Let me start with a huge *sigh*.
Funerals suck. Expected or unexpected. We've all been to at least one. My earliest that I recall, I'll share below. I have few moments where I've actually just stopped. I know exactly what I was doing when the bomb was dropped. Doing dishes, folding laundry, having a drink with friends talking with friends during the passing. All because I could not be there. As much as I wanted to be. Life happens. Death, is inevitable.
Losing loved ones is always hard. Losing friends who just are a light in your life, that's another gut kick. I have friends who are more family than family is. We all do. We're human. You can pick your friends, not your family. Sometimes, I am so grateful and blessed for this aspect. That's another story, I may share, I may not. Time will tell.
Time. That's something that seems to be on repeat throughout this blog - maybe? Again, how do I get a few more hours without consuming, what I am sure is very unhealthy and illegal amounts of Red Bull and Coffee. If you are seeing the trend, I apologize, it just seems as of late, twenty four hours in one day just ins't sufficient. I am all for a 2 day work week and a 5 day weekend. Weekend. What do you do? More work. Might catch up with friends, but it's work. House work. Home work. Yard Work. Work. Does it pay, well, yea, but not to Uncle Sam. It pays off in a physical manner or self well-being. Maybe "quiet happiness". Apparently, that emoji is 😔 I tend to disagree here - but, OK, if that suits you. 👍👍 (Mind you, if you see ME do this, it's totally something else. If you really know me, YOU KNOW!). Hint: Ross & Monica Gellar. That's all you're gonna get.
I have completely deviated off track here. I won't apologize for being me. This happens
Where was I? Oh.. yeah.
Hard work. All the years put in. At work. At home. The phrase "all work and no play", it's real. When we have the chance to cut loose, have a few beverages and dinner, laugh and make more fun, meaningful memories, there is no harm in this, right? We aren't robots. Life is meant to be spent enjoying the moments. The moments that take your breath away. That make you tear up. That makes you smile at a moment's notice. Stop. Right now What was the last thing that actually took your breath away? Made you smile? The "stop and smell the roses" moment? What was it? Can't remember - go outside now. Take your shoes off and stand in the grass. I'm in Pittsburgh, where it's now monsoon season, so, maybe stand on a hill where the rain hasn't completely saturated the ground, but GO GET GROUNDED. Take a few moments for yourself. Smell the air. Actually take it in (again, I know where I live, so, maybe not inhale so deeply). This was some amazing and sound advice I was given a few years back on a trip to San Diego (ShtanDiego -- you know you're amazing when you rename a city using #). That too, is another story.
With that said. did you go out and get all barefooted in the grass and smell that humid air? Listen to the crickets? Actually focus on the fireflies? If so.. carry on to the below. If not, stop and go do what I asked (told) you to do!
And, here. I share with you, my earliest and one of my most personal pieces.
Growing up
On summer mornings,
I’d drag my size one out of bed
To the sounds of Jewel and mourning doves
Sun shining through cracked windows
Casting shadows of breezy maple leaves
On baby blue walls
I would often sit behind the cherry wood desk,
Where, once I found a letter from Green Gables Inn on 322 in Lewistown.
When my mother was 16 she rolled her fathers car in their front lawn
Her father said he could always get another car, not another daughter.
He was sober then.
My grandfather passed when I was 3, or around that age.
I rarely remember funerals
Except for an aunt, whom I barely knew
I cried all night for a woman who was a stranger to me.
Later that night, my brother and I walked to the Exxon station
Near the trailer park where we lived
And the moon was so big, bright and close
Brian said to me, it’s like that because God was coming to take her soul with him.
I think I was 5.
Once in a while, I enjoy
Comforting myself with those thoughts.
Another morning, after awakening to Jewel and mourning doves
The sunlight casting its’ shadows onto my sullen face and the Victorian dolls that adorned my walls,
I walked out into the world for no one to care
Stepping on dried and dead maple leaves
Breaking their boney innocence underneath the weight of an anorexic 14 year old,
Who, by the worlds’ fault,
Was too naive to understand love and life
From atop of the cherry wood desk from Green Gables Inn,
I sat and drew a stream in pale blue
A golden cornfield,
A sapphire blue skyline
All looking through an antique pained window
One summer night, I sat underneath a tree
outside Rodney and Brian's room,
I cried
realizing that my innocence was leaving me
During the summer of my eighth grade year,
I ran along MIddle Road, wearing BUM shorts and a t-shirt
behind the Wal-Mart and a house which my brother said
had lingerie hanging in the window
After exerting all of my energy into anger and sadness,
I’d run back to life behind the naked eye and uncertainty
Now,
From a new home and a chair,
I watch my cat lick my wounds
And think of a life yet to be explored.
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