Here's to you!

Lately I've had a ridiculous and overwhelming urge to get out my sewing machine, blow off the dust and start sewing things.

Now, while I'm not a novice behind the sewing machine, I'm no expert either. I've made curtains, hemmed skirts, tailored in t-shirts-easy things that aren't a big deal. But pleats, zig zags, anything with curves or any kind of detail, forget it.

I can sew a straight line. On a good day. But for some reason right now I feel like I can totally slipcover my sofa cushions, make that tank dress into something cuter by adding material from a skirt that doesn't fit anymore. Or take a skirt that is too big and attach a shirt that is too short to make a cuter one piece dress from it.(Damn you Whitney!)

I know. Anyone who knows me knows. I am delusional. It's like when I watch Olympic ice skating and actually believe in my mind that I could pull off a triple axel or a salchow. What? Like it's hard?

In reality, I'm sure my sewing machine will stay safely tucked away in the closet where it allegedly is, but I have no idea because I've never unpacked it since we moved here 4 years ago. I am not even sure it made the trip here from Pennsylvania.

But the reason I'm so delusionally inspired?

I'm surrounded right now by a lot of artistic people. People with talents who actually earn a living, no matter how modest, through their arts. This, I love. This, inspires me. This, is necessary for me.

Friends who paint, dance, take pictures, write, design and create clothing, paint pottery, make soaps and candles, run galleries, and just “imaginate” their way through life.

As someone who spent the first 15 years of my adult life in a profession that was very, very wrong for me, it's hard to explain what this means to me. I now make my living in an artistic profession and have done so for almost 3 years now.

I returned to my writing almost three years ago, first through my blog and then through freelancing for the newspaper where I now work. I have written a novel that needs some serious attention and editing, and have begun a memoir that needs a lot more of everything before it is complete.

My point is this. If I weren't surrounded by so much creativity I wouldn't be nearly as inspired to be creative, artistic and offbeat. I feed off their energy. And I hope they do mine as well, in some small way.

I know now something that I never realized before. It is...stifling for me not to have other people around me who understand what it is like to have this....thing. And equally as energizing to have them around.

But artists, we're a different breed, all of us our own kind of crazy. Some reign it in and try to maintain a normal façade while others revel in their eccentricities. But we all have it, whether we like to admit it or not.

We're neurotic, hyper, depressed, schizophrenic, bi-polar, split personality sons of bitches who'd run off all our friends if only they weren't as batshit crazy as we are. And the people who love us, well they'd better really love us. 1,000%, especially if they are a non-artistic ilk. We can only hope they love us not only in spite of our crazy but because of it (at least a little bit of the time).

It's been just over 3 years since I kicked off Tinfoil Magnolia in April, 2010. Although I've neglected her somwhat over the past year or so, she is not forgotten. I feel every other day that I will reign my life in just enough to at least commit 3 days per week to posting here. Sometimes (well most of the time) it just doesn't happen. But this blog means a lot to me.

Yesterday a friend of mine told me that he'd received a pretty serious diagnosis. Not one, I don't think, that he was entirely surprised to hear, not one he hadn't suspected. But hearing it in black and white, sometimes that's another thing, isn't it?

Although we've never met in person, I consider him a friend. He was the first non-relative or friend to comment or follow Tinfoil Magnolia when I began the blog. I had no idea who he was or how he found me, but I am so glad he did.

So I'm thinking of my friend and his wife and family today. His new diagnosis? Well, it's always been part of who he is. Part of the artist crazy. It doesn't change how I think or feel about him. I don't have to deal with it daily as his family does, but to change that part of him, I would think, would change who he is on a basic level. As it would for any of us.

The fact of the matter is, and this goes for all of us, it makes us who and what we are. Our narcicissms, our addictions, our faults, our neuroses-they are all part of us. Our insecurities, our grandiose thoughts, our voices and all of our personalitites. It makes life wonderful and difficult and passionate and thoughtful. And I embrace that about all of my friends.

No matter how crazy they might make me. :)

Feelin' Groovy!

Yesterday was the husband's birthday.

isn't he the cauuuutest thiiing???

Now, I'll be honest. I don't very often get sappy and lovey-dovey about our relationship.  I feel like after 17 years of being married we are past all of that stuff. We love each other and we show it. We care about each other and we show it. It's just not necessary to say it all the time to everyone in the world.

But I really, really love this man. And I know that he loves me. I KNOW that. I've never in our marriage felt one iota of jealousy because he always makes sure I know how much he loves me and how he is committed to me.

He lets me be crazy when I want to and reigns me back in when he needs to. He indulges me when he can and is honest with me when he needs to be. He always believes in me and my talents, even though he is sometimes the only one who does.

