Tapestry of Reflection

Tapestry of Reflection


Lately, I’ve been feeling, for lack of a more delicate way to describe it, older than dirt. Many of my friends and most of my family are either dying or dead. I no longer leave home often for work because I am the sole caregiver to my eighty-six year-old mother. My children are busy living their lives, following their dreams, and are preoccupied with relationships. I should have listened to my grandmother when she told me “Child don’t ever grow old.”

My lawn has become my reprieve from daily negativity and my escape from the rooms in my home that seem to grow smaller with each passing day. I have entered a new phase of creation and perfect maintenance. I work with the soil, I plant seeds, I cultivate flowers, and sometimes while digging up a plot of ground for a new rose bush or Hibiscus I find a treasure trove of memories. I found one of those today.

I stopped to allow a few tears to flow when I found the old rusted out coffee can buried about a foot deep in my back yard. When it was placed there the boys had called it a time capsule. When I first hit the can with the shovel and stopped to see what was keeping me from digging into the soil, I was aware of just how much time had gone past. I gently scrapped away the dirt around the can and with trembling hands lifted it from the burial spot two young boys had chosen about fifteen years ago.

Inside of the can I found two empty shotgun shells, a piece of old pipe, an old porcelain insulator, one Batman figurine with a broken arm, one Spiderman figurine with a missing foot, one black checker and one red checker, and about four of my daughter’s N’Sync dolls. Her dolls, I’m pretty sure, were not meant to be any kind of clue for historians. There were meant to disappear and never reappear where the boys would have to see them.

Children enter the house wrapped in blankets, snug in the arms of anxious parents. Before long they are drooling and spitting up on everything they come in contact with. They learn to run almost before they learn to walk and it seems like only hours have passed before you hear, “Mom, he just hit me with that rubber chicken!”

I wish I could remember more of the concoctions the boys put together when they thought I wasn’t paying attention. The youngest boy once painted the bathroom walls with a mixture of toothpaste, mouthwash, and spray bathroom cleaner. “You said you didn’t like the color anymore and wanted to paint it,” he said in self-defense right after I cut loose with a high pitched scream that broke the next door neighbors drinking glasses.

Once the two boys, determined to have revenge on their older sister, decided to cook her some pudding. She had used the boys as make up experiments when she had friends over and the older boy was left with a strange shade of blue on his eyelids while the younger boy looked like he had a permanent case of Fifth's Disease on his cheeks. The pudding was a vanilla pudding base (leftover dessert from lunch that day), mixed with balsamic vinegar, red food coloring, and plastic ants that were strategically placed in the bottom of the serving dish. Thank goodness the first bite gagged her and she never found the ants!

Then, before the mess from the pudding was even cleaned up, my daughter appeared in designer blouses, pierced ears, and painted nails. A telephone seemed to be growing from the side of her head because it was always attached to her ear and she was always with a friend. They giggled when the rest of the house was quiet and sat sulking over God only knows what when the rest of the house was alive with noise and movement.

The boys were wearing pressed shirts and tight fitting jeans, brown and blonde locks (respectively) either plastered down on their heads or sticking up in the air as if they just stuck their finger into an electrical outlet and the voltage escaped through their heads.

The girl loved to shop, one boy was artistic and the other boy loved to play basketball. Then one boy decided he must be in dress clothes at all times while the other boy wore jeans and sweatshirts with hoods. All three children were enthusiastic when report cards were due from school because they knew they would receive an extra allowance for each “A” they received. One time I thought I would have to take a loan out on the house to pay them for the perfect marks they brought home but I didn’t care. It was worth it. THEY were worth it.

The boys sometimes made their sister cry. She sometimes made them laugh out loud. Somehow it all balanced out and they learned from each other. “You retard!” she said to one of the boys. “You nerd!” one of the boys replied.

“You’re brats!” she said loud enough for me to hear. “Well, you’re like a bad apparition that won’t go away!” the oldest boy replied.

“Mom! What’s an apparition?” she yelled out to me. (Keep in mind she was almost ten years older than the oldest boy.)

