The Curious Case of the Rambling Rose...or...For the Love of the Under-Appreciated!

I’ve had the occasion, of late, to be a little introspective where my family is concerned. 

When we are born we are always automatically assigned a role.  Big brother, baby sister, the good one, the bad one, the sneak, the funny one.  It happens to all of us. 

My role, as I see it, is a confusion of mixed messages and disappointments.

I am the eldest girl child of an eldest male child and a middle female child.  According to a genogram, this is rife with conflict for me and my mother.  Genograms are right.

I am as different from my mother and her view of the world as day is from night.  Because of this we have little in common.  Nothing in common actually except our relatives.  If it were not for family, I doubt I would find myself in her company.

Some examples of my introspection are as follows…

My mother was recently admitted to the hospital for a major surgery.  Pre-surgery we are all allowed back to see her.  She sits in the bed, anxious and wanting it over.  Beside her sits my next younger sister, the “middle child” the “good child” and at the other side of the room is my other sister, “the baby.”

I am there too, but realize without hesitation that I do not fit there.  Why don’t I fit there I begin to think?  I can come up with no logical explanation other than that I am there by birthright…and only that.

I even write Left-Brain a text that says, “I do not fit here, I do not feel a part of them.  I am an outsider in my family.”  I feel this to the core of my “oldest child,” “disappointment child” soul.

When my mother introduces us I’ve noted that she says “my girls.”  She says it while smiling at the other two, it is never said while smiling at me.  In fact, one time at a meeting with a geneticist, she told this woman “I do not know what I would have done without my daughters (insert daughter #2 and #3’s names)" and my name was left out.

Granted, I was living in another state when she needed care.  I did call and ask if I could come up and help and was told, “no…you stay there and work we will take care of it.”  I sent flowers, I called to check, but my calls have always been stilted with her as it seems she has little to say to me.  When I speak it is all being weighed, judged and found lacking or wanting. 

There are myriad examples of how this has played out over my life, and I won’t bore everyone with a litany of those things.  Suffice it to say, I don’t fit.  I am not they. 

Yesterday, I go up to see my mother in rehab after this latest surgery.  She looked up from her bed as “the middle sister” is sitting beside her, as she’d been for days, and said “oh, hello.”  No warm welcome.  No, I’m so glad to see you.  “The middle sister” tries to step into the void.  She really does have a good heart, and I am not sure if she is even aware that she has had to be the buffer for all our lives between our mother and myself.  I think it is just a conditioned response.  She greats me with a smile and hug.

As I sit there with our mother and my sister, I speak more easily and readily with my sister.  Our mother has such an easy repartee with my sister, I find it fascinating as this is something I’ve never had or felt.  The closest thing I have to it is my relationship with my one aunt who in all reality is more pseudo mother to me in my adulthood.  Did I seek my aunt out for that role, did she volunteer?  Either way it just worked out that way.

As I sit and ponder my thoughts on how again, I don’t fit, in walks my brother-in-law, husband to the “middle sister.”  I watch the face of my mother.  Her eyes light up, she smiles and says his name in love and happiness.  In walk their children, again, warm glow and a genuine happiness in seeing them.  I am not jealous of them, I am happy for them and curious as to why it is not the same for  me.

I think again…I do not fit.

It is not really the fault of my siblings that this happens, however, as that genogram shows, they see me through the prism of our mother’s view of me, and that does color their view slightly on me.  I agree with this wholeheartedly. 

What would it take to make her smile at me that way?  I have no idea, and at this age I believe it utterly impossible to happen.  I think our roles were set from the day I was conceived. 

I am me.  I am the eldest daughter of a middle daughter, who herself was the middle child of an eldest male child.  She was mistreated by the her father, she didn’t like him much.  What she felt for him she felt for me despite my having nothing to do with her feelings or her treatment by him.

Here I was, going to a hospital to sit with people who would not care if I were not there or not, here I was with a basket of special goodies I knew our mother would love, a gorgeous flower, and the gift of my heart.  It didn’t matter.  I do not fit.

