I’d like to be able to tell you that I start my day with yoga, mediation, a run, or some other healthy thing. I don’t. I start my day by putting some water to boil on the stove, and then slouching in front of the laptop/big screen combo (the screen on my laptop died), and reading from all my favorite sites for inspiration and entertainment. I recently signed-up on Twitter, which I made fun of forever, and am thoroughly enjoying. Last night I read a piece where Havi Brooks described Twitter as a bar (think Cheers) where you hang with like-minded buddies, swap stories, and stay for as long or as little as you like. For a single mom, who is babysitter-averse, this is the next best thing to going to the bar for social time, and the drinks are way cheaper. Plus, I don’t like being a single person at a bar. Call me a chicken, go ahead.
By noon, yesterday, I already knew what today’s post would be. I love this writing so much. Sometimes I feel like ideas are wrestling each other in my mind. I find I have to coach them a bit on who gets to come out first, and how long they get to play. Often, I have to kick them off the mat before they are done, for fear I’ll bore you. (Thanks for reading, by the way.)
Yesterday I’d written about how I was pretty sure that my dad didn’t like me when I was growing up. That’s not a painful or difficult topic for me. I’ve dealt with it all my life. It’s just a statement of fact. Here’s where it gets interesting – at least to me. Not long after I’d finished my post, I returned a call to my uncle. My 30 year high school reunion is this summer (gag) and my uncle is helping an acquaintance of mine (from high school) track down classmates. My uncle wanted me to refer to my 1980 annual. So with cordless cradled against my shoulder, I’m standing in front of my closet, lifting these sort of antique-ish tin(?) cans up to access the yearbook. I can’t find the guy my uncle is talking about in the 1980 book, so I go back to dig for the ’79 annual. Now, I’m feeling like I’m holding up my uncle, I’m getting impatient with myself, I’m trying to lift the cans to get at the next, heavy book, and the bottom tin can falls. It’s shaped like a big cookie tin. My mom gave it to me probably three years ago. I remember looking in it when she gave it to me. I haven’t looked in it since. When the can hits the closet floor, the lid pops off and spills this loose desiccant stuff and rose petals and flower stems all over the closet floor. It’s in my shoes, sprinkled over the shoulders of my shirts and other weird clothing items. It’s in the grooves of the sliding doors of the closet.
The transitive property is one of the few things I remember from Algebra. I don’t know why that stuck in my head. If a=b, and b=c, then a=c. There are a lot of instances in life where I think to myself, “Hm… that’s just like the transitive property.” Although more times than not, the transitive property fails me. I like Susan. Susan like’s watching basketball games. I don’t like/can’t stand basketball. Yes, the transitive property applies to the tin can. See, my mom had placed some sentimental value on the contents of the tin can. I’m embarrassed to admit that I don’t quite remember where the flowers came from, but I have a crumpled manila folder with info (in my brain’s over-stuffed filing cabinet) about my folks, that contains a slip of paper with my mom’s handwriting that says, “These were the flowers I carried when I married your dad.” I think. It seems like that should be a big deal to me, doesn’t it? But that’s where transitive property always fails me. My mom is important to me. X is important to my mom. Therefore, X should be important to me. And it has never been that way. I just don’t think that the transitive property can apply to sentimental objects. Or else, and this is very likely, I skipped class the day they were handing out the sentimental genes. But I know I was in class that day, because I am quite mushy about the things that I deem worthy of sentimentality.
So I see the scattered rose petals on my Keens, on my flip flops, and the desiccant sprinkled over everything, and I can’t be sad. Well, mostly, I had to finish the conversation with my uncle, but I couldn’t even make myself sad after ending the call. It just wasn’t there.
Here’s where this is going. It was a sign. You just rolled your eyes, didn’t you? Geez, this woman (me) is a freak. She listens to dreams, she obsesses over coffee, stalks the neighbors and writes about them, and now she’s telling me she’s into signs. Okay, I’ve been accused of being a bit of a free-spirit, even if I’m a stickler about bedtime. But it’s not like I walk around in a gypsy skirt with dangling earrings (all the time) and I do shave my arm pits.
The sign with the can is either a.) get over the fact that your dad doesn’t like you, or b.) don’t go to your high school reunion. Actually, it’s more about the reunion, because I really have given up on having a relationship with my dad. I only go to those damn reunions so I don’t feel guilty for not going. I have a zillion great (I think they are great) examples of signs in my life, but all the blog experts say not to write so much, so I’ll save some for later.
But here’s another sign. This morning while inhaling my first cup of coffee, I was reading Chris Guillebeau’s most recent blog post. He talks about signs in his post. No kidding. He calls signs synchronicity. That’s a big word. He’s a lot more educated and articulate than I am.
Tags: divorce, life, love, narcissistic behavior, NPD, proactive, survive
