Life

August 9, 2018

Unfastening or How It Comes Undone

A button flew across the room, with a friend shortly following it. No there wasn’t a revolt of buttons happening in my house. The buttons had not decided to unionize and refuse to fasten things any longer. Rather the buttons were protesting their work load. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say the buttons were protesting the strain they were under due to the load….

Hmm if there were to be a revolt by the buttons I wonder if they would be the Buttonistas or perhaps under the leadership of Che Button? I’d like a good revolutionary button, someone to lead the way for the working buttons of the world. The underappreciated fasteners of clothing and such. I mean it is a cause I’d end up getting behind, probably along with most other people because buttons do a lot of work, work we never think of.

But no there was no revolution, just a tired thread no longer able to support the button in its brave attempt to keep Beloved’s suit jacket done up. The thread let go, the button flew across the room in what was no doubt a bid for freedom with another button following close behind. Naturally my response to this was to burst out laughing while Beloved grumbled about poorly conditioned thread.

And then his stern look gave way to mirth as he said he may have had just a wee bit too much here or there. And then the mirth gave way to unbridled and unfastened glee on his part while we searched for the escapes.

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August 8, 2018

Trips And Travels

Robert Frost wrote a poem about taking the road less taken. It’s always been a favorite of mine as it reminds me that my journey and the path I travel is not meant for anyone other than myself. It also reminds me that the going may be a little tougher on this path which has been less travelled. After all the ground won’t have been trampled on the same way.

Beloved is also a fine of the less travelled road. He is also a fan of tarrying along a road if the spirit should strike him to do so. He doesn’t necessarily believe that time needs to be felt as something rushing past him and he refuses to make it priority with everything in his life. It has allowed him more time to take in the views, and to be late and not offer apologies other than the views he has witnessed.

I, on the other hand, have a desire to chase and make up for lost time. As if there is always going to be something better just up ahead. Yes I know this won’t really be the case, but while he tarries along, I run headlong through the valleys ignoring the views in the name of time. I reason that this is better than being late and having no real explanation to offer up to people who are waiting on me.

Is one of us more right than the other? Some would say yes. Some would tell you that enjoying the view and working at your own pace, allowing yourself to not have to worry about what could have been because you make it so, would be the better way to do things. And for them, they’d be right. But for me, I have a need right now for speed. So I shall rush into each stumbling block on my less maintained path and enjoy the stumbles, trips and rolls all the same.

August 4, 2018

Got Going On

It’s not my place, not to tell someone how I think s/he should live his/her life.  I mean who am I to pass that kind of judgement when half the time I’m not even sure if I’m getting my own life right?  And it’s not my place to tell someone how that person should identify as far as country, race, religion, or gender.  For who am I to know more than that individual knows regarding the specifics of his/her situation?

It’s not my place to tell Beloved how he should do things either.  How do I know if the feather he wants to chase in the wind will turn out to become a dream fulfilled or just a worn feather?  I can’t even seem to figure out what is a flight of fancy versus a real possibility of a dream coming true in my own life.  So surely I am not qualified at any of this.

Really about all I am qualified for is stumbling through my own journey of life.  Sometimes I seem to get the hang of things, other times I fail spectacularly at something someone else would easily avoid. So I struggle and bite my tongue because I have no clue how to get it to stay right.

And maybe, at some point I will be in a position to speak from authority or as an expert on the subject.  If that happens, I’m sure it will be about how to fail spectacularly, because that’s what I got going on.

June 21, 2018

Pinging And Ponging Along

I don’t play ping-pong. It’s not my thing, never has been and never will be. Now having said this, one of my friends loves to play ping-pong. This is where she does her best thinking, sorting out her problems and yes talking. Which means if she is having an issue, she wants to deal with it while playing ping-pong. Or if I need her guidance, she wants to do that while basically chasing a tiny ball around a tiny table.

So recently I found myself at a ping-pong table with a paddle in my hand looking a crushed ping-pong ball with a bit of dismay. I had stepped on it and crushed it. Part of me was delighted that the ball had stopped bouncing all over the table, but the other part of me was upset that I had broken the ball.

We were playing the game, while rather she was playing the game while I was becoming frustrated at this uncontrollable ball going everywhere and making me looking highly inadequate. (Okay so besides hand-eye coordination issues, there is also the overall clumsiness that resulted in a ball being crushed and frankly an overall sense of being foolish.)

To be fair she was a bit upset as she was explaining how her husband, a wonderful man, seems to be unable to put dishes in the dishwasher. He can put them in the sink next to the dishwasher, but apparently opening the door to the dishwasher is too much for him. So she was a bit aggressive with her paddle on the ball and I was stumbling the way her husband might do while loading the dishwasher.

