Packing for NH and Hawaii, in one suitcase Preparing to live out of a suitcase for a week Reading Hawaii guidebooks Printing lots Interviewing Organizing Emailing Updating spreadsheets Applying for jobs Eating cherry tomatoes from our fire escape tomato plant Reading Watching the Olympics Exercising Breaking in my wedding shoes Picking up my wedding dress Cleaning Cooking Relaxing, when I can
When I list all this out I wonder why it is that many a day I'm buzzing around the apartment with not enough to do.
Looking forward to getting to NH with some more room to spread all this out in.
I've been horrible at blogging lately. Lots of stuff going on, as evident from my previous post. Last weekend I got to escape it all in the lovely company of dear friends and the Long Island Wine Region. The green grass, grape trees, blue sky and bright white fluffy clouds gave me a much needed day of relaxation. The wine helped too. Sunday I found myself depressed. Partially because the weekend was over, partially because I had to go back to reality. This week wasn't easy either. Although I had two interviews, which makes me feel good about my job search and marketability as a candidate. Work was weird though, I felt odd being there, being a part of meetings where they are talking about things they need to learn from me and at the same time about the future of the company and jobs. I want to care and help, but I also don't want to. I'm also upset, and angry and annoyed at the whole situation. I put on a happy face, I smile and say I'm looking at the silver lining- and I am. Doesn't mean the situation doesn't suck and it is totally weird to be at the company. I feel bad for the people staying on even longer. It will be interesting to hear about how things are for the team after all 4 of us are gone and the work load remains somewhat the same. I'll miss the people I work with and have forged relationships with. Although I wasn't there as long as I was at Shawmut- there is something to be said about the fact that 2 people from Shawmut are coming to the wedding. You become a huge part of someone's life when you work closely with them. Sometimes you see the people you work with more than your family, and it is always hard to say goodbye. Change is always hard, and this month is full of it.
So about two years ago, and let's be honest- a year ago- my family was a bit of a shit storm. With good reason, of course. But as they always do, things evened out and we went back to our new normal and times were good. There were deaths, and births and weddings to be planned, the normal life event stuff. Lately, and maybe it was right around the time of the NH Tornado, things have taken to spinning a bit out of control. The good, and the bad. The other night while contemplating all of this with Mom she shared how my Brother had described it, we're in a shit tornado. (I hope you're not reading this over a meal)
Just a quick list: major death in both families resulting in some major depression 3 people in our lives with cancer, two of them dying actively from it major lay offs resulting in my job being cut A slow economy while Matt searches for a job post Law school Good friends going through breakups
Wedding and Hawaii in just over 3 weeks New and positive relationships in our lives 3 more weddings to attend and help plan in the next year Weight loss
It is all flying around us, quickly and it is so darn weird. I feel so good about so many things, and yet so sad and confused and hurt about so many other. What the fuck? At least this time we've done nothing really to cause the shit tornado, we're not the crazy ones, we're just stuck with the clean up.
Maybe we get older and wiser as we age, as we move through life and what it puts in front of us. I think that some things remain the same and remain just as hard no matter how long you’ve been coping with them or how well you have incorporated the pain in to your life. I’ve felt for the past week or so this un-excitement about my upcoming wedding. It is not that I’m not excited to be marrying Matt, I am beyond thrilled to be formally stating my desires to spend the rest of my life with him building a family. Yet, I’ve felt something in the pit of my stomach that isn’t excitement and joy when I thought about the wedding.
At first I chalked it up to stuff happening at work. I couldn’t be excited about the wedding because I had to get through some tough things there first, and they were clouding anything else in my life.
So, I focused instead on all the little things that need to be taken care of when you are planning a wedding on your own. How many guests would be staying on property, and how did we want to set up their welcome bags? What should we buy for the children coming to the wedding to play with? What did we want to get our parents as gifts? What are some weekend activities we can plan to share in with our friends? Where should I book manicures, and hair appointments? What else can I put on my To Do list to focus on instead of what I’m really feeling about that weekend and event?
