That Christmas Feeling

I love Christmastime, I really do. I love shopping, decorating my home, and seeing all the decorations others have on display. I love the lights and the smell of Christmas, and it seems like if I am down about anything, my spirits are lifited just because it's that time of year. I love giving. I am truly one of those people who loves to give more than she likes to receive. I love picking out special gifts for the special people in my life, especially my daughter. Having a child has made all of the holidays better, especially Christmas. Making her happy makes me happy, not just at Christmas, but always.

This Christmas was a little different. I have been wearing a cast on my right leg since September due to a diabetic wound and it was taken off just a few days before Christmas. Lindsay and I missed a couple parties, and basically just getting out and seeing all the action. I managed to get some online shopping done, but several items were late arriving, and I had to ask my mom to pick up the other things I needed. I did as much decorating as I could, considering I couldn't do much walking on the cast, and was instructed not to walk much when it was removed, either. In addition to all this, Lindsay got the flu. My poor baby was miserable the entire week before Christmas, and still isn't 100% herself. We both just kind of laid around saying, "it doesn't seem like Christmas."  A couple days before Christmas day, my friend Kathy took us out shopping at Target and that was our only outing the entire season, thus far. And the week before Christmas we had to cancel a trip to Raleigh to see my friend Traci because Lindsay was sick and I wasn't getting around so well on my crutches.

My primary concern the whole time was Lindsay. It was my job to make Christmas a wonderful time for her and I felt like I was failing. I did manage to decorate the tree, hang up the Christmas cards, and do a little more decorating. One big thing I like to do is send out a ton of Christmas cards. This year, I had them made all out, but they were never mailed! I asked several different people on several occasions to get me some stamps, but they either forgot, or they were sold out (around here, we run down to the Food Lion for stamps rather than fight the Post Office crowd).

Christmas morning turned out OK. Lindsay, myself, and my mom were all together and we all had thoughtful gifts for each other. Lindsay and I gave my Mom a purse and a wallet. Lindsay gave me an Edward doll, a Hello Kitty Doll and Hello Kitty calendar, and mom is getting me a TV. Lindsay got almost everything she asked for, including a Wii.  My brother and his family came over later and we had a nice visit. So, even though every inch of the house wasn't decorated as I would have liked, and definitely not as spotless as I would have liked, I enjoyed seeing my baby enjoy opening her presents.

I think I will start preparing for Christmas around Halloween next year. After all, it's the build - up to Christmas we all love, isn't it? It's all over so fast!

I scold myself when I think that this was a less than perfect Christmas. We all have a roof over our heads and food to eat, and resources to buy gifts. We aren't rolling in it, but I know we are more blessed than a lot of people. So many children out there didn't get any gifts at all and went to bed hungry on Christmas. Hopefully, I will be well enough soon to do some volunteer work, especially around this time of year.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS, EVERYONE!

The Forty Year Old Girl

In two months, I will turn 40 years old. Forty. FORTY YEARS OLD. I have been dreading this day for quite sometime. I dreaded turning 30, too, but it's nothing like the dread I feel now. There was a time when I thought 30 was ancient. When I was 22, I had a 28 year old boyfriend and I considered him 'much older.' I suppose it's all relative; however old you are, the next decade seems like your twilight years. You think it's far off, but before you know it, you reach that next milestone and begin dreading the next one.

And have you noticed that kids are taking over Hollywood? Everyone is obsessed with youth. Here I am, almost 40, and I am obsessed with the Twilight saga. I hear there are a lot of twilight Moms, actually.

When I turned 32 or so, I began to be attracted to younger men. When I was 34, I dated a guy who had just turned 23. And since then, all of my dates/flings/relationships have been with younger guys. One recent one in particular is almost 12 years my junior, and even though we don't see each other anymore, I still want him. What I thought was just for fun turned into love. I would marry him in a New York minute, despite our age difference. He never seemed to mind, and many young men say they prefer an older woman.

But 40? I don't know. Am I still going to be able to get away with my younger man prefernce?  Will I be able to get away with anything? Forty sounds like such an...adult. I don't feel like an adult. I'm silly and girly and free-spirited - I still feel like a girl. My mom once told me that some girls will always be girls, and some become women. I know what she means. After all, I still love Hello Kitty, the color pink, get ga-ga over rock stars and hot actors, and I giggle and laugh most of the time. I'm a girl.  I have never owned my own home and am not currently married and those things heavily contribute to the adult status. The fact that my daughter and I are temporarily living in my mother's home because I have health issues, really makes me feel like a girl.  I feel like I am about 16, actually, because my mom still edits everything I do. I don't care what age you are, if you have to move home with the rents, you're treated like you're a kid (see how I used the term 'rents?' That is something a girl would say).

I thought by the time I was 40, I would be married (or re-married, in my case), own a nice house, either be in a career or have a husband who supported me, and have 2-3 kids. I have one child and it's hard to imagine having another, but had I stayed married the first time and my husband weren't an alcoholic sociopath (I'm being nice),  I would have wanted more than one. Now I'm too old. Not married. Old, old, old. I'm not the type of person who would have a child out of wedlock so I never considered having a child in my late 20's and 30's. I love that my daughter and I are so close, a closeness that may not have been possible had I had more children, but I sure do get baby fever sometimes. I am hoping my best friend will have a baby so I can be the Godmother and help her raise it. Are you listening, T?

I have considered lying about my age. Even to say I am 35 sounds so much better than 40. I have good skin so I could certainly get away with it.  Perhaps I would even begin to believe it, myself.  But, I don't lie. There goes that idea.

