You don't want to know me today

today, you don't want to know me. you want to walk on by and act like we never laid eyes or laughed or made love or kissed after a long time having not. you just want to walk on by.

i hate everything today, actually, more like since 1:30 pm when i looked at the clock on the phone on my desk at work and realized it would be more than 3 long hours until i got to go home. i was ready to leave then.

how did i get here? stuck here in this life, on this treadmill. bored but busy and in over my head with people i answer to as if our life depended on it. cause it does.

i was in such a state tonight, i almost got into it with a lady at the daycare. she's actually not a lady, well she is, but she's really a friend. someone i enjoy when i see at the end of the day. but not today.

i was home alone with the boys while ZLT was at school and i just felt so sorry that they were stuck here with me on a day when it's better to not know me at all.

my son wrote a poem to cheer me up. see, i was tough on him doing his homework. he's bored with the stuff he brings home from school. so teacher said he could skip her homework and do stuff that i give him. and tonight, i wasn't "tough on him", i lied, it was more like i was impatient and hard.

so he curled up with the beautiful journal he decorated on Saturday with one of the girls next door, who helped him cut out the patterns, like the snowflakes i used to make as a kid, and color it in. he wrote a poem that he promised would "encourage" me and then he read it to me while he sat himself on my lap:

"I Love You No Matter What"

my parents are sometimes
grumpy, but no mater what
they do they will always love
me and I will always
love them too.

And when they tell me to
do something I do it
cause its the best,
and when they want to
go to sleep I try to
let them rest.

They always will
love me and I will
allways love them too! "

i wanted to die. and i felt myself SO want to soften and relax, but i was simply wound too damn tight. that boy has wings.

i am afraid my job is too hard for me. not that i can't do the work. it is more the who and how many i do it for. too many personalities and too many roles.

i decided that having the wrong job is like wearing the wrong shoes. they can be too tight or small or stiff or skinny or whatever they are, they're all wrong for your feet and life is all wrong when you're in them.

i don't want to know me tonight. i just want to curl up under my blankets and forget about this day and the inescapable certainty of the one tomorrow.

this, too, will pass ...

oh, and i read my comments on other blogs and was well, so mad at myself. disappointed. they are so forced, like when i eat my kids' leftover food so it won't go to waste. as if a post is wasted if i don't comment about it! i mean, i'm like a dog wandering the neighborhood, taking a piss on every tree just so the next dog knows i was there.

woof.

Living Life

So i've been tossing ideas around my brain all weekend, like super balls bouncing off the walls of a play room of boys and walking around my part of america with a brandnew sensitivity for just about EVERYTHING.

and would you know I noticed I wasn't laughing so hard as before. How can i? people are sacrificing and dying for me and my family and country today.

then i faced the demons head on in my head and told them to go straight back to hell cause, yes, someone is dying for me today and so i'm gonna laugh harder than i ever did yesterday. i'm going to smile so warm at the bum outside the grocery store, he may just follow me to my car. and i'm going to overlook the differences between me and the next human i meet because we have too much in common to waste an opportunity to connect and magnify who we are and lose what might come of a greeting.

and i'm going to sacrifice efficiency to be kind to someone ordinarily out of the way and not wonder about how it will effect my bottom line when i crawl into bed at night and worry about waking up tomorrow for monday morning after a week of vacation.

this was not the vacation i anticipated. not by a longshot. i have more than tackled a to do list and brought the stress levels down. i am a different person for reading and engaging over here. and my hope is that there will be many more like me.

i am so exhausted i can't listen to anyone longer than their first sentence. spinning plates is a learned skill. and they don't all need to spin fast and mighty at the same time all the time. that's made such the difference for me now. the trick is to just keep them spinning and not crashing. and if you add a couple more, it's ok if the two on the end wobble and fuss. in the end, it'll get to the point where i can add even two more. and two more.

also, i hate my writing. it embarasses me when i read it just like i'm often mortified by a photograph or the sound of my own voice on tape or video. yikes! that's not really how i sound is it?

i thought about when i first started working out, trying to jog on the treadmill or up the street. it was also a shame filled endeavor. but someone broke it down for me this past week. and i get it. its an exercise. you do it everyday and eventually you actually enjoy the strength you gain and the sound of your own voice becomes familiar and inviting and something as useful to you as to somebody else who might happen along.

i'm going to draft a letter to a soldier tonight. i've been thinking about it all day. now, i just need to do it.

Send a Letter

I have been reading here and here about the adopt a soldier programs that have supported so many stationed overseas and particurly iraq.

anysoldier was by far the most thoroughly organized and informative. broke it all down, military style.

jacob's site broke my heart. it is about supporting soldiers and also dorine's healing process. my heart deeply goes out to the moms.

im overwhelmed by the magnitude of support that can be given by anyone who spends just a little bit of time and money.

"most important are the letters of support" is a constant reminder, no doubt repeated repeatedly for a culture who would rather send the stuff than the love. because picking the stuff from a pre-drafted grocery list is oh so much easier and simpler and convenient than picking out just the right words to say to make the difference between the bad day or month or year and the encouragement that comes when someone cares and appreciates and isn't too lost in their lives to show it.

encourage means to give courage; to embolden. and courage can often show as the smile that shares itself on the faces of countless others who rise to face one more 16 hour day.

Election Battle Cry

"We will embalm ourselves for burial and take our coffins with us to the polling stations," Mr. Sagheer proclaimed to the crowd.

i am on edge. at quarter to 10AM on election day. so im searching the web reading reading reading.

to stop and listen and by so doing express a multitude of goodwill to fill the time and distance between there and home.

i hope and pray for home for them, i do. prayers for home and a safe election.

Rebirth

so i'm thinking that life is an endless process of rebirths. 'sepsblog' is no more. i burned it as an exercise in letting go and not being too attached, and self-important. and i saw a need to start over the right way.

i'm completely losing my mind after countless nights on the net, reading oh so many blogs and links to sites and then starting to feel like i know it all. i keep giving myself 30 minutes - yeah right!

i don't know it all and for sure it's all been said before. so i'm not here to reinvent the wheel, just to be on the scene. want to continue to connect with the stream of conscious dialogue that has awakened something in me that's been in cold storage, hibernating through our world's winter hour.

i find it has been an effort enough to read and learn and allow myself to suffer and feel for people and their lot, whether they be a unarmored soldier, or gold star mom or Big Tanky in her stick car or the hun getting the party started at bring the beef.

and, as if that wasn't enough, i'm 'in' on the whole armor thing afterall, after being a boob and all emotional and wanting to deny our troops in need or my ability to really help. or both.

not being numb is good. i heard bob marley sing No Woman No Cry today and was crying well before he started tellin me not to. so im emotional. all this blogging. what's that song about really? sharing oatmeal? maybe that's what we're doing here too.

and then i put the song on repeat just so i wouldn't numb up again but stay in that place, feeling something about someone other than myself for a change.

wish i'd read her thoughts on blogging before i started 2 weeks ago. radiohumper rocks and rules.

if I know you ... you probably want to check out how to buy armor and adopt an army unit with more reservoir than tarantino here and here.

need sleep.