She's Still Gone.....Update

I got a new canister type vacuum cleaner and took a week of vacation and seem to have been possessed by a cleaning demon.  Of all the demon possessions I have ever contemplated, the cleaning demon would probably have to be the one I would ask for.

I have a Christmas post coming, but the demon, having taken over possession of my soul recently, has produced this instead.

At first, the canister type vacuum freaked me out and made me itch for several hours after I used it.  I can report that I am way past that now.  In fact, with every canister of dust that I collect now, I am only inspired to collect more.  I have used every attachment on it, love them all, and have instructed the boys in it's uses as well.  I am foolish enough to keep thinking that one of these times I will not suck up much, what with all the cleaning I've been doing.  That has yet to happen, but I live in hope.  Small, manageable, can afford to be disappointed hope, but hope all the same.  One of these days it could happen.  If it does, you will be the first to know.  I'm not holding my breath and I would not suggest you hold yours either, you understand, but we will make a note.  It could happen.

Remember when I was unable to bring myself to deal with The Beautiful Redhead's room?  Well, I have arrived at a compromise.  I told her at Christmas that I didn't think I was going to be able to bring myself to pack up her stuff.  She laughed.  I told her that it would be different when she got her own house and came in and told me she was taking it.  She rolled her eyes.  She left me here without touching a thing.  Again.

Ok, the wedding dress was still hanging there and I just stuffed it in the closet.  I don't count the closet when I am working on the room.  My mind can't encompass the whole process at once, ok?

Then the cleaning demon took possession and I just started doing stuff.

I did one side of the room at a time.  If I have to explain that, I would say you have never had a child who left home and then you used the room as the "throw it in and shut the door, quick-like(!)" room.

I packed up all her personal stuff.  I did not look through it.  I am 98% sure I packed up 3 boxes of trash for her to go through herself one day, but that's the way I roll.  I told God when I had kids that when I erred, I would always try to err on the side of caution, and I have kept my end of the bargain.

I got up today and drank a pot of coffee.  I did not shower, dress, or brush my teeth.  I warmed up taco soup for the boys and then directed them to remove an old television, a bicycle (yes, really), and a shelf from that room into the basement.

My hallway looked like this:

That's Shadow's tail because she is my constant companion when doing anything.

And just to show my appreciation, here is a picture of Shadow, who is always sure I am taking her picture.

Wew, yes I wuv her.....she's my sweet baby bupkes.......

I found a pair of angel wings that I bought for her when she was 5 and cried over how fast the years went and how I can still remember how the crevice of her neck smelled when she was that age.   I smiled at how I bought a pair of fairy wings for Abigail this Christmas and she loved them as much as Mackenzie once loved these.  Then I carefully arranged them in the crib she and her brother used when they were infants along with a big teddy bear that she acquired when she was just a few years older.  I did not touch her little redheaded dolls or tea sets or rock collections.  They are just as they have been for 12 years, although I do plan to give them a good wash and I still have to get all the books and stuffed animals cleaned up too.  Perhaps the cleaning demon will make more appearances.  We will see.

Not gonna touch.  Well, maybe clean.  But not put up.  EVAH!  And that little truck actually says Mackenzie's Ice Cream through no design of our own and was the only little car that child EVER wanted and I always found it after her twin brothers had stolen it and you can see who was victorious here.  Me.  I did it for you, Kenz, only and always for you.

The angel wings are laying in the cradle, in front of the foot pillow I got for a Christmas present when I was about 12.  It was all the rage, man, I speak the truth.  And yes, that's Shadow again, supervising operations as always.  And yes, my problem with throwing things away is not new.  Not by a long, long shot.

I cleaned the cool electric lamp she had to have when she was 12 or 13.  I dusted the picture of her she was a naked infant and smiled and cried a little more.

I cannot believe she didn't take this.  I still have fun playing with it.  Maybe she is the more mature of us.  Oh well.

