Perhaps if we had not named us Love
if we had just let emotions run free
we’d still be snuggled side-by-side
beneath the magic of you and me.
No expectations, no promises
just the touch of wanting hands
needs flowing and unbroken
uncrippled by Love’s demands.
Perhaps if we had not named us Love…
Inspired by https://rebeccapells.com/2017/03/01/letting-go/
He shatters my self-worth
with a single sentence.
“You looked prettier before
you went back to work.”
Oh God, I’m nothing.
Wait. I go to the mirror
just to see for myself.
A familiar woman
sadly stares back.
I give her a smile
brush away her tears.
Hey, I look better
since I started working.
I realize, I am not the
woman he says I am,
I am the woman
my own eyes see.
There are many avenues that a woman can take as she approaches mid-life. It’s a sharp curve in the road, where her hair begins to go gray, perversely turning silver even in areas where it’s not very wise to use hair dye.
Her muscles begin to turn soft from the inside out and she’s so glad that girdles have come back in style. She can browse through the available styles and choose anything from super firm, all over control to a gentle control panel. (As if she had any control over her tummy.)
The varicose veins are drawing pictures up her thighs and she shops in the women’s department now because browsing in the junior’s department is just a fond memory since she turned forty. Her black silk stockings used to turn heads, now they hide the spidery lines that have a life of their own and her favorite outfit is a…
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My sisters and I, we like to love Mad Men. Seriously. We are Crazy Women.
The Mad Men we love are always mad at the world and we spend way too much valuable time trying to make them calm and happy…
We are old-fashioned, cooking and cleaning while working full-time, loving our man all night, kinda women.
It doesn’t help very much.
Turns out Mad Men don’t want the all night loving after they get you. They are too busy being Mad at you.
But Mad Men don’t always tell you when they’re Mad…they just make you pay in a million little ways and then tell you it’s your fault.
Can you say Gaslight?
The Mad Men think everything revolves around them and I’m being brutally honest here, Crazy Women agree.
Splitting up is as common as Full Moons in our homes.
We certainly know how to leave, we just don’t know how to stay gone, so reuniting is also on our agendas just as often.
Fight. Cry. Talk. Don’t talk. Pack. Leave. Talk every night for hours. Agree on a fresh start. Pack up. Go home. Unpack. Pack. Leave.
We put up with a bunch of bullshit, but luckily the Mad Men are all different, so our phone calls and visits never get boring.
We got rid of the Mad Men who hit many years ago. I give us credit for that.
However, there are thousands of ways to hurt another human being without hitting them.
We watched our mom maneuver this same road with our dad, a truly certifiable Mad Man, and we vowed that we’d never marry a man like him.
But we did.
We are not weak women.
We are strong, intelligent, creative, loving, caring, beautiful women.
But once we fall in love, we give of ourselves until we break and we do not accept defeat gracefully.
My dad begged my mom to leave him before he killed her in a drunken stupor, which he was working on every night, the killing and the stupor.
He would try to wrap the phone cord around her neck and strangle her while my twelve-year-old sister sat on Mom’s lap and stopped him.
My mother’s most famous words were, “Go to bed. your father is not going to kill (or hurt) anyone tonight.”
Our strongest model of reality and she told us we were safe when we were not safe.
Dad even stood over our beds with his hunting rifle now and then. Pondering killing us.
Reality has been confusing for us, at best.
As young girls, we all had a turn sleeping in front of Mom’s bedroom door trying to listen under the crack to see if she was still breathing.
If dad got quiet, she would say, “Go to bed, Ray.”
You would have thought she’d stuck a hot poker in his side because those words would spur the Mad Man on for another hour.
When I write it down and then read it back, it sounds insane and it was, but that was how we lived.
My dad would rant and rave until the sun came up and then we would all try to go to school and my mom would go to work…
It wasn’t hard to find a better man than my father, but I know for myself it took me a long time to realize that on a core level, I was recreating the dynamics of my childhood home and trying to make it come out right.
Four divorces between us, one of us married the same Mad Man twice, not naming any names, baby sister. I would have married mine twice too, but I never got brave enough to divorce him.
I did leave my Mad Man five times, six if you count spending a few nights (alone) crying in a motel. I think that counts.
Serious enough about not going back to buy my own place to live, twice.
I’m in the second place I bought right now, packing to go back home, again.
My sisters and I, we like to love Mad Men. Seriously.