He stuck with me through years of serious and undiagnosed depression, when all I could tell him was "I just don't feel right". Through anger and sadness that I couldn't even explain. When we talked about it later, much much later, I asked him why he stayed. Why didn't he leave me?

"Because I made a commitment. And I love you. That's why," was all he said.

We've come through the roughest of the rough patches together, he and I, and things now are amazingly great. We are happy. It's not always been that way, and a lot of people don't know that, but it is good now.

This blog, for better or worse, is about what's going on in my life and what's going on in my head. Today, I am just overwhelmed with love for my husband, and I though just once I'd give in and let people know that.

People ask him all the time what he did to deserve me. I ask myself all the time, "what did I do to deserve him?" Honestly.

Significant Events and the Time Space Continuum

I'm offering up a just a quick little thoughtful post today, as July 4th is a day of some importance to hubby and me. Last year on July 4th I posted "What Doesn't Kill You...." covering the events that happened to us on July 4, 2000. If you don't know our story, feel free to read it.


The following is an excerpt from a speech I wrote when I was member of a local Toastmasters group a couple years ago. It was an introductory "getting to know me" type speech in which I used my thoughts on the concept of time and how we measure it to introduce myself to the group. This portion shows a bit about my thoughts on how the accident affected us and our life.

We all have 24 hours in the day, 1,440 minutes. 4-6 minutes of time seems like not much in the grand scheme of things. Me, personally, it seems that I have an ongoing battle with time.

Here I am at 6:45 in the morning, rushing to leave the house to get here on time. 6:45 is my drop dead time, in the car, coat on, cell phone and purse backing out....but 6 am or pm, it is always the same scenario...damp hair, rushing around, shoes and keys needing to be located. It seems I am always rushing to be on time!!

I leave everything to the last minute, I am always hurrying to get here or there, I worry about being late, hate being early, because it is a waste of time. When you think of it, why is there such importance on something so really intangible? You can't see time, so how do we know it is there?

On the broad scale of time, I seem to get off easy. One of the most common ways people seem to measure time is by their children's ages. Because I do not have children, just 2 cats, I don't have that "mark" that requires me to admit my real age. Some friends and family members my age actually have not only grown children but grandchildren. I suppose I could, too, had I gotten married at 18, stayed home and had babies like everyone else in the small KY town where I grew up. I chose to leave home, go to the "big city" Nashville, TN, attend college, study business management, and go to work to support myself.

Another way we measure time is by use of that time, how much we get done. At age 18 I was living on a college campus, working trying to pay my tuition without any assistance from my family. Every moment of my day was scheduled. I had retail jobs, nanny jobs, catering jobs, classes, bible study and church. And there never was enough time to study and do research, homework, everything that was required. 

By age 22 I had my first real job, full time. I kept books for a company that owned a restaurant and nightclub. I worked my day job and 3 part-time jobs to pay bills. Until the age of 24 I literally left my apartment at 7am and most days didn't get home until 10pm. Looking back I don't know when I had time to sleep. But I made connections and developed a work ethic that would cause me to succeed later in life. 

By the age of 29 I had moved up the ladder into a the corporate position I had longed for. My job required long hours and a lot of travel. My days were full of project schedules, deadlines, airport schedules and a dayplanner was by now a regular part of my life, a necessary evil. I had no choice but to be on time.

We also measure by significant events. 27 years since I started driving, 26 years since graduating high school, 17 happy years of marriage.  My biggest significant event was that in July 2000 my husband was flying in a small-engine aircraft that crashed upon takeoff. He was trapped inside the burning plane for almost 10 minutes before being rescued. Time as I knew it would come to an end that day. 

When the accident happened I took a leave of absence from my job and sank into the ultimate time vacuum. The hospital waiting room. A place where every second counts, but time does not matter. There are no schedules, no appointments, no rules when you are in a hospital. Time, clocks, the calendar, days of the week are all indistinguishable when you are waiting for someone to wake up. I remember leaving the hospital for lunch one day with a friend and I remember looking around, and being amazed that life was still going on. Time still was moving on as quickly as ever.

Since this occurrence, I found it impossible to go back to the corporate culture I had been in before. Several years ago I decided to begin an entirely new career which would give me something I would actually enjoy doing, working with people, along with flexibility with my work hours, and not tie me to a desk 40 hours a week. From that career I gained the confidence I needed to return to school and complete a degree in graphic design, allowing me to pursue a career path I had been long wishing to follow.

Something like that can really change the way you look at time. My husband fought hard to get more time on this earth. I realized how precious time really is....time with your loved one, time with family, time spent on doing the important things, and things that make you happy.

Every moment is a precious commodity, completely non-renewable. And yet, with the dawn of each new day, every one of us once again has the same amount of time for that day, 24 hours. 1,440 minutes.

