Hi Aim (and maybe Hank) (anyone else reading?)!
I found out Saturday while in the midst of my 8am-9pm day that one of my former Basketball/Baseball players mothers had passed away. Kyle is a Soph at Johns Hopkins and was such a sweetheart. When I first met him as a Soph or Jr at Lenape, someone told me his mother was battling breast cancer. I often wanted to ask Kyle how she was doing, but never wanted to bring the subject up in case school (Student Council President) and sports (as I mentioned, Basketball and Baseball) were a refuge into normal for him. Kyle's senior year I heard a few things about how Mrs. O was not doing too well. Kyle graduated and moved on to JHU and stops back to visit on occasion. I still never had the heart to ask.
One kid in the group of guys he hung out with, BJ I keep in touch with fairly regularly. I always ask BJ about Kyle and his mom. I think about them often. How difficult it must be for an 18 y.o. boy to leave home for college and his life knowing his mother is fighting for life everyday. BJ never really has much news - "Ms. V, guys don't talk about that stuff. We get together and hang out, but he doesn't share and we don't really ask. We're guys.". Our Student Council Advisor told me Saturday about her passing away. He told me Kyle was at a few Varsity Bkt games over the holiday and told him his mom was in pain all the time. They hoped it wouldn't drag on a suffer.
I have been told lately I'm "maternal" and I guess that kicked in when I heard. I attended the viewing on Saturday. What a group of people! It was quite a turn out. Kyle seemed pleased to see me and genuinely seemed to be doing alright. The same could be said for the older son, daughter and Kyle's dad (who after seeing me often for Kyle's injuries must've been surprised to see me there). I know it must be different when you've been faced with the reality of this moment for years. According to another former baseball player I saw at the Funeral Home Mrs. O had fought back a bout with breast cancer years before I met Kyle, so the thought that this could eventually be reality had been in their home for a long time. Perhaps that's what the calm, serene and happy (? - can you say that? it was smiling and friendly attitude...maybe happy isn't the exact right term) look of the family was. I worry though about the moments in the next week or so. For the Father - when all the visitors have left and both of his sons return to college (his daughter is married) leaving the house quiet and lonely for the first time. Or when, after returning to college, either of the sons calls or comes home and mom is not on the other end. Or for the daughter when her own child is born, or when she wants advice on cooking, marriage or the like and there is no mother left to turn to. It's these moments when I think the grief strikes you most.
I told Kyle he always knows where I am should he need anything. Not that he'd ask, it's not how he is. The group of guys from h.s. are close and the mothers even more so. Kyle will never want for anything any of those mothers can provide. I hope the Father knows he can come watch baseball, see the new Lenape crop, socialize with those around him and in a place he spent so much time to forget the loneliness even for awhile.
When I knelt beside her coffin, I offered up a little prayer for the continual watch, love and support of those she left behind.
-Song by Eric Clapton
Monday, January 21, 2008
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Kokomo
O.k., so it's not quite, but I had to stay with the song title thing! It's been almost ONE YEAR since Aim whisked me away to paradise and I'm having TOTALLY withdrawl and yearning lately. Wouldn't You?
-Song by Beach Boys
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
I'm Just A Bill
I think in all my "I'm sick" and "Woe-Is-Me" crap I forgt to mention I went to the National Constitution Center over the holiday. It wasn't quite what I expected, but I still enjoyed it. I might be able to spend a few hours there, but I was disappointed by how much they glanced over the creating and purpose of the Constitution.
To show you how geeky our family is, we made this a family outing day because my mom wanted to see the First Lady exhibit. I've seen bits of it before when Aim, Katie and I went to the Smithsonian and loved it. We started at the Freedom show which is pretty much just a "Hooray American and our rights!" thing. Geeky thing is, I was getting all teary eyed hearing the "look what our founders started, how it's stood up over the years and all the things it's helped our country accomplish". Silly, right? I figured for fear of being made fun of, I'd keep the teary eyed thing to myself. We exited the theater an before wandering around the displays, Jill looks at us and says "Am I really a geek for getting all teary-eyed during that show?". I started laughing and blurted out "ME TOO!". I couldn't tell if my mom's smile was proud of us or wondering how she raised us! :)
My favorite thing was the Founders' Hall. It has lifesize statues of the signers of the Constitution (and the 3 dissenters) made to fit their actual perportions and pictures taken of their faces. Too cool. Check out the Big, bad delegation from Pennsylvania! I have an individual pic of me and my favorite guy, Ben Franklin. (That's him in the bottom right front.)