I dug out the mosquito netting that I got for her when she was 10 and put it back up.  In it I found the pearl ring I got her for her 16th birthday and she thought she had lost for the last 4 1/2 years.  She never stopped talking about that ring and I never found another one like it so I could replace it.  It has been found and replaced in the one jewelry box (out of dozens she had) I didn't pack up.

Ok, so she never liked the netting.  I liked the netting, OK?  As it turned out, that was all that mattered.

The boys fled the house and soon the room looked like this:

I couldn't bear to put up Raggedy Ann.  She has been a faithful companion not only to the Beautiful Redhead, but to me after she ran off and left us to live her life.  We've been through  a lot, Raggedy Ann and I.....Besides, this is the redhead wall, with the naked redhead baby picture and I am not breaking up the set.  I cannot.  I will not.  This discussion is over.

and this

I'm never  giving up this photo.  She can have it when I'm dead.  Or the Mardi Gras feather boa or the only surviving float trip hat that I got for $5.  Not at the Dollar Shop, obviously. And that dangling sparkly stuff is attached to a crown of stars.  Never know when the need to wear one of those will take a girl over.....Just come on over, I saved that too!

I put the both the quilt her grandmother made back on the bed and set the fearless white lion she coveted (and got) when she was 11 on top.  I propped her favorite teddy bear when she was a child against her pillows.   

Ready for a traveling princess to stay.  And her little sister, too, with the cradle and all....

I was touched and thrilled to discover that the note her grandmother Paula had written in lipstick, along with lipstick kisses, had been there so long that it didn't easily clean off.  I left it there.

Clean this off?  NOW?!???!!?  Are you nuts?  Obviously, I am not good at that.  Accept it and move on.  I cherish my memories, right down to making them part of the permanent decorations!

I found the keyboard she learned on before we had a piano.  This same keyboard was later co-opted by her brother and the boys in his band (s)......one of her favorite boys of all time put the cheat sheet tape on the keys.  I smiled through tears as I remembered the years of not being able to talk on the phone inside my own house for the bass beat that kept our house hopping.  Years of calls at 11 pm to bring a guitar or an extra amp to a gig.   Years of 6 boys showing up without much time but needing to eat and throwing frozen lasagna in the microwave and watching them eat it while it was still cold.....but they didn't care.  Years in which I watched her get to hang out with the older kids and have a really good time in safety because she had an older brother who was 10 feet tall.   I didn't touch a thing, but now have to find a place to keep it.  Perhaps the closet.......

If this keyboard could talk........All we have is youtube videos of Our Last Run.  Go look one up now.  You may or may not need Kleexes.  No shame.

So her room has been tackled, mostly, and that leaves my list of things to do a little shorter.  Ok, no shorter, since I can cross off Mackenzie's room but now have to add Mackenzie's closet.  Still.  It's progress and I count it all.

And that is my progress, if you can call it that. I choose to call it that. The closet is still to be dealt with on another day, but this is her room now.  Undoubtedly hers, but not recently.  Proof that she lived here and will always be able to come back.  Her childhood still displayed, but not able to be picked up easily.  Just still there.  Always.

I feel very badly about the Christmas post, but will work on it soon.  Perhaps by Valentines day?  I kid.  Kind of.  I think.  I really don't know anymore.  I just get myself out of bed and go in whatever direction I am pulled.  It doesn't usually make sense to me, but still I go, and am even getting some things accomplished.  I had to ask what came next, right?  Well, this is it.  Proof that God listens, not to mention a reminder to always think about whether you really want to know the answer before you ask.

It's going to be a long winter.  It always is, in Missouri.  I wish for you a canister vacuum and the raw courage to face what it will dang shore collect.  Buck up and suck up, folks, spring is coming but not for awhile yet.

The Empty Dollar Shop...

I recently went to one of my favorite places on earth only to find that it had closed.

I am in mourning and so came up with this as a memorial to that most wonderful of all places:

Ode To The Dollar Shop

Oh, Dollar Shop, I will miss you so.

