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Saturday, January 19, 2019

Time and Home.


There's a song called LONESOME LOSER by Little River Band from the late 70's. I have it saved on my play list and every time I hear it I get melancholy. A nostalgic ache that reminds me of being a small child in the back seat of my parents Plymouth Volare hearing it blare on the AM radio, no seat belt, driving down the rural roads of the Chicago suburbs. The warm, summer wind blowing in through the windows. The wispy, fun of the journey to or from our small but cozy home and my parents in the front seat. The excitement of the vast future that awaited me and feeling...safe.

Lately in my 40's I am hyper aware of how fast time has gone by. What once was 'oh that feels like yesterday' now feels like a lifetime ago. It was actually. The distance from then to now profoundly more vast since both my parents are gone. So I, like many who have experienced loss, walk around a bit with a hole in my soul. You never really recover from grief it sort of sets up shop within, and just when you think you're fine makes itself known unexpectedly like a storm. A song. A smell. A tangible reminder in some form or the other of our lost loved ones. It feels like that is how they are communicating from who knows where. The only 'comfort' I feel, and I use that term loosely, is I know everyone feels this to some extent. That each of us are assigned a life path with gains and losses.

Loss seems to be the special brand of trauma the Universe sometimes has assigned my life. It's like as I'm getting older this is happening more. Is it because my boundaries are stronger? That people are not growing with you? Is aging just accumulating more scars? What's the phrase, that if we could throw all our struggles in a pile in the middle of the room we would STILL reach back for our own problems versus others. I think that's probably true although I often wish my life had less loss.

There's always been this sense of searching for 'home' in me. Home, wow what does that word even mean anyway? I've bounced around so much the last 19 years I'm not really sure anymore. I've had to make wherever I am home. I've never found that feeling I had with my parents. Maybe it's safety. Maybe it's that you didn't have to worry about a roof over your head or bills lol. That they were 'always' there. But I think it's the feeling of being understood and held in a way only they provided. My parents were my biggest supporters, confidantes and soul mates. There was some dysfunction as there is in any family sure, but mostly love. Some days I still can't believe I have to trudge this world, thrive, fall, deal with awful people, work, travel, go about my day without even the possibility of talking to them. I miss them so much. Arthur and Diane made me who I am and they are woven into the tapestry of everything that is good about me. I hope they are proud of me. I see people posting on social media with their parents and I think do they truly know how fast that can change?

So time marches on. The bridge gets wider and wider. I can't remember everything clearly but most memories remain. I breathe. I wake. I try to stay in the moment and vortex of gratitude rather then look to the past. It's a process. And so this Lonesome Loser moves onward, he keeps on trying..

"So how do I do normal
A smile I fake
A permanent wave of
Cue-cards and fix-it kits
Can't you tell, I'm not myself

I'm a slow-motion accident
Lost in coffee rings and finger prints
I don't want to feel anything
But I do, and it all comes back to you.

So listen up, the sun hasn't set
I refuse to believe it's only me, feeling." HEAR ME OUT- Frou Frou