midnight regrets

When i was in high school, i worked for a short time at a doctor's office - filing, dusting, etc.  When afternoons were slow, one of the nurses would work alongside me.  She was older - probably in her 60s or 70s - and i liked it when we worked together because she would tell me stories from her life.

One of the memories she shared was about when her mom died. My colleague had been a young adult at the time; decades later, she still remembered every detail of the day. She described being in the hospital room with her bedridden mother, standing by the window and looking outside as they chatted.  She recalled that, as she looked out the window, her mother said something, but she didn't quite hear what it was...and when she turned around, her mom had died.  I remember the look on her face as she stared off into the memory, sorrow in her eyes that she hadn't caught those last few words.  Even at my young age, i'd understood how difficult and unsettling that must have been to have had the open question still lingering in her mind.

Not many years after that conversation, i experienced the deaths of several people i loved, three within the span of four years. As a college student, i was learning about the stages of grief - Kubler-Ross' denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, among others - and then watching them play out in my own life as my friends passed away. I saw how those stages could be delayed, when one of my best friends died while i was abroad for the year; it wasn't until i returned to the reality of home that i fully processed her loss. Years later, my daddy died, which knocked the world out from under me. And then, another of my closest friends.  Again and again, the stages ran through in their slow, unyielding insistence.  Grief owned me for a time with each loss, sometimes to the point where i could do nothing but grieve for hours or days at a time. 

But, there was something beyond the grief that was consistent with each loss: it was the regret, often which was amplified to guilt.  Some of the regrets were for what my friends would be missing in their lives, for the lost opportunities or their missing futures.  But, the closer i was to the person i lost, there was also the regret - the guilt - about something i had done or had not done.  I regretted never saying good-bye.  I regretted not asking how they were doing.  I regretted the way i treated my dad when i was in junior high...and when i now share this with the middle schoolers, i can't do so without tears in my eyes, because there is no going back.  There is no undoing the mean words i said to him or the hurt that they caused him. There is no way i can go with him on the trip to Hoover Dam he asked me to take when i was visiting after college.  Instead of spending the day with him, i let him take my boyfriend while i stayed home and packed, watching some tv show i cannot even recall.  After he died, i asked my now-ex if he could remember what they talked about.  He wrote a perfect letter, describing where they went, what they ate, what they discussed; i loved the memories, but they weren't mine.  I did remember that when they got back from the dam, my friend asked me if i ever really spent time with my dad, just listening to his stories. I’d had to admit i had not done so for many years.  I will be forever grateful for that question, because it led me to be intentional about spending time with my dad on future visits, just listening and making sure he knew how much i loved him.  I had several more years to hear him; i have no regrets from those years. But, i still missed that trip to Hoover Dam.

Regret is almost an extreme version of disappointment.  They both bring a sinking to our core, a gaping sadness that cannot be filled, because the only thing that can fill the gap is the very thing that is missed.  Disappointment, though, can often be rectified; if we are disappointed about how we have done on a test or a job interview, we might be able to make it up the next time around. If we are disappointed with a Christmas present, we can go to the mall to swap it out for something else.  But, regret is relentless. And, when it comes to death, regret can wrap the entire grieving process into something even more ugly and painful than it already is. If we let it, the regret can become larger than any other aspect of the loss.

This year, the grief and regret have yet again come crashing in, surprisingly this time because of my cats. It still sickens me that i'm using the plural, as i had not expected to lose them both so close to each other.  The boy cat, Buddy, had cancer.  We knew that last year and spent months trying to fix him. Once it became clear that we couldn't, my goal was simply to make each day his best, like a little birthday party every day that he had left.  When we saw that his pain was taking over early this year, we chose to put him to sleep. And, when it was over, i felt like i had led my co-dependent-bottle-fed-kitten cat to his executioner.  I regretted taking him.  I regretted that he'd been scared, even for a moment, and that i had let someone poke him with a needle.  I regretted not letting him just die in peace at home.

Five months later, the girl cat, Jorge, slowly stopped eating.  She was close to 18 years old, so i knew she was not in the best of health.  But, she was feisty and a fighter, and i expected to have her another few years.  When i went to a weekend camp for the middle schoolers, i hated leaving her, but i knew Daryl would be there to keep an eye on her.  What i didn't know was that she was dying.  I left this little cat who had been my company and my friend half my life, and instead of making sure her last days were her best, i just wasn't there for her. When i got home, she was lethargic, slow....i still did not know she was dying so made her eat and drink a little. I later regretted that i ever tried to feed her after i got home; i could have just let her sleep. She never even got a chance to get better. An hour or so later, i picked her up and we both cried as she died in my arms. 

Buddy died at the vet, on a good day. I regretted that choice.  Jorge died at home, on a bad day. I still can't get past all of the regrets around that situation.  Each time i have mourned, i have regretted.  And, long after the other stages have passed, the regret has remained.

