It felt really good, until the fall

It felt really good, until the fall

So I spent the morning in the beauty shop hanging out with one of my favorite people, Joey.  We both like to write, but we drag our butts, having them wrapped around our own belief that, even though we know we're amazing pens, there's the fear that nobody else gives a rip.  After all, lots of people write, you know.  What makes us think we're good anyway?   And then it came to us.  Such a novel thought.  Hold on!  We can appreciate each other's mixture of words!  You know, like dress designers who get together and ooh and ah over each other's work, or car guys who stare for hours at the other guys slick and shinny fenders and rims, or crafty people who make stuff and strut around all proud while others swoon over their creation.  I mean, really, we're just as good as them.  We can write and we can share.

 We challenged one another to get off our butts, or on, as usually I write on mine, well, not on mine, that would be difficult, but sounds fun...off track.  What to write?  We decided something funny.  Well shit, that's easy.  My life is just one bundle of tragic laughs.  So, here goes, Joey, my friend.  I'm on my butt, I'm writing fast because I really need twenty bucks.  

So much funny stuff.  Let's start with the salon visit.  Seriously it's comic relief to just walk in, sit and watch.  Check out the posters.  "keep calm and wrap on,"  "What is your Eufora Promise?, "Inner strength creates outer beauty, strong, be inspiring, smooth stylish bold vibrant refined unique real......"  There's more, but gag me.  First of all, not one person there is trying to be REAL.  They're trying to be something they, quite frankly, are not.  Why else do we go to salons?  I can't argue with the inner strength creates outer beauty message, but there is absolutely nothing that goes on in that, or any salon,  that develops inner strength.  How does that message get into a bottle of something?  Bottle of brandy, maybe.  Now, what is your Eufora promise anyway?  Well, if you look carefully at the poster it looks like a marijuana plant.  Is there a secret room in this place where we can smoke a joint or two and share our great euphoric promises?  Now, we just might find inner strength, become smooth, stylish and inspiring if that were the case and believe you me, I'm sure we would be real.  And maybe, just maybe, I could be calm and wrap on, all at the same time.  It's all just a bunch of phony stuff for us to gobble up so we can feel REAL.  Now, if I were real, I would be as gray as gray gets and I would probably be spewing stuff at people that I think are so ridiculous.  I just love the parade.   

Lest we not forget the gorgeous guy who came in with great hair and walked out with none, except a tuft on top.  He was proud.  He was happy and he was nearly bald, on purpose.  What gives.  He was still gorgeous. 

And, could she be anything but a good example of beauty.  I mean the strut in the tight pants and 4 inch boots, the extensions hanging over her over made eyes, her smirky smile that really is saying," look at me, I'm so dang great."  How I would love to take her aside and teach her how to dress.  How did she get to own that place anyway?  I counted 40 times back and forth.  He feet must hurt big time at the end of the day.  Nobody can do that for real. 

Then there's the blond addict who walked in not looking bad, but by the time the hairdresser took out all of her extensions she had most of what was on her head laying on the table next to her and I shuddered at the thought of someone trying to run their fingers through her hair and either bring out a chunk, or feeling like she had scurvy.  I hope she warns any potential hair fingers partner.  

I sorta like the blue haired girl.  Perky for sure, but what's with the hat?  

I'm such a bitch.  I go there to do exactly what they are all doing, become a better version on myself, but jez, do they have to be so weird.  Actually it was a kinky way to start my day.  Reality is whatever we can get away with covering up. 

So I have breast cancer.  Now this is pretty shitty news given that fact, well, nobody wants breast cancer, but just how many bad things are okay in one single year?  There's probably a formula for this.  Guess I haven't maxed out the secret formula which gives great hope to those of you just smoothing along in your life.  Shit is coming your way.  No way to get ready for it, except of course to make sure you "be calm and wrap on."  My first mistake was getting a mammogram.  So they found something, went after it, cut me open big time, and in case you're wondering, it hurts like the devil to have a two inch gash wrapped around your nipple.  My God, did I use that word, nipple?  On no, that's not the "N" word.  Moving on.   Well, what they went after was nothing, but golly gee, they found an edge of terribleness......cancer, and now, well, of course, they have to go get that.  Another boob bombardment and I'm in the system now, so......shit I'm going back to the salon to find my real Eufora Promise and to become REAL. 

So the doctor told me that if I'm going to have breast cancer this is the best breast cancer you can have.  You can't imagine how good that made me feel.  Duh!  My son gave me the best medicine possible, laughter.  In a serious talk he asked, "which breast, mom?"  "Right."  "Whew!  Thank God, I never liked that one much anyway."  I have been laughing for a week. 

