There are a few different regular UPS drivers who deliver to the office where I work. One of them is a guy who used to be the regular UPS guy for the place I worked back in the mid-to-late-80’s. I don’t think he remembers me from back then because I’m quite a bit older now, but I remember him because he hasn’t changed a bit. Seriously. Like the way Dick Clark didn’t change for so many years. It’s almost creepy.
When he delivered a package yesterday, I got to thinking about just how many years ago it was that he used to deliver to the other office, and how much has changed. Twenty years ago, in 1989, I was 25.
In 1989:
My hair was still dark even without my dying it.
I weighed (muffled, unintelligible word) pounds less than I do now. I wasn’t “thin”, but I weighed a whole lot less.
I had no arthritis and no symptoms of fibromyalgia (other than depression, which is related, but then again, is related to everything I deal with).
I was able to sit with my foot under me in my chair at work.
I still smoked.
My migraines hadn’t started yet.
I had a lot of sinus trouble.
I wore aqua-colored contact lenses, which prompted a lot of compliments, but I always felt I was cheating, since the compliments weren’t for my real eye color, and I went back to clear lenses.
I used to occasionally wear heels to work, but I never got the hang of walking in them, so I eventually blamed my height (I was about 5′11″ at the time) and quit trying to wear them.
I wore makeup at least a few times a week then.
I smoked pot. A lot.
I had been in love with my best friend for five years and finally admitted it.
I came out.
I still had my small, old, black and white TV from when I was a teenager, but it never bothered me that I couldn’t watch TV in color. Even though it seemed to bother my friends.
I was still years away from knowing what gluten was, let alone that I shouldn’t eat it.
I ate a lot of Whoppers back then.
Burger King Whoppers, not the malted milk balls, although those are also a no-no on a gluten free diet.
I’d felt the loss of a pet, a year or so before that, when I had to have my beloved cat, Indigo, put to sleep.
I didn’t know, yet, what it felt like to have a relationship, or a breakup.
My parents were still young and the looming reality that I will have to say goodbye to them one day was not part of my daily ruminations yet.
I had no idea that within a year, I would begin a relationship that would change the lives of everyone in my immediate family, in ways I would not have believed, had I been given a glimpse into the future.
I’d been in counseling before (may have even been in counseling that year) but I’d never stuck around long enough to call it therapy, or to make the kind of progress I’ve made this last year.
I did not know that I had Adult ADD.
I thought I knew what fatigue was then. I had no idea it could get so much worse.
I thought I had a clutter problem then. See second sentence of the point above.
I’d heard of Microsoft Windows but had never seen a computer with it installed.
My niece and nephews were all under seven. They’re all grown up now, and have spouses or fiances; the boys both have either children or a child on the way.
I didn’t know any of my three closest local friends yet. I have been getting back in touch with some of my older friends on facebook lately, though, which is nice, but I’m not in touch with the two friends I was the closest with, back then.
I thought I would never lose touch with many of the people who were in my life at the time.
I had no idea that SS existed, or that my life wouldn’t begin to be lived with the depth of feeling that I’m seeing is possible until my hair turned silver.
Yes. A lot has changed.
I should ask the UPS Guy how many things have changed in his life.
I truly didn’t believe there could be anyone out there who was this perfectly suited for me. I mean, what were that chances of that? In every relationship, there are compatibilities and there are differences. There are the things that work out easily and the obstacles to overcome. In each of my past relationships, there were those issues that I had to ask myself if I were willing to accept and work with, and I’m sure each of the people I had relationships with had to ask themselves similar questions about me. In each case, the final answer was “no”.
Fast forward through several years of my being unwilling to trust again or allow myself to be vulnerable; my shutting down of so many parts of myself connected to the passion and joie de vivre that I’m rediscovering now; the unraveling, layer by layer, of the health issues I’ve been dealing with and what works to lessen the symptoms of each; two-plus years of therapy; and my beginning to pay attention to and appreciate those things that bring me bliss . . . and like dominoes, everything else fell into place.
One night, while having a great visit with my friend RB, I brought up the topic of asking the Universe for what one wants. We talked about how some people make a list of all the qualities they would want in a mate and put it out there for the Universe to find that person. I was actually joking when I said that if I were to want someone in my life (and I quickly qualified that I did not, although that may have been the moment I peeled the very tiniest tip off of the corner of my anti-relationship resolve), I would want someone like a physicist (because I figured a physicist would be willing to ponder with me about the sorts of things I like to ponder about; the things that cause most people to look at me with an amused or bemused or bored expression, like time travel and multiple universes and astral projection and energy fields). I added that I would prefer a person with Celiacs as well, so that gluten and the sharing of a kitchen would not be an issue. We then began to build (in a joking way) on what other qualities this Celiac Physicist Person would possess.
