Life

Grounded for life, part 4

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It was the summer right before my 17th birthday that I got grounded. It was the first and last time that I got grounded. I remember being pretty upset about it at the time. I just wanted to hang out with my friends. I never thought on that 4th of July that a spark would set off a chain reaction that ended up saving my life. At the time, all I saw was red from the fireworks exploding in loud angry cracks. 

My mom told me that I needed to come home right after the fireworks. Randy showed up that night in his 1970’s big boat of a car with my new boyfriend and a friend of his. Perfect, I set up my boyfriend’s friend with my friend Connie who I invited to come live with me that night. Connie had a rough life. Connie and her younger siblings spent the summer living with whatever friends would take them in. She never had many clothes to wear, no winter jacket, and her mom would leave the kids for days at time with only cough drops to eat. She never called to look for Connie when she didn’t come home. Eventually, the kids ended up in foster care but for those couple of weeks I took Connie in like a stray cat. Connie had a horrendous upbringing, but that is her story to share. Growing up the way I did, I had a hard time relating to kids whose biggest problem was a bad hair day. 

After the fireworks that night, Randy had every intention of taking us right home. However, he decided to take the guys home first and then drop Connie and I off last as we were on the way home for him. It would be a half an hour out of the way to take the guys home, not really a problem. The problem was that Randy said that he knew a shortcut to get back home. After taking some back country roads, it was apparent that we were lost. We wandered around aimlessly for over an hour, turned around, stopped when the road dead ended in a field, turned around again, and eventually ended up in a town over an hour away from my house. I wish I could say we had a map in the car or a cell phone to call home.

We eventually found our way back and rolled in the driveway after 2 AM. So much for coming right home. How do you explain getting lost for hours when you know the route home like the back of your hand? Oh, and by the way, I brought a new friend home that is going to stay with us for a couple of weeks. I almost felt sorry for Connie, it probably wasn’t the best time to have a new friend live with us. Being grounded that night stopped Connie, our boyfriends, and me from what happened next. It would have been tragic. 

Grounded for life, part 3

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Sometimes I sit and wonder about the things that I haven’t thought about in a long time. Sometimes that bothers me. I wonder why if Randy did some bad things, things that he ended up in prison for, why he never hurt me. He had the opportunity to hurt me, but didn’t. Why was I spared that pain? Was it simply because God knew that would put me over the tipping point of more than I could handle. Randy did some very bad things, but never did anything wrong, illegal, or immoral with my friends or I. Nothing beyond his vandalism of signs and driving fast on country roads without seat belts. Mainly we just joked around and laughed.

One of the last times I saw Randy was right around his 18th birthday. He told Shelly and I that some friends were throwing him a party. He wanted us to come out to celebrate with him. At the time, Shelly was living with me at my parents house. She wasn’t the first friend to live with me for several months. The minute Shelly turned 18, she lived with us until graduation. Her parents weren’t bad per se. They were smothering her with their overprotectiveness. Shelly never really did anything wrong, they never let her.

We showed up to Randy’s party at his friends’ house. It was the first time and thankfully the last time that I saw these friends of his. His friends were in their 30’s, seemed kind of strange but ok. We sat in the living room with the 3 teenage children of his friends. The six of us sat in awkward silence ready for the party to start. The couple throwing the party were in the kitchen behind a closed door. Something was wrong, there was yelling. It sounded like plates were being thrown and smashing against the wall. There was a struggle of some sort, a banging against the wall. Randy went to check things out. The screams continued. Randy came back and said that we were getting the hell out of there, something about someone chasing someone around with a butcher knife.

The three of us jumped into my car and as we were trying to leave the cops showed up. The cops said that we couldn’t leave the scene of a crime. They took us inside and threatened us with blood tests to test our alcohol levels. Our course we said that we didn’t mind because we hadn’t been drinking. I didn’t even see the domestic dispute so I was little help answering questions. Eventually they let us go. We dropped Randy off at another friends house. Happy birthday, it sure was memorable.

When Shelly and I got back to my house her parents called and chewed her out for being at a wild party. Guess they just hung around their house listening to the police scanner until eventually they could tell her what crappy kids Shelly and I were. A big part of me felt bad that day knowing that sometimes life doesn’t turn out like it should.

Grounded for life, part 1

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The first time I met Randy was on the school bus. The bus was full when Randy got on except for one seat, my seat. He sat down next to me, jumped back up looking for another seat, and after finding none sat down next to me again. He nervously explained that he couldn’t sit by me because I was too beautiful, but there was nowhere else for him to go. He stuttered, chuckled, and wiped sweaty palms on his jeans. It was a couple weeks later in the middle of May that he asked me out. It snowed 6 inches on that day. My first relationship lasted as long as it took the May snow to melt away. But a friendship was struck since that first day. 

