You see that? THAT is how I feel about the new year thus far. It’s only puke, cleaning up puke, and being flipped off at the In-N-Out on New Year’s Eve. Okay, that latter part is actually quite funny, don’t you think? The hubster is HILARIOUS.
I spent forever on an end of the year photo retrospective. It was going to be awesome and you would have loved it. Sadly, I never saved the project and it was gone in a flash. So, too bad for all of you ’cause it would have been the bome (inside joke – too bad for you again)!
Did I mention the puke? As in clean it up with a dustpan volumes of puke. Puke from every member of the family except the person who had to clean it all up – me. Puke in the minivan, which requires 24/7 open windows. Puke on the carpet, which has had to be shampooed twice in the last two days. Puke that you slip on when you hit the concrete floors. Puke. That reminds me, I’m not feeling so well.
Speaking of bodily functions, I visited Milk Breath today. She posts about Google Analytics and requests key word search information from other bloggers. Overwhelmingly, poop brings people here. My most viewed page is the chocolate chip cookie post. It would be easier to just look at the bag of chips for the recipe. In any event, I hope poop searches have nothing to do with my cookies.
That cookie post is about accepting imperfections. Having recently returned home from home, I am reaquainted with all my imperfections past and present. If I cared about continuity in writing, I’d say it makes me feel “pukey”, but really it feels like shame. Shame, shame, everyone knows your name. I wondered about this today with a friend. I’ve done a thing or two that I can’t be proud of, but overall I’ve worked hard to be honorable. WHY do I have to feel shame and why is the shame illusive and not tied into a particular event? My friend said it’s because people have a fixed frame of reference. It’s the you 20 years ago that they can’t let go because it’s familiar. That past you was still trying to figure out how to be and they don’t know the current you. Perhaps, but that’s their problem. Why do I have to feel the shame?
Two days into the new year and here I am. Spinning wheels, puked on, poop reputed, and shamed. Pluck you 2009! I’m resolving to outlast all 365 damn days of you.
oh, i missed you;)
I was just starting some water to boil for pasta and wondering when it was that I stopped trying to rationalize or justify my past sins. I don’t know the answer to that. In some ways it sucks because now I feel smaller. I think the things I told myself about myself let me dream bigger things. On the upside, it’s easier for me to like people now, and so easier for them to like me (it seems). Comes in handy during plea bargaining. So, that is what shame has done for me. Could be worse.
Bottom line, the reason people who knew me 20 years ago can’t let go of the idea I’m not a teenager is because of vomit. They never had to watch me deal with vomit back then or now (for comparison).
For example: When Danny DeFord threw up on me back in ’88, it smelled like Pizza Shuttle, Rum, and Skoal. When Stacy Waugh threw up on me in ’89, it smelled like Beer, Jack Daniels Black label, and an ashtray. The results of both caused an immediate vomit from me followed by shreiks of “Grody! Dammit! Gross!”
Whereas today I am lucky to go an entire yearly quarter without someone vomiting on me or my car, or my carpet, or my cell, or my bathtub. Where my universal response is “Why can’t you make it to a toilet? (peppered with an attitude of resignation.) As a side note, I would like to say kid vomit is truly exceptional in its ability to smell like vomit, waste treatment center, Mac, and apple juice at the same time.
No matter how you slice it, it is an extrodinary show of growth and change. Dog vomit even made me vomit back then, and today, if I am in arms reach, I will catch the stuff barehanded just to keep from scrubbing another darn carpet.
See Ma, I is all growed up nows!
~Tracy
My darling niece, you have nothing to be ashamed of past or present. You are perfection now and you always have been.
No one I love has anything to be ashamed of because we are all just living and learning as we go.
F**k the people from your past who make you feel shame now! Who cares what they think?
I love you no matter what.
Mindovermary