friday meme

TEN Random Things About Me:
10. I wash my hair every other day.
9. I hate cartoons.
8. I rarely wear shorts in the summer.
7. I already have tan lines from my favorite flip flops.
6. I make my bed every day, even if it's right before I go to sleep at night.
5. I would take in every stray animal I found, if I could.
4. I want to go Vegetarian permanently, but I like cheeseburgers too much to give them up.
3. I will not attend my 10 year high-school reunion this year.
2. I forgive easily.
1. I go on and on about how I hate mushy romantic movies, but I secretly really do like them. And cry while watching every time.

NINE Ways To Win My Heart:
9. Cook for me.
8. Take me out for a beer.
7. Talk about classical music with me. Sincerely.
6. Love animals.
5. Have compassion for people.
4. Make me laugh.
3. Engage me in thoughtful conversation or a heated debate, even if we disagree on something.
2. Be silly with me.
1. Read and love the same books as me, or recommend new ones.

EIGHT things I want to do before I die:
8. Be published.
7. Visit Cornwall, England.
6. Take an Alaskan cruise.
5. Own a house on the beach somewhere, or at least have a pool.
4. Learn the cello.
3. Have a baby. Maybe. I don't know.
2. Kiss the Blarney Stone.
1. Pray at the Wailing Wall.

SEVEN ways to annoy me:
7. Make racist comments or jokes.
6. Talk about Rush Limbaugh.
5. Forget to clip your toenails. (Boys, this means YOU!)
4. Don't use your turn signal.
3. Post anonymous comments.
2. Don't say what you really mean.
1. Hold a grudge.

SIX things I believe in:
6. Love.
5. Same sex marriage.
4. Lots of alone time.
3. A good cry.
2. Mothers really do know everything.
1. Nothing heals better than hugs and kisses.

FIVE things I'm afraid of:
5. Reckless drivers with road rage.
4. Becoming embittered with age, like some older adults I know.
3. Having to drive in really bad snowstorms.
2. That I will have to move out of this country eventually because of the religious right.
1. The day my dog dies.

FOUR favorite things in my room:
4. My book collection.
3. My matching antique furniture.
2. My plants.
1. My embroidered red suede comforter.

THREE things I do everyday:
3. Play with the animals.
2. Check e-mail.
1. Tell people I love them.

TWO things I want to do right now:
2. Have lunch - I'm starving.
1. Knit, knit, knit.

ONE person I want to see right now:
1. I really miss my brother.

(Yes, I stole this. From Spacedog.)

confessions

I gave up living my life by other peoples' rules a long time ago.

I am about to discuss something I don't normally talk about, except with the people to whom I am closest, but I think maybe now is the time to let it breathe...

When my soon-to-be-former-husband was diagnosed with Schizophrenia a week after our wedding two years ago, my life came to a screeching, seriously whip-lashed halt. Suddenly, in addition to being a newlywed, I became a full-time mother and caregiver. He couldn't work so I worked more. I kept the house and yard up while working 60 hours a week, while making sure we went to the doctor every week, sometimes twice a week. Eventually, our house had to be sold and we had to move. The relationship became stale, resentful, cold, and very, very unhappy.

The worse things spiraled out of control, the more I thought about divorce. As soon as I talked about the idea openly, I was met with disapproval from a lot of people, including some of my own family: How can you even think about such a thing while he is obviously so sick and helpless? What about your marriage vows, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, which you made in front of God and everyone you know? How can you be so selfish? He needs you.

He needed me, but what I needed seemed inconsequential and insignificant, unimportant and unnecessary by comparison. Taking care of myself was dead last. I felt like I was dying...my spirit was drying up and disappearing, not to mention my physical self. I lost weight...I hovered near 100 pounds for several months. There was no color in my face, no light behind my eyes. Gaunt-looking and exhausted, I ignored the bathroom mirror at all costs, probably to avoid myself and the guilt I felt.

It is excruciating to tell the person to whom you are married that you don't love him and no longer wish to be married...that this marriage is dying a slow and agonizing death and you wish to be free to care for your soul before it is extinguished. The honest-to-God truth is that I didn't want to have to have a first marriage to fully understand what my personal limitations are. Like everyone else, I wanted to do things right the first time. Thus, the consequences for ignoring my heart and what my inner voice constantly whispered were insufferable.

What it really is all about is self-sacrifice versus self-preservation. I chose to preserve. I can't say people were stunned when I left my husband, but I sensed the head-shaking and finger-wagging, the frowns of admonition, the whispers and staring.

I have been an admirer of Ayn Rand's since I first read Atlas Shrugged, some years ago while I was still in college. I find her philosophy of Objectivism especially helpful and comforting whenever I feel a wave of guilt coming on. Rand said: "My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."

So, I live my life by what I think is right and by what makes me happiest. I do not do things simply because they are expected of me, or because other people think I should behave in a certain manner. I have gained a tremendous amount of strength and self-reliance in the last two years from my experiences, and now I am proud to claim them.

LINKS:
*National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI)
*The Ayn Rand Institute - The Center for the Advancement of Objectivism

Now is the Month of Maying

In the last three weeks or so, I have:

1. Baked copious amounts of bread.

Better than Beard's. Maybe.

2. Learned how to knit.


3. Kept watched over our new friend and her babies.
Lola the Robin
Lola's Baby

really not MIA

I'm still here.

With the advent of Spring, I'm spending much more time outside and generally being much more productive. There's something about that sun shining away that really gets my blood flowing. That means limited blogging.

Let's see...what have I been up to? You'll find out soon enough, when I come back with photos to post. It'll be soon, I promise.

it's finally Spring

And I have my first sunburn of the season. Ouch.

uh oh

Last night I dreamed I gave birth. To fraternal twins. Eek.

recent inspiration

T.S. Eliot has long been my favorite poet. I discovered him in High School in my AP English class and have been smitten ever since. In college I composed part of a song cycle with some of his text. I found it yesterday, revised a little of it, and found myself itching to finish it. Anyone know where I can find a publisher? And how do I actually get permission to use the text? Hmm.

I love this...

Garlic and sapphires in the mud
Clot the bedded axle-tree.
The trilling wire in the blood
Sings below inveterate scars
Appeasing long forgotten wars.
The dance along the artery
The circulation of the lymph
Are figured in the drift of stars
Ascend to summer in the tree
We move above the moving tree
In light upon the figured leaf
And hear upon the sodden floor
Below, the boarhound and the boar
Pursue their pattern as before
But reconciled among the stars.
-from Burnt Norton (No. 1 of 'Four Quartets'), T.S. Eliot