Slap

Have you ever felt like you've been slapped by the world, all at one time?

I don't mean to be a bitch

I'm just tired. I'm tired of being understanding to others while not feeling understood myself.
I'm tired of searching but don't know any other way.

Several months ago I paid as a gift to myself, to speak to a angel speaker.
Kind of like a medium who says she also speaks to your personal guides.
Anyway.
It was a 30 minute call.
Per usual, many of my husbands dead people came through to speak. And per usual I wrote the information down and passed it along to him.
More often the dead want to tell him things or what feels kind of worse, is when they want to speak to my sister.
The gal said a man was there who felt like a father soul. I asked so is he my father? She asked her guides and they said yes, this was my father.
I had imagined him to be dead so it was not like shocking or anything.
She said he was an addict, lots of addictions.
Again, no shock there.
He's able to give me tips but warned me I won't like what I may find and that my paper trail is dead, done, not going to find any hard facts of paper proof.

As we head into winter I find myself feeling more and more detached. Detached from physical items as well as relationships.
My husband continues to do well in building a relationship with his newly found daughter as well as grandson. She will be having a daughter soon as well and I know he will forever be a part of their lives. I encourage him and help him with the little things like picking out gifts and such.
Again, I feel detached.
One of Shannons dead people made the comment "She saved him" and I had to giggle.
So many people see it the other way. So many people feel that he saved me. I know this for a fact, it's not just a feeling.
And so I head into this winter feeling detached from life. My purpose at this point seems to be to care for our aging dogs, and that's just about it.
Maybe this is just the way people get to feeling at this age. Maybe more "work" will come my way.
Most of the time I'm ok with the feeling. It's kind of nice knowing that no one needs to hold onto me for any sort of survival, you know, outside of my pups.
Be loved.........the person or two who actually reads my blog ;)

But doesn't it hurt? You know it'll sag

Ink. Tattoo's. The once only a sailor gets it figure of art.
Yes, I said art.

Lets see, the basics. I currently have 6 tattoo's. I'm not happy with that.
Why?
I don't like even numbers, I want a seventh.

What are they?
In order of when I got them as well as a brief "why".

Bugs Bunny.
My orthodontist used to say I should use the Warner Brother for my stationary since I grew up with WB as my initials (and yes, then I married a B so it would work!)
My ex husband told me "You will never get a tattoo, I won't allow it."
Nuff said.
He was away and I grabbed a friend and got it done.

Tribal band around my ankle.
I wanted something not off the wall and the man who gave me my Bugs had designed a tribal. He asked me if I would want it, I said yes.

Artist drawn pig.
I went through a very long "pig" phase, this finished it out.

Three daisies on the top of my foot.
A daisy a day was written in my first mothers funeral book.
I've always like the flower, any of them, but most the wild ones you least expect to see.
Top of my foot so I can always see.

Dark angel on my shoulder, 4 daisies beneath her.
This is on my shoulder blade. It's my largest and was by far the most painful. I brought in a couple of photos and said "I need her to be sad but free, and some sort of daisy under her."
When we went back a month later to get the work done I was immediately hit with tears when he showed me the photo.
4 daisies beneath her.
Dottye had a total of four children.

Always hope on my wrist.
My sister had sent me some photo copies of old holiday cards with Dottye's writing inside.
I took the two words, which in her cards were not together, and had them put on my wrist.
By it's side is a aqua daisy, aqua being the ovarian cancer color.

It doesn't matter to me if they are not attractive to someone else.
The pain was part of the process.
You know people I am sure, though you may not know it, who hurt themselves.
Physically.
I used to be one of those people.
I wasn't a cutter. I didn't use knives or blades, never saw blood.
I used a hammer or my fist. I would leave myself bruises.
It's hard for some to understand and I thank goodness for that. I would hate for everyone to understand. For me, hurting myself in that way was a form of control. It was also a way to bring out my stuck pain, the pain I could not speak of. As my self inflicted bruises healed, I felt like I did too.
Until the next time.

