A silly post about shoes I had to have

 I am old enough to remember the Sear's catalog*.  For my mother, who was raising kids #6,7, and 8 single-handedly, Sears and K-Mart  provided what nowadays we would maybe go to Target or Wal-Mart for.  Sears also sold things like tires, and mopeds, and house paint, and had a great candy department where you could buy Maple Nut Goodies by the pound. If Mom had her mason jar of iced coffee in her hand and asked if we wanted to go to Sears, we couldn't jump in the AMC Gremlin fast enough. We would get the latest Sears catalog by mail and go through it page by page, putting our names on everything we wished and hoped for.  At Christmastime, it was how she shopped - looking for those catalog pages.  She was making $5 an hour as an XR tech and paying $500/month for her mortgage.  There wasn't a lot of wiggle room in the budget for extravagance.  But one Easter I remember wanting these white basket weave patterned clogs so very badly:

At $10 pair, I was shocked that she gave in and ordered them for me.  They weren't what you would call really practical for someone who rode the bus to school.  I was only in 8th grade.  Can you imagine?  They had a 2 inch wedge heel on them and went perfectly with every dress I owned, all sewn by my mother.  I recall that I outgrew them very fast.  Same as  childhood, come to think of it.  

Oh the places your memories can take you.  All the way back to Weis Middle School, in Galveston, Texas, 1973.  And to my Mother, who was smart with money and creative with a sewing machine. And it doesn't take much more than an old Sears ad to remind me of how much I miss her.

* I also remember the Man on Page 602

The Angry Gina chair

The therapist suggested that one reason my dreams keep cycling back to the garage is from unresolved anger at Mark.  For many things, and the garage seems to be the epicenter.  I feel like I have journaled and blogged that to death, but I haven't really let that part of me fully express herself.  What would she say to him if he were here? Instead of shutting her down and crying about it (and dreaming), what if I let Angry Gina have her say? 

When I was busy working and raising kids, trying to hold it all together, I had to swallow down most of my frustrations and anger to keep the peace.  Mark had a hard time listening to understand.  Often he would match or out-bid my energy and instead of getting something resolved, Past Gina would just back down.

Well, current Gina is here now, listening.

She's going to let Angry Gina have her say.  She's going to sit right here, in Ground Zero of the frustration and express herself. She gets a good 10 minutes - more if she needs it - up to 4 times a week.  If she thinks of something to say while I am at work, or in the middle of something else, I will ask her to wait.  But I will always assure her that she has the right to feel the way she does and I will listen to her. I'm going to do for her what I wish someone would have done for me.  

"I hear you. I understand you had some rough times. You had a right to feel the way you did. What can I do to help you get what you need now? I appreciate everything you have done and will honor that and be understanding of you.  I can see that you needed a break."

I'm going to end by thanking her, for all of her hard work. And then I will send love to her.  And my hope is that gradually, Angry Gina will feel heard and she can quietly merge into current me.

Ready to move forward without so much anger.

Dream feelings #21 - garage overwhelm

This is becoming a recurrent dream theme.

The only reminders of camping or scouts are two shelves in the garage.

Last night, and not for the first time, I dreamed about the garage.  It was a huge area, full of shelving that went up to a 12 foot ceiling, stuffed and disorganized.  I was going around organizing things, then I would notice that Mark was adding random things in, as fast as I was trying to straighten it up.  At one point I looked up at the wall and he had hung two folding lawn chairs and a one piece zippered work suit (you know the ones old men wear? that.) There were things stored so high up we would never be able to access them.  The kids were younger, underfoot, and trying to play in there with Legos and such. There were toys and camping equipment everywhere. I opened the garage door to go around the house to the trash bins and we were on a boat!  A giant boat in the ocean under stormy skies, with people wearing life vests, socializing and playing around near the bow, waves crashing all around like a storm. Like a party!  I thought, oh no, I'm not going out into this, and closed the door.  The dream ended.

A legit nightmare for me, processing all the stress and I have over the state of my home while we were raising our children here.  And the resentment I feel with being left to handle it.

Dream feelings #20 - Widowing and Parenting

 We will call both of these #20 since the first one was so short. And actually both dreams have a link with Grayson.

Dream A:

I am climbing a very rocky mountain, lots of boulders, around and underneath them emits a blue glow. I see the foot of the climber above me step off a large loose rock and I think, "well I can't climb on that and I need to take care of it".  So I get on the opposite side of it and push it off the mountain. I hear it crashing below me and look to see it blocking a river right where it leads into a lake or ocean. Well, that can't be good. Other people stop to notice what I have done.

Just an FYI - I don't rock climb. However, I have been handling issues and problems that come up in a calmer way than I did 5 years ago. Sometimes it feels like an uphill trek on rocky ground. 