They all entered the house, kissed me, sometimes argued, sometimes pulled pranks, but always went to sleep in their own beds, safe, well-fed, exhausted, eager to face the next day.

Now the house feels empty. One teenager lives in the house, though not one of the original three children who grew up here. The youngest of the Three Stooges, my nickname for my children, has already died and the other two live in separate cities. If I put my car keys on the dining room table and come back two hours later they are still there. If I buy three boxes of cookies at the market only one box gets eaten the same day I bring them home. I thought I would enjoy this time in my life but in all honesty, it’s just plain weird. The years went past way too fast for my liking.

I mow the lawn. I plant seeds and plants. I hoe, I mulch, I cultivate. I tenderly pluck withered petals from the roses and attack weeds around my flowers as if they were burglars invading my home. My flowers beds are lush, filled with green plants and potted flowers. I tend to them with love and dedication just as I once tended to my children.

I placed the rusted coffee can and all of the contents back into the ground for someone else to find sometime in the future. I will keep the memories it brought back to me safe within my heart. Life is really a tapestry of moments shared and moments spent wishing you were sharing them. I just wish I had more time to spend on weaving an even more elaborate tapestry.

© Dianna Doles-Petry

6/02/2010

Backyard Adventure

 

"I'm not crazy. I'm perfectly sane!"

I was beginning to feel as if I was sweating it out under big bright lights in a dark interrogation room. They were circling around me asking questions like vultures waiting for someone to fall over dead so they could eat the carcass. "Why were you screaming?" "What happened out there?" "Why is your backside covered in mud?" Oh, the stress they were causing me!

Just moments before I had been serenely sitting outside trying to lure my beautiful house cat, Salem, into my arms. I was beneath a shelter meant to protect assorted ATV's, bicycles, lawn mowers, and just about anything else people like to keep without having it in the house. Just as I picked Salem up and started to make the walk from the shelter to the kitchen door, I felt raindrops start to pound against my skin so hard it actually made my face sting.

"Dianna! Are you out there?" My neighbor yelled from the inside of my kitchen. She tried to open the kitchen door and the wind caught it which forced it out of her hand. It banged against the side of the house and startled poor Salem. He jumped out of my arms and I tried to recapture him before he hit the ground. That's when I felt my feet sliding on the water logged ground.

Just as I felt my ample backside make contact with the wet earth, and not in a graceful manner, something struck out at my pants leg. I was screaming. I could hear myself. Somewhere above the sound of the rain falling on my metal roof, the dogs inside the house barking because they couldn't get outside, and redneck local boys revving up 4-wheelers to go "muddin," I could hear Salem yowling as if he was about to fight a wild cat.

Slipping and sliding all over the ground, I tried to regain my balance to stand up. My hair was wet and hanging from my head like an old kitchen mop and my heart was beating wildly in my chest. I was sure I had been snake-bitten and if I didn't get away quickly it would strike me again.

Saliva started to run out of my mouth. "Oh God," I remember thinking, "Please don't let me die out here in a pouring rain!" Then something landed against the calf of my leg again. This time it attached itself to my pants and I just knew I was a goner! I could almost feel the venom oozing through my bloodstream.

Salem sauntered past me and turned his face to look around, his eyes cool and curious, as I finally managed to stand on my feet. I bent over to scoop him up to save him from the snake I could feel holding onto my leg for dear life. That's when I realized it wasn't a snake at all...it was a toad. It was a small toad. It was a venom-free toad. A small, venom-free, harmless toad.

"Shhh, listen," I urged the interrogators.

"Listen for what?" They weren't listening at all. Nobody listened. I was counting on the fact that they never listen.

"He's getting away! Quick, stop him! Stop that bear!" I yelled out.

"Are you crazy? We're not going out there with a bear! How did a bear even get into the yard?" All of the teenagers in my kitchen, and the neighbor who had long forgotten what she wanted to tell me, were pressed against the window panes and the screen door to keep an eye out for the bear.

