A rose by any other name

About the time my grandson was born, people asked me what he was going to call me. I thought this an odd question. I just figured he would decide what he'd call me, kind of, as we went along. I mean the choices are sort of limited. I grew up with a grandma and a mamaw, even though mamaw was not related by blood...neither were a lot of my aunts. There is nana, which I always thought was made up by somebody that didn't want to be called grandma. And we'll just veto granny. It did not occur to me that I would need to pick a name to refer to myself. With my kids it was automatic to say, "Give it to momma."

Well this weekend, it was confirmed that he has indeed picked a name. I am....

Her.

I wasn't sure about this until we played 'name the family' at his birthday party. He would point, and ask, "Who that?" I would answer. Then my husband pointed at me and asked Hunter, "Who is that?" Hunter responded, "Her."

Quit laughing.

I know where it comes from. I say, "Go get papaw." The husband says, you got it, "Go get her."

It's sweet and adorable. He's two and doesn't know better. I wonder how long I'll be her.

Habits

I occasionally find myself stopping in the middle of doing an ordinary thing and just having to think about it. Not the, how to, but the why, often catches my attention. I know that we do many things the way we learned to do them, the way we seen them done...they become habits that we seldom examine. Seldom, that is, until that one moment when what I am doing catches my attention.

This morning I stopped as I was preparing to brush my teeth. What caught my attention, was the application of toothpaste to toothbrush.

More precisely, the bristles of my toothbrush as they brushed along the edge of the tube.

My toothbrush has been in my mouth...obviously. Now, I don't share my toothpaste...I have my own bathroom, but I would say that is probably not the case in most homes.

I know a few people that wouldn't dare eat or drink after another person. I wonder if they share toothpaste?

Is there a better way to do this? How do you get that neat little flourish of toothpaste on the brush without physical contact between the two? Did I miss something in my upbringing? Am I missing a special toothpaste utensil? Have I just not mastered the use of gravity on a viscous product?

It wouldn't surprise me.



Maybe, at a later date, we'll discuss soap.

What if...

I found myself thinking about those pivotal moments in life when you make a decision and it has potentially life changing consequences. If you believe life is preordained you might argue that what is supposed to happen, will happen. I prefer to think that I have some control over the path I travel, especially if I have to pay the consequences for my actions.

There are several decisions that I wonder, if I'd gone down a different path, where I might be today.

I wonder how life would have changed if we had not bought our current house. There are lots of reasons to wonder about that. So much has happened here...not all of it good, but not all of it bad either.

I wonder where I would be if I'd applied for work at the hospital I actually intended to, instead of where I work now.

There is never, ever, a way of knowing. You can't go back. Life has changed you.

The thing that has been on my mind today involves a Halloween party...seemingly a trivial thing. A dozen, or so, people had gotten together at a mutual friend's house. Not everyone there knew each other. After the party, I mentioned to my husband that one of the men I'd talked to, was "Thanatos". My husband mentioned, much to my surprise, that he had talked to Thanatos many times online and wished he'd had the chance to meet him. That could have been the end of it...just a Halloween party and a random meeting of someone. But I sent a message the next day to Thanatos and he suggested we come to an event where he would be...and we did. That meeting has led to so many good things and has changed my life...our lives, beyond measure.

Just a random string of choices.

One of those forgotten memories...

I have no idea why it popped up.

At some point around the time I was, I'm thinking, about 14, my mom decided, for whatever reason, to switch our bedrooms. I was moved from the front bedroom to the back bedroom. Mom decided that it would not make sense to move the furniture, so we just moved our stuff. So I inherited my mom and dad's bookcase headboard...the one with the gun in it. I don't think anybody thought about it. Now days, that sounds absolutely crazy. I will tell you something else that's different...I did not feel the need to play with the gun. I could not have even told you if it was loaded or not. I found it, knew what it was...it was wrapped in a rag, and I left it alone. Then one night, my dad crept into my room to close my window. I woke to the sound of the window moving and the shape of a man standing in front of it, without my glasses, that was really all I could see. My dad's brain must have registered the location of of his handgun as he heard me quickly slide the compartment on the headboard open. He called out to me...and I think we both sighed in relief. I doubt either of us slept anytime soon after that adrenaline rush. He didn't move the gun, I think he was proud of my ability to take care of myself...but he didn't come into my room unannounced again. After that, if it started raining, I had to close my own window.