All in all a good day. Yay America! :)
Song Title from Schoolhouse Rock
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Desparate, but Not Serious
Hey Blog fans (um, Aim, I'm pretty sure it's just you. :) )!
Well it's a late night post, so ya'll know what that means - rambly and "woe is me" stuff. I'll try to keep that part of it light, but as we begin a new year it's hard not to wonder where the hell my life is headed? Twice in every year, as the year ages and as I age, I ponder the years gone by. As Indigo Girls once said "Every 5 years or so I look back on my life and Ihave a good laugh.". Ain't it the truth. I keep waiting for the NYE when the ball drops and I get to go back a year. I'm not sure if I'd re-do anything, the year being exactly what it had been day-by-day, but I always feel like I've lost another year off my life...off my living.
For the terribly feminist, this will seem a tad...well, just a tad. People always say you can't wait for a man to make you who you are, but I feel like that's exactly what I'm doing. Don't get me wrong, I've been the same person more or less for 30 years (ask my mother) and I'm guessing the next 30 won't change me that much. I just want someone to share my life with. Someone who will travel with me, adventure with me, etc. It's easy to say "you should do those things anyway. Don't let not having someone hold you back.", but what fun is a moment if you don't have someone to share it with. For i.e. If I had been in my room alone making up sign language after a few beverages, it just wouldn't be as funny as it was when Amy was there to see it...and then every once in awhile rehash it.
It's also nice to have someone to share the highs and lows in your life with. Someone who's just as vested in them, who feels like they're living them with you. Friends, I love you, but you are just not the same. Since alot of you are married, you know exactly what I mean. I feel as though THIS is what is missing in my otherwise good, fulfilled life. And the loneliness from that often consumes the good and takes over.
I was awoke yesterday at 9am to a horrible pain in my stomach. I was not schedule to be into work until 2pm, so I set my alarm for 10am, planned a quick 20 or so minute workout on the treadmill and grocery shopping before coming home to shower, dress and begin my work day. (Before you get jealous, jealous, jealous - keep in mind I will be working from 7:30-5:30 Saturday. Perspective, my friends! :) ) So, not only was this stupid pain stirring me a full hour before my scheduled time (and you know how I like to sleep!), it ended up debilitating me for the entire morning. I laid in bed, yelling with my sad, pathetic energy "I HAD PLANS"! It started as an irritation at the day, but the more I repeated it (with each wave of nausea) I applied it to the past 8 years of my life. Years I look at as wasted years. Years of just being and doing with no life behind them. I had plans.
I had visions when I was middle school (7-8)/(9-10) high school age of working in a glamorous fun business career (I think it might've been PR) before rushing to meet my TD&H boyfriend and close girlfriends for some drinking, dancing and catching up, then laughing and hand holding all the way home with my TD&H where we would cuddle up on the couch and talk, happy as could be. I know they're visions of delusional pre-teens spurred on by media, but even as I got older the "dreams" persisted. These were of making kids lunches, a morning breakfast of rushing and moving before a good-bye kiss, buses and swooshing out the door to work, only to come home again to crawl exhausted into bed curled up in the arms of a man I love, who loves me back the same. These were my plans. I HAD plans. Nowhere in my plans were holiday gatherings as the only single in the ever-growing group of spouses and children. Or another holiday of the "I just don't understand why you're still single" conversations. The NYE midnight kisses that weren't as the stores go from Christmas to Valentine's - another in the long string of reminders that your plans don't matter.
