Rambling...

11/29/2012

I'm feeling nostalgic this morning. Today is my oldest daughter's twentieth birthday. So I look around me and try to see what I have accomplished in the last twenty years. I don't have scads of money and I'm not famous. I'm still a lousy housekeeper (although I am getting better), still a great cook. I'm not thin, I didn't marry Johnny Depp... Just what in the hell have I done with my life?

Then again, since when have I measured myself by other people's standards? The question isn't what have I done with my life, it's what am I proudest of in my life? These things are easy for me to name.

We'll start with the most obvious. I have raised two beautiful, strong, smart, talented, funny women from infancy to adulthood. While I cannot take full credit for this accomplishment, I know I have had a major role in that happening. They are both incredible people. A mother couldn't be more proud.

Then there is the maintaining of a strong marriage for the last ten years. And as anybody in a long-term relationship knows, that is definitely an accomplishment. When you add to that the fact that my husband's work takes him away from me fairly frequently, it becomes more difficult to maintain a strong level of intimacy. But we work at it and we do pretty well. I love him more today than I did the day that I married him so, we must be doing something right.

Let's see... What else?

I have friends! So many wonderful friends!!! I have more friends than any one person should rightfully have, and yet, there is always room for more! I love having so many interesting, fun people in my life. It makes it all worth living. They accept me , challenge me, and the best ones are always there when I really need them.

Off to class... I'll get back to this later.


11/30/2012

Yesterday ended on a melancholy note. After my husband left, the house was too quiet. But it always is. Funny how silence can be filled just by the act of someone else being there. (Well, the right someone. Let's face it; there is not much in life as uncomfortable as uncomfortable silence.) Kids, husband, parents, roommates, brother... I've always had someone else living in my space.

Getting home last night after a few drinks, I walked into a deafening silence. It was the biggest silence I have encountered in quite a while. Justin was only home for a week but, I got used to his noise again. Now the house is too quiet. The last year has taught me that the best remedy for that huge, empty silence is to just live with it. Sit in it. Listen to it. Sometimes it's beyond lonely. Sometimes it's only broken by the sound of my crying. Sometimes it's oppressive, like a too heavy quilt when you have a fever; you'd push it off if you could, but you lack the strength to do so.

Sometimes it's a moment of creative birth. I have more writing and dance that has come out of that silence in the last year, that at any other point in my life. As much as I hate the silence that means that my daughters have grown up and no longer need me the way they once did, and my husband is away working for a (hopefully) better life for the two of us, I love what can spring out of it when I push through and deal with it.

And dealing with it can suck. It often involves some emotional outbursts, and I'm sure that I sound quite insane when I'm going through it but, fortunately for me, my place has thick walls, or if my neighbors hear it, they're too polite to say anything. Either way, I cry, I get angry, and I whine, until eventually I've dealt with it. And I find a way to put it out there creatively (currently in this weird rambling blog) and I feel better.

I'm hoping that today is a good day. It's the last regular class day of the term. With any luck, everything will go smoothly, and I can come home and start cramming for finals.

I'm sure I'll do some writing this weekend to avoid having to study...