Talking to Myself, Preaching to the Choir ...

I am fairly certain I am talking to myself here, and yet I continue to put words onto the screen like nobody's business.

Here I am, intentionally careful about what I say, lest I hurt someone's feelings or let any proverbial cats out of the bag. Let's just say I have access to a whole litter of cats in a bag right now and haven't said a word. No-sir-ee! It's been a real test of my discipline to keep my mouth shut concerning certain issues in recent months. I've done well, if I must say so myself.

And I will indeed say it! "I've done well".

But why? Why, when I am the only one reading what I've written anyway?

Given the distinct possibility that no one ever reads my blog, I will hereby give myself permission to ramble. At least for tonight.

I don't care much for the month of October. I never have. The onset of October means that all possibility of opening my front door and finding that a gloriously sunny summer day awaits outside, has passed and won't return for another eight months!

This was only made worse by the fact that my mother passed away in October, four years ago today as a matter of fact. October 27, 2004. What an awful, ugly night that was.

October finds no friend in me. It haunts me with a sense of gloom and doom around every corner.

How unlike "me" that really is.

Bubbly, happy-go-lucky, ever so optimistic me!

Well, not this month and especially not tonight. I've spent the day on an emotional roller coaster, never knowing from one minute to the next whether I'll be laughing or crying, venturing out, or looking for a cave in which to drag my weary self and wait for the dark clouds to pass.

I was such a blubbering fool a few short hours ago that I'm fairly certain my husband regretted even coming home from work. One minute I was sitting at the computer happily pecking away and the next I was sobbing uncontrollably, tears flooding down my face and onto the keyboard so badly I feared it might fry.

On the other hand, today's ride on the emotional roller coaster was actually an improvement over yesterday when I spent the whole day feeling so low I wanted to do nothing but hibernate. Today, there were a few "highs". That's a good sign, huh?

So, there it is! A glimmer of hope, a sprinkle of optimism.

Things are looking up. Maybe I'm on my way back.

This afternoon, after dragging myself first into, then out of the bathtub (yes, even that took more effort than I felt I could spare) I dried myself off and reached under the counter for the antiperspirant. Shaking the can, I lifted my right arm and sprayed.

It had an odd appearance. I wondered why. So, I sprayed some more, then caught the reflection of myself holding the can in the mirror. It wasn't antiperspirant I was dousing my underarm with at all. Instead I had liberally soaked it with a heavy dose of hair spray.

I realized I couldn't put my arm down, as that would surely cause it to be stuck to my side indefinitely, so with one arm held high, I walked over to the bathtub, picked up my wet washcloth and proceeded to wipe the nasty sticky mess away.

It reminded me of the time many years ago when Mom walked into the kitchen, opened the pantry door and took out the "Pam" non-stick cooking spray for a recipe she was planning to make. She was talking (as was almost always the case) and absent mindedly began spraying her hair with the cooking spray as she chattered away.

We all busted out laughing, which was her first clue that something was amiss.

Inspecting the can she was clasping in her hand, she started laughing too, then placed it back in the pantry and asked nonchalantly, "Does my hair look oily to you?"

Maybe that was my mother's gift to me today ... to have me do something silly that would remind me of her...

And if only for a fleeting second, make me laugh.

Cats and Tuesday Evening

Here it is Tuesday evening and I am sitting in the recliner with one of my two Siamese cats, Skippyjon on my lap. He is lying across my left wrist as I type. I believe he thinks the movement of my hand under his chin is meant to be a treat for him, rather than a mere method of getting words onto a screen.

Cats are like that. In their minds, the world revolves around them. Personally, I find that to be one of their more endearing traits.

I love Skippyjon. He makes me smile. He's a skinny little clown, always poking around the house looking for things to get into. He loves to tease the older Siamese, Jasmine who has not quite yet accepted his presence in the household. As soon as she spots him anywhere near, she starts growling, an eerie noise that starts as a low rumble deep in her belly and rises to a positively evil wail quite possibly capable of making the hair stand up on a banshee's neck.

It never fails, Skippy gets Jasmine all riled up then just sits down and stares at her as if to say, "Whut?? I didn't do anything!" He reminds me of a mischievous little boy, always getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

I can't really remember a time in my life when I haven't had at least one cat. As a child, it wasn't unusual for me to have four or five of them living in the back yard at once. Back then, all my cats were of the average orange tabby garden variety. They were also always named "Jingle Bells".

