Après Tempus Fugit

The new editing system on this blog blows chunks so sorry if my margins spelling spacing
 etc. etc. I can't scroll or edit properly so it's taking me twice as long to write this, I may have to buy a stupid app! Anyway...

About my lessons they may seem to others no brainers or even a bit self couscous, self indulgent however these are my life lessons and experiences that are chronicled, cull what you like. 

I've made many mistakes mostly out of ignorance and lack of experience, some out of shear negligence and apathy, and the worst; from a deliberate kind of blindness choosing to think or act one way full knowing the truth. We pay for that in time, friendships and lost opportunities GRIEF.  My goals are to never loose that again. It's been my practice for as many years as I can remember, and I may have written this before but it's worth repeating that before I fall asleep, I review my day. If I find that I was unhappy, upset, anything that didn't work I resolve to find away to fix and never repeat this. Not so easy but do-able. My ultimate goal is a page out of my sister Pam's book, to be happy. If your not happy none of its good, nothing. This is not the momentary quick happy  but the deep long lasting abiding happy. It's a core thing looking deep in to your core, no more pretense no more persuading myself it'll be okay, or when blank happens...

DO NOT KID YOURSELF ON ANYTHING

Not sure how many lessons that is, but they are mine and I've got the medals and scars.

When I stayed with Margo and Rick awaiting the arrival of Niko in London, I saw a world so different than ours in the U.S. although we share common language heritage et. all. I'd been to the U.K. many times before as adjunct to Ira for work, or with Adam while he studied in Scotland. As a temporary resident of Hackney (five weeks), I could have been anywhere on the planet. In a six block radius we were in Jamaica, Turkey, Morocco, Africa, Asia the West Indies, India. More nations, dress, food, mores, dialects than I ever experienced in NY. I gawked at everything like a hick from a one horse town, it was all new and not necessarily exciting. I did feel threatened on occasion very out of place (says the wherra from Brownsville). There were no "Englishmen". Not unless you went closer to the city and the tourist areas, in the neighborhoods though they were a dead breed. Replaced by thugs and drunks. The local butcher shop was an oasis they were kind curtious and very English, olde school. The British culture as I knew it was supplanted and dead, I understood then when Margo came back to the states apart from needing to be closer to family, why they chose to leave.

Staying with them in Santa Fe was no less a huge change of venue. The clean piñon scented air, vistas of mountains valleys and adobe style homes a world apart. Everywhere you look is nothing like anywhere you'd been. The ride to Echo canyon, Chama, Albaqurgue was like changing channels on cable constantly. Whole Foods culture a world in its own, the food, people all of set apart from my  east coast, south of the iron grande coast expereiance. Thay dry Mt. Air a respite for the weary.          

When we were once all together in this new world it was my dream my ultimate birthday dream. Thank you Barry for allowing me to have the time with Niko, and for accommodating me in my 60th B'day wish. No blow out party high priced dinner with attending blow out gifts could ever have meant more to me. All that I received was gravy, the meat was being with you all, my plate could only have been fuller if all the machatunum could have been there...

Lesson#25 be clear and honest with yourself about what you really want and value, the being authentic thing is it. 

Now I can't change this blinkity blink thing back! Hate this. Okay more blogging later Oy!

Tempus Fugit

Gigi, I was talking about you the other day. I haven't seen you in years and yet I still think about your stories and the wild ride of a life you led. You were my secret coach, more than any other woman in my life, your story and adventures fired my imagination and paved the way for a massive  transformation in mine. It's true through the years I have met other extraordinary woman who have left little tid bits and wisdom like passing comets whos trails I was able to view after the initial planet disappeared. Yet in my mind I'm having the conversation with you, somehow you are still a presence and influence my emotional muse. Of course I take literary liberties with my lessons learned but they are all true all of these are  from yours truly hard taught and fought for...

Lesson #1 dress and groom for yourself look in your own mirror, decide who you are and live it. I am cute and sexy with a drop of comfort in mind.