It was later that I learned more about the real Randy, but I will never know for sure. He never told the same story more than once. He loved to laugh and have fun. That was part of the problem. I learned later that he was in foster care for stealing a car for joy riding. Randy never caused me any harm, however trouble seemed to follow him everywhere he went. 

As a teen, I never had any boundaries. I was treated as an adult at a young age. I guess it was a benefit for having many adult responsibilities. For the most part I was trustworthy. There were times, however, that I wished I was grounded. Like the time Randy came over with a couple of friends to go out. For some reason, I was afraid of Randy’s friend. He was downright shady. There was something bad about him. My mom told me to go out and have a fun time when I really wanted her to say that I was grounded for life. I remember sitting in the back of this guy’s car. The floor was rusted out in the back seat. If you sat in the middle, you could see the ground. I was afraid that a bump would cause the whole back seat to fall out. 

There were other outings with Randy. He went to meet up with someone to talk about things that future felons probably discuss. I was offered a beer. Being the goodie two shoes that I was, I did not drink it but put it in my trunk. My dad found the beer. He told me I could get in a lot of trouble for that so I took the can and smashed it against some rocks. But I didn’t get grounded. 

The time I did get grounded though probably saved my life…

“Acting” my age

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When will I be too old to wear a bikini? Will it be next summer? About a year ago, I gave up wearing liquid foundation. I didn’t like the way it caked in the lines of my face. One good thing about getting older is that I really don’t need it anymore. My complexion is flawless now. Although I never had issues with acne, I did have rosacea. I used medicated cream to tame the redness. I even bought a green base coat to put under my liquid foundation to tame it down. If I didn’t wear foundation, people asked if I got a nasty sunburn on my face. My face isn’t ruddy rudolf reindeer red anymore. 

When will I act my age? Is age only just a number? Are you only as old as you feel? When will I no longer do all of the things that I didn’t get to do when I was young? It seems like my friends don’t go out as often anymore. When they do, they don’t stay out as late. They don’t dance to every song anymore. They look old. Do I look old? Do I look ridiculous pretending to still be young?

I feel like I was never able to be young, to make mistakes. Probably because I never was. I worked hard to earn the love I got. Love was not unconditional. It was earned by being perfect. I didn’t make mistakes because I never lived. I was encouraged not to try something new so I wouldn’t mess up. I had to be perfect or I wasn’t lovable. I had to care for my disabled brother without complaint because I was perfect. I was expected to have perfect grades, but couldn’t live up to it. The women in my family were perfect. My mom was perfect, she was a saint. Aunt Grace was always right, even if she was…gasp…wrong. Grandma was perfect, I could not find one single fault in her. Her love was unconditional. My first born is a perfectionist. She is so easy to love. Love shouldn’t have to be earned, my younger two children remind me of that. They are not always as easy to love. 

I never got to be a child. I was too mature, too shy, too serious, and way too perfect. Is it too late for me to be imperfect? I’m sure it is not. I do have one thing to say. I have absolutely no regrets. None. I just want to grab on to as much youth as I can, experience everything I can before it is too late. Before I have to start “acting” my age. Maybe the desires of youth will eventually fade. Until then, I am not ready to give up the fight. 

Gramps, his later years

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My grandpa’s life interwove with mine for a total of 26 years. I wish I could weave a story that makes the last half as magical as the first half, but I can’t. Right at the midpoint, the summer of my 13th year, my grandpa developed a rare form of polio. One morning while trying to get out of bed, my grandpa fell to the floor. My dad and great uncle tried to lift him without success. An ambulance came to the house and took him to the hospital where he spent the next couple of months learning how to move again. It was a scary place to go as a child. I saw many people struggling to make simple body movements. The scariest was a teen boy who became paralyzed after a deer went through the windshield of his car. 

After a couple of months, my grandpa came home in a wheelchair. He no longer drove. He didn’t walk and he didn’t leave the house. He spent the early years making Christmas ornaments and clocks.  He also carved fish and ducks. His carvings were so life like that people mistook them for a taxidermists work. Then one day, my grandpa became so frustrated that he told my grandma to put all of his carvings in a box and burn them. She didn’t. I think at this time his arthritis was making it painful for him to continue. It bothered him to not be able to do anything anymore. He would sit in his wheelchair and instruct others how to do their work properly. 

To make matters worse, he needed surgery for prostate cancer, lost his vision due to cataracts, and developed diabetes. My grandma never once complained about being his caregiver. He was very demanding. At times, I would sit with him so grandma could get a ride to the grocery store. He was very panicky if she was not back right away. He wanted me to call the police to see if something happened to her. 