We have been through so much, through the years.  There is no way I could have ever done it without you.  When I felt alone and overwhelmed, you scooped me up and set me down in a wonderful, quiet, warm place full of wonders the likes of which I never even knew existed, and I knew I was not alone.

All the stocking stuffers, you never let me down.  Every Christmas was full of wonderful stocking stuffers one simply could not find just "anywhere".  The incense burner inscribed with AC/DC that my oldest son actually liked, the little manicure sets and the Christmas cups.  My kids all got one every year.  You might think those would add up but don't worry.  They all chipped real easy and usually needed replaced every year.  Who cared?  Not me.  They were all $1.

All the pairs of sunglasses.  I wish I would have stocked up better.  I just never thought there would come a day when you weren't there.  The last time I spent over $1 on a pair of sunglasses was around 1997.  Same year the twins were born.  Your timing really was impeccable.

You were the first stop I always made when the kids got money for a gift.  You never disappointed them, either.  The shot glass that said One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, FLOOR with the little red light that lit up on the bottom?  The knives?  The jewelry?  

Decades of gift bags of every size and for every occasion, all $1.  I want to weep, even though I still have a lot of them.

The music.......a blend of 70's soft rock and one hit wonders that made me laugh out loud and sing along on many occasions.  ..........Sometimes we made it a group event.  If you have never had an unplanned flash mob around the song Don't Pull Your Love Out On Me Baby by Hamilton, Joe, Frank & Reynolds, I mourn for you.  At least I will always have the memories, oh Dollar Shop.

The books.  THE BOOKS!!!!!  SOB!  Hard back good books!!  OK, some bad ones too, but that's how it goes, and you only wasted a dollar!!

The Christmas ornaments!!  The $1 teachers gifts!!!

The commercials!  "Can't decide whether to buy that item or not?  Don't forget it's a dollar.  Every item in this store is a dollar.  All the time."  They made my heart sing out and I laughed out loud as I threw whatever was in my hand into the cart! 

I never worried there!  

I also rarely spent even $20!

I don't know what I will do without you, Dollar Shop.  I don't even know if I know who I am now.

The bathrooms!  There was never a line!!

The underwear for teenage girls who only wanted thongs!  I simply cannot abide paying good money for bad underwear.  Not even underwear as I understand their true purpose......but that's another post.

The flowers for graves!  Twice a year at least and sometimes more often, depending on what you offered and one time.....those sparkly iridescent pom pom ball things on sticks?  Well, I don't really know what those were supposed to be for but my mother's grave has never been so blinged out before or since and now, I guess never will be again.  Oh!  The agony!  I'm pretty sure those things were the talk of the town for a while there.......

The dog collars!  Shadow kept me running over there on a regular basis until I got smart and took the collars off.  It would have never went on for so long without you, Dollar Shop.  Life just will not be the same without you.

The shampoos and conditioners and lotions that teenagers always "have" to have but are mainly made up water anyway?  So what's the diff?  Especially if it comes in the actual packaging?  For a DOLLAR, people......

It's going to take a while.  I don't know if I can do it.......say goodbye to you, Dollar Shop.  I know I will find another, but it won't be the same.  You were near me.  And now, you are not.  

You are empty.  Abandoned.  Utterly desolate and dark.  

I feel the same way.  

Oh, I will rally.  I will make the trip to find another one.  But not for a while.  Not for a good while.

I must go on, but I don't know if I will ever get over this.

RIP, Dollar Shop.  I only wish you had a grave I could visit.  If I did I would only with I could afford to buy you a little statue for your grave.  But that won't be happening now.  

You were a great store, and I loved you.

Is Menopause Some Kind of Crazy Cocoon or WHAT?

Last week was really stressful for me. It felt like Chinese water torture, trouble just kept dripping on my forehead until I thought I was going to go crazy.

DRIP

Shadow had jumped up and broken a double paned thermal window in the basement, which I had to get out and take to be fixed.

