Friday, August 24, 2018

Whatcha Watchin'?

Scraping the bottom of my mental barrel for blog posts, I decided to do what should have been the obvious thing and try out one or two of the many blog prompts I've collected. Something besides talking about a bout of kidney stones (again) followed by sinus crap, then a heaping helping of mom drama.


The most recent movies I've watched that are new-to-me (admittedly I'm prone to being sucked into my 9 billionth viewing of such favorites as Dirty Dancing and Clue):

  • My Cousin Rachel, the most recent adaptation of the Daphne du Maurier novel. I didn't love it, but I am a sucker for zoning out and just enjoying dark and twisty atmosphere. 
  • Goodbye Christopher Robin, a biopic of the man and boy behind a special honey obsessed bear. It was interesting, but not something I'd need to watch again and again.
  • I, Tonya, another biopic of the trainwreck of a once Olympic skater. Ridiculously entertaining performances of events I remember happening.
  • Fallen, an adaptation of a YA novel I read eons ago for my niece. I had no idea it had been made into a movie until stumbling upon it on a streaming service. I cannot recommend it for anyone above... I don't know, 12 maybe? And even then, read a book instead. 
  • Hello, My Name Is Doris, the outlier of my recent movie binge, a quirky, romantic dramedy. Maybe it's the charm of Sally Field. Maybe it's the character she portrayed - an aging woman who cared for her recently deceased, unstable mother and is now trying to live a fuller life. It's awkward. It's adorable. 

Saturday, August 18, 2018

Like stars

Where to start? It's been a busy year. I've traveled so much, some trips last minute and unexpected, my head can't quite get settled into a "normal" homebody routine. 
Despite enjoying travel - even making the best out of a trip back to my family's home turf for a funeral - all of the coming and going has added to a kind of transitory vertigo I'm experiencing. And I think there are just times in your life when you feel off kilter, things changing and shifting around you to a degree that you can't help but be aware of it. 

Loved ones, both family and friends, are having their fair share as well. Job searches, new homes, extensive travel, explosive career developments, death in the family, births, etc., there's a lot shifting around my tribe. Life's like that. Long periods of relative same and then somebody starts shaking your snow globe like their life depends on it. 
Eh..more like this:
That's more like it.

This morning an expected perusal of social media memories led to the discovery that a friend I went to school with passed away. 

Did you know there are now "legacy" & "memorial" settings you can enable for social media in the event you die? That's my something new I learned for today. A small but insistent pop-up window that totally shifted my headspace this morning. 

We didn't have solid friends in common in school, though I was first-name-friendly with some of her usual crowd, and we certainly didn't have people in common as adults. But she is one of the few people from an area I didn't live in for more than a couple years that I'd call a friend. Talk about the future, babbling on the phone, share clothes with. So a social media pop-up hit me in the solar plexus and sent me on a web search to confirm what I hoped was a bad joke or wrong click. 

She looked so happy in the wedding picture they used for her obituary. 

Christ, that hurt to type out so much more than I expected.

When you're helping each other get ready for the Homecoming dance more than twenty years earlier, it doesn't cross your mind one of you won't make it to 40. Hell, 30 seemed far enough away to be impossible. 

I was never so grateful for the distraction of DIY as I was today. An afternoon spent in the company of friends making a new & first house ready for it's occupant. I laughed, I joked, I sweat, I focused without unwelcome thoughts spearing into my brain. 

Now I'm sat here, trying to sort through a strange set of emotions and listening to a playlist mixed with cheerful and thought-provoking songs. I have a visceral need to make a kind of meaning out of the loss of her, the life of her. For me. I'm not quite sure what that means yet.

For now, here's to the friends who got us through the weird realm of being a teenager. Here's to the people who as an adult can recall scattered memories about us we've long ago discarded with true affection. And here's to those valiant people we collect as adults, with our baggage and learned lessons, who prop us up and give us what we need when we can't even name what that is. 


Thursday, August 2, 2018

August Ramblings

I have sat down exactly twice to try to work on a blog post since the last one. I've sat down with the hope to write anything else a grand total of one time. If searching for inner peace didn't already involve piss poor time management skills and external stress, I could reformat this blog in the exclusive theme of bitching about the passage of time and lack of progress in desired avenues.

Sometimes I'm sure it's about handling your stress or outside demands in a different, more constructive way. But I really do think quite a lot of it has to do with learning to accept what can't be changed, finding a bit of inner peace in the midst of perceived chaos, coming to grips with a lack of control in life. So on, etc, & so forth.

I want a nap. Like in the worst freakin' way.

So with a little lightweight bitching done to fluff at the cobwebs coating my mind, I should probably re-focus to something slightly more constructive. Because it's one thing to acknowledge something, it's another thing to let the miserable cow setting become a comfy habitat.

I'm over the moon a close relative's cancer, which returned last year for a 2nd round, is responding so well to treatment that even their oncologist is impressed. I'm militant that this person needs a solid 40 plus more years this lifetime.

I'm super grateful that this year has brought so many opportunities for travel - be it new places I've never been or returning to familiar places I don't get to see often enough. At this point, it feels like a dream that I need to remind myself actually happened.

I'm in awe over the personal growth a variety of loved ones have experienced. It's amazing to watch someone handle without a second thought something that would have made them break out into a cold sweat not so very long ago.

There's plenty more, things that strike me even when I'm trudging through a rough afternoon, sparks of hope in a day that show there are still good people in the world, the rapid-fire thump-thump-thump of a dog's tail when I get home. There's the heart-melting moment a senior dog who is not one for cuddles or silliness decides a head scratch and a quick belly rub sound pretty darn good as long as it's just the two of you.


To the End

When I began this blog 5 years ago, it ended up being a catch-all for whatever slogged through my brain, mostly writing and the difficu...