meltdown...

 

and no it's not me melting down!

here i am happy post vaccine. i'm at home in this...sorry for the old lady arm.  i did do the design on my arm.  sadly, the person who injected me i had never met so they don't know me or my humor.  it fell pretty flat.  i did know another person giving injections and i really should have requested her, but it felt rude. 

today just a sore arm and feeling tired.  is my sleepiness just this dreary warm weather.  the snow is melting.  we had some wind this morning and there may be more tonight.  may just close the dog door off while i'm at work.  always concerned a fence will go down and then the dogs will be loose so best to risk them having an accident in the house.  

this is before shot...not the greatest at art, but not horrible.  

these are from July at Deep Creek beach.  always a favorite. 

i'm back for three more nights of work.  Christmas...well it's a bit of a bust this year. 

strange as life makes you examine yourself over and over, which is good.  when you do finally learn to listen?  when do you figure out how to accept what is instead of hope for what you wish things were.

i was the youngest of 7.  i really believe that my parents were bored with actual parenting by the time i was hitting my teens, perhaps a bit before.  with that many kids the firsts just aren't as exciting the 7th time around. 

looking back i spent so much of my younger years hoping for the love and attention.  later i turned to the men i met to fill those needs.  nobody can fill that hole really though. 

it's not at all that my parents/family didn't love me.  they were mostly just exhausted and stressed.  we had my Grandpa, post stroke, living with us.  my parents were just getting more and more in debt.  they were paying for missions and college. my Dad was determined to make his own business work.  in the end, they ended up having 6+ loans on their original mortgage...can't imagine carrying that amount of debt.  they gave up so much to give us stability.  we always had stability. 

my Mom always felt guilty going back to work.  at first it was part time but later it was full time. the younger end of the family was mostly left on our own.  

you do gain independence that way though.  i suppose i was always stubborn and a bit needy. that just got worse being on my own.

each family runs differently i guess.  relationships between the older kids and the younger kids were just never something that was fostered and though we are all relatively close in age....when you are kids it's a pretty big gap. 

so i suspect i always just hoped that i would be part of a family...like the ones we imagined or the ones that look perfect from the outside.   many that look perfect really aren't though.  

nursing is acting but so is family some times. 

pretending that it is more close, more special.  special was always a term growing up.  it was the joke. 

spiritual giant was another term/joke. some were seen as spiritual giants...but there really aren't spiritual giants out there.  there are just people who put up better acts. just like there are no perfect families out there....just some that put up a better picture of themselves.  

i do envy those who do seem to have a closer tie to their family.  i ran.  far away.  it just was easier to be far away than close and face the fact that it wasn't the close knit family we appeared to be on the outside. 

once my Mom passed the family pretty much just became a scatter of individuals. she was what tied us all together.  i think that is common.  makes you feel really badly for those who lose their Moms when they are young. i'm not saying Dad's can't be that, just that especially at that time, it was the Moms.  some of that is probably cultural.  

i know for our family, she was the tie.  once she was gone....so were the ties.  

no doubt being single made that more of a mark for me.  there is no pity for the singleton though.  some how you are blamed for being a failure at finding love. i was told repeatedly in my early 20's that no matter how i felt about the church i needed to just go to BYU and find a husband.  a woman in that culture is nothing without a spouse 

they all have their family units and i will just forever be on the outside of that. they are fine with a few phone calls and a christmas card

as  a singleton it is up to me to create my own family. 

right now i feel guilty because we skipped the walk again. it's been a bad month for walks i must admit. much shorter than usual because of Ivy's knee.  she still wants to take the long walks but she really does pay for them.

the animals are the family. they are great but not the best at conversations. it's pretty one sided. 

life is a series of accepting things the way they are and letting go of the way you hope things are.  it's rarely a match.  i still prefer being single to being in a miserable marriage.  many are.  that just doesn't appeal to me and never did. 

i always felt i should be applauded for having not married the wrong person and having not gotten knocked up by the wrong person. instead, singletons are often shunned or treated like they have some sort of personality issue...the truth is we all have personality issues, we all have failings, some just are married and some aren't. 

getting married doesn't fix our flaws...in some ways it may exacerbate them.  i can still hide my flaws...with a partner, it's tough to hide much...although...

sometimes i watch those shows about murder cases.  it's generally the partner...the one i saw the other day was this "perfect Christian family"....they called themselves the beaver cleaver family...well, turns out the husband at some point started to have an affair. he fell in love and even bought a house with the new partner. why don't people just get divorced?  he decided it would be easier to have his original spouse killed off.  

he found these people in Texas, where they lived.  basically this group kept taking his money and not killing her.  they strung him along for years. he embezzled money from his company to keep paying them...can you imagine being in a marriage with someone and finding out they had another partner and had lived with you for a few years while plotting your murder!!

it's always shocking what people don't know about each other.  so yes, no promise is perfect or entirely safe. 

the wife did end up getting shot in the head and lost an eye, but she survived.  sadly, their kids believed their Dad had an affair, which they said was bad, but that the rest was not true.  so seems like she now has a strained relationship with her kids.  

perfect is the illusion.  we all want it and none of us really ever get it.  

we try to make sure it all looks good externally though.  social media really makes that much easier...it also makes it much easier to make others feel worse about their own lives as they look at all the others out there who have seemingly perfect lives. 

just remember we all have flaws, we all have lives that are marred, and sad and lonely at times. 

we all also have moments of joy and peace and happiness.  

comparisons will always let you down.  it can be tough to not compare and contrast but it is mentally the best way to be. 

many lessons to learn from the dogs. they do not have envy or greed or hate.  it's just not in them. 

here is a dog chasing a bird...sheer joy for him.  he knows how to just revel in the life he is given.  they all do.

well, three nights coming up. the first vaccine in.  we shall see how it all works out.  there is still much not known but it feels like a start.  always the bad comes with the good. 

trying to focus on the good and the positive.  even though some parts of life can be disappointing, others are not.  

peace to you and your families at this time of year....no matter what family turns out to be in your world...

for me family is some of the original blood relatives, friends and the dogs/cats that share my day to day life.

they forgive me my imperfections and flaws.  they see the truth in who i am and they still want to be around me.  

you don't need a million people to love you, just a few. 

we shall see what work brings.  

some young swans at Potters.

thankful for....a. the vaccine and the hope that it brings b. the people and creatures that make up the family that is c.  the stability and love that i came from....as flawed as it was some days.