My wallet, phone, got stolen off the counter of the shop last week.  I was a few minutes away from the counter and bam, it disappeared.  I didn't even know it was gone.  Then I get a call from Ubaldo.  A police officer was at the door with my wallet/phone.  They nabbed him within 15 min. of taking it off the counter.  So, if you're gonna get robbed, that's the best robbery you can have.  I think that's like my cancer.  It's gonna be a pain, but no big deal. 

Stuff has to be funny or it's just no fun to go through.  My husband died this year.  He gave me more grief than a bean supper, but he was the love of my life.  We laughed everyday about the crap, literally, we had to deal with, and I miss him with an ache that creeps into my pours.  But he would be the first to tell me, "laugh, baby, this is what we've got!" 

Joey told me today that he had started riding his bike.  I said, "that must feel good....." and he responded with, "yes it felt real good until the fall."  Well, shit, Joey.  Don't you know how metaphoric that is? Everything was good until the fall.   Even Jed.  Until his fall he was great.  And then he wasn't.  So the trick is, to keep that bike riding feeling going in our lives, that I'm gonna be the best I can be place, that "what is your Euforic promise place, that inner strength makes outer beauty place.......anyway, keep it going until you get bad stuff.

 And then, when you get bad stuff, just dance.  Laugh and know that it wasn't your plan, or furthermore, a result of anything you did.   And remember that friends, the real ones, the ones who can be calm and wrap on, the ones who have inner strength to give them outer beauty....the REAL friends  will laugh with you, make your hair pink, smoke a joint with you, and  just sit and stare at others who have no idea that life is funny.   

My Old Life

I can't tell you how much I miss my old life.  The other one.  The one when Jed was alive.  I can't begin to list all the things I miss, but the laughter and arguing, making love, discussing about ideas...and just knowing that whatever I came up with, however weak or strange or needy, whatever idea that stirred in my head, I could share with him.  And he would validate me. 

I miss making him dinner and folding his clothes.  I miss his snore. 

I've filled my bed with pillows and textiles in an attempt to take his place, but they just clutter up my bed.  Actually I've done lots of things to paint over sorrow.  I've had the trees trimmed, the deck repaired...lots of stuff to make me well.  And I am well.  I'm just lonely for him. 

I am remarkably blessed with amazing people and I'm not alone.  I'm not even lonely.  I'm just lonely for him.  We bantered with utmost confidence in one another.  We took off and explored places with abandon.  We said, "screw it" to convention and did only what we felt like doing.  Sometimes that got us in a great deal of trouble and sometimes it took us to amazing places and left us with life long stories to tell. 

I miss how he could tell a story about anything and make it believable.  I miss how he sang off tune. I miss his passion for knowledge and his often irreverent way of expressing it. 

And now, I realize how much I miss having him to make decisions about money.  I took the road of disagreeing and "I told you so," when things went wrong.  What a bitch I was.  Someone had to make decisions.  And now, it's me.  I have to decide what to do about stuff.  What to fix, what not to fix.  I always held this, "I know what to do" attitude, but then went along with what ever he said.  If it went sour, I poured it on.  If it went well, somehow I got him to agree that it was my idea.  That was a real shitty place to put him.  I wonder if he even knew?  I'm not sure I did.  Not until now, when I have to make decisions with no one to blame.

Marriage.  It's more than it seems and when its a fit, a real fit of two lives, two souls, well, it's pretty near perfect.  That's what I miss.  We had it perfect.  We fought and cried and hated one another at times.  We talked about divorce hundreds of times.  But it was always, "if that's what you want...." and it was never what either of us wanted.  We laughed and loved making love.  We touched one another to the core of our beings.  How we loved to argue.  I can see the twinkle in his eye as he would watch me get red faced and passionate about something.  He would listen and beckon me toward him.  I would  rant louder, but move a little closer.....perhaps this is too personal.  I miss my old life. 

My new life is lovely.  I don't do anything.  It's all done for me.  I don't buy groceries, I don't do laundry, I don't make breakfast, I don't make dinner, I don't even clean my toilet.  It sounds good, and it is, but it makes me miss my old life with a ache that creeps and crawls around in me till all I can do is go to bed. 

I'm okay.  Most of the time I'm more than okay.  Jed's birthday is next week and perhaps that's my maudlin cause.  Last year on his birthday we were at the cabin with Steve.  But missing something that was so good, well, it takes a bit of time.  I asked my father a few months after my mom died if he had any regrets.  Whatever made me ask such a question is beyond me, but we were in the truck going over dirt roads and he said, "only that she died."  It took my breath away then and still does, because that, too, is my only regret, that he died.