tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47013992429238679782024-02-08T06:54:34.940-05:00Half Her Age, Twice Her age"So it hit me. I'm having a midlife crisis, she's having a quarterlife crisis. We both have broken hearts and we're working on fresh starts. I'm twice her age, she's half mine and together we're figuring it out."DazzledGirl and Braticashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01637732824022663793noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4701399242923867978.post-13673083113270288062011-03-02T14:14:00.021-05:002015-11-09T13:42:25.556-05:00XXXIII. I Wanna Hold Your Hand<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: small; line-height: 115%;">There were a lot of phone calls made and received the week after her accident. Her insurance company: Yes, indeed the policy had lapsed the week before; there was nothing to be done about that. The junk yard: Her personal property would need to be removed from the mangled mess that was her car. The State Patrol: The officer had yet to file the accident report and when she did get around to filing it, it would be wrong. The hospital: No, she didn’t have health insurance either. Her job closer to home: She’d be out a few weeks, and then back in a limited capacity. Her job in the west end: No, she wouldn’t be back; without a car, there was no way she could get there. The other driver’s insurance company: No, we’re not going to pay. We are bigger than you and you have no insurance company of your own representing you, therefore, even though we know our driver hit a stopped vehicle from the rear and is liable, we can get away without paying you and we will. (Farm Bureau, in case any of you were wondering.) There was one phone call for me. The breast surgeon: The lump I’d had removed the week before was benign.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small; line-height: 115%;">I remember the call. It was in the afternoon and the Husband was busy getting ready for work but I didn’t tell him right away. I went upstairs to the spare room, closed the door, and called the Boy. I told him first because it seemed to me, he had been the only one who’d cared in the first place. Is it a hallmark of being married too long or just that of a bad marriage, when you tell your spouse you have a lump in your breast and his answer is: “Why are you telling me? Call the doctor.” I’m sure he was concerned at some level, maybe I just chose to tell him at the wrong time? I can assure you, his reaction was not the one a wife hopes for.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small; line-height: 115%;">I had been absentmindedly fingering that lump for over six months before I told the Boy about it. We were in my car at some long forgotten place and I remember easing the lacey edges of my surplice top away from my breast to show him. We didn’t have a physical relationship then, so it was an awkward moment that he filled with medical terms spoken hurriedly while his fingers clinically felt the piece of offending flesh. He gave me his diagnosis and elicited a promise from me that I would call the doctor before the day was out. Honestly, the heat of his skin lightly skimming the silken swell of my breast is all I thought about then. Not about a possible prognosis or the implications of a malignancy, just about that fleeting, innocent touch and the way it made me yearn for more.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small; line-height: 115%;">I went first to my beautiful Indian doctor, who sent me for a mammogram and then referred me to a breast specialist. It was several appointments and several weeks before it was removed. By then, the Boy was living far away but would ask me the details of every visit, bemoaning the fact that he could not be there with me. The Husband only made it to the actual surgery, and then only because I threw the x-ray film, with the glaring image of a sinister milky white orb, in front of his computer screen one day and forced him to look at it. I knew somewhere inside he cared, he wasn’t a monster, but he was so bitter and angry at the world that he just couldn’t dredge up the appropriate response.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small; line-height: 115%;">The day of the surgery, just seconds before the nurse called me to the back, a text came through: “Text me the second you get out. I’m going to be a wreck until I know something.” Meanwhile, my Husband was watching <i>Ellen</i> on the waiting room television and didn’t hear the nurse ask him if he wanted to come back with me and hold my hand. I caught her eye and shook my head “no.” Instead, I would hold the surgical nurse’s hand, and watch her serene, olive skinned face, reminiscent of my Cousin Barbara’s beautiful face, and think of the only hand I ever really wished to hold. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small; line-height: 115%;">When the call came that would allay my worst fears, I didn’t care if I ever told my husband. He never asked; why should I care? </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">To make matters worse, at the same time, I was being betrayed by my employees too, being falsely accused of misdeeds and maligned to my boss. They were a small group of small minded people, so full of their own self importance they never for a minute thought about what their petty behavior was doing. It had been brewing since the day I began working there and would continue for many months.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small; line-height: 115%;">It was a terrible time for me and I unfortunately took it out on the one person who had been holding my hand all along. The one who was so troubled himself, he never realized how bad things had become for me; the one that I couldn’t bear to lose, and tragically, the one who would betray me next.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small; line-height: 115%;">~DazzledGirl </span></div>
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DazzledGirl and Braticashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01637732824022663793noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4701399242923867978.post-51235646521331486932011-02-27T11:58:00.024-05:002015-11-09T13:42:17.069-05:00XXXII. Raindrops on Roses<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: small;">It's days away from the New Year. Considering what happened this time last year and the point at which our story has unfolded in this blog, I should be writing about the painful details after my car accident and the rocky relationship I had with The Girl but for some reason I've had something else on my mind.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The Girl was beautiful, but unaware of it, with penetrating, soulful eyes and an infectious smile that, when you were privileged to see it, would make your heart melt. But this entry is not about her, or about not having car insurance, or about my deteriorating home life, tonight I lie awake thinking about my Grandmother. As you may recall, my Grandmother has Alzheimer's. She's my last living grandparent. But in a way, I don't feel like she's living at all. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I’m okay with her not remembering my name, I can deal with that. For a long time I could walk into her house and say, "Hi Gramma" and she'd look up at me, with a beautiful, genuine smile, and kiss me on the cheek. She knew my face, she knew I belonged to her in some way and that was enough for me. I didn't care if she knew where I worked or how old I was, as long as she knew that I belonged to her, that I was hers. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Truth be told, as the illness took her and she remembered less and less, she still seemed to remember me, more so than my young cousins. They entered her life after the demon known as dementia had already taken hold, whereas I and the cousins closer to my age, were in her life before she lost her memory. My young cousins won't know the fabulous, generous woman she was regardless of how much we talk about her. They can watch the few short video clips we have and laugh about how different she seemed, but they’ll never know her. Of the Grandchildren, my eldest cousin Sean and I are the only ones that really knew her. I'm sure I'll be judged by saying this and perhaps get some raised eyebrows but I'd like to think I was the closest to our Gramma, for the simple reason that I spent more time with her, I even lived with her and Papa for a year.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I was thirteen when I lived with them, a horrible age, and I had a horrible attitude to go with it and a million neuroses on top of that, but there was a part of me that loved being around her so much, I could forget being thirteen sometimes and just be her sweetheart. As much as I complained back then, I'd go to seven a.m. mass with her every morning if she asked me to now.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Papa was in a wheel chair by then and my mother and I had temporarily left her Husband and Georgia to live in Florida and help Grandma take care of him. We came midyear and I finished eighth grade at the local middle school. By fall, She would home school me, which meant I would spend all day with Grandma. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">At that stage in my life, I was obsessed with organizing things. I'd organize her closet monthly, everything by sleeve length and color (just as I do now with my job). I’d try on her fancy beaded Floridian shoes and arrange them by style. I'd rummage through her unused purses, all holding the remains of their last use: Kleenex and Equal packets! Sometimes when I was in the house alone, I'd sneak into her storage closet just to peek at her wedding dress, preserved in a plastic garment bag, alongside my papa's old suits, golf clubs, and other stowed away treasures. I'd stare at that dupioni silk dress, simple yet gorgeous, for several minutes and imagine myself wearing it one day. Once, I unzipped it, and ran my fingers across the fabric. It amazed me to touch something my grandmother had worn in the 50's, a dress that was made just for her, made to fit her body like a glove. It was regal. No dress since has ever felt how that dress felt to me then. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I was seven years old and living in New Hampshire when I took my first big trip alone to my Grandparents house. I was a brave one; I could handle Rhode Island without my Mom. I had Grandma and Tasha, my stuffed bear. It would be a fun getaway, with picnics on the rocky beaches, trips to the roadside produce stand where we’d buy golden ears of corn and small red potatoes, nighttime excursions across the river for ice cream cones, one flavor piled high on top of the other. Little did we know hurricane Bob would strike a day after my arrival.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The storm reached its peak late at night. I had been asleep for a few hours when howling winds, crashing limbs and glass blowing out of the cellar windows would wake me up. I started crying and calling out for someone. Sunny, my grandparents golden retriever, came first and jumped into bed with me. Then came Grandma, with her frazzled hair and flowered mu-mu, to sit on the edge of the bed, comforting and holding me until the chaos outside subsided and I fell back asleep. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Most of my memories are bits and pieces all jumbled together: sitting on her copper bar stools at the bar in kitchen watching her make me pancakes, my feet dangling and swinging about. Gramma's gardening clogs on the patio in Rhode Island, her long line bra's air drying in the laundry room, her nose deep in a book while curled up on the blue leather chesterfield sofa. Little things. I wish I could hold on to every memory I ever made with my Grandmother, my Grandfather, and my Father but over time, you lose them as much as you try not to. As hard as you try to hold on, they still slip away. You forget the sound of their voices, their mannerisms, and how they smell. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Aside from Alzheimer's, she's perfectly healthy which makes everything worse. As morbid as it sounds, sometimes I wished for a heart attack or stroke, something fast, for her and my grandfather. It’s so hard to watch someone you love fade away over the course of a decade. Once in a while, she'll say something or laugh and your heart leaps for a moment, and you think it's a bit of her old self coming back, but it’s gone as quick as it came. She still doesn't know who you are.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">I don't see her as much now and I feel guilty about that but it's too painful. When I do see her, I’m foolishly hoping that she'll wake up and be completely lucid, just so I can have her back again a little while before she leaves this world. It’s a fool’s dream, but one I can’t let go of. She's just a shell of someone she used to be and lately, I feel like I'm the same way. ~Braticas</span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif";"></span></div>
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DazzledGirl and Braticashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01637732824022663793noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4701399242923867978.post-82317896719315312342010-11-03T16:15:00.001-04:002011-02-27T12:23:20.171-05:00XXXI. You've Got A Fast Car<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="MsoNormal">There are certain conversations you have with the fruit of your loins that are repeated so many times as to become rote like the Lord’s Prayer. One such conversation in our house starts when the offspring turns the magical age of sixteen and continues until, well, their death. This is the Reader’s Digest condensed version of that conversation:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>“No matter what happens, if you are broke and haven’t spoken to me in years, if you are living in a foreign country under an assumed name, if I have told you never to darken my door ever in this lifetime, if you fear I am on my last breath, if I am indigent and living in a stylish cardboard box on Broad Street, if I have lost my mind and don’t know who you are anymore, no matter what the circumstances are, if you are unable to pay your car insurance I will pay it for you.”</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">We have these conversations, during what I like to call <i>The Vehicular Years of Terror</i>, because to drive without insurance in the United States of America is beyond folly; it will be your undoing. I like my offspring to be prepared for the many ways life can kick you in the teeth. I manage to articulate this on every white knuckled, Xanax enhanced driving lesson I ever give them. I reiterate this on a quarterly basis for the rest of their lives. Apparently though, I had not made myself clear.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>She</b> has given you the encapsulate version of what happened last year, I’m going to provide the details, then she’s going to come behind me and correct your impressions of the situation. As much as I want to blame <b>her</b> for everything that went down, I really can’t because she was trying to do the right thing on so many levels. <b>She</b> was trying to be a good roommate, a good friend and a responsible adult. Unfortunately, she chose to cut the umbilical cord at a most calamitous time.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As I found out at brunch that beautiful autumn afternoon on Meadow Street, the roommate had issues. His Mom was out of prison, again, wasn’t that great? And he thought he had a job, well maybe he did, I mean, he dropped off an application somewhere. They were sure to hire him, wasn’t that great? He was off the drugs, only drinking, for, like, a whole week, wasn’t that great? (I suspect this was only due to the fact that he couldn’t afford drugs.) He had invited a friend to stay, who also consumed groceries and hot water, but it was great to see him. He was getting his testosterone from a dealer to keep his period at bay and his mangy whiskers full. Apparently, if he didn’t have money for food or rent it was okay, but he’d do anything to avoid menstruation, even picking up a little cash selling his transitioning body on the street. Great. Just great. I've got to tell you, the peach pie was really good that day.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So <b>she</b> paid his share of the rent. She paid the utilities. She bought the groceries. She worked two jobs, often working from 7am to 10pm, seldom having a day off. By December she was strapped, exhausted and sick. She called to tell me she was coming home for the weekend and I was overjoyed. I missed her. </div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal">As I’m sure you recall, we are from Buffalo, New York. It snows there from October to June. We live in Richmond, Virginia where it snows once or twice a year, some years not at all. We know how to drive in the snow. The rest of the people in Virginia don’t. It was the second day of the snowfall; I had driven the twenty miles home from work and found the highways clear enough for navigation. I gave<b> her</b> the green light to make her way out of that freezing apartment and onto the interstate. It should have taken her twenty minutes to get home.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>She</b> called to tell me she had difficulty getting her car out of the alley, and while she was hanging up I heard her address some male voices, telling them she was fine. I stared at the dead phone in my hand and had the distinct feeling something was wrong. An hour went by and she hadn’t arrived. I called her phone, no answer. I remember being curled up in the recliner in front of the television with the dog in my lap and sitting up so abruptly I knocked him to the floor. He turned to look at me, as if to say “What in the world was that for?” I turned down the television so I could think. (Does anyone else do that, or is it just I? If I’m driving to somewhere unfamiliar and I get to a tricky part of the directions, I will turn down the volume on the radio so I can concentrate. As I write this I think of my Mother saying, “Turn down that idiot box, I can’t hear myself think.” I guess that’s what I do.) I tried her phone again, no answer. I was thinking every-Mother’s-worst-fear-scenarios when the house phone rang. It was the hospital.</div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal">Night had fallen by the time we reached the hospital; the long drive made in stony silence while I texted the Boy for support to avoid having a blame placing conversation with the Husband. <i>“Remember I love you,” </i>he said<i>. </i>I would remember. I still do remember. And be forever grateful he was there for me that night. Unbeknownst to me, in the coming hours I would fear for <b>her</b> life, learn she had a girlfriend and was in fact bisexual, and discover she had paid his share of the rent and let her car insurance lapse ten days before. </div><div class="MsoNormal">~DazzledGirl </div></div>DazzledGirl and Braticashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01637732824022663793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4701399242923867978.post-88640486483128020392010-10-30T16:02:00.003-04:002010-10-31T21:19:48.990-04:00XXX. The Return of BraticasDear Readers,<br />