So you can frown at my tattoo's but for myself they are another form of bringing out the pain, owning it, seeing it and making it something that to my eye is beautiful.

Over expressed !!!!!! and !!!!!!

We are such a world of words without emotion it seems with the posts, tweets and blogging that goes on. Lol OMG and I was bawling.
Is it really that funny?
Did it really take your breath away?
How many tears actually fell?

Last night I had the channel on NBC so that I could catch the tribute section of the Emmy's. The truth is most of the shows that were up for nominations I had never seen before. I had heard of them, just never had seen them. I think they are on cable channels that we don't get, we have a thing about the cost of television entertainment and so only pay for the most basic.

My husband and I let the dogs out and as we came in the tribute to those who had died this past year was already in action.

"Damn it! We better not have missed much!"
I stood in front of the TV with him beside me, he was holding one of our dogs.

"That makes me so sad" I said with a tear in my eye as they showed Maya Angelou. A woman once silent with so many words to teach of the heart, the soul, of being one of love.
Soon the slideshow was over (I must say I did not agree with their choice in song, the lyrics for me didn't work, but that's just how I felt about it) and camera moves to Billy Crystal.
It was time. It was time to officially say goodbye to Robin Williams. The man who could so often make me actually laugh out loud (I do that rarely in real life), the man who played by far one of the funniest Jewish Yiddish men, ever.

It was short and to the point. As he began to speak I thought I saw the quiver of his chin and yet he moved on with grace. A few sentences that offered a wonderful visual followed by Robin Williams amazing blue eyes.

Eyes full of tears now though none had fallen I simply said "That really makes me want to cry."
"I know baby" was my husbands response.

I sucked it up, took a few exaggerated breaths and then moved on to getting ready for bed.

As he slept I wondered to myself: when is the last time I simply cried. A time when I didn't think about it? A cry that was natural and not stopped? A cry that was allowed to go on for as long as it needed to?
I know that crying can cleanse the body in the same way that laughter does however I don't allow myself to do it. I have many thoughts on why I don't allow it however I know some folks who would read some of the thoughts if I chose to type them out and be resentful of them.
One reason that doesn't point any fingers to anyone but myself is this thought , a thought I have had more then once.
What if I start to cry and then can't stop?
I mean I know that literally I would be able to stop, but the feeling is still there. When I am on the verge of letting those emotions out what if I just can not stop?

Crying upsets my dogs, it also leaves my husband in a place where he feels useless because he can't fix it. He wants to fix the pain and I know he can't, so I keep the pain to myself. At the very least it keeps him from hurting as well.

I don't often laugh out loud.
My breath is not usually really taken away.
More often then not, my tears are dry.

And your name is.......???????

There is a comedian I have been going to see for about 15 years now. His name is Flip and he is a hypnotist. Look him, see his show, and you'll understand my title. You won't regret seeing the show, if you do, well you're just not a funny person.

Growing up I would ask "How did I get the name Wendy?"
I knew of two other Wendy's, one younger then me and one older. In my adult life I have met one who is older then me. We've all said, there just are not that many Wendy's.

If I asked my mom she would without fail say "Ask your father."
When I would ask my dad he would reply either that he didn't know, ask your mother, or Peter Pan.

To date, I have not seen the movie nor read the Peter Pan book but I am getting closer to renting Hook. I believe that has something to do with Peter Pan.
I don't recall my brothers asking where they got their names from, I'm not sure if they know or don't really care. It's always been of interest to me.

Am I the only one who wonders where my name came from?

On my parents last visit I decided to ask again. We were in the car headed to dinner, meeting my inlays about an hour away. We had time to kill and we were trapped for the hour in the car, so I went ahead and asked.