Living life without regrets to me is not just about making the most of every moment, but it is also about acknowledging the fact that loss will happen - - and that, when it does, our opportunity to make things right is over. I can't be a better friend to the ones I’ve lost. I can't hug my cats more.  I can't go to Hoover Dam with my dad.  When those last few words are missed, there is no getting them back.

I want to avoid those moments when I stare into a memory and regret the missed opportunity.

But, when i can't, then let there be an abundance of alternative memories to step in and remind me of all that was not missed.  Regret does not get to trump gratitude; focusing on it will only rob me of seeing the blessings that were, and are, in my life.  If i am going to wake up in the middle of the night remembering my people (or my kitties), then i should do so with gratefulness, not guilt.  I loved them. I missed things with all of them, but i also knew them and watched them and laughed with them and learned from them.  And, i am so thankful for those memories i didn't miss.

i don't want to eat a vegetable.

Here's one of my struggles:  I'm a vegetarian who doesn't really love vegetables.  I love food that is easy to eat - things that fit in a toaster, cereal, yogurt, fruit, nuts. Most of my entrees come out of the microwave.  I once made dinner for a friend that consisted of cheetos, grape cool-aid and mac & cheese...and that actually took some effort to pull together.

When I first got married, i tried cooking for Daryl, at least once or twice a week.  But, i soon realized that, while he makes happy sounds when eating his own cooking (apparently his stomach and his mouth are having a little party in there), no such noises come from him when he eats my food.  He says thank you and is nice about it, but there is no dancing going on in that skinny body anywhere...

So, here's my issue with the vegetables:  they are not easy to eat, and they require some cooking ability, which i clearly do not have.  Frozen corn and pre-cut carrots are totally in.  Eggplant?  I love to eat it when the man at the Thai restaurant makes it, but at home, it turns into some black sludgy stuff in my refrigerator.

I also don't really understand them. I once went to the store to buy some type of lettuce thing, and had to ask for help...the produce guy picked up a bunch, shook it, smelled it & then told me it was good.  I asked him what shaking it did, thinking it made the smell come out or that it emitted a special ripe-indicating noise or something.  He gave me the look and said, "To get the water off of it."  (Here's your sign.)  I seriously have no idea what jicama looks like before it has been cut into rectangles. I'd ask the produce guy, but i don't want to get the look again.

This vegetable phobia has made it slightly hard to get good nutrition in.  When I eat in the cafeteria at work, i brave their green stuff, mostly because someone else has cooked it.  But, now, i'm in a fitness show-down with a friend from work who is NOT scared of vegetables.  And, i need to somehow trick myself into eating more of these things so that i can win the coveted title of...well, we haven't really come up with a title.  But, i wouldn't mind if he started calling me Princess Energy or something.

So, here is my plan.  I'm writing it down to force some accountability here, since Daryl will read this and hopefully give me a convicting look when he sees there is a pop-tart in my hand instead of a cucumber.

These are the vegetables i think i can handle eating at home: carrots, salad, corn, edamame (that counts), asparagus out of the can (sodium rinsed off), the easy to microwave frozen veggie combos, cucumbers. And, if i can ever find out what a jicama is, i might actually buy one.  (Or, is it ones? some? a bunch?)

At work/restaurants:  Real asparagus, broccoli, eggplant, + all the above.

Goal: 3.5/day (i couldn't decide btwn 3 & 4). 

Not very adventurous or ambitious, but my goal is to eat more greenish things, not to gag.  Wish me luck = p

wedding story

this was the first (only?) post/blog i ever wrote, so i thought it fitting to make it the first here.   It is the story of the night before our wedding.  I changed three words.  I can do that, because i’m just stealing it from myself….
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so, it’s the night before the wedding…isn’t this is supposed to be the evening of peaceful contemplation and joyous expectation?

i had everything purchased a couple of weeks ago. It felt like i was done Christmas shopping two weeks early – amazing. There was no last-minute scrambling needed…just a quiet day of getting ready for the weekend, with a small break to get my nails done with my niece. I got pale lavender. Again, peaceful.

back home after the manicure, while in the midst of getting stuff together, my college roomie called. As we were talking, i thought it would be a good time to paint my toe nails. If this were a movie, now would be the moment when the music would go “dun-dun-DUNNNNH.”

the middle schoolers had gotten me some metallic blue nail polish for my Something Blue, so my plan was to paint my toes with it (one benefit of having no audience for your wedding is that your toe nails can be any color they want). They were fun, and i was pretty happy…until i noticed metallic blue on one of my pale lavender fingernails. Trying not to freak out, as i was still on the phone, i tried to wipe it off. Lacking nail polish skills, i was unaware that the two colors become one the instant they meet; apparently, there is no wedding ceremony in the nail polish world. The panic slowly started to settle in as we hung up the call.

