Sunday, January 30, 2011

Sunday Morning.

I tried to find 15 minutes yesterday to get my write on, and I totally had the time, I just really had nothing to say and it turns out I'm not so good at forcing myself to write for 15 minutes as I am at say, forcing myself to walk for 20 minutes.  Baby steps, right?  I can't expect to go from no will power to tons of will power in a week.

Another reason I didn't do much writing yesterday is that I was still upset about Friday night.  I really got my feelings hurt.  I allowed my feelings to be hurt.  People I don't interact with, people I don't even know, people who don't know me, I gave them power over me and permission to hurt my feelings and make me cry.  I'm working on trying not to let that happen so often (ever).  I'm grateful for the Buddhist lessons Jimi has taught me over the years that allowed me to recognize the situation and my reaction for what it was; it allowed me to get over it much more quickly that I could've done on my own even a few years back.  But don't misunderstand, it still hurts.  Words are cruel sometimes and hurt even if you don't want to let them.

Enough about that.

I slept until 2 in the afternoon yesterday, after going to bed around midnight Friday night.  I'm not sure why I slept for 14 hours, but I guess I was tired.  I've not done that in a good long while, and it was pretty nice to get the sleep, I guess, but I felt like I'd wasted the day by the time I crawled out of bed, and I was tired and groggy for hours even after I'd taken the dog for a 35 minute walk through the neighborhood in an effort to get the blood flowing and some of that rare sunshine on my face.

We'd had plans to go to Indianapolis for the Winterfest beer-tasting event, but there was an issue with the tickets and so our plans were cancelled.  :(  But, the backup plan involved hanging out at Rick's with him and Kim and drinking some Browning's Black Ale and watching a new-to-me episode of Showtime's Shameless (which, by the way, is fantastic and brilliant and completely hilarious).  Eventually, we needed food, and Kim and I had been craving pizza for days and Danny Mac's was right up the road.  And it just so happened to be Saturday night, and there were Mojo people there, and Karaoke.  We didn't leave the guys with much of a choice.

The pizza was good, the booze was cheap, the company was pleasant, and the entertainment was vast.  And can I take a moment to mention how much I love it when people comment on how good or cute or adorable Jimi and I are together?  It makes my freakin' day, every time.  Because it's taken 4 years of compromise and love and laughter and we are good and cute and adorable together and I like it when people notice.  Anyhow, so we're having a great time - I sang Hotel California, Kim and I did Blind Melon's No Rain together, we're drinking and talking and laughing and having a grand ol' time.  And I started jonesin' for a cigarette so bad I couldn't hardly stand it.  I begged Kim to go outside and smoke one and just let me have a puff, just a PUFF. She refused, because she is a good friend and she loves me, even though she was fiendin' pretty bad herself.  (She's a once-in-a-blue moon sort of smoker - I think a pack lasts her like six months or something ridiculous like that.)  Everyone kept saying "Don't do it! Don't do it!" and I wanted to not, but I want to so much worse. My first test of being at a bar as a non-smoker and if I'd had someone willing to give me a cigarette I would've smoked it without hesitation.  But no one would give me one.

Until we took Terry home.  Terry passed me a smoke from the back seat and said "Now, I'm not encouraging this, but I understand..." and he gave me one of his nasty menthol cancer sticks and I smoked it and it was so delicious and disgusting and gross and good.  And the head rush was so much better than I remembered it.  Oh, smoking I miss you so bad.  But it was gross by the time it was done, and I could smell it on me, and taste it on my tongue and my breath and I felt guilty and ashamed for breaking my longest non-smoking streak ever.  I'm not one to beat myself up for long, though, and I had forgiven myself for my lapse well before we were pulling into our driveway 10 minutes later.  And I don't have any urge or desire to smoke now; I wanted it then, and that was more than enough to remind me of why I'm not a smoker anymore.

I told you I'd tell on myself.

And now it's Sunday morning.  I think Sunday mornings are my favorite; there's a certain feel to a Sunday that a Saturday, even with its promise of no work the next day, can't compete with.  When I lived in El Paso, I'd get up real early on Sunday mornings, fix a pot of coffee, then go out to the concrete patio in the back yard and watch the sun come up and paint the mountains orange and red and yellow and brown and purple.  Sometimes I'd call my mom and talk to her across the miles until I was more homesick than I'd been to start with, picturing her at the snackbar in the kitchen, putting on her makeup and drinking her third cup of joe.  Then the ex would be awake and I'd hurry inside to be a good wife catering to her man's every need, and we'd watch Sunday Morning on CBS and I'd picture my Daddy at home in his recliner, watching the same program while he ate his biscuits and gravy or maybe manicured his fingernails while breakfast was cooking.

Sunday mornings for a long time were each measured against those of my childhood, where I watched my parents dance that same dance over and over; Sunday Morning and Star Trek on the television; sausage or bacon sizzling away in the pan on the stove, drippings destined to be a milk gravy in the style of Granny, but never quite as good as Granny's; biscuits in the oven (Bisquick drop biscuits if fate was smiling on me, but canned ones were more common and just fine, too); the smell of coffee competing with smell of the meat; and everyone generally in a good mood and loving each other.  My childhood was so happy, and the memories of those mornings are like everything about why it was so happy and good, all rolled up into one easy example.  I had a family full of people who loved me, no matter what, and who loved each other.  How blessed am I.

I guess that's why I tried so hard during my marriage to recreate Sundays from when I was little; everyone was happy and glad.  In my marriage, especially in El Paso there at the end, that was not the case.

I haven't watched Sunday Morning regularly since I lived in Texas.  Even if I'm up early enough, which I often am, I don't think to turn on the television or to look for the show.  And if Jimi gets up before me, well, there are cartoons that are on TV all the time, did you know that?  And apparently there's a rule of some sort in Jimiland that says if a cartoon is on, and it's in the morning, you have to watch the cartoon.  It's just the way of the world.  It works out just as well, though; I'm not trying to find happiness through the recreation of childhood events anymore - Jimi and I, we make our own happy way.  We don't have any traditions or habits even for this most-tradition/habit-laden day of the week; we just do what we feel like doing whenever we get up and get doing things.  Probably that will change, along with the rest of the universe, if we have a child, but for now, these unconventional, random days we have are still filled with the same happy and joy that I remember from when I was little; somehow, we manage to make happy even without coffee and biscuits and gravy.

1 comment:

  1. What happened on Friday?? I am completely out of the loop this weekend. Who made you cry and should I find them and beat them up?
    btw, Shameless IS brilliant!

    ReplyDelete

Please don't make me cry.

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