Monday, July 11, 2016

Baseball.  Beer. (No, I really, really wanted a bratwurst too, but once seated – who wants to move?)  A very, very non-bitchy event.  Such joys in life are really rare or maybe they once were for me.  But this was fun:  A Milwaukee Brewers baseball game with my son….and my ex-husband.  It was friendly and fun and I could drive in a big city and act obnoxiously while doing so.  Who could ask for more?  In a family that has seen more than its days of darkness, we have learned to be fun.  Not a romantic ounce nor was it gushy.  Nor was it like an expounded version of a man’s day that I happen to interrupt.  Nope, it was fun.

Even in the heaviest of traffic, drivers could have scooted over to the left ‘pseudo construction’ lane but they did not.  We all waited.  And inched forward in the longest 3.5 miles in history.  And everyone was okay.  It was okay.  It…was all well.

But a whole series of events led up to that wonderful day including the arrival of….

Poesie.

Now the last thing, on top of listening to theology lectures and all the rest, is probably what I have done, but it was one of those ‘let your heart guide you’ type moments.  A lady who raises collies was fostering a kitten who told me of a batch of kittens at the local humane society.  I have been on the lookout for “Poe,” figuring that when I met the kitty cat of my dreams I would just know.  My sixteen year old son was in compliance with the idea, but until recently I do not believe he really ever thought I would do half the things I say I am going to do.  (Until recently that is!)

On my way Saturday, returning from a morning of work, at the last minute, some urgency prompted me to stop.  “Just take a look.”  I do know the inherent danger in such a visit to the humane society, but I am not totally unprepared for such emotion.  Besides I have been looking for “Poe” for some time.

And there she was.  I did not hold her.  She seemed mildly curious – true cat fashion –  as I tapped on the cage bars and did my “goo goo” voice.  I returned home to ask my son who was unnervingly nonchalant all of a sudden.  Until the time passed to the point of one hour left before the society was closed.  “Well, Mom, are you going to get the kitten?”

There is nothing quite like seeing a sixteen year old boy cradle a kitten as he games…

And Wally? Well, he was a gentleman!  But I have a funny feeling that the Poesie-Wally wars are yet to come!  

…….

The addition of Poesie was the last thing I would have thought I would be doing on a Saturday, but somehow, the house seems right.  Eve seems full.  And, I discovered another point to this journey, this life of mine.  As I realize more and more of myself, the past loses its grip.  

Days ago I started writing of my vision for my life or really just writing what I wanted to be when I grew up (at fifty, almost fifty-one).  Sure, there are some threads to the past, some impacts that I will never erase, but I had written some of those past events with new eyes, new words – like I owned them for the first time.

In the worst times of my marriage, I had written about how I wanted, my whole life, to be tied down, to be tethered to a life.  I felt as though I had lived, not just during my marriage, but my whole life in a fog, I think because I never knew where the next crisis or the next problem or the next horrible experience lie.  So I fogged my brain, always hazy so I never had to really think about what was really going on around me.  Enforced powerlessness.  Survival? 

But in my marriage I really looked to someone else to tether me.  People would be surprised by that, I believe, figuring that I would be the loose one.  Whatever.  No, I wanted the home life, the nesting.  Heck, I even showed him how to tie the knot on his end.  It was hard realizing I was alone in that perspective.  I could not even face that fact.  I had a hold of a rope which no one else held the other end.

As I wrote my goals of life during the week, I wrote something new on this same theme:  Maybe it took all that I had gone through to realize that there was no reason…

That I could not grab onto the other end of that rope.  Equally true and probably most significantly:  I realized I did not have to make my own noose out of that rope. (Figuratively speaking, of course).  Nope, I could lasso whatever I wanted with that rope, holding onto both ends…  

I could tether….myself… to myself…

One could call it G~d’s timing, I am not sure.  But turns out that Poe aka Poesie…. arrived at the perfect time after all.

Love – loads of love…

Steph

ps.  Progress on my new schedule?  Honestly? I totally suck at it.  Sorry, crudely put, but totally true.  Fail.  No reason not to keep trying…..  Maybe add another use to the rope theory:  To pull oneself up in the morning..Hmmmmm….