Last night I picked something to really dig in to, that not only allowed me to be distracted by what the day had brought up (lack of sleep, food and doing something that brought me one step closer to the reality of the day) it also allowed me to point my anxiety and frustration at Matt. After bickering, I climbed in to bed and pulled the covers over my head.
Matt was thoroughly confused, and because of how I’d acted assumed he did something wrong, which made him confused and frustrated. I wanted to just keep pushing it down, and him out of bed so I didn’t have to talk about it. But instead I just started crying, and finally let it all come out.
The greatest thing is that I didn’t even have to verbalize it because he knew, and he was right there, just like he’ll always be, which is why I’m marrying him. But of course I did verbalize it, because just crying doesn’t get it out, I have to talk about it too. Oh the processing I have to do.
I let myself realize and put words to the fact that I’m not that excited about celebrating my wedding because my Dad won’t be there. I want to be married to Matt, but I don’t want to celebrate without my Dad. I don’t want to walk down the aisle only on the arm of my Mother and Brother. People can say all they want about being there in spirit, but it doesn’t make it better for me. He’s not there in person, and that’s what matters.
It is a weird thing when you lose someone so suddenly, so young, and tragically. Sometimes it feels like the history and past have been erased to, because there person was gone so quickly. But when I look at pictures, and when I think about Squam and what it meant to him, and what it means to our family, I am brought right back to the fact that he was such a huge part of my life, of our life as a family. But, now he’s gone, and it is hard to incorporate his disappearance with the history of my life. So I find myself finding it even harder to think about celebrating a major life milestone without him, because he’s supposed to be there, and he won’t be, and I kind of don’t want to do it without him.
I almost envision myself walking up the aisle, and suddenly in some kind of thriller, where all the pictures have him in them again, and all the past is real and full of him and I start to get excited that he’ll appear on my arm. But he won’t, and it will be crushing, yet I’ll finally be able to understand that he was there, alive and wonderful, and he’s just not anymore. And, I just keep walking down the aisle towards a man who is here, who takes care of me, and with whom I’ll build a new family to incorporate with my lopsided one.
I watched Bridget Jones' Diary last night. It got me thinking about journaling. I wonder if it started a trend when it first came out, as a book and a movie. Lots of young women go and watch this movie or read this book about someone they can truly relate to and think, I'm going to start a journal! I bet book and stationary stores were quite pleased. Anyway, I've been journaling since I was a pre-teen, and it was my Mom who inspired me. Seeing all her journals lined neatly on a bookshelf made me want to have that someday. I wrote mostly about boys in those early days, and probably well in to high school too. There were many years when I didn't journal, it's always been an up and down thing for me. One time I tried keeping a journal on the computer, I lost interest even more quickly though. There is something about the act of writing it down, your handwriting, your hands moving quickly enough to keep up with your thoughts. There's something about having it bound in a small leather bound lined pages item. Journaling for me has always been something attractive an special. I still go through chunks of time where I don't write anything down, but I know I always feel better when I do. A few months ago I committed to carrying my journal with me everyday and wrote on the train most mornings and evenings when it wasn't too crowded. It is so fun now to look back and read about the people I saw and how I was feeling each day. I briefly thought how interesting it would be to write for a year about riding the subway, but it became hard to feel comfortable writing when there were so many people watching. Journals are a private thing, not something you'd want to share with anyone, especially not the weird man standing over you with his crotch in your face. Anyway, watching the movie reminded me how much I enjoy journaling and how therapeutic it can be. In fact, I think I'll go spend some time with it, right now.
I was reading Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek a good few months ago. I started reading it on the train, and found the commotion too distracting from the rich and deep narrative. So I brought it home and put it on my bedside table. I still picked it up there on frequent nights, reading and rereading the moments in nature, earmarking pages of interest. When I talked to my Mom about it, I realized that this want a work of fiction, it was Annie Dillard's own experience, it was her journals published. This blew me away, as it did my Mom many years prior. I was so overwhelmed with the thought of her having spent a portion of her life this way and then being able to so beautifully and thoughtfully describe the experience that I put the book aside, and didn't pick it up again, until now. This is a book, thankfully, you can pick up again after time has gone and not feel like you've forgotten a character, a place or a story line. You are thrust right back in to the daily life in nature, taking it in, and musing on life as it is lived around you in many forms. I feel like this summary doesn't even do what Annie Dillard has done justice. I want to do what she's done. I want to immerse myself in a place, an experience, a path, and then write about it with heart and passion. I'm anxious about many things in my life right now, and the appeal of going into the wilds of Virgina and just being and writing is tugging at me. Instead I will throw myself back in to her book for solace and maybe it will spark my own writing again, which I've put aside now for many months.