After time, most of my grandpa’s friends and family passed away. The only visitors he got were the Jehovah witnesses. They were kind to him and shared fishing stories. I visited at least once a week. Many times I would sit with my grandpa in silence. After I had kids, he loved to visit with them. He would smile, hold their little hands, and cry. He loved visits with my dog too. 

After 13 years of sickness and struggle, my grandpa went to his final home. He was ready. A few years after that, I was waiting to sing my first solo in church. I saw a man who looked exactly like my grandpa sitting in the back. For a few minutes, I imagined that he was still alive right there with me. I miss our time together. 

Gramps, my young years

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If my grandpa was still living, he would have celebrated his 95th birthday today. He was a good man, but full of piss and vinegar. He spent his working life as a mechanic for his parent’s business. Before my time, he owed a Harley but had a hard time with it because he was so short. His friends called him stub, not because of his small stature. They called him that because he was a very stubborn man. A trait that I also have. 

For the first two years of my life, my parents lived with my grandparents. My grandpa was always up at the very crack of dawn drinking his coffee, clanging his spoon on the side of the mug. Rumor has it that he would wake me up and carry me around. But that is not a trait I possess, being a morning person. My grandma and dad were extreme night owls, so it seemed like someone was always awake in that house. I have always been conflicted in this area, I hate getting up early and don’t like staying up late. What does that make me? 

I want to tell you that my grandpa was the most influential man in my life. But for good or bad, my dad probably was. My dad never spent any time with me, but my grandpa did. He took me fishing. He always told me to quiet down or I would scare the fish away. It took me many years to find out that wasn’t true. 

On Saturday morning, he would pick me up and take me to the dump with him. The dump man was his friend and he would always ask if anyone dropped off any bike parts. Then my grandpa would take home the parts and make bikes for me. It was quite impressive. One day my grandpa took me to a store with him to pick out a bike kit. He put together a lovely new bike for me. This meant a lot because my grandpa did not go to public places. This was the only public place I remember him going to willingly, not out of obligation. My grandparents did pick me up to go out to eat, but we always went through the drive thru and ate our meals by the lake. He always drove 10 mph under the speed limit, he was never in a hurry. His life was simple in those days. My grandma didn’t drive so my grandpa would take her into town and wait for her in the truck. 

My grandpa owned a little tree nursery. One day he was going to throw out a dead tree. I wanted to rescue it. I watered it a lot hoping to revive it. Then one day a healthy green tree was there. I saved it. Or so I thought at the time since grandpa put a healthy tree in its place. Too bad I still think overwatering is the answer after a long period of not watering. I don’t have grandpa’s green thumb. He also picked ground cherries for grandma to can. He would take us in the woods to go berry picking. 

My grandpa made an ice shack with Mark. He also made a waiting house for us so that we wouldn’t have to wait at the bottom of our long driveway for the bus in the winter. One day when I was supposed to be in it, the waiting house blew into the ditch from the strong winter winds. I was feverish, mom thought I was hallucinating. Sure enough, it blew into the ditch right before the bus went by. Later this became a cat house for my cat colony. 

Some days I wonder what my grandparents would think of the busy life I created. At times I covet the simple life of the unhurried. The time to sit and talk over a cup of tea. Or other things that don’t happen anymore…unannounced guests. My grandparents always had friends or family stop by to visit. I can’t remember a time where I stopped by to visit someone unannounced. I could probably get together with you in January. Oh wait, sorry my weekends are fully booked until March. Perhaps it will be this way some day when I am a grandparent. 

The 1st (planned) overnight sail

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Last year for my husband’s birthday, we planned our first overnight sail on our sailboat. Technically, it wasn’t our first overnight sail. But we won’t talk about that. If you want to read about everything that could go wrong without sinking the boat, feel free to read the accidental overnight sail post. It was pretty funny, but not at the time. 

As I mentioned briefly previously, I got my first ear cartilage piercing for my 40th birthday. I am a very ritualistic and rule oriented person, at times borderline OCD. My world consists of order, rules, rules, rituals, and more rules. My rules. My structure. I am an extreme person. That is just the way I am. So, I got my ear pierced for my birthday. It required cleaning 3 times a day for 12 weeks. Ok, I got that, no problem. My husband’s birthday was exactly 12 weeks to the day after I got the cartilage piercing. It would be perfect to change the earring right before we left for the overnight sail, or so I thought. I had a hoop earring that I wanted to try. 

