Someone Else's Shoes

I hate to be a big whine bag, but hey, it's my blog and I'll whine if I want to. I am one month, two weeks and two days past my fall. I sit here with a headache, barely able to move my neck and even after sleeping for 14 hours could most certainly go right back to bed and stay there all day. I am thankful however that yesterday was the first day in a couple of weeks that I needed to go to bed at 5:05 in the evening. I willed myself to sit upright in my chair in front of my computer until 5. I walked in my front door practically stripping before I got to the kitchen. After throwing the pillows to the floor and pulling back the comforter, I literally fell in bed. My pillows never felt so good! To say I'm exhausted today is an understatement. I start physical therapy today and I am hoping that will help give me some range of motion back in my neck and shoulders. Who knows if I'm lucky it might even help my headaches (which aren't nearly as bad as they were). I've had a good attitude about this whole thing, but to be honest with you it's starting to wear on my nerves. When people ask me how I'm doing I'm quick to tell them much better. If my husband is standing nearby he kind of rolls his eyes and shakes his head like I've lost my peripheral vision and can't see what he's doing. He's been very protective of me which I appreciate because I'd be pushing the envelope a lot harder if I thought he'd let me get away with it. When I start to open my mouth I never know if my brain is going to kick in or not (I'm mean more so than usual before the fall). I'm still getting used to the look on peoples face as I stop mid-sentence to either remember what I'm talking about or searching frantically for the right word. The viewpoint from my end is kind of humorous because everyone has the same expression... Eyebrows raised, they kind of lean forward like what I'm fixing to say is extremely important and then there is just dead silence as the anticipation itself makes me even more bumfusseled. I find myself shying away from social activities where I'm not 100% comfortable. I have been missing break recently because I just don't follow conversations easily and God forbid if I try to say something and get all locked up. It's easier just to keep to myself than to have to explain my behavior. I'm at the point in work where I'm more focused but less sure of what's been going on for the last month. I'm terribly afraid that I have or I will let something slip by me. I keep reassuring myself that there probably isn't anything that I can screw up past the point of being fixed, but then I'm usually the exception to the rule with screw ups. After talking to several people who've experience similar injuries, I'm looking at only a few more weeks or a few more months of healing before things return to normal.... (or at least normal for me). The one thing I've learned is I need more patience with older people who suffer from memory problems. You truly don't know how lost they must feel until you've walked a few steps in their shoes. As for me, I'm ready to be back in my own shoes... preferably high heel pumps... very loud.... very gaudy... cause that's they way I like em.