I went home and began to compose a list (complete with a disclaimer at the top, saying that I wasn’t actually ready to ask for this person, just in case the Universe was reading over my shoulder). I wound up with 58 carefully thought-out items on my list. Items such as “Is a good communicator”, “Is a night owl like me”, “Understands therapy”, “Appreciates compromise on both our parts”, “Understands ADD but does not have it”, “Understands fibromyalgia but does not have it”, “Respects boundaries”, “Is not controlling or manipulative”, “Level of mental health, self awareness, and personal growth is compatible with mine”, “Spiritual / religious views are compatible with mine”, “Moral values are compatible with mine”, “Political views are compatible with mine”, “Sense of humor is compatible with mine”, along with many items that were more personal. Many of the items on my list came from what I learned was wrong for me in previous relationships, but many also came from what I learned had been right. I used the phrase “compatible with mine” to indicate that I wouldn’t want to be with someone who was “just like me” in too many ways, but that it’s possible to hold differing but compatible views, opinions, and qualities, and often those things tend to allow one to enhance or balance the other.
Well, I wrote my list and then put it away. I figured if I ever reached the point of really wanting someone in my life, I would get it back out and dust it off then, and polish it, before putting the request out there.
But the Universe was evidently reading over my shoulder. And it turned out that I already knew this person, who is not a physicist and does not have Celiacs. She does, however, ponder things the way I do (and even on similar or compatible topics as the ones I love to ponder), and she has decided to become completely gluten free, for me. That touches me so deeply, the way she so matter-of-factly and willingly decided to do that. For us.
I’ve always believed (with the exception of those times when I was too emotionally constricted and cut-off from my feelings to believe in anything) that things happen for a reason, and at the time they are supposed to happen. This certainly feels destined or fated, and I would not have been ready for this six months, or three months, or even three weeks, before the time when it began to develop to beyond-friendship feelings.
Even though I’m not normally one to quote biblical verses, I keep hearing, in my mind, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1, American Standard version).
If someone had told me, when I was a kid in the ’70’s, that when I grew up I’d be able to type a message into a machine, press a button, and someone clear across the world could read and respond to that message within seconds, I would have been astonished. I wouldn’t have been able to wait to grow up!
If they’d told me we would have tiny telephones that we could carry in our pockets and talk on just about anywhere, especially using tiny wireless earpieces that would allow us to have both hands free to drive or do whatever, I wouldn’t have even been able to imagine it. Seriously, I remember when I bought a 25 or 30 foot phone cord, when I was in my late teens, that allowed me to walk around with the phone in my hand (hands; the receiver in one and the base in the other) and not be forced to sit in one spot to talk. I thought that was the ultimate in freedom!
I remember “taping” Saturday Night Live with my best friend, back in the late ’70’s. We taped the audio with our little portable cassette players (placed on a chair, in front of the TV speaker) and listened to the skits over and over again all week, recalling the visual in our minds. We’d heard about something called a Betamax, that allowed a person to record TV shows and watch them later, and we were in awe. We didn’t actually know anyone who had one, but that was what we would buy if we were rich, for sure!
My family and I used to go to Disney World when I was a kid, and I remember being particularly amazed by the Carousel of Progress‘ future predictions. It showed a woman sitting in front of her TV, actually buying things over the telephone when they appreared on the screen! When Home Shopping first caught on, I remember telling my friends that I’d seen that at Disney. There was also a teenaged girl in her bedroom, watching music videos while she talked on her phone! Pre-MTV! Who knew? Walt Disney did, apparently.
If someone had shown me a picture of a laptop computer, especially one of those little netbooks, and told me they could do things that those huge computers (the kind with all sorts of buttons and lights and reel-to-reel tape things; the computers that spit out cards with holes in them) couldn’t do, I’d have said, “Nuh-uh!”
And all this has inspired me to make a list of Fifteen Phrases That, If I’d Heard Them When I Was A Kid, Would Have Made Me Say Huuuhhhh? So, here is that list:
Continuing on with my list of songs and entire CD’s that have moved me over the years, here is another.
I love to listen to Paula Cole’s This Fire (1996) very loudly n the car. In fact, in the “thanks” section in the little booklet in the CD case, it says, “P.S. to the listener: I recommend playing this record loudly. I hope it sends you on a journey.” And it does. It most certainly does.
One song from that CD that has always felt particularly powerful to me personally is called Me. I have loved, for years, to sing it at the top of my lungs (and completely ignore the fact that I’m not a singer), and I have rarely gotten through the whole song without choking with emotion at least once.
My favorite verse is the one that begins, “I am walking on the bridge”. I remember, once, listening to it with someone I knew. That person said she thought the song was about suicidal feelings, but I never got that at all. I always felt it was about facing fears and taking a risk for positive change.
