Heavy

I haven’t been writing recently. There really is not a good reason, and yet there are millions of excuses. I don’t often talk about feelings very well unless I am writing. Anytime that I don’t want to stop and think about something heavy happening in my life, I stop writing.

I have always done that. Sometimes I can recognize it fast, other times it takes longer. I’m not super down or dealing with things that are too heavy. No need to send out the men with straight jackets to lock me away.

Things are just heavy enough to keep me quiet.

Politics, COVID, healthcare working, shutdowns, unemployment, homeschooling, choices about sending kids back to school this year, to mask or not to mask… which promptly circles itself directly back to politics.

All things that I am not willing to talk about with people, keyboard or reality. Why do people have to be so mean? So petty when speaking to other human beings? Why is it so hard to accept that everyone has their own opinions? They don’t have to match yours. They SHOULDN’T match yours. They don’t live the same life as you. They haven’t seen the things that you have, not have they learned all of the things that you have. They have seen and learned their own. We can accept that as a difference and use the literal words ‘Embrace your differences’.

However when that becomes put to the test, the claws come out.

I have never seen so much ignorance as 2020 has brought to our lives.

There is no escaping it.

You can’t log onto anything on the internet without seeing it.

You can’t go to the grocery store without being accosted or glared at for whichever side of the mask debate you land on.

You can’t watch television, or speak to half of your friends or family without it coming up.

I understand that they all have purpose, and a good reason for debate. I absolutely see the point.

But DAMNIT this all is heavy.

It’s the little things

The sound of the rain on a netted gazebo while I snuggle up with a laptop and blanket has got to be one of the best things ever. There is a lot of heavy things going on recently around the world. There is so many opinions from the very start that everyone has, and to this day I don’t think that there have been many answers provided.

I don’t know about everyone else, but my life was already feeling pretty heavy before all this. So this isn’t appreciated by me. Not like that even matters.

So it has been a personal goal of mine to be able to find things to lighten the mood for everyone. Between my family and fellow hospital buddies this hasn’t left the most time for me to focus on what makes my moments seem a little lighter.

This definitely makes the list.

The loss

Recently we had a ‘take your breathe away’ loss in our family that brought us to our knees with a sobering reality. We have been in this spot before, of eye opening clarity, but strangely allowed our self to get back to the blind leading the blind.

One moment we lived a few states away, keeping up with each other via texting and other social media platforms. The next a family member knocking on my door to make sure I didn’t find out any other way that he had passed away.

I am one of those people who have spent a lifetime being friends with “calamity janes” that seem to always have the crazy things happen to them. These things never happen to me but they always happen around me. I should be used to the crazy flux of emotions to happen. That’s not me trying to throw my own pity party by any means. That’s just me wondering why I have not come up with a better way to handle myself.

Then again these types of things are too sudden.

Too abrupt.

Too Final.

I can’t wrap my head around it. My heart aches. I miss my friend. I want to go back to the simple talk about awesome new tattoo’s and the best cover bands. I wanna laugh about family reunions and the weird stages our cousins go through. I wanna share my children with you and take more vacations with you.

Now we can’t.

KG

The battle

The endless struggle between what type of person I want to be versus what type of person will I be happy to see looking back at me in pictures and through the mirror is not something I have conquered yet.

I hear a lot of people say that they never get passed that however I believe that this has become my number one goal. The way I grew up was very nonplussed about the way I looked. I owned mirrors of course, and I always attempted to keep some sort of style to my cloths. Most the time that style was a tshirt and jeans with some sort of tennis shoe. Not very classy. I didn’t wear a lot of make up nor do much with my hair. To be honest I was probably in high school before what I did with my hair really became an issue.

You see, I was the tomboy. The sports girl. If it wasn’t one sport it was another. Basketball, volleyball, soccer you name it. I love riding my bike skateboarding and rollerblading too. I jammed to too loud of music, mainly some sort of r&b concept, mixed with rap when I could get away with it. I watched the Chicago Bulls and Chicago White Sox every chance that I could get. I fell into a relationship with a kid that was in a school play with me one year when I was convinced to try something new since girls basketball was over and the only active sport at my school was cheerleading. (Don’t get me wrong, I was drug into that too since I was the loudest person in my school. Trust me you don’t want those details.)

I stayed dating that guy for a couple of years off and on (like almost all relationships at that age) but to this day I can’t figure out if he knew and liked me just because I was just like one of the guys. He died, so I can’t ask.

So instead I find myself in my old age of 30something going through and learning things that me peers learned as a teenager. Acne? Never learned how to handle that so these constant shifts wearing masks has me looking like I’m pubescent again. Multiple layers on makeup to guarantee all day wear? Wow, here I was still hoarding pressed powder I bough five years ago. ( Yes I now know there are expiration dates.) Silly problems to be having I know.

So as I edit pictures from my last family function I find myself having weird feelings about seeing myself in these pictures. I have lost some weight recently, not that you can tell in any one of these pictures. I thought it would be more obvious I guess. I find beauty in the natural state of my hair and face. I knew I would be in the pictures so it wasn’t like I didn’t have time to do myself up. I just fought with that tomboy side of me that said it didn’t matter.

More so however, I find me. The me that I try to not see in the mirror when I walk by. The me that welcomes me every time I see a picture, mirror or reflective glass. The one that never minded sweat therapy, never worried about guys opinions and was exponentially happier than the me of late.

I’ve missed her.