Removing the back of the earring stud required a lot of yanking. My ear was “ear itated” before I got the earring out. Then it started to swell and bleed. I tried to get the hoop in which was impossible. I could barely get it into my regular ear piercings. Hmmmm, now this is where I really went wrong. I put a nickel earring stud into the ear cartilage piercing and left for the overnight sail. 

It was a perfect early fall day for a sail. It was warm and windy, but not too windy. We sailed several hours to get to the resort. Once we got there, it was during the week and the pool was closed for the season. There was not much to do. By the time we got there, my ear doubled in size. I thought that maybe my piercing was infected. I was so stressed that I couldn’t eat. Worried. This is the point when my acid reflux acted up again as an adult but I didn’t know at the time what it was. 

The next day we headed back home. I called the ear piercing place and they said I was probably allergic to the nickel earring. I found that strange because I didn’t have problems with nickel in my regular ear piercings. They suggested putting the piercing stud back in. This was problematic because I was on open water and didn’t have any other earrings with me. The minute I got home, hours later, I put my piercing stud back in and haven’t taken it out since. I am almost afraid to. I felt bad that my seemingly great idea turned my husband’s birthday into a big mess of anxiety. I have only stayed overnight on the sailboat once since then. It was for our anniversary when the big unexpected storm hit. 

Why does everything have to be so eventful in my life?? Well, it sure gives me things to write about and at times things to laugh about. 

Running away

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I thought that after how hectic last week was that this week would be a breeze. Boy was I wrong! This week has been just as stressful if not more so. I left off with recent events telling about my brother’s wedding, coming back home and getting a cold, and ended Monday with the news that a best friend of my son’s ran away from home. Things would’ve probably ended up fine if he would have came home later the night he left, but he did not. 

My son and his friend Logan were the last ones to see Jake. Jake bragged on the bus ride home Monday night that he was going to run away from home. His friends didn’t believe him because he said that before several times and never did until Monday. Monday night our summer days reached an end. A cold front brought the wind and rain. Logan saw Jake walking down the road in the pouring rain with a backpack on. Logan called my son and they attempted to stop Jake from running away. He had a backpack full of clothing, water, food, and a couple knives. He told the boys he was going to catch a train out of town. The boys tried to stop him, but he ran off into a corn field. 

At this point, the boys went over to Jake’s house to alert his mother. Jake was born to teen parents who ended up marrying other people and having other children. He was having a lot of conflict with his stepdad. His father lives out of the state. I thought Jake would come home that night. 

Tuesday morning arrived, but Jake had not. His dad flew in to help try to find him. The neighborhood was scoured. Abandoned buildings, deer stands, unlocked sheds, farms, the railroad tracks, the park, fields, and woods were searched with no signs of Jake’s whereabouts. After school, my son and a group of boys looked for him in their secret hiding spots. I offered to search the corn field where he was last seen. All I found was a battery and an empty sleeping pill wrapper on the ground. The corn was over my head and I was searching after dusk. I heard noises out in the field and was convinced there was a bear coming for me. It was scary. When it got dark, we all met back by the road. A night bird cried out. Jake’s mother mournfully responded by shouting out Jake’s name. He was not there. 

We went back to Jake’s house where the boys were questioned some more. Jake’s stepdad was pouring over Google maps and also was looking over the railroad track locations. Jake’s grandmother cried. No one had slept the night before, no one had eaten. There were tears, anxiety, and anger. It was heart wrenching to see the family’s pain. They were so desperate trying everything with no answers. We decided to search outside of a trailer of a friend of the boys that recently moved out that had a broken window. Jake’s dad cried out his name in anguish receiving nothing but empty silence. After this, I took the boys home. It was going to be a cold night, near the freezing point with a boy who ran away a day ago into the pouring rain. We feared hypothermia. We feared death. 

Last night Facebook got flooded with missing person posters. Jake was spotted near a highway about 30 miles away. This morning brought relief that up until last night, Jake was alive! A couple of hours later, Jake was found. 

All of this brought back memories of the times that my autistic brother Matt ran away from home as a child. Multiple times he ran away. At times we had a search for him in the woods near our house. We feared for his safety. He couldn’t take care of himself. It brought back brief moments of the terror we went through searching for a lost child. 

Lately I have seen a lot of banter going back and forth about who has the hardest job as a parent. I want to offer my opinion. Parenting is hard! It doesn’t matter if you are a biological parent, a step parent, a foster parent, a parent of one or ten, or a parent of the disabled. If you want to be a good parent, it is difficult. It takes everything that you have. I think that parents who have both disabled and “normal” kids probably have one of the toughest roads to walk. We need to work together to bring our lost children back home. I am not sure what will happen with Jake now, but I feel a lot of relief that he made it home safe.