They say the Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men often go Awry, but I should get some say. It should be like a police violation - I should be allowed to face my accusor. I should get to tell the person in charge of the waves of nausea and worse that I HAD PLANS! Grocery shopping and Treadmill may not seem like Grand Ball kind of things, but THEY WERE MY PLANS! If lets say, instead of Grocery Shopping and Treadmill I'd had Ed McMahon, I might concede my plans could wait and were silly. You win. You are right. You're plans were better. But Nausea and worse when I've been sick for a month?!?! It's Crap! I feel like Adam Sandler in Happy Gilmore. I keep trying to get the ball into the Clowns mouth and the clown keeps spitting it out and laughing at me!
I keep trying to be positive. Keep trying to say "Maybe what the future holds is better for me.". But I'm pretty sure I started THAT tradition in 2003. 5 years of Wasted Time. I wish I could believe, I try often to believe it wasn't wasted. That the future is better. The plans for me are better. The reality is that year after year I lose the hope and the faith. And after 5 years of nothing positve or hopeful I have pretty much given up hope and sink into the knowledge I will be a miserable old woman with cats. (Or worse, find the most wonderful man at 40 and no kids are possible - hearing the OB/GYN say "If only you'd found each other and started sooner".)
Alright, so none of that was light (although, if you could've seen me feebley shouting at my ceiling, you'd laughed your behinds off! :) )., but always heavy on my mind at this hour of the evening, when the window opens and I am too tired to fight it off. On other random notes - I'm still sick and lethargic, but getting better. I have a good couple hours every day, then feel as though I've been attacked by a vampire - sucking the life and energy right out of me. After a month or so of this (and I'm on the upswing), I just look forward to the good couple hours.
A friend of mine and LAX coach who just got married in October was diagnosed over break with testicular cancer. He had his testicle removed and CAT scan show it is mixed cells in his Lymph near the removed testicle. He's 31. (Now, talk about your I HAD PLANS stories - he and his wife were engaged, called it off, were apart for a year an got together about 3 years ago before getting married in October.) The upside is, his wife found out she was pregnant just days after he found out about the cancer. She's 2+ months along.
Otherwise, not much else has been going on because I've been virusing - sleeping and drugs through most of December. It's all a blur and any plans I had...well, let's not get started on THAT again.
Love ya'll (and by ya'll I mean pretty much I'm sure just Amy!:) )
Well it's a late night post, so ya'll know what that means - rambly and "woe is me" stuff. I'll try to keep that part of it light, but as we begin a new year it's hard not to wonder where the hell my life is headed? Twice in every year, as the year ages and as I age, I ponder the years gone by. As Indigo Girls once said "Every 5 years or so I look back on my life and Ihave a good laugh.". Ain't it the truth. I keep waiting for the NYE when the ball drops and I get to go back a year. I'm not sure if I'd re-do anything, the year being exactly what it had been day-by-day, but I always feel like I've lost another year off my life...off my living.
For the terribly feminist, this will seem a tad...well, just a tad. People always say you can't wait for a man to make you who you are, but I feel like that's exactly what I'm doing. Don't get me wrong, I've been the same person more or less for 30 years (ask my mother) and I'm guessing the next 30 won't change me that much. I just want someone to share my life with. Someone who will travel with me, adventure with me, etc. It's easy to say "you should do those things anyway. Don't let not having someone hold you back.", but what fun is a moment if you don't have someone to share it with. For i.e. If I had been in my room alone making up sign language after a few beverages, it just wouldn't be as funny as it was when Amy was there to see it...and then every once in awhile rehash it.
It's also nice to have someone to share the highs and lows in your life with. Someone who's just as vested in them, who feels like they're living them with you. Friends, I love you, but you are just not the same. Since alot of you are married, you know exactly what I mean. I feel as though THIS is what is missing in my otherwise good, fulfilled life. And the loneliness from that often consumes the good and takes over.