I was kind of surprised to realize that this youtube video was just recorded a week ago, on the very day that Good Friend helped me get sound on my computer again, which prompted me to start digging through CD’s all week and re-experience all the music I have loved so much over the years. It’s all kind of synchronistic.
Paula Cole
Me
I am not the person who is singing
I am the silent one inside
I am not the one who laughs at people’s jokes
I just pacify their egos
I am not my house or my car or my songs
They are only stops along my way
I am like the winter
I’m a dark cold female
With the golden ring of wisdom in my cave
CHORUS:
And it is me who is my enemy
Me who beats me up
Me who makes the monsters
Me who strips my confidence
I am carrying my voice
I am carrying my heart
I am carrying my rhythm
I am carrying my prayers
But you can’t kill my spirit
It’s soaring and it’s strong
And like a mountain
I will go on and on
But when my wings are folded
The brightly colored moth
Blends into the dirt into the ground
Chorus
And it’s me who’s too weak
And it’s me who’s too shy
To ask for the thing I love
And it’s me who’s too weak
And it’s me who’s too shy
To ask for the thing I love
That I love
I am walking on the bridge
I am over the water
And I’m scared as hell
But I know there’s something better
Yes I know there’s something better
Yes I know, yes I know, yes I know
I’ve been reacquanting myself with my favorite music lately. A good friend helped me get sound on my computer again (ahhh, sound! Thank you, Good Friend!) and I’ve been organizing my music files and treating myself to some new downloads of old favorites from Amazon. That prompted me to get out some favorite CD’s and listen to them again. The CD player in my car has been broken for months and I haven’t played my turn-it-up-loud-and-sing-at-the-top-of-my-lungs favorites in so long. I’ve been in withdrawal.
Well, last night, one of the CD’s I played on the computer while I was working on stuff was Keri Noble’s Fearless. It is very high on my list of my favorite CD’s ever made.
This is one of my favorite songs on that CD. I always kind of thought of it as an anthem to friendship, but listening to it last night, after not having heard it in a long time, it feels even more personal now, as an anthem to friendship between friends who have done or are doing therapy.
The verse that has always moved me the most is “No one can take you where you alone must go / There’s no telling what you will find there / And, God, I know the fear that eats away at your bones / It’s screaming every step, ‘Just stay here’”. To me, it’s about the fact that therapy (and what it takes to achieve real change) isn’t something anyone else can do for you, no matter how supportive they may be, and it’s about that fear of pushing through the hard changes and the fear-induced desire to just stay stuck (it seems easier, less threatening), or to go back to that place before therapy, where we used to be able to turn it off and not feel so much.
And the whole song is about someone who has been there and knows those feelings, being there for support for a friend / loved one.
I got this idea from Kate1975’s Blog, and I think it’s a great self-care idea, albeit not always easy. I decided to create my own Bliss List that I can refer back to when I need to feel that rush of “happy” brain chemicals that comes from thinking of those things that bring bliss.
So, other than chocolate (which I am not denying causes bliss as I purposely leave it off my list anyway because a big part of my reason for creating this list right now is to use it as an alternative to using food for comfort) and my family and friends, with whom I always find comfort and healthy laughter, here are the first three items on my Bliss List, which is not in a specific order:
1. My Emily
2. That shade-family of blue that is a variation of turquoise, aqua, neon blue, and electric blue
I had such a great visit, last night, with my friend RB.
It’s kind of funny, how she got the name “RB’. When we were first getting to know one another, someone who knew both of us would often remark about how alike we were. When the three of us would get together, RB and I would very often say the same thing at the same time. At some point the joke became that she and I share a brain. When it occurred to us that she is left-handed and I am right-handed, we decided that she must be Right Brain and I must be Left Brain. And we became RB and LB.
From time to time, if one of us has had a day where she didn’t feel quite on top of her game, she would IM or email the other and say, “Did you steal my half of the brain today?”
We would decide that must have been what happened if the other said that she’d felt unusually sharp all day.
It also became a convenient all-around excuse for any time one of does something she regrets or thinks wasn’t the smartest thing to do: “Well, if you hadn’t hogged the brain, this wouldn’t have happened.”
So, last night, we came up with a fun idea for a new invention. I said, “We just need to find funding, since we have the brains.”
Last weekend, my friend RB and I met up at a bookstore. We looked at several books (even bought some from the clearance bins), and sat in the coffee shop and chatted.
I discovered that jalapeno potato chips and mocha latte are really good together, but I digress.
When we went up front to check out, RB looked at the rack of bookmarks and said she used to have a bookmark that was a thin, plastic, rectangular magnifying “glass”. We both have Over-40 Eyesight, so I was able to appreciate how helpful that would be. She said she’d lost it and was hoping to find another one. The closest thing she was able to find was a two-pack of credit-card sized plastic magnifiers. She took it from the display and looked for a price, but it was printed so small, she had to take another package from the display and use another magnifier to read the price of the magnifiers.