As we drove up to CT on Sunday, I saw horseback riders along the hutch, and then a hawk taking off into the green forest from the side of the same road. Later on 684 I spotted a car stopped by a police officer with what were either nuns or kids dressed as nuns standing outside of it. I thought, Is this drive putting on a circus for me? What will I see next? I didn't see anything, but the way the events of the day unfolded made me think about faith and free will. I thought about the difference between believing you've been put in a place for a reason, or just happening to be there. Was I put on the road on this Sunday to see all those odd events? I believed I was even more after my trip to CT was able to instead of bring my Grandmother for a nice visit with her family, bring her to see her dying sister-in-law who was brought to the ER the moment we stopped to pick my Grandmother up 30 minutes away. My Grandmother has lost most of her sight and can't get to see her Brother and Sister-in-Law unless someone takes her, which doesn't happen often. With their ailing health, and the 3 of them being the last of a family of 7, not only did I want to bring them together, but I wanted to visit with them too, I'm a family girl. It was supposed to be an afternoon of sitting and talking, of packing up their anniversary china that they've gifted to Matt and me. Instead, it was an afternoon sitting in the ER, watching my Great Aunt struggling to breathe through the oxygen being pushed in to her lungs. Through all that, I was so thankful that Matt and I were there to be able to bring my Grandmother to her brother. He was clearly relived she was there, and she got to feel part of helping, instead of sitting anxiously by the phone like she's done 4 times prior in the past month when one of them has been to the ER. Later that night as Matt and I ran I talked about fate versus free will. Part of me felt like I was fated to be there, to bring my Grandmother to her Brother, like there was some higher being pulling the strings. But then when I think about losing my Dad, there was no higher reason for that, nothing good came from that, I don't believe it happened for a reason. Matt talked about how appealing the prospect of fate is, in that it helps you take a bad situation like that afternoon and give it meaning. And the afternoon took on even more meaning this morning when I got the call that Freda had died. Thank God, I thought as I pushed back the sadness and dressed for work, that we were there on Sunday so Bubba could see her one last time. Thank God, or whoever and whatever it is out there, if anything at all.
Sometimes when I say something out of the blue, I'll follow it up with an explanation of my train of thought. I enjoy being able to trace the thought back to something concrete, to follow where my mind took me from a certain trigger to a conclusion. Earlier this week, I was walking south on Lexington to 92nd and all of a sudden just thought, wow- my Dad is dead. I ruminated on how interesting it is that those types of thoughts will just pop in to my head from time to time, that although I think of him often and my loss, it will often just hit me that I had a Dad and now I don't. In this instance though I decided to trace it back. I had just walked by a flower shop and saw a really lovely hibiscus tree and thought how nice it would be to have one. I chided myself thinking, there's no way I could have one because there is no good outdoor space for it. Then I concluded that the outdoor space I would think of to put it is Mom's house, and that lead me to thinking of new outdoor plants she's put in, which made me remember the hydrangea bush she got, which was after Dad died. Then there it was, my Dad is dead. In some ways it was comforting to follow my train of thought, to watch where my mind will take me and know where triggers may lie.
