Small Corrections

There are three things I remember about my sixteenth birthday. The first was that my dad was in Jerusalem. He called me from the Wailing Wall that day, and bought a hand-made silver and turquoise necklace from a shepardess outside Bethlahem along with a silver ring with my name engraved in it in Hebrew for my birthday. I still have both of them but for the life of me, I cannot figure out which way the script on the ring ring is supposed to face.

The second is that I didn't have my driver's license, nor had I gone through Driver's Ed.

The first two things I remember play a good deal in the third. Since my brother and sister had long since moved out and my dad was halfway around the world, it was just going to be my mom and I. We decided to fly down to Texas to visit my grandparents. They live about an hour west of San Antonio where it's stopped being flat oil fields and starts being a hazy hill country that in November turns brown or purple. They have a cattle ranch and at the time, my grampa still had cows there. Now he rents out the land to a neighbor who grazes his cattle on it. Circle of life.

Since I didn't have my driver's license, I obviously had very little behind-the-wheel experience. By 'little' I mean I wasn't aware of the fact that when you put the car in drive, it goes somewhere. Honestly. The first time I went driving that was a major shock to me. So one morning when my grampa asked if I wanted to drive in to town with him to get the mail, I said sure. We always did it, every time I visited. We'd climb in his old, tan truck with the cracked leather interior that smelled wonderful and trundle on down the long gravel driveway and winding, narrow country roads.

That morning, though, he asked if I wanted to drive. Bear in mind, by now his old tan truck had been replaced with a dark blue diesel leviathan. This truck was the size of New Hampshire. I must've said yes, because the next thing I knew he was talking me through backing it out of the carport without hitting the electric cattle fence, my gramma's car, the house, or the hundred-year-old oak in their front yard. I did it, and managed to drive to the post office without killing either of us. He kept saying 'Small corrections, just make small corrections.' to me, almost as if he knew that any time I played a racing video game I'd treat the steering wheel like a creature that needed its neck wrung. 'The truck will want to go straight by itself, so you don't have to steer hard as long as you make small corrections.' And he was right.

The memory of my normally-gruff grampa, paitently keeping me on the road, has been popping up a lot lately. Not because my driving skills are abysmal, but because I have no patience. When I start a task I want immediate results. When I turn a wheel, something should happen, dang it! None of this waiting nonsense. Unfortunately it doesn't work like that.

I'm trying to start running at the gym in the mornings. I've never been a runner. Never. Put me in the water and I'll go all day but ask me to run a block and I will most likely laugh at you. Hard. I tried it a few months ago, and it worked pretty well but for whatever reason I stopped. I can't remember why (which in itself is funny because I remember what I wore to dinner on my 16th birthday - a grey skirt and sea-green t-shirt. I had no fashion sense, and also chlorine-bleached hair.). I've started it up again though. Something about running, even for a few minutes, seems to set my mind right. I feel organized when I get to work, and less likely to want to take a nap in my car about 1:30.

I am disappointed that I'm not better at it. It seems like some sort of basic human survival trick to get up and run for an undetermined amount of time. If I lived 3000 years ago and was being chased by an invading army of whoever it was that was invading 3000 years ago, you bet I'd be able to run.

I need patience. I need to be able to tell myself that I'm not going to run a marathon next week, nor am I expected to. As much as I may wish it, there is not an invading army of Huns chasing me down with spears and stones and the Black Plague. I am, sadly, only human.

I am only human.

See? Small correction.

What Happens When You Build a Dam Over A Stream of Conciousness?

If I were to ever see Ben Bernanke on the street I can't promise I wouldn't try to hit him with my car or possibly a piece of construction equipment I have no business driving. I don't know if Mr. Bernanke is in any way, shape, or form responsible for the mortgage crisis going on right now but according to the AccuNet Mortgage commercials that I hear on the radio all. The time., he is somehow involved in my not being able to own a home. While the thought of chasing him down in my little 4-banger gleefully cackling out words that I can't repeat here because my mom reads this and then calls me to tell me she's worried about me is appealing, it's not the right answer and I know that.

I've been toying around with the idea of going back to school and getting my MLIS. I went to grad school once. For 6 weeks. I gave it the ol' college try, failed miserably, and have been living with a giant flashing invisible sign on my head that says Beauty School Grad School Dropout ever since.

I don't like failing or deferred sucess or whatever is considered politically correct to call it now. But at the same time, grad school costs money. And time. And look at me make excuses for not going back! What it all boils down to is this: I failed at it once, and I'm afraid I'm going to fail at it again. Failing at something once is appaling. Failing at it twice is downright un-face-up-toable, but is it worse than failing once and never trying again? This is grad school, not skydiving.

In other news, it's 2011 now which in itself is terrifying. What happened to pretty much every year since 1994? Is it still cool to make fun of O.J. Simpson and wear Zoombas? Ugh.

