it wasn't supposed to be this way but...: Make new friends, but keep the old?

it wasn't supposed to be this way but...: Make new friends, but keep the old?:   I was a Brownie and a Girl Scout.  "Make new friends, but keep the old, some are silver and the others gold" was a campfire anth...

Make new friends, but keep the old?

 

I was a Brownie and a Girl Scout.  "Make new friends, but keep the old, some are silver and the others gold" was a campfire anthem.  It was the first time I sang a song in "the round".  Hours and hours of singing.

Ironically, some of those girls I sang that very song with, I still consider friends.  

Over the years, through moves, college, jobs, streets, neighborhoods or common interests, I have made some friends.  Quality women.  Some tarnished, for one reason or another. And others have remained near and dear to my heart.  Some I see or speak with regularly.  Some not so much.

Years ago, my brother made the statement, "I just need enough friends to fit into a phone booth."

I was appalled.  

As I age, I get it.  

My friend circle gets smaller almost daily.  My tolerance for drama is smaller.  My desire to stay home and hibernate, larger.  And that is not a result of covid.

A few weeks ago, my dear friend from a job in radio came for her annual beach visit.  All of my life, I have either worked in radio or television.  It is not that I worked for companies with thousands of employees, it is just that thousands of employees pass through the doors over the course of years.  

Luckily, several of the coworkers turned into very dear friends over the years.  Whenever ever one wants to meet, I jump at the chance.

Back on topic...we sat on the beach, and she talked about her childhood friend from down the street since she was four years old.  Always a "bestie" the friendship has changed significantly over the years.  It has tarnished.  The friend is not silver or gold.  She is rusty.  The question my friend asked me, "keep her or toss her?"

I have been there myself.  The friend that was "like an old pair of jeans" is now tossed to the back of the friend closet.  The relationship no longer fits, for either of us.  But there remains this feeling of having to care, do the right thing and a heart tug.  The reality is, there is nothing left, the jeans are no longer comfortable, and I need to get rid of them. 

The joy of friendship is always when you haven't seen that friend for a while, and it takes a second to pick up where you left off.  Truly, that is the best feeling.  And a treasure.   I just experienced gift this week. A couple that I hadn't seen in years, spent three days with us, a blast. No awkward pauses.  We picked up where we left off. Fabulous time.

But, kid's activities end, jobs change, you move and a Facebook "like" or a grocery store aisle chat is all you have left of the friendship.  It happens, it is sad, but it happens. 

It is always interesting that sometimes there are expectations and rules that come with friendships.  The expectation that you will be invited to everything, always be first and the most important are just a few.  I have been burned but also have been guilty of having similar expectations.  There was hurt involved but the hurt was my fuel to get of the relationship and find some better friends.  I was the winner.

As the kids have grown and moved on, I have more time to socialize but now more than ever, I find myself being more selective on who I spend that spare time with.  And I have found I am not alone with this.  Several of my friends who are in the same boat.  It is nothing personal, I am just in a different place.  And my family has become more and more important. I feel like Taylor Swift, "I'm the problem, it's me."

They old saying, "you can pick your friends, but you cannot pick your family" has always cracked me up.  Wonder what life would be like if you could pick your family? Crazy.

Friendship and friendships have always been important to me...I have often wondered if it is because I didn't have a sister.  I have a fabulous sibling that I treasure but I would have loved a sister.  He's a good substitute sister.  And I have been blessed with fabulous friendships that I will always cherish.  

My friend who asked me what to do about her childhood friend?  I told her to take those old jeans to Goodwill.  

"Some are silver and the others gold but occasionally, one tarnishes, and you need to sing around the campfire with better folks".

 

A very different Mother's Day

It is fast approaching.  Mother's Day.  Cold breakfast in bed, while people watch you eat, Sunday Brunches, cards and good behavior for about two hours.  Mother's Day.

I am not being sarcastic or even cynical, I love a reason to celebrate.  Always.  

But, Mother's Day is very different for me this year.

• I do not have a mom to call or send a card to this year.  No mom.

Or a Grand-mother or a Great-grandmother.  There was a time when this day meant celebrating four generations of fiercely independent, "mouthy" women who were all moms and from the same gene pool.  

I loved it.

I can remember shopping for Mother's Day cards for all three generations plus my Aunt Judy, my mom's sister.

• 

The year of "Firsts"

 Like all who have lost a mother, I was dreading the list of "firsts" without my mom.