We all need to have a way of dealing with our issues, but I wish to heavens she wouldn’t insist on putting me so far out of my element that I have no sense of how to even reach anything. Or maybe that’s what she needs, to know that her vulnerability is also mine. And mine is hers. And life is that silly ping-pong ball bouncing all over the place.

June 12, 2018

Glass Measures

In the movies, or television for that matter, if a person is holding a glass when s/he receives bad news, it almost always slips out of the person’s hand and shatters onto the floor. As if it represents how the news is shattering the person’s life.

In reality that doesn’t always happen. Sometimes glasses are broken in a tightened grip and sometimes, if you are like Beloved, you set it down carefully and gently. You take great care to not pass the horrors of the news onto other people or objects. I know because I’ve watched him receive bad news in a way where he set his glass of whisky down carefully before rubbing his face with both hands and heading to the door for some fresh air.

To look at him, unless you know him well, you’d never know that he received bad news. But the tightness, just there by his eyes, the slight crease between his brows and the set of his jaw told me all I needed to know. Just as the way he placed the glass told me he needed time to himself. He’d tell me everything when he was ready. Until then, I’d leave the glass where he placed it and just wait.

When he did come home, he didn’t pick up his glass. Instead he came over and took my hand to lead me gently to the large chairs facing the window. There he shared his news, never once taking his eyes off the scene outside the window. But when he was finished, then he looked at me with those soft eyes of his before he got up and took to his glass of whisky, silently drinking.

I would have thrown the glass if it were my news. But it wasn’t. It was his. And in his way, he is far more mature, far more composed than I am. And so, he set it down gently to pick up later on when he was ready.

May 4, 2018

L Is For…

L. L is for life and laughter and love. L is for learning, limits and living. L is for lists, labs, lies and lupus.

When I first heard of lupus in conjunction with my life I was scared. I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to live my life as fully as I wanted to. Would my life be cut short by this illness? I wondered if I would ever find a way to laugh again. And I didn’t want to think about how it would affect the ability for someone to love me.

Basically, I spent a lot of time in the dark of those thoughts and questions. But lupus isn’t all darkness filled with fear and monsters of the unknown type. Life with lupus can be full of laughter and lightness although you do have to be careful about UV light as it can trigger a flare.

During my journey with lupus I have learned how handy lists are. Lists of things to do, medications I take and people to contact for example. These lists have been time and life savers along the way. And some of these lists have been on lab requisitions. You know the kind your doctor orders?

Life with lupus means lots of lab requisitions and visits. Just to get a diagnosis can require multiple labs with oodles of blood draws and then depending upon your medication and such you may need to do more regular labs.

Life with lupus is also a life with lies. Lies I tell myself, like it’s nothing too serious, or I can beat this fatigue to the lies I tell other people so t hey don’t worry. I tell people I’m fine when on the inside I feel like I am crumbling into dust while being so exhausted I don’t really feel like I want to use energy to draw another breath. Thankfully those moments are not permanent.

If you are wondering, yes life with lupus is a bit more complicated than I’d like, but it is full of laughter and lightness, love and learning. I’ve learned how strong I am, when to push and when to rest. I’ve learned far more about biology than I thought I would and I have also learned that sometimes it just doesn’t matter how other people feel about my situation.

April 25, 2018

Whole of Holes

Have you ever had something that you know is no longer any good or has become worn out, but you can’t just part with it? I have a pair of shoes that I like. I’ve never been able to find a pair close to them that would let me replace them so I have been careful with them.

While walking today in the rain my left foot suddenly got wet. There appears to be a hole, or I may have just worn through the sole of the shoe and now I have a wet foot. And no real reason to keep the shoes any longer. The cost to repair them, if they can be repaired, is going to be worth more than the shoes.

The hole did not just suddenly appear despite what I would like to think. It has been slowly creeping its way to a catastrophic failure resulting in me being left with a soggy foot. And I have chosen to ignore the slow building failures because, well, they are a special pair of shoes.

Part of me wants to blame the shoes for letting me down, but they haven’t. They lasted a long time, took me on some amazing adventures and it’s just their time to move into a different being. I knew the day was coming, but still I let things linger to the point of a painful goodbye. And I let things linger into a slow decline because that seemed easier than finding another pair of shoes to replace them.

Our relationships are like that sometimes aren’t they? We let them linger long past their best by date simply because it’s easier than saying goodbye. We don’t consider if the other person would be better off moving on or not at times. Because it’s a comfortable fit even if it’s grown from one thing to something completely different. In those cases you aren’t left with a soggy foot, just a broken heart and possibly wet cheeks from tears. Because goodbyes are not easy, whether it’s a loved one leaving or a trusted shoe finally reaching the point of no return.