Hey! I was two years old, and Jingle Bells was my favorite song. It was quite appropriate that my favorite pets be named after it.

It also helped ensure a response when I stepped out onto the back porch and called for them. At least one (and usually two or three) of the furry orange critters would come running from way back behind our garden and crawl into my waiting arms.

Like every other little girl, I had dolls to play with, but given the choice I would take a cat over a doll any day.

Cats were more like real babies, after all. They wriggled and squirmed as I pulled frilly dresses over their heads and buttoned them in, then wrapped them in baby blankets. I would even lay them down in my doll baby beds and make them take "naps" after feeding them milk from real baby bottles.

Come to think of it, that's probably why they tolerated me as well as they did. They knew when all was said and done, I would finish up by feeding them milk from a bottle. The humiliation of wearing a dress and sleeping in a doll bed was a small price to pay, considering.

The weird thing about the cats I had as a child was that they always ran away in February. It never failed. I would go out one cold winter day and all of my cats would be gone. My dad explained that February was when cats went off looking for husbands and wives so they could start families of their own. Believe it or not, I bought that story until I was up in my teen years. Only then did I realize that my father was "assisting" my cats in finding their so called "husbands and wives" by loading them up in his car and giving them a ride out to a local farm where they'd spend the rest of their lives serving as "mousers" in one of the farmers many barns.

Thankfully, I had three aunts who seemed to have a never ending supply of "fresh" little orange kittens and my stock of "Jingle Bells" would be replenished in the spring. Then, the cycle would start all over again.

Cats have played such an important role in my life that I can't imagine life without one. To this day, simply picking one of our three cats up and snuggling it in my arms brightens my day. Something about the sound of a cat purring always soothes my soul.

I need my cats, especially at times like these when the blues seem to be nipping ever so closely at my heels.

And cats even come in handy on a plain old Tuesday evening when I've nothing better to do than sit in my recliner and peck away at the computer keyboard with one of them draped lazily across my arm.

I love cats. That's the way it's always been, and that's the way it always will be!

My Happy Place Needs Renovating

When I was a little girl my father always told me, "Be nice to people, Beck. You never know what another person might be going through".

Not that I ever was a mean spirited person, but even now I consciously try to be mindful of others feelings. I suppose I've also been naive enough to think they should be considerate enough to return the favor. After forty eight years of living on this earth, I'm still in the process of wrapping my mind around the possibility that it's probably not the case. The truth is, some people just plain don't care what anyone else is feeling.

I have my own way of handling things when times get rough. For instance, I distract myself as much as possible. I'm not talking about denial, just distraction. I do what I can about any given stress inducing situation, and then I put it on a shelf and move on to whatever else might be necessary to occupy my mind with happier things.

Most of the time I go in search of humor. With rare exception, a good laugh is undoubtedly waiting just around the corner. Rest assured, if it's there I WILL find it! I consider that aspect of my personality a "gift" from God. It's gotten me through a lot of turbulent times in my life ... and it's helped me maintain sanity on days when I felt the intense need to hurt somebody!

Lately, it's been getting more and more difficult to fill my mind with enough happy thoughts to drown out all the stuff that's going on around me. I can't even write about most of it because I don't want to say anything that might possibly do harm to another person. Neither do I desire to expose anyone's "dirty laundry". That's not my job. After all, just like me, almost every one I know is going through something stressful, even emotionally devastating, right now.

There are days, like today for example, when I have a particularly hard time choking back tears and being strong. As my youngest daughter, Emily once said, "Sometimes I wish I could just be a normal person."

Like Emily, today I want to have a good old fashioned melt down ... give a few people a piece of my mind ... kick some ... well you get the picture.

Then, I hear my father say again, "Be nice to people, Beck. You never know what another person might be going through" and end up feeling guilty for considering any other option than "sucking it up" and forging ahead. Inevitably, I will manage to find room on these big broad shoulders of mine to squeeze in just a little bit more resilience .

So now, I will retreat once again to my "happy place", hang out the "do not disturb" sign, and stay there until I feel it is safe to come back out.

And one of these days, I will find the humor, even in the many situations I am currently dealing with. You can count on it!