I mean I guess he could be a Louie

Dream B:

I enter a house that belongs to an old co-worker/friend - she greets me and we walk into a very large closet where there are fluffy blankets hanging on giant coat hangers, and she hands me either a pink or blue one. I look around the house and notice large windows with a beautiful natural view, the rooms having multi-level floors, lots of people. We chat for a minute then I say I need to find my youngest child, Louie. I walk around looking for him and realize I might not recognize him. I ask someone about him - Spencer? - but he has no information about him. Where could he be? How will I find him? How old is he and when is his birthday? Is he my 5th child? These Q's swirl around in my head as I come across Grayson. Are he and Louie one and the same? I ask him how things are going and he says not great. But he has some news he thinks is good. There is a man seated at a table with no shirt on, sweaty and red. Turns out he is trying to sell Grayson a scheme to make money. I tell the man "so you're a scammer" and I start questioning him. He gets angry. Grayson moves off to the side to talk to this man's associate. But in that moment I know that the deal will fall through.

Make of this what you will, but I think it has to do with the last baby (blue and pink blankets!) growing up and moving into the wider world. I haven't seen him or Spencer in person for months. And I worry about them and the adult choices they make.

Widowing and Parenting - weighing heavy on my mind, I guess.

The trouble with old photos

 Waaaay back in December of last year, as I tackled cleaning out yet another closet, I pulled down all of the old photo albums, and extra pictures, and boxes of negatives and decided it was time to purge and condense. 

I had a plan, and it was simple. But the actual project took me places I did not want to revisit.  Those sweet faces! (I rarely see them) That handsome, smart husband! (gone) Remember that house?  Oh, look - long gone family members. So many long days, so many short years.  I cried buckets through 5 of these 100 page 3 ring photo albums. And don't even know if the kids will ever look at these albums.

 I made tough decisions about what to save for posterity.

It was a difficult trip back into the past.  So I did what any reasonable person would and I procrastinated, mean-mugging that table every time I sat in the den to read. I wrote notes to myself in my desk planner ("get it done - this week!")  But somehow, I just never could.  There is such a contrast between my life then and my life now.  Back then, everything on photo paper looked rosy - the kids were smiling.  We went places. We celebrated. I documented some very happy times. But behind the camera was a mom who was juggling more than her fair share, and constantly having to give in to someone else's plans and whims.  I lost a big part of myself in the process.  

This is why you don't immerse yourself in the past.

its so nice not to see that table here!

Just one more thing I wanted to talk to Mark about. But I'm working my way through it, trying to reframe it, and maybe in the future it will be easier to look back at those photos.  And the bonus is, that project is DONE!

Dream feelings #19 - Hunger Games

 I am in my bedroom, maybe folding laundry or making the bed, and I hear a familiar voice in another part of the house.  I recognized it immediately as my brother Byron. I can still hear his voice in my head, and I haven't seen or spoken to him in years.  He walks into the room and I noticed that he is older, but taller, thinner and wearing a blue plaid shirt tucked into jeans.   I say "It's you!" and rush to hug him. 

Byron and me, 65 years ago

It was a nice long hug and that part of the dream fades to a very surreal scene that's like something out of Hunger Games.  Its a futuristic scenario where we have cell phones that look like small flat books - but bigger than today's cell phones.  We are being divided up into groups.  Some of the groups are further inside the building, actively battling in a type of war in a giant multi-level arena.  I do not see weapons or death though - its more like a game. This part of the dream is very colorful with reds and yellows, lot of interesting lighting.  I am in a group that has no role, milling around and wondering what to do.  I have a couple of interactions with people and a leader type female who takes my phone to use.  The dream ends.

I've been thinking a lot about family lately as I get memories down on paper to write my life story - so that explains Byron.  But the second half?  No clue.

Another dumb thing, exhibit C

Chloe came over one day to visit, and we were talking about the cell phone bill.  While we were talking about phones, I told her that I had never cancelled the land line because, well... Mark set it up.  Then it occurred to me that: 

*it's my damn land line (so its my responsibility)

*he's not coming back to use it

*I don't own an actual land line phone

*I haven't faxed anyone in a long while (its 2026, after all)

*$127 a month is too much to pay for internet and something I don't use

this desk will look nice, painted and with a smaller scanner someday!

In my defense, the land line was something we had from when we bought the house.  {And then we added a second one, but it got cancelled when all of the kids got cell phones.}  When he started working from home he was forwarding the insurance agency's line to a multi-line phone with our phone line.  Friends, that ended 5 years ago.

Would he be mad that I cancelled it? Does that even matter?

I'm still going to keep the scanner/printer/fax combo until it croaks, then I will buy a smaller one.  But I don't need the expense of the landline.  I really don't know why I didn't cancel it sooner.  It took AT&T less than a day to disconnect it.  I guess in my head I still hear Mark.  But now its gone and I feel like I got a monthly raise.