I couldn't very well tell them that a poor little toad had nearly given me a heart attack, now could I? A bear chasing me around the yard was a much better story and I'm sure everyone in the neighborhood will be talking about this tomorrow instead of complaining about all the rain we've had lately.

"I'm not crazy. I'm perfectly sane! Really!"

© Dianna Doles-Petry

Life at Fifty-one Years and Counting

Life at Fifty-one Years and Counting


My Goddaughter spends a couple of evenings a week with me and there are times when I’m not sure if she’s going to help me keep my youthful exuberance and good health or she’s going to finish off what energy for life I have left.

Every outfit this young lady wears has some combination of layered tank tops with the word Aeropostalé emblazoned across her chest for everyone to view. She is making a statement to the rest of her generation. She can be preppy, explore her surroundings, and still be comfortable. I always opt for total comfort these days. In fact, I’ve become all about comfort in my clothes, my home, and my own skin.

My teen years were filled with bell-bottomed jeans that I split at the side seams to add even more fabric of contrasting color. I visited “hippie” shops where I purchased incense by the pound and bought music strictly for the shock it would bring to my parents. I was a nice person but I had a burning desire to be seen as a wild child. I couldn’t stand the thought of being out of control long enough to actually try smoking a joint or drinking alcohol but I struggled to appear “cool” to my friends. It took a while for me to find the balance I needed in my life to be professional by day and let my hair down by night.

My Goddaughter often argues with her mother over curfews, sleeping over with friends, school, boys, etc. It’s all perfectly normal because at her age life is all about her. It IS a big deal if she wakes up with a pimple on the morning school photos will be taken. It IS a big deal if her peers don’t understand her or include her in activities. It IS a big deal if her mother wants her to wear granny panties. After all, the teenage years are hard enough without the extra stress of imperfection.

I try to show this beautiful young woman who reminds me daily that she is “ALMOST fifteen” that life is about more than the little bubble we live in at the moment. Compassion, forgiveness, and self-discipline are all mandatory in our lives if we are going to be happy and prosper. We have to learn to work together and keep an open heart. We all have to bend sometimes and we all want to feel needed and important.

I’m trying to remember how long it took me to realize that I wasn’t personally responsible for making the Titanic sink or the Hindenburg fall out of the sky. I am one little pebble on a journey filled with rough stones and night winds. I’m not really sure when it happened but I did start to understand that absolutely nothing is solely about me. I’m pretty sure it was much later than my fourteenth year of life though.

Life can be weird when you hit the fifty year mark and it keeps growing more strange by the day. I accept that everyone has their own hang-ups and quite frankly, I’m too busy fighting off hot flashes and intense cravings for chocolate to really care. Maybe I watch my Goddaughter and think about how fast the years have passed in my life. Maybe I feel a twinge of my own mortality and sense that life as I know it is running out. Life itself is running out. Why should I be worried about whether or not my purse matches my shoes at this point in my life?

I really feel bad for my Goddaughter and her youthful innocence. She has so much learning to do. She’s going to have to find out who she really is and reach for her goals. I know who I am and I’m comfortable with myself. Maybe I’ll buy her one of those whales squealing relaxation noise machines to put in her bedroom for those times when her thoughts are racing and she can’t get to sleep until it’s time to get up for the day. Maybe she will help me figure out how to download my old Grand Funk Railroad music onto this darn IPod!

One of these days we’ll recall the memories we’re making as she goes through her teenage years and we’ll laugh and maybe even shed a few tears. Hugs will be plentiful and our hearts will meld together when we remember the joys and heartaches we experience as we go through these days of our lives. But that won’t happen anytime soon. She’s a teenager and I’m fifty-one years-old and still counting. I’m not sure what I’m counting now, I’ve misplaced it or forgotten it and my Goddaughter is too busy checking herself out in the bathroom mirror to remind me.