Stopping To Smell The Flowers in Thailand

Last week I got another adventure email from my little Sailor girl. They had recently been to Thailand where she described a magical experience. The ship pulled into Thailand in the early afternoon. Several charter buses were waiting for the sailors on the pier. The buses were provided to shuttle the sailors back and forth from the ship to the city. The bus ride took about 45 minutes. They arrived at the Hard Rock Hotel and loaded off the bus. Immediately as they walked to the Hard Rock Cafe' there were people selling souvenir type stuff. They would obnoxiously get in their face and ask if they wanted to buy. As she and her friend walked someone tried to put sunglasses on them but they shooed them away. Then a lady put something else in front of her but my sailor refused to make eye contact and shooed her away. She kept walking trying to avoid eye contact with the vendors hoping they would leave her alone. Suddenly she heard her friend call her name "Come look!". There stood a lady holding a Lemur. She wanted them to hold it and take pictures. My Sailor is a real sucker for any type of animal so she was hooked. She said it was so cute and of course she got pictures. Finally they made it through the crowd to the Hard Rock Cafe'. They ate out on the balcony and my Sailor was sitting with her arm on the ledge. She felt something prick her and when she reached to scratch her arm she felt something. She looked down only to see a GIANT cockroach the size of her hand. When she let out a yelp it scurried across the ledge, it was so large that you could actually hear it's footsteps. Not a very appetizing sight right before dinner. After dinner they headed back to the ship because they both had duty the next day. On the 3rd day they checked into their hotel. They got there in the morning hoping to get an early start. Their rooms at the hotel weren't available so the hotel upgraded them for free so they could check in early. Her room had a full kitchen, a washer and dryer, living room, bedroom, bathroom, 3 TVs, and 2 balconies all for $90.00 a night!!! The hotel provided golf carts with drivers that would take them around for free. They went to a mall to shop for clothes but found that the clothes fit funny because typically Asians are very small. After the mall they went back to the hotel to the pool which was located on the roof. From the pool they got ready for dinner at a restaurant a few blocks from the hotel. It was Thai food which is a mixture between Chinese and Japanese. It was the hottest food my sailor had ever had, but very good. After dinner they went back to the hotel that had two bars. One was called the -5 bar and one was called the Bed. The Icebar was very cool... literally! Everything was made out of ice, even the glasses they served your drinks in. They had to put on fur trimmed parkas and gloves to stay inside. It was literally freezing. They had ice sculptures and benches and bar stools made out of ice. They could only stay in for 20-30 minutes before they started freezing. After the Ice Bar they went to the bar called the Bed. The bed was full of beds with pillow. They took their shoes off and climbed on top of the bed where they were brought a tray with drinks. There were go go dancers there and it was very entertaining. When they left the Bed bar they decided it was time for bed. My Sailor asked the front desk if they had a spa because she wanted a massage. The front desk told her they did not have a spa but they would send someone to her room anytime of day or night for a massage. At 1 am she called down to the front desk and asked for a massage and 20 minutes later a lady came up to her room. Thai massages are REALLY rough. Not only do they rub you with oil but they also twist and pull you and stand on you. Every time my Sailor yelped in pain the lady laughed. My Sailor stuck it out thinking it would eventually get better but it didn't. Needless to say she felt like she had been beat up by the time the massage was over. She said she needed a massage after the massage. The next day they went to the Hard Rock Cafe' for lunch and waited for their tour. They had scheduled an elephant tour which was about 20 minutes away. When they got off the bus they headed towards the elephants. They had a stand where they could purchase huge bunches of bananas to feed to your elephant. When they got to the elephants they were ready to go. They had little chairs strapped to their backs (2 seater). The guides sat on their necks without any straps or anything. My Sailors tour guide was a little old Thai man who spoke very little English. When they started moving he turned around and grabbed my Sailors feet. It startled her because she didn't know what he was doing. He was actually removing her sandals so she could feel the elephants back. As she felt the elephants prickly hair she decided barefoot was they only way to go so that's how she stayed for the rest of the day. They came to a river where there was a photographer waiting to take their pictures. The photographer picked two pink hibiscus flowers and their elephant walked over to him took them from him and gave them to the girls. Once out of the river they started their journey. They walked through the rest of the village which was a farm. There were roosters, ox and tons of dogs. They went by several houses, but they didn't look like houses, they looked more like little shacks or sheds. The girls just couldn't imagine someone living in those conditions. Past the houses they crossed the street and headed to more jungle. There was a path cleared off for the elephants, but on either side all you could see was thick jungle. The jungle was very thick, overgrown with vines, bamboo, trees and grass, you would never be able to walk through the jungle by foot. The elephants were funny, each with their own personality. Most of them were very well behaved, but some had a mind of their own and their own agenda. Those were the ones that would take off on their own path, stop and eat tress or grass. One of them carried a huge branch in it's trunk for a couple of miles like a dog with a chew toy. My Sailor's elephant was a good girl, a real sweetie. She was 40 years old and her name was Cuimcal (pronounced Coom Cale). Along the way there were big trough filled with water. They elephants the trough and filled up their trucks then sprayed it on their bellies. Guess that's the was they cool down. On the way back to the village my sailor gave her camera to the guide and asked to him to take several shots of them on the elephant. She said it was crazy how balanced he was just sitting there on the elephants neck. There were flowers and bushes everywhere. They came upon a bush that was probably 20 feet tall and covered with purple flowers. Their elephant headed to the bush. When she got there she stopped and began to smell the flowers with her truck. My sailor was totally in love. As they headed back the elephant got tired, just not as motivated as she once was. The guide gave her one of the bunches of bananas they bought. She just stick her trunk up to him and would grab them then she would carry on with her journey, but a few miles later, she needed a little more motivation provided by another bunch of bananas. My sailor asked if she could feed her but because she couldn't reach her she had to toss the bananas to her. Unfortunately she missed the trunk and the bananas fell on the ground. Cuimcale felt around on the ground until she found them and from then on she was a happy little camper. When they got off of the elephant my Sailor wanted to bet her and tell her goodbye. She got down and petted her on the truck. The elephant looked her straight in the eyes as if to say thank you. After that it was hard to say goodbye. One thing that we all can learn from Cuimcale is no matter who you are, or where you are it's always a good idea to stop a minute to smell the flowers cause you may not get the chance to do it again.