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Nearly two months have passed since my last post. When we started this, the words spilled out effortlessly, but as I healed from all the emotional and physical trauma endured this year, it has become difficult for me to write. I abandoned you and I'm sincerely apologetic.<br />
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<b>She</b> wrote on my behalf because I refused to despite requests from our readers. Truth be told, she angered me with her opinions on my inner most thoughts. Mother's always think they know everything but there was a bit of truth behind what <b>She</b> said.<br />
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I <i>am</i> disappointed in this blog; but not for the reasons <b>She</b> stated. Yes, people I thought would support me in this, simply haven't. At first I bombarded them on Facebook, pleading to share our beautiful blog by posting it on their walls. When that didn't work, I sent personal emails asking for help and support with a glimmer of hope that out of their hundreds of Facebook acquaintances, we would gain a few more readers. Most of those letters didn't even merit a response. That hurt. Even if they didn't like it, or enjoy reading, I had hoped that they would share it just to help us. <br />
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<b>She</b> needed to tell the world how S<b>he </b>changed whereas I needed something else. I desired a sense of community, to feel connected to complete strangers simply by the power of our words, our tragic stories, creatively weaved together. Just as I enjoy catching a glimpse of someone else's life via YouTube (Nerimon, Charliesocoollike, ElectricFaerieDust) I wanted to give strangers a glimpse of <i>my</i> life. We have done that, but I had hoped for more. <br />
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<b>She</b> thinks my writer's block is from lack of comments and overall disappointment. <b>She's</b> wrong.<br />
Recently, I was chatting with our friend via Skype in which I discovered the real reason. She inquired about the blog and I hit send before I really processed what I had responded. I typed that it now seemed like a chore. It's true. <b>She</b> wants to hold onto every memory of the Boy where I want the exact opposite. I want to forget. <b>Everything</b>. Writing about all those things now glorifies all my failures and mistakes.<br />
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I wish I could forget about the Meadow Street house, my deadbeat roommate that got us evicted, the car accident that screwed me financially, and most importantly forget about the Girl who shred my heart into little pieces. Writing about the house isn't just writing about the tangible house. I think about how I was finally able to be independent, to have my best friend only a few blocks from me, and to have a life away from my parents. Most of my memories from the house have the Girl in it, unfortunately. It started with me laying in bed, watching movies, texting her until I couldn't keep my eyes open. Then as we progressed, memories of laying in bed with her, watching her as she slept were made. My house was the only place we could really be ourselves. At work, we had to hide our relationship, at my parents house my Step-Father made mean spirited comments about her, at her house I was never welcome because of a hostile ex girlfriend/roommate. Most of our good memories are in that house, hence why I hate it. It's all connected. The truth is everything that has happened to me this year is because of my roommate and The Girl.<br />
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I trusted my roommate and he took advantage of me. He lost his job, I paid the rent, he promised to pay me back but that money never came. My personal bills fell behind. The weekend of the snow storm, our heat kept shutting off. Overworked, exhausted, and stressed I became horribly ill. I was working 12-15 hour days and begged for my roommate to call the landlord to fix the heat. He claimed he'd called several times but only called him once. (Something I found out months later) In fear of catching pneumonia, I headed to my parents, but a part of me decided to drive home because I knew I'd be snowed in. I wanted to be closer to the Girl. I knew it would be easier to see her if I was down in Chester. I knew the roads would be plowed the next day whereas in the city they wouldn't be at all. On the way to my parents house, I got in the accident. Then the next day we find out my car insurance lapsed less than two weeks before. Knowing these two people has put me where I am today. Knowing them, destroyed my life. All the progress I had made to be independent was snatched away in seconds, as my ford focus crumbled into a massive tangled web of metal with me trapped inside.<br />
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As difficult as things have been it's all lead to where we are now. A year ago I never would have imagined that I'd be writing a screenplay with <b>Her</b> and our lovely friend from Indiana. It's brilliant and I'm excited to be a part of it; however, I fear as time drags on, that I'll lose the motivation and give up. I fear that it won't ever come close to completion and that it will be just another thing that I fail at.<br />
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~BraticasDazzledGirl and Braticashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01637732824022663793noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4701399242923867978.post-67426802219614483842010-10-01T21:46:00.001-04:002011-02-20T09:16:27.346-05:00XXIX. DazzledGirl Doesn't<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">The first time I saw <b>Her</b> apartment she and her roommate were well and settled in. I remember driving downtown with the help of my GPS, programmed in United Kingdom mode with a sexy male British accent and words like petrol station and motorway, with final direction by cell phone as <b>She</b> stood on the side walk and motioned me through a parallel parking exercise. One of the hazards of living in suburbia too long is that one loses the ability to parallel park. (Since I’ve given up the suburban housewife mantle, clearly the next step for me is to purchase an automobile with the built in parallel parking feature. I’m much too old to relearn the traditional way.)<br />
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I had so hoped that moving into<b> Her </b>own place downtown would be her salvation, that she would settle into a routine of biking to work, having picnics in Hollywood Cemetery and sitting on her stoop talking to her neighbors on lazy Saturday afternoons. I wanted her to have a life without me, a life far from the shadow of my deteriorating marriage. Her little house on Meadow Street seemed the perfect place to start.<br />
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I have said for the past twenty six years that I would never win Mother of the Year but do admit to being particularly gifted at mothering through the eyes of my child. I can become a five year old at her ballet recital, realizing after the tutu has been tied on that she needs to use the potty. I can become a thirteen year old not wanting to take gym class because she has her period. I can become a seventeen year old with a gay prom date who forgets a corsage. I can become a twenty five year old with her first dilapidated rental house. I remember the feelings of my childhood more so than the events and I have always tried to keep them foremost in my memory when parenting <b>Her</b>. I don’t ever want to be the parent that can’t remember the foibles and mischance of their own youth.<br />
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Her house was charming as I looked at it through the eyes of the twenty year old living deep inside me. I remembered my first apartment in downtown Buffalo, just across the street from Canisius College, where I was in my junior year as an English major. It was a two family house; I was living upstairs with three girlfriends and four football players were living on the first floor. You can imagine its appeal. My share of the rent was sixty five dollars, an utter fortune, and I was bartending at a place my landlord owned, to pay my share.<br />
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The apartment didn’t have a refrigerator. The reason being: the staircase was too narrow to navigate a modern fridge up, something that, I assure you, never crossed our minds. But it had hardwood floors, built in book cases and beautiful bay windows that ran the length of the living room. There was a third floor attic room that had no heat but was a great place to escape to with a thick novel and the afghan my grandma had crocheted for me. In the summer I would wallpaper part of those slanted walls with an oriental floral paper and cut out individual dogwoods, pasting them to the ceiling where I could enjoy them while lying on the floor of the furniture-less room.<br />
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I knew <b>She</b> saw Meadow Street through those same idyllic eyes. She didn’t see the faulty plumbing, the inadequate kitchen or the furnace that wouldn’t heat and would force her out into a snowstorm and into a hospital that coming December. I knew she saw the hardwood floors, the pretty moldings and the fenced in yard. I smiled brightly and enjoyed the brunch She and the Baker had made that morning; fresh fruit salad, a vegetable frittata, French toast, sausages and peach pie with Mimosas to celebrate the day. It was a perfect Sunday afternoon; She was content, I was happy in love, my Husband was at work. The only thing to mar that perfect day was meeting her roommate.<br />
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I knew as soon as I saw him. Between my precognition and a well developed judge of character, I knew immediately that he spelled trouble. At the time I thought he was a gay boy; very slight of build and mildly unattractive. He turned out to be something else entirely but I trusted <b>H</b>er judgment and swallowed the bile rising in my throat. ~DazzledGirl</div>DazzledGirl and Braticashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01637732824022663793noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4701399242923867978.post-76443872967639626922010-10-01T21:32:00.000-04:002011-11-14T16:47:08.386-05:00XXVIII. Braticas Takes a Break<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A few times in the past I have let you know that I was waiting on Braticas, that sometimes she had trouble getting her story told and there was a delay in our posting. I skipped her once, it was supposed to be a post about her father but she couldn’t quite get herself to do it. This time it was supposed to be about moving out. That subject certainly isn’t the emotional time bomb the other subject was, so what’s the problem?<br />
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The problem is she expected too much from this blog. She expected her friends to read it and they didn’t. She expected to get hundreds of followers and comments; the truth is we get emails and tweets and Facebook chats but very few followers and very few comments. She’s a bit disappointed. I could tell you why it bothers her when it doesn’t bother me, but it would just be conjecture. All I can say is that, for me, telling my story was a necessary part of surviving what happened in my life. <br />
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Falling in love with the Boy changed me so completely that I desperately needed to tell someone why I wasn’t the same person anymore. I needed someone to know who I was now and who I used to be and that somebody turns out to be you. Who are you? You are my family. You are friends I’ve reconnected with that I hadn’t seen in thirty years. You are coworkers. You are neighbors. You are people I gave my card to on the street somewhere. You are the beautiful new friends I have made on the internet these past months. And you are the Boy. Yes, him also.<br />
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I understand why she wants comments. When you write like this you want to know that you have been heard. That someone out there is listening. If anything we have said has meant something to you, please tell us. I think it would help her. In the meantime, I’m going to continue my story until she feels ready to catch up. ~DazzledGirl<br />
<br /></div>DazzledGirl and Braticashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01637732824022663793noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4701399242923867978.post-21340446903452610632010-08-28T22:16:00.003-04:002010-08-28T22:41:06.687-04:00XXVII. Regrets. I've Had A Few.What I remember of last August are scattered images of stolen moments and shyly given kisses. The first time <i>“Love u”</i> lit up the screen on my phone; weeks later sitting in my car on the side of the interstate sobbing as I read his first declaration of real affection. I don’t remember seeing him more than a couple times, and only for a few moments at that, but I remember the dizzying effect of his words and the slightest brush of his fingers along the side of my hand. I spoke to him a few days ago and I don’t think he remembers any of that, I think he only remembers the tragic end. The part I wish to forget; the part I wish, more than anything, that I could take back.<br />
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Our home was still fraught with tension and stony silences back then. My Brother had visited briefly from Texas and I recall him telling my Husband to lay off me, something decidedly out of character. My brother had lamentably inherited the Italian view of marriage and thought that the man ruled the roost. For him to admonish my husband for the way he treated me was tantamount to treason. My Brother knew I was working hard, long hours and was being greeted by complaints and accusations when I arrived home each night. I think he saw that I had reached my limit. My Husband did not see.<br />
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In no way am I excusing my own behavior; I am not blaming my Husband for the way I acted. I fully understand that I had no business falling in love, that that part of my life should have stayed buried deep within me, where I might occasionally hear the rumblings from a distance but they would never be loud enough to turn my head. But when the man that is supposed to love and cherish you does not do so, those rumblings rival Niagara Falls in sheer volume and force. It’s impossible to keep your head straight.<br />
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It was nearly impossible for me not to draw comparisons between the Husband who had clearly grown weary of his wife and the Boy who needed me. Looking back, I cannot decide if it was God or Satan illuminating those stark differences. If Satan is indeed the great deceiver, how did I, with my broken cage, stand a chance of knowing the difference? I remember the Boy calling me from the store one day. We chatted while he walked around the music department until he excused himself to ask the clerk a question. I listened as he inquired as to where he might find an Andrea Bocelli CD. With a sharp intake of my breath a single pained syllable escaped my lips:<i>”Si.”</i> I loved Bocelli. My Husband thought it was stupid to listen to a CD in another language. I’m sure it seems stupid that something as seemingly insignificant as that could mean so much to me but I assure you, it brought me to tears. A marriage of opposites is a painful thing. Each time the light shone on another common point of interest between the Boy and me, I felt healed. I felt my heart coming back to me.<br />
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It wasn’t until late August that my Husband finally found a job and went back to work. The breath we’d been holding for six long months whooshed out in one giant sigh of relief. Financially, we were in bad shape by then. It had become such a sore topic of discussion between us that I refused to even participate in the conversation. He was bound and determined to keep a house that was rapidly deteriorating in value; a house that we had no equity left in; a house that was strangling us. I let the conversations go and celebrated him finding a job.<br />
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While he was acclimating to a new company and I was fantasizing about a life with another man, <b>She</b> was plotting to move out. I was so overwhelmed by the maelstrom of emotions around me that I didn’t pay attention to what <b>She</b> was planning. I know, secretly, in my heart, that I wanted <b>Her</b> to move out for one reason only: If I ever found the courage to leave my husband I wanted Her to be safely settled somewhere else beforehand. I did not want <b>Her</b> to be caught in what I assumed would be a vicious parting. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine what would really happen months down the road. Never once did I imagine being pinned in a chair while the man I married screamed violently just inches from my face. Never once did I imagine the cold steel of the shotgun barrel clenched in my fists. Never once did I imagine losing the Boy who started it all.<br />
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I understood <b>Her</b> reasons for moving downtown and for wanting to be on <b>Her</b> own. I, myself, had grown weary of suburbia and longed for the chicness of the city. How I would adore Friday nights on the terrace of our local corner restaurant, sharing a fish fry and a cold beer with our neighbors and walking home slightly tipsy on a warm summer night. I might have even reached the point where I wanted to enjoy the labors of others by walking the magnificent gardens of the city parks rather than toiling in the soil of my own backyard. Aside from wanting to escape the tension that was our home, I think <b>She</b> sought to explore <b>Her</b> lifestyle out from under the watchful stare of her parents. I understand that now. Back then, <b>She</b> could have never brought a girl home to my Husband’s house. He would not approve. I don’t know what I would have thought back then but I do know the rose colored glasses of love and the Boy’s soft words would have taken the edge off anything for me.<br />
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By September, <b>She</b> was moved out and our house became even quieter. I worked long days, often coming home at nine o’clock at night. My Husband worked second shift and left the house shortly after ten o’clock. Each night my cell phone would vibrate silently, tucked away in my bra, with the same question: <i>“is he gone yet?”</i> As soon as my answer was yes, the phone would ring. We would talk for a few stolen moments as I curled up in bed, cradling the phone as if it were him and tucking it under my pillow after we said goodnight, where I could easily feel the vibration of his <i>“love u”</i> delivered late, late in the night.<br />
<br />
In retrospect, I wish I had stopped <b>Her</b> moving out. I wish I had asked more questions. I wish I had cared about anything other than that Boy, but I didn’t. It’s no excuse, but what I felt for him was so strong, so consuming, there just wasn’t anything else left.<br />