© Dianna Doles-Petry
April 28, 2010

Blessings in an Ordinary Day

Blessings in an Ordinary Day


My eighty-two year old neighbor came to visit with me today. She appeared at my back door at a time when I was trying to juggle three tasks at one time; preparing breakfast, refilling my mother's medicine tray, and brewing coffee, or as my family often reminds me, my life blood. At first I felt a pang of anxiety because I was so busy and didn't want to have a visit with anyone but then she held out a gift for me and I not only smiled, I stopped to take two Tupperware containers from her hands.

Without realizing what I had done at just that moment, I know now that I made a split-second decision that felt right to me. It was the right decision to make. By stopping to smile at my neighbor and thank her for making my day a bit brighter we had both received a gift. She needed the gifts of attention and friendship this morning while the gift I needed was a reminder to stop and smell the roses, or in this case, the coffee.

The Tupperware containers contained freshly ground coffee and memories of a different era in my life. Sally, my neighbor, asked, "Dianna, do you remember where I got that Tupperware? You were just a strip of a girl and you had a party with this stuff. It was the first time I ever went to a party to buy plastic containers but I sure did have a good time. Now I come over here for coffee about every day so I figured I would bring you some coffee for brewing and get you to take a break long enough to drink a cup with me."

I slathered heart-healthy spread on the butter I took from the toaster, added milk to two bowls of shredded wheat, and took fresh strawberry jam from the refrigerator. My mother and Sally took seats at the dining room table and I poured three cups of coffee, one for each of us. While the two older women enjoyed cereal and toast, I checked out the Tupperware.

"Sally, how in the world did you remember where you got this Tupperware?" I asked.

"Well, Child, lift up the lid. You'll see. I always figured on giving it back to you some day and today seemed like a good day to do it."

I lifted the dark blue lid of one of the containers and saw that my name had been neatly etched into the plastic along with a date, July, 1974. My thoughts started to drift back to my teenage years. I always seemed to be finding ways to make a few dollars back then. One year I wore the rubber right off of my tennis shoes by walking door to door selling greeting cards. Another time I sold a tabloid like newspaper, "The Grit", door to door for a few months. I sold raffle tickets, I cleaned windows, I washed cars, and I groomed pets, but my biggest money maker had turned out to be selling Tupperware.

My mother and most of the women in this community were old fashioned stay at home wives. The only parties they attended were baby showers, bridal showers, and family occasions or events held at church. Even those were rare because I grew up in a coal mining camp where the men worked swing shifts and dads were not always available to watch the children while a woman went anywhere alone. Babysitters, while not unheard of at that time, were not in high demand in this area. The point is that these "parties" could be held in the middle of the afternoon or in the early evening and they were perfectly acceptable. The Tupperware was also an item that could be used by women of all ages.

"Dianna," Sally said, jolting me out of my stroll down memory lane. "Do you remember trying to teach us all how to burp those containers?" Sally laughed so hard at the end of this question that coffee spewed from her nostrils. "I think it was harder than burping a baby! I also think you learned to make sure the container was empty when you did that demonstration!"

Have I mentioned that Jell-O was also wildly popular as a dessert in the 1970's? I can still see the look on the widow Brown's face as bright red Jell-O seemed to jump from a little square Tupperware container and land right at the top of her ample bosom before beginning a slow decline through the mounds of flesh and onward to the top of her girdle. She was jiggling more than the Jell-O as she worked to unfasten the top buttons of her dress to remove the Jell-O.

"Oh, I remember that very well, Sally," I said with a smile.

"Child, you might not have known it, but every one of the women that came to your parties left there smiling and just praying you would have another party like that. We all went home thinking about the plastic junk we had bought to add to our saved up butter bowls and jelly glasses in the cabinets. We didn't really need that junk, we bought it to help you and we bought it to get together and save our sanity. You were funny, friendly, and fed us all finger foods we didn't have to fix ourselves. You wouldn't want to have another one of those parties would you? I'd buy some more of that Tupperware and you could send it to your daughter!" Sally's face was full of expression and happiness. My mother's face was full of need for me to refill her coffee cup.