 Lesson #2 if he isn't wild for you and treats you like his one and only with all the attending worship something is rotten in Denmark.

Lesson#3 moisturizer everywhere, scent and smooth limbs always a must. Not sure who said it but a girl who spends her last dime on perfume is a real woman.

Lesson #4 Learn to say no and reward with the occasional yes ( that's a tough one for a person pleaser)

Lesson#5 dirty dancing in the living room follows to the bedroom. Which is very different from the advise that my Grandfather gave me his was make every kiss a stolen kiss.

Lesson #6 take care of your man but remember you are not his mother

Lesson #7 The way to a mans heart may be through his stomach but there is an awful lot of listening commiserating and putting up with to keep it

Lesson #8 men and women can not be friends, if he brings his new friend home to meet you grab your pitchfork girls, and that include the quant new practice of texting

Lesson #9 everyday in everyway think cute and sexy even when your wringing the laundry in the slop sink after the machine refuses to spin

Lesson #10 give yourself a good stare in the mirror, congratulate, pet, smile and reward its likely the only time you will have such a bulstering moment in the day, a pinch on the cheek doesn't hurt either

Lesson #11 do and eat one thing that you want once a day even if it's just a shnibble, and ten minutes of screaming down the toilet bowl (highly recommend if you have 3 kids under the age of five) ( or the equivalent of one former bachelor husband who is obsessive)                                                          

Lesson#12 if it hurts fix it or high thee to the bleeder cause you shouldn't suffer in silence! Seriously

Lesson#13 hair grows in very weird places after 50 the eye brow razors and threading girls are your best friend, when in doubt just pluck and keep on a plucking

Lesson#14 if it's perky it will sag, flop, droop and end up somewhere frightful forget a retirement fund nobody can afford to retire start a droopy day fund and and in case of divorce looking great is     the best revenge fund.  Wish I had thought of this 30 years ago, gotta find out if they'll do a layaway                    Botox Restilin at the near by clinic

Lesson #15 you'd better have a lot more than mad money stashed away for ICE

Lesson#16 just do it cause you're going to be a year older next year and you'll have lost that time fretting over being too old, bull shit never too old!

Lesson#17 pick a guys who isn't afraid to fart, cause I promise you even if you've never farted in your life after 50 you will everywhere at anytime so if he's already turning purple trying to pretend he isn't he'll be over the moon when you start to so he can just let himself go

Lesson #18 being polite never gets old it just puts you in a good place no matter how gnarly the other person is you can just smile politely and pat yourself on the back

Lesson#19 learn to say your sorry or I don't know, It really doesn't hurt

Lesson#20 when the screaming or the freezing is over tell the person you love them it's vital

Lesson#21 seriously never go to bed angry part b to this is don't hold a grudge and hang it out to dry at every big argument air it out and be done with it

Lesson#22 make time for a special grooming day, even if you do it all for yourself set one day a month aside and wash wax and lube your chassis

Lesson#23 make a girls night out and keep it. I haven't done this and now when I do the fella gets all pouty and whiny even though he pretends to man up about it. He still makes me feel guilty on the  occasion

Lesson#24 pick your battles, and let him know that you are conceding when it is less important to you and that by gum he WILL conceed when YOU feel just as strongly. It's not about who's turn it is it's when you really need to hold firm, remember that in the heat of the struggle if there is one, that whatever you say hangs there above your head in italics. Once you say it you can never take it back. Tact my dears is under rated


