Hey nb! Been thinking about you and hoping you would join in.



I was once mean to a little girl in fifth grade with me, mean to the point of getting all the other little kids to give cooty bugs to each other against her.

Because I grew up on AFB's and moved almost every year I cannot remember her name (just the nick-name we gave her)...

this has haunted me my entire life since, to the point of crying for her pain as an adult and not being able to contact her to tell her how very, very sorry I am.

Not a small example of what you are talking about, but very big because I hurt a little girl, even though I was but a little girl too.

We offer forgiveness to ourselves and silently ask for forgiveness from those we have hurt.

Yes, I know of your sadness. We all do, in some form or another.

This is why Gray cries for sparrow.

Oh weaver, that little girl... I know exactly what you mean.

It brings to mind something that I've been wrestling with...

Although I truly believe that everyone... in their quiet moments... knows... (as I said)... why is it that some people (who don't seem particularly mentally ill)... can go on as if nothing happened. I bet hundreds of people who might read this post of yours would think, "Yes, I was cruel to a child once"... as kids often are... and NOT carry a pain as profound as the one you describe.

I guess it's not for me to question why. (But I do)

I have been called highly sensitive, and in fact, a "disorder" (though I hate calling it that - a way overused word) exists... and I have all the "symptoms" of it...

I care. Am I disordered? (A rhetorical question)

:::: (many sighs)

In the midst of all this pondering... I made a discovery... an unexpected discovery...

It's a long story, this story about my grandmother... who passed in early 2005, and who was... everything to me. We were so close, and so alike... I miss her. Anyway, after she passed, my mother gave me her watch. They'd replaced the batteries several months before... and though my grandmother could no longer tell time (she was 93 with dementia)... she always wanted to wear it. In fact, she was wearing it when she died. So, this watch, which I have put in a place of honor (along with some other things of hers that I cherish) has run for the entire 16 months since her death... and it brought me comfort.

Yesterday... I noticed the watch had stopped.

Gray, this child who the Sparrow is carrying. Is it going to weigh on you, or set you free? What's it going to do to that eyebrow of yours? I would like to know. I think you have a little choice in the matter, though maybe not as much as you'd like. (Or at least, not as much as I would like to have when I confront my own reactions to things.)

And here's a hug for you, one that I couldn't give you in April because I didn't know then. But I did know before you did, and yes, I think that's odd. I've sat and wondered whether to tell you, though I was told with the caveat that I not tell you.

I wonder, too, at the number of people who chose not to tell you about it -- and about their reasoning. Is it simply that we universally believe that this news is so large that it needs to be told in a specific way, by specific people? I don't know. I need to think about it.

I do know that I'm glad there are so many people who care about you.

And I would very much like to hear you play that guitar. I wonder. What does a song for a child who comes into the world in a situation like that one look like?

I'm thinking of my cousins. They were, years ago, two tiny girls thrown into the chaos of my aunt's second marriage. Her abusive, immature husband took the younger one out of her arms as she got on a plane to go to India for six months. That one was three months old at the time. She died in a car crash 17 years later, having never quite become solidly connected to anything or anyone.

The older one is an attorney now. She lives in NYC, far away from the places of her childhood. Her older half-sister, a cousin I'm very close to, has made that same choice. Their brother (half and whole, depending on where you stand) lives in my uncle's basement in Wisconsin. He is schizophrenic and has diabetes, self-medicates on huge doses of his prescription meds and pot, and nearly died recently, because of the havoc all these things have played with his body.

All this, it seems to me, out of the insanity of their parents' choices. Not just infidelity, though that was certainly part of it. Also joining a cult, extensive drug use, weird unproven (and often unsafe) medical practices, severe abuse, and a host of other addictions contribute to that mess.

Each of the younger generation faces his or her own dead ends. The choices of the previous generation lead, very quickly, to a younger generation that does not have the tools to survive very well.

My own parents are the only ones of their college friends and siblings who have remained married. Both of their parents divorced. My dad never really knew his father. My mom's father was on his third marriage (and was, to all accounts, happy in it) with my grandmother for the 22 or so years until his death. After that, my grandmother was left with my mom in college and two younger children at home. And there was insanity there, unregulated by my grandfather's extraordinarily calming presence.

My family isn't all that unusual, though it's true that few people divorced in the 1930s and 1940s when my grandparents were doing it.

Three and four generations later, I'm left wondering. What songs do we give to the children who come into such messy and troubling circumstances? What empathy and understanding?