I realized at that very moment how overwhelmed I sometimes feel by the frustrations of trying to be everything to everyone in my life. There are many moments when I ponder on the dreams that seem to have evaporated and my days that seem to have stalled in a rigid zone of chores and responsibility. What happened to that teenager who was so full of energy, determination, and ingenuity? Well, I think that young girl went through many changes of seasons and scenery and to be honest with myself, they were not all bad.

I've experienced people and places I never dared to dream about and I am still tapping into the potential I never even knew I possessed. I have learned and I have grown. I have been able to see past the rain falling around me to see the rainbow developing after the storm. I have taken the moments from my life and turned them into adventures I can retell and memories I can use to warm my soul during a cold period in time. That teenager seeking to make a fortune and see the world became a woman who brings her own unique gift to this world every day in some small way.

My mother started to bang her spoon against her empty cereal bowl and Sally gently placed her hand on one of my mother's hands. My mother seemed to calm down and I saw a tear trickle down Sally's face. "Would either of you ladies like another cup of coffee or some more toast?" I asked.

Sally stood and said, "Well, I'd better be heading home. My phone might be ringing off the hook you know. Every now and again one of my children remembers that they have a mother.” Her facial expression saddened and then she looked at me before adding, "Dianna, you have no idea of how blessed you are to have such a close family. You're a blessing to your friends and family every day."

I felt a tear trickle down my cheek as Sally walked past me. We aren't alone in this world. Many people face the same struggles and we all need a human touch of kindness. I'm pretty sure that I often search for the wrong blessings and overlook the blessings I'm given in an ordinary day. Sally is one of those blessings.

I guess Tupperware might have been designed to keep food fresh but for me it preserved memories, friendship, and a reminder that miracles happen when you least expect them. I think I need to purchase some new Tupperware very soon.


© Dianna Doles-Petry

03/25/2010

One of Life's Embarrassing Moments

An email I received from a friend earlier today caused me to take a stroll down memory lane this evening. A statement at the end of the email said something about breaking elastic and having your panties falling down around your ankles if you didn't forward the contents of the email. My grandmother had her own version of breaking elastic and it had nothing to do with friendship or email.


You see, my grandmother had nine children and money got very, very tight when my grandfather lost his coal trucking business and his ability to make a living for the family came to a screeching halt. He did what he could to make ends meet but with nine children there was never any money left over to be spent on luxury items.

My grandmother made do with what she had for as long as humanly possible. She learned to stretch a meal in ways I don't even like to think about. For the longest time she sewed clothes for the children to wear and made repair after countless repair on every dress, blouse, sock, and anything else the family was wearing. Finally, her sewing machine wore out and everything had to be sewn or repaired by hand. When the elastic in her undergarments started to lose their grip, she began using a safety pin to keep them snug on her waist.

One beautiful sunny day, as her story went, she walked three of her nine children to the nearest grocer (almost two miles away) to purchase food staples. She always left the oldest child at home to watch over the younger children and took the next three oldest with her to help carry the bags of groceries. Only the necessities needed for the kitchen were purchased and the girls knew it would be a much longer walk home than it would be to get to town. On this day, just as she and the children stepped out of the store, all carrying arms full of bags containing flour, sugar, beans, lard, etc., my grandmother felt a snap against the skin at her waist. Then she felt a slight prick as the open end of the safety pin pushed into her hip.

There was no where to set the bags of groceries down and the children walking in front of her had no idea of what was going on behind them. My grandmother felt her panties sliding over her hips and she tried to squirm around to keep them in place with no luck. Within seconds the panties were down around her ankles and the only thing she could think to do was to simply step out of them and continue walking.

As luck would have it, the three girls started to grow weary from the weight of the bags and their pace became slower and slower. Before long a man and woman who attended church with my grandmother walked up behind her and the girls. The gentleman took the heaviest of the bags from my grandmother before moving forward to talk with the girls and help to lessen their load. His wife, with a face red with anger, started to talk to my grandmother. "Okie, did you see the panties some Jezebel had the audacity to leave laying right there on the side of the road where decent families have to walk? I'm telling you, there is no telling what goes on after dark in these parts. I surely won't have my Albert out here to catch sight of such goings on!"

