Good Morning, friends. I like to think about you, even the many yous that are hiding out there in West Wherever, whose faces are like little secrets of mine. Sometimes, well, usually when I write, I think of you sitting with me, on my red and flowery sofa, drinking coffee, and that we chat like the oldest and dearest of friends.
Usually we talk about the weather, or the guy in my neighborhood who mows his lawn in a Speedo from April to November, about the chickens or the gardens and what we will eat for dinner. Sometimes I listen to you tell me about the myriad things going on in your neck of West Wherever.
We laugh, we chatter, we sit in the quiet.
Today I am sad and overwhelmed and unmotivated. There are dishes to do, and laundry to move along and fold. There are orders I need to cut and sew for pretties people have ordered from Revel Baby. There are pictures to edit and delete, and I desperately need a shower. DESPERATELY. I am painting scenery for the play I'm directing, props to gather. Miss O's flower girl dress for next weekend's wedding sits as a pile of chopped up material. My dress for next weekend's wedding sits folded up, one uncut piece of material hidden by a thousand tissue paper pattern pieces. The piano music sits in a folder in the bottom of my blue birdy bag, waiting to be practiced for next weekend's wedding. Because I'm the pianist, naturally. Or insanely. Either way.
Next weekend's wedding unites my younger brother and his love. It will also put my entire family in a room together for the first time in nine years. Mother, father, two brothers, their wives, me, The Mister, our children, my nephews.
Nine years. It weighs heavily on my spirit today, as is has for the past however many thousands of days.
I don't know if I'm up for the Happy Family Game. Do you know the one I mean, friends? Equal parts denial, pretending, and choking? People play this game all of the time, but I just don't know how, and I don't think that I want to learn.
We will make cupcakes, from a box because we have no butter, and we will frost them with frosting from a can, also because we have no butter. We will pick up sticks from the windy weekend, and paint scenery. The laundry will wash, and dry, and sit folded on the green sofa until a date to be determined by the direction the wind blows in combination with the availability of willing labourers and also the price of tea in China. We will eat Swedish Fish and have pasta for dinner.
Forward.
You know, all you really have to do, as my father would say, is to "behave". This is sort of a not playing nice but at the same time not put on a happy face. It's worked for me for years! Sending good thoughts and sunny skies your way.
ReplyDelete=)
I don't have issues with the family, but with the co-workers. My new M.O.? Speak evenly and calmly, with little- to no-eye contact, and only say what you absolutely have to.
ReplyDeleteTo those you love? Be your absolutely wonderful, beautiful self.
XXOO
sing your heart out ... pretend it's for the mister and the short ones.
ReplyDeleteplay that piano like nobody's business ... thinking of your littles.
and make it through.
you know you will.
it may just make you stronger. or at least teach you that you are already strong enough.
and if all else fails ... lock yourself up in the restroom stall with a drink and call me. or just text. that may be easier (or less weird) in a bathroom stall.
If I were close, I'd swing by and bring coffee and cookies and help you fold laundry and watch the kiddos while you lathered up in the shower.
ReplyDeleteI get your anxiety over the event. But as you say, forward. You can do it.
The Happy Family Game. I know that game. Getting together with my family can be very difficult. I cannot tell you what to do. I can only tell you what I do for myself, for my wife and children, and for my brothers, their wives, and my parents. I treat each person with the respect with which I would like to be treated. Sometimes that means I swallow hard and smile. I respond with a nod to indicate that I am listening and that I understand to many comments. I allow my children to play with their cousins, preserving their innocence from the influence of the family issues. When difficult topics of conversation develop I leave the room to check on the kids, to use the facilities, to see which direction the wind is blowing. I’m usually fast on my wife’s heals. And I just returned from successfully practicing these techniques in Chicago last weekend.
ReplyDeleteAnd you butter get to the store quickly. Life without it just is not good.
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