I was awoke yesterday at 9am to a horrible pain in my stomach. I was not schedule to be into work until 2pm, so I set my alarm for 10am, planned a quick 20 or so minute workout on the treadmill and grocery shopping before coming home to shower, dress and begin my work day. (Before you get jealous, jealous, jealous - keep in mind I will be working from 7:30-5:30 Saturday. Perspective, my friends! :) ) So, not only was this stupid pain stirring me a full hour before my scheduled time (and you know how I like to sleep!), it ended up debilitating me for the entire morning. I laid in bed, yelling with my sad, pathetic energy "I HAD PLANS"! It started as an irritation at the day, but the more I repeated it (with each wave of nausea) I applied it to the past 8 years of my life. Years I look at as wasted years. Years of just being and doing with no life behind them. I had plans.
I had visions when I was middle school (7-8)/(9-10) high school age of working in a glamorous fun business career (I think it might've been PR) before rushing to meet my TD&H boyfriend and close girlfriends for some drinking, dancing and catching up, then laughing and hand holding all the way home with my TD&H where we would cuddle up on the couch and talk, happy as could be. I know they're visions of delusional pre-teens spurred on by media, but even as I got older the "dreams" persisted. These were of making kids lunches, a morning breakfast of rushing and moving before a good-bye kiss, buses and swooshing out the door to work, only to come home again to crawl exhausted into bed curled up in the arms of a man I love, who loves me back the same. These were my plans. I HAD plans. Nowhere in my plans were holiday gatherings as the only single in the ever-growing group of spouses and children. Or another holiday of the "I just don't understand why you're still single" conversations. The NYE midnight kisses that weren't as the stores go from Christmas to Valentine's - another in the long string of reminders that your plans don't matter.
They say the Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men often go Awry, but I should get some say. It should be like a police violation - I should be allowed to face my accusor. I should get to tell the person in charge of the waves of nausea and worse that I HAD PLANS! Grocery shopping and Treadmill may not seem like Grand Ball kind of things, but THEY WERE MY PLANS! If lets say, instead of Grocery Shopping and Treadmill I'd had Ed McMahon, I might concede my plans could wait and were silly. You win. You are right. You're plans were better. But Nausea and worse when I've been sick for a month?!?! It's Crap! I feel like Adam Sandler in Happy Gilmore. I keep trying to get the ball into the Clowns mouth and the clown keeps spitting it out and laughing at me!
I keep trying to be positive. Keep trying to say "Maybe what the future holds is better for me.". But I'm pretty sure I started THAT tradition in 2003. 5 years of Wasted Time. I wish I could believe, I try often to believe it wasn't wasted. That the future is better. The plans for me are better. The reality is that year after year I lose the hope and the faith. And after 5 years of nothing positve or hopeful I have pretty much given up hope and sink into the knowledge I will be a miserable old woman with cats. (Or worse, find the most wonderful man at 40 and no kids are possible - hearing the OB/GYN say "If only you'd found each other and started sooner".)
Alright, so none of that was light (although, if you could've seen me feebley shouting at my ceiling, you'd laughed your behinds off! :) )., but always heavy on my mind at this hour of the evening, when the window opens and I am too tired to fight it off. On other random notes - I'm still sick and lethargic, but getting better. I have a good couple hours every day, then feel as though I've been attacked by a vampire - sucking the life and energy right out of me. After a month or so of this (and I'm on the upswing), I just look forward to the good couple hours.
A friend of mine and LAX coach who just got married in October was diagnosed over break with testicular cancer. He had his testicle removed and CAT scan show it is mixed cells in his Lymph near the removed testicle. He's 31. (Now, talk about your I HAD PLANS stories - he and his wife were engaged, called it off, were apart for a year an got together about 3 years ago before getting married in October.) The upside is, his wife found out she was pregnant just days after he found out about the cancer. She's 2+ months along.
Otherwise, not much else has been going on because I've been virusing - sleeping and drugs through most of December. It's all a blur and any plans I had...well, let's not get started on THAT again.
Love ya'll (and by ya'll I mean pretty much I'm sure just Amy!:) )
Friday, January 04, 2008
The Shortest Story
Guess what I got for Christmas?
Aim, thought you'd like it. I happen to LOVE it. Lots of pockets. I can actually FIND stuff! :)
More later - for now. Sleep tight.
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