May 2024 – Sweat & Sparkle

Saturdays, most of the year, are dedicated to yard work. Both my husband and I enjoy plants and gardening, so we actually look forward to it (most of the time, anyway), and we chat during the week about what we would like to get done this weekend.

This past Saturday morning, though, we woke up to rain that promised to stick around for a while. We have a lot of yard work to do, thanks to windy storms passing through and making a mess, but I was secretly glad that we were rained out. I was ready for play time.

Out of the blue that afternoon, my husband asked me if I felt like going for a drive. We decided to head to a town about 90 minutes away for a late lunch/early dinner. As we were getting ready to leave, my husband hesitated and asked, “Is this silly? We’re driving an hour and a half to eat.”

I laughed and told him let’s just go for it. I figured we could find something else to do there to make the drive worthwhile.

Dinner was really good. We joked around and relaxed and just enjoyed ourselves. After we ate, we looked up what else is in the area, and we ended up making a few stops for shopping, picking up a few things that caught our eye, wandering wherever we felt like going next.

On the drive home, we saw a gorgeous sunset, brilliant red and deep pink streaked across darkened clouds. I took a few pictures from the truck to add to my collection of sunrise and sunset photos.

We had to make up for it by spending some time in the yard on Sunday, when the rain cleared, but I am still glad we spontaneously decided to head out and take a mini adventure. It was a lot of fun. My husband said that spending days like that with me means a lot to him, and I agree. It doesn’t sound like much to most people, I suppose, but days like that are the world to me.

Talking Truth

Holding Them Back

After 17+ years of taking the hour-long trip to Hickville for all of the kids’ events, my husband and I are not exactly disappointed that the need for those trips is quickly dwindling. No matter how many times I have been there, I find myself just looking around, shaking my head in disbelief and disgust.

Hickville is a small town, but certainly not in the charming sense. I am from a small town, and I have never seen anything like Hickville. It’s more like an inbred cult than a town. Small minds, big mouths. They are proud of their ignorance and tackiness. The louder and trashier, the better.

No one who cares about the kids’ futures would ever have dragged them to that town. No one who loves the kids would have forced them to try to grow and learn and flourish in a place like that, where enlightenment is scorned, and morphing into another mindless clone is the norm.

The only reason the kids were compelled to grow up in such a stifling, asinine environment is so that Psycho could spare herself from ever facing a single adult responsibility. She greedily refuses to stray from her daddy’s perpetual handouts, letting him think for her, coddle her, pay her bills, even offer up the shack she currently freeloads in. Over 50 years old, and she has never, not once, stood on her own two feet. It’s hard to do that when she lives shamelessly on her knees and refuses to be anything but pathetic.

The youngest child graduates soon. The kids’ opportunity for a decent, basic education is gone. They were forced to attend one of the worst schools in the state, thanks to Psycho. I don’t think they realize yet how much this has wounded them, or how much she doesn’t care.

Even worse is the attitude that leaving that wasteland of a town is some kind of crime. It’s like the adults in that town know that if kids leave, they will realize what a shit hole that town really is, and how backward and uncultivated all the adults are. So they smash their wings, suppress their ambitions, stuff them into whatever cages they can dream up to trap them there.

We attended an event at my stepdaughter’s school the other night. Looking around, I understood Psycho’s refusal to leave. She fully belongs there–a cheap clown in a dysfunctional circus.

Let her stay there and rot, then. But locking the kids up and holding them down should not make anyone happy. Not anyone who truly cares about them.

I hope the kids open their eyes to the entire world just waiting outside of that absurd joke of a town. I hope they find the courage to explore, to learn, to discover opportunities and experiences available to them if they just step out of that damn cage. I hope they are curious, independent, willing to take chances, and strong enough to build their own lives, freedom, dreams, and happiness.

Feel Beautiful

It isn’t new clothes that make me feel beautiful, or a face full of make-up, or a salon visit, or a manicure. It’s the way my husband looks at me when I make him laugh. It’s the way he reaches for me as soon as he wakes up. It’s how he takes my hand when we are walking together. It’s the way he asks me questions, trusts me, leans on me, and is always there to catch me when I stumble. It’s the way he makes me feel like the only woman in the room who matters to him, no matter where we are.

He makes me feel beautiful because he is beautiful: honest, loving, strong, loyal, kind, protective, funny, and by far the biggest smartass I have ever met, and I love all of it.