~DazzledGirlDazzledGirl and Braticashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01637732824022663793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4701399242923867978.post-5191282668729322542010-08-28T21:16:00.000-04:002010-08-28T21:16:05.050-04:00XXVI. The Good Things Never LastThe expedition North had indeed cleared my head. Being in Buffalo had provided me with the motivation to move on and move out but, unfortunately, it hadn't provided the funds to do so. I knew from the Cincinnati debacle that I couldn't afford to live on my own, but I couldn't bear to live in that house much longer. Any semblance of a home life there was rapidly deteriorating. I knew about the Birthday kiss and I knew things were changing.<br />
<br />
Back when we moved into the new house, it had been a breath of fresh air. Our pale yellow Colonial was nestled in the center of a cul-de-sac with a heavily wooded back yard and manmade pond for a view. My parents had spent the spring assembling a brick wall like the one my Grandma had in Rhode Island. It ran the front of the house and bordered a bed overflowing with Piñata Roses, black eyed susan's, pansies, and daisies. The daisies <b>She</b> planted for me, right at the corner of the bed, closest to where I parked my car, so I would see them every day when I came and went. The wall led you around to a set of brick steps and black front door.<br />
<br />
Moving meant I was further from my friends, but I didn’t mind so much because this house gave me a bit more privacy. My bedroom faced east and was the largest of three bedrooms on the top floor. With my parents’ room being downtown stairs, it was easy for me to sleep in; I no longer heard the dishwasher clinking and swishing at 8am. It was peaceful.<br />
<br />
The yard we sought out when building the house, we rarely used. The dogs were excited at first, exploring all the new scents, digging up chipmunks and scaring squirrels, but that soon lost its appeal. They preferred taking long naps on the couch versus chasing an old tennis ball around in the heat.<br />
<br />
<b>She</b> had envisioned this house to be her last, the one <b>She</b> grew gray in with The Husband, and the one where her grandchildren would come visit her. <b>She</b> imagined summer dinner parties in which we'd open the French doors and people would meander through the house and flow out into the porch, drinks and food in hand, conversing until late hours, soft music drifting through the trees and twinkle lights looking like fairies in the night. But this never happened. In fact, any time the doors were open it caused <b>Her</b> Husband to bark that he wasn't paying to air condition the outside. To everyone on the outside, I’m sure it appeared to be a happy home. But it was far from it. Sometimes I think <b>Her</b> dreams started dying that first year in the house.<br />
<br />
I wasn’t getting along with <b>Her</b> Husband. He didn't understand me or any of my interests and spent more time criticizing my actions and my likes than anything else. Even though <b>She</b> made this family for me because She thought I needed it, the truth was that all I needed was <b>Her</b>. It seemed like he just tried to come between us. When he tried to discipline me, I rebelled. In my eyes, it wasn't his place to do that. Needless to say, we fought over everything.<br />
<br />
Since I’d returned from Ohio it was even worse. He resented me being there. Losing his job made it worse. He had to take out his anger on someone and it was me. I was trying to repair my head, heart, and my finances and getting in fights over the vacuum or how I did my laundry wasn't helping. Any shot at privacy I'd once had ceased to exist. My friends were no longer welcome to visit. Moving out was becoming essential to preserving my sanity.<br />
<br />
I began by searching in the Fan, an area of downtown Richmond sought after by trendy 30 something's, college students, and indie hipsters. With it being late August, and the university back in session, housing was sparse and roommates sparser still. That was a sign that I should have noticed but ignored instead. Being idle wasn't an option anymore, I had to change, I had to be free, and if I made a mistake or it wasn’t the ideal situation, I would at least learn from it.<br />
<br />
Out of desperation I posted my need for a roommate on Facebook. I had one reply: an acquaintance I hadn't seen since college. We had a few conversations on the phone about living together and met up to discuss it further. I knew he wasn't a fantastic choice but I convinced myself that it was only for a year and I could deal with that. I sensed he had a rocky past like me but he portrayed himself to be on a new path with a new frame of mind. I was ready for positive changes and a plan for self improvement and he echoed this.<br />
<br />
Once again I packed up my Gnomes and left home.<br />
~BraticasDazzledGirl and Braticashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01637732824022663793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4701399242923867978.post-344582868105216492010-08-04T22:18:00.000-04:002010-08-04T22:18:46.538-04:00XXV. Baby, You're Not LostYesterday was the first time I blow dried my hair in two months. With record breaking heat and oppressive humidity nearly every day, it seemed like an exercise in futility to try to straighten out the waves and curls I was born with. My hair is much longer this summer; the financial devastation of the previous months has whittled away the luxuries I once enjoyed. Salon days for a cut and color with a spa pedicure and French manicure are far and few between. He would have liked my hair like this but he’s been gone for many months and never saw the many ways he’d changed me.<br />
<br />
<br />
My Husband was the first one to see the connection between me and the Boy, to see something that I thought was just a small spark hidden deep inside of me, awareness on my part but nothing more; to see the palpable energy between us, the emotional magnet drawing us together. He saw something as the Boy and I had a casual conversation of no consequence. He saw what my steel cage would never let me see, never let me hope for. He saw something <em>in the Boy</em>. With his primal instincts aroused, he called me out and accused me of having an affair. He put it in such vulgar terms even I was affronted. How could he possibly think this younger man I had just met had any interest in me? But he clearly thought his territory had been encroached upon and he was on high alert.<br />
<br />
For my part, I felt something at the first handshake but I would have gone to my grave with that feeling safely locked away. I might have taken it out a time or two and wondered about it, but I wouldn’t have acted on it and I certainly would never have expected it to be reciprocated. To me, my Husband’s jealousy was a ridiculous reaction to a non-existent event. It was an overreaction to nothing. Or so I thought then.<br />
<br />
I couldn’t say when the exchange of phone numbers happened, but it was innocent, probably an emergency contact number. I <em>can say</em> that I have that first text message memorized. We talked and we texted, that was all, but it was enough. Little by little information volleyed back and forth and I came to know him as the other half of myself. Habits and hobbies, likes and dislikes, needs and wants matching up in a way previously unknown to me. The casual conversation of two people getting to know each other acted as the perfect foil for my marriage. He and I were synonyms; my Husband and I were antonyms. I was aware of this, even though at the time my precognitive sense was screaming danger to me, I couldn’t stop myself.<br />
<br />
I wish I could say that he was perfectly handsome, a flawless Adonis, that tempted me into a licentious affair that petered out when we were sated and became a secret between us that never saw the light of day. I wish I could say that, but I can’t. What I can say is, he wasn’t particularly handsome. He wasn’t a man of great position or wealth or status. He wasn’t a scholar or a poet or a great thinker. He was just a regular guy that, for some reason, became the air that I breathed.<br />
<br />
The word <em>love</em> never entered a conversation in reality or in my head back then. I was fascinated by this man that had broken through the last of my defenses. Why him? Why now? After eighteen years of guarding my heart and blinding myself to the attractions of all men, why did this one break through? There was something connecting him to me that I could not define, months later the best I could do to explain it to him was to say it was like a nylon thread between us; transparent but nearly unbreakable. I could awaken in the middle of the night, pick up my cell phone and within moments a text would come through from him. I could sense his moods from miles away and accurately tell you what kind of boxers he was wearing though I hadn’t seen him or didn’t even know for sure if he wore boxers. He was a very secretive person but to me he was no great mystery. In the following months I would sense those secrets, some lies, some betrayals but I let him keep them. I never thought they were mine to explore.<br />
<br />
Oddly enough, I never guessed for a moment that he could have real feelings for me. He had clearly made remarks that let me know he was interested, remarks that always seemed to cut directly to the questions and excuses rattling around in my mind, as if I had directly asked him if he liked older women or plus size women, which of course, I never would have asked.<br />
<br />
We were in a crowded room, surrounded by friends and strangers alike, when he stood too close to me and I let my guard down for just a moment and said, <em>“Please take your pheromones over there, I can’t</em> <em>stand this close to you.”</em> I was horrified that I had betrayed myself so, but the look in his eyes as he turned his face toward me was all I ever needed to see. The tenor of our relationship changed critically in that moment, the connection was undeniable. I didn’t know the depth of what he felt for me, but I was surely in love with him. <br />
<br />
As the days and weeks turned into months, the physical attraction and the emotional and mental attachment became central in my life. The trip to New York that <strong>She</strong> told you about would be the first time we were apart, even though, as I told you, we were not having an affair in the strict sense of things. I was only going to be gone for thirty six hours so we said our goodbyes on the phone the Friday night before my early morning flight. He said he would talk to me when I got home Sunday afternoon. I couldn’t say for certain but I think I looked at a picture of him every few minutes, while my romance novel sat unread in my lap. He didn’t even make it twenty four hours. I had just checked into the hotel room when the first text came through, <em>“How is NY?”</em> Across the room, <strong>She</strong> rolled her eyes as I flopped on the bed with my phone in one hand and his picture in the other, smiling ear to ear.<br />
<br />
Yesterday was my fiftieth Birthday and I was surrounded by well wishes from so many lovely people in my life. My thoughts idly strayed to last year’s Birthday and the very first touch of his hand on the side of my face, his fingers in my hair; the small sound of resignation under his breath as he turned his head and lowered his lips to mine. I cannot tell you that any touch ever meant more to me.<br />
<br />
A full year later and I am so angry at him for tarnishing those memories and letting me destroy the life I had built, that I still scream and cry in frustration nearly every day. My heart is surely broken. I thought I had read somewhere that a heart once broken is absolved of all that a heart must be. But mine still beats just for him and I cannot tell you that any love ever meant more to me. ~DazzledGirlDazzledGirl and Braticashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01637732824022663793noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4701399242923867978.post-91023585154634362482010-08-04T22:15:00.002-04:002010-08-05T11:00:10.251-04:00XXIV. I Feel You In My Heart, But I Don't Even Know YouEveryone loves a Quinn; or in my case a Quin, spelled with one ‘n.’ I fell head over heels for one just last year. My Quin is half of the Indie rock/pop sensation <em>Tegan and Sara</em>. The girls, (as I affectionately call them) are nearly identical twin sisters from Canada. I say nearly, because I can always tell them apart, and although they share the same face, they have slight differences. Unlike <strong>Her</strong>, I seldom remember dates, only events. The first time I heard <em>Tegan and Sara</em> would be an unforgettable event; it was on interstate 64 during a snowstorm, on my way home from a visit to The Artist.<br />
<br />
<br />
He was my best friend freshman year at college. We practically lived together in the dorms, we were inseparable. He came from a very traditional family in Christiansburg, Virginia where it was customary to don Ralph Lauren cable knit sweaters, oxfords, and loafers. I, on the other hand, sported short spiky jet black hair, facial piercings, and wore pink fishnets with sneakers and skirts whenever possible. We weren’t exactly bookends but we had forged a strong bond. We both loved art but were not art majors. He was an extraordinary painter and our home showcases some of his great pieces. At the end of the year I was devastated when he decided to transfer to a school back home. I was so afraid we’d lose touch and he’d end up being another seasonal friend in my life. But that didn’t happen; instead we both traveled the four hours to see each other and kept our friendship alive.<br />
<br />
I actually enjoyed the drive, the solitude. I always began the trip armed with my overflowing CD booklet tossed on the passenger seat, spilling its contents all over the floor. I would abandon it, however, as soon as my radio would pick up the college station around Charlottesville. Back then, I’d only have reception for an hour or two and I’d listen to it even with horrible static. Richmond radio stations just didn’t play music like that. Typically that was the only station that would play anything I’d like or recognize. It was mostly Indie, not quite mainstream, and they showcased artists like <em>The Faint</em>, <em>Rilo Kiley</em>,<em> Iron and</em> <em>Wine</em>, <em>Elliott Smith</em>, and <em>The Decemberists</em>.<br />
<br />
During a long weekend in Christiansburg, I awoke to that soft light of morning only a blanket of snow creates and knew I needed to get on the road. Back then I didn’t trust myself driving in snowy conditions, so it was a cautious, if gorgeous, drive home. Although the snow wasn’t sticking to the roads, white flurries danced around the moving cars and the sky was covered in a thick blanket of clouds that promised more to come. Periodically, I’d turn off my CD and check the progress of the Charlottesville radio station, debating if I could stand to listen to it with static just for the chance to hear something good. It finally tuned in clear. And that was the moment I first heard my Quins. Their song was buried in the middle of a five or six song set, but as soon as I heard the first few chords I was hooked. I kept praying I wouldn’t lose reception before the DJ announced the songs in that lineup. Luckily I didn’t and a few minutes later he spat out “That was <em>Tegan and Sara’s</em> <em>Walking with the</em> <em>Ghost</em>” so fast I could barely catch it! I made myself repeat “Tegan and Sara, Tegan and Sara” aloud in the car so I wouldn’t forget the name. It worked and as soon as I got home I downloaded everything I could find by them. <br />
<br />
It wasn’t then that I developed my attachment (some might call it an obsession) to the Quin Twins. It was months later in Ohio, ironically enough. The Boyfriend had bought me tickets to see <em>Death Cab for Cutie</em> with <em>Tegan and Sara</em> as the opening act. At that performance, seeing their interaction and playful banter, watching their personalities unfold before my eyes, I began to adore them as individuals, not just their music. A passion ensued.<br />
<br />
After I moved back into my parents house, and planted myself on my <strong>Her</strong> couch, when I didn’t have a <em>Twilight</em> novel in my hands, I had my laptop. On that little screen I watched every <em>YouTube</em> video, both music and interviews, I could find on the twins. I adored watching their live performances just to hear the girls tell amusing and surprisingly intimate antidotes about their personal lives. To me, Tegan stood out as the one to fall in love with. All the while <strong>She</strong> teased me about the Canadian lesbians and plaid shirts, I was developing a tendre for Tegan that I never shamelessly cast aside, not even when I met the Girl.<br />
<br />
My fascination with the Quins was something no one at that time understood. They intrigued me, Tegan captivated me. One day, I stumbled upon a quote by Tegan that sincerely affected me. I don’t remember the source but it’s etched in my mind.<br />
<br />
<blockquote><em>“I think I’m a very emotional and sensitive person. I day dream, cry and imagine the worst a lot. But I’m also a romantic, the kind that would bury a love letter in my back yard.”</em></blockquote>Breaking up with the Boyfriend was sad, sad enough for me to need Edward Cullen, but having my heart torn apart by the Girl was something else entirely. Only the soft harmonies of another girl, another romantic, could ever make right what had been so carelessly destroyed.<br />
<em><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6eCUUYIbJ8">"And that's all I need."</a></em><br />
~BraticasDazzledGirl and Braticashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01637732824022663793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4701399242923867978.post-11682823259559967312010-07-11T09:41:00.002-04:002011-05-19T17:57:10.470-04:00XXIII. Taking Tea With Violet<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I fell in love in June of 2001. It was a hot, humid afternoon, the kind where a blanket of haze obscures the tree line and gives the city the appearance of having a fine film of grime settling from above; a typical late afternoon in Richmond, Virginia. I was still on the fringes of the embroidery business, in sales to be precise, and had some time to kill between appointments. I was on the side of town that didn’t have a Starbucks, heaven forbid, the side of town that didn’t have much of anything. These were the dark ages before texting and tweeting by phone became my source of wait-time amusement. I was bored, so I pulled into a CVS drug store and went inside in search of something to read.<br />
<br />
<br />
I am not a big fan of television. Through the years certain series have held my attention for a season or two but usually lose me to a good read instead. Notable exceptions: I adored <i>Ally McBeal</i>, especially with the arrival of Robert Downey Jr., and was captivated by <i>Grey’s Anatomy</i> for a short while but eventually lost interest as characters died off and plots became implausible. My source of entertainment has always been books. I had a good education and read the classics through my formative years. During college I was particularly enamored of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Irving. As the pattern of my life settled into working mother and wife, I escaped into the world of historical romance, partly for ease of reading, partly for a glimpse into another reality. A world of ball gowns, gloves that button to the elbow and handsome gentlemen on horseback.<br />
