Today I am so far down that I am thankful that eventually I can go back up.
The past few days were good.
Some of the young patients finally saw me without my mask - We were eating Thanksgiving dinner.
A couple of them remarked that I was beautiful.
I found myself uttering aloud my belief that the beauty they see is the joy emanating out me of due to the wonderful people in my presence.
They asked my age. I told the truth. So many women fear aging and I figure if they can see that 50 doesn't mean decrepitude, maybe they won't grow to fear it.
Now that my liver tumor is gone, I'm healthy.
No one believes I'm 51.....
Love softens our faces, makes us smile, brightens our eyes and makes us more attractive.
If any group of young people need love, it is young pregnant women recovering from addiction.
They teach me quite a bit about love and loss.
They show me the difficulty of doing the right thing.
They have more compassion and strength of character than I have ever had.
I used to have a 6-pack a day diet soda habit.
I figure if these individuals can put aside alcohol, meth, crack and heroin
the least I can do is stop drinking diet soda.
I haven't touched it in two months.
With all the pain in my life, I'm just focusing on the beauty that surrounds me and the young people full of promise trying to regain control of their lives.
I was told my uncle was doing well. He beat Covid.
Life was beautiful.
*****
I even realized that after seven years single - I actually look better.
The stress lines are gone.
My hair is longer than ever before.
My eyes change color - sometimes they're brown, other times they're hazel and some days they are green.
There has been an opportunity for self-discovery.
I think that my natural state borders somewhere along a comedian and a prankster. The more single time I have, the more I act like my mother.
The problem with that is that I only knew her as an alcoholic.
She was not repressed at all,
she flirted with everyone,
she was the queen of insults and always knew what to say to get a laugh,
she liked to play pranks (what I used to refer to as 'white trash theater'),
she painted everything she could conceive of creating
and she sang (albeit a little flat). I too have a tendency to sing 1/2 step below the target (I blame my propensity for that to wanting to play instruments keyed in b-flat all the time).
I have learned that I am comfortable singing to contralto singers (e.g. Cher, Anita Baker). Still need to do my vocal exercises, though. My former singing teacher told me that I had a huge range (I am now struggling with the high notes but that'll come back).
No - I still haven't taken the tags off of that Squire bass.
I'll eventually get around to that....someday.
I signed up for virtual bass and guitar lessons. Now, I've just got to get my own acoustic.
It just doesn't float my boat. At least it's not an Ibanez (those things sound like buzzy *censored*).
My remaining aunt dropped off a bunch of stuff that belonged to her sister who died in March a while back. I'm sorting through it trying to decide what to donate and where.
There is too much stuff.
My life is cluttered.
I can't stand clutter.
Today - my intention was to clean my carpet because my house smells like dirty poodle feet and lavender.
I even wanted to paint the evil pink bathroom from Hades today. I chose an earthy color that I would describe as a light sage.
I'm trying to pack away all the stuff to take to the various charities who can rehouse it.
I didn't get very far.
*****
I awoke to an urge to check my phone.
The moment I picked up my phone, a new message flashed across the screen.
It was from my aunt.
It simply said to call when I had time.
Uh oh.....
She'd rather text.
I call....
and learn that although my uncle beat Covid, it left him with a hole in his right lung.
He's being transported to a hospice in Colorado Springs and not expected to live more than a couple of days. * (next day edit - he never made it to the hospice and died in the hospital.)
She's beside herself.
This year she lost two sisters and now her brother. She will now be the only remaining member of her original family.
She's numb.
She'll have a nervous breakdown when reality finally hits her.
My cousins are upset. We grew up together. My uncle and his first wife would steal me from my alcoholic mother for months at a time and take up me up into the mountains. They had a house in Indian Hills. I remember that the water tasted like morning breath (due to the high mineral content). I must've been three years old. I lived with him off and on for most of my childhood. He took me in when my parents died (at the age of fourteen). There was a stint in foster care when he was dealing with his demons.
My uncle was fun.
When I told my uncle that I had a crush on Andy Taylor (of Duran Duran), he thought I meant Andy Griffith (who played Andy Taylor on an old TV show), That always cracked me up.
My uncle used to call me a 'one man band' because I would play everything I could get my hands on. I think someone gave a drum once, that was fun. He thought I sang well but was disappointed that I didn't take a music career seriously.
We'd spend our weekends riding our bikes from Arvada to Golden and back. He taught me about the system of bike trails in Colorado.
Fun times....
His wife died. He got himself a girlfriend who threw me out of the house and alienated him from his children. My uncle became greedy with her in his life. They literally stole my grandfather's estate BEFORE he died.
My uncle and I made an agreement. When he acts like an asshole, I'm going to act like an intense bitch who hires lawyers to protect the people she loves. If he stopped stealing from people, I'd change my mind.
My grandfather died a few days after learning that his son stole his life savings. I was offered a portion of the estate but didn't take it. In my mind it was cursed blood money.
I can make my own money.
I certainly made sure the theft didn't happen to anyone else.
His wife died in August. My cousins were planning one heck of a Christmas for their father as they had been kept from him for 33 years.
My cousins are heartbroken.
I'm numb.
I've been sad and slow.
Just kinda staring into space -
I'll soon go back to the cemetery in my home town.
I was there a couple of weeks ago to pray for my aunt Judy (the uncle's wife). Funny.....my uncle had his name and birthdate carved into the headstone.
I thought it was a tad bit creepy.
The grass hasn't even begun to grow on the plot.
The reality is that Covid probably won't allow me to talk to him again. My last memory of him will be talking to him while he was sitting his car stifling tears just a few steps from the grave of an old friend's parents.
I'll never again, hear him utter the name of my mother and then watch him faint. He did that once outside of my office. He hadn't seen me in ten years and was shocked that I looked just like his sister. That was in 2009. I met his wife outside the office a couple days later. She confided in me that she was having trouble with her weight. It didn't matter what she ate, she was losing too much weight without trying. Turned out to be cancer. She lived another eleven years.
That woman was a fighter. They moved to Florida shortly after that.
There was no time to try to rebuild that relationship.
I need to get better about telling people I care about that I love them.
*****
Here is a truth
2020 bites.
I'm just too numb to know what to do about it.
Love ya,
S.