when love is just a word

I'm a very touchy feely kind of gal so I always grab folks when I have the opportunity and tell 'em I love them. "I love everybody...and you're next!" Actually there's a lot of people that it takes a lot of WORK to love that I would have missed out on if I hadn't gone into the trenches with them. When love is used in the sense that you know and cherish someone, in spite of the warts and whatnot, then it is truly a verb and not the noun that is tossed around carelessly on cards and in songs. The action of love is in degree of commitment to a relationship be it romantic or familial. I was way over the line of normal commitment for a number of years trying my best to make everything normal when it was, indeed, nowhere close. He worked third shift, me on first. A child that got passed back and forth between shift work and babysitters. A job that paid fairly well but demanded a lot from me. Somewhere in the midst of all that I became employee/mother/wife/friend/exhausted. My co-dependency had been hanging around my neck for years until the therapist pointed out to me that it was really heavy and I might want to do the work to lay it down for good. I cracked, sought help and didn't go for more than a day without crying for the next two years. All of the pent up anguish and disappointment that had followed me and told me that I would never be good enough came out in a very clumsy fashion usually with the "ugly cry." I loved the wrong people too much, using them as a training ground for that one who might come along and decide that in spite of my imperfections, I'm worth the work. No takers so far, but I'm sure learning to stay away from the usual suspects who don't respect me.

I have this little red headed freckle faced girlfriend whose daddy was found dead this morning and my heart aches for her and her mom. Nobody expects to die at 28, yet choices are made day in and day out that make it inevitable...very sad, but true. There was a time when I thought I had all the answers or at least most of the questions earning me the dubious title of one who thinks too much. In spite of my best intentions to do otherwise I find myself picking things apart and wondering "why." Maybe it's the scientist in me, I don't know. The control freak in me wants to know that there is a reaction for every action yet often things just happen willy nilly as if a deck of cards were thrown into the air. No reason. Shit just happens. My first blog was called Poop Happens partly because it usually does around here and partly because Poopie was my childhood nickname. The Poopster! A lovely young lady in Canada designed my page for free and it was my my home for many years.

Somewhere along the way I felt that I had changed and that blog had not. When I began it I was a recent divorcee and on a mission to find "that" guy. I wish I had known ten years ago that the frogs are just that and don't even deserve a kiss. Ya'll all know I've smooched on plenty of them. I have now morphed into someone who is totally comfortable with being alone, if you call living with five pets solitary. As long as they're here I'll never sleep alone. I am very in tune with my passions like writing and photography and fill hours exploring art and light. I enjoy my daughter's company and that of her friends. Music is what brings out the joy when it seems to be gone. Work is not a chore anymore. It is what it is and it's out of my hands. Whew...what a relief!

My dear friend did a post today concerning all the old timers that were in our circle back in the day. Some are gone, like Hoss. But our memories will keep us alive to each other forever. If my book ever gets done, it will be in dedication to them and all the others who have supported me when there was nothing but bitchy ass political drivel during the Bush years. OMG..if I had to go back through all that I'd shoot my eye out. Not that Obama is any different because the dumbasses people in Congress won't LET him be. It's all about who wins, and in our case nobody does. We're pawns at the mercy of two giant political parties that hate each other with a passion. Sound familiar? See: Arab spring.

I used to hang at this bar between town and my house and watch the guys slap dominoes on the granite counter like it was a damn tactical military move. We sang karaoke and looked at each person's kid pictures and sometimes had too much but we always watched each others' backs when shit happened. It was in that bar that we solemnly lit candles on the day after 9/11 right around dusk and talked about how something like that could happen to us! In other countries, it's a daily event. How naive we can be sometimes when the cat is fat and comfy.

Meanwhile my celebrity boyfriend is churning out enough movies to keep me hopping to the video store or redbox which is, in my opinion, a very "good" thing as Martha would say. We're watching lots of comedies too..usually one of each. That kinda sorta makes up for no SNL, Chelsea or TMZ. Maybe someday.

^j^