THE PLAYGROUND

On and off throughout my adult life I’ve gone back to hang around the old metaphorical playground. You know the one…It’s in your head.  It consists of memories and scenarios from earlier years.  It seems to be my own special brand of self-torture.  My crack, as it were.  You see, I have a lot of memories.  You do too.  The difference, if there is one, is that I tend to go back and play with mine.  More often than is good for me. The bad ones; and there were a whole lot of bad ones, the good ones, and the ones in between – let’s call them the events – things that, although not terrible, I wish had turned out differently.  I’m an equal opportunity sadist.  I give almost equal time to the bad memories and the events.   I think about the good ones too, but they don’t need a different outcome so I don’t have to spend as much time on them.  So, I go to the other ones because you know…maybe I can change the outcome?  Yes, I said that.

I don’t really believe that….not the intelligent woman of the world part of me.  It’s that other insecure  ego   character lurking around in here.   She’s always blowing things.  There’s nothing Zen about that one.

The good news is that I’m making new memories all the time.  I have a great husband and family and things are pretty good.  The bad news is that I’ll probably be trying to fix these new memories sometime in the future as they add up on my “broken” pile.   If you’re so busy with your past, you’re bound to be screwing things up in the present that you will be sorry for later.  See what I mean?  Who let the dogs out for God’s sake?  It’s almost like I’ve got to keep f’ing things up so I won’t run out of things that can’t be fixed.   Such is the crazy train on which I ride.

I've noticed that time and its passage seem to be a theme in many of my posts so I suppose it is a big issue for me.  I don’t do the playground thing all of the time.  It comes and goes with no particular rhyme or reason.  It seems to be an obsession that materializes every so often - an indulgence that bears no fruit.  And when it happens, I have a very difficult time letting go.  But eventually I do.  For awhile. 

TIME...or My Existential Side...

 Time Has Come ~The Chambers Brothers

Time…somewhat illusory, don’t you think? I’ve thought about time my whole life really; and from a whole bunch of different perspectives and viewpoints depending on such variables as my age, circumstance and frame of mind. In fact, I even observe time in visuals – one in particular. Since I was a child I have always pictured the year – 12 months - like a clock. January is at 12:00; June at 6:00 and so on. I don’t know what prompted that visual but I’ve always had it and when I think of a month, I see it on a clock - always. But I digress…

Time…it is something we often take for granted, especially in our youth. I never thought about tomorrow in my teens and twenties. I didn’t plan a thing and lived only for the day. I suppose I had my reasons for that…doesn’t matter now. I remember at the age of 25, thinking, wow, I’ve got 25 more years before even hitting 50! Time in those days was an endless luxury. Days were longer and there seemed an infinite array of possibilities laid out before me. By the time I hit my mid 30’s my perspective was starting to shift a bit. I saw my mother and step-dad aging; watched their friends die and worried…how much longer before time would force me to endure their loss? I noticed the days becoming shorter. Still, at the age of say 37, I perceived an extravagant amount of time ahead of me – more than 10 years until I even hit fifty.

Time…it is camouflaged by seconds, minutes, weeks, days, months and years. 40 was a bit of a turning point for me. The folks were ill and where once I’d counted on them for assistance, they now counted on me. My own children were in the early stages of adulthood and I unwittingly became a grandmother at the age of 41. I felt the noose of time tightening around my neck.

Time… “is a sort of river of passing events, and strong as its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.” ~Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.  I’m now in my early 50’s. Somewhere – I’m not sure of the exact time or place, or the year or particular age, in the midst of the endless luxury of time, a small seed of awakening has been occurring, bringing with it the awareness of the passage of time. My view of time is vastly altered from the perception of my youth. Oh, I still see the clock – that never changes; only now I hear the ticking as well. My parents are gone and I’ve lost a dear friend. My children are well into adulthood and I’m watching my grandchildren grow, oh so fast. There is no denying the speed with which each moment in time is passing.

Time…, “Tomorrow and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day.” ~William Shakespeare. The interpretation of the word illusion is: “action of mocking;” “something that deceives or misleads intellectually;” “Perception of something objectively existing in such a way as to cause misinterpretation of its actual nature,” “a pattern capable of reversible perspective” (Merriam Webster). And that is time; an impossible to win game, an anomaly and something not to be grasped. Time is like a runaway train. You cannot keep up with it and don’t know how it has slipped through your fingers. I was just feeding my baby girl and yet 32 years have passed. I’m a grandmother with sore fingers, hormonal issues and gray hairs hidden by a $4 bottle of dye.

Time…it’s like a thief in the night. At the age of 53 I must conclude that the only way to grasp time is to let go of it. It’s not real. What is real is the moment in which we/I exist right now. The ones before and the ones to come are phantoms that exist to steal us away from savoring the present moment. Too much awareness of time forces one to live in a story of the past and/or a projection of the future, melancholy, angry or wistful for what has been and anxious, striving, fearful or discontent for what may or may not come.

Time has come today…to acknowledge and cherish this moment in time and recognize that is all there ever is.