So…why was I there, I began to ponder.  

I was there for me!  I was giving myself the future of not thinking, ‘I wish I had gone.’  I was giving myself the future of ‘they can’t say I didn’t care and was not here.’  I was giving myself the knowledge that while I don’t fit, and likely never will…I am a “good person”  a “good daughter.”

I was once in the hospital one hour away from all of them.  Not one of them came to see me, not one called, no one sent flowers.  I was there day in and day out.  Nothing.  I think this is very telling.   Why do I cross oceans for people who won’t cross rivers for me?  I’ll tell you why.  Although I am an afterthought, and although I do not fit, I like the role I know I was meant to play.  While they see me as the "trouble or troubled one,"  "the blacksheep one,"  "the backslidden one,"  "the one who married an outsider,"  "the one who didn't capitulate to what I was taught,"  "the sneaky one,"  "the one who distances themselves" I know better. I believe even they see me as "the one who doesn't fit."  

I know what I am, however...I am the “thoughtful one.”  I am the “long-suffering one.”  I am “the independent one.”  I am “the non-judgmental one.” 

 The words of a Dolly Parton song say it best for me.

The hills were alive with wildflowers
And I was as wild, even wilder than they
For at least I could run, they just died in the sun
And I refused to just wither in place

Just a wild mountain rose, needing freedom to grow
So I ran fearing not where I'd go
When a flower grows wild, it can always survive
Wildflowers don't care where they grow

And the flowers I knew in the fields where I grew
Were content to be lost in the crowd
They were common and close, I had no room for growth
And I wanted so much to branch out

So I uprooted myself from my home ground and left
Took my dreams and I took to the road
When a flower grows wild, it can always survive
Wildflowers don't care where they grow

I grew up fast and wild and I never felt right
In a garden so different from me
I just never belonged, I just longed to be gone
So the garden, one day, set me free

I hitched a ride with the wind and since he was my friend
I just let him decide where I'd go
When a flower grows wild, it can always survive
Wildflowers don't care where they grow

Just a wild rambling rose, seeking mysteries untold
No regret for the path that I chose
When a flower grows wild, it can always survive
Wildflowers don't care where they grow

Wildflowers don't care where they grow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbZHguOCi3Q

I just never belonged, I just longed to be gone…

I still feel this.  I feel it to my core.  I am different.  I am not the role assigned, I am me.  A wildflower.  Different than they.  I don’t believe as they do.  I don’t live as they do.  I don’t want to adhere to their rules and their notions.  Because of that, I just never belonged…and that is ok.

It doesn’t mean that I don’t see it often.  I always will.  

It doesn’t mean that not fitting doesn’t make me uncomfortable, it does…or perhaps me being different makes them uncomfortable and I feel it.

I know my God loves me, as is.

I know my husband loves me, as is.

I sometimes wish I fit better.  Especially when sitting in a room and seeing I do not.  I then remind myself, however, that doing this is for me, pick my chin up and be myself.  If I am not as good as they or as good as they want to see me... I am for me.

Day-in-and-Day-Out, For Better or Worse LOVE!

What is love?  There have been books written on this topic, songs sung about it, and many hearts filled or broken over it.

I’m talking, however, about real love.  Not the infatuation that one feels when first in love, but the meat and bones of love.  The day-in-and-day-out love.  The for better or worse love.

I believe that all of us have felt some sort love at one time or the other in various forms.  The love of parent for child, the love of friendship, the joy of young romantic love, the rush of hormonal love, but I want to talk today about forever love.

I am a very lucky woman.  When I was at my lowest, heart broken and hardening, life in shambles, body breaking down…in strolls my forever love.  

Oh, I’ve felt love before.  I both had and felt, from my father, a very close parental love.  My aunts (sans one) are amazing in how they share love.  In fact, my father’s sisters love you so much and so hard that sometimes it doesn’t just wrap around you, it clobbers you, like a wave that rushes full and strong toward you.  My uncles are fun and loving, my cousins phenomenal in their capacity for love.

