW.....Happy VERY Belated New Year.

Where has this year gone?

I thought to myself....

gee self, it's been a couple of months since you last posted to your blog, you should write something, you've been in a mood lately.  

I came by to see if I could harness a thought or two into something coherent...lo and behold it's been 5 months! I'd like to say one momentous thing has happened since then that I could have written about, but sadly SEVERAL momentous things happened but I was too lazy to write about them.  I also think I may have been dealing with a little depression because of it.

My son turned 16 and he got his driver's license.  He also has his first job and it's thrown me completely out of whack.  I feel like my job is being phased out.  I've been a stay at home mom for the most part since 1998.  Him driving himself to school and work, having plans that he makes, getting there on his own, really threw me for a loop.  My stress hit a high point and my mood a low point.  I worry about him driving, not his driving, he's a good driver.  He passed his written test with no mistakes and did an excellent job on his road test, my husband and I were allowed in the car with the independent tester.  The other drivers scare me.  He got his license in October, just about the time the maniacs hit the streets for holidays and the weather turns dicey and icy.  Sadly on the one hand, but happily on the other, we haven't had much snow and ice yet.  I love snow, I love icicles on eaves but I'm just as happy that he doesn't have to be on the road in it right now.  If I could limit snow mounds to weekends or days he doesn't have to go to school or work, that would be great.

I don't have that much to be depressed or complain about.  I know that I'm lucky.  We're healthy, together, we have a roof over our heads, food to eat, the bills are paid.  I know that is so much more than some people have.  Still, those blues just crept in on me this past year.  I'm assuming that 2015 will have me heading in a happier direction.  I'm not unhappy, I'm just feeling the weight of my baby growing up and away.

I'm going to try to write more on my blog next year.  I enjoy it and it does help me feel better.  I've missed being here but didn't realize I missed it, if that makes sense.

Oh and I didn't shop at Target this holiday season because the ads were really annoying.  We did go there the day after Christmas and score a new tree.

The new spoon theory.....

Most people with chronic pain or illness are very familiar with the spoon theory as written here;

Spoon Theory

I have a new spoon theory which has nothing to do with pain, or any form of illness.  I am calling it "16 spoons where the hell are you?"

For the past two weeks we have experienced a dearth of spoons in the house.  We weren't using them for dinner because they weren't there.  We were barely able to scare up three for cereal on a lazy night.  We were down to using plastic spoons, of course those were depleted too due to the dearth of metal spoons.

We got serious about spoon finding on Sunday.  We scoured the house top to bottom.  2 were found in my bathroom.  My son and I had yogurt one evening in bed.  One was found in my son's bathroom in a bowl of cereal he'd left in the sink.  Approximately 10 were found in his bedroom and his game room.  As of this writing 16 spoons are nestled into the silverware drawer in the kitchen.  We had no issue with forks.  I am not certain why this was only limited to spoons.  I am blaming the Super Golden Crisp he has recently discovered.  That stuff can make a kid do crazy things, like use every single spoon in the house yet have no recollection that any spoons have been used.  How he drew an utter blank on the spoons is beyond me.  We sent him daily to gather all the dishes from upstairs.  I think he has dish/mess/trash blindness.  How my husband and I BOTH missed the two spoons in the upstairs bathroom is beyond me also.  Can we too have spoon blindness?

I wonder if spoon man came to visit if he would leave us a few dozen spoons so that we can make it a week without scrambling for spoons?

I've become one of them

When I was a teenager, things were different than they are today........
I remember some of the pranks we used to play in school, the best one was......

I didn't even realize it was happening.  I became one of them.  Those people who regale their teenager with stories of slightly misguided youth.  Not only my son, but his friends too!  I am unstoppable.  I am completely incapable of stopping myself before I start.  They will sit around talking to me, then before I know it, I'm knee deep into 1985.  I don't know if I lack a filter or if I just love to hear myself talk.

My son called it to my attention when he said "Melvin said you're Mom has a story about everything, I bet she's telling Melanie one right now".  When my 15 year old child had to call it to my attention, I knew that I was a monster.  A "back in the day....." monster.  I remember when my Grandmother and my Mother did it to me.  I felt kind of trapped and slightly humiliated that they were trying to "fit in with the crowd"  now, almost 30 years past my high school years I am in the same boat.  The boat apparently has a very comfortable captain's chair and I'm very firmly wedged into it.  My seat in the boat is the one my Grandmother and Mother shared.

I have also become a pajama Mom.  I drop him off at school in pajamas and if the day has been rough, I likely pick him up in the same pajamas.  This was only recently embarrassing when my son brought a friend to the car for a ride home.  I couldn't let my son drive because I was in a nightgown and bathrobe.

I have become my worst fear.  I have become my Grandmother and my Mother.  They didn't wear pajamas in public though.  I think I may top them in the embarrassing department.  

At least I don't clean his face with spit....

Easter memories....

Easter....Easter reminds me of many things; the Resurrection, springtime, dogwood tree blooms, china berry trees in bloom, church, Easter corsages, hats in church, flowers in my hair, a special dress and shoes for Easter, gloves, egg hunts, baskets, carrots left for the Easter Bunny, candy, plastic baskets, coconut cake, ham, family and fun.