More lessons later I think

When we first met I was a mother of three in a difficult marriage with someone who was not available to me emotionally or more often than not physically. It was a lifeless relationship that I kept alive in my mind by crazy deceptions and lies. You as many other of my friends saw this. With your chiding and gentle bullying you began my slow transformation. Pushing me to transform my physical self while trying to see me open the world around me. The day you told me "you look like a housewife, do you want to look like a housewife? Do you want to look cute and sexy? With that thick. French purr of an accent and your red lips pursed at me in disapproval your eyebrow raised (I   envy that emocon). You were beating the ball of your foot on the floor in a very French expression of pique as you tapped a brush over your palm, while I had the flibbety gibbets over the discussion of turning me blonde. Not a little highlight here or there blonde fing blonde. No dipping the toes in you turned me platinum BLONDE. No I wanted to be cute and sexy but I hadn't ever really had the power of feeling cute let alone sexy. A big busted shy girl with a tiny head and big eyes thin hair I just never got it all together in my head. I never felt that girl power, I should have looking back now I see that i was pretty and not the fat girl I saw in the mirror. The fat girl my mother talked about the clutsy             gawky big chested funny looking kid. I look at old pictures and see that there was unrealized     potential clay to be molded if i'd met the right person(s). Well I'll tell you it's never too late not ever.             I'm a slow learner but I got there!

So it's 1999, I'm three days from selling the house and moving to Spring Hill Fl. With two cats and a few belongings as I've sold the new home owners almost all of my furniture, and given away others. I was on my way to pick up cat food for the trip and decided on a whim to drive by your home I hadn't seen you in 3-4 years. You didn't know about the divorce, my taking in students to make ends meet. Adam and Margo away at school Craig graduating and getting ready to go himself to PA. I didn't just have empty nest I had everything vanished hocus locus and I was trying to put this Humpty together again. I had crawled into a shell for those few years of separation and subsequent divorce so it hadn't   occurred to me to seek you out. I knew for sure afterwards that that had been a mistake and lost   opportunity for both of us.

There you were going to your mail box still the figure of elegance and perfumed cute blonde older French lady with her shit together. When I stopped you squealed and we hugged.  The fastest catch up session ever, with you commiserating and reviling my now X. We were both moving on to FL. You'd sold your house and were leaving the next day, with your wonderful husband, the love of your life. I was traveling the unknown on my own but was truly happy and ready. I had lost a lot of weight through the years and you marveled about how cute and sexy I looked and that I should take chances and not give in to convention but throw it to the wind. And that my dear is just what happened only in a more conventional way, habits like mine die hard. I hadn't dated during the long haul of separation and divorce and I wasn't looking forward to the process when my feet finally hit the sand and red ants of Florida so the universe plopped Barry right in front of me. I'd been propositioned picked up and followed around and Id had no problem resisting all of these delights, and then there was Barry. Young cute never married obsessive with work dancing sports music, did I mention young? Gigi you wanted me to have an affair and find someone who would pay attention to me who would dance and     drink and listen to me. Who would make love to me like I deserved and blow my nose when I needed the help. Stage right Barry. So it wasn't a true affair with the attendant skulking and crazy French  underthings, intrigues and high adrenaline from all the drama. We were both unattached but there was a hell of a lot of all the rest of it. I'd finally reached my Parisian moment. I was dressing the way I  wanted (cute and sexy) learning to dance, going out at night, seeing shows having a life a real life, and there was a guy who was listening to me caring about me and we were growing together slowly but surely. Yeah bumps in the road and more trauma then I ever want again, lost fortunes but in the end,  okay, it was okay.          

Now thirteen almost fourteen years down the line it's good. Margo married to a wonderful guy and made me a bubbie, Adam also married to a fantastic woman, Craig happy with a terrific gal and Barry and I are an old married couple. When we first met you were 57, I think maybe I was close to forty or so. It wasn't the age difference though it was the life experiences that separated us. I'm 60 now and all though I'll never be able to match some of your life experiences I'd say for me I've come a long way baby.

We were all in Santa Fe and looking at old pictures I was a hot mess, heavy, sad, unkempt un loved. Two decades. Time well spent. So what did I learn? To love myself to put myself first and learn to say no, that frees me to be there truly for everyone without sacrificing myself. Not to put what I want so far into the future, I spend more time in the here and now not looking over my shoulder. I don't allow negativity in my life but surround myself with loving supportive people, I speak my mind frankly

Pointer or schlepper there's the question

I've written snipits of stuff to post only to shuffle all the papers around and then let them settle together in a heap. Several years worth actually some just started some half finished, my bad. I'm telling you time doesn't fly it down right vanishes as if it's just never been. Here one moment hey presto the next. I wrote a long nice blog after Margo and Ricks reception in Sante Fe and thought I published it and somehow lost it. Not sure how that happened so I'm going to do this in stages so I don't repeat that disaster.