I'm not sure. It just seems like there's a song there.

32 years ago, I was working as a pump jockey at a gas station (we ac2ally put gas in people's tanks FOR them in those days!).

We hired a new guy who looked vaguely familiar 2 me, but I couldn't place him. His rusty old Chevy panel truck had Alaska plates on it, where he said he'd just come from, so I was pretty sure I didn't know him - he just looked familiar.

He was a pleasant guy 2 work with. Quiet most of the time, but considerate of others and thoughtful when he did speak up.

I knew his first name was Joe (his shirt told me that), but didn't know his last name, until we started talking on a slow weekend day we were on shift 2gether. Got talking about HS. I told him where I'd gone, and he said he'd gone 2 the same school. I hadn't figured he was local because he said he'd come from Alaska, but he said he'd gone up there after HS 2 work on the pipeline for a 2ple years. I still couldn't place him, though, so I asked what his last name was.

When he told me, I almost fell out of my chair with surprise. I knew him alright, but didn't recognize him because the guy I was working with was a perfect 180 from the major jerk, bully, [censored] I'd known in school. He didn't even really wear his hair or look different, but his behavior and manner were so different I didn't recognize him.

I think I worked with him for several months, before he found something else and moved on. That was a pretty cool time, and a cool experience. I'd like 2 think that a number of other such jerks 2rned out 2 be good folk with time.

-ol' 2long

Which reminds me. That abusive, immature husband has matured a great deal. Three marriages later, he has four living children and one who died. His living children include one with severe rheumatoid arthritis (she had both hips replaced when she was 15 or so) and another with some kind of developmental issues. One of his exwives (my aunt) died several years ago of a brain tumor and a broken heart. That kind of thing will force you to grow up, I think.

His second ex-wife is someone who was first his best friend, then his affair partner, then his wife, and finally his ex. His new wife? I don't know her. I hear that the various siblings and siblings-in-common (as they call each other when they're not actually related by blood, but rather by a series of marriages) think the match is flawed.

He's a divorce attorney. He tries to mediate cooperative divorces, whatever those are.

My other uncle, my aunt's first husband, has been married four times now. The first was my aunt. The second was a really nice woman who couldn't take his ways. Their marriage was cold cold cold. The third was hot -- and that wife died of breast cancer that became brain cancer. The fourth is a gambling addict with two children -- one mentally unstable and the other an addict.

Both of these men, in spite of their manifold flaws, stood up and spoke with wisdom and surprising compassion about the wife they had in common -- at her funeral. And they shared the amusement that, perhaps, only ex-spouses of the same spouse can ever share.

"Yup," one of them said to the other. And they laughed. Not meanly, but with affection for each other and for the exwife they were burying that day, and with love for the many children (13 or 14, I think) that between them they've fathered or step-fathered.

Life is freaking weird sometimes.

Gray, this child who the Sparrow is carrying. Is it going to weigh on you, or set you free?

Both, I think, though I'm still absorbing it. J, I can go back and forth for hours.

It weighs on me 'cause it's another bolt in what's often felt like the Perfect Storm. I suspect lots of BS share this feeling: the events of the last two years that were personally, privately painful for me seemed like heat-seeking missiles that sought out my most significant hurts and insecurities and doubts about myself and tunneled into me at just those spots and confirmed all the doubts. No matter how many times I tried to be convinced that this wasn't about me, it never failed to feel as if it was. The pregnancy news was that way, especially when I first received it.

It weighs because that babydaddy will always be a part of my ex's life in a way that I never can, and that's another humiliation. There's nothing to prevent my former wife from forgetting me altogether.

It weighs because when my wife left, even though she was having an affair and discarding me, I promised to always be a friend to her, and that's a promise I broke. I know how much this hurt her. I heard her cries and fought to not be moved by them. I was trying to be fiercely compassionate. And I did something similar, but more harsh, right before the divorce. In a matter of weeks she was pregnant.

I know, she was making the choices.

Most of all, the new news weighs on me because I am, kind of for the first time, convinced that sparrow is not going to be happy, and I can't stop thinking of her being caught in that maze of guilt and regret.

As far as being set free...

The pain I feel for Jennifer is suddenly much larger and louder than the pain I feel for myself. That's a big change. It's not any more pleasant, but it seems better somehow.

Though...

On the other hand...

A friend wrote me this message:

I don't feel sad for her at all. She is probably happier than sh*t about it all.

Can this be?

What's it going to do to that eyebrow of yours?