The first Father's Day came a little over a month after Dad died. Bubba, Burton and a Schain family friend came to NH. It was horrible. Mom, Sammy and I were so not in the mood to be with anyone, we didn't want to be doing anything for Father's Day except ignoring it. We were miserable, Sammy was on the verge of a melt down, I wanted everyone to be happy, and Mom was just flipped out. After they left we all went to the beach and jumped in one of the lakes in our town. It felt great to let the day slide off of us under the water, but the memories of that day still remain and they aren't good. As I moved through the first years mourning process I read somewhere that when you've lost a parent you should celebrate yourself on the ____ Day meant to celebrate them. I liked that idea. It was a great way of ignoring the holiday, but also giving yourself some you time. When I started my new job and found out the sister of a spa owner worked there allowing us a nice discount I decided that going to the spa would be my father's day ritual. So I went, and it was wonderful. I'm going again today, and I've been excited for weeks. Yesterday I got less excited because of the ripples it caused that I wouldn't be going to Queens with Matt. He's put in a hard position, and like any good relationship we are open and honest with each other so he doesn't hide anything from me. I am so grateful for that, but it makes it hard to hear why and how they are upset. I want to vent about it, but I won't, I did enough of that yesterday. What is important to me is that I get to do something for myself today, I will not be thrust in to celebrating Father's Day when I don't want to, I don't have to be reminded that I don't have a Father to celebrate, and that the Father's in my life, while I care for them and think they are great men, aren't the one I lost and don't make up for that loss. I will celebrate them on their birthday's and other occasions. I get to have this one day to do what I want to, because it is my loss to cope with and I get to chose.
Okay, so that is a little of a vent... I told Matt last night I wish I could write him cue cards to read off of when he has to deal with these odd interventions... I so wish I really could...
Off to the spa, where all this will be exfoliated off of my skin, and my mind.
I remember when I was younger, laying in bed, trying to fall asleep and hearing adults out on our screened in porch laughing and watching the storms roll in. Maybe it was the sound of their merriment during the crackling booms of thunder that ingrained in me a sense of delight and not fear. Tonight after the second storm rolled in to the Upper East Side, I could feel another brewing- and I got as close to a porch as I could, our fire escape, and turned my head up to the sky to watch the dark clouds sweeping by, to catch the glimpses of light piercing through the thick layers. The wind picked up and more and more drops hit my shoulders. I felt so alone standing out there, like no one else in the city was outside. I could see figures in windows around me, even the houses around me where dark and motionless. It felt good. The storms are soothing to me. I go back to that place of being safely tucked in, and I can hear the laughter around me. I count every time I see the light flash, I know when the storm is getting closer. I can feel in the air when the rain will increase. Just as it did, I put my foot through the open window and stepped back in to my apartment. I watch the breaks of light and relish in the cracks of thunder, even safer here, I know.
Nightrunning, remembering that night When summer hit before mid June And we could see the moon Here we are just two Running side by side in full sweat Around this with no sun And still the need has won For nightrunning
You, I'm glad you're with me You, thank god you run You, you're running with me Laughing while you choke on bugs Nightrunning
I feel like I did a ton today and it is only 7:30, although that Sunday evening dread is starting to get to me a little bit, but seriously- even actually saying all we did today out loud doesn't remind me that it wasn't that much after all, that's how I know we really did pack in a lot on this hot hot Sunday:
Walk to West Side Run 5K, and then drink lots and lots of water- thank god they had ice cold washclothes to give us- brilliant move on their part Walk back to East Side Have Brunch Call Relatives Nap Do Law School Work (That one wasn't me) Watch Yankee Game (Partially during my nap) Clean Toilet See "Zohan" Grocery Shop
And now I'm going to make dinner. Niiice.
PS: I discovered today that we now get HGTV HD. I'm super pumped. If the Celts weren't on tonight I'd totally be tuned to that.
PPS: I'm slowly but surely editing and posting all my CA pictures on Flikr- click on the Widget on the right side of the page to go to them. It was QUITE lovely.