"What made you guys name me Wendy" I asked without looking back.
Mom "Well, your father always wanted a daughter........" I let her finish the story of why they had to adopt a girl. In the past I would have said why they adopted me, I'm an adult now and fully aware that I just happened to be the girl available.
Finally she got to the question "I think it was the name of the mother of a nanny dad grew up with. Ar???" her nick name for my dad." Ya. What???"
He wasn't paying attention, or maybe he fell asleep.
We carried on the talk and never could figure out if they had named me after the mother of a nanny my father had, whom he liked very much. Or if my name was from some character from Peter Pan. As 41 I got a new answer though. I always find it interesting how a story can change, or the truth it might be finally comes out.

I have two birth certificates. My "Amended" birth certificate which would indicate that the parents I grew up with were my blood parents by anyone else who looks at the form. I also have my "OBC" which is my Original Birth Certificate.

My name on the amended copy is as I've always known it.
My name on the OBC is "Girl Moore".

The one thing I had so very much looked forward to was finding out what my birth name was, with hopes of why it was given to me.
Girl Moore.
Yup. I'm a girl.

I may never know what my first name was.
I will continue to have fun trying to find out the reasons for my now given name of Wendy. I'll ask until they are no longer here to ask.
The changes in answers are always amusing.
Not knowing my birth name, not as amusing.

Regrets?????

Over the years I've been able to look back and with full honesty say "I have no regrets."
Lets be clear, I know I have done tons of things that other people may regret. Or they may be things that they rather I keep silent about. Some of those past experiences I don't speak of often or loudly, but I don't regret them. I'm a little ashamed perhaps, but I don't regret them.
How could that be?
I know that each experience brought me up to the current day. From simple choices to difficult ones, each got me to the spot I am in. Some roads were still under construction, others were walled by foot in order to be able to truly enjoy the road.

This past year however I have figured out I actually do have a regret. I don't know if it is new or if I've just fully begun to understand it. And as I run it in my mind it's still sounding like it might be confusing to others but lets get to it.

Growing up I always knew I would have children. I was not sure how many but often felt like I would have one. I wanted to be a housewife, one who would devote herself to her family. After school activities, clubs, projects......I was ready for the whole fun part.

At 17 years old I had my first miscarriage. I had not known I was pregnant until I had the miscarriage and lucky for me my doctor told my mother I was just having some female issues and needed a D&C. He knew without me saying a word, that this would be the best way to approach the situation of me being pregnant before legal age. Thank goodness for him. I did tell one adult friend who later said something to my mother and I was able to convince my mother that my friend must have misunderstood.

With my first marriage I actually tried to get pregnant and never thought I did. As an Army wife I was able to see a specialist who in turn had me under the knife and said I had a 10% chance of ever getting pregnant and as time went on that chance would become less.

Per usual I can look back and say thank goodness I did not have a child then. The circumstances were  less then ideal (that's being nice!) and I'm not sure what would have happened had I had a child. So, after surgery, tests, meds, I finally threw in the towel.

I went on with life and met my forever husband. It was our first date and we lay it all out on the table. I gave him my past in all the detail as well as my hopes for the future. That included telling him about my lack of fertility and we laughed as we both had said we didn't want children.

We got married in Ohio, had a honeymoon in Vegas, then headed back to our home in Texas. I had been late for my period and figured it was stress of the wedding. Being late for me was not unusual, sometimes I would go three months without a cycle, or so I thought.
Before the wedding I had gone to the doctor and seen the PA. I was having fatigue and dizzy spells. She asked "Could you be pregnant" to which I replied with an instant no! She never gave me a test but did give me a pill that I decided not to take due to the side effects. In hindsight, I think when I said no so fast she thought I wasn't "active" with my soon to be hubby. I said no because I had been told I could get pregnant.....

two weeks after we got home my period started, and wouldn't stop. We went to my gynecologist and he ran a urine test to check my hormones. A pregnancy test. It didn't make any sense to me, and I was nearly to the floor when he came out and said "You were pregnant, you are miscarrying." They got my husband who was in the waiting room and we checked out with some meds to help move things along. The following month I went on the BC pill.

