It's Not The Heat, It's the Humidity
We're gearing up for an intro-to-summery heatwave here in the Mid-Atlantic region. I have to apologize to my neighbors because I think I've been contributing to the excessive humidity we've been experiencing.
I am, and I believe I'm getting this very complex and technical term correct, a MESS O'CATFISH.
I've got a little too much going on at the moment. Classes three nights a week, the end of the school year mayhem, a family friend passed away - not unexpectedly, but still cause for grief and worry and discomfort, and the kidlets are nearing their summer vacation and wow do they know it.
I am enough of a big kid to recognize that I annoy others from time to time.
I think it's pretty clear that I am, myself, susceptible to being annoyed by others occasionally.
This week, I am annoying myself. A. Lot.
I am a weepy puddle of blah.
My son is "graduating" from kindergarten. This is, I know, a preposterous statement. The definition of "graduate" beyond just moving from one level to another specifically indicates achieving a degree. Unless the boy is bringing home some sheepskin I don't know about, the word "graduation" doesn't seem to go with "kindergarten" very logically. I feel sort of silly even talking about it. I had to get permission to leave work early today to go to his "kindergarten graduation." I felt like a buffoon.
And yet. I cannot discuss this event, nay I cannot even think on't, without weeping. Crying now. Will try not to publicly humiliate myself, TWGH, and boy child this afternoon by crying openly then, but I'm not making any promises.
Last night, as he and I finished the last chapter of the first Harry Potter (see! I can even imbue that apparently insignificant occurrence with meaning beyond what is rational and I haven't said what happened yet!), Dumbledore explains to Harry that he was protected from Voldemort by his mother's love and that anyone whose mother loves him so much will always carry that protection with him. Crying then. Crying now.
My kids' babysitter, who is really much more than that to me, she is more like the adolescent daughter I don't yet have and am not responsible for disciplining (Thank you Jesus), is graduating (for REALZ) from high school. I'll be there because my job requires that I be there, but also to see this person make this tiny journey from folding chair to podium and know that it represents her much bigger and much more challenging journey from girl to young adult. Crying now. Will be crying then.
I must write a 20 page research paper for one class and do some statistics practice (albeit elementary statistics but I WAS TOLD THERE WOULD BE NO MATH) for another. Crying on the inside.
The daycare/pre-school where our children have gone for the past five years feels like it's falling apart. What we loved about it isn't there anymore. I could not quite figure out what was out of place, but then last night TWGH said, "it doesn't feel like home anymore." Cried then. Crying now.
A family friend died. This is not someone with whom I had an intimate friendship, but he has been dear to so many people I love for years and years. A gaping space has opened up in our tiny and close community, and the reminders of his absence will be, or feel, omnipresent. I am more sad for the people closest to him than I am for myself...especially those of them who will struggle, I think, with finding a way to live with their grief. Thinking about his daughters, is, I must confess, a little too difficult for me today. Crying now...with more to come.
I don't write any of this for sympathy, or even as a way to purge, lather, rinse, repeat, and fluff 'n fold my own feelings. Nor do I feel like I have anything didactic to do here. I am still the luckiest girl I know...the one who got everything she ever really wanted. I guess I'm just noting that there are Emotions That Shall Not Be Named. I can't define or categorize how I feel about these events. I can't even discern if my feelings are very simple or very complicated. And I'm not going to try. Because I've just decided to let those feelings be what, where, and when they are without my usual navel-gazing scrutiny, I suspect that they are forcing egress through my tear ducts.
Much to my annoyance.
And, as a true and valid sign of the pussification of the WRH, I'm actually SAD for Sarah Larsen that George Clooney broke up with her. I think he made a mistake. I think she was the real deal and that she wasn't a groupie. I am immensely relieved and not just a little smug about being able to say that I have not cried over this break up, I am not now crying over this break up, and I will not be crying in the future about this break up, however sympathetic I am for the ex (because, you know, when Clooney broke up with ME that one time, it was really hard, too).
I am, and I believe I'm getting this very complex and technical term correct, a MESS O'CATFISH.
I've got a little too much going on at the moment. Classes three nights a week, the end of the school year mayhem, a family friend passed away - not unexpectedly, but still cause for grief and worry and discomfort, and the kidlets are nearing their summer vacation and wow do they know it.
I am enough of a big kid to recognize that I annoy others from time to time.
I think it's pretty clear that I am, myself, susceptible to being annoyed by others occasionally.
This week, I am annoying myself. A. Lot.
I am a weepy puddle of blah.
My son is "graduating" from kindergarten. This is, I know, a preposterous statement. The definition of "graduate" beyond just moving from one level to another specifically indicates achieving a degree. Unless the boy is bringing home some sheepskin I don't know about, the word "graduation" doesn't seem to go with "kindergarten" very logically. I feel sort of silly even talking about it. I had to get permission to leave work early today to go to his "kindergarten graduation." I felt like a buffoon.
And yet. I cannot discuss this event, nay I cannot even think on't, without weeping. Crying now. Will try not to publicly humiliate myself, TWGH, and boy child this afternoon by crying openly then, but I'm not making any promises.
Last night, as he and I finished the last chapter of the first Harry Potter (see! I can even imbue that apparently insignificant occurrence with meaning beyond what is rational and I haven't said what happened yet!), Dumbledore explains to Harry that he was protected from Voldemort by his mother's love and that anyone whose mother loves him so much will always carry that protection with him. Crying then. Crying now.