Welcome To My Dark Side

This weekend was my 47th birthday. I'm not going to even try to pretend getting older is rewarding or any of the crap I've heard other people say. I pretty much think it sucks great big green apples but what can you do about it. The only thing I know to do is to fight tooth and toenail looking and acting my age. I'm not going down without a fight! Two things happened this weekend that really amused me. The first one is I had two different friends from completely different areas of my life send me a text that said "Okay Jac, your blogs are scaring me". I didn't think much about getting the first text but when I got the second one I just had to chuckle. It is true that most of my poetry is and always has been written out of some kind of pain and tends to be very dark. The funny thing about that is I don't usually plan that stuff. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, go the computer and it just comes out. A lot of time (not all of the time) I have no ideal where it's coming from or where it's going. When I'm depressed or just going through some life transition, the way I cope is to write; for me it's therapy. I was talking to a friend this weekend about the blogs and I told her if you didn't know me you might think I'm a really dark person that leans on the crazy side. The people who know me may say I'm unusual (I believe some use the term unique) but certainly not crazy. I know of many women at this stage in their life that are going through the very same emotional transitions that I am... They just don't blog about it. I think it's important to talk about the things we are going through because let's face it, everybody has something they are dealing with. If we could be real with each other we could bring a lot of comfort to hurting people who think they are the only ones struggling with whatever "their stuff" may be. My personal opinion is that pride keeps us from being real, not only with others but also with ourselves. Let's face it, we want others to think that we have it more together than we really do. We don't like it when people see our vulnerable places because if at all possible it's nice to feel a little superior to others and in order to do that we have to keep a lot of things hidden. If you know me very well, you know that I keep very little, if anything hidden. In fact I bet some think I should keep more hidden then I do. I guess I don't have much of a need to feel superior to others, in fact the thought of being placed on a pedestal makes me extremely uncomfortable! I know without a doubt that I will never live up to any ones expectations of me and when I fall (and I do fall) I want as few eyes on me as possible. So if you're wondering, yes I have a dark side but my dark side isn't as dark as it may seem and I'm more than willing to shine a light inside so you can see my darkness. I figured out a long time ago that things have more control over you when they are allowed to stay in the dark. Shining a light on your dark side can make things a lot less scary, at least for me. The second amusing thing that happened is the two friends that sent me text about my blogs (they don't know each other) got me the exact same present. They each got me a little plague that says "Pretending to be a normal person day after day is exhausting". I think that is a hysterical saying, so much in fact that a couple of years ago I bought a large framed painting that has exactly the same saying and I have it hanging over my desk at work. Now I don't care who you are, that's funny. Being normal, typical or usual is WAY over rated!!!! I am certainly not ashamed that I do like to be my own person, create my own style and live in my own reality and it's obvious that my friends know that about me too. The one thing I do know without a fact is I'm okay. Yes I have my struggles and I've cried some tears, but I cry them out loud so maybe someone else can see they aren't alone. It's perfectly normal to feel like you are going insane sometimes. In my view it's just part of being a woman, a Mother, a wife and a friend. So if you feel like crying, cry. in fact I invite you over to the dark side to cry with me and when we're done crying we'll pull out our compacts, put on our lipstick and have a good laugh, cause that's what real people do.

The Perfect Affair

Today Is my birthday and yesterday my husband gave me a day to grant my every wish.... well within reason. This weekend they are having Affair Of The Heart in the City. I had planned on going with a friend but our plans were changed. After dropping my youngest off to spend the day with his brother we headed to the fair grounds, me wearing my 5 inch boots at my husband's request. I actually wore them because I was convinced that he wouldn't want to look around inside all of the building and I figured our little outing there would be a very short one. Wrong!!! We made it to 5 of the 7 buildings and funny enough he made the first purchase. How funny is that? We spotted some pellet filled heating pads and he picked up one for each of us. Other than that we mainly just walked around and looked at things. The Affair Of The Heart is a girly girls world. There is girl stuff, glitter, and bling everywhere you turn. I saw a sign that read "Some girls are born with glitter in their veins"... That pretty much describes me to a T. If I stopped and spent some time in one booth he would quietly, but happily stand to the side until I was finished. When I finally confessed that I could not take one more step in my 5 inch boots, we called the boys and they met us at PF Chang's. We had a wonderful dinner and enjoyed visiting with our kids. It was a long busy day but it was a good day, and as girl birthdays go the Affair Of The Heart was the perfect affair to attend.

