Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Nearly done with 2011

Posted on Facebook this a.m.

Today I take a moment to think back on my accomplishments for the year, big or small, they are making me the person I am today.
1. Survived and am going to thrive after the death of my remaining parent. 
2. Enjoyed one more year of working a job that I love.
3.Finally settling into my new home and have left behind the sadness of leaving the old one. 
4.Building a relationship with my last living sibling.
5.Went on a blind date and did not do anything horrific. (Booyah!)
6.Lived the whole year as 50 and decided it is ok, so I will be ok when I actually turn 50 next Feb.
7.Got a good nights sleep, FINALLY! (thanks Fritz)
8.Got my car repairs finished.
9. Had an office for my psychic work, for 6 months!! And made business cards.
10. Actually could think of 10 positive things.

Goodbye 2011, it's been nice.




Easier to think of the things I have released this year. 


1. Being someone's kid. 
Which includes:
Letting go of the false information that has been fed to me by my parents about my sister. As she and I compare notes, I realize that my parents were on a quest to keep us separated. They fed us false information to keep us apart, because if we compared notes on them, well, we would have probably smothered them each in their sleep. The lies, the falsehoods, the blatant attempts to control us and make themselves look good, when in reality, they made a muck of things... astonishing. I wonder if their lives would not have been easier if they had only told the truth. But I am letting that go with a "did the thing they thought was right". And they can no longer hurt me or Pat. 
But also includes:
Getting to know my sister and to be present as we both discover who we are without the influence of our parents.


2.Realizing a dream of having a studio where I could write and do psychic work, and then letting it go after 6 months because I am apparently not ready to support it. But I did it and for a brief 6 months I had a very full keychain.
Which also includes:
Thinking that I want to take care of other people to the point that a psychic does. I am fine with the occasional reading, but to have and sustain clients is not something I am interested in. 


3. Letting go of the house on 27th. And coming into comfort with the place I live now. I still miss my bathtub and my garden so much I ache sometimes. But less is more. 


4. Releasing the stick that I have beaten myself with for all my life. The stick that I am not enough (or too much) that I should, could, would be better, happier, more successful if only I.... (fill in the dots). I tried out living 50 this year, since the idea of being 49 was soul crushing to me. Living all year with 50 dangling over my head, ridiculous. So I just jumped in and was 50. No fan fair. No hoopla. And I decided to adjust my attitude accordingly. 30 was lived in recover and fear, 40 was lived in working to make something of whatever it was I thought I was supposed to be. 50, well, if I don't have it now, I never will, so calm the fuck down about it and enjoy what I have. 


5. Releasing more of that which no longer serves me, be it my addiction to wheat or my compulsion to shop when I feel bad. I release things that no longer serve me. 


And you know who you are.




Now let's get on with it, shall we. 





Sunday, December 4, 2011

Fudge

Yeah, still thinking about the death of my parents. This game changing event has really been an eye opener.

The other day my sister and I, who are finally communicating without the censor of parents, started comparing notes. I would tell her a story that I had held onto and was either angry, hurt, or some other useless emotioned about, and she would tell me her side of the same story. Trixie, those parents of ours. I would say."Well you never", and she would say, "Well Mom said".... Lots of insights.

We are working through the holidays together now. Lots of old family traditions, which having moved away years ago mean very little to me now, are suddenly very important. The day we put up the Christmas tree was on Mom's birthday, December 5th. Mom was a total egoist about this. She owned Christmas and would let us borrow it. We would assemble the artificial tree, then my sister and I would fight as we put on the lights. Dad avoided it all by being out on the ladder putting up the outdoor lights. Then Mom would make a big deal and we all had to come in and calm down and focus on her. She would take out her bell. The first Christmas ornament she and dad had gotten. (Back story: he was campus security at University of Wyoming, Laramie, and we was making rounds and saw this on a tree that some science department had thrown out after their Christmas party, so he brought it home to Mom.)

This ornament is a bell with an angel inside it. It is blueish grey. It was so beautiful as a child, that I never noticed until recently that it was plastic. Mom would wait until we were all quiet, she would place the bell on the tree and announce Christmas can happen now! I was sure for years if anything happened to that bell Christmas would never happen.

My sister and I compare stories. She tells me she hates putting up trees, she hates the lights, she hates the bell. She hated it all because we would always take the tree down on her birthday, Jan 2nd. She also puts up artificial trees, she is allergic, so now I get why we never had real trees. And she never puts lights on them. The year after Dad died, mom and my sister came up to visit me on Christmas. I thought it would be a nice change and we could all be together. I had a really hard time mustering up the energy to put up my Christmas tree, so a friend and his boyfriend came up and opened all the Christmas boxes I had and put up a tree. It looked exactly like a tree from my childhood. It was frightening. I was shocked. My mom was pleased. My sister was shocked.

That Christmas was lovely, and then afterward I threw away almost all the ornaments from the tree. And the tree itself.

I use the excuse that I work retail to explain the lack of tree. And it is true, all I do is work, sleep, work, drag myself to parties, repeat.

This year with Mom gone, I am trying to get my sister to come for Christmas. Out of the house she shared with my parents for 18 years, to my new condo where I have room for a little mantle christmas tree. As we talk about this she says, "you know, we are orphans now."

It hits me.

And traditions are the ones we remember. Mom standing over a sink with a hot pot of fudge, beating it to make it just right, but only after she poured me off a little of the caramelized candy, before she made it fudge, for me because I liked that. Divinity like angles wings that would amp you up so you were talking like a squirrel on speed. Mom burning the rolls in the oven. Ho ho bags (gifts to big to wrap were either put in pillow cases or covered in sheets;  bikes, stereos, giant down coats.) Stockings with an orange in the toe.  Being told we had to sleep in 'til at least 4:30am because Santa would not be finished before then. The year we bought my sister a leather fringe purse, and I told her it was a bag of worms, she reached in touched it and threw it across the room (her excuse is it was early and she was not awake.) The Purple, long handle barred, banana seated, white flowered basket bike (Dad took my old police auctioned Schwinn and transformed it in the garage out back in the freezing Colorado winter after he got off his 4 to midnight shift.)

Lots of these things are the memories that make up my sister and me. 50 year old orphans. And I am happy with most of this. Bitter sweet with some. Darn right sad about others. I never learned how to make fudge. Mom learned from Dad's Mom, who learned from hers...

So I think about the fudge and how it is gone forever, but the memories are still intact.


P.S. A Piece of Fudge dropped into Mom's Jet Fuel coffee, and a dollop of whipped cream from the pies. Nothing better.