Ironically, the first "real" one on the list was my birthday, followed days later by my favorite holiday, Easter.  On the way home from her Celebration of Life, right around Jacksonville, Florida, the dread started.  

I was "pushed out into
 the world" on April 1, 1961.  April Fool's Day and ironically, in 1961, was Easter Eve.  The "Easter Bunny brought you", my mom would always say.

I guess that is when my obsession and my mom's obsession with Easter began.  Easter is my favorite holiday and my mom's second favorite holiday.  We loved Easter.

And because I was born on April Fool's Day, the list of jokes, tricks, etc. is a mile long.

My mom always wanted to be first to call me on my birthday morning and would always remind me that I should be celebrating her too...after all, "I ate pork and sauerkraut the night before and it was horrible."  (Never understood why she continued to tell me about this year after year, but she did).

Of course, she would always try and pull an April Fool's joke, but I was pretty good at catching on at this point.

This year was going to be different.  I would be celebrating my life without the person who gave it to me.  I know how lucky I have been to be 62 and just lost my mom.  I totally understand how blessed I have been.  Totally.  

It doesn't mean the pain would be any less though.

Luckily, my birthday was on a Saturday so I could lay low.  I woke up early and sat in the darkness drinking coffee and thinking about my mom.  Honestly, I was having a pity party on my birthday morning.

Anytime my brother and I would have a pity party, my mom would always say, "are we getting company, do I need to bake cookies, is anyone showing up for this pity party?"  This line infuriated us.  Infuriated us.  One more time, infuriated us.

Ironically, the pity party line has stayed with me in life since the first time I heard it.

I could hear my mom chastising me and I started searching in my phone for old messages from her.

Sadly, my mom could not speak for the last 18 months so I could not find an old message from her.  She emailed or text but there were not any messages on my phone which only made having the pity party/birthday party even more necessary.

I got up out of my chair to pee (which like every 20 minutes activity at my age) and when I did, I dropped my phone.  It slid across the floor and when it did, I was on a screen I had never really seen or used before...it was the previously deleted voicemail messages screen.

Hot damn, cause for celebration...I scrolled frantically and low and behold, 4/1/2018...a voicemail from my mom.  Time of message was 8:43am.

"Happy birthday daughter.  I would have called earlier but I was out running with my running club.  I have on running shorts.  Ha ha, April fools.  I don't know where you are, but you know, you need to thank me for pushing you out the day after I had pork and sauerkraut for dinner.  Saw your picture on Facebook.  Once again, only your head.  Hid again.  Give it up, your chances of becoming a model are over. Like to see more than just your head occasionally.  Call me back.  I might be at running club.  Love you.  Mom.

(Like I didn't know it was my mom when she calls me daughter.)

Obviously, the running club was the April Fools and the running shorts.  She hated when I wore Nike running shorts.

And there it was.  My gift.  Besides her pushing me out into the world in a bath or pork and sauerkraut, the best birthday present I would receive.  

I listened to it a few times...like fifty times and laughed each time. 

I thought about how nobody came to my pity party/birthday party to celebrate my life except for the woman that gave me life.  What a gift this message was to me.

I got up, met my friend for a power walk and came home and listened again to the message.

I also thought about how lucky I was to have this message and a mother for almost 62 years. 

Even though Easter was the next weekend, I was pretty sure that my mom would be done with pity parties and more about celebrating and so that is what I did.  I made it through Easter.  She was in my every thought and when I forgot to put the ten pounds of potato salad on the table for Easter brunch, I knew she was laughing.  Who the hell forgets to put the biggest bowl in the fridge out on the table?

Next up, Mother's Day. I will be with my daughter.  Seems fitting. 

Thank you, Mom, for the best present you ever gave me. 

You cannot write a blog with an ice cream scooper in your hand

 In the last sixty days, several people have said, "you should go back to blogging."

They are correct.

I did not consciously decide to stop blogging.  I just could not.  

I sat on my couch, for months, with my head buried in a half gallon of Blue Belle Ice cream and I grieved.  I grieved a lot.  The more I grieved, the more ice cream I ate.

On July 6, 2021, my mom celebrated her 80th birthday.

Six days later, she was shockingly diagnosed with ALS.

I have a friend whose husband was diagnosed with ALS at a young age.  I will never forget her telling me, "I thought we would go home, he would take some pills and that would be it, he would be cured."