Hope

I hope one day to say something so astounding, so wise, so amazing, that it would be worthy of sharing or even held close to an individual's heart, that it might make a difference.

Small happiness's

We take things for granted everyday. I mean, we flip a wall switch and we expect the electricity to do whatever it does, even when we don't understand it, and the lights come on. Wala! I am just as guilty as the next person. We don't usually appreciate the little things...until the lights don't work.

There are a few things I find myself always grateful for...and I'm going to share. Because, well, as I have mentioned before...my blog.

Hot water. 

I am a water baby...no not Pieces or Aquarius. I love water. If I could grow gills, I would. I think being able to nap, completely submerged, in a tub of steamy water, would be heaven. Or to be able to dive, without the cumbersomeness of air tanks...to lay on the bottom and look UP and watch the sun stream through the water. But I wander from my topic...there are days when I will settle into water nearly hot enough to be scalding and for a little bit, all is right with my world. The muscles relax, the nerve endings are more concerned with the water temperature and my mind wanders freely...it washes away all that is wrong.

Air conditioning. 

Besides being wrapped in hot water, I don't like being hot. Every time I walk into a room that is artificially cooled for my comfort, I am grateful.

Alarm clock. 

Ahhh, you are all wrong. Even though we should be thankful for the invention that gets everybody to where they need to be on time...that is not what makes me grateful. What makes me blissfully happy, is every single night that I go to bed...and don't have to turn it ON. I swear, every night, I celebrate a little when I don't have to slide that switch to ON. And on a slightly off track happiness...I love the nights when I can go to bed because I am sleepy, and not because the clock indicates it's bedtime. Which happens to coincide with not having to set my alarm. Tonight would be one of those nights...and I am grateful and a bit sleepy.

That time of year

I think a lot about my parents this time of year. dad's birthday was in August, he died in September and mom died in October. I try not to mark the anniversaries but have found it nearly impossible to ignore them. I loved my dad, but had a difficult relationship with my mother. She was abusive, physically, verbally and emotionally. She told me once that she was jealous of me...who is jealous of their child? She was manipulative and when she couldn't manipulate me, she tried to control others that she thought could influence me...like me husband and sons. I was telling someone recently about "Hurricane Norma". She would go into my room and toss it...mattress pulled from the bed into the floor with all the bedding stripped because it wasn't made right. She would remove my clothes from the hangers and dump them all into the floor, because they were not organized properly. She would pull all the drawers out and turn them upside down, emptying them into the floor, then replace the drawer, because they were messy. So I would come home from school to this disaster and be told, "Now, clean it right." I never knew when the storm would blow through, or what set it off. It has been suggested to me that maybe she was searching my room and this is how she hid it. I guess it's a possibility. This started about the time I was in, maybe 5th grade...which was about the time she quit hitting me. I have also been asked if my dad knew about the abuse. I don't know. I never told him, or anybody else. I never asked him either. I don't know, it never occurred to me. It never ever occurred to me, that if he knew, why didn't he stop it? These are things other people have asked me after my parents died. It would have been very painful to admit to myself that my dad knew, and did nothing...it's also hard to imagine that he could have lived in the same house and not known what was happening. But then, I remember my mother showing the bruises to her sister once. I was probably around 8. I have no idea why she showed them to her, I only remember her pulling my shirt up...yes, I had bruises to my back...and buttocks and legs. Mom's aim wasn't so good. Yet, years later, while my mother was hospitalized, that same aunt asked why I did not have a good relationship with my mother and I mentioned the abuse, she flat out told me she did not believe me. One of the last things I remember my mom saying to me, as I bent to kiss her good-bye, was, "Get your ugly pig face away from me." Nice last memory, huh? I tried so hard to maintain a civil, if not loving relationship with her. I'm not sure why. I guess I did it for dad...now, I wonder if it was worth it. The best relationship I had with them was when they lived far enough away that I saw them once or twice a year...and even then, mom managed to show up at my house unannounced, with plans to stay a month, coinciding, and cancelling, my own vacation plans to take my kids camping. I've had people tell me that they would just have gone on with their plans...they didn't know my mother. No matter how old you get, you never outgrow the scars of your childhood, especially when they've been inflicted by the very people that should have been protecting you.