Passages

One of my favorite personal memories involving Aretha Franklin:

I didn't have my own car so I often would ride the bus to go to my college classes. One day I was walking from the bus stop, just a few houses away from home, when I heard this music BLASTING through someone's window. It was Aretha Franklin, and I thought, "Someone's got good taste."

As I neared my home, I realized it was coming from our house. It was a gorgeous day and apparently the front door and all our windows were open, so Aretha's voice was coming out loud and clear like someone's personal rock concert.

I walked into the house, stunned and confused, because my mom was always telling me to turn my music down, and here it was just jamming full out. 😁 What was going on??

I followed the sounds of the Queen of Soul all the way down the hall and found my mother in my bedroom, working at her sewing machine, grooving in her seat as my Aretha Greatest Hits CD blasted on my stereo.

I think I stood with my mouth dropped wide open for a good few minutes before she even noticed I was there. Then I said something like, "Damn, Mom, I didn't know you had it in you. Is this what you do when we're not home?" 🤣 🎶🎤

It was like I saw another side of my mom that day, one I'd never seen at this level before, and it was fascinating and really awesome. ♥

-

What are your favorite Aretha Franklin songs? I love all the most popular ones, of course (RESPECT, Ain't No Way, A Natural Woman, Chain of Fools, Save Me, etc.) but some of my personal favorites are You're All I Need to Get By, You Send Me, Dr. Feelgood, and Baby I Love You.

It's amazing what comes to you when you allow yourself to open the door, even just a little crack.

Yesterday I wrote a post discussing an emotional trial of sorts, how I'd wanted to talk about something else, something personal and important to me, but I'd stopped writing that post because I got scared and I froze up and locked away what I'd wanted to discuss.

To see myself shutting down and holding back out of fear, I found that very upsetting and frustrating. But I managed one thing -- even if I couldn't talk about the original post I'd tried to write, I still reached out and talked about the fear and upset over freezing up.

In return, I got four wonderful messages that sunk in just when I needed them to.

The first three: candygramme, leucocrystal and wendelah1 sent words of comfort and sage advice. Thank you. You gave me the support I wanted to hear and also gave me the harder (smart, honest) wisdom I needed to hear. Thank you, thank you. I am so grateful to all three of you for that.

And then the final message, which came from an unexpected source: yesterday I started reading Amanda Palmer's book The Art of Asking (or, How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Let People Help). Today I decided to give myself a mental health day, which basically means I tried to let go of all the swirling "should do, must do" lists in my head and instead allowed myself a day of "what I want to do" which included breakfast in bed and a leisurely afternoon spent reading a large portion of Amanda's book.

And amidst all the magnificent reading (seriously, it's a good one), I came across this passage -- especially the bolded part, below -- that seemed to be waiting to hit me over the head:

---

I'm often asked: How can you trust people so much?

Because that's the only way it works.

When you accept somebody's offer for help, whether it's in the form of food, crash space, money, or love, you have to trust the help offered. You can't accept things halfway and walk through the door with your guard up.

When you openly, radically trust people, they not only take care of you, they become your allies, your family.

Sometimes people will prove themselves untrustworthy.

When that happens, the correct response is not:
Fuck! I knew I couldn't trust anybody!

The correct response is:
Some people just suck.

Moving right along.

---

Definitely needed to hear that and I'm still amazed how it came at just the right time, when I think I was open enough to hear it. Messages received, all around. Thank you all SO much. ♥

It's late. I'm about ready to crawl into bed. Well, actually I'm already in bed, typing this on a laptop, so I'm halfway where I want to be! Now I just have to shut down and GO TO SLEEP!

It's been a crazy madhouse of a day, with family visiting and cheering me on (especially 4 highly enthusiastic and hilarious nephew and nieces, ages 10, 7, 5 and 3, who made up cheers for me and everything, LOL). And -- if you'll allow me a moment of showing off -- even though my parents were a bit blasé about graduation at first because I've already gone through it before, there was something gratifying and amusing about seeing my dad puff up with pride because they announced my name and followed it with the words "HIGHEST HONORS."

But anyway... now all is quiet, everyone's in bed, and I can take a moment to decompress and absorb the day.

Here's a glimpse of the aftermath (before I crawled into bed):

Thanks again for the cheer earlier today! You're all wonderful.

xoxo

Everybody in my house is sick except for ME!

I'm going to do everything I can to make sure I don't get sick, but man oh man, they are not making it easy for me. They're coughing and sniffling and taking all these meds, and my aunt had a fever yesterday. How on earth did this house turn into Germ Central and how can I avoid it without moving out for a week or two? LOL.

