Dear Brigid

I am feeling all kinda prickly and like pretty bad company. Gosh, aren't you glad you stopped by? Since I moved mother in and have been caring for her, I have these times where I am kind of blue. I can't put my finger on anything in particular. I don't really mind preparing meals or dispensing meds. Checking on her, repeating myself many times. Well, some of it makes me roll my eyes. There isn't really anything else I want to do, or where I would want to be. I am a little bored maybe, a little lonely. Like after you bury someone, people are there and checking on you, then within a couple of weeks they just want to move on and not bring it up to you. I get that. I do that. I mean, ultimately it is just you and that's how it is supposed to be. So, I am in the eye of the storm. Initially there was lots of attention and there will be again when things are worse. But we are coasting right now, and I am glad for it, but, yawn. Blech. Yuck.

Since I defined for myself the need to receive the love there is and not shut it out, I thought I would chose an act of kindness bestowed on me and see if that doesn't turn things around.

This one is about Brigid.

Since I have the task of cleaning out the house I grew up in and where my mother lived for 50 years, I have felt the need to get rid of things from my own home. I put a message on my FaceBook page that I had some knitting magazines and would anyone want them. Brigid claimed them and sent her address. I know Brigid from the Oklahomans on Etsy. We have crossed paths at a few craft shows. I have even met her mother, who is a hoot and a doll. Like mother, like daughter. I was quite happy to ship my stack to Tulsa. She sent a 'got it and thanks' message, all was happy and complete.

Then I received a box.

I was in shock. Just delighted. Brigid sent a cute note of thanks. She FOUR of her handmade scrubs. All of this was just to be nice and say thanks. But the part that was just on another level was the necklace.

It has two birds and my favorite blue. So personal. She spent her time and energy on me. Beyond that, she personalized this necklace just for me.

Interestingly, Brigid's grandmother is in a bad way. I hope this makes you feel better, dear girl. I am near tears writing this. Thank you, Brigid. I feel the love. I receive that. And it did file those prickles right off me.

Girlfriends Are Essential

Lots of blogs I follow...wait, I follow lots of blogs. I am a collector, ney, hoarder of blogs. I often compulsively collect things. The nice thing about collecting blogs is they are free and take up little space. Except from an anxiety standpoint. I have actually had to start treating my blog list like I treat my closet. One in. one out. At a certain point many years ago I felt like my closet was choking me. It had become that big Venus fly trap, Audrey II, in the musical. So I went through all the clothes with a machete so to speak and pruned. Honestly, this takes a few times to get it all clean. There are unnatural attachments to clothes. I also have a cure for that. If there is something in your closet that you just can't get rid of, but also do not wear, try this: put it on and wear it. Trust me, a day at work in a sweater with shoulder pads and beading will make it quite it easy to part with that garment.

This was not the point of this post initially, but I will get around to the point. Or not. I am under a great amount of stress and have a hard time staying on topic.

The rule for my closet is 'one in one out' and you probably can understand it immediately. For each new garment entering, one garment must leave my closet. They do not have to be equal, two new sweaters may push out a purse and a pair of sandals. It helps maintain a constant number of garments. I really like to challenge myself to 'one in, two out' but frankly that second item may just be a pair of socks or a tank top. Don't forget about underwear. Please realize it is time to let go of the pair of period panties with hippos on them.

So I am a blog collector and when that list of blogs I follow hit 100, I instigated the 'one in one, out rule.' It is really hard to cut a blog. What if they only have 8 followers? They will know I have abandoned them. Number of followers is a bit like a grade, right? It is important to know if your grade is an F. Either step it up or drop out. Currently with 25 Blogspot followers I have a grade of D. I feel like I have stepped it up, and maybe I am also a D blogger. I still get so much out of this blog. I just hope my followers don't cut me. I also hope I don't cut myself.

So I started this post by saying 'lots of blogs I follow' then went on about following. That really is my point. I am a follower here on the internet. I have a whole life here. Blog friends. I also have some real friends. Quite a few. I do not however, collect real friends. I develop real friends. Real friendships are an entity like a marriage and almost all that implies. Commitment, intimacy, gifts, surprises, cards, looks, dirty looks, rolling eyeballs, snarky comebacks, fights, rage, tears, disappointments, ad nausem.

I have always felt friendships are so important. Really I have always put friendships first in my life. I am extremely loyal, to a fault, as they say. I was always far more hurt at a break up with a friend than with a boyfriend.

No idea why I developed this. I think as a little kid I realized I couldn't really count on siblings so I turned with a near obsession to my friends.

All that compulsion and obsession has really paid off. I have unbelievable, really, epic friendships. I also have some neofriendships here in Blogville that are amazing, an otherwise over used word that fits here well.

My original sentence was about many of the blogs I follow...well, many of the blogs I follow are defining a word or phrase for the year. I have been thinking about this and realized with my aforementioned low slope learning curve, I need far more than a year. I worked on forgiveness and shame for, uh, decades, but quite intensely for about four years.

I will not name a word for the year but for the horizon, the new frontier. I have rip roaring rage. Do I really want to chose RAGE as my word? I don't have to, it chooses me. It explodes out and holds me over the edge of a cliff. It erupts and lava floes form burning and scalding loved ones in their wake.

What I realize is, of course, rage is just a symptom. It is a childish, impulsive, reaction to a deep fear. That fear is probably, most of the time, the fear of feeling alone. Ergo my intense need for deep connections with people. Oh look, I am human.



I love my time alone. I need loads of it. But feeling alone is different. I have felt alone my whole life. Alone. Also, I have always felt loved. Paradox? Hmmmmmm. It is not enough to be loved. For me is about bonding. I have a bonding issue. I never realized that until this recent stress of my mother's illness, frailty and end of her life, which I am watching in my own home.

However, I really do not feel alone. For the first time.

So having close friendships and a wonderfully loyal husband wasn't enough. I needed to open myself a little further and receive that love and connection. Wanting it, and having it is not the same thing as receiving it.

So there. My new thing, my defining word, the new frontier is...receive. I will honor not just friendships, but the essential, powerful, quality of friendships in 2010 like never before.

Girlfriends are essential.