Always wrong

Ever have one of those days where no matter what you do it seems to be the wrong thing? How about a week of those days? Does doing the wrong thing at the wrong time beget more wrong doings?

Take this example from Easter Sunday. Easter baskets were prepared, but they weren't appreciated in the spirit given. All wrong. Easter dinner was being prepared, but one of the spouses wasn't going to be home in time for the dinner. The children, not wanting to wait for the big dinner, were taken to a restaurant, but when the spouse called finally on the way home, it appears that the money allocated for dinner for the children was specifically to be spent at a specific restaurant, and not the one chosen.

When the spouse did arrive home, the long awaited dinner was -- well, not what was wanted. Both spouses now a bit cranky, it soon is time for bed. But wait, one spouse is using the computer in the bedroom, when the other demands to know how long the computer will be on, because it is time for bed. Even in sleep, things aren't agreeable, as one spouse is hot, and the other is just right. Guess which spouse I was ...

Random thoughts

Try as one might, you can't make someone love you. Nor can you change their will.

Running on Empty

An empty well -- that is what I am. As a writer, I am up against the wall. I cannot find the words to complete outstanding projects. In fact, the words for this blog won't flow either.

My limbs feel like dead weights attached to the torso. There is pain in the shoulders and the fingers dance upon the keyboard, making a valiant attempt to support and coerce and support the brain and body to work in unison. On this day though, the energy doesn't extend beyond the wrists -- anything else is just too much.

The colors of my world

Pink has been the color of my world for quite a while. Pink reminds me of the bubblegum I loved as a child; of party dresses, and beautiful birthday cakes. Pink is the smell of a new Barbie doll fresh from the package, and my mama's kitchen when she was cooking a delicious meal like fried chicken or chicken and dumplings. Pink is the color of a child's bedroom when the first color wasn't allowed. Pink is happy, and to boost it to overdrive, add yellow.

Yellow is the color of the Easter lily's that edged our yard every year. Yellow is the happy days that I spent with my beloved mama playing LP's on her huge stereo and dancing in the living room like mad women. Yellow is stopping to have ice cream on the way home from a trip to the library -- her chocolate and me vanilla, or racing home because we went to the library on Thursday night and we want to watch the Walton's on TV.

Pink is the color of my youth, and yellow is the memories of my mother. Throughout my adult life, there has not been a lot of yellow and pink. At the moment, my world is colored the gray-blue of the ocean and the brown of a muddy floor. it is as if pieces of my heart have been ripped from my chest and it is filled with a muddy brown. My head is filled with that gray-blue and has pushed any other color out as it wraps itself around my brain trying to suffocate any happy memories or even the potential of the green buds that form the pinks and yellows of my happiness.

Love versus in love

In today's society, people banter about words without giving much thought to them. Think about words that should have great meaning -- like I love you. To some, this phrase has a deep almost spiritual meaning to it, and it is reserved only for those special people with which much love is shared. For example, between husband and wife, between mother and child, and even between best friends.

Walking the halls of anyschool, USA will allow you to hear this phrase put into more common terms. Children use it as a greeting of sorts. A quick hug and an I love you before departing to the next class. The air thick with juvenile against to fit in perhaps causes children to use this phrase in perhaps less than an actual love situation. Or perhaps there are different sorts of love.

What is the difference in the phrase I love you when compared with the phrase I am in love with you? Surely there is a difference. We, as a society tend to save I am in love with you for our partners in life, at least for the most part, while I love you can mean the love a parent has for children and best friends.

Remove the I am in love with you from the equation of a marriage. Shouldn't I love you and I am in love with you have the same meaning in this circumstance? If the two statements do represent different meanings, what then? The relationship has now shifted to expose a raw side; one that is easily wounded, and begs the question, can the relationship continue without both components?

A sad tale

Is love really all about the physicality of a relationship or is it something more. Something deeper. What constitutes being in love or just loving someone. Is there a difference? Or is love just that -- you either love someone or something or you don't. What are the parameters of being in love and can a relationship exist if one partner says that being in love doesn't exist for them?

Becoming me

It has occurred to me that no matter how hard we try, we can't protect our children from the hurts of life. It is these actions -- some of them anyway -- that turn them into well adjusted adults. Life must be lived on their terms, and not our own. No matter how much we wish it otherwise, we can't be there to cushion each fall.

I compare my own adventure into adult hood with that of my children. Did my parents feel the pain of each of my hurts as I do my own children? How do other parents feel? I have tended to surround myself with like-minded adults, and I know how they feel. I want to know how others feel.

Perhaps we are never really grown until we can take a step back and allow those most closest to our hearts pick themselves up when they fall. It is this act of letting go that frees them to find their own sense of self, and perhaps it allows us to close the chapter of who we are and begin the next chapter of our own lives.