So I have decided to embrace being a 40 year old girl. My plan is to get in great shape physically, take great care of myself, finally jump start my writing career, and just be the most fabulous 40 year old self I can be. It's better than being 40 and un-fabulous, and besides -  what choice do I have?

If

I have a degree in English, but I have never been a big fan of poetry. Perhaps it's because in college I was forced to decipher so much complicated literature, that I am rebelling. Maybe that's why I loved reading the Twilight series so much - it was so easy and fun. I do appreciate classic literature, and I do enjoy making my own interpretations of another's work. But every once in a while, you just want to read something that says what it is. For now, I would like to share my favorite poem, "If" by Rudyard Kipling. It appeals to me not only because I admire strength, courage, and integrity, but also because, even though I find it to be brilliant, I don't have to buy the Cliff Notes to understand it.

'If', by Rudyard Kipling:

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with triumph and disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breath a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on';

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!"

Alexander Supertramp

I watched the movie, "Into The Wild" again yesterday. If you haven't seen it, it's about a college graduate who takes off to live in the wilderness of Alaska. Prior to leaving, he donates his life savings to charity, abandons his vehicle, and ends up lighting a match to what little money he did bring with him. He also cut up his social security card and identification. He renamed himself Alexander Supertramp.

Although my current goal is to save money, get a car, and a new place for my daughter and me, I can certainly see the appeal of Alex's way of life. I spend so much time trying to do the right thing, and I have realized the right things have been defined by others, not myself. I envy Alex's need for anonymity and lack of rules. When you break down life that way, the little things are what make you happy - a beautiful sunset, food in your belly, and the occasional company of a good friend. Alex didn't need other people to make him happy. During his adventure he encountered some good people in the oddest of places, but he didn't need them; they were simply a component of a moment that made him happy. He could just walk away from it all. I don't consider that behavior sociopathic in this sense, you know - someone who has no feelings for others. Rather, I consider him to be truly self-actualized. He is at peace within himself, which is something I long to be.

If I had the means, I would just take off with my child. I would head to New England, then maybe Canada, and eventually Europe. Alex didn't have the means, but he survived. He ate plants (the wrong ones, at times) and hitchhiked. I would love to have an RV and just get the hell out of Dodge. I would educate my child by taking her to all the places we read about in books. Disappearing without a trace is so attractive to me. All the people who have judged me, lied to me, let me down and told me what I am supposed to do could just always wonder....whatever happened to her?

AWOL

Well, I'm in a cast and my computer is down for a few days. My daughter is allowing me to use her laptop for brief periods, not long enough to create a masterpiece. I'll be back.

The Southern Curse

Several years ago when a friend returned from a business trip to Chicago, he told me the average cab driver sounded more intelligent than the average North Carolinian. I found this to be very funny and, sadly, very true.

Speaking for myself, someone who has spent most of her life in Greensboro, North Carolina, but who has also lived in Virginia, Alabama, and Maryland, it pleases me to say I do not have much of a Southern accent. At least, that is what people here tell me. I often get asked, "where are you from?" or "are you from up north?" However, times I have visited New York City, men go ga-ga over my 'southern accent' and every time I say something in a crowded area, people gather around and ask, "where are you from," just as they do here ('here' being North Carolina). For the record, my southern friend doesn't have a southern accent, either. (Well, unless it's like mine, and only magically appears when traveling).

I have a Bachelor's Degree in English, but before college, I had the same accent I do now. I do speak grammatically correct, so maybe that helps. I guess what I am saying here is, I feel people can control the way they speak. Southerners are regarded as having inferior intelligence, and it's all because they speak like they just walked off the plantation! And I'm sure our politicians look like total idiots when they stand up to represent us. I will never forget poor Virgil Goode from Virginia, former Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives. I used to crack up laughing when his campaign commercials would air - he sounded like Barney Fife on helium. This is an intelligent, educated, man, and he sounds like a complete ninny.

I have come to realize that there are categories of southern accents. For instance, if an educated woman has a slight southern drawl, she is a Southern Belle and can still come across as someone with a lick of sense. This can also be said for a man, the Southern Gentleman ,but in my opinion, a woman can get away with it more. This is also assuming there are no grammatical mistakes, because we all know the Southerner is famous for such genius as "ain't got no," "it don't mean nothin', and...oh, I can't bear to say anymore. I will admit I do say, "y'all," but I think people say that everywhere, don't they? Anyway, the poor grammar speakers with the heavy southern accents, those are your hicks, or your rednecks, however you'd like to classify them. I would say they would be the most difficult people to reform, because they have grown up with parents and grandparents who speak in the same fashion, and it's just embedded into their little redneck brains and it's impossible to get out.

Is it hopeless? Perhaps not. Like healthcare, it's all about preventive maintenance.

I propose that the public school system get involved ( just the southern states, of course). The process should begin as early as kindergarten. The first lesson will be to never use the words 'ain't' or 'irregardless,' and that the only 'axe' is the one used to chop wood. There should be intense pronunciation exercises. ("Students, there is no 'aw' in dog.") If this type of training continues through high school, we just might be able to eliminate the southern accent by the year 2050!

And Southerners won't be laughing stocks any longer.

Good idea, don't you think?

Lindsay and Her Laptop

Lindsay, my mini-me, now has her very own laptop. This means I have my computer back. This means I can write and create art and get into all kinds of madness and mischief. Stay tuned for the madness that is me.