Today and every day, I hope you appreciate each and every moment of time you have in this world. Don't ever squander your time on things that don't matter, people who don't care, or projects that aren't important. Love those in your life but above all, love yourself.

Heartbreak and Heartmending

Today, I was prompted through FaceBook to read a post by Emily Giffin at one of my favorite sites, Chick Lit is Not Dead. Emily is author to some of the most enjoyable books I have read over the last few years. Her books are a lot of fun and once you pick them up, really get you involved with the characters and stories, and her characters' thoughts, feelings and actions are so right on that I sometimes wonder if she's been following me around or in my email box or something. But, I guess she's probably too busy for that.

Anyway, in this post she lists  5 Do's and a Do Over. You can click the link to go over there and read it in its entirety, but her basics are this.

1.  Invest in a quality camera and capture lots of random moments. 

2.  Live alone at least once. 

3.  Travel somewhere exotic and unexpected. 

4.  Break a heart and have yours broken. 

5.  Cut bait on toxic friendships. 

I find myself wholeheartedly agreeing with this list, especially #2 which I have preached for many, many years. And #5 which I only had to do for the first time pretty recently. However I have to admit, when I hit number 4? My brain came screeching to a halt. 

I fully admit, like most women my age, I have had my heart broken in the past. There have been a lot of little heartbreaks along the way, such as that of an unrequited crush or a breakup with someone I thought I loved. But only 1 time have I experienced what I consider to be full-blown heartbreak. Starting with the real, true, 100% "I love this guy more than myself and I would give up everything and everyone in my world to keep him in my life and have him all to myself forever, " all the way through to the point where he decided we didn't want the same things or he couldn't be there for me or I was just wanting more than he could give or whatever ridiculous excuse it happened to be.  Then, he reached in, pulled out my heart, tossed it around like a ping pong ball for a few months then stomped it into a million tiny pieces, walking away with a sizable piece of it stuck to the sole of his Chuck Taylors.

So, depending on which part of the lengthy denouement you're talking about, I was 21 or 22 when this all happened. Now, at 43(God that 43 looks so ugly when you type it up like that), happily married to a wonderful guy for almost 17 years, I know that this boy was not the one for me. But at the time, let's face it, it was devastating. I had given him everything I had to give and thought he reciprocated. We both had artist temperaments and were really too much alike. As a result, the relationship was equally passionate and ugly. There was no way we could have lasted long at all. But he broke me. He broke my heart, and he broke me.

For a long time I couldn't even think about dating. Or maybe dating was all I thought about. Only not just one guy. I refused to be in any semblance of a relationship. That heartbreak? It took away my innocence, trust and belief in being able to love and have it returned in like fashion. I became cynical, anti-marriage, and was just out for a good time. This went on for years. I drank (a lot), I did drugs (not a lot but some), I went out to clubs, I met guys. Met them, left them. Yes, I was a party girl back then.

Then, after about four years of this lifestyle a strange thing happened. I (quite randomly) reconnected with someone whom  I had known all along. Since we were, like, 12. I was regularly going out with 2 other guys at the time, and the more I saw of this guy the less I wanted to see them. Finally, it was his game to lose. I still didn't want marriage. I still didn't want commitment. But I wanted him. I was falling in love with him. And he loved me.

No matter how many times I tried to push him away he wouldn't let me. No matter how many excuses I came up with for why we shouldn't be together he wouldn't take them. Though he may not have realized it at the time, he lovingly and patiently put me back together. Piece by piece. As much as you ever can, he helped mend the spot where that chunk was still missing. He taught me that there are people in this world who you can trust with your life. People who will always be honest and caring, even if they don't always do it the right way (according to me). Even if they fail sometimes, their heart is in the right place.

So here I sit, almost 18 years later. Confined by love in a marriage I never thought I would have. Hopefully my days of heartbreak are over. Twenty-some years later that boy found me on FaceBook (isn't it great) and we exchanged a few brief messages. He floored me by expressing the thought that we ended on good terms. And made me wonder: Have I ever broken anyone else's heart? If I did, I certainly didn't know about it at the time. Could I have left someone along the way in such a manner as to cause them the pain that I myself had felt? Gosh, I sure hope not.

What about you? Have you ever knowingly or unknowingly broken someone's heart? And does doing what is best for you without thinking of the other person's feelings constitute intentional heartbreak? I wonder.

NOTE:  Lest every think I believe that love is all sunshine and roses, I don't. Read this post as well. It is tough and it is hard work, in my opinion. Lots and lots of hard work.  What I know.

Disparity

Today's post is my entry into this week's 100 Word Challenge, hosted by Velvet Verbosity. The 100 Word Challenge is an exercise in which we write exactly 100 words in response to the weekly prompt word. Click the link to read the other entries–good stuff over there! 
This week's prompt was "greater". 