<br />
With the tendency in this country of branding, where <i>Kleenex</i> means any tissue and <i>Tupperware</i> means any plastic container, I was often branded a reader of Harlequins. In fact, I had not read Harlequins in over twenty years. If I were to brand myself, I would have to say I was an Avon reader: All of my favorite authors were published by Avon. I noticed that one day when I was arranging a new book shelf in my office. The authors were alphabetical (sorry) and with the spines all lined up the Avon symbol was quite an obvious occurrence. I do, however, have one shelf particularly set aside that does not pay homage to Avon, it is the final resting spot for the works of Jasmine Cresswell, published by Harlequin and Mira. Jasmine is my brother-in-law’s mother, and I would read her no matter who published her. Her historical time travel romance <i>Timeless</i> is one of my favorites; escapism at its best.<br />
<br />
In case you are wondering, I did not meet the Boy at CVS that day. I stood in front of a meager paperback book section perusing the titles and spotted one with a bit of wit: <i>An Offer From A</i> <i>Gentleman</i> by Julia Quinn. Nice title but I wasn’t familiar with the author. I picked it up, read the back, read the first page, and then looked at the spine: Avon. I bought the book and never made it to my appointment. Instead, I sat in my car in the parking lot for two hours reading then drove to Barnes and Noble where I purchased everything they had by Julia Quinn. I didn’t leave the house much for the next week or so. I had fallen head over heels in love with Julia Quinn and the Bridgerton Family.<br />
<br />
In the event that you are among the ignorant, the Bridgerton family, headed by matriarch Violet, consists of eight children in need of spouses. Each year Quinn spins a tale of one the children’s quest for matrimonial bliss. I cherished her characters and her delicious dialogue and freely admit to being addicted to her writing.<br />
<br />
What does any of this have to do with falling in love last summer? Every June Avon releases another Julia Quinn novel, and for eight of the last nine years I have awaited the publication with the fervor of a zealot. I have gone so far as to make Barnes and Noble employees go into the stockroom and find the case of books that should have hit the shelves that morning. Again, the retail manager in me knows no mercy. Last June the publication date came and went. I was so busy falling in love myself I had forgotten about Quinn. It was the middle of July when I was packing for the trip to New York and looking for reading material that I remembered.<br />
<br />
I had a conversation with my eldest sister about this some time ago. She is much like me in her love of the garden, a beautiful home and an elegantly laid table and manages to have those things despite a very stressful job. More so than anyone else in our family, she and I would have loved to grace the parlors of Mayfair for a currant scone and a cup of Darjeeling tea with the Bridgertons. For years she and I had swapped books to read. I can remember occasions when we would both exclaim we had found a good read and each pull the same book out of a bag! She got a Kindle for her birthday year before last and book swapping came to an end. My sister had had two unhappy marriages, and like me, had encased herself in steel and just dealt with it; until she started living her happily-ever-after and stopped reading about someone else’s.<br />
<br />
<br />
It was through her job that she met her Prince. You may have noticed we use few names in our story, most of the titles are obvious but as much as this one seems to be, I chose it for another reason. My Grandmother never met him but without a doubt, if she had, she would have raised her veined Italian hands in the air and exclaimed: “He’s a Prince among men!” And she would be right.<br />
<br />
My sister tells me the day she fell in love with the Prince she had to board a plane for home and had brought the requisite reading material: a romance novel. When she arrived home the binding had been cracked but she had only read the first page over and over. She couldn’t concentrate. She had found that elusive love she had read about for years. The books had become superfluous. She kept that copy of <i>It’s In His Kiss</i>, unread, as a reminder of a life changing day.<br />
<br />
I owe Julia Quinn an apology. For years she kept my heart primed and ready, just waiting for that little bit of magic that might save me. Much to my chagrin I cast her shamelessly aside when the thunderbolt struck last June. That beautiful blue eyed Boy had come along and made her superfluous.<br />
<br />
If you suspect that I am stalling, that I have promised a story about falling in love and have not delivered, you are correct. I so fear getting it wrong, that words will fail me and you will not fall in love with him as readily as I did. I so want you to. <br />
~DazzledGirl</div>DazzledGirl and Braticashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01637732824022663793noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4701399242923867978.post-20406455050746374022010-07-10T17:00:00.013-04:002010-07-18T18:25:58.293-04:00XXII. T'was All So Pretty A Sight It SeemedIt had been hours since I’d polished off the last of my venti triple shot caramel macchiato. I was crashing. I was crashing hard.<br />
<br />
I had worked a fifteen hour stretch the previous day, and several long days leading up to it, all in preparation for a “visit.” In the world of retail a “visit” is when those above you on the corporate food chain come by your store to see if they can eat you for their lunch. Your goal is to make them get their lunch across town at one of your sister stores. I had no intention of feeding anyone, so I worked like a dog to get my store perfect.<br />
<br />
What perfect looked like to me went beyond the corporate visual merchandising manual. They gave me the tools and rules, I brought the jewels; I made the store shine. There are so many little details a customer doesn’t notice: blouses arranged by size, collar type and sleeve length making clean lines that are positively delectable; displays that show a perfect balance of color, print, and texture; walls that draw the eye through the store in a well thought out flow of seasonal color; crisply folded and level stacks of knit shirts arranged by size; and accessories complementing every outfit and helping create a look you’ll take home with you. A beautiful store shows a customer how to dress beautifully for the body they have, not the body they want. My store was as close to perfect as it was ever going to be. I was ready and waiting.<br />
<br />
I spent the majority of my wait walking figure eights around the store, greeting every customer, and straightening every crooked hanger. I could spot a tin soldier out of line seconds after it had broken ranks. With each circle I made I would glance out the front windows, looking for my guests. When they finally arrived they stood outside analyzing my window dressing while I stood inside fighting the fatigue and anxiety, just waiting for it all to be over. Ten minutes later it was. One quick loop around the store, the territorial manager and regional vice president spat out a “Store looks beautiful, well done girls” and they were gone. They didn’t even nibble on me. I had survived unscathed.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, I was terribly understaffed at the time so I had to stay till closing, another eight hours away. I was so exhausted I feared that if I paused to lean on a four way or lingered to engage in conversation with a customer that I’d slip into a coma right then and there in the Misses’ casual department; cocooned in a nest of denim and plaid. Thankfully, the flow of traffic began to die down, as shoppers started turning in for the night. The front window displays glimmered in a red-orange haze as the sun began its descent. Slowly, it crept out of view and slipped behind the tree line across the busy turnpike. Night was fast approaching and my bed was beckoning. Twenty miles away the covers were already turned back on my four poster and I was fantasizing about slipping between those smooth sheets, I wasn’t going to need any lullabies from Her to get to sleep tonight.<br />
<br />
Just a couple more hours to go but I was finished! I gave up straightening for the night. I stopped refolding table tees that careless customers had opened, examined, balled up and tossed back, destroying my beautiful crisp board folded little stacks, all sized and level. I waited until I thought the store was free of shoppers and I meandered to the back of the cash wrap, where my favorite sales associate stood at the register beaming her bright smile at me. She was the daughter of one of <strong>Her</strong> favorite employees so naturally when I hired her, she became <em>my</em> favorite! We chatted for a moment when suddenly, I interrupted her and said, “I’m sorry…I just have …to…” and plopped my body down on the carpet behind the cash desk. She roared in laughter, as I sprawled out on the floor dressed in my best black suit and kicked off my Coach loafers. “Dee, you run the sales floor. I’m gonna stay here.”<br />
<br />
I had never been so tired in my entire life. I closed my eyes and began to relive the events and conversations of the day while images of my comfy bed and plush body pillows floated in the periphery.<br />
<br />
Moments later, my thoughts were interrupted by a familiar voice, "Baby, what are you doing on the floor?" <br />
<br />
I knew the voice and didn’t even open my eyes. "I've worked over 80 hours this week; we had a visit.”<br />
<br />
I started to push my tired twenty-two year old body off the floor but that compassionate regular customer of mine that shopped with me every week and must have known exactly what a visit was, she stopped me. "No honey, you stay right there! It's almost over."<br />
<br />
I could have kissed her.<br />
<br />
I started a new job a couple weeks ago and had a visit from the visual merchandising director. I so much enjoyed getting ready for that visit and for the positive feedback it earned me that it reinforced how much I had missed that kind of work since I left my store in Cincinnati. The characteristics of film editing mirror visual merchandising in beauty, order and detail and I suppose that is why I am drawn to both. I could possibly find happiness in either world; unfortunately the mistakes of my youth have hampered my progress. I hope to right that situation.<br />
<br />
<strong>She</strong> and I have both been retail store managers, both passionate about the visual part of our jobs. If you saw our closets, you would know precisely why: color coded, arranged by sleeve length, everything buttoned, zipped, and snapped. Just don’t open any drawers in our house, for some reason our sense of order stops there; for now anyway. There seems to be an air of change about us and I am hoping for everything to fall in to it's rightful place. ~BraticasDazzledGirl and Braticashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01637732824022663793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4701399242923867978.post-80943294934595449412010-06-29T20:29:00.001-04:002010-06-29T21:12:52.604-04:00XXI. Hush-a-Bye, Don’t You CryI was five months shy of my thirty fourth birthday when my step daughter committed a most heinous act against my person. I had been married to her father just over a year, she was living with her mother and though we saw each other little, we were always warm and cordial. Her parent’s divorce had been rough and siblings had been torn from each other, I was naturally much closer to her brother that lived with us but I loved her none the less. I could not understand her betrayal.<br />
<br />
At the time it happened I was screaming for empathy. Would someone please, please take my side in this travesty? Could anyone possibly understand the ramifications of what that nineteen year old girl had done to me? I knew in some ways it was a cultural thing, a life in the South verses life as I had known it in the North. But it was wrong, very wrong, and no one could see it but me. In the audacity of her youth she had made me, at thirty three years old, one generation removed from the newest member of our family. She had given birth. She had made me the G word.<br />
<br />
Just fourteen months later she did it again. Thank God she had her tubes tied or there would have been be no telling how many times she would have done that to me. Sure, they were cute; a girl and a boy. I spent many hours practicing my <em>baby whisperer</em> skills on them. If you have a child that will not go to sleep, hand them over to me. For some reason, babies and small children fall asleep in my arms quite readily. I usually tell people it’s my ample bosom acting as a live pillow, but I really think I just bore them to sleep. I can sing <em><a href="http://www.babycentre.co.uk/podcast/lullabies/pretty-horses/">All the Pretty Little Horses</a></em> in a flat monotone for hours.<br />
<br />
My toughest case to date: my youngest nephew Harrison. He is the family’s only red head; a stubborn, willful child that fought sleep as hard as I rocked. I wish I had kept score for posterity but I believe I won most of the battles with Harrison and the sandman. I rocked him to age five. I’d probably still be holding his wiry, tense little body close to mine but his mother and I don’t speak anymore. Not since she sided with my Husband and told everyone that would listen about my egotistical, stupid attachment to the Boy. She washed out of my life in January and with her went her two boys and my mother. There’s a much larger story here, but I’m not sure it’s mine to tell.<br />
<br />
Aside from performing as <em>baby whisperer</em>, having another generation gave me reason to start sewing again. Halloween, of course, with its Indian, clown and pilgrim costumes and pretty little dresses with smocking made for school and special occasions. In my eyes I was ridiculously young to be cast in that role but I endured. The only thing that saved my step daughter from a lifetime of scornful glances and derision from me was the fact that she gave birth to the two smartest children in the world. Never once in the past sixteen years have either one of them used the G word. Nor did they make up hideous countrified names such as <em>Me-maw</em> or <em>Nan-Nan</em>. They simply called me by my first name. If they were feeling possessive, they added <em>my</em>. Those are some smart kids.<br />
<br />
The reason for this story: they are also being torn from me. Last summer, when I was falling in love their family was falling apart. By September, my son in law had moved out and moved on. They were a family in crisis and I was useless to them because my world was crumbling at an amazing rate. Truth be told, I had hardly seen them in the past few years even though they lived just a county away. There was strain in their house and strain in ours and it just didn’t make for happy times.<br />
<br />
They have decided to move back to Georgia, a good ten hour ride from here. As sad as that is for me, I completely understand her reasons for going. She longs for home, for the place she comes from, for the extended family that is her blood. I can only hope that they find peace there. Sadly enough, that leaves my Husband with no one here but an estranged wife, two nearly dead dogs and a step daughter he doesn’t understand. Part of me wishes he would go back to Georgia with her. I think he would have been happier with a Georgia girl, I think this Yankee girl just couldn’t ever be called <em>Me-maw</em>, couldn’t ever be the wife he wanted.<br />
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I have to say that I was extremely close to my son in law. He was very young when he joined our family, just eighteen, and I became a mother to him also. Last September I had a long conversation with him as he thanked me for playing that role and gave me credit, deservedly or no, for changing his life; for getting him out of Georgia and seeing the possibilities of life in the rest of the world. I shared my story about the Boy with him, months before I told others. He understood. As much as it hurts me to see their little family torn apart, I have learned a very valuable lesson this year: <em>judge no one</em>. No one can see into the hearts of men and for us to be so arrogant and presume that we know what is best for others, is the height of egotism.<br />
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I will miss them all: My step daughter, my son in law, my sister, my nephews, my mother, my husband, and those precious G children. But I will humble myself and say that they can all have beautiful lives without me, that they deserve the best no matter what path they take.<br />
<br />
I can’t say that about the Boy, I still cry most nights longing to be on the same path as he and rocking him to sleep in my arms.<br />
~DazzledGirlDazzledGirl and Braticashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01637732824022663793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4701399242923867978.post-30027262900270494392010-06-29T17:12:00.002-04:002010-07-04T03:18:56.906-04:00XX. Now She's in Me, Always With MeIn <a href="http://halfheragetwiceherage.blogspot.com/2010/03/most-dangerous-year_19.html"><span style="color: #6aa84f;">The Most Dangerous Year</span></a>, <strong>She</strong> writes about me “coming out” on a morphine drip after my horrific car accident. Let me clarify, I never came out as anything. Perhaps In <strong>Her</strong> eyes I did, but to me, I wasn’t in a closet. I was never ashamed or tried to keep my attraction to women a secret; I simply never had the desire to talk about it with <strong>Her</strong>.<br />
<br />
<strong>She</strong> had spent years building a life with <strong>Her</strong> Husband and his views overpowered the household. He and I battled enough over gay rights and the women’s right to choose. He openly criticized my circle of friends and didn’t understand why “gay people flocked" to me. I knew my bisexuality would never be accepted under that house so I chose not to let them know certain things about me. The last thing I wanted to do was fight with him, it seemed like that's all we ever did. We could blame it on the morphine or the trauma of the evening for my confession to leak out but perhaps it was just time. I thought my connection to The Girl was important, just as <strong>Her</strong> connection to The Boy was. I wasn’t in love with The Girl yet, but we were already going down that road. I knew she would be special to me. And she was. But she also hurt me more than anyone else ever had.<br />
<br />
My accident was December 19th 2009. Truth be told, most of the details of that evening are blurred. I felt paralyzed lying on the gurney while I waited for <strong>Her</strong> and the Husband to arrive. I lie there alone, tears steadily streaming down my face, and I was terrified my legs were broken. If I moved the slightest, excruciating shooting pains caused me to wince and cry harder. I feared the worst. I knew this was the last thing I needed; my life had already been hard enough in the months prior.<br />