DRIP
I had a tooth dying and had suffered through that for about 10 days before I could get to the dentist.  Because of the pounding from my dying tooth, I was sleeping with my head so high that my back was starting to give me problems, causing me to take aspirin and antibiotics, when I have this thing about hating to take pills.  I have the best dentist in the world, and he gave me pain meds that worked for both problems beautifully.  The bad news was that I was little slower than usual.  The good news was that I didn't feel like crying or killing anyone.

DRIP
I had a note on my door that I needed to have my gas meter replaced.  And of course I would have to be there when they came.  So the guy who changed it told me I needed to get it cleaned.  It occurred to me that I had not had that done in 11 years.  Thank God my ex-husband's uncle could do it that day, because it turned out the valve that keeps the gas from leaking out was broke and by some miracle my house had not blown up. Yet.  Seriously.  It cost me much less than it is actually worth, but then that cost cannot be calculated.

DRIP
The car had to be inspected and had a bunch of stuff wrong with it and I had been trying to remember to schedule an appointment for that.  I figured it would cost me hundreds of dollars.  I was half right.

DRIP
It's the end of the year and taxes are due.  More hundreds of dollars!

DRIP
Christmas is coming.  Decided I had to spend too many hundreds of dollars and decided to do mostly homemade gifts this year.  HA!  We even got the crappy tree up once again, leaning it into the corner.  Go ahead and fall, Christmas tree.  WE do care, in fact, we designed you fall over this year.  Bring it.

DRIP
We all need to get our eyes examined again.  Etc.  Sigh.

*Melinda looks off into space, wilts in her chair, distantly wishes she still drank.  Tells herself she still could.  Realizes this would mean going upstairs and rooting through her closet for her last hidden bottle of Kahlua, and thinks it not worth the trouble.*

DRIP

I was down, you know?  In fact, I have been down for, like, quite a while now.  I've been sick and tired of being sick and tired.  I started to think that I was going to be like Weezy, in Steel Magnolias.  You know the one who's "been in a very bad mood for 40 years"?  With the big dog?  Who hates the only man who's really in the picture?  Ok, maybe she doesn't hate him, maybe they just have a mutual love of hurling verbal abuse at each other, but by now you remember Weezy, right?  Frankly, I was with this.

DRIP
Then I got on Facebook Saturday night and the friends who were as depressed as me were almost equal to the friends who still wanted to kill somebody.  I did a blog post and cried like a baby and thought that would make me feel better.  It usually does.  But it didn't do the trick this time.

So I sat down after a slowly, emotionally draining period of time (6 weeks, 6 months, 6 years, depending on where you want to start counting.  But that's not the point) and I gave myself a talking to.

If adolescence is the cocoon before we "bloom" into the "butterfly" of full fledged womanhood, what would that make menopause (because it is VERY SIMILAR to adolescence, if I'm remembering correctly) and what comes next?  And while we're at it, will me face EVER stop breaking out?????  Can we just quit worrying about accomplishments after a certain age?  Is figuring out how to make your noodles and custard pie supposed to be a life accomplishment?  Should I have some awards for being able to quiet a fussy baby or help a teenager make a good decision?  Should there be a gold statue awarded for canning tomatoes?  Should I have been awarded big bonuses for going without in order to buy basketball shoes?   Is there actually anything more important in life than these things anyway?  Maybe I'm just supposed to keep being the me I am, but this new, improved version.  Why can't this be the answer?  Girls, brace yourselves and get ready to relax, because I think maybe it is, I really do.

What else are we here for anyway?  We are here to love, and learn, and pass what we learn on.  Our only hope is the hope of future generations.  Our work is right in front of us and has been all along.  We just had to slow down long enough to see it.

So I told myself that I got to decide what my life was going to be from here on out, and while I am extremely happy with some parts, there are other parts that need to be torn down.  I have to rebuild my life into what I want it to be, and I have to pay attention.  Because while I am caught up in my own misery and frantically trying to stop all the drips, in truth the house can blow up at any time.  