Hope you all out there are healthy!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go make some super-healing tea to ward off all the bad stuff.

Really missing bardsmaid tonight.

When you connect with a person really well, and that person becomes one of your best, most wonderful friends, you come to rely on them, their opinions, their insights, their perspective, and so many other things. You trust them wholeheartedly. You enjoy discussing all sorts of things and cherish the conversations.

Without that friendship, I find myself wanting to find a new one, to take the place of that hole in my heart and my life.

But as I try to connect with new people, the thing I realize over and over is... there is no replacement for that friendship. No one can be exactly like Susan.

That is both wonderful (she was unique and therefore special) and devastating (I feel that loss and wonder if I'll ever find anyone else who will 'get' me as a person and be a friend I can trust wholeheartedly and connect with so well). Sometimes I wonder if I will always feel like some black sheep weirdo destined to be alone in life, wandering aimlessly, trying to find kindred souls. And that depresses me, too.

I just miss that camaraderie, that understanding, where I didn't feel misunderstood or left out. But I can't force new relationships. It's just not the same, and I can't make it be that way.

:(

It seems like not a day goes by where I don't stop at some point and think, "I would love to show this to Susan!" or "I wonder what she'd think about this..." or "She would totally get into this [video, poem, story, article, whatever I come across that's interesting and marvelously clever]."

And then my heart gives a little squeeze of sorrow that I can't share these little moments, achievements, frustrations, interests, or whatever, with my friend.

It's not fair.

One class presentation down, one to go.

One final exam down, one to go.

Thank goodness it's almost over. I just have to make it through next week. I hope it goes smoother than this week, because I've spent almost every night up until 2, 2:30 or even 4 am. OUUUUUCH.

Add to that my wonderful, vivacious great-aunt passed away last weekend and I took 2 days off from work to make a very short trip to Green Bay for her funeral this week on Tuesday, and perhaps you can see why I'm feeling exhausted and burned out. Rough week.

:(

It's a little late in the evening for something extraordinarily lengthy, so maybe I'll leave the contemplation for tomorrow (er... later today) and simply say:

HAPPY NEW YEAR, MY FRIENDS!

Thank you for your love, support and advice this past year. I couldn't have made it through without you. *HUGS*

May 2012 bring you nothing but an abundance of joy.

:)

My aunts are having their living room painted tomorrow, so I thought I'd be helpful and remove all the light switch and vent covers in preparation. Neither of them are tall enough to reach the vents on the upper portion of the walls, so I said I could get them.

All I had to do was reach up, loosen the screws, and pull the vent cover off of the wall. Easy peasy. I didn't even have to stand on tiptoe to do it.

Except that one vent cover was stuck, so I used the screwdriver to pry it from the wall.

If only I'd been standing on a ladder at level height with it.

The vent cover finally popped off and fell... right on my face. Hit me in the mouth.

After about a half-minute of cursing, crying and bleeding, I started laughing.

Because my aunt said, "Tomorrow, when you go to see your counselor, please make sure you tell him that we didn't do this to you."

HAHAHAHAHHAHA

I said, "Oh yeah, this is going to be a fun conversation. 'How'd you get that cut and bruise on your mouth?' Oh, you know, the usual... a vent fell on my face."

Then we all started joking about the various things I could say instead of the embarrassing truth.

"I got into a fist fight."

"I ran into a door."

"I fell."

"My aunt came after me with a vent cover. It's always the quiet ones you have to worry about..."

*******

While I held an ice pack to my lip, I noted, "Wow. It's been years since I've had a fat lip."

To which my aunt pointed out that the last time was probably also when I was visiting them...

When I was a little kid, we used to go sledding on the hill across the street from my grandmother's house. One time I decided to take one last ride, but I borrowed a friend's saucer-shaped sled and went down the hill on my stomach. The thing flew like the wind and had absolutely no way of steering, so I spun out of control and couldn't stop myself from running into the kid who was walking across the field at the bottom of the hill. I ran straight into his wooden toboggan -- face first.

I recall crying then, too (though in my defense this time I think I was much more stoic about my tearing up, LOL). And I remember my mom being all hysterical because her little baby girl had a big fat lip.

Alas, no mommy here to fawn over me this time.

A vent fell on my face.

*facepalm*

Yep, call on me for all your handy household needs.

I think I'll just go sit down with my ice pack and watch the White Collar marathon. Thank you very much, and good night!