I remember a few things more clearly.  I had this one outfit when I was about four.  Green with some color blocks in pink and brown.  I hated that outfit!  There is a photo of me in it holding a plush bunny or a basket...something Easterish with the haircut I hated on top of it all!

I loved those green coconut nests from Russell Stover, they just tasted like Easter.  The only acceptable Peeps were pink bunnies and yellow chicks.  It just ruined the day if I got yellow bunnies and pink chicks.  I think those were the only two shapes and colors back in the 70's and 80's.  There were also humming bird eggs.  Hummingbird eggs were about the size and shape of sixlets, but they were jelly beans...tiny baby jelly beans.

Easter grass.  It just wasn't Easter without plastic Easter grass.  The bunny uses paper grass now because our cat confiscates the basket as soon as my son empties it.  The current basket count is 3 or 4 in the open and a few more hiding.  The grass is still in them, he uses it for a mattress.  We do not touch the Easter grass.
Jelly beans!!  I am a slave to jelly beans.  I didn't buy any this year because I got sick on gummy bears and some weird store brand Jelly Belly knock off...they weren't bad, they just hit me the wrong way.  I'm sure the donut holes didn't help the cause. I digress... I love the pink, purple, white and black jelly beans the most.  I'm not too fond of the mix with spearmint as the green jelly bean.  Though they do have an interesting pink and white in that set...oh and the purple too.  Red jelly beans are always a winner too.


Chocolate bunnies!  That's it, the centerpiece of every basket.

The return of white.  White was only worn from Easter to Labor Day.  Outside of the white season it simply was not worn.  This definitely included shoes and purses!  It may have just been a southern thing.  I had to wear yellow and white nearly every Easter.  White shoes were an absolute must on Easter Sunday. I still remember a pair of white low heel Mary Jane shiny man made upper with this one weird tag of black from the sole that rode up in a semi circle on the instep of the right shoe.  My Grandma wanted my head on a platter because I picked at it all through service.  I was about 10....it really bothered me.

Easter egg hunts at church.  We'd each bring a dozen hard boiled eggs to share for the church egg hunt.  One egg was wrapped in foil and was the "special" egg.  Whomever found the special egg got a prize.  We'd hunt and snipe eggs, we'd trick each other, we had a really good time and we got a few eggs.  The luckiest snipers got the most.  After we found all or most all of the eggs we'd sit down to eat some of them.  Almost as a unit we popped out our salt shakers. Most of us had those tiny salt shakers to use when dining on egg.  They were about the size of a thimble and were very handy.  I think the weirdest thing that happened was at my first egg hunt.  I was Easter '76 and I was 6.  I sat down with my cousin to share eggs.  All of a sudden something hard hit me on the top of the head!  I looked up and noticed my head was being used to crack an egg!  I had never experienced such a thing.  Since then I have cracked a few eggs on heads and sometimes remember to crack one on my own in an odd tribute to that first wacky egg hunt.

My Grandma's hands.  I would hold her hand almost all through church and play with her rings.  She wore three, an onyx oval with a tiny diamond in the middle.  I have that.  Her Mother's ring and her wedding band.  I remember the way the light caught all the colors in the Mother's ring.  I remember how soft her hands felt, how smooth and thin her skin was, how warm they were and her patience as I toyed with the rings.  We didn't have Children's Church for major holidays, that's how I ended up associating her hands with Easter and of course Christmas.

I seem to have a lot of memories of food and candy  :)

Happy Easter!

My My, how time does fly!

I have been very lax.  I've not been here for a while.  Where to begin??

I got overwhelmed in November, compiled all the "Complicated Lives" and released them in a kindle book.  A lot of emotion led up to that, then I felt free and open.  I think the word may be empowered.

After that I decided to do some emotional housekeeping.  I cut ties with some people, other people I've just gone off the radar.  I'm sorry to say I've not been a good friend at all to some very important people.  I hope they know that I care for them deeply, but I've just been in a weird spot mentally.

I got sick of all the negative energy and drama surrounding my son at the local high school.  We talked it over and decided a move to a public charter school was the best decision for all of us.  It's almost like we have our eager to learn toddler back once more.  He can explore paths, work at his own pace, set his own goals and have freedom.  This school operates more like life in the real working world.  Projects, deadlines, work at your own pace, set goals....etc.  The transformation has been amazing.

Stress and pressure from the new pay schedule where my husband works has me frazzled.  We refinanced our mortgage. I'm typing up a searchable document for our HOA to make things easier for people to seek and find answers to common questions.

For those who know about my health issues, I'm doing better!  I am still quite lazy some days, I still have insomnia, pain...etc.  The good things are, I have more stamina, I am walking much better, my fine motor skills are coming along and typing is getting better.  I still can't type for very long, but I am doing a better job touch typing.

I've found a great and simple bread recipe.  I have messed with the flour and created a nice rye with caraway from the same recipe.  I do it all in the kitchenaid.  Kneading is and never was my strong point.

I will catch you up on white trash moments in the next post.