Thursday, March 22, 2007

Hello Friday

My weeks end on Thursdays now. I like that.

On Mondays and Tuesdays I visit my student teachers and deal with university things.
On Wednesdays and Thursdays I teach junior high.
On Fridays I work on scripts at home.

Friday is a nice day to work at home. I plan to stay in my pajamas until 11:00. Then I'll get dressed and take Little Puppy to the vet.

It's spring break here now. I will not be using this time to go to Fort Lauderdale and flash my breasts at strangers. Instead I will indulge in things like sleeping in, extra cups of coffee, and afternoon naps.


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8 comments:

Spindrift said...

I have come here to hide today. I don't know, I just wanted to reach out, to conect with someone, to let go of this feeling. You are an inspiration for me and if you ever do read this I would just like you to know that you helped me more than you will ever know. Thank you for your support, and thank you for leting me hide here. To anybody else that reads this, I'm having one of those days and Wink has been a great support. Sorry, thanks, Paul

mischief said...

Paul, I have an thing that sends me an email to let me know when someone has commented, no matter how far back. So you can hide anywhere in here - and I can find you. I wish it was always so easy to find lost people. I'm glad you are here, I love your visits. You picked a nice day to hide upon, a day that sounds like it was a happy one, doesn't it?

What can you tell me about the feeling you are trying to let go of?

I do not know how I have helped, not really, because almost everything I have written is just about helping me organize my cluttery thoughts, but if it helps you in any way I couldn't be more glad.

Let's hide back here awhile and talk, if you want to. Tell me things.

Spindrift said...

Oops, clever cat, you found me. The truth is I find great comfort in your words, the way you arrange your thoughts. Your words have made me laugh and made me sad, but through it all you carry yourself with such strength and humility. My world I came from is very different and I have not met many people like you. Many of my people sat round and tried to work out how to get high and wasted. I have found that blogging has opened my world to people who have such amazing lives, such rich tapestries and they do it without drugs and alcohol (not dependent) So, it's many of the little things and many of the big things, it's just many of the things, it's hard to explain, but I admire you through the life that you live, your life. You've become a bit of a role model for me. It's like I try to imagine how you would handle situations. It's hard to explain, I don't want to freak you out. I'll start again. You have helped me stay sober, because I want to live in a life more like the life you have, the way you work through things and less like the screwed up person I have come from. (getting out of it solves nothing). I know that you have your issues(insert smiley face), but you have a professional you I don't have and I need to learn different versions of me. You reflect well internally, even though there is so much emotion going on for you, you sail the craft well. I thought I knew about many things, I have learnt much about things from you. I think I was late to start thinking about many of the things I'm thinking about now. So your blogging, in some way helps me traverse the terrain in my life better. And you have a good, good heart. So, I like to hang out here sometimes, although I'm a terribly slow reader, other than academic texts. I still haven't finished your blog, I've only got up to here. I hope I don't post this and panic and then delete it. I don't mean to say the wrong thing, it feels funny graffiting on your blog like this. I have this thought of you when you were younger at uni, surrounded by clever people and yet in some way you seeing through it all and wanting to be somewhere else. Uni served you well though. I think if I had have met you when I was younger I would have admired you then too, although I worked in a factory, came home and got drunk. I don't think there would have been any chance of meeting you:)

The feeling, well, it's life and it hurts sometimes, it's a white knuckle ride, and you shake to hang on and then you let go and I try all manner of things to make it all make sense. It can be a leap of faith. I'm trying to face many of my fears at the moment, and unclutter my world. My parents are a result of much of my confusion, and it seems that every few years I feel differently about it. Funny, I thought I had worked through much of my stuff. It's good then to know where you can find a friend. Thank you

mischief said...

Learning different versions of me is exactly right; you understand this and describe it exactly right. When I go to work I am someone else, someone true but someone different from the version of me that lives here in my house and writes these things. I don't know how, but you have pinpointed it perfectly. There are many versions.

My parents are the root of much of my confusion too. Probably different from yours, but maybe similar in some ways as we are about the same age. My parents grew up in England, post-war baby boomers, and they had a lot of beliefs about child-rearing in those days that make no sense to me. Like the thought that comforting children when they cry would make them turn out soft and spoiled. Or that you cannot negotiate, reason, or explain things to children and they should learn to obey like soldiers without asking questions. My father was gentler, my mother was very rigid, and she also has moderate OCD. And they were simultaneously raising my sister who was troubled from the first day. So life was stressful for them, and times were different. I try to keep these things in mind and let it go, but I know some of my issues (insert smiley face) originate in their home.

Confronting whatever still hurts you from childhood is very hard, I have not completed the process either, and I do not even know if I want to. I admire you for being brave enough to try with T. The fact you feel different about it every few years shows you are healing, even though some stages of healing are more painful than others.

The only difference between us where it comes to getting high and getting wasted is genetic. Somehow I could do these things without becoming addicted and some people can't. I smoked cigarettes for a long time too without ever becoming addicted. That is not a strength of character or will power, it's just good luck that I do not seem to have this gene. If I did I would have struggled too because I was a bit rowdy in my twenties. But give yourself a break, a lot of forgiveness on that one, because you do not choose addiction.

