This blog is about the little and big thoughts that pop into my head. I once read that when Flannery O'Connor walked into a bookstore, she would want to edit her published works with a red pen. In the digital world, we have the luxury of tweaking things up after we've hit the publish button. I can be a perfectionist/procrastinator, where waiting for the ideal means little gets done. Here I will share what is not--and likely will never be--perfect.
They say
red wine
is good for you
that people who
drink red wine
live longer and healthier lives
than those who don't.
Why?
My thoughts:
Perhaps it isn't
the wine
that helps people live longer.
Maybe red wine drinkers
have more friends
more family
with whom they break bread
enjoy meals.
Maybe
it isn't
the wine
but companionship.
I've recently done some retail therapy. I have been feeling blue, and I needed a pick-me-up, as my father would say. Since I am now an empty-nester and divorced, I have all of my time and money to myself. I don't need to share. When I had kids, I have no problem spending money on them, but I felt guilt when I spent money on myself. I still do, but I am slowly getting over it. (I won't tell you how much money I have spent on art in the past year. Egads. Art dealers in Seattle know me by name.)
Aside from my crazy art buying binge (which really needs to stop one...of these days), I am happy with little luxuries, too. I recently bought pajamas with honey combs and bees and crowns. I love them and they bring me an unreasonable amount of joy. My second crazy and exciting purchase was a cordless vacuum cleaner. The cord on my current vacuum cleaner has a gap in the cord covering, and I don't want to electrocute myself or my dog, nor do I want to burn down the condo building, especially now that I am on the HOA board. That would be a bad look.
Pajamas and a new vacuum. That's my jam.
Purple socks purple socks
Hademade hand knit purple socks
I bought them at the Market
Wool and silk
Keep my feet soft and warm
and
soothe my soul
as I think of the person
who sat
and sat
and sat
patiently quietly
to make them
perhaps
in a meditative state.
The peace and calm
that comes with each stitch
is transferred
to me
as I wear them.
Purple socks purple socks
Purple socks
My phone shows me photographs I took from years ago. I was the family photographer, so pictures show up on my phone of my kids and ex all the time. I haven't bothered to delete the pictures of my ex yet, I don't have the energy to do that. He, on the other hand, only has a handful of pictures of me on his phone to delete. I bet he has move pictures of his new girlfriend on his phone than he has of me and the kids put together. And I am not kidding. I never saw his phone roll, but I rarely saw him take pictures of his former family. I, on the other hand, have thousands of photos.
When I look at the pictures from years ago, I see a woman who never thought her marriage would end, who didn't see what was coming. I look at my innocent self, not knowing the future, or what it would hold. Not that I wished that I could see my future, now or then. Back then, I was waiting for things to get better, to resolve, but they never did.
I look back at those pictures, and I see a woman who had no idea what she was doing, but she was doing the best she could at the time, even though her best wasn't that great. I wish that at the time I could have let go and enjoyed what I had instead of making everything a struggle. I wished that I believed everything was okay as it was. I wish I had enjoyed what I had. I wish I had better acceptance. I wish I would have acted with less reactivity and more kindness. I wish I would have listened more.
Would any of that have saved my marriage? I don't know, but I'd certainly feel better about myself and the way I acted.
As you all know, my ex very rapidly moved on, and within a few months after I asked for a divorce he found a girlfriend and has been in a relationship with her for more than two years. They both are successful professionals, run marathons and travel the world together. Many therapists have told me not to compare someone's outsides to my insides. Nevertheless, I am sure he treats her with more kindness and patience than he did me. I bet he doesn't flip his lid if her paddle board loses a screw like he did with me, blaming me for not attaching the screw that locks the fin in place properly. The fin didn't fall off, but the screw got lost in the seaweed at Green Lake.
The fact that he was rapidly able to dive into a new relationship while I am languishing makes me wonder if I was root cause of the failure of the marriage. Maybe I was a nagging shrew. Maybe I was unkind and unloving and angry. Maybe he lost his shit about a paddle board screw because he didn't feel loved. Maybe there was a way I could have been kinder, more loving and patient, without being a doormat. Maybe I could have as Richard Rohr says, "offer the wicked no resistance," meaning don't get defensive or reactive when confronted with things that are upsetting.
Here I am, pounded by holiday weekends, one after the other--Easter, my birthday, Mother's Day, Memorial Day--that I am spending alone. I have friends to hang out with the rest of the year, but the holidays are a special form of hell, and my mind wanders to miserable places. But this is okay. I need to feel all of my sorrow in order to heal, so I can show up better in the future.
Yesterday, I had a VIPG -- a Very Important Pickleball Game. Our team made the playoffs, whoo hoo!
I was talking to Pedro about it and I said I didn't think we'd make the finals after this round.
"Mom," he said, "you are a fucking adult. You don't play for fun. You play to win."
Right. I am going to have to figure that out.
And we did win, which is very cool. Our team won the playoffs last season, which was exciting, and also like not that exciting at the same time. Of course, it was nice to win, but the thrill wore off after thirty minutes. The ego loved it, but then the ego's happiness shelf-life is short before it looks for the next shiny new thing. Yet, I suppose winning is better than losing? I dunno.
Winning and losing is relatively new to me. As I've mentioned before, the only time I've every played competitive team sports was one infamous season of Cardinal Booster soccer in middle school. Soccer looks easy, right? You just run around and kick the ball. How hard can it be?
It was awful. I was the worst person on the team and I couldn't wait for the whole experience to be over. I was also disappointed that someone who was twelve had passed her prime and couldn't pick up a new sport without being drowned out by other kids who had been playing since they were six. There is seriously something wrong with the world that didn't allow a pre-teen to be a beginner at something.
So here I am again, trying something new, but having a better experience. Pickleball is a relatively new sport, so almost everyone is new to it. With the exception of a handful of people from Bainbridge, no one my age has played pickleball since they were a kid.
The biggest learning I am taking away from this experience: being the weak link or the worst person on the team. Our team captain has a strategy of pairing the best players together and the weakest together. Her idea is that out of the nine games (three games played by three pairs), the strong pairs will win three out of three for six victories out of nine. If the weak team loses by ten points or two, it doesn't matter if the other teams' victories are decisive.
I was re-reading my blog posts and I've seen how far I have come since the fall. Back then, I half of my serves were out of bounds. Now, I'll get one serve out of bounds in three games, a dramatic improvement. Once I became reasonably competent, I was terrified of losing, thinking it was my fault. I'd replay missed shots in my mind.
Now, I am okay with where I am at. I also know that my goal is to improve my skills, not just win. If I focus on winning, I am giving too much power to my opponents. I can't be depressed or sad if I lose to a pair that is better than I am. How can I get better if I only play people I can beat?
There should be a word
for when your hair is
still damp
from your morning shower
and sweaty from exercise
at the same time.