In my younger years I, of course, felt the pangs of unrequited love, and love reciprocated…puppy love, as it were.  I got older and truly fell in love with a man that would eventually teach me that you can love someone utterly and have that love die a quick, pain-filled death.  It was during this time that I made great mistakes in my anger and hurt.  

It was in this time that I began to harden my heart.  When deep loves dies that quickly, it does something to the one wronged and you either slog through it and come out victorious, slog through it and let it harden you totally, slog through it and make mistakes and learn from them…or just give the heck up on love altogether.

I tended to be the slog through it, making some ridiculous mistakes, but coming out victorious type.  Thank a good, forgiving and loving God for that!

My for better or worse love comes in the form of a dark-haired, hazel-eyed, bespectacled mountain of a man.  

It doesn’t actually matter what physical form my day-in-and-day-out love presents itself, it is the content of that being that makes it something truly spectacular.

There I was, disillusioned, broken, hurting (I lived like that for 10 years), and becoming more and more physically ill and still my love came toward me.  

I’ve learned that meat and bones love will always come toward you, never run from you. 

The thing I’ve learned from my deep and abiding love…it is deep and abiding. 

•          My love tries to never hurt me intentionally and if he does so unintentionally he feels worse about it than I do. 
•          My love has my back.  Always.  What a thing!
•          My love assures me that not only am I good enough, to him…”as is” is the way he prefers it.
•          My love helps me discover things within myself that not only make me stronger but happier.
•          My love has seen me at my worse, and loves me more.
•          My love has seen me broken and bruised and has raised me up in prayer, and in spirit.
•          My love has seen me scared, held me close to his heart and has assured me that in the end…we’ll figure it out together, and really…what can’t we accomplish, when we do it together?
•          My love understands that sometimes, I can be controlling, and forgives me that.
•          My love understands that sometimes, I can be critical, and forgives me that.
•          My love looks at me without make-up and hair done and still finds me beautiful.
•          My love knows how to make me feel girlish and blush-ey.
•          My love knows I am actually a very determined girl, and that sometimes that means I’ll want to do things I should not, by myself.  He is smart enough to allow me to try and never say “you knew better” when the pain hits later…he knows that my independence, and keeping it as long as possible is paramount to me.  He hates that I go ahead and do it, but he allows me to complain afterward with just an “I’m sorry sweetheart.”
•          My love knows my history, the REAL history of my life.  He is the only person besides a couple friends and two cousins that I’ve shared it all with.  He knows the real me.  The ugly parts, the scary parts, the mean parts…we all have those, but he looks at me and assures me that even at my most unlovable, he loves me.
•          My love, loves my quirks!

The litany of things that my love has helped me with, or shown me, or lived through with me is long.  I could never list them all…but one thing stands out above anything I could ever write or express fully – When the going gets tough, my love is tougher, stronger, kinder and gentler.  Through his love, I too am tougher, stronger, kinder and gentler.

I won the lotto of life, and I won it later in life.  A co-worker believes that karma gives you something exceptional when you’ve been through the fire.  There might be something to that.

WHERE did that bird come from?

For several weeks now we have been dealing with a rather cringe-worthy problem.

Somehow birds are getting into our chimney and finding themselves stuck in our fireplace.  Well, perhaps stuck is not actually the term I should use.

For weeks every spring we can hear the starlings, a rather nasty bird, rubbing their beaks over the cover that keeps birds and squirrels from crawling down our chimney.  I will go out on the deck and yell at them as the rat-a-tat-a-tat-tat of their constant rubbing is a great deal annoying.  Left Brain will bang on the front of the fireplace, making more noise than the birds to scare them off.  Both methods are effective, WHEN WE ARE HOME.  It is when we are out that it becomes an issue.

About 3 weeks ago, I tell Left Brain that I believe one of the little blighters has found his way down the chimney and was stuck.  We made a plan.  We'd open the flue when we got home and let him fly into a sheet we'd masterfully held (I would hold it with a death grip) over the open chimney, flip the flue and catch that sucker.