I told myself to quit worrying about the world ending so much.  If it does end, there is nothing we can do about it.  Besides, if it does, my troubles will be over!  If it doesn't, I won't go down without a fight and we'll just cross that road when we come to it.  I told myself to quit worrying about Israel getting attacked and be glad instead that at least Israel is a country where they are all on the same side.  I even shut myself up when the person in my head made remarks about how :"nothing would put you on the same side as quickly as having rockets attacking you ceaselessly", and they shut up!

I told myself to be more grateful for the drudgery of my life, because I am healthy and able to take care of myself.  It's part of my job as a mother and a woman.  I vowed that I would view the drudgery of my life as a testament to sacrifice and find a way to enjoy it - even the dishes!  In fact, I have dish soap that smells very wonderful.  I'll just try to hold that thought longer.

Then, because I was stuck in my house supervising teenagers (for the last few years of my life, probably)  I picked up the phone and called some of my friends.  I spend the whole weekend visiting with old friends.  Some are doing great, some not so great, but they are all still here and isn't that all that matters anyway?  These are people that I do not have to explain anything to because they were there.  They already know.  It was so uncomplicated and wonderful!  I even got to know some of my favorite cyber friends even better and was not disappointed.  I realized that I actually know a lot of really great people and they are all around me.  I just have make the time to talk to them once in a while.

I had lunch with a one of my other-mother's (people who are not your physical mother but are your spiritual mother) and she made me feel so relieved when she said "You are just stepping back and finally seeing the big picture.  It's not all about you anymore."  In short, I am officially a grown up.  For real.  I'm coming out of this last cocoon and becoming me again, but improved.  Smarter, more wrinkled, and braver.  It's not a bad trade off, in my humble opinion.

Guess what?  Monday morning I realized when I woke up that I felt happy.  I felt happy!  I felt like me again.  I felt that old effervescent happiness that kept me bubbling along for so long that I took it completely for granted--until it was gone for so long.  I felt hopeful, and I smiled a lot.  Without having to think about it, I mean.  I felt........happy.  I am back!

Now, this could just be a hormone surge or something, but I think it's more.  I think that sometimes we get in a place where God kind of makes us slow down and pay attention. We will try to keep going but the drips just keep piling up until He gets our full attention. Sometimes, when your back is about to go out, you realize how grateful you should be for just getting up and moving without thinking about it.  Sometimes you just have to make some decisions, even though you don't want to.  I was lucky in that I got to do a lot of this in my fluffy wonderful bed with a sweet dog or two beside me.  If it turns out to be nothing more than a hormonal surge, I will not forget the lesson and I will still be grateful I had it.

We are supposed to tell our troubles to God and then leave them with him.  The "leaving them with him" part is hard, no?  I have struggled with this for a long time, but it's time to take the next step.  I'm taking this bull by the horns, turning this train around, and getting my house in order.  I really mean it this time.  Anybody who doesn't like that can find another train.  This time I"m laughing instead of crying when I blog!  Why?  Because I'm happy.  Such a simple thing that I have missed for so long.

I just needed to realize that I have everything I need, nothing is perfect, and everything is still fine.

Just in case you needed a reminder, because sometimes we do.  I did.

I don't know what I'm supposed to be next, but I'm going to be the best whatever it is that I can, and I'm going to be more grateful.  I'm going to take more time and go more slowly, and I'm not going to worry about meeting a schedule.  I'm going to keep an open mind and see what God wants me there at that moment for, and act accordingly, from my heart.  I'm going to speak my mind respectfully, but I'm not going to spend time on people who do not cherish me, because there are simply too many who do.  I'm going to let more people figure stuff out on their own because that's the only way we ever figure anything out for good.  There will be less whining from here on out, both from me and at me.  There will be more laughter, both from me and at me, too.

Instead of missing people who are gone from this earth, I'm going to picture my life as a soap opera in Heaven, and live my life in a way that will make them proud and hopefully make them laugh.  We could all use more comic relief, don't you think?

I'm going to be happy and I'm going to be what I'm going to be and that's it.

I'm simply not going to worry about it, anymore.