<br />
All the while, my phone kept beeping and buzzing. I knew it was The Girl. Between the snowy driving conditions and her anxious nature, I had promised to text her the moment I arrived at my parents house safely. I never made it there, a patch of ice and an old guy not paying attention to the truck he was driving, made sure of that. By the time <strong>She</strong> arrived the nurses had already loaded with me drugs. When the sobbing subsided, I heard <span class="goog-spellcheck-word">Tegan</span> and Sara's <em>Like Oh, Like H</em> resonate in my ears; it was my ring tone in the distance. I frantically pleaded for someone to give me the phone. I was injured and scared yet all I wanted to do was ease The Girl’s anxiousness. All I wanted to hear was her voice. Even then, I put her first above everything else, a pattern that would continue for the next few months. She was the type to text around the clock and expect an answer within a few minutes; it had been hours since she’d heard from me, I knew she was worried. <br />
<br />
I pleaded with <strong>Her</strong> to text The Girl for me, “Please just tell her I’m okay, I know she’s freaking out”. <br />
<br />
“Texting your friends isn’t important right now!” <strong>She</strong> insisted. <br />
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With a heavy sigh I spat out, “I’m sort of dating her Mom.”<br />
<br />
I couldn’t see her face, all I heard was the word “Nice” in a bitter sarcastic tone, and then they wheeled me off for tests.<br />
<br />
It was days later before we talked about my confession. <strong>She</strong> made a few assumptions and accusations that bothered me, but <strong>She </strong>took it way better than I had imagined. I suppose The Boy helped with that. I don’t remember the car ride home or where I slept but I do remember texts The Girl sent me that night. I had saved them and about a hundred others over the course of our relationship. They documented the rise and fall of our relationship, starting with confessions of love and need; ending with confessions of betrayal and selfishness. As trite as the expression, <em>like mother, like daughter</em> may be, we do share our love for words. I held onto those words The Girl had said to me, even after I knew we’d never be. I saved the texts and voice mails to prove that she really did say those things; she wanted to forget them, I did not. I wanted to remember, to know that it was real, not something I had imagined.<br />
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The one I cherished most from that snowy December night was, “I don’t know what I would have done if I had lost you”. It’s almost July, nearly eight months have passed and the saddest part is, The Girl and I are strangers. Any love we had was thrown away and forgotten, but that’s a story for another day. ~<span class="goog-spellcheck-word">Braticas</span>DazzledGirl and Braticashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01637732824022663793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4701399242923867978.post-83606255242747269292010-06-15T23:16:00.002-04:002010-06-16T11:36:24.601-04:00XIX. The Words She Knows, The Tune She HumsSometime in January the visual display on my cell phone began distorting and I knew I had mere days before it would have to be replaced. We live in a world now where things don’t get fixed, they get thrown away. It was a few weeks after I had left the Boy but before the shotgun incident. I was spending the better part of every day in tears, not just gentle weeping but screaming in pain. I had made the worst decision of my life and was regretting it with every breath I took. A malfunctioning cell phone was not something to be borne; the phone was my only remaining link to the Boy, I would not live without it.<br /><br />I dragged myself to the Verizon store to get my phone checked out. It was indeed dying. The clerk handed me my SD card and told me it would be a few minutes while he swapped over my address book. I remember the moment when I realized what that meant: I would lose my text messages. I reached for my phone on the counter and felt my chest tighten and my body start to tremble. I could barely pull in a breath and I was biting through my lower lip to keep back the tears. I had humiliated myself so many times in the previous weeks; I just could not lose it at the Verizon store. I also could not lose the only remaining words of love he had spoken to me and that I had saved in my locked text messages.<br /><br />I consider myself rather techno-savvy but I had not been myself in awhile and I ridiculously asked the clerk for a pen and paper so that I might transcribe those meaningful words. I could have emailed them to myself but I didn’t think of it at the time. I sat on the floor and began writing. I scrolled back to the beginning to his first declarations, through promises and plans, and finally to fights and betrayals. It was impossible for me to hold back the tears, I was reliving our entire relationship with an audience of retail cell phone employees and I didn’t even care. Humiliation was the least of my problems. I finished seven pages of the legal pad, folded them in thirds and put them in my purse.<br /><br />It is possible that words mean more to me than to the average person. I would tell you that I like music but what I really like is lyrics. My high school crush wasn’t really on Elton John; it was on Bernie Taupin, his lyricist. I listen to my favorite movies in bed at night with my eyes closed, drifting off to sleep with dialogue rather than pictures. My alarm clock is the voice of Stephen Frye as my personal butler, gently clearing his throat and waking me with witty words in his British accent. For years I lost myself in the richness of language in historical romance novels. I’ve committed to memory the words of Edna St. Vincent Millay and Carl Sandberg so that they flow off my tongue unrestrained. I don’t know where it would leave costuming, but if I felt I’d had anything to say, I would have been a writer. The ordering of words from chaos to poetry would be an enjoyable occupation for me. It only stands to reason that I would treasure <strong>His</strong> words. Those seven pages would become night time reading material, the most important words of my life. Now that I ponder it, seems I have plenty to say these days.<br /><br />That day, out in the car, I pushed the seat all the way back and lie down. When I could breathe again, I called him. I babbled out my story through the tears and listened to his response. He said, “You know I said those words. That’s all that matters.” I knew he was right, that I would never forget one syllable but I still felt their absence. For months I could flip open my phone and read <em>“wont”</em> and know that it was his answer to <em>“don’t ever leave me.”</em> It gave me comfort and made me feel like he was still there.<br /><br />I pulled out of the parking lot and pulled into the sporting goods store down the street. I got out and went gun shopping. I’d done my internet research and had my heart set on a <em>Charter Arms Pink Lady</em>. I was the kind of woman who had a mani-pedi twice a month; I certainly wouldn’t end my life with a less than stylish weapon. Unfortunately, I was also a retail store manager and lived by one simple shopping rule: if you didn’t speak to me when I walked in your store, I wasn’t buying anything. I expected to receive the kind of customer service that I gave in my store. That day I left without a gun simply because no one waited on me. In the bigger scheme of things, perhaps God tipped them off; perhaps it wasn’t my time to go?<br /><br />I was not considering suicide because of the electrical impulses of my LG ENV3. I just thought I’d had enough. Earlier that week my Husband, who had gone back to work a few months earlier, was in an accident at work. His head was caught in a machine and part of his face was crushed. He would require a couple years worth of bone grafting, implants and reconstructive surgery. The icing on the cake: The company fired him three days later. Before you become filled with righteous indignation on our behalf and demand that we call an attorney, I will tell you that we already have. Seven. In the state of Virginia you cannot sue for a workplace accident or for wrongful termination, had we known, we would not have been living in the state of Virginia. One attorney had the audacity to say, if my Husband had died I’d be a rich widow but since he lived, nada.<br /><br />Maybe I could handle everything God threw my way but at the time, I wholly disagreed. I considered myself a strong person, those layers of steel served their purpose and I did not fall apart as I got that late night phone call from the emergency room for the second time in two months. I stood at the foot of his hospital bed while the oral surgeon picked shards of bone and pieces of teeth out of his face and dropped them onto a stainless steel tray. It goes without saying that I had caused my Husband much pain in the preceding weeks. Even though we had our problems, I certainly never meant to cause him any pain at all. I can ask forgiveness but I know my Husband and he is not the kind of man that can forget. I just thought my dying would be better for everyone.<br /><br />I went home that night empty handed, the <em>Pink Lady</em> still locked in her display case. I thought of all the different ways to die and could only commit myself to one plan: no matter what happened, <strong>His</strong> face needed to be the last face I saw in this life.<br /><br />When I sat down to write today I had intended to talk about the deliciousness of falling in love with the Boy and of how I fall in love with Him all over again every time I hear his voice. About the magic of last summer and how he plucked the last of my steel petals and set me free. But we live in a world now where things don’t get fixed, they get thrown away and that’s exactly what happened to us. It’s been five months and the pain of it is still as raw as it was last winter. I’ve been told to get over it. He wasn’t worth it. I need to move on. Cliché after cliché, but if the pain is all I have left of him, then I will live with the pain.<br />~Dazzled GirlDazzledGirl and Braticashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01637732824022663793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4701399242923867978.post-62679355422620774572010-06-13T22:22:00.004-04:002010-06-13T22:33:33.919-04:00XVIII. He Loves Me, He loves Me NotAbout three things I was absolutely positive. First, I’m the one that introduced <strong>Her</strong> to the vampire. Second, I kind of wished that he thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with Edward Cullen <em>before</em> <strong>She</strong> was. This is how it happened for me.<br /><br />It had been four months since I'd packed up a Budget truck and drove over the mountains and through the woods to Cincinnati, Ohio. It started off wonderfully. I loved the idea of exploring a new city, of creating my own home. I found a sweet little walk up apartment in Forest Park and decorated it with treasures found during date nights at IKEA. I drove the quaint neighborhoods surrounding the city and spent an afternoon photographing statues of giant black squirrels wearing charming outfits that I would send to my step father. He was that rare hunter who had aged into a squirrel and bird feeder after years of popping them with pellet guns in our pecan orchard. I knew the photographs would amuse him. It was starting to feel like home and I was positive I had made the right choice by following my heart to Ohio.<br /><br />When I’d first arrived I had immediately started developing a new team at work and impressing my superiors with my strong merchandising and people skills. I was putting in a lot of hours but it didn't bother me. I was content to come home after a long day at work to find my boyfriend playing Tony Hawk's <em>Underground</em> on the Play Station. He had come to Ohio eight months before I had taken a giant leap of faith and followed him there. After being separated for so long, the short distance between our apartments was refreshing. My job didn't leave much time for socializing but we made do with date nights strolling around town or seeing movie after movie snuggled up in posh leather seats at the upscale theatre minutes from my house.<br /><br />As summer dwindled down, I took a promotion to Store Manager and he began preparing for his second year of graduate school at Xavier. Everything seemed well but as my 24th birthday approached I felt lonelier than ever. I'd never been away from my family. Having a boyfriend wasn't enough for me. I thought by moving there that he'd be enough, that I'd meet friends and adjust in the same fashion I had when I moved to Virginia. Unfortunately, I failed to realize how difficult making friends would be. I wasn't in school being surrounded by people my age. By being the boss at work, I wasn't allowed to befriend my employees. My neighbors were senior citizens and families. I longed to be around people that knew me but I didn’t know where to build those relationships and I spent so much time at work, I didn’t know when I’d ever find the time to. He tried to be understanding and helpful but he couldn't relate. He had grad school and an instant circle of friends.<br /><br />I expected he would gather those friends of his to celebrate my birthday but he did nothing of the sort. Instead, it was a lovely dinner and a Labor Day fireworks show on Newport on the Levy across the river from Cincinnati. Labor Day is more celebrated in Cincinnati than the Fourth of July. I joked about how wonderful the city was to honor my birthday with such a display and I put on a brave face. It was a nice idea, but my escalating depression prevented me from enjoying it. When we arrived at the Levy and the swarms of people pressed in around me, I felt panicked and filled with anxiety. Families were camped out with bright colored coolers of alcohol and snacks, kids ran around with noise makers and balloons. Everyone was excited and having a wonderful time; everyone except me. When the fireworks show started and the sky lit up in a rainbow of colors over the Ohio River, the Cincinnati skyline winked back at me and I just sobbed. I ached for the companionship, love and support of my family and friends back home. He knew I was upset yet made no effort to console me. That was the night I realized just how alone I was. My job demanded my time. School and social obligations demanded his. It was the beginning of the end but I didn’t want to acknowledge it.<br /><br />Of course, I told <strong>Her</strong> about the dreadful day at the Levy and the distance growing between The Boyfriend and I. Knowing how upset I'd been that I'd only been able to visit home once since leaving, <strong>She</strong> planned a short trip up with her Husband. Seeing <strong>Her</strong> was just what I needed, my loneliness abated for a weekend. I showed them around Cincy as best as I could, barely having seen it myself! Both Vegans at the time, they enjoyed the famous Jungle Jim's; a locally owned giant supermarket full of exotic, ethnic, international foods, live fish and local vegetables. I braved going back to Newport on the Levy, pushing my horrible birthday memories aside to take them to my favorite Turkish restaurant. We meandered through the outdoor mall peeking in the specialty shops. It was there at Barnes and Noble that I met Edward Cullen.<br /><br />Being an avid reader and vampire enthusiast, I had heard about the <em>Twilight</em> <em>Series</em> long before the movies caused a stir but hadn't committed to reading it. With my parents lost in search of <em>The Deathly Hallows</em> on audio book for the long ride back to Virginia, I wandered over to the Young Adult section, picked up <em>Twilight</em> and combed through the pages. The book art had always intrigued me and in fact, I'd had <em>Twilight</em> in my hands several times before but never bought it. This day, that would change. I walked the aisles of the two story bookstore searching for my lost parents, book in hand and I noticed a young blonde girl, around my age staring at me. I made eye contact with her and she approached, stating simply: "You will love that book. You will." I giggled awkwardly, clearly caught off guard and said, "I think so." I started reading that night.<br /><br />The next day my parents headed home and I headed to work, <em>Twilight</em> book in hand. It was a Sunday, never a particularly busy day for my beautiful plus size fashion boutique and its upscale outdoor mall. The team and I noticed it was unusually dead that day. We stood at the glass front door watching the wind bend the trees along the walkways. There had been talk of a storm heading our way but we hadn’t expected this severity. As the hours passed, the wind increased, so much so that it picked up a metal trashcan and tossed it around the parking lot, hitting cars. I feared that one would hit our glass store front and shatter it. The power went out in the entire center. After a few frantic phone calls to my District Manager, I was instructed to try to wait it out for the sake of business. With my safety, and the safety of my girls foremost in my mind, I disobeyed those instructions and closed shop. By that time, it was already unsafe for driving. That thirty mile drive to the other side of town, going 15 miles per hour, was the scariest of my life. I was terrified.<br /><br />Winds were up to 80 miles per hour, street signs were uprooted, power lines came crashing down, and limbs littered the streets. I stopped at a store close to my house in search of one thing, candles. I knew I had a few at the house, but not nearly enough to read by and being able to read was my main concern. The massive windstorm, losing power, food, survival, were all secondary to reading <em>Twilight</em>. For five days I raced home from work each night to read by candle light, staying up until 3 or 4am to finish the entire four book set. I didn't sleep that week. I didn’t need to. I had fallen in love with Edward Cullen. I had fallen hard, I'd become a <em>Twilighter</em>.<br /><br />The writing is simple and repetitive, yet I honestly fell in love with the characters. I caught myself laughing out loud at Edward's wit, and getting teary eyed at their confessions of love. I'd never had a book move me to that extent. And this was a young adult book! That's what shocked me most. I'd heard this book was popular among teens, why was it affecting me so?<br /><br />On the other side of town my Boyfriend sat comfortable in an apartment that never lost power watching sports on television and drinking with his college friends, all the while making fun of my choice of reading material. Looking back, the timing was right for me to fall in love with a fictional character because I was already falling out of love with the character that had lured me to Ohio. I was reading by candlelight to escape into a fantasy world as a distraction from the reality of my mistakes. The desire to make the best of things, to prove to myself and others that I had made the right choice, was leading me down the same paths She had taken. We had fallen out of love.