Did I mention before that I love irony?
We decided to split the cost and share the two-pack.
When she said that she suspected that her other one was somewhere in her car, and then pointed out that it might be futile to try to look for something flat and see-through, in a car, with Over-40 Eyesight, I mentioned that if it’s on the floor, she might just look for pieces of carpet lint that appear to be unnaturally large.
Funny. I don’t watch American Idol, but this is my second post in a month about it.
I got this idea from Leslie’s Blog on NaBloPoMo. She said that the Idol contestants had to sing songs that were popular the year they were born, and she googled her own birth year and picked the song she liked best.
So, in my birth year, 1964, The Leader of the Pack, by Shangri Las was one that was popular. It made me laugh, because I remember, when I was about 11 or so, my best friend loved that song and we used to sing it over and over. It didn’t seem as corny then. Not even the look out look out look out look out! part.
This YouTube video even has a cute touch of humor added:
Oh, and hey, this post kinda goes along with the NaBloPoMo “growing (up)” theme!
I’m really, really lucky, because I was blessed with a sister who is also a best friend.
This picture is of us when I was a baby and she was seven. She called me her baby. She has always made time for me, all my life, even when she was a teenager and had an active social life with her friends.
We joke about all the times, when I was a kid, that I would call out to her and say, “Sister*, get me started!” Basically, that happened on days when my friends weren’t available and I was bored and couldn’t figure out what to do about it.
She was always full of ideas. She’d make up a story for me to play out with my Barbie dolls or baby dolls, help me “build” a house for Barbie using album covers as walls, or she’d suggest that I play School, or Library, or Office, and she’d help me make the stuff to “set the stage” for whatever I was playing – test papers and lesson plans for playing School, index cards in little pockets in my books for playing Library, or files and letters and office supplies for playing Office. (I loved when our mom would save the little stickers that came with the magazine subscription or book club offers; they made great “postage stamps”. The stickers of album covers, from music club offers, when glued to a square of cardboard the same size, made great “records” for Barbie, too.) Sometimes she would dress up with me and we’d pretend we were in a wedding, or that we were “olden time” people, which meant we wore long dresses. Once she got me started, I was generally capable of playing by myself for several hours.
I’m sure that part of my asking Sister to “get me started” came from my love of spending time with her (sometimes I was able to get myself started but I really liked the way her imagination worked), but now I wonder if it was a subtle early sign of ADD. I wonder this because she’s still ”getting me started” in so many ways. Often, I’ll know what I need or want to do, but just can’t seem to get past that barrier between knowing what I need to do and actually beginning to do it, and it works out that many times, just talking with her about it will help me to point my focus in the right direction.
And then there is the brainstorming we do whenever I’m working on or planning a novel. She knows all my characters almost as well as I do. We can talk for hours, sometimes, about plots and twists and turns. We both just throw out whatever comes to mind and eventually something will make one of us say, “Oooh, yeah, and then . . .” Every summer, as we get closer to fall, I begin to plan for NaNoWriMo and we start brainstorming. Sometimes I’m hard pressed to decide which I enjoy most: plotting with Sister or actually writing the story.
I’m grateful that she never seems to mind getting me started. In fact, lucky for me, she seems to enjoy it.
Note: * No, her name isn’t actually “Sister”, but that is the name she is known by on my blog. Good thing I have only one sister; I’d have to use numbers.
There are a few different regular UPS drivers who deliver to the office where I work. One of them is a guy who used to be the regular UPS guy for the place I worked back in the mid-to-late-80’s. I don’t think he remembers me from back then because I’m quite a bit older now, but I remember him because he hasn’t changed a bit. Seriously. Like the way Dick Clark didn’t change for so many years. It’s almost creepy.
I truly didn’t believe there could be anyone out there who was this perfectly suited for me. I mean, what were that chances of that? In every relationship, there are compatibilities and there are differences. There are the things that work out easily and the obstacles to overcome. In each of my past relationships, there were those issues that I had to ask myself if I were willing to accept and work with, and I’m sure each of the people I had relationships with had to ask themselves similar questions about me. In each case, the final answer was “no”.
If someone had told me, when I was a kid in the ’70’s, that when I grew up I’d be able to type a message into a machine, press a button, and someone clear across the world could read and respond to that message within seconds, I would have been astonished. I wouldn’t have been able to wait to grow up!
Last weekend, my friend RB and I met up at a bookstore. We looked at several books (even bought some from the clearance bins), and sat in the coffee shop and chatted. 
I’m really, really lucky, because I was blessed with a sister who is also a best friend.