My grandmother said he could feel her face and neck flush with embarrassment. She didn't dare tell the woman that it was not a Jezebel that dropped her panties. It was good old church attending Opal who dropped her drawers because she didn't have any elastic! After that, as I understand it, she used two safety pins to hold up her undergarments at all times!

© Dianna Doles Petry
3/3/2010

Treasuring My Life

Treasuring My Life


My life has been hectic for a few years now. Lately, with my mother’s health declining on a daily basis and me being her full time caregiver, the days have felt unbearable at times. I have recently learned to breathe in slowly and breathe out even slower to calm myself and help me to appreciate the blessings I have in my life. It does not totally alleviate the stress but it does help me to relax.

I do these deep breathing exercises at the end of the evening when I want to sit at my computer and ease my weary soul by tapping away at the keyboard until my thoughts and feelings are neatly bundled into a journal entry or an essay. It is at that moment, when a sense of accomplishment envelopes me, that I feel thankful for being safe, warm, and capable.

As I look back at my day I can almost always find a few moments that make me smile, some that make me think about my past, and still others that make me wonder what the future might hold. A special moment from today was my mother telling me that her father had been in the living room praying with the sailor on the wall. My grandfather passed away thirty-six years ago and the sailor on the wall is my late father who passed away twenty-one years ago. Still, my mother was adamant about their presence in our living room and she described the scene in great detail. It brought her comfort and peace. Who am I to tell her that it is beyond possibility? I listened quietly and smiled at her when she was done talking.

I have been complaining about having cabin fever but tonight I feel no negativity in my heart or mind. I am grateful for the home that is warm and sturdy as the snow continues to pile up on the lawn. I am grateful for the love of my children, family, and friends. I appreciate each and every blessing that comes to me including being able to care for my mother during her fragile days. While life has given me many challenges and a lot of heartbreak I have also been given many small joys in everyday life.

Over the last few days I have cried over deaths, I rejoiced for a birth, and I have prayed for people all over the world who have been through upheavals and devastating natural disasters. The blessing I find in this is being able to pray for them. I am living to see these events unfold and I am able to reach out to others in some small way to make a difference. I am here to see the outpouring of love and faith that is given to people in need without regard to location, race, or beliefs. I am blessed to finally understand that we are all the same no matter where we live, how much or how little money we make, and no matter what color our skin might be. We can band together. We can work together. We can make a difference in the world together.

I don’t know what tomorrow might bring. It could bring a storm that unleashes the Heavens in a way no one has ever seen or it could bring a rainbow with colors so magnificent people will take photographs of the rainbow until it dissipates. No matter what tomorrow brings, I will be grateful just to be a part of it and have the chance to record the journey as I travel toward my final destination.

I think we all have miracles in our lives but we don’t always see them. My mother has an open mind now. Her interactions with life are not limited by her fears or her beliefs. She sees things the rest of us are unable to see. This is her miracle. This is her blessing. I think I was blessed to share a small part of that miracle with her today. It was one more reason for me to treasure my life.

© Dianna Doles-Petry 2/16/2010

Thoughts on Lying

A couple of weeks ago I opened my email to find a challenge from a dear friend of mine. Her challenge for those of us in her writing circle was to start a blog and post at least three entries a month. I’ve started a few blogs before but they never seemed to take off or offer me inspiration. This one, however, has been different. This gesture to please my friend and widen our circle of writing acquaintances has started a journey down a road that is paved with self-reflection and introspection.

I’ve written about my need to write, the perils I’m facing as I age, and how stereotyping people can be painful and destructive. Tonight I am writing about lying and how I feel about it. I guess I have learned to lie, (with only the best of intentions), but I get very irritated when someone, (namely my teenager), lies to me.