thinking that i had the dexterity to wipe off only the blue part, i got out the nail polish remover and tried. Instantly, half the color was gone. I then started desperately looking thru my polish drawer for a light lavender, thinking that if i painted it on quickly, it would blend into the existing color like a water color. Not so much. Not only did it not blend, but none of the colors i had even remotely matched the one on my finger. I tried color after color, wiping each off on the palm of my hand when they failed. I ended up with one multi-colored nail, 9 lavender ones, and a palm full of nail polishes…after a minute of trying to wipe them off with remover, i gave up.

deciding that i was going to go insane and waste hours trying to find a match, i figured it would just be faster to jump in the car and go to Walgreens. Forgetting i had wet metallic blue still on my toes, i slipped on sandals, ending up with blue streaks across the tops of both my feet. i was now pretty much covered in nail polish.

this was the first time in my entire shopping life that someone at Walgreens has truly asked to help me. i’m thinking the pajama top/raincoat combo, along with my makeup-less face, might have tipped her off that i was in trouble. Trying to maintain some social decorum, i blurted out, “i’m getting married tomorrow and i got blue on my finger when i was painting my toes and i tried to fix it and now i need to find purple because my finger looks like THIS,” kind of flipping her off with my mis-colored index finger. Of course, they did not carry the type of polish the salon had. In fact, pale lavender, which is available in lip gloss, eye shadow, shampoo bottles, jelly beans and Easter eggs, is apparently only a nail color at the salon. The closest we could come up with was a pale pink and a light blue. Based on my earlier experience, i figured they would just mate and i’d end up with something close enough.

i grabbed a few more things (by this time, i was in serious need of some ice cream) and got to the register, where i noticed that it was pretty blurry. Thinking that was odd, i started looking around and soon realized that the store itself wasn’t actually blurry, but my contact had somehow folded itself in half. After winking at the cashier thru the entire transaction, i then stepped aside to fix my contact.

this might be a good time to refer to an earlier part of the story, where i had poured nail polish and remover into my palm. Remember that part? Yah. Well, unfortunately, i didn’t….thus, when the contact went back into my eye, it was covered with an amazing assortment of little pain-inducing substances.

after a tiny bit of screaming (i did wait until i got back into my truck), i called daryl and told him the story in one continuous sentence that lasted the entire 5 minutes home. He was encouraging, both in telling me that he wasn’t worried at all about what my finger looked like and in assuring me that i had actually gone kind of crazy. Once finally getting home, i anxiously tried my new blue/pink combo. It worked great. Perfect really…except, the blue i’d bought had this surprisingly shiny glitter thing going on. So, for the most memorable day of my life, i will have nine nice pale lavender fingernails and one purple disco one, which required 20 minutes to dry…thus the time to write this note with the non-trouble-making fingers. On the plus side, maybe disco-finger will be able draw attention away from my now bloodshot eye. It should be lovely.

boys reading this might wonder why i didn’t just take all of the polish off and avoid this whole maniacal thing…rational people might wonder why i didn’t just try to go to the salon in the morning. i’m just chalking the whole thing up to wedding brain. And, now that i’ve had some time to sit down and think for a few minutes straight, i have realized something a little disconcerting about myself: i will use ANY excuse to justify eating ice cream.

conclusion to story: once this note was written, i re-looked at the nails, removed all polish, and started again with white. i ended going to bed at about 2:30 a.m. with my hands straight in the air. Whatever…it all worked out = )

blah blah blahg.

They say blog stands for weB LOG.  That sounds important, like the writer has something significant to say.

You know what i think it stands for?  Blah blah BLAHG.  It's about words, which would otherwise be stuck in our brains or forced out of our mouths and into other people's ears.  Here's my BLAHG.  I feel like i just coughed on someone.

But, you know what i love about blahgs? they just stay in one place and don't go around spewing their words on unsuspecting bystanders.  If you're here, you have asked me to blahg on you.  If you don't want to get blahged on, you can just leave it here and never come back to visit.

And, honestly, i started this whole thing because there was so much blahg in my brain, that i wanted somewhere to put it...i'm trying to AVOID spewing it on people.  My poor husband is frequently the recipient of the inane collection of words that make up my blah blah:

"Do you think the turtle gets his feelings hurt when i walk by and don't wave to him?"  BLAHG.

"What is the equivalent of chocolate-flavored food in the meat world?  like, would there ever be beef-flavored meat product?" BLAHG.

"Sometimes i want to live in the country with a man servant and a cow, but i'm not sure if he would be willing to milk the cow, and i don't want to get up that early."  BLAHG.

So, with that in mind, if you are reading this, expect to run into similar thought-provoking life-changers.  It's really just here to help me remember some fun memories, to ponder, and to blah blah blahg.