Years prior I had always said "I would rather regret not having a child then regret having one."
Over the next few years I would break my silence and make hubby sit down for the talk "Why don't you want a child? Are you sure? Can we talk about it?" It always came down to the same basic talk of how we enjoy devoting our time to each other, how we were both very selfish in our need of attention and affection, finances.........I think most people understand the talks we usually had.
And each time I had to suck it in, suck it up and agree and say "You know you're right. We're right. I would rather regret not having one then regret having one."

(There are far too many people in this world who regret having their child and while they may not admit it vocally their actions scream it...)

My chance of having a child was taken away for the final time five years ago. I remember feeling the shock of that some time after surgery. It was like wow, the rest of my days on this earth I will never again be able to have that conversation "Should we have a child?"

And now I know. I know what regret feels like. True deep to the core regret.
Regret of not having a child?
No
Regret of feeling like the choice was not mine to fully make. It takes two to make the child, and I feel like because of that the choice was never mine.
In so many other aspects of life we get to make a choice all on our own and I feel a bit ripped off.

It's a tad hard to get rid of the thoughts as well as a bit of resentment peeping up.
When my now husband and I were dating he shared with me that he may or may not have a daughter. The story is his to tell, not mine, but I fully supported him in the choices he made about that relationship as the years went on. He had no contact with her until she turned 19. When she reached out they did a DNA test and found out indeed he is her father. The past 3 years of watching and listening to him build a relationship with her leaves me on the side wondering why this path was taken.

And so, I finally know regret.

Jury Duty

I've been called for Jury Duty a total of four times, maybe five. I can clearly remember four.
The first two times I arrived at the court house to be told the case no longer needed a jury and so was turned back to head home. Job well done simply by showing up.

The third time was a case on a family suing a doctor who released a woman and the same day she took her own life. I only got to hear some of the details of the case. What hit me the most was seeing the family on the side of the room as the lawyers questioned the possible jury, and the replies from the possible jury members.

I became angry. I found it hard to bite my tongue. An example was a woman who had sat next to me. When we got back to the room after our lunch break, she was not there. We waited and finally the bailiff called her on her cell phone. Her response was that she was late and figured since she was late she just wouldn't come back at all. She was told that yes, she needed to come back. (She actually made the jury , I have no idea how she was a good choice).

One of the questions that we were allowed to answer in more length in private is if we had been touched in any way personally by suicide. I was one of there people who rose my hand.

The just potentials were released for a break and the three of us were held behind. I approached the bench second in line. The deceased woman's family was still on the side, I walked up to the judge, as well as the four attorneys and bailiff.

I explained how I had been personally touched (didn't speak of my own past issues but rather of the stories of Dotty'e's many attempts) and finished off by asking the judge if he always had to deal with such a group of assholes. The looks on the faces told me that what I had said was perhaps not appropriate BUT understood.

I was dismissed at the end of the day and could not get the case out of my mind. I called the court a week after the trial to find out what had happened in the case. The bailiff explained the steps to take to purchase a transcript and then commented on remembering me well.
My honesty was appreciated, though it didn't help any to get me picked.

Yesterday I was in group of 300. The courts needed a total of 130 isn to fill the current cases. I got picked as one of 45 to head across the floor into a case.
The production VS a drunk driver.
We were told he had at least two prior convictions of drunk driving and here that makes this charge a felony. He could do 2-10 years and the penalty would be decided by this jury as well.
Long story short the prosecutor went through each row asking of any of us being personally touched by drunk driving. There were four rows of people, I was in the back row. (I now understand they place you in the order that they upon first looking at your paperwork think they might pick , so once again I would likely not make the team. Man how I hate being picked near last).