Isn't it supposed to be 

what parents want for their children? 

For them to achieve something 

greater in their lifetime? 

All I want is for you to be proud 

of the way I've lived my life. 

I have struggled to be more 

positive, accepting, and educated. 

But it turns out all you want 

is for me 

to be just like you.

I am always changing and evolving, 

never the same me. 

Yet you remain the same you, 

too stubborn to change. 

You want me 

to stay the same. 

I wish you 

could change. 

In the end 

we are both 

disappointed.

Your Love is Like a Red, Red Rose

Thanks to Judy over at Zebra Sounds, I found this beautiful piece of poetry. Check her out, she always posts a Five on Friday with the most interesting things that I never would have found on my own.


The poetry is from the mind of WordsWorthInc, which I was visiting for the first time, but I am sure I will be back another day. I am in awe about how ordinarily he captured extraordinary love. Please take a look at his site. Good stuff.


I rarely wax poetic about my beloved hubby and our relationship. I am just not into mushy, gushy sayings and love poems. I am not a "thine eyes are like a starry night..." kinda gal. I feel like we show each other our love every day in our actions, words and touches. 


But this verse below? It is the perfect sentiment for how I feel about him.

Verse: Song

there are

many songs

i sing

but yours

is the only one

I know by heart

and i sing it

always

every day

softly

when you

are here

and loudly

when you

are gone

to fill

the space

without you

everything i love

in this world

is contained in

that song.

The Man Who Raised Hubby

Father's Day is a bittersweet time in our house. Although my dad is still alive and kicking at 82, hubs lost his dad (Jerry) a little over 4 years ago quite suddenly and most unexpectedly in his early 60's. It is hard for me to suggest going out with my dad or buying a gift or even a card because I hate reminding hubby of his loss. Not that he needs reminding, I am sure he thinks about it every day. I can not imagine losing one of my parents, much less as quickly as we lost his dad.

I really loved my father-in-law. What's more, I liked him so much as a person. He was one of the most humorous, easy going, fun loving people you'd ever want to meet. He wasn't afraid to say exactly what he thought or give you his opinion, but he was one of those rare people who could do it in a way so that you appreciated his advice even if you hadn't asked for it. When hubby had a serious accident in 2000 he was hospitalized in a coma for about a month. During that time I stayed in a nearby house (lent to us by our gracious cousin Lori) with my mother- and father-in-law so that we could remain 10 minutes from the hospital and not have to make the long drive home each day. Those weeks were so hard for me, and I can only imagine how they were for his parents. But Jerry always comforted me and talked to me when I needed to talk. We would get home from the hospital at nearly 10pm, after having been there all day just sitting and waiting. His mother and I were both preoccupied with our mother/son or wife/husband losing scenarios. His mom would usually go straight to bed when we got home but Jerry would sit up and watch the news. I would usually sit with him, glassy eyed and exhausted, wishing I could sleep but knowing that I couldn't yet so he and I would talk for an hour or so. Sometimes about important things like life and death and religion, sometimes about stupid things like potato chips or corn or lightening bugs. No matter the subject, he would go to bed and leave me feeling like somehow, now, I could sleep. Like I could make it through just one more day. And then another and another.

From the moment I started dating my husband, 17 years ago, his dad made me feel like a part of the family. And I was happy to be a part. I loved sneaking him Snickers bars and popcorn in his father's day gifts, despite the (lovingly) disapproving look my mother-in-law gave us both. But never had I felt more like his own child than during those 3 weeks we spent together. Only then did I realize how lucky my husband and his 2 sisters were to have had a father like this. After hubby was home and recovered things went back to normal, but I just felt closer to Jerry. And I think he felt closer to me, too. If only I had known then that he would be gone in less than 6 years, I would have told him how lucky I felt to know him. I would have told him how much I appreciated his time and attention during those weeks. I would have told him that I am sorry I didn't realize while he was comforting me that he, too, was hurting. I wish I had my wits about me enough to comfort him, too. After all, it was his only son in that hospital room. But, I can only hope and believe he knows all this. Everyone, please be sure your loved ones know this every day. Kids, dads, moms, grandparents, friends. It is so important.

He was a big presence and his loss is still felt in many lives beyond our own family. His funeral was enormous and packed with as many children as adults, coming to say goodbye to  Mr. Jerry. There were people of many races, status, and ages in that room and I couldn't help but look around and think that I really never knew how many lives he had touched. As much as I miss him, I still get glimpses of him every day. Sometimes my husband will say something or do something or act in a way that reminds me so much of his dad, he is his father's son. And I feel so lucky to have a husband who was raised by such a father.