I'm not sure.

And here's a hug for you, one that I couldn't give you in April because I didn't know then. But I did know before you did, and yes, I think that's odd.

Thanks. I'm grateful to you for keeping your word. I got the news unceremoniously from someone who was being, let's face it, kind of brain-dead about it, but car4love tells me the due date looms. Sparrow was pregnant before the ink on our divorce was dry. It's better that I found out late. I'm better equipped to handle it, though I'm still bobbling the catch a bit.

I do know that I'm glad there are so many people who care about you.

Me too.

GC

GC, is this what the growling has been about? How long have you known? We have awfully big shoulders around these parts ya know! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

And if she loves that baby as much as most of us mother's do the realization of the pain she visited upon car4love is going to be huge.

There's another possible factor 2 consider here, of a kind that I'm not usually prone 2 ponder...

car4love was pregnant when the A started. Tinman's attention span, or maybe it's "affection span" is pretty short. How long before he moves on yet again?

-ol' 2long

It's true, when we become mothers (father's too) we become mothers to the entire world. We change.

Gray, it's not too late to say what you need to say to sparrow, if you need to say something to her. We've talked about this before, and maybe it is silent words you need to send her... it's such a personal thing but I know you hurt because you feel you hurt her. I don't think you did really, and I'm sure she doesn't think you did, but it's what you feel that matters. I can't harbor resentment anymore than I can carry guilt so maybe you need to do what I did, I don't know.

Too sensitive n_b, no never, just closer to our realization of how connected we are all. ACIM says that all attacks on others are really attacks on ourselves. Sensitive people merely feel the pain sooner than the more seemingly disconnected ones do, or maybe in a different way.

I hope that the tinman has some inner changes in that this family is not abandoned/destroyed (I hate to use the term destroyed because it sounds so "for forever more", which it isn't, they will rise above) he did his last one...

Becomming a parent didn't do it for him the first time around...yuck, what a sad subject.

2long, your coworker at the gas station years ago sounds like the kind of person one would like to know and reminds me of something, but I can't recall what. LOL

I have a gas station right by my house where they still pump our gas, we can't pump our own gas there in fact. And I have a little store a block or so from me where everyone in the 'hood walks to to get milk or a bottle of beer, and all the penny candy you can stuff in your pockets. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

GC - I'm so sorry. When I hear all the "Brangelina" yuck in the media my heart just hurts for anyone in the same situation. More so than almost all other instances of infidelity.

I knew too - with the same caveat as Just J not to say anything.

No matter what, though, you'll continue to grow and bloom and prosper. Truly, you are a human being of honor and courage.

We'd love to come and hear your band sometime this summer. I'll email you to get your schedule.

Brightest Blessings - always

V

Voldemort. Heh.

JJ,

I'm listening to Bocelli's "Romanza" while I clean the house tonight. If you heard this CD you'd think you died and went to heaven...it is that good. It's one of his older ones but still my favorite, check it out sometime, I think you'll like it.

When we were in Green Bay we went to a really nice piano bar and they were playing Chris Botti whenever the piano player would break, and GB fell in love with him. Appy would know who he is, being a jazz lover.

n_b to answer your question to me, I am dating only GB now...and he is still the cat's meow, in my book. And I am in love with his city.

We did go through many things those five days J, and I saw him not get angry, and not get upset over a few things which would have had a lot of guys in a rage...he is pretty special. It was among the best five days I have spent in many, many years aside from family things, I felt like I was home.

GC,

I honestly cannot imagine the level of pain and humiliation you feel. I can read it, and absorb it, and feel it in a way that sensitive people do, but it's not the same thing. I am so sorry for the pain that YOU are carrying.

I would like to encourage you to use your art (your music) as a healing tool. I wish I could play music, though I have my own art and am grateful for it.

weaver, good to hear that life with your new man is sweet, peaceful, gentle and wonderful.

Just J and Voldemort, I miss you. Glad to see both of you here.

2long, your gas station guy story also touched me... in the opposite way than I expected, since he was the bully grown up. It gives me hope for a young man I know who is a very big bully... he's had a bad example set by a parent who uses bullying behavior... and I'm scared for him.

As usual, thank you everyone for allowing me into this safe little haven of MB. My life, of late, has been filled with ups and downs -- mostly of the emotional variety. The balance feels very near, close enough to touch. Reading and writing here has helped to link together some thoughts and actions that were feeling unconnected.

nbii:

It doesn't always work that way, though. I know a sad story as well, about a kid that lived next door 2 us at our previous house. Was 14 when we moved in. He was very outgoing, and mowed our lawn for a 2ple years - until his friends got him in2 drugs and alcohol.