Up north, part 5

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Well this is it. Summer is unofficially over tonight. The deceptively warm weather this past week and weekend tricked my mind into believing that it was just beginning as we took out the dock and shut the cabin down for the season. But the leaves are changing color ever so slightly like the season of my life that I am entering now. Cooler temps will enter the scene tomorrow as if Mother Nature did get the memo after all. Saying good bye to summer is like losing a best friend which incidentally happened this summer as well. 

Since we last spoke, my husband came back from his week long sailing trip. Then guess what we did on Saturday? That’s right, I had him take me sailing to a beach that we haven’t been to all summer. There were lots of boats littering the beach, but ours was the only sailboat. This always attracts attention. Three bikini clad women just had to take a tour. Paul helped the ladies on board telling them that they could grab ahold of anything they needed for support. I was thinking, not everything ladies, not everything. But it didn’t come down to that. Lol. We came back as the sun was setting, eating sushi. Man, sometimes a sailor can make a woman feel so classy. Then we got home and I proceeded to fall asleep on the couch. Scratch that comment I made earlier about runners being up for anything on a Saturday night. Ah, maybe next weekend…

Then there was the matter of a slight domestic dispute between my teenagers on the way to church. And I thought things were going well when my son was ready to leave for church early. Almost made me proud until my daughter got into the shower 10 minutes before it was time to leave disrupting the natural ebb and flow of the morning tide. This resulted in a big fight of hurricane force that had me pulled over to the side of the road barricading myself from hair brushes and 4 letter words. My daughter screaming at my son for taking the first shower when he knows that she has long hair that needs time to dry. In a thundering crescendo, she pulled my son’s short hair. The waves of emotion growing higher threatened destruction. He grabbed her hairbrush, broke it in half, and flung it at her hitting her in the mouth. She’s crying, splattering large tears, saying that he broke her tooth. Just a slight bloody lip inflicted from the roaring wind of her tempest mouth. We live close to the church so we had to hurry up and put on our happy family forced summer sunshine all kitties and puppies smile. Nice how are you’s answered with a seething angry happy good everything is fine plastic fake smile. 

It was then that I thought for that brief moment that my mother-in-law was right. The previous weekend she dropped off my son after spending the weekend there and told me that my kids were brats and he was not welcome at her house ever again. She locked him at her house without Internet and friends, more than I ever get. I got the biggest hug and I love you mom after that. Wonderful. Then my mother-in-law proceeded in telling me that her best friend’s grandchildren were perfect, not like my bratty kids. I said, “Well how nice for her”. I would be upset with my son, but this happens almost every time we see her so I just shrugged it off. Then she criticized what I was making for supper and got in a fight with her husband. I kept telling myself that she could have aborted her unwanted child, my husband. It is in these moments that I remember that if my husband had an easy childhood, I probably wouldn’t appreciate how far he has come as a husband and father without having a father himself. Or how hard he has worked starting a business and getting a Master’s degree when his only parent dropped out of high school. We can all have a better life beyond the limitations of childhood. 

Oh life, someday I’ll laugh over all of this. 

A game of cat and bird

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image

I admit, this picture is not award winning. But it is one in a million. How often are you in the kitchen with your cat when a bird decides to peek in? Plus have the opportunity to take a picture before the moment passes. I have always been a bird magnet which causes conflicting polarity since cats have always been drawn to me as well. Or perhaps the bird was looking in hopes to find our neighbor that moved away. His massive gardens and bird feeders long gone.

A few days later, I was sitting on my deck listening to the old Pink Floyd song Cirrus Minor. The song begins with the melodic singing of birds. My new friend came over by me again. I think he must be lonely. I would recommend other Pink Floyd songs to him if he could get past The Wall, that is. He may relate to the raw feelings of loneliness in The Final Cut. Or like the sounds of clocks and bells, even the little sounds of bicycle bells that may honk at him. He may also like the sounds of other animals such as pigs, sheep, dogs, insects, or cows in other songs. Or the lonely seagulls cry in Set Controls for the Heart of the Sun. He may think some of the old songs are just too creepy. Some are, but if you dig far enough into the “Relics” there are a few hidden gems like Cymbaline, Julia Dream, and See Saw. Or “our song” which has always been Fat Old Sun, not Fat Old Son as my husband jokes. 

I have seen evidence of you, little bird, when I was gone. Little streaks of bird poop on my clothes drying on the line. I didn’t appreciate this, but I know I have to take the good with the bad. You do tolerate my cat. I might miss you when you decide to fly away. Some day I too will be alone when my little birds decide to leave the nest.