Starlings are ugly, dirty birds with very bad habits.  My father loathed them.  They will drive out "good" birds, even killing their young in the nest.  They have lice, mites and ticks.

At lunch, I get a call from Jamie, the dog walker.  She says she came in to find both dogs facing the fireplace, the cat between them, all staring intently heads cocked and ready for action.

I told her not to worry about it, as the flue was shut.  Was being the operative word.

Bupkes the Impaler

I come in from work that night to find Custer all lathered up and panting.  I have no idea why.  He's hyper excited and all over me to come look at something.  I kept thinking he had no water until he edged me to our bedroom.  There on the bed sat Bupkes, our little Manx cat killing machine.  He's the grim reaper of vermin in our area.
Bupkes has a gleam in his eye and his little stubby tail is moving in the hypnotic rhythm, lulling the bird, which was on the ceiling fan, into a trance, in hopes the bird would either fall off or fly off and provide a moment or two of killing fun for him!
I shut the door and leave the cat to it!

I call Left Brain, tell him what he was facing when he came home and went to make dinner.  

It used to be a nice mirror!

Left Brain gets in from work, goes in with our grandkids pollywog net, corners that filthy bird in our master bath and takes it outside.  It flies off without a "thank you for my life and for sparing me death by Bupkes" and we think how did it get in?

We then note that the flue had been bumped open...thank you Custer, who had chased that bird, and likely cat too, until he was ready to pass out, had run into the long dressing mirror and shattered it.  We knew it had to have been him as our other dog, Sherman had little to no interest in the shenanigans.  Yep...Custer had had to have bumped that flue open.

The next week we hear another bird in the fireplace.  NO WAY.  The scratching of its claws and cries of "I want out"  are pretty hard to ignore, but...we had a flea market to go to.  We put our fireplace screen up to keep the dog from opening the flue again and go...with the plan to remove the bird, with our previously hatched plan of a sheet and an open flue, when we get home.  Again, this WAS the plan.

We get home from the flea market to find the fire screen (wrought iron...wonder who moved that?) down on the floor, the mesh screen torn from the front of the fireplace where it was attached and what looked like insulation sticking out of the vent holes in the side of the fireplace unit to draw air to make the fireplace burn more effectively.  

Left Brain is bringing in the goodies from the car and I am thinking...really?  The insulation?   Was it insulation?  NO.  It was part of that stupid starling (yes again) slobbery and wet...and very very dead.  The cat had pulled out what he could.  I touched it which incited much "gross, gross, gross" from me and had Left Brain running in.  Poor man had to don gloves and pull that bird apart to get it out of the fireplace, which now looks like it was hit by a hurricane.  It was.  Custer and his cohort in evil, Bupkes had made sure it was as destroyed as the bird they had tormented.  It was an intruder into their abode...it deserved to die!

Two days ago...we hear a bird.  This time we are not waiting to get it out.  Two times stupid are we, but three times was not going to happen.  We have a plan.  The sheet is up, the net at the ready, the doors in the rooms closed, the doors outside wide open.  Left brain opens the flue. . . NOTHING.  Nothing came out.  It was a case of could hear it but not get to it.  A repeated try garnered the same result.

The fireplace guy is due out this week, so we thought, we'll stack heavy boxes in front of the fireplace, so the screen can't be knocked down...and that'll do it.  That bird will be there when the guy gets here...all is gorgeous in our world.

We watch a little mind-numbing television last night...not worried.  The flue is shut, it is blocked, the fireplace is blocked, the screen firmly in place.  Yep, let the fireplace guy deal with this.  We'll just keep our Dr. Destructo dog and murdering cat where they can do no harm.

Or...that was the plan.

Last night, I go into our room.  I get ready for bed, then climb into bed.  Left Brain was letting the dogs out and shows up a few minutes later and says...

WHERE DID THAT BIRD COME FROM?

Despite all our tries at keeping the murdering marauders from getting at that bird, it seems somehow they had.  Not just that...they had hidden it all day and brought it out as a family gift late at night.  SURPRISE!  It lay in the middle of the bedroom floor, wet, bedraggled and very, very dead.