Time…
“Now the time has come,
There are things to realize.
Time has come today…
Time has come today…”
~Chambers Brothers

STOP

Yesterday was Valentine’s day. You know – that popular holiday typified by large red hearts, ridiculously expensive gifts and cards, chocolate and all the other frills that can go along with it. But yesterday, the big red heart was replaced by a big red STOP sign in my head. Valentine’s day really doesn’t have much to do with today’s post unless you count the entire box of chocolates I ate yesterday, the effects of which I am still reeling from. STOP could have aptly been applied there. This post just took form on Valentine’s day.

I’ve been feeling overwhelmed lately. I can’t point to any one thing specifically. There seems to be a hodgepodge of circumstances, thoughts and emotions that are roiling around in my mind, making me feel slightly off center. I’m currently going through menopause so I could probably explain away about 90 percent of the crazy with that if I wanted to. But I don’t want to. Sure, I have rapid cycling hot flashes and mood swings that are probably terrifying to those with weaker constitutions, but that's just too easy. I will not be so easily dismissed. I will not go "gently into that dark night” without having my say and making a little commotion as it were.

Now I happen to be fortunate enough to have married a man whom I suppose is a perfect balance for me. While I struggle to remain positive, having been brought up in a pretty negative environment, he remains positive at almost all times. That really is a good thing because Tim, aka Pollyanna, often reminds me to look at the sunny side of life when he sees me spiraling. For this I am very thankful. For this I am also at times annoyed. Sometimes, his "turn that frown upside down" attitude makes me feel even a wee bit irritable.

I’m very busy. Hear me when I say this. I work full time and take care of a home. I pay the bills with a very tight budget, do the grocery shopping, laundry, cook the meals, plan and schedule, birthdays and holidays, shop for said events, troll for jobs in my field…you get the drift, especially if you are a woman reading this. So yesterday, we’re driving to our granddaughter’s basketball game, me and my sweetheart. As I've mentioned, positive thinking is not a natural trait of mine – I really have to work at it and I backslide sometimes. We’re in the car, it’s snowing, we’re late. My honey is driving slower that I would like and slows down even more when he realizes I am staring at the speedometer (he’s a little passive aggressive that way). I forgot to buy candy to take to my little ones for Valentine’s day so we have to stop at the store for that. There’s no windshield washer fluid in my van and there hasn’t been for days so we can’t see out of the windows. In addition, It’s Saturday and I have a laundry list of things that have to be done this weekend just to get us through the next week. You see where this is going right - the inevitable meltdown? It’s all building up inside of me and I open my mouth and say, “I hate being late, we still need windshield washer fluid, I can’t see out the window, I wish I had bought the candy yesterday, stupid drivers! I don't think I even took a breath. My partner responded by rolling his eyes and saying, “that’s right honey, let it all out at once,” in his most acerbic tone. A tiny revolution occurred in my mind at that moment. STOP STOP STOP! Every stop sign I saw was screaming at me. I had tears in my eyes. I had the fight the compulsion to cry for the rest of the day. My sweety never even suspected the mental insurgency that was happening during that ride to the basketball game.

And there it is. We’re all busy. But every woman I know will tell you that women bear the burden of time – or lack of it. And sometimes, we are the ones to blame. We don’t make time for ourselves. I thought it over today. I’ve been on Facebook lately – don’t ask…I’ll save that for another post. I’ve been seeing all of the beautiful youngsters that I knew from birth, all grown up and doing all of these wonderful things. I’m happy for them, I really am. But I'm jealous too. I’m looking at my endless years of childrearing, work, school and my two degrees that seem to mean nothing and wondering where the time went. I feel a sense of urgency that I can’t really explain. It seems that time is short and flying by so quickly. I have so many things that I want to do but not the time or resources to do them and fear that it will all be over before I know it. I love to sing and I’m pretty good. But I didn't do anything with that. I've always wanted to play the piano. I want to go to New York and Italy. I’m artistic and I like to write. I have an inventory that I won’t bore you with people!! I guess we all do. Suffice it to say that there are facets of myself that I don’t know much about and it may be time now for me to check them out.

I started my blog in January with a little post-holiday free time. I enjoy it – I get to say what I think even though I only have an audience of two. I have asked a few of my kids to read the blog and give me opinions but I think I can actually hear their eyes rolling in their heads. I haven’t received one response from them. I realize that they want me to be their mom. They don’t necessarily want to be burdened with the “me” beyond motherhood and grandparenthood. I understand that. I love being a mom and grandmother. But there is more to me and I’m thinking that now is the time time find out what those other parts of me are all about. Some people do that in the teens and 20’s but I was without direction and in the grips of the drug culture in my teens and a mother at the age of 20. Maybe now is my time. I wrote this today when I should be getting household chores done before a meeting that I am attending this afternoon. But the chores will have to wait. I needed to say this. STOP!

I am making a stop sign to remind myself that there is more to life than just our responsibilities. I am reminding myself to delegate more and work a little less. To stop and smell the roses sometimes. To spend a little time getting to know me. When I'm feeling crazy and overwhelmed, it will give me permission to just stop taking care of everyone and everything else and take some time for myself. That other stuff will be there when I'm done.