So, I watched P.S. I Love You last night, despite the warnings of several people including another blogger. I read the book and loved it, it was touching in just the right way- but also hopeful and funny. The movie really just kept ripping your heart back open just after it had started to feel hopeful. From the first scene I knew it wasn't going to be good, but I had to keep watching, I had to give it a chance. How could Hilary Swank be so bad? Lord knows, but she was. I really enjoyed Lisa Kudrow and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. The moral of this post is, that I shouldn't have watched this with Matt out for the night. God does it slap you in the face with a reminder of the fear we all have of losing the one we love, the one we've chosen to share our lives with. Of course I'm always thinking about the fact that we don't know how much time we have with any loved one. Watching my Mom lose the love of her life has made me wary of what loving someone with so much of yourself can do, but going through that process also made me incredibly thankful to have found it and to have watched my parents share it so I could model my own relationships that way. All I wanted, as the movie would nose dive in to sadness and deep loss, was to hold Matt and know that I still had him. I guess if it did one thing well it was portraying what the bottom is like, but it did it so sporadically and just when you started to feel a bit better with Holly, I wasn't a fan of that, it was inconsistent and nothing like the book. I want to be with a character as they learn and grow through a process that I can relate to, on any level. This was more like- strap yourself in for this roller coaster ride of emotions with a character you can't relate to because she hasn't been built up well. No thanks, I want a refund.
So, when Matt did come home I greeted him with open arms, so happy to see him. I pulled him in close and tight, and then I quickly pushed him away. "What did you have for dinner?" "A burger with onions and avocado." "Yep, it's the onions." At least I had him back in my sights if I didn't want to hold him too close.
I picture us all, putting our left hands in to the center, a photo being taken of all of us with diamonds on our ring fingers. Soon, I think, we'll be old married folks. And after that, well, we're all following that age old path. Marriage, babies, homes and more. I know some people see it as this avoided path. They don't need a man to define them, they don't want to have children until they are done getting all the selfishness out of their systems, they don't want to have to spend their money on college savings and home ownership. That's not me. I don't even think of it in those terms. Sure, I know it takes a lot of things, time, money, commitment, budgets, community, self sacrifice. I'm ready for all of that... and I am so excited to do it in tandem with such dear friends. I still feel young, and ready for the next step, and yet sometimes I feel like we're all growing up so fast and the next phase of life is coming really quickly on the heals of engagements, marriages and homes bought. I've always been one to follow the typical path, and I'm still solidly on that winding road, ready for the ups and downs (Because we all know there are more downs in the journey).
We drove on tight curvy roads a bit too fast We tasted glass after glass of good wine and found it hard to believe it was all really that good We ran along the Russian River We bickered and laughed and poked fun at each other like good families do We met the man whose Grandfather illegitimately fathered Ted Williams We saw the Golden Gate up close and from Land's End We walked the tiny cramped streets of China town We walked and ran the long steep hills of the city We took in a game We went to where the city ends at the ocean and just drove We marveled at mansions We saw the Pacific, and wound along it through small towns with big fields We saw large redwoods that rose infinitely in to the sky and then turned a bend in the road and found hills upon hills of golden grass that clung to our clothes after laying in it. We had meal after meal placed in front of us and it was all good, and sometimes of our own making.
I forgot my umbrella this morning, and then it didn't even matter. Every time I walked outside the sky was clearing a bit and the sun was poking through. I walked to the gym in my shorts and tank top with no jacket- it felt like spring/summer finally since I didn't have any place to put my phone or keys. I love evenings like tonight's. Feeling the breeze through the open bedroom windows, walking to get dinner in pajamas that don't look like it because it is spring and you can wear lighter and softer things that go either way. Everyone was walking dogs, or meeting friends, people are more friendly, saying hello, giving their neighbor a smile. I felt light and happy being outside in the early evening. The sun was starting to set, and the wind was picking up. I love the feel of a spring or summer breeze. As I laid in bed last night tossing and turning I tried to focus on how great it felt to be under just a sheet with the night wind blowing over me. I thought to myself that it might be one of my favorite feelings, but then my turning mind thought of many more feelings that could be favorites and I lost the moment. I got it back again tonight, walking down my block. It came back, the lightness, happiness, fulfillment and the safety in cycles, in this time of year returning again.
I have no problem writing about my life in many different forms, but I always have trouble with About Me sections. I can't sit still for very long, I read, I write, I love being outdoors, I'm athletic and competitive if I allow myself to be. I love my family. I live life to its fullest and always try to stay in the moment. I find that I'm a grown up all of a sudden, and I'm loving being one.
