All the Ladies

I am really loving us. You and I. You have been so giving. I really have been thinking about you. About us.

I was feeling guilty, of course, about my last post and all the whining, negative posts before it in the last year...the year of reckoning, the year my daughter starting driving and looking at colleges, the year my body is deconstructing its reproductive ability. I was feeling bad for you. For reading about my darkness and sadness and how it elicits such love and support from you, you whom has no time for me.

I don't still feel guilty today. I turned my thinking into something like this...we all will face all these same things I am facing. Either you have already buried your parents, or you will. Maybe you never had parents and had to grieve that already. It is a certain and natural thing that we will all bury our parents.

We all will say goodbye to our children. Maybe you never had any and you had to let that choice happen, maybe you have raised your kids and already saw them leave the nest, maybe you have babies and it seems like a million miles away, maybe you are just hopeful to have or get a baby. But we all have to deal with the decison or the experience in someway. Maybe you have a disabled child that will never get to make the choices my dear lucky daughter can. Maybe you buried your child, the worst imaginable of all scenarios. But it is a certain and natural thing that we all face the issue of children and reproduction itself.

We all deal with the hormonal tides. Maybe you had a hysterectomy, or cancer and had surgical removal and early menopuase. Maybe it came and went without fanfare, but still its gone. Maybe you are facing menopause yet to come, periods yet to start, horrific pain and PMS and can't wait for it to go. But it is cetain and natural that the function of our reproductive system will take up huge amounts of our lives.

We all will face my same life issues, its all just timing, when, and how many at once. So of course I need not feel guilty for you reading my thoughts nor should I feel bad about you loving me. You know you will be here or you have been here, my timing is now, all these things. I will lose my mother and my daughter and my periods about the same time. Interesting that these are all such female issues.  Female rights of passage.

And yet, you, you who gives and gives can come here and give some more. You who should take instead of give because you are tired, depleted, often forcing yourself to the grocery store yet another time, folding that towel for the 176th time, emptying the dishwasher again, deciding on a menu again, figuring out what to wear again, smiling again, buying another gift, mailing another card, reminding, listing, driving, circling, you come here and give some more.

I love us. I love us women who give until there is nothing else. Of course we plummet through depressions. Of course we share anxieties. Of course we come here for a community who understands each other.

I feel very moved by us. I am so proud of us. I think I will remember that in 10 minutes when I am guilty for not giving someone I love enough attention. We do so much.

I would never speak to someone the way I speak to myself. Critical. Judgemental. I would never let someone talk to you the way I talk to myself. And that insidious hating voice once identified and kept pretty quiet waited, opportunist that she is, until I became more exhausted and weakened and she started whispering, so quiet, so in rhythm with my own better thoughts that I didn't hear her at all. I just became more guilty and depleted. She worked on me like a seductive abuser until she was yelling at me that I am worthless and cannot manage anything. Yelling and screaming and I was cowering in the corner hating and loving and believing her.

And then I remembered us. You and me. Strong, loving, take a bullet for our people women who have this horrible, hating, self loathing voice.

You want me to keep mine quiet. I want you to keep yours quiet.

And we bolster each other. And we keep talking to each other. You lift me up out of that corner, so I can hear the ridiculousness of my own thoughts. I hope I can remind you who you really are as well.

Strong, loving, soft, hard, beautiful. Woman.

Bookends

I just passed through the most recent phase of the Care and Keeping of Betty Jean and I call it "All I Could Do." That phase was bookended by the receipt of gifts from two of my HSGs (High School Girls aka Leaders of the Free World, more later).

The first was received during the non-existant, dismal, cold, blue Christmas. Last year I had written a blog post that included my admiration for mosaicist Amy Baldwin (actually it went something like she is so talented I could just want to run her down with my car). I received a box from Angie. You must say that to the voice of Mick Jagger like "Ain-Jay" and repeat. I am Bert to her Ernie. She sends this piece she commissioned from Amy herself.

So blown away. It was an otherwise giftless Christmas, not without lessons to be sure, this was so welcome and tender, perfect. But Ernie and I do that.

Four months later and at the end of this certain phase where I have given all I have to my particular situation I receive this. The note reads that she is sure I will never photograph or blog about this gift. From Babe aka Shelley. I am Babe to her Babe. 

Never be too sure, girl.

The mirror reads "I can deal with anything with the right drink and a girlfriend." 

It was utter concidence and without my awareness that the gifts received from these two landed when they did.

Well, not by chance.

What would I do without my girls?

Dear God, please don't make me find out. Amen

Bon Printemps

My daughter can jeer all she wants about "mama's blog friends" but you guys know how real it is. No matter what I write. No matter what I whine about, cheer about, photograph or misspell, you comment back. One of you. Someone. Sometimes the same one for each post, sometime a random single response, sometimes every other. Whatever, whenever, someone pats me on the back.

And we all get it. And need it and it is real.

Ergo a new friend from my blog who I comment back and forth with and also email. She asked for my address, would I be comfortable giving it to her? I did and also wrote that I probably shouldn't because I should refuse anything nice she may do. But I sent my address. And I let her do something nice.

And this is what she did.

She sent a box.

I knew it was pretty rare so of course I photographed each step because I wanted to share it with the one who would understand and appreciate it most.

You.

She sent a note. I will keep the content private. But it was dear, very dear.

And there was a box. This was decorated by her own hands.

And inside a little pillow bearing the message 'good spring'.

For some reason so many of us, so many women, with all that we have in our lives... our home, job, children, partners, parents, friends, holidays, grocery shopping, hair to do, meals to cook, dishes and washing....

Somehow that isn't enough.

Somehow that isn't enough and we need each other. We reach out to the unknown and connect. And it is so special.

Thank you Cheryl.

Thank you, Cheryl,  for your comments, your emails, your support, your empathy, your kindess, your time and your gift.

You make it a good spring.