My kids' babysitter, who is really much more than that to me, she is more like the adolescent daughter I don't yet have and am not responsible for disciplining (Thank you Jesus), is graduating (for REALZ) from high school. I'll be there because my job requires that I be there, but also to see this person make this tiny journey from folding chair to podium and know that it represents her much bigger and much more challenging journey from girl to young adult. Crying now. Will be crying then.
I must write a 20 page research paper for one class and do some statistics practice (albeit elementary statistics but I WAS TOLD THERE WOULD BE NO MATH) for another. Crying on the inside.
The daycare/pre-school where our children have gone for the past five years feels like it's falling apart. What we loved about it isn't there anymore. I could not quite figure out what was out of place, but then last night TWGH said, "it doesn't feel like home anymore." Cried then. Crying now.
A family friend died. This is not someone with whom I had an intimate friendship, but he has been dear to so many people I love for years and years. A gaping space has opened up in our tiny and close community, and the reminders of his absence will be, or feel, omnipresent. I am more sad for the people closest to him than I am for myself...especially those of them who will struggle, I think, with finding a way to live with their grief. Thinking about his daughters, is, I must confess, a little too difficult for me today. Crying now...with more to come.
I don't write any of this for sympathy, or even as a way to purge, lather, rinse, repeat, and fluff 'n fold my own feelings. Nor do I feel like I have anything didactic to do here. I am still the luckiest girl I know...the one who got everything she ever really wanted. I guess I'm just noting that there are Emotions That Shall Not Be Named. I can't define or categorize how I feel about these events. I can't even discern if my feelings are very simple or very complicated. And I'm not going to try. Because I've just decided to let those feelings be what, where, and when they are without my usual navel-gazing scrutiny, I suspect that they are forcing egress through my tear ducts.
Much to my annoyance.
And, as a true and valid sign of the pussification of the WRH, I'm actually SAD for Sarah Larsen that George Clooney broke up with her. I think he made a mistake. I think she was the real deal and that she wasn't a groupie. I am immensely relieved and not just a little smug about being able to say that I have not cried over this break up, I am not now crying over this break up, and I will not be crying in the future about this break up, however sympathetic I am for the ex (because, you know, when Clooney broke up with ME that one time, it was really hard, too).
I should warn you: I don't do the sun will come out tomorrow comments very well. I can however, give you this: http://www.brutallyhonest.org/brutally_honest/images/2007/05/28/mean_but_funny.jpg.
To better days, friend!
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Sending you the biggest hug in the whole wide world.
Hang in there, it does get better.
Think of the alternative if they never graduated...
What are you in school for?
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This is going to sound flip although I don't mean it to, but perhaps consider trying on the old bridesmaid dresses for Britt or affixing stickers to your face? It's worked before. I don't recommend reading Cormac McCarthy's "The Road"...see my email in regards to this topic. Loves you and all you are.
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I think there's a general malaise in the air. Enough small(in perspective) things, all at the same time can leave one feeling positively untethered. Conquer the stuff you can(paper, preschool) and ride out the rest. Take heart in the fact that loads, no schloads of people find you fantastically entertaining and accessible.
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So here are a few things that make me giggled when I get plagued by a case of the funky-funks:
* make some fake fart noises (I know it's immature, but do it. It always makes me laugh.)
* go visit the "Stuff White People Like" blog
* old episodes of wings, cheers, the golden girls, or sex &the city ... any of them will do
* put on some old 70s music and dance like you're on soul train. (check out kelly's blog for the video for tutorial)
Buck up little camper! ... Barbra Peapod
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Oh Hai!
Right...I bawled through most of the kid's fake graduation. Then I bought him and his five friends ice cream to atone for being such a sap.
Fortunately, my adolescent psych class was about adolescent sexuality tonight so I got to laugh my face off at pen and ink drawings of scrotums (scroti??) and nipples. Good thing I'm so mature.
Nutmeg: that picture is hilarious and the website you got it from is the scariest gd place I've been in a long while.
Formerly Fun: I don't know who you are and will investigate your identity ASAP and I don't know what a schload is but you said really nice things to me so you are my best friend today.
I'm a little curious about the fact that two of my best friends from forever both sent me recommendations to read sad and haunting and scary books today. WTF??? Where's the love? Are you trying to kill me? Neither of you stands to inherit shit, you should know, except the responsibility to NOT tell my children the mortifying things I did in my past. Oh, except Adelle has already posted some of them here for the world to see. Alyssa: I'm thinking about something(s) I did on Locust Walk after Fiji Island. We shall not speak of this again.
Lisa: tonight at CVS I was standing behind a woman who, I swear to god, let one rip so freaking loud I jumped. She did NOT BAT AN EYELASH. I had to leave immediately because I was afraid someone would walk into the cloud and think it was me.
Ah yes. Life is good again.
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Kindergarten, blah blah blah.... WAIT: George Clooney broke up?
(just kidding about kindergarten. it IS sad.)
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My advice -- tequila and sleeping in on Saturday.
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Speak of what again? I will drink a toast this evening to your kindergarten graduate.
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It's so hard to type when your fingers are crossed like this... So far your blog hasn't crashed my Firefox like it always does! Shhh, I said that too loud, didn't I...shhhhh....
anyway, I'm crying, too. I totally feel you on this post, and not just about that rat bastard Clooney.
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