Being an adult is unavoidable and not always fun. You have to do things like make sure you don't go 8,000 miles without an oil change (which I haven't done since 2004, thank you very much) and change the kitchen calendar (which, for those keeping score, is still on May of 2010) and be responsible. I kind of wouldn't mind going back to kindergarden where boys had cooties and it was ok to glue your little history book with the ducks on the cover to your desk accidentally.

Vermicious Knids

What with the end of the year coming and all, I started putting a little thought into New Year's Resolutions. I hesitate to make any resolutions for 2011, mainly because in the past it seems that when I'm unable to keep said resolutions for whateve reason, it usually comes with a harsh life lesson about setting your expectations too high or thinking too much of yourself.

2009 seemed to be the worst in terms of that. My resolution initially was to pay off our credit card and buy a house and obviously lose 20 pounds. By the 15th of January I was unemployed and watching Aretha Franklin's inagural hat domiate the nation in a daze wondering what had happened to my career. By the end of September I was employed again, but also tangled up in a web of indefinite temporary-to-hire work that I'm still in. We still don't have a house. The credit card was paid off, but is sadly no more so.

2010 was a little better. I resolved to keep my indefinite temp-to-hire job and to obviously lose 20 pounds. I did keep my temp-to-hire job, and I did lose (almost) 20 pounds by May. Unfortunately they've come back, and brought some friends. Some people say it's stress. I think I'm just getting ready to go through a cycle of mitosis that, when complete, will finally give the world what it needs: two of me.

I could say that in 2011 I'm going to obviously lose the 20 pounds again and keep it off. I could say that I'm going to keep our apartment the picture of order, comfort, warmth, and welcome no thanks to my Martha Stewart Living subscription. I could say that yes, I will iron every week and water the plants biweekly and cut cupons on a Friday night, read brittle classic literature, and that I will complete all tasks assigned to me at work with a degree of perfection not seen since St. Martha of the Linens herself was born. I get the feeling that if I do that by mid-March I'll wind up under the coffee table surrounded in Hot Pocket sleeves and backissues of Cosmo watching SciFi Original Movies that all star the Lesser Baldwins.

Maybe keeping it simple is key. Alright. For 2011, I resolve to not travel via glass elevators. Very little good ever comes of that.

Redum and Wassail

Before you read too far you should know that this is just an attempt to get my writing wheels flowing again. There was a time when I would write every day, sometimes several times. I'm trying to get back in the habit and it is not like riding a bike. You can forget how to really write.

On Christmas Eve I was on the couch thinking about the Christmases my husband and I have said since were married...all 3 of them to date, and I realized we're lacking in traditions. Severely. I had several growing up - the tree(s) would go up the day after Thanksgiving, St. Nick would visit a few times during Advent. When I was young, my mom would attack my head with hot rollers while I protested (usually loudly), we'd truck off to Christmas Eve mass with my hair still hurting, and then we'd come home to dinner. For some reason, I keep thinking it was usually something Italian. Either way, after we ate we were allowed to open one gift. One. Uno. The rest would have to wait until the next day. When Christmas Day proper came, it wasn't a free for all of paper and ribbons. The presents would be arranged according to who they went to, a process that was re-done several times over Advent and always done by yours truly, and then we'd always start with the youngest. Christmas always went off without a hitch, due in no small part to my mom's planning skills which, apparently, are not necessarily inherited.

The last few Christmases have acted like the topiaries in The Shining - they get closer when you're not looking and then before you know it your face is being gnawed off by an evergreen rabbit and surprise! it's Christmas. And there's possibly a crazy guy coming after you with a roque mallet.

In other news, I feel like I should give my husband a medal for not chucking me out the door the past few weeks. I've just felt mean. Snappish, short-tempered, what have you. It's completely unacceptable. The project I was involved with at work is done, I'm getting back into a regular routine, and all should be well. I just feel on edge and don't know how to relax. Anyway, Husband Dearest, if you read this, I <3.

Did I mention we ran over Prancer one year on Christmas Eve one year? Well, 'Prancer' at any rate. That may be a story for another time but it could be one heck of a tradition. Anyway, it's 8:15 pm, and I am being old and taking myself to bed.

Clean

I'm on an anti-depressant and have been since February of this past year. I'd been toying with the idea of bringing up depression to my doctor for a long time, but there were 2 events that really flipped the switch from 'Idle' to 'Go'. The first was that my dearest friend told me I seemed weathered, touchy. We don't 'see' each other every day, or every week, but we communicate on a daily basis and if my moodiness and general sourness was evident even through email, something was wrong. The second was when I burst into tears in the middle of a car dealership. Granted, I had been there for 4 hours for what was supposed to be a routine oil change when a service guy came out and said my oil plug had been stripped and it would be $400-something to replace it. That was quickly followed up by me discovering I'd lost my debit card. Normal people can take something like that in stride. I, on the other hand, crumbled into a shiny wet mess which scared the service guy into loaning me a car while we worked something out financially.

