Random Thoughts

I am a firm believer in HOLIDAYS.   Like, all holidays. They don’t have to be events tied to your religious belief.   They don’t have to be things celebrated in your country.   They are just holidays .   Days to celebrate, to mourn, to eat, to party – whatever tradition dictates.   HOLIDAYS. And I am perfectly fine inventing holidays.   No, not the lame ones that greeting card companies try and get people to buy into.   And no, not the “national cotton candy day” types invented just to fill space on the calendar. But significant, important holidays . One of my most sacred is Mary Day.   I celebrate it every October 20 th .   Mary Day is the anniversary of my mom, Mary Eleanor Thompson’s, death in 2002.   My mom and dad at Christmas in the basement of the house I grew up in on Borman Street  Wow – this October 20 th was the 21 st Mary Day celebration.   It is hard to believe it has been that long. ...

The days are getting shorter. The sun, that brilliant star that lights our lives, is setting earlier.   Bit by bit, every evening.   This time of year is always a bit sad for me.   It is a form of closure.   Saying “goodbye” to another summer.   Somehow, it is hard for me to couch it as saying “hello” to another winter.   In my mind I know that is logical, but in my heart, another summer has passed to mourn. I haven’t felt my best the last couple of days.   I put it down to stress – the big annual fundraiser I host is quickly approaching, and at the same time my job, my main source of income, is being threatened to disappear (health insurance along with it).   So yeah, stress could make my body not function properly, right?   Only, as the second day of feeling “off” wore on, it became harder and harder to ignore that things just weren’t right.   It came to a head on a 25-minute car ride.   We had met a friend for din...

I think about death a lot. Not in a macabre way, but in what I think is a practical way. I guess it is because I have been around quite a lot of death in my lifetime.  But I experienced death from a strange angle this week. Four big bins of clothes were donated for the next Kindness Yard Sale (coming in September). They were given to me by a friend, but they were not her clothes. They were clothes taken from a house where the owner died, and the home was being cleaned out.  I suspected to find “old lady” blouses and blankets, but instead the bins were filled with really pretty, stylish ladies’ clothing. I think the clothes were from the daughter of the deceased, not the woman who died. I took them out piece and piece and admired them as I put them into the washing machine. I hung load after load of clean, fresh, cute clothes.  Then I opened the dryer after starting a load of winter items. I already knew the girl whose clothes there were was very athletic from ot...

I don’t want to give the impression that I walk around everyday in a daze and feeling sad, but I don’t want to hide anything, either.   When people you love die, the grief goes on.   It is not something that fits neatly into a timetable.   The 3 days off work they give you for a funeral doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of the number of days, months, and years you will grieve. So, no, not all day every day. But yes, parts of most days.   Maybe the sadness is triggered by a memory.   A photo.   A scent.   A location.   Or maybe it is always there but only bubbles to the surface when triggered… Today was no different.   Started out fine (albeit sleepy and rushed).   Productive and stressful work.   Rushing about trying to complete a big project.   Working on not one but two computers trying to tie together all the loose ends before a big “production number” at 5:00 pm.   In the middle of the mess, my sist...

One of my friends remarked to me today, “You love SO hard!”. That four word sentence encapsulates it – I love so hard .   And when a person LOVES hard, they GRIEVE hard.   They JOY hard.   They HAPPY hard.   And they CRY hard. I am thankful to feel as strongly as I feel.   But understanding that is who I am means having to make SPACE for myself.   Having to carve out time, sometimes physically on the calendar, to allow myself to feel. Today was one of those days. My sister Annette should have turned 59 years old today.   But brain cancer totally ripped her off and stole her from us last December.   Today was our first May 15 th without her.   My sister Sherry and I had planned to be together for this milestone but Covid 19 made that impossible.   So today, each in our own way, we celebrated the sister that we love, that we grieve for.   Today we celebrated ANNETTE DAY. My plan was to fill the day d...

Well, it’s rolled around again.   It’s THAT DAY, you know, the one where I remind you how lucky you are if your mom is still alive. Look – I do not want to make you feel guilty.   Seriously I don’t.   But if we are being honest here I will admit that you having a living mom makes me a bit (more than a bit…) jealous.   I know times are tough for everyone right now.   If your mom is in a nursing home you can’t get in to visit her.   If your mom lives in another state you can’t fly to see her.   Heck, even if your mom lives right across town you can’t give her a proper hug (at least you shouldn’t!).   It sucks. But do you know what sucks worse??   When your mom is dead.   When you know that there is no “end to the distance”.   When the only time you can see your mom is in dreams and that is very rare and when you wake-up she is still dead.   It is like social distancing forever.   How does that sound? My ...

Have you ever thought about how much you strive for perfection? I think we all do it, if not all the time, then at least OFTEN.   At work we want a “perfect review”.   We want (expect??) our love relationships to be “perfect”.   We pluck our eyebrows, cut our hair, all with a goal (probably unspoken and unrealized even subconsciously) of “perfection”. Perfection is what we continually strive for , yet if we are being honest, we all know it is impossible. Your house will never be “perfectly clean” (heaven knows mine won’t anyway).   Your clothes will never fit “perfectly” and match from head to toe (that sock inching its way down your ankle will make sure of that).   Your kids, your relationships, NOTHING will ever be PERFECT . So, why do we all strive for the unachievable?   Is setting ourselves up for inevitable failure only a recipe for frustration, depression, or at the very least, feeling like crap?? Don’t get me wrong.   Th...