He husband died from ALS.  She said "had no idea what was going to happen"

Up until July 6, I knew three people who had ALS, the person I just referred to, an old employer's mom and Lou Gehrig.

I read and read and read.  I seriously read everything I could get my eyes on about ALS.

And I started reading and eating ice cream.  Somewhere in the middle of my sugar shock, I realized my mom's time was limited and I started making as many trips to Florida that I could.

I wanted to be part of her journey.

I became a part of a run-away train. 

My mom was trapped in her own body, totally aware that she was trapped, and there was nothing that could or would stop this train.

Last July, after I celebrated her 81st birthday with her, I came back to an empty home.  My kids were gone for the summer and my husband was working.  I sat inside of my house, on my couch, in the silence, grieving.  And I ate ice cream. 

As my husband would call and say he was on his way home, sometimes, I was actually sad he was coming home.  I would have to talk to him, I would fell shameful for eating ice cream and I didn't want him to know I had been crying.  

My flowers died, I didn't care to water them.  I stopped doing projects, and I could not blog about my mom.  Her journey was too personal and if I wrote about it, it was real.  I could not do it. 

Monthly, I made the trip.  I would get on the plane, look out the window as the plane departed from Florida, a giant tears would fall.  

And then I would arrive home, go through the motions, check boxes, eat ice cream and book tickets.

But July turned to September, and then October.  Every trip to Florida, I was greeted by a new person who was in my mom's body.  In October, I knew the end was near.  And worse than all of that, my mom could no longer laugh, smile, yawn, cry, or hold her head up.  

All those teenage years I hated my mom yelling at me or calling my name, and all I wanted to do was hear her call my name now or laugh.

Shortly after I left Florida in December, my mom passed.  With a tear falling from her cheek.

She did not want to die and I will be forever proud of the battle she fought.

Look, I know that I am so fortunate.  I am almost 62.  I lost my mom at 61,  I had 18 moths of fore warning and many moments that I will forever cherish and also some outrageously funny moments.  Mom was mentally present at all times and as horrible as it was for her, it was an gigantic gift to all who loved her.  

This past weekend, I made a list.  I crossed everything off that list.  First time in months.  

My girlfriend told me, after she lost her mom, she "felt like she had the flu for a year."  Ten months to go.  I can do this, I will do this.

It is so amazing to me, that after a person passes, what you remember about them.  

One summer, my dad was taking some kids fishing.  Mom and I could not wait for them to leave.  We were having five days of "no husband, only child, eat what you want, when you want, kitchen is closed" week.

We also told one of the little guys that was going fishing that "we are going on a huge diet while you are gone, you won't even recognize us when you get back."

Off the 'testosterone truck" left and the diet started.

When they returned, the little kid got out of the truck and said, "hey, I recognize you, guess the diet  didn't work."

My mom looked over at me and said, "hope that kid has tics in his hair."

For some reason, my first full day of ice cream  free, I thought about this  story
and laughed.  

And I am sure my mom would laugh if I reminded her of this.

Two greatest human emotions are love and grief.  You cannot have one without the other. 

So it begins, going to move forward in my life without my mom.  The more I try to move forward, the more I realize she may not be physically here, but she certainly is deep in my heart, and I hear her speak daily.

I'm pretty sure I can hear her say, "make sure you shut the freezer when you put that ice cream back.  And can you please leave some for me?"

I Broke up with the Asshole, Finally.

It has been years.  Years.  I have had an abusive, toxic, love/hate relationship for years with 'the asshole".

I am not really certain when I realized that our relationship was abusive or toxic.  I do know, that I announced last year, that I was ending the relationship and breaking up.  It took a whole extra year to actually do it. I knew the relationship was over and there was no turning back.  No amount of counseling was going to change my mind.

And I knew my day to day life would be hard in the beginning, but after time, I would be ok and could make it without him. 

It was not easy, we had been together for a long time, but I did it and I am not looking back.

I broke up with the asshole, my scale.

It all started in my parents closet, an archaic scale, yellow and black.  No, not Steeler's colors.

I remember as a young girl stepping on the scale.  It started out as an occasional thing, I was just a kid.

Then I became a teen and the occasional weigh in became more frequent.

And then, it was daily.

Sometimes hourly. I was like the wrestlers in my home with their obsession with weighing themselves.