<br /><br />I showed up at my parents house that New Years Day with the <em>Twilight Series</em> on the top of my suitcase. Its pages dog eared and the spines cracked from my rereading the story that would help heal my broken heart. I’ll never forget that autumn and the winds that blew change through my life. Just as it had been my time to fall in love with Edward then, her time would come that spring. ~BraticasDazzledGirl and Braticashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01637732824022663793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4701399242923867978.post-91222565317600082252010-06-02T21:22:00.003-04:002010-06-13T22:33:59.236-04:00XVII. A Steel Magnolia Loses Her PetalsThe Husband had been out of work two months when I accepted a job offer promising a pay increase and a much better bonus plan. It was a job that had crossed my path four times in five years, the timing all wrong until the last. The first time, I had been referred by a colleague and phone interviewed by an angry administrative assistant that left me with a bad first impression. Two years later I was contacted by an outside recruiter that had been making random field calls. She was a delight and left me with a much better impression, but I had just started a new job that week so I tucked her name and number under my blotter and forgot about it. Every once in a while I’d clean my desk and find it there but I never dialed the number and I never threw it out. Last fall she called again and I listened to her pitch. I was interested enough to have a face to face interview but the company decided to promote from within, which didn’t ruffle my feathers because I was happily employed elsewhere. When she called back just two months later with yet another opportunity, however, money talked and I walked. The Husband had been out of work long enough for me to know the future was uncertain and if I could do something to better our situation, I had better do it.<br /><br />I had mixed feelings about the training program; it was six weeks long and out of state. On the one hand, I didn’t travel well. On the other hand, the thought of getting out of that stressful home had me packed and in the car with no qualms. I was in my hotel room in North Carolina a week into training when I realized something was terribly wrong. I did not miss my family. I did not miss my home. I missed one of my dogs, but not the dog hair. Each evening I came home to a friendly desk clerk greeting me by name and a clean, quiet room. No arguing, no blaring television, no one following me into the bathroom. It was a peaceful time that I spent reading the entire <em>Twilight</em> series and falling in love with Edward Cullen. I confess that some nights I forgot to make the obligatory phone call home. When I did make that call, I found myself at a loss for words. I had nothing to say. By the time I finished training mid May I realized that I could very well live alone. That I could envision a very different life from the one I had created. I had found the first chink in my armor.<br /><br />There is no doubt in my mind that I had spent the better part of 30 years encasing myself like a steel armadillo, becoming impenetrable to any outside interference. I didn’t get close to people anymore. I didn’t look for friends. I had no interest at all in looking at men. I was focused solely on family and work. My Husband will tell you that I made all the decisions; that everything was done as I wanted, and in his eyes I’m sure it was. What he couldn’t see was that I controlled the pieces of our life that would make me comfortable, but never truly happy. I had made the decision to stay married no matter what and with that decision came the layers of metal that would keep my creative urges, my romantic nature and my yearning soul safely hidden away. I had a role to play as wife, mother and provider; to deliver an award winning performance I would have to harden my shell and I did.<br /><br />I have only reached the beginning of the fourth month in our story and am fearful that I have been misunderstood. I did not meet a man, have an affair and leave my husband. That’s a common story barely worth being told. That is not my story at all. I found the chink before I met The Boy and I was forced to bend back that steel cage and deal with the woman inside. The Husband and the rest of my family, other than <strong>Her</strong>, will always blame him but they are wrong. What <strong>She</strong> knew and the other’s had missed was that I had reached my limit and it had made me vulnerable. The sadness deep inside me was bubbling to the surface and seeping through the cracks; dissembling my armor and changing the way I looked at everything. I had emerged from room 428 at the Holiday Inn a different person and just a little bit frightened.<br /><br />I was also quietly dealing with another fear during that time. I would lie in that hotel bed with Stephenie Meyer propped on a pyramid pillow and my fingers would stray to that little pebble in my breast. My thumb would absently stroke the skin, trying to determine if it had changed any from the previous day. I was making a tactile memory to compare with tomorrow and the day after, trying to determine how many days I had left before the pebble became the end of my life. Not two years before I had lost my uterus and one ovary to a tumor the size of a small football, a comparison made by my beautiful Indian doctor. I had waited too long to go to the doctor that time, ignoring the discomfort and heavy bleeding until I was terribly weakened by anemia and nearly too exhausted to withstand surgery. That tumor was benign but those who have been there know the fear I speak of; weeks waiting for appointments and biopsy results. But I couldn’t go to the doctor this time; I was the only one working. If I lost my income, we’d be finished. I kept telling myself and that little bump that we’d be fine. I never told myself or that little bump how scared I was.<br /><br />Back home the seedlings had been transplanted and my perennials were blooming. Every year we had anxiously awaited the April return of our hummingbirds. I had been away when two made it back from their long sojourn to South America and nested in our backyard. The feeders hung from the rails of our deck and we watched them with delight during our morning coffee. I had a hot pink sleep shirt they were particularly fond of and would fly within inches of my face looking for my nectar. In moments they would forget me and turn their attention instead to the window boxes; overflowing with red petunias and the basil I would let go to seed just because they enjoyed the flowers. Most days the gentle hammering of a lone Pileated Woodpecker would set the staccato beat I would drum my fingers to on the wrought iron table top; a habit I inherited from my mother.<br /><br />There are two places for me that are always full of my mother: the garden and the kitchen. I cannot be either place without the thought of her coming quite unbidden. She was an early riser and would be in her garden before the coffee was finished brewing and the household began stirring. I could be in her kitchen by six o’clock and find a colander of freshly picked green beans in the sink, yellow zinnias in a cobalt blue vase on the counter, and my mother out on her brick patio sipping her black coffee and reading the morning paper; her garden clogs and pruning shears stowed by the back step.<br /><br />I don’t have enough confidence in my writing to convey the true beauty of the home my mother built. There are hundreds of images that come to me in unexpected moments with many unshed tears. I find myself choking back the memory of orange juice served at breakfast from a small pink glass pitcher, of delphiniums tied to a bamboo stake against a Rhode Island stone wall, of iridescent clamshell plates lined with Bibb lettuce and chilled shrimp resting on Battenberg lace with a mahogany tabletop peeking through. There was loveliness in everything she touched. I wanted so much to recreate that in my home but I always fell short. Those first weeks back from training I would sit on my deck watching the hummingbirds play, unable to put my finger on exactly what was missing from my life. Why didn’t I feel the same peace in my garden I had felt in my mother’s? The answer didn’t come to me that spring. It came to me many months later when I finally told <strong>Her</strong> that I had fallen in love.<br /><br />I told my sister first, quite by accident. I had not meant to but the words flew out of my mouth in a torrent of their own volition, my steel cage not strong enough to contain them. She had known something was different, had seen the subtle changes and had wondered at their source. I realized I could not keep the secret from <strong>Her</strong>, that <strong>She</strong> knew me the best and would notice. I didn’t quite know how to tell my daughter that this life I had built for her, this step family, was in jeopardy; that I had done something so selfish and out of character that <strong>her</strong> life could be drastically altered. Just days before we left for Buffalo I screwed up my courage and told <strong>her.</strong> <strong>Her</strong> immediate reply was, “I know.” When I asked <strong>her</strong> how, <strong>she</strong> answered “I’ve never seen you this happy.”<br /><br />That was my answer. I had never been that happy. I don't expect to ever be that happy again.<br />~DazzledGirlDazzledGirl and Braticashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01637732824022663793noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4701399242923867978.post-67043790209930087952010-06-01T21:48:00.000-04:002010-06-01T21:48:30.940-04:00XVI. Behind The MaskComing soon....any minute now.DazzledGirl and Braticashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01637732824022663793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4701399242923867978.post-67622665604555631162010-05-19T03:36:00.002-04:002010-05-19T20:55:55.169-04:00XV. The Masks We WearAll this talk of costumes, Halloween and the paths we take, brings me back to my earliest memories. I’m sure I have the timing wrong and the details are fuzzy now but there’s no one to ask, no one to set me straight; my mother’s memory has been gone for years now.<br /><br />I was one of six children, in that naturally Catholic way, but we didn’t really have a large family. My father lost his mother when he was sixteen and his father, the year before I was born. He had no siblings and referred to himself as an orphan. My mother had just one brother and my precious grandmother, a story in her own right. Her father had been gone for years. Mentally ill, he and my grandmother lived separate lives, in that naturally Catholic way, without getting divorced. They lived in separate cities for over twenty years until my father pointed out the fact that if she died, her husband would inherit her property. The church be damned, she was divorced lickety-split. While growing up my family included grandma, my aunt and uncle and my three cousins; a tiny family by Italian Catholic standards. It was my grandma and my aunt that taught me the needle arts.<br /><br />With my aunt I learned needlepoint, crewel and embroidery. Gift giving occasions were marked by wonderful needlework kits that became wall hangings and pillows around our home. My grandmother taught me the proper way to hold a crochet hook and count stitches on a circular knitting needle. I was gifted her leftover balls of wool and angora to make mittens and potholder squares. She always had an afghan in process on her lap that I would examine each time I visited and remark on her progress. Imagine my surprise when I opened my eighteenth birthday present to find my own ivory, brown and rust crocheted throw ready to make the trip to my dorm room that fall. She had managed to hide its construction for months before.<br /><br />Earliest memory of sewing I am about seven years old watching my mother sew a blue and white damask Martha Washington costume for my sister. She didn’t have a great love of sewing, she learned because it was expected as part of her training to be a good housewife. Apparently the sewing gene can skip generations. My grandmother came from a long line of professional tailors on her father's side. Most of her family sewed expertly, my mother learned but never really enjoyed it.<br /><br />My father's great grandfather owned a factory that made school uniforms in Leeds, England. As I researched our ancestry, census after census showed professions associated with sewing on both sides of my dad's family. Clearly, I had inherited something because I was fascinated by the process. I loved the feel of the fabrics and the hum of my mom's Phaff sewing machine. It seemed magical to me. Back in those days sewing patterns often came with pieces in the edges of the marker for doll clothes. In an attempt to keep me from underfoot, she gave me that pattern and enough scraps to start me sewing. A passion ensued.<br /><br />I lived in the same house from my fifth birthday until the week I left for college. All that time I had a best friend living right next door; she was my sewing partner, so to speak. Together we learned to thread a needle and make Barbie outfits by hand. We scrounged scraps from our family sewing baskets and turned rags into doll clothes and costumes. What we couldn’t teach ourselves and my mother was too busy to teach, we learned by riding bikes to the Clearfield Library and checking out books. On lucky days I had the joy of spending an afternoon at my grandmother’s being taught the rudiments of how to work the machine.<br /><br />Eventually we took classes and saved our nickels to buy yards of cotton seersucker and bits of rick-rack to make summer tops. By the time we reached home economics class in middle school, we were already quite accomplished. By high school we could stitch a lined navy blue blazer with a sailor collar and soutache trim. It only followed that she would go to the Fashion Institute of Technology for a degree in design and I would go to Nazareth College for a degree in business management. That would be the first big hiccup in my life plan.<br /><br />My father pretty much chose my major. I believe the conversation went something like: <em>“I’m paying for</em> <em>it; do as I say.”</em> Needless to say I hated it. I loved English and History classes and anything in the arts. Everything else bored me. I relieved that boredom by spending my every free minute in the costume department sewing everything and anything for a crazy Head Costumer while eating mint Milano cookies and wearing a blue net hairpiece from the nineteen forties. My parents thought the lousy grades were a result of too much beer and sex, in reality it was the theater costume department.<br /><br />I met the Costumer my first week at school. There had been a sign posted in the student union looking for volunteers, sewing experience welcome but not necessary. I went over to the workshop one afternoon and asked if they had anything for me to do. She was making witch costumes for a play I’ve long since forgotten, and was wrestling with a huge bolt of black taffeta. She asked if I could cut out a pattern if she laid it out, she was extremely busy and needed all the help she could find. She handed me the actress’s body measurement sheet and a simple pattern for a gathered full length skirt with a set in waistband and a back zipper. Childs play. Little over an hour later when she came to check on me I was ironing the finished skirt and getting ready to pin the hem. Needless to say, she was surprised and delighted. She threw her arms around me and sang, <em>“I am so in love with you; don’t ever leave me.”</em> I didn’t leave her for the two years I was there. I was in the costume department my every free minute; much to the detriment of my school work.<br /><br />Anyone who knows me now will shake their heads in disbelief when I tell you I was quite shy back then. I didn’t have the courage to stand up to my father and change my major. I had such insecurities about my abilities that I mutely followed the path I was pushed down, no matter how disastrous that would turn out to be, rather than forge ahead on my own. I’m reminded of that every year on October 31st when the worlds of textile and make believe collide and I am afforded one more chance to sew something wonderful for my little girl to masquerade in. I imagine I'll be doing it for quite some time since <strong>She</strong> refused to learn how to sew; apparently <strong>She</strong> doesn't have the sewing gene.<br /><br />I’ve been told, and rightly so, that I have spoiled <strong>Her</strong>. I have been too easy, I have paid too many of <strong>Her</strong> bills, I have given <strong>Her </strong>too many opportunities that <strong>She</strong> has squandered away. I do it because I want <strong>Her</strong> to have every chance to find <strong>Her</strong> calling; to not be stuck in the wrong life. This year, more so than ever, I am cognizant of what’s gone wrong in both our lives and am determined to set things right.<br /><br />The night of <strong>Her</strong> accident when I found out about the Girl I was shocked. It seemed so odd to me that we could be so close, yet this huge piece of who <strong>She</strong> was had been hidden from me. The Husband hadn’t heard, he had left the room; a good thing because he would not have been supportive. There would be blaming and accusations and derogatory comments. None of which I cared to hear. I stood in stunned silence looking at my broken, bruised baby with her clothes cut off and the cervical collar forcing <strong>Her</strong> head back at an odd angle. I needed a minute to digest the words <strong>She</strong> had spoken, God granted me a time out in the form of an orderly, come to wheel <strong>Her</strong> down for an MRI. I was left alone to my thoughts when my phone buzzed. It was The Boy. He had been my support all night, texting me to keep me sane on the long drive to the hospital and answering my frantic texts with just the right words. He was a master at reading me and saying exactly what I needed to hear. I text him: “<strong>She</strong> has a girlfriend.” His instant answer: “Who cares, Baby, as long as <strong>She</strong> is happy?” Indeed.<br />~DazzledGirlDazzledGirl and Braticashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01637732824022663793noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4701399242923867978.post-64005845748602748992010-05-19T03:01:00.014-04:002010-05-25T18:12:55.224-04:00XIV. The Notion Of The NorthAfter spending two weeks rearranging the twenty six letters of the alphabet into meaningless ramblings, I've realized it's not time for me to write about Cincinnati; at least not yet. I'll head North in a different direction.<br /><br />A week before <strong>She</strong> kissed The Boy, the two of us traveled to where our union began: Buffalo, New York. We spent the better part of two months planning our trip to the homeland. The travel arrangements were a nightmare, airplane versus automobile being the major issue. <strong>She</strong> chose airplane. I chose automobile. When given the option to carpool with the Aunts, I weighed the pros and cons. On one hand I wouldn't have to drive or pay for gas and I could spend time with them. On the other hand, I would be confined to a mini van with <em>five</em> children and the thought absolutely terrified me. If I had to listen to two twelve year old boys debating the merits of <em>Family Guy</em> and <em>South Park</em> for several hours, surely I'd throw myself from the moving vehicle and become yet another inconvenient bit of mess for the highway patrol. Verdict: it would be a solo drive.