I guess sometimes it just doesn't matter what you do...the best laid plans of mice and men....!

Friday and the fireplace guy cannot come soon enough!

Chronic/Progressive Illness and how Others Treat You

I'm going to have to go back and look, but I don't think I over-talk over-much about my ailments.

I know I do occasionally and my hope is when I go back and look I don't see that I've swamped this blog with thoughts on illness.  My hope is to share some of my insight and thoughts and eventually my grandchildren will come to find them and know what I thought deep down inside.

I think that when one looks "O.K." on the outside, people that don't know them assume they are fine. I can understand that.  These people do not know you, so they presume by the packaging, that you are fine.  This often becomes an issue in the case of handicapped parking spots.

People see someone exit a vehicle in a handicapped spot and if they are not limping, using a cane or weaving all over it seems the negative thought of..."Hmmmph, what a lazy son of a pup that person is...nothing is wrong with them," takes hold when the reality is that their disease causes fatigue you can't understand until you've hit that wall so hard you know you have to go to bed NOW or pass out. You never know...it could be internal trauma of some sort, really a myriad of things.

It is a case of ... the packaging looks fine but the goods are damaged.

I've received packages from UPS that had glass items as their content.  The package on the outside looked like it was unscathed, but the contents were a mash up of broken glass and sharp edges.

That people that know and profess to love you see you as slightly flawed, but how bad can it be (?) makes me sad.  You still look normal to them and because your illness has been going on for years, and you still look the same outside, they negate what you deal with.  This is sometimes hurtful and sometimes sadly amusing.

I think too, that I'd have to say there is a form of aggravation that one feels toward these people.  Do we want them weeping and gnashing their teeth over our condition, no.  But when you have a bad day and it is blown off as if you have had the flu and will get over it, it does cause aggravation in me.  I know it does my fellow chronic/progressive/no-cure disease sufferers.  How do I know this?  I know this because on many of my support groups it is OFTEN a topic of conversation.  Most feel it is as if these people who aver that they love you get so used to you being unwell that when you progress they just see it as a flair or something you'll eventually get over.

What do we want or expect from those that live with us, or are near and dear to us?

1.  We want them to allow us to feel bad and say so.  I don't care if I've said it 10 times before.  If you think of all the times I feel horrible, but never say, when I DO say, that is a signal to the people that love me, that it is quite a bad day.

2.  We don't want you to answer our problems and ills for us.  We want a little empathy, or a simple "that sucks."  That's all.

3.  We want you to know that we aren't going to miraculously wake up, as if the day after a 24 hour virus and be ok.  It "ain't" gonna happen.

It is as simple as that.

So I'd like to point out something to anyone who may, down the pike read this.

Much like the glass that was demolished in that very sturdy, "O.K." looking shipping container, we who suffer from disease that is chronic/progressive and has no cure (and some of us deal with several of these at the same time) are the same.  Sturdy and "O.K." looking on the outside but filled with hurtful things, damaged things within.

So to my darling Left Brain...thank you for understanding me best.  Thank you for understanding that I work VERY hard to appear like I feel normal when I feel anything but.  Thank you for reminding me when you think I am overdoing it, and most of all...thank you for never negating the ugly parts.  Just saying "I know, and sweetheart I'm sorry," is more often than not...just the ticket.

A Mother's Love

I try to live my life by the philosophy that is stated as my blog title.  Truly, in my life, the glass has technically been always full.  That's not some Pollyanna'ish quip, for me, I feel happier looking at things more positively.  In every ugly situation I've been fortunate that my attitude can eventually find its way to something positive, or at least laughable, within that situation.

One thing I can, and never will be able to understand is how a mother can cut off her children.  My ex-husband's sister did that.  I used to look at her and think, "you fool, the things you miss, the things you will never know, the heart fillings you're missing out on."   She got older, her child's life continued, full and happy, so who did she hurt in the long run?  Herself.  Oh, I'm sure he (her child) was hurt as well, but not nearly as much as she would be.  One day she will look back and think, "why?"