I have always struggled with my weight and body image.  I didn't have a disorder.  Didn't puke, binge eat or restrict but, I did have a bad body image.  Me and half the planet.

For years, I have started my day on the scale.

You know, that is not the best way to start your day, regardless of who you are.

I would weigh myself, check my banking account and my "button's" grades and by 6:15 am, my day was already turning to shit.

Over the years, the scale become my measuring stick.  And that scaled moved up and down and all around.  And, I measured myself by the scale.

I would have conversations with other women who would admit that they had never had a mammogram and did not weigh themselves.  I will admit I was appalled about the scale, not the mammogram. Shame on me.

About two years ago, one of my good friends posted something about how many times you weigh yourself.  I answered honestly, "daily".

She replied, "I wish you didn't do that.'

I was shocked, didn't people weigh themselves?

I have thought about that statement for two years.

And that is a lot of time in my brain.

Look, I am approaching my 61 birthday. I am pretty sure my swimsuit modeling days are over.  I am who I am.  I am not on medication, walk about 30 miles per week, have some muscles and am not often sick...not bad for a chunky girl.

So, why not weigh yourself?  Why not check in? Why not have a measuring stick?

So for two years, I weighed myself on the scale thinking about what my friend said, "I wish you would not do that".

Somedays I loved the scale and somedays I hated the scale.  I would torture myself every morning by this flat thing, with numbers on it on the floor.  Ridiculous.

And then, something happened.  I was having a conversation with somebody who was ending a relationship and was feeling badly about it and he said this "everyone else is getting married and I should be too."

I quickly jumped on him and said, "do not measure yourself by anybody else and their actions."

As quickly as it came out of my own mouth, I wanted to slap myself.  I had been doing that exact thing.

I would step on that scale to check weight but I was really measuring my "success" or happiness, whatever, by some scale.

That scale  did NOT measure my happiness, health, spirituality, relationships nothing but my weight.  

It occurred to me, when thinking about the conversation with that young man, the lowest the scale ever was for me, was the worst time in my life.  Seriously,  worst part of my life, the scale had the lowest number.

All of these years, I had been stepping on the wrong thing.  I was allowing a thing on the floor, that I would move around and around on the floor until I got a number I was happy with, to measure me.  I was Kate in the first episode of "This is Us" except I don't wear earrings.

It was not something I should have been bound to or relying on on a daily basis.

Instead, I should have been measuring love in my heart and those positive relationships and the bounce in my step during those morning walks.

I named my scale "asshole"  Seriously, pathetic.  Who names a scale?  I did it.  And interesting enough, I was the asshole.

I judged and measured myself.by something on a floor that I manipulated some days to get the reading I wanted.  I am the asshole.

My new year's resolution was to break up with the asshole, the scale and not measure my losses or my wins by that machine.

Instead, I was going to measure my wins or losses but the animals I saw in the morning while I walked, the sunbeams and the peace I felt from being outside and the pairs of shoes I had to replace.

Funny how we measure ourselves.  The cars we drive, the homes we chose, the vacations we take, the titles we acquire, the sickness we beat, how we measure ourselves.

The very person who questioned me weighing myself, gave up a pharma sales job to be a personal trainer.  Interesting enough, somebody told her (and seriously who would say this) "you don't have the body of the trainer?"

That statement changed her life.  For the better.  So, take that.

How much of our body and fitness should be measured by mental wellness?   The majority of it. Do we cripple ourselves with imaginary yardsticks or scales?  Maybe?

Because I have stepped away from the scale, I have stepped back in time.  I have spent an enormous amount of time measuring  sweet moments spent with my mom and brother, my husband and three children, nieces and nephews and friends and family.

I took a deep look at life and time and realized it is little and short filled with big and small moments.  But, if I was honest and my life was an hour glass, it is getting short on the sand.  This was something I could not fathom and could not measure. So instead of measuring losses, I had to go for monumental gains.

Better moments would be spent outside breathing air than inside rearranging the scale.

And when I think about all of those moments, nobody ever said, "your number on the scale does not meet my expectations", only the voice in my head said that.  Asshole.

it wasn't supposed to be this way but...: To need or to be needed..Valentine's Day Edition

it wasn't supposed to be this way but...: To need or to be needed..Valentine's Day Edition: It is one of those stories that has stood the test of time.  Anybody who knew me when I was a junior at WVU in Morgantown WV most likely kno...