<br /><br />When the day arrived, I started out excited and early enough, armed with my music and cell phone. Four hours later I was barely out of Washington, DC; I'd hit stopped traffic at every turn and, of course, rain! Glorious. After much cursing and several phone calls to <strong>Her</strong> it was decided I'd spend the night in Pennsylvania and drive the second leg in the morning. As soon as the sun began its descent I snatched up a hotel room. I could barely sleep because of the anticipation.<br /><br />The second leg was effortless. Beautiful weather. No traffic. The scenic countryside, rustic barns and windmills reminded me of my love for road trips. The moment I crossed over the New York state line, I cheered at the top of my lungs and clapped just once before planting my hands back on the wheel. I was ecstatic, at the same time, when I entered the Buffalo city limits, nostalgia washed over me. It had been over a decade since I'd been to the city where I, as well as my entire family, came from and the previous visit had been a somber one. It was the last time I saw my Great Uncle before he passed, the last time I communicated with any of my Father's family; but the most tragic of it all, it was the last time I saw my Father. But that's another story for another day.<br /><br />This visit would be a joyous one. My Great Aunt's 80th birthday, not that she looks a day over 60! Her children had planned a tremendous party to celebrate and we had all assembled from the corners of the globe. She knew my Aunts were coming but My Uncle, myself and <strong>She</strong> were a "surprise" gift. I was shocked not even the young cousins let the secret out of the bag. The moment she saw us, she held out her arms, clung to us and started weeping. It was difficult to keep my composure. That entire day was full of hugs, smiles, laughter and catching up with family we hadn't seen in years. Being around my Great Aunt and seeing her interact with her grandchildren made me miss my Grandparents even more. I felt blessed to have such a wonderful, loving extended family and wished that I could be closer to them all.<br /><br />Unfortunately, we only spent a few days in Buffalo. <strong>She</strong> didn't want a stressful, rushed agenda with sight-seeing, nor did I. Our days would start by having Starbucks in our beautiful hotel lobby with My Uncle from Texas. Then we'd simply drive. Saw the hospital I was born in, restaurants my Grandparents frequented, Delaware Park and the Buffalo Zoo. We found our old neighborhood and casually parked outside our first home, knowing we looked like stalkers and didn't care.<br /><br />Oh and there was food, lot's of it. Roast beef on salty kimmelweck rolls, pizza from <em>Santora's</em>, Canadian beer on tap. Salen hot dogs with sauerkraut and mustard from <em>Ted's.</em> Friday night fish fry at the old <em>Pine Lodge</em>. And lastly, real Buffalo Wings. I am certain I had wings every day I was there. <strong>She</strong> fell head first off the vegan bandwagon the day we got there.<br /><br />Even though I had no memories of the places she showed me I felt as if I was channeling my Father the whole time. It had only been five years since I lost him and just knowing that he had been on the same streets not too long ago, somehow helped with my grief. Our last stalker drive was my favorite. It was the morning of <strong>Her</strong> flight home. We visited the house <strong>She</strong> grew up in. Aside from the trees doubling in size and the removal of a swimming pool, according to <strong>Her</strong> it was all exactly the same. Age hadn't changed the neighborhood a bit. It astounded me.<br /><br />Lastly, we visited the only place in all of Buffalo that I had real memories of: my Great Grandmother's house, my Nana. It was perfect. I eyed the small little cottage with its detached single car garage and fenced in back yard. In my memory it was still blue, the basement still smelled of bananas and freshly laundered linens, and my Nana was still alive sitting in her kitchen, legs crossed, hands in her lap, smiling. How I wished I remembered Nana's Christmas Eve feast in that house, listening to the family stories told while they had their after dinner coffee and played cards. How I wished I had seen the fish swimming around in the bucket.<br /><br />After <strong>She</strong> left I spent the day with my Uncle. It was the first time we had spent any time together without the rest of our family busily chattering around us, I couldn't help but be amused by my Uncle chain-smoking and cursing between inhales and exhales at the plethora of car dealerships along the route. We had day tripped to Rochester to spend time with my cousin and his young family and celebrate his birthday. Then it was on to Niagara Falls because even though I'd driven past it numerous times in my childhood, I didn't remember seeing it. Beautiful is an understatement. The real draw, of course, being the casinos! The Casino: even more beautiful especially because I won $300! I thoroughly enjoyed my time spent with him and thanked him for making me richer.<br /><br />The next day I left Buffalo before the world and the sun had risen. I reached the Pennsylvania border by dawn and pulled into the welcome center. It was desolate. Silent. At sunrise I stood outside the car, sipping my morning coffee, and breathed in the cool air. I was only an hour and a half away and already I longed to go back. I ached for my family to be whole again, my Grandparent's to be healthy, my father to be alive and free from addiction, and to be a part of the history and memories of Buffalo that I was too young to experience or remember.<br /><br />A long drive gives you a lot of time to think. I was still stuck on <strong>Her</strong> couch and I needed to get off it. It was time for me to start making my own history, whatever that may be. ~BraticasDazzledGirl and Braticashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01637732824022663793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4701399242923867978.post-55246128236356157242010-05-08T22:56:00.004-04:002010-05-13T09:24:45.310-04:00XIII. Song of the SouthUnlike <strong>Her</strong>, my circle of friends had closed. It had been such a gradual process over the years that I hadn’t even felt the loss. In retrospect, I should have paid more attention.<br />
<br />
When I married my husband I thought him a very social person. He was embraced by the fold of his Southern Baptist heritage and had a church family with a busy social calendar. We attended pot luck’s and Wednesday night dinners, catfish fry’s, barbeque picnics and fireworks displays, always surrounded by plenty of smiling faces. I was the new girl in town; the divorced Catholic Yankee come to turn the head of their Rebel son. I was warmly welcomed for the most part, even if they did occasionally insist on trying to <em>save</em> me. Word had not reached South Georgia that Catholicism was, in fact, a Christian religion. I managed to stay out of their pond and firmly in the Baptismal fount of my infancy while making friends along the way.<br />
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We also had a circle of friends from work that had a not-so-heavy social calendar but a ready supply of alcohol and fun evenings around a crackling bonfire. Both groups encouraged our union, as unlikely as it was. On a late September morning , when asked how our date had gone the evening before, that Rebel son threw me over his arm and kissed me soundly in front of a hundred employees on the sewing room floor where we worked, to wild screams and applause. We were married in early December.<br />
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I attended a miniscule Catholic church with a priest we shared with two other counties. Yes, counties. St. Williams gave me a family outside of the Baptist house I was living in. There was a dear nurse from Ireland with a brood of freckled children and a ready cup of coffee, another from England that shared my maiden name and families from the North and the Midwest that didn’t think I had an accent. It was a refuge of sorts for me and the place through which we found Nicole.<br />
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I didn’t notice when family events replaced those friends, and I can’t say I minded, but those happy dating days were gone. My friends from school had scattered to the corners of the world and I heard from them less and less. The eclectic group of Lebanese, Polish and French Canadian friends from New Hampshire seemed a million miles from South Georgia. I missed the ethnicity of the food and the varied cultures, all foreign to the part of the world I had married into. I missed the connection to people who had known me <em>when</em>.<br />
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What I hadn’t realized was that The Husband not only didn’t miss the friends, he didn’t want them and would spend years sabotaging any friendship I made. It wasn’t until seventeen years later that he would articulate to me, during a flood of tears, that he was a loner. He wanted nothing more than for our world to include only the two of us. It would have been fine if we had been the kind of inseparable couple that shared their every like and dislike. We did not.<br />
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I recall my parish priest telling us during pre-marriage counseling to embrace our differences, to share our religions. In retrospect, this is the kind of advice only a man who’s never married could give out with a straight face. My husband was a redneck blue collar Southern Baptist Democrat raised in a town with a high school that still had two proms; one black, one white. It still had two proms when we left in the spring of 2000. I was a red headed Catholic Yankee Republican from Buffalo, New York. We couldn’t have been more different unless I had been black. But then we would have had to attend separate proms!<br />
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When I read <strong>her</strong> story about not liking the holidays except for Halloween I knew it was more than just the absent Grandparents. The cultural clash that was our marriage had destroyed both Thanksgiving and Christmas for her and me. I don’t know that she’s consciously aware of that, but I read it in her face at the time.<br />
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I was taught to cook by my Italian mother and grandmother, with a little help from Julia Child. I was quite accomplished, mainly because I was good at following a recipe. When I moved to Georgia the food was markedly different and I had to learn how to cook southern style. Our first Thanksgiving I knew I would have to make two dressings; a cornbread dressing with chicken, celery and onion baked in a Pyrex alongside the bird and my mother’s recipe of day old bread with sausage and white raisin stuffed inside the seasoned cavity. I would cook the sweet potatoes in a casserole with marshmallows, rather than halved and glazed with butter and brown sugar. What I didn’t know was that they didn’t eat winter squash in South Georgia and that if the cranberry relish didn’t come out of a can, they would consider it inedible. I found those two things out when I sat down at the table and saw the faces of my guests contorted and grimacing. A lively, unfriendly conversation ensued about the tartness of my cranberry Grand Marnier sauce. My only champion: my eight year old daughter.<br />
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In our family we celebrated Christmas Eve Italian style, with the feast of seven fishes. Onion pie with anchovies and chilled shrimp cocktail as appetizer, then shrimp again floured and lightly fried along with smelts; purchased live and swimming around a bucket in my grandmother's basement. Next came breaded oysters, stuffed calamari, eel and finally spaghetti topped with octopus in red sauce. We had that every year of my life until Uncle Dominic died and we didn’t have to have the eel any more. I knew I wouldn’t be making that for my hostile thanksgiving crowd, instead we bowed to their Christmas Eve traditions and I planned dinner for Christmas Day, Prime Rib and Yorkshire Pudding. Who wouldn’t like that?<br />
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As I mentioned earlier, we had one priest for three counties so there was only one mass said a week. We alternated times between the parishes. That year Christmas mass would be celebrated on Christmas Eve at five o’clock. My husband’s extended family had gathered at his mother’s house with armloads of gifts and covered dishes. I was told dinner was at six o’clock, which would give me enough time to get to church and back without missing the festivities.<br />
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An hour or so later we walked hand in hand into my mother in laws house to a sea of torn gift wrap, dirty dishes and bodies sprawled out in front of the television. They had eaten dinner and unwrapped gifts without us. I was angry, then angrier still when I saw the crestfallen look on <strong>Her</strong> face. As bad as that was, one of her new step cousins began to show her the gifts Santa had brought. In my family we only opened gifts on Christmas morning but they opened all of their gifts Christmas Eve. Any illusion of Santa and Christmas magic my sweet eight year old held onto was soundly shattered. I remember her tucking herself under my arm and burying her face in my bosom. I knew her well enough to know she was choking back tears.<br />
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That’s what really happened to the holidays for <strong>Her</strong>. After that year we made the six hour trek to my parents whenever we could and she rebuilt her memories of holidays around those beautiful times. Until Diabetes and Alzheimer’s snatched that away too, way before it was time.<br />
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I was arrogant enough back then to think I could make this marriage work. So what if I didn’t have any friends? So what if I would never fit in in the South? So what if we couldn’t agree on anything? I loved my husband. I loved his family. I could make this work. Looking back, a network of friends might have helped along the way. If I’d had a best friend to confide in the day I fell in love with The Boy, someone who knew me and my life, maybe I wouldn’t have lost him and everything else.<br />
<br />
The Boy:<br />
Italian Catholic Yankee Republican. Only one prom.<br />
Perfect for me. ~DazzledGirlDazzledGirl and Braticashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01637732824022663793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4701399242923867978.post-47592369424927682392010-05-02T16:10:00.005-04:002010-05-06T20:22:25.585-04:00XII. Kiss Me Goodbye, I'm Defying GravityMy circle of friends includes four major players; only once have the five of us been in the same room together. They are all my closest friends but not necessarily each others. An unlikely union took place during my highly anticipated and very successful fancy dress party this past December, just a week before the car accident. Everyone came dressed to kill and ready to have a good time. Guests spread through my two story house in little huddled groups. I'd spent the evening bouncing between these groups, trying to be a good hostess and making sure everyone was enjoying themselves, refilling drinks when needed.<br /><br />I was stationed in my room with a few others when I heard The Baker running up the stairs in her stilettos yelling out my name. A male voice accompanied her, but I didn't quite recognize it. She burst into my room enthusiastically, stepped aside, and showed off the man behind her Vanna White style. I looked up and screamed. Standing before me was The Philadelphian in a three piece suit. He drove down specifically for the event as a surprise. I pulled him to me, squealing and screaming, "Oh My God!" at least ten times. He just laughed. I was in tears. It had been at least two years since I'd seen him. The other guests in my room sat awkwardly and watched this emotional reunion unfold not knowing who he was. At the time I didn't realize the magnitude of this situation. The Baker and The Philadelphian were in my room while the two other important players in my social circle were mere feet away. The Feminist was in the living room; The Artist was on the back deck. The most influential people in my life were making history by being in the same place at once and not a single one of us realized. Not a single picture was taken.<br /><br />I've known The Artist for six years, The Baker and The Philadelphian for eight, and come August it'll be ten years with The Feminist. I met her at the bus stop on the first day of school after I moved to Richmond. We bonded over angry girl rock and decoupage. Ten years later and she still joke about my love for snakeskin during my sophomore year; I will never live that fashion choice down. That's what friends are for; to remind you of who you've been and where you want to be. I share most of my embarrassing or funny high school memories with The Feminist. Emotionally, she understands me. I can cry on the phone to her after a bad breakup and she gets it, more so than the others. She understands why you would use your ex's body wash so you can have their scent with you through the day. The other's would think it's crazy.<br /><br /><br />For Christmas this year, she was gifted tickets to see the production <em>Wicked</em>. It graced Richmond's Landmark Theater last month. Since I share the love of elaborate costumes and show tunes, I was chosen to be her date. Lucky me. I was just as ecstatic as she was about the event, even though I barely knew what it was! Waiting three months for the show seemed unbearably long and impossible. But as my life at home and my situation with The Girl began to crumble, the stress, arguments, tears, and loosing my apartment pushed <em>Wicked</em> to the back of my mind. One day I glanced at the calendar and saw it was a mere three days away. The wait was finally coming to an end, but hesitation was creeping in. I feared the emotional strain in my life would prevent me from enjoying the experience.<br /><br />When the day arrived, I slipped on a classic black cocktail dress with my red patent leather pointed toe flats. The shoes paid homage; it's about Oz, how I could resist? The Feminist and I climbed the hundred steps to our first row balcony seats. As soon as I laid eyes on the stage I was overcome with excitement. We twitched in our seats, chatted excitedly, and counted down the minutes. The lights dimmed. The crowd silenced. I saw those wild monkeys crawl onto the stage and I squealed in delight. (Very quietly of course.) Every costume change I'd lean over and whisper, "Oh my god, I love that one! And that one! I'd wear ALL of these dresses!" I fancy costumes. I get that from <b>Her</b>.<br /><br />Although it lacked the talents of Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel, the overall show was still spellbinding and fantastic. <em>Wicked</em> moved me to tears three times. In those few hours, I was captivated by the story of unlikely friendship and hypnotized by the gorgeous production. The incessant pain, self doubt, and frustration that had been consuming me disappeared for a short time. I was thankful for that. I smiled a genuine smile for the first time since The Girl broke me; something I had to fake daily to make people think I was fine. <em>Wicked</em> was a gift of healing from The Feminist.<br /><br />Seeing <em>Wicked</em> made me remember how much I loved the theater. It reinforced how I need to change the path I’m on to live the type of life I want. It reminded me how lucky I am to have four very special friends that fill the crevices of my life. It might be ten years until we're all in the same room again but when that day comes, I'll be sure to take Polaroids. ~BraticasDazzledGirl and Braticashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01637732824022663793noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4701399242923867978.post-21072121532931547402010-04-25T11:05:00.006-04:002010-05-04T19:28:48.770-04:00XI. I'm gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My HairWe were never allowed to do laundry on New Year’s Day. The Husband believed that whatever you did on New Year’s Day you would do all year long and that if you did the laundry, you would ‘wash’ someone out of your family that year. Personally, I was okay with that if I got to choose the relative in question. He never saw the humor in that, probably because he knew who I was gunning for. But his silly superstitions ruled the day, no matter how many times I rolled my eyes. So when She rented a truck and moved back from Cincinnati and into her old room on New Year’s Day, he was irate and I was amused. In fact, I may have even done a load of fine hand washables just for spite.<br />