I've been written off by two people in my life.  The first one, and the one I actually struggled to deal with, was my youngest son.  To this day I do not know why he decided to write me off.  One day he seemed fine, the next...nothing.  I was informed he would no longer be in contact or want anything to do with me.  This was his choice and not mine.  It caused me a lot of confusion and hurt...at first.  It no longer does.  Oh...there are times (holidays, his birthday) that I think of him and then shelve it.  It is for the best.  This is HIS choice, not my own.  Should he come back and say, "mom I love you, I need to *insert whatever* and be in your life...I'd open my arms and heart.  But if he does not, I have come to learn that is ok too.  Some of the things in his life have caused me undue stress...and my health, well, it can't take it.

The other person who wrote me off, and probably truly has all my life is my mother. I could write a novel on this woman.  She has always been a negative person, and I honestly think that is fine with her.  I have often been asked, "how did you end up so positively charged when raised by a negative being?"  I think my sister, Bink, said it best.  "We learned how NOT to parent, or be, by watching her."

I find myself often puzzled by why my father married her.  I wonder if he wouldn't have been happier married to another person, one who liked joy and music.  One who liked silliness and loud, belly laughs.  Ah well, I'm getting off on a tangent here.

My mother feels a type of love for some things.  My sisters.  She does love them.  I've watched her love them.  So yes, while it is not a typical mother/child love, it is a love of sorts.  She adores my children.  I didn't do anything other than THEM right in her eyes.  While breast feeding them as babies she informed me "that is something dirty whores and filthy animals do."  Yep, that's her.  It's a possessive love she feels toward them.  She loves my grandbabies, who wouldn't...they're beyond wonderful.  But other than that...really???  She loves not  much.  Not even within her own definition of love.

I often wondered, as a child, what it was about  me that made her feel such awful and ugly things about me.  I wasn't a child that strayed far afield of my boundaries.  Shoot, we were all too afraid to do that.  I didn't cause trouble at home, church or school.  But it was always there, and I felt it.  I knew it.  Disdain. Judgement.  Cold and harsh.  My aunts and uncles could feel it.  Several of them on both sides of the family have told me so.

Fast forward to today.  Since I divorced my husband, a man my mother was continually avowing to others was too good for me it has become worse.  She felt he was someone I didn't deserve.  I met a man who makes me happier and stronger, and moved in with him.  Mom sees it as SIN, I see it as economically sound. My mother also found out that the son that has disowned me is gay.  This child was her favorite...well, what I thought was disdain before all this happened has fallen to the wayside and become something infinitely uglier. 

Recently, my grandmother passed away.  Left Brain and I drove to the funeral and as my one aunt said, upon my entrance it was as if my mother had swallowed a mouth of alum.  This same aunt has since informed me that  my mother believes I was swapped with another child at the hospital.  That I could not be hers.  That some other woman was raising HER child. 

The humor in that last statement is huge.  If one could see a photo of me and my sisters there is no denying we are sisters. 

I'll just say I've written a lot about about her coldness to me...but you can't miss what you've never had.  I've never had the warm, friendly, loving mother.  I've always had a cool, harsh one.  That's the one I know.  And yes, the one I love.  People find that hard to believe, but you can love someone, respect them, but not like them.  And that is where I am at.

What I learned from my mother is this...

~People who should love you don't always.  That's ok.   There are people in your world who will step in and take that place in some manner, if you allow them to.

~Children were made for kisses and cuddles..."I love you's" and long singing sessions at the top of your lungs...just because it feels good.  Happy memories are made of these things.

~People who matter, will.  It doesn't matter what you do, or what straits you find yourself in, those that matter, and to whom YOU  matter, will be there for you.  When you find one of those people...hang on to them for all its worth, and it is worth a lot!

~If you haven't made someone happy in 53 years of trying, you probably never will.  Don't try it their way, you did that for too long...try it your way and find your way to happy.

~Attitude is a choice...why not choose a happy, love-filled one.

~You cannot change what is happening around you at times, but what you can change is your reaction to it.

