Category — flashbacks

There is an awful lot going on behind the scenes lately. Mostly good things, accompanied by the requisite messes that keep me from getting too big for my britches.

A conversation with my Mom (who has nearly reached her pre-chemo insanity levels, if you were wondering) this weekend revolved around my cousin’s reaction to my sister’s impending arrival in my home.

“I heard the girls are moving in together.”

“Yes, they are… <blah, blah, I will spare you because this would probably add 200 words to my post length>”

“Good luck with that.”

I think Mom brought it up because she couldn’t decide whether or not to be offended.

I wasn’t. In the first few months we dated, the wasbund once found it necessary to break up one of our sister fights; pulling me off of her as we both screamed and cried and I beat the tar shit out of her with a tube sock filled with tangerines. In my own defense, I cannot even publish what she said to me to earn that beating. You know if even I won’t put it out there, she got what she deserved.

Anyway. I can’t remember the last time I saw my cousin, but I believe she’s been married twice since then, so since she doesn’t really know either of us as adults, it’s hard to get my feathers ruffled.

What did I take away from this conversation, other than a splitting headache and the urge to cram my Mom in a shoebox and ship her to some third world country?

I think maybe “good luck with that” is the snottiest phrase ever. I know that I employ it frequently when I’m being snarky.

This has been the summer of inescapable wretched mind numbing madness causing heat. The things I’m sure of aren’t happening fast enough, and the uncertainties I’m facing are probably all going to resolve in the same two week span. As a result, I’m crabby.

It’s too hot to eat, too hot to sleep, and there is too much to think about.

So since I feel all crabby and snotty, I figured I’d tell some people “good luck with that“.

Thinking that women with any reasonable amount of self esteem and relationship experience will tolerate your douchebag antics?

Good luck with that.

Screwing with me in terms of my most basic requirements for well being?

Good luck with that.

Acting like you’re kind of a big deal when the only thing you’ve really got is a grandiose sense of self-importance?

Good luck with that.

Continually marrying men even though you know you’re more frigid than a case of Popsicles in a deep freeze?

Good luck with that.

Trying to bully me into solving a problem for you that creates a problem for me?

Good luck with that.

Keeping me in the dark as to your intentions so as to keep me motivated?

Good luck with that.

Bratting the hell out for no good reason and thinking you’re going to escape the requisite calling out I will undoubtedly deliver at the first opportunity?

Good luck with that.

Attempting to capture my attention with the lamest excuse for charm I’ve seen in the past year?

Good luck with that.

Underestimating either of my father’s daughters individually, or unthinkably, both of them united in a common agenda with said father’s backing?

Good luck with that!

The anniversary of my sister’s loss marks a very dark period in my life. One of soul wrenching pain, confusion, uncertainty and sweeping loss. I was taken by surprise at how powerful my memories of all that are, of how closely to the surface all of that pain still sits. At this point last year, I still didn’t know half of what was to come; somehow the reliving of it knowing how the story ends is strangely powerful. In a way that has to be a little unpleasant to be a good and healing thing.

Things are sharp again- songs and places and names and feelings have edges that cut me. Not to the quick, not to the bone, a deep paper cut, maybe. Still. I hear some melody of memory, I relive some moment, I remember what I was doing this time last year, and the added knowledge of what I didn’t know as I did it haunts me. Sadly, it seems to have inspired some bitterness, and that sends me on a search for wisdom.

It was fairly easy to find, with a little help from a friend.

This year, now, here in the present, I am waiting. Which is something I have never done well. My uncertainly tolerance could fit in a thimble. With room to spare for my patience.

The waiting is still the hardest part. It always will be, but maybe there is a different way to wait.

Last year, I felt for months what I felt yesterday- confusion, anxiety, anticipation, fear.  When that veil finally lifted, the revelation was earth-shattering. Painful. Ugly. Devastating.

What I’m waiting on, is with all likelihood, positive and certainly less dramatic. Even if it turns out to be unpleasant, it will not be so earth-shattering, and if it is unpleasant, at the very least I will have preserved most of what I have. The casualties will likely be some pride, some hope, some happiness. Which will not be fun, but is certainly easier than knocking the whole house off of the foundation and rebuilding.

My decision making process on the larger issues of life is largely intuitive. That isn’t to say that there isn’t logical thought applied; I have a nasty habit of thinking twenty steps ahead. By the time I’m faced with a decision, I have already painstakingly considered the situation from all angles, and I trust my intuition to place my bets. On the smaller issues of life, I am often incapable of making a decision. Ask me if I’m willing to consider a huge risk, and you’ll have your answer in a shorter period of time than it takes me to pick something off of a menu. Because I anticipate the huge decisions, maybe when I ought to be thinking about what I’d like for dinner.

Not everyone works this way.

It is unfair, I think, to associate the length of the decision making process with the level of intent or conviction with which the decision is made. My decisions certainly lack neither intent nor conviction.

If my decision is made with intent and conviction, I certainly want the same in return.

I’m not waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’m not waiting for pretty words to wilt into broken promises. I’m waiting to avoid exactly those things. However long it takes, whatever the outcome is, a decision made with intent and conviction is worth waiting for.

I deserve nothing less.