I’m not an expert on this matter but I would bet that we all lie to some degree when we’re with our friends or our family. Most of us refer to these lies as “little white lies.” I remember a day in the late 1970’s when I had taken my niece on a shopping excursion. She is only five years younger than I am and I always enjoyed her company. I was an old married woman of twenty years-old and that placed her at the age of fifteen years-old. We giggled, tried on clothes in store after store, and walked through the mall until blisters were forming on our feet.

My niece wanted to grab a snack before we headed back to the vehicle so we headed to the food court of the mall. Just as we were sitting down I heard my niece speak to someone. I turned just as she said to the lady, in a very loud voice, “Gee, do you think you could find an uglier blouse?” I was in shock and people around us were laughing. The middle-aged lady left the table without saying a word as she pulled her sweater closed and walked away without looking back. I scolded my niece for being rude and her argument was, “But I was only telling the truth.”

Sometimes the truth, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. For instance, many people think Andy Warhol’s art is creative genius while others think he was probably poking fun at the people who pay huge sums of money for art. I must admit, I have a copy of one of his famous pieces, a soup can, hanging in my upstairs hallway.

Anyway, do you really need to say anything to someone that will cause them to be embarrassed for the sake of honesty? Is dancing around the truth the same thing as telling a lie? Is it better to make up an excuse for declining an invitation instead of just saying, “I just don’t want to see that horrid movie or have dinner at that cheap restaurant?”

I tend to tell peace keeping lies at times. I see no need to have anyone irritated or arguing if I can keep trouble down. For instance, my telephone has caller ID and voicemail so I know if a call comes through whether I am here to answer it or not. Just yesterday my brother was here spending some time helping me with my mother. His ex-wife, whom he still dates, had called several times and my brother had not picked up the phone. He has excellent hearing too. When his ex showed up here at in the early evening hours and demanded to know why he hadn’t answered the phone, his response, without batting an eye, was “I never heard it ring and it didn’t show up on the phone.” It wasn’t on the main phone because he had deleted the entries but they were still listed on my office phone. I felt guilty knowing that he told her a lie yet I did not challenge him because I knew it would cause a fight between them. In my eyes, I told the lie myself because by not saying anything I backed up his lie.

I lie to my mother about the state of her health at times. I never tell her that she’s young and strong or that she will soon be running a marathon but I don’t tell her that only a miracle will keep her heart beating indefinitely. I dance around the truth to protect her because she trusts me, she relies on me, and because I can’t stand to see her frightened or worried if I can prevent it.

I’m not claiming to know what’s best for anyone else, I’m not God. I only follow my heart and trust my instincts to help me do the right thing. But is lying ever right?

Then there are the lies meant to manipulate and control, the lies teenagers often tell and some never outgrow. They come in late and weave a tale of events that kept them out the extra twenty-five minutes past curfew or they can’t account for money they’ve spent and tell you they ate six burgers, three fries, and two milkshakes from McDonalds. When you ask how they got there since they are not supposed to be in any vehicle with another teenager without prior permission, they tell you that somebody’s mother picked up all this food and brought it to them…even though her child wasn’t there and she had no way of knowing how many people were there and she works a minimum wage job to keep her own children fed. Sigh…

Lies, I have come to believe, fit some people like a second skin. They are good at lying, most of the time they don’t get caught, and they don’t feel a single pang of remorse after they tell a lie. For most of these people, if they get caught lying, they just tell another lie, usually one that gains sympathy or understanding, to cover up the first lie.

My final thought is that some people actually start to believe the lies they tell and without those lies, their lives would unravel. My palms get sweaty if I even hear that someone else did something wrong so there is no way I could tell a lie and believe what I’m telling. I’m sure most people are the same way. They don’t lie because while someone else might buy the line of bull, they don’t accept it themselves.

Do you lie?

© Dianna Doles-Petry

2/3/2010

Oh, the Joys of Aging!

Oh, the Joys of Aging!


Warning! If you are male and have not reached the age of maturity required to understand a woman going through “the change of life,” please stop here. Reading the rest of this post could frighten you away from women for the rest of your life.