Life's a ride.  Finding the people who make you a better you, those are the people you want to be with.  I love those that find me unlovable.  As I've aged, I'm finding I am ok with that.

Rambling

I love to travel.

I've been quite fortunate to do a fair bit of travel, both in my country and abroad.

In fact, when I have not had a trip of sorts...I tend to feel an odd sort of withdrawal, a need to get a move on.

My rambles don't have to be grand trips abroad or even of great length, but I do need a bit of a wander from time to time.  Right now, I'm feeling the tug at my heartstrings, "it is time for a ramble."

Oh, there are places Left Brain and I would love to see.  I'd love to show him some of the places I've been to that he has not, and I know his heart is so full of hope to someday show me Spain.  If I am being honest, Spain had never been on my top ten "must see" places, but to see it through his eyes, through his love of the place has major appeal to me.  I'd stand with a smile on my face as he blathered away in his lisping Castilian Spanish to some Spaniard who will marvel at his accent and skill with the language, as he tells them "her, oh no, she does not speak Spanish," and smile.  

But right now, with a big kitchen re-do in the works and our just getting on our feet after Left Brain's long employment dry spell , we don't have the money for a grand adventure.  Add in that Left Brain's new job, along with the Orwellian boss and rules that go with the new job, leaves him with no time off to go on an extended ramble. 

So...my head begins to percolate with ideas of short trips we can go on.  

Right now, Left Brain's baby brother is looking into adopting a little lovely down in Texas.  He and his beautiful wife have hearts as big as the state they live in and this little one has special needs.  I would LOVE to get down to be there for her adoption.  To introduce ourselves, steal some love and see the sights that Texas has to offer.  Neither of us have ever been to Texas and every great once and again an airfare comes across the screen that will make it feasible for a visit.  That's down the pike though, and not for right now.

With Memorial Day coming along, we had plans to go to Kentucky to visit my family.  My cousin Cheryl is as close to me as anyone else in my world.  I also love, dearly, my cousin Brenda.  Seeing them fills me with that something only those that love you unconditionally can give.  Left Brain loves to go south as well, but that is family visiting, and while that lifts my spirits and blankets me in love, it doesn't give me what a good ramble does.

So the question of, "where shall we go?" remains.  

I've been thinking that a nice long visit to our state's upper peninsula may be the ticket.  Left Brain  hasn't seen a great deal of it, and this may be just the time to go on up and see where his uncle is buried, allow me to show him the mountains of Michigan and to hear a bit more of the Yooper accent, we both love that.  

The beauty of God's paintbrush always fills both Left Brain and me to the brim with joy.  Short rambles like this, with little planning and little cost, are often those that leave a whole chapter in your life book filled with the sweetest memories.  When I think back at my childhood, I don't remember so much the big trips to Disney as I do those campouts in remote campgrounds and long bike rides through the forests of Michigan.

Actually, it matters not where we go, any trip with the darling of my heart will always fill me with energy, delight and memories.   I feel a ramble coming on.

And so...I Married My Best Friend

It has been a forever since I checked in.  Life kind of got in the way.

Left Brain and I did it.  We got married.  Much to the chagrin of my very religious family we lived together for 5 years prior to getting married so when people heard we were finally doing the deed, they kept asking, "are you so excited?"

The truth is this.  No.  No, I was not excited.  In my heart I had been married to Left Brain the entire time we lived together.  I couldn't "call" him husband, but husband he was.

My Aunties Crystal and Geneva both said the same.  "In God's eyes you are married.  You've committed to each other, so what does it matter what man thinks."  Those of the uber religious set see it differently, however.

When you feel you were already married the wedding seemed more of a 'make it official' thing that needed to happen, I suppose.  In fact, now that we are married Left Brain prefers I call him husband.  I still prefer to call him boyfriend.  When he is old(er) and gray(er) ... he will still be my boyfriend.  In my heart, this is how I see him.