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I refer to the nine months She spent in Cincinnati as a very expensive gestation; ten thousand dollars to be exact. At the time I considered it well spent, later it was just one more nail in our financial coffin. If that’s what it took for her rebirth, then so be it. She went to Cincinnati for a boy. As far as I knew, it was always about boys back then. He was a grad student at Xavier; she was a store manager for a leading plus size retailer that just happened to have its home office in Ohio. So when he asked her to follow him, she applied for a transfer, packed her gnomes and left me. There was a truck to rent, deposits to be made, furniture to be bought and rent to be paid. I helped her because I wanted to give her the support I had never had. I wanted to give her choices. I didn’t want her trapped as I had been. Unfortunately, we cannot see into the hearts of men, so there was a truck to rent, a lease to buy out, and a long drive back to Virginia on New Year’s Day. But that’s her story to tell.<br />
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That’s how the year began for us, with her a depressed mess in my recliner watching pay per view and scattering tissues on the living room floor. But I was fine then, I didn’t know what was coming. I was placidly going through the motions of the middle class suburban working woman. Apparently I had turned off my radar.<br />
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I was a hard core vegan at the time and had undertaken a massive organic gardening project. The Husband and I had a couple hundred non GMO seedlings taking root in my dining room. I considered it the perfect place to begin their life; after a brief trip outside they would end up on my dining room table anyway, most likely with extra virgin olive oil and freshly ground kosher salt.<br />
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This was much more than just a few tomato plants and a terracotta pot of basil. It was seven separate gardens of companion plants, well thought out and researched, that would grow us a season’s worth of food. We were so proud of our Christmas Lima beans, our German Johnson tomatoes and the sweet potato shoots that would arrive just in time for a May planting. Of course, we had bitten off more than we could chew but we were willing to make our mistakes and enjoy whatever came to fruition. That was January. In the middle of February the Husband came home from work with the proverbial pink slip and I remember thinking, at least we’ll be able to eat.<br />
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I expected him to be depressed. The anger and bitterness surprised me. The economic outlook was bleak, job prospects were few and far between, and I was the only one in the house working. I kept a brave face but I was scared and I resented having to deal with both of their moods after a long day at work. His constant stream of criticism, the both of them arguing over how to load the dishwasher, and coming home to a messy house were just too much for me. It was my turn to get angry.<br />
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Many arguments were about keeping the house. I wanted to let it go. He would hear none of it. We were already feeling the keen sting of him working at reduced wages for a year; we had begun to use credit cards to pick up the slack, expecting it all to be temporary. But it wasn’t. He began siphoning off the 401k to make house payments. I disagreed wholeheartedly but I was not being heard. He was out of work for six months and we were in bad shape. So I shut up and found myself a better paying job. And then I found the lump in my breast. But I kept that to myself.<br />
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New Year’s Day: moving, depression, arguing and laundry. It turned out to be Ground Hog Day for us. She moved three times that year. All three of us would battle depression. All three of us would argue. And I, the one who did the laundry, would wash my Husband, my sisters, my mother and my Boy out of my life. If you had asked me that first day of January if I had seen any of this coming I would have said of course not. I would have laughed and said, as I had done a hundred times before, there would be no divorce in our house; a death maybe, but no divorce. Oh, how very close we came to that. <br />
<br />
I'm sure some of the rift with my family will mend. But words cannot be unsaid, deeds cannot be undone and I may never hold my Boy again. He alone I cared to keep. ~DazzledgirlDazzledGirl and Braticashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01637732824022663793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4701399242923867978.post-81066098413790725522010-04-22T23:47:00.006-04:002015-11-09T11:42:07.138-05:00X. There's No Place Like Gnome, There's No Place Like Gnome.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Rudely enough, one of my oldest and dearest friends moved to Philly. The Philadelphian, The Baker, and I consider ourselves a trio of soul mates. I fully expect that we will be friends for life. Regardless, he up and moved to the City of Brotherly Love where he had the audacity to purchase a house in the suburbs with an air of permanency. As most new homeowners do, he traded in the bar scene to spend his Saturday nights at home improvement stores buying mulch and fertilizer. The need to nest takes over; an ordinary backyard becomes a beautiful new haven, hammock included. Upon one of his many trips to Home Depot, he stumbled across a collection of Garden Gnomes and thought of me. "Doesn't <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Braticas</span> collect these?" The answer to that is no. No, I do not collect gnomes. Why would one think that? Well, it all started with a girl from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Montmartre</span>.<br />
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Senior year of high school I got completely lost. I'd had a well thought out plan for my future, but it vanished the day I received a rejection letter from art school. I was crushed. In fact, so upset that I called out of work, a first for me. Everything I had been working for my senior year seemed like a waste. I had no backup plan and no idea what else to major in. Rather than obsess about my unsure future, I opted to escape from reality using music and film. <i>Amélie,</i> a masterpiece by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, was my anesthetic of choice.<br />
<br />
I am by no means exaggerating when I tell you that every day after school I'd come home and put <i>Amélie</i> on the tube. I'd watched it so many times I didn't even need subtitles. I'd revel in the language, the set design, the clever and gorgeous camera angles, and most importantly, the plot. The girl from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Montmartre</span> and the Collector. The story resonated with me, the idea that two perfect strangers could find each other and be just what the other needed. I'd always fancied stories that dabbled with fate and soul mates. <i>Only You</i>. <i>Sleepless in Seattle</i>. But <i>Amélie</i> was my favorite.<br />
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With the end of my senior year fast approaching, I threw a college catalog in the air and landed in the Mass Communications department. It seemed like a plan, but it wasn't. It was a costly detour. Had I been reading the signs screaming for me to go into film or music, things might have turned out differently. I’d been obsessive about both my entire life. I possessed the rare talent of picking out editing or continuity flaws in films. I quote movies incessantly. I excel at Six Degrees of Separation. My childhood was spent watching the same five films over and over again. <i>Princess Bride</i>. <i>Back to the Future</i>. <i>Dirty Dancing</i>. <i>The Man from Snowy</i> <i>River</i>. <i>Working Girl</i>. An odd assortment of films for a child. <b>She</b> refuses to watch <i>Back to the Future</i> to this day. Apparently I insisted on watching it back to back for a solid year. By the age of eighteen, <i>Amélie</i> had become what <i>Back to the Future</i> had been at age four. Clearly, I liked film. Mass communications would bore me to inertia. But that was the only plan I had at the moment.<br />
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How does this relate to Garden Gnomes? If you’<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">ve</span> seen Amélie then you know. If not, let me explain. In the movie, Amélie's father is grief stricken after the death of her mother and spends his days building a shrine to her in the garden. In an effort to get him out of his funk and to start traveling, she steals his garden gnome and sends it around the world with a stewardess friend. The <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Travelocity</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">commercials</span> were born out of <i>Amélie</i>. <b>She</b>, being gift giver extraordinaire, researched the company that made the Gnome featured in the film, purchased the exact one, and had it shipped from Europe. Albert was my <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">high school</span> graduation present. The card was filled with encouragement to go out and see the world and to take Polaroid’s along the way. I cried when I opened it.<br />
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The summer after graduation sped by. Come August I’d packed my extensive movie collection full of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Sundance</span> winners, dark comedies, period pieces, and foreign flicks and Albert and I went to college. He lived on my bookshelf and oversaw homework, fights with my roommate, drinking, and hundreds of movies. But he never traveled. Then one tragic day while entertaining a few friends, in a desperate plea for attention, Albert dove off my bookshelf and broke into pieces. I choked back the tears so my guests wouldn't see. Surely they wouldn't understand me crying over a garden gnome. I was weird enough without that.<br />
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I made a frantic phone call to <b>Her</b> shrieking, "Albert is dead! He's dead! He just jumped off the bookshelf!" Later I concluded that my roommate's obsession with Sponge Bob was just too much for Albert. I could escape the cramped dorm room- he couldn't. Within weeks <b>She</b> surprised me with a replacement Albert. When I opened the box, however, he turned out to be Albert's evil twin. His clothes were different colors and his face was dark and menacing. A sign. Things were not as they should be.<br />
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I sloppily glued Albert back together; he went back on the bookshelf with his evil twin at his side where guests would always inquire as to why I had twin garden gnomes. Since then I have been gifted with two more. So there I was, four garden gnomes in a 9 x 9 dorm room. Bizarre indeed. I still have them all, Albert, Evil Albert, and the two nameless have made it through five moves since college.<br />
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That's why The Philadephian thought of me when he saw a garden gnome. Now when I see one, all I see is mischance and lost opportunity. How <b>She</b> wanted so much for my life to be full of <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Polaroids</span>, but I misread the signs and detoured off the yellow brick road. ~Braticas</div>
DazzledGirl and Braticashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01637732824022663793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4701399242923867978.post-85851622119244101322010-04-18T16:35:00.002-04:002010-05-04T19:29:22.394-04:00IX. M. Night Shyamalan RevisitedI've been thinking about signs lately. You know those things that point you in one direction or another? Some are fairly easy to read, such as STOP. Others can be quite dicey. Merge. Yield. Depending on your point of view, those could mean any number of things. Who gets to go first in a merge? How many cars do you yield to? All of them? There are definitely questions.<br />
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I thought I'd gotten good at reading the signs in my life. I was learning to pay attention to the precognition, and that helped me be on the watch. So when all the signs said <em>go-ahead-and-buy-that-house</em>, I thought I was doing the right thing. Not so much.<br />
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I'd been scouring the real estate sites and driving <span class="goog-spellcheck-word">neighborh</span><span class="goog-spellcheck-word">oods</span> for a couple years in search of our new home. The Husband wanted a master bedroom downstairs, I needed a better kitchen. We had just about given up the hunt and decided to remodel when I stumbled across something. An ad for a new subdivision just a couple miles from where he worked. It was a sketchy ad with line drawings and a bad map but the houses came with a stand-by generator and <span class="goog-spellcheck-word">Lutron</span> lighting. I was intrigued. We took the S<span class="goog-spellcheck-word">unday</span> afternoon drive with freshly printed Map Quest directions and high hopes.<br />
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We couldn't find it. The maps all showed a golf course where I thought the home sites should be. I remember commenting to the Husband that a golf course was the last place I'd ever live. My Dad golfed, not in the least bit fanatically, and built a lovely house on a golf course in Florida. He paid dues on it for years all the while he sat in a wheel chair unable to pick up a club. I was also mildly steamed during the summer I spent in Florida during the drought. My sister had to haul buckets of water from a fire hydrant down the street to flush her toilets since the wells had all gone dry. Water restriction was in place everywhere. Except, of course, the golf courses. They irrigated daily and driving by those sprinklers used to infuriate me. I'd had a bad taste in my mouth for golf ever since.<br />
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So naturally the home site <em>was</em> an old nine hole golf course sold off to developers. We'd be finding golf balls in our yard forever. I had a bad feeling. That was until I turned down the gravel construction road and I caught the edge of the street sign in my eye. Naylor's Blue Court. The little hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Naylor was my maiden name. Not too common. Blue, my Mom's favorite color and the interior color of every home she had. Signs. I called the realtor Monday morning to get more info.<br />
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My Dad was so much on my mind in those days. He'd been gone a couple years and I missed him. I was constantly searching for signs from him. <em>I don't see dead people,</em> but I'd wished I could have seen him. A few days later as I poured over floorplans I realized the only one the Husband would approve of was called <em>The Parkside</em>. I didn't really like it but it had the requisite master down. We would think about it. The lots were going fast, especially the larger ones in the cul de sac that I liked, but we had planned a trip to Georgia and we wouldn't be signing anything until we came back. I stopped at my sisters to give her the keys to our house; she was going to look after the dogs for me. This would be my youngest sister, the care giver of my mother, and she was a candy lover. She'd gone to a little candy shop across town, <em>Kathleen's,</em> and brought back a childhood favorite from our hometown: Sponge candy. She handed me a bag for the car trip. When I turned it over to see where it was made my breath caught. <em>Parkside Candies, Hertel Avenue, Buffalo, New York</em>. The candy store at the corner of the street my Dad grew up on. <em>Parkside</em>. Another sign. I emailed the realtor and begged him not to sell my lot until I got back from Georgia.<br />
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It was a lot of money but we had enough equity in the house we were in that it might just work. It would be our retirement house, the one we lived in until the end. If the payments were a little high in the beginning it would level out over time. I went to talk numbers with the realtor and decided to give him a small deposit to hold the lot til we made a decision. He handed me the pen to sign the agreement, I glanced over the contract and noticed the address for the first time. The number was both my parents' birthdays. I signed.<br />
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I loved the beautiful house we built. But the signs I should have been reading I had ignored. I wasn't content in my marriage or at work and no house was going to fix that. We argued every decision that went into it's construction, right up to closing day when I infuriated him by starting a new job and not being able to help us move. We were drifting farther and farther apart and neither one of us was noticing. We were in the house just two months when the company the Husband worked for decided to close up shop and get out of town. The first step towards our financial devastation. A sign things were changing.<br />
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The last time I was in the yard I kicked a little lump of dirt that turned out to be a golf ball. I picked it up and rubbed the grime off on my trouser leg. It was monogrammed with two initials, the Boy's initials. A sign. I would stumble over him forever. I choked back the tears and whipped it as far as I could into the woods. ~DazzledgirlDazzledGirl and Braticashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01637732824022663793noreply@blogger.com1