I’ll start with my mornings. Just five years ago I sprang from my bed each morning like a recruit going through boot camp. I dressed, applied make-up, started breakfast and then jogged in place while it was cooking. I gulped down a couple of cups of coffee and a small bowl of cereal and I was ready to face the day. I was so upbeat and perky that my neighbors thought I was using drugs and asked me about it. “Hey, what kind of drugs are you taking? Do you have any extra? I sure could use some!”

Now I wake up feeling like I have been fighting with Jackie Chan or Chuck Norris all night long. I can barely force myself into the kitchen to start the coffee pot but I know I NEED that caffeine fix to even manage to get myself dressed. Breakfast is something I prepare for others since virtually everything I eat ends up in the land of cellulite buried within my now gravity-challenged body. Before I can consume the first whole cup of coffee I am on my way to the ladies’ room and I make sure to keep the décor in that area simple and bright because I now spend a lot of time there. In fact, one of my dear friends was visiting here not long ago and thought I was hiding a bottle of liquor in the linen pantry of the restroom because I made so many trips in there while during the day. Grief, she would really think something was going on if she saw how many trips I make there during the night!

By midmorning I often feel as if I’ve wandered off into the heat of the Arizona desert. We are in the middle of winter here and I’m wearing sleeveless summer blouses and still sweating from my neck down to my thighs. I am sure the house is far too hot and I even consider turning on the air conditioning until I look over and see my elderly mother shivering, the dogs packed tightly together huddling under the dining room table and I realize that I can see my own breath in the air every time I exhale. Then, as if on cue, I start to feel the chill in the air and announce loudly, “God, the temperature is dropping again! I need to get a sweater and turn that thermostat up.” Is it possible for dogs to clap their little paws together? I’m sure I’ve heard applause a time or two when my hot flashes have passed for a bit.

I’m not sure I should even mention how my skin itches, my thoughts seem fuzzy at times, I am having a hard time with multi-tasking these days, and I’m finding it impossible to get a full night of sleep that allows me to wake up feeling refreshed.

My grandmother warned me about the change of life, or at least, she considered it a warning. She made it sound like racing through the child bearing years was enjoyable and I would want to grieve once the day came when I would not be able to conceive anymore. My grandmother had nine children and I know that the last child, her only son, came just as she was entering the point in her life when cycles become irregular and gray begins to appear in your hair.

I think she had to have been drinking or something. I look into the mirror and I see my mother looking back at me. I take a pill for high blood pressure and another pill for a thyroid condition. I have stiffening joints and sometimes I have to write my age in the palm of my hand with an ink pen before I go to a doctor’s appointment the way I used to write crib notes before a big test in high school. I would never be able to keep up with an infant at this age and I would probably lay the poor little thing down somewhere and forget where I put it.

The truth is; I feel liberated these days. I don’t have any young children at home and I can spend more time exploring my own needs rather than worrying about who needs to be where and who has a school project due. While I am a caretaker to my elderly mother, I am blessed to be able to do this and I’m sure that the long hours I keep doing this are a part of what keeps me tired but it also leaves me feeling fulfilled.

I may not be a walking magnet for a man’s attention anymore but I accept my body as a living roadmap of the journeys I’ve traveled and the battles I’ve fought. I’ve accomplished a lot in my fifty-one years of living and I plan to accomplish a lot more before I’m done if God’s willing and the creek doesn’t rise. I still clean up pretty good too, I just have to remember to cover up the wings I now have where my upper arms once resided.

As a younger woman, I planned my entire existence around other people and their needs. I thought every detail of my life should be in order and meet the approval of friends, family, neighbors, and people I’d never met but MIGHT meet sometime in years to come. I wasn’t sure who I really was or what I was supposed to do with my creative energy. Now, I’m not afraid to face a good challenge and I have more self-confidence than I’ve ever had. I’ve learned to slow down because life is not a race. I breathe, I think, I vent when necessary, and most of all, I don’t waste a minute of my life unnecessarily.

Oh, the joys of aging! Who would have thought it?

© Dianna Doles-Petry

1/28/10