I've got the snippet of one I wrote not long after my surgery that's almost 3 years ago, I wasn't kidding about the loss of time here goes...

The last few months have been interesting chalanging a learning process. I have a new hero, my husband Barry. Working impossibly long hours at work the holing up in his home office for innumerable additional hours. He brings so much resolve and passion to what he does, pressing forward with boundless energy. He does this with surprising goodwill and humor when I'm sure I should be cranky and out of sorts. Of the two I appear calmer the more moderate one, yet Barry has now acquired a more even temper with regards to work and it's pressures and disappointments. Maybe it's a factor of age, but I have less patience a more hair trigger reaction. It's a big change in our personalities and wonder why. I've noticed I am much more reserved and less able to share of myself. Regrettable really. Barry on the other hand has become quite open and more emotionally transparent. During my recent surgery Barry really stepped up to the plate. He was an advocate, partner, caretaker. With new patience and love he helped me through a brutal painful and long recovery. In my pre Barry days I had not experienced that level of partnership and caring. I was the one that was the giver-doer. As a friend of mine secinctly pointed out I was the schlepper. I wasn't raised to be the reciever the recipient . My first marriage enforced this and I, just kept asking not how high but how long. My friend and teacher pointed to me and stated that I was a schlepper and I needed to learn to become a pointer. "what do you want to be for the rest of your life a schlepper or a pointer". As a couple we have come to the height of our power, as individuals we continue to grow. Intuitively one would think that was askew. I think we were both ready to grow but starting at different points. As a young wife and mother it was all about everything/ one else, I didn't know who or what I was or wanted. I didn't have a single adult expereiance it was from my fathers home to my husbands no college in between. High school, work, marriage work kids, divorce. Barry did the college get drunk, pull yourself up, throw yourself into work thing. independent hardworking hardplaying non commit kind of guy. Then we collided. Barry's strength in learning to give has given me the gift of learning to receive.

The surgery was huge itself and difficult, it had been left too long because of my non existent health care. My surgeon was very honest and very up front but I truly thought I'm strong he doesn't know me I'll bounce right. Ack this is all crap. So, I wasn't prepared for the recovery, the shock was more than physical. I had to retool my psychology and accept help, a except that I am not strong as an ox a ballabuster. I had to learn to be gentle with myself to honor my needs, weaknesses. Rossana and Barry have made the process so much easier on me. I was glass I fought the feeling the rage of being glass, the inconvenience the sheer totality of needing someone and accepting their help, being helpless. That growth was painful as painful as the 6 inch incision running from the center of my sternum down to my belly button. Accepting my new limitations after the struggle of recovery was natural as I had a view to preserving myself as I had never done before. I am high (er) maintainance and that's ok, perfectly fine just dandy. Well, it is a process. The love and support I received from near and far sustained me and bolstered my newly found self esteem. I'm grateful. My humor and health restored my hero by my side, my best friend on the other it's all good.

Living in Texas is definitely different from anywhere. Living in deep south-east Texas is? In my earlier blogs I wrote about the politics, I am wholly offended and outraged that a governor my governor would ever utter the words session. Did I mention humiliated stupefied? In my lexicon that word sentiment is blasfamous treasonous and heretical. No true American patriot would ever spit those words out. We would swallow boiling oil first. Fair weather patriots with guns openly displayed, paper tigers! My son, dad and cousins great uncles etc who served and fought for this country should never have to know that the people they fight for would ever consider such an act.

As a post script to this I am astonished and amazed that the republican field of presidential candidates sports the name of Rick Perry on its ballet for this indignity alone.