Don't feel funny about writing in here. You are so welcome to. There are lots of times I read your life and want to say things to you, even just to cheer you on, and the day you left the triangle of grass I was awash with grateful tears and words for you. To have a place to put them is good. My blog is not a book nor never will be. It's just a collection of thoughts and not only my own. Yours fit here perfectly... it's like making the past better when you add things.

Spindrift said...

I feel honored by your comments, really. Thank you for being in my corner. Your support has already spurred me on. I appreciate that.

In the movie breakfast club when Judd Nelson listens to Emilio Estevez about his parents, he says something like, 'I think your parents and my parents should get together and go bowling sometime'. I think I hear what you say about your folks.

I've bever really thought that my addictions were anyones fault other than mine. When I did my Cert IV in alcohol and other drugs we were given the impression that the verdict on this was still out. It does make me feel better internally to know that I didn't have much choice in the matter. I certainly felt addicted the first time I drank alcohol.

I still haven't mown my lawn since I heard that Colleen died. It feels difficult to write it like that. Even wrong. It sounds so detached, so final. Death can raises more questions than answers sometimes. It hurts when you care so much. I don't know how you feel but when I look at that patch of grass in my garden I think about you and her. I think about your lives, not that I know her or you other than the words you write, but I see two girls playing, growing, living, loving. My gran died a few years ago, I loved her deeply. I went to church not long after she died as I had with her before when I was young and I just felt so helpless. In the church I didn't know what the candles were for, so I asked someone, and she said that the light goes up to heaven and you can say a prayer. I lit a candle and said some words to my mind and it felt right somehow. I don't know for sure, but I believe that my gran is somewhere around with me, like she's an angel and I have a feeling that your sister wants the best for you. I think that's the good thing about angels, they're looking after us, they're making sure that we're OK. I don't know for sure, but I know that that's how it is for me. Lighting a candle or believing in angels might mot be your thing, the Delai Lama, jokes he may come back as a mosquito, I just hope you are finding your peace for you.
Love and Kindness
Paul

mischief said...

Heehee, I like you as Judd and me as Emilio. That's funny. I always admired Nelson for being able to spit up in the air and catch it in his mouth the way he did in that movie. I thought he was incredibly sexy. Estevez was not really my type, too clean. :)

I do not think we can lay fault when it comes to addictions. Of course we have to assume responsibility for our lives whether we are advantaged, disadvantaged, or somewhere in between, but blame is really futile. People do not choose addiction, but some people learn to manage it, and that's what I think is the brightest kind of future when you keep finding reasons every day to choose to manage it. I know I don't really even know how to imagine how hard that is, but I admire it very much.

I haven't been mowing my lawn either. It stopped raining here for an entire month which is unheard of on the coast where I live. The grass stopped growing and then it turned brown. Yesterday it started raining for the first time since the start of July. I will have to mow again soon and I will leave the triangle.

Saying Colleen died still feels unreal to me too. But I knew she was dying, I knew it for a couple of years. She had become so far lost I could not even see traces of her anymore. She was mentally ill, not just addicted. And she had been using so many drugs for so so long that her brain was literally damaged. I'm certain of that. She became more and more impossible to reach and in the last couple of years she changed me in her mind from being her support to being an enemy. She thought I wanted to steal her child and cannibalize her life. She did not see at all the way I wanted things to be. In some ways this is the hardest part of losing her, knowing she died feeling abandoned and unloved by me. If my sister hangs out around me now she might be the force that trips me on the stairs or hides my toothbrush. :)

I'm okay though, for real. Coping and working my way through the hurt-y parts. Like you are, like everyone does. And I'm glad you have your gran to watch over you. She's probably pretty pleased with the way you're turning out.

Love L

Spindrift said...

Hi, I was going to go somewhere else but I didn't know where to go and this from our pryor chat seemed to be OK for you. It's just a really quick thig, but I've been thinking for the last week or so about this and I don't know how to get the thought gone. I was, and I feel really bad for asking, but I hope you don't mind, but I've been getting worried that you will stop blogging and I will come to your page and you will have closed it. I was wanting to ask if it's not too much of a problem for you, if you could possibly post something for your readers or maybe let me know, I know you don't have email, so that could be tricky. A blog friend disappeared, I guess I liked to think friend but he kind of just disappeared and I got a bit concerned. I am sorry to ask, maybe I shouldn't. I understand if I'm asking too much. Just as an update, my grades are good, and even though my posts have been a bit erratic lately I do feel that I am heading in the right direction. This is where I want to say thanks again for supporting me in my efforts, because that's how you have made me feel, and I deeply appreciate you for that. I'm learning to be strong, I'm vulnerable, but I am learning much. It may come in handy:)

mischief said...

Oh no, it's not too much to ask at all. I feel the same way when people disappear without warning. It's like having the rug pulled out from under you. The thing about writing a blog is that I do it for myself because I tend to process things better when I write them out. Long before the days of blogging I wrote journal after journal. I need to write so I can understand what I am thinking and the fact that I have a tiny handful of people of that read with me is pleasant but not necessary. I wrote for always without them. I won't stop.

But. If something happened like the site crashing or something, you could still find me like this: mischiefgirlone@yahoo.com Oh, you can use that address anyway, even if you just prefer to write directly rather than posting. I should have said that before.

I am so glad you are doing well in school and that you are moving in a direction that feels good to you. Becoming who we are meant to be is such a long and sometimes painful process. I do read your blog all the time. When you hear a little voice in your head cheering for you it's not your imagination, it's me.

xx