The Perfect Imperfect Valentine

On Facebook this week everyone was posting sweet notes about their Valentine. If I didn't know better I'd think that I was the only imperfect Valentine and I was the only one who had a imperfect Valentine. Is that unromantic to admit? My Valentine and I met 29 years ago this coming June 3rd. We've been married for 28 years. We can still tell you what the other had on the first time we saw each other. He's says he fell in love at first sight, I say I grew in love. He likes to act that somehow he loves me more because he fell in love and I like to act that my growing in love is a more substantial claim. We both grin when we have that debate. We seldom if ever fuss or fight and if either of us raises their voice it will always be me. Unlike 99% of the couples we know, we work really well together. We have remodeled kitchens, we have wallpapered houses, we have built tree houses and porches all without one cross word or one stubborn fight. He still makes me laugh, just not as often as he used to because.... let's face it after 28 years he needs some new material. He tells me I'm pretty and he always denies I need to go on a diet. I have a laundry list of things I'd like to change about him, but that list is tucked away deep into my drawer because I've accepted the fact that he is who he is and if I can just tweak his wardrobe a little that's good enough for me. After 28 years, he has never ever told me a single thing he doesn't like about me. When we were first married, I would paint my nails at the table while he finished eating. That's probably the only time he asked me not to do something, because the smell made his sick. In 28 years, that's the only thing he's complained about. Amazing!!!!! Trust me, I know I do plenty of things to get on his nerves but he just grins and bears it like a pro. Saying that he is the love of my life and the most perfect man in the world sounds very, very, Valentinish, but a little unrealistic. For both of us I think we can proudly claim that we are the most perfect of imperfect Valentine's that ever loved and lived happily ever after.

The Flaws In Me

How do you start over

With nothing in your heart

But emptiness and broken parts

Truly where do you start

How do you recapture

A passion that's young and free

Where does one regain

What is now old history

If memories is all you have

How do you begin anew

Your former self and who you are

Can you possibly combine the two

Or is what's missing gone for good

Never to be seen again

A distant past reminder

That sadly good things end

And what's it like to settle

For only what now remains

And exsist now and forever

With no hope of more to gain

Brokenness leaves it's scars

Some find strength to heal

Others live forever

Without fully being filled

I've seen my dreams crumble

Right before my eyes

I've watched a long process

Of a love that finally dies

I remember once a while ago

When anger consumed my soul

For that which was taken

Something I will never hold

But that was then

This is now

New valleys I must cross

New determination

To further bare this cross

And somehow find a way

To smile to those around

As if all is wonderful

As if true joy abounds

A facade of great magnitude

One that can pass the test

And convince those around me

My soul is true at rest

I will simply fake it

And pray real joy returns

And fire is kindled in my heart

Regardless how undeserved

I'll take the blame forever

Accepting all the loss

I'll live by distant memories

I will count my every cost

Of all that I have sacrificed

All that I have lost

At times things were very good

Perhaps I did not tend my heart

The way a woman should

Still blessings abound in spite of it all

The sadness that I see

Much blessed with a loving husband

despite of the flaws in me

The Secret

There's a hole in myself that just won't mend
A longing beyond my control
It's captured my soul and pierced my heart
like arrows from a bow
The pain it induces is mixed with joy
in an indescribable way
my emotions are scattered with fear and delight
For something I cannot say
The forbidden is tempting to say the least
and beckons me at will
to scale every wall, face every fear
To surrender all of my guilt
Forever the tide of my heart has been changed
never to be the same
Forevermore I will look to the past
As the beginning of now the end
I'm not the one I once was known
I'm no longer a girl inside
I'm as different now as the morning sun
is from the evening tide
Yet I'll rejoice in what I now know
And hold it close to my heart
As a part of me that was pushed aside
To make room for a brand new start
The knowledge of something so raw and so true
Is rare to say the least
The memory continues to hold in it's hand
The heart that belonged to me
I'll never regret one second of time
I allowed myself to know
There was more to me than what used to be
A secret I'll forever hold.