He got his GF pregnant by the time he was 18, married her and tried 2 make a living with help from his folks. But he couldn't stop drinking and wrecking the family cars. He and his cousin went out drinking and driving one night when he was 21 or so, and took a 35mph curve in a residential street at something approaching 100mph - or they tried 2. It was a warm summer night, and he was in the passenger seat on the outside of the curve. He had his arm on the window sill when the car rolled. He bled 2 death before help could arrive. He left behind a young widow and 2 or 3 small kids.


The horrible memories often try 2 intrude on our peace. But when they do I make special efforts 2 recall the happy memories, like my friend at the gas station who I wouldn't have given the time of day 2 just 3 years earlier.

I wish the news media would pay more mind 2 those stories.

-ol' 2long

2long,

Scary.

I think at our age, we begin to piece together all the puzzle pieces that we've been collecting through the years... and we can see things in a more complete way.

If I just think about the kids I went to high school with... now... jeepers... nearly 30 years ago... (actually 30 next year!)... I've kept in touch with a couple, both lovely women who have struggled so much. One very popular in high school, one an outcast drama nerd who never quite felt right in her skin. The popular one nearly died with cancer when she was 33, but survived and thrived. But she was dealt blow after blow personally. The other one became (and is at this time) a profound artist who has showings all over the world (she now lives in France)... and has had her share of heartbreaks, as we all have, but for the most part, seems to have crafted a nice life for herself.

I don't know why I say this stuff... just writing out loud, I guess...

The two men you mentioned... one turned out good, one let the pain overtake him, and maybe had problems so big that nobody ever understood... who knows? These are the kinds of "why" questions I'm fond of asking God about (He never answers these types of questions, which I find really annoying - LOL).

nbii:

2 change the subject a bit, and still follow the campfire/MB theme, I had an interesting epiphany this morning on my way in 2 work.

I had just had 2 paint out graffiti on the carriage shed door, so I was late getting going.

I think I was reflecting on how I felt about that - I've probably had 2 do that a 2ple dozen times since we bought our house 9 years ago. At first, it made me hopping mad 2 have 2 find that as I was leaving (the carriage shed is in the hill below our house, and on the way out 2 the street below ours). But these days, I have my cans of paint colors (there are 5 of them for the carriage shed alone!) all lined up in the garage, and a box of cheap brushes that I can use and toss in the trash when I'm done - so it usually only takes me 15 minutes or so 2 paint it over. And so, I'm only mildly inconvenienced by the distraction. And the irony is that, since they tag it at night, I've usually painted it out before they are likely 2 have gotten out of bed the next morning. So, I win! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> And not just because I paint it out, but mostly because it doesn't phase me so much anymore.<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

-ol' 2long

I had another epiphany this morning, right after the first one but whole 'nother subject...


...Sitting at the light waiting 2 take a left 2rn, I saw this pretty young hispanic gal crossing the street and wating at the light for the next crossing.

I remember thinking, what a beautiful gal she is. And I started thinking about something Greg Baer says in his "The Truth About Relationships" book about what's really going on in a man's haid when he admires a pretty girl... ...and I realized I wasn't thinking anything inappropriate at all. From her mannerisms - even the way she pushed the button repeatedly for the crossing sign (made me giggle, 'cause I do that ALL the time with elevators and crossing signs!), I could tell she was in a cheerful mood and on a mission. I had no thoughts of "having" her, just thought what a pleasant little snippet of the life and times of a particular intersection in SoCal.

The light changed, I made my 2rn, and she crossed the street.

...and it's 2rning in2 a nice afternoon, now that the marine layer is finally clearing out...

-ol' 2long

And also because you admire the beauty of it all...kids having fun, perfecting their craft, trying to drive you nuts...it's all good, and all part of this crazy, beautiful, wonderful life.

n_b,

I stopped asking God why when I realized that He doesn't even know about all this craziness down here, and that was when I started loving life again. Strange but true, now the why doesn't seem so important to me...I know it is all part of a perfect plan that we have chosen for ourselve's and someday we will never know pain again, our's or anothers.

I know that and it brings me an incredible amount of happiness.

My truth only, but yanno... it's a good truth. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

It's so much nicer here around the coals than over in trollville.

Gonna shut this puppy down and head out the door now!

-ol' 2long