My friends know I'm on medication. My mother knows. I don't think anyone else in my family does and I don't know how I feel about that although the fact this is going in a public blog will probably negate that little problem. There's a vein of belief that mood stablizers, anti-depressants, what have you, are cop-outs. Tough it up. Be a (wo)man about it. Let go and let God. I understand that. Honestly. I tried letting go and letting God but is it impossible to think that this was His way of telling me that it's ok to be human and ask for help?

When I did talk to my doctor, she told me something surprising: sometimes a good change can trigger depression. In my case, it was getting married. Don't get me wrong - I am happier beyond words with my husband, with our life together. If I could go back and change anything I wouldn't; not one iota. But it was a big change, going from living on my own to having this whole new entity around all the time. It was a big change, but a good one. It was also quickly followed up by getting laid off, being placed in a temporary (but seemingly eternal) job situation that was also nearly ended abruptly, and an unexpected passing last Christmas. It's apparently enough to nudge anyone.

The reason this is on my mind now is that I'm scared the meds have stopped working. I feel myself falling into the same thought patterns and practices that I had before, feeling the same feelings and it scares me. My doctor was hesitant to wean me off the pills in the winter, as she said most people feel more depressed in the darker winter months anyway. It's fine that she was hesitant; I was outright petrified to stop them. We're going to see how things are in the spring.

There, that wasn't so hard to say now, was it.

Truthily

I don't know if it's the sudden deluge of family time I've had lately, or the fact that I'm rapidly sliding towards my dreaded late-twenties, but I've been thinking a lot about kids.

I don't like them. This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, really. I've said it before. Unless I'm related to them, I do not care for children. They're loud, they smell wierd, excrete unspeakable things, you can't even try to reason with them, they hardly do what they're told, and they have trains of thought that are just mind-boggling. They're completely foreign to me, and always have been. But it seems like everywhere I turn, they're popping out left right and center.

There hasn't necessarily been a lot of pressure to have one from the family, which is nice, but it also means that whatever pressure is there exists more in my head than anything. Really, brain? You're really going to add this to the seemingly endless list of 'To-dos' plodding around up there? Where exactly should 'Kids' be listed? Before or after 'Buying a bedroom set that A) matches and B) isn't made of compressed woodchips'? Before or after 'Plump up the savings account for a house we'll never get a mortgage for'? Before or after 'Drop that last 10 20 30 pounds so I'll stop feeling like a beached landwhale every time I leave the apartment'? Is it really a good idea to bring an entirely separate entity that would completely depend on my deplorable parenting skills?

Then there's the other side. There's a large community of 'Mommy bloggers' out there who document the everyday trials and joys of having children. I'll admit to having read them, and while it shows the (sometimes very) bad with the good, part of my brain just keeps saying 'Well, if it were you it'd be different. It wouldn't be hard at all'. That part of my brain is about to get lobotomized with a grapefruit spoon, if I'm going to be truthy here. It's the part that starts showing me pictures of the perfect house where somehow, we've managed to work it so I can be a stay-at-home mom to perfectly behaved children that have nevertheless inhereted my vocabulary and my husband's tongue, who get straight A's and are popular without being Popular (there's a difference there, y'know.) That just couldn't happen. Or wouldn't.

I don't know what's right or not. Is it selfish to not want to hop on the baby wagon? Is it selfish to want to wait until we could give them everything they deserve?

Loss

It was raining when I was 13, much like it is today. It was the kind of rain where yeah, it messed up our hair and made walking to the bus station dismal but we were so glad it wasn't snow we didn't care. The first thing that would ring odd with me (later though; always later) was that the vice-principal came to our usual lunch table and asked us all our names. He told us it was for a survey.

After lunch they took our grade down to the library. We thought ti was to kick off our month-long research project on Australia. A filmstrip or something like that. The principal was there and I remember he was either crying or trying not to cry. He told us after a few minutes what had happened; that my best friend and our classmate was gone. I don't remember what else he said because I don't think I heard it. I don't remember a lot of the rest of the day, except calling my mom at work and almost not being able to tell her, getting a ride home, and trying to distract myself by looking over the program from the play I'd gone with my mom to see the night before. I wanted to watch the news but my dad turned it off and said he didn't think I'd really want to see what they were showing. He was probably right. I tried to eat dinner, just rice, but couldn't get past the first bite. To this day I can't put into words what was in my head that day, or for many days after except the fact that I wanted to call her and tell her everything that'd happened. I remembered her phone number all the way through high school. I remember the sound of her voice. I just wish I could remember the last thing she said to me.

A few weeks back my dad and I were discussing the possibility of needing a funeral home for a family member. It was premature, as it turns out, but he said thinking about it was bringing back what happened to her very clearly. I wanted to tell him it never went away.