Did I marry Left Brain to hush up the talk, or to soothe the ruffled feathers of a very judgmental and vastly ashamed mother?  Again, the answer is "NO."  I married him because I wanted to marry my best friend.  I wanted to share his name.  I wanted to be his in the official sense, but more than anything else, I married him because I love him!

Left Brain's mother (a woman that I regret never having been able to meet;  I'd have loved her utterly) used to say, "God writes straight with crooked lines."  In our case the lines were more jagged, but the sentiment is the same.  God got us where He wanted us, in a rather hectic, up and down way.  Despite the roller coaster ride, I am very thankful to God for getting us there!

Our wedding was a small affair attended by very few people, and only people that we wanted to witness it.  I'm so glad his best man, John, who was there to support Left Brain through thick and thin was there going "top banana" a term he used for buying a new suit.  I'm glad my Cheryl Lou was there and her sweet husband.  Her family is closer to me in ways than anyone else, and that pleases my heart and blesses my soul.

The minister, a high school friend, had asked us to write letters to him describing why we wanted to marry each other and what we loved about the other with the intent of using some of the content of those letters in our vows.  The letters were written, the words never used in the service as he didn't 'have time to read them.'  But here is what I wrote about my best friend, my darling, my boyfriend...my  husband...

It is hard for me to differentiate between why I love Left Brain and what I love about Left Brain. Many of the things I feel about Left Brain and my love OF him fall into both categories.

One of the most wonderful things about Left Brain is his incredible generosity.  To his friends he is giving, he is thoughtful, he is helpful, he is kind.  Take those things and multiply them by 1000 and you would have a small glimpse into his generosity towards me.

If I know nothing else in my life, I know that with Left Brain, I am loved.  Loved utterly.  Loved as I am.  Being myself is not merely OK with him, it is encouraged.  He wants me to only be true to who I am and never worry about being what others want me to be.  "Just K" is "just fine" with Left Brain.

With Left Brain I am free to say it all, to feel it all, and to know that no matter what, I am loved.  There is no judgment, there is only love for me.  Sometimes I know I do things that are unlovable, but even then, I can see and feel Left Brain's love of me.  To feel loved in this manner is filling.  It brings me courage and strength.

Left Brain is strong, he is hopeful, he is happy, he is delightfully ornery and more than anything else that he is...he is mine to keep and love and hold dear for eternity.

His laughter warms me, I love nothing more than to make him chuckle and have him repeat what I've said as if he can't actually believe I'd say something like that.  It tickles him, and it that makes me happy all over.  His arms feel like home to me.  If I am scared that is where I want to be.  If I am sad, it is the only place that comforts me.  If I feel great joy, I want to be right there, in his arms to share that with him.  Love doesn't run from us, it doesn't hurt us, it runs to us, protects us, shares with us, protects and buoys us.

He's given me reason to believe that everything really IS going to be alright.  His mother used to say, "God writes straight on crooked lines."  Left Brain says "Sweetheart, He knows where He wants us to be, and we'll get there eventually" and while that is something I've always known, Left Brain feels that to his bones.  We'll get there.  Maybe not in the way we intended, but get there...we will.

I love that he is quirky and ornery, dry and sometimes droll.  I love that I will always be able to count on him.  I love that he is brilliant, he'll scoff at that but anyone who has spent 10 minutes with my Webster, really getting to know him, knows this!  I love that he is learning to let go of some self-doubt, realize he is loved no matter what, and that everyone makes mistakes.  That life is supposed to be messy and that through it all, we do better, when we do it together!

I love that when my grandchildren are with us, he treats them kindly, with love and respect.  I am so pleased that he too has fallen in love with them and I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that they know he loves them.  They tell me they love him too.  How could they not?  He sees them as I do, intelligent, precocious and he deeply treasures that and them.

Left Brain and I found each other late in life, and because of that I believe that we both feel deeply that the time we have together should be spent encouraging each other, being there for each other and sharing as many experiences together as we can, while we can.

I'm so glad that Left Brain and I get to share the rest of our forever.  

Yep, so...I married my best friend and it will always make me happy to be in any way near him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o96r6qr9CEw