I had it pretty together, was simply going to say I lost my first mother to drunk driving. Yup, she was dead, yup it was a drunk driver. No need to go into the details that she was the drunk who was driving.
A gal in the second row said "I lost a dear friend to drunk driving in 1979" I listened and thought wow, that was just a few years after Dottye died. I guess that pain never goes away. "It was in Franklin County, Columbus....." and then I no longer heard her words. Why she decided to be so specific on where it happened? I'll get back to that.
When he got to me I thought I had it together. I took a breath and as the words came out "I lost my first mom, she died in a drunk accident" the tears came. My throat felt as if it might swell shut as people began to turn in the bench to look at me. Oh lord how I hated to be looked at and while I'm crying, please let me melt into this back wall!
I dug into my messenger back for a tissue as the final 6 people gave their reply. And then the last person said "You think we might take a break soon, I really need to use the rest room." Thank goodness for that last man!
We were dismissed for a 20 minute break. I grabbed my bag and high tailed it to the front door. I was out! I felt the sun hit my face and smelled the smoke of those puffing away out front of the building. I paused and reached into my bag for my phone and my vape. I called Shannon and said "I just want to come home. I just don't want to be here anymore." He calmed my down as I puffed on my fake cigarette and by the end of our 3 minute call I was back to being me.

Two things happened as I walked back into the building and waited in the hall with my o there possible jury members.
A woman in bright pink approached me and touched my arm saying "I am so sorry about your mother". Being the me that I am, not liking to make other uncomfortable and feeling guilt replied "Oh no no. Don't be. She died alone, she was the drunk." The woman looked at me and said "My God I just got chills up my entire arm." to which I replied "It's good, chills are a good thing" and I walked away.
I was looking at the back of heads as I scanned the group of people and finally found her. "Are you the woman who lost someone in Franklin County in 1979?"
"Yes, that was me."
"What made you say it was in Franklin County?"
She kind of gave a little laugh with a shrug and said "You know I have no idea".
"I do. That's where my first mother died. "
The woman sat there and looked confused.
"She wanted me to know I wasn't alone, or something. She wanted me to know something."
The woman and I went on to change the talk to something more light, we spoke of Columbus and Cleveland and all of the changes both cities have had over the past 30 plus years.
As we called back in she said "I'm sorry I mentioned the county. I didn't mean to make you cry."
And so I replied "You didn't make me cry, you made me feel a little less alone."

I didn't get picked for the jury. They sent us out for a final 20 minute break and when we were called back in the judge told us "Well I've got good news for you, bad news for myself. They were only able to agree on 11 people so you are all free to go home and do not need to come back. We will do the process tomorrow with a new group. We thank you for taking the time to try and serve. Sometimes this just happens.

A woman I had kind of hung out with during lunch and had several misfortunes in health spoke to the defendants attorney after we were released, off the record. He said that she had been one of the 11 they agreed on. She said "A gal here pointed something out to me that we later found out no one else noticed (that gal was me). The defendant, does he have some sort of health issues. She said she saw him walking to his car at lunch and he was very jerky in the upper body, seeming to have a horrible twitch. She said when he got his upper body to stop his lower badly seemed to drag more then walk."

Indeed this man has some sort of medical condition having in part to do with his back. He has to give himself injections, he didn't say of what. He can "control" the spasms some, but not completely.
"I hope you will bring that up when he gets his trial, with a doctor to explain?" The attorney replied with a smile that he would. He asked which now non jury member had pointed it out and she told him "The one who was crying, the one whose mother had died."

I wish now, and at the moment that she shared this conversation with me, that I had kept my person issues out of the way. It brought about a lot of thought for me, even with my raging migraine. We can look across the room and judge without knowing we are judging. We must remember that there is always a story behind a story.
I hope this man gets a fair trial. I have no way of knowing if he was driving drunk, hat his prior or when his prior convictions were (who knows, maybe he was a pre teen, maybe he was an adult) but in the end I hope that the trial goes as fairly as possible for we will always be human, we will always have our own feelings and thoughts.
No matter how it goes, and no matter what the media shows, I believe in our justice system. I believe there is always room for improvement and I believe that we are lucky to have a voice.