We are Crazy Women.
I have the beginning stages of Fuhgedia or as its also called on the street, Fuhgeddaboudit.
It’s a very peculiar illness and quite common in codependent women.
We go through life blocking out our daily experiences and feelings so well that we start to fuhged who we are and what we are doing, who you are and if you are related to us.
We don’t remember who we were before someone told us who we needed to be, what the desires of our heart really are and how we would like to wear our hair.
So you might have to tell me things more than once…things like the day my newest great-grand baby is due, your birthday, my birthday, what day of the week it is…stuff like that.
Otherwise, I’ll just fuhged about it.
Jeanne Marie, 2016
First, who I am not.
I am not an actress or a model. I don’t have big boobs or a tiny waist. I do not have enough hair to make a pony-tail. I do not have a book on the NY Times bestseller’s list. (Yet.)
I will never win the Nobel Peace Prize or invent a cure for alcoholism or mental illness, although my family would benefit and it would be a fine start toward world peace.
I do write women’s humor, which doesn’t pay, and I spent five years covering drag racing events, a job that did pay. I also took pictures at the racetracks, had a picture make the magazine cover and I sold my action shots to racers, so I suppose that makes me a professional photographer, although I still claim amateur status. I’ve won literary awards for my essays and my checking account is usually empty.
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October blues appear out of sync amidst the brilliant reds and golds
watching the leaves change as this heart remains heavy and cold.
Fiery burning colors, so bright they make my head spin
while my eyes smile at the show, my heart refuses to join in.
This time last year, snapping pictures with childlike abandon
dashing from tree to tree from river to mountain to canyon.
That child has been banished, her spirit broken and blue
running from memories that whisper; girl, it was never true.
Jeanne Marie, 2016
My hands grow old
my legs do not
between a girl and
old woman I am caught.
My antique mirror is kind
The selfie pics a fright
My wrinkles will haunt
my dreamscapes tonight.
Just last year, wrinkles?
None. Lost thirty pounds
and crap, the damn
wrinkles, they did come.
Let this be a lesson
to all you over 60 ladies,
no extreme weight loss or
your face will fall to hades.
My very first post on WordPress…
3-9-2013
The Writer’s Husband
“I got it! I got the P.O. Box, so we’re in business now! Let’s go out to eat. I’m starving! Let’s celebrate!” she said, as she exploded into the bedroom.
“I almost didn’t go to the post office, cause I couldn’t find my keys right away, and I said, ‘oh oh, it must be a sign’ and then I found my keys, but when I got to the post office I couldn’t find my checkbook, and I stood outside the post office for a minute, thinking, if I don’t have my checkbook, then it’s not meant to be, cause it’s almost four-thirty!”
“I kept telling myself that I’m stupid to try to start a business, based on my writing. It all seemed so right last night after you read my newsletter, but when I woke up this afternoon I was afraid that I really didn’t have anything to…
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Standing on ice
watching the cracks
spread beneath her feet.
Swan dancing on ice
slipping and sliding.
A million more
cracks appear.
She keeps moving
until she stands in the
center of the frozen lake.
Fractured ice under her feet
no matter which step
she chooses to take.
She walks carefully.
She walks slow.
It’s so lonely.
It’s so cold.
Standing on ice…
watching the cracks
spread beneath her feet.
![IMAG1700_1[1]](https://womenwhothinktoomuch.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/imag1700_11.jpg)
The easiest way to teach you to elaborate on your skills and talents, is to show you my own resume as an example. After you read this, if you need still need help, please email me and I’ll be glad to read over your resume. I’ll even add my own touches to help you enhance it.
Women Who Think Too Much Publications
Publisher, Editor: Jeanne Marie
OBJECTIVE
To obtain a challenging position within your company’s structure while earning above average pay, working part time hours and securing a position with potential for advancement. This will be a second job, so don’t expect too much of me and I hope your objective isn’t to harass me if I’m late for work. Problems that arise at home do have priority.
QUALIFICATIONS
Hands On–I can change dirty diapers, wash baby bottles, wipe the green snot off the face of a runaway child, wash hair that doesn’t want to…
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I’m not so young, I’m not so old
I am at the age where the laundry I don’t fold.
I don’t own an iron…I am proud to say
Even if I did, I wouldn’t use it anyway.
I used to clean from the moment I woke
Now I drink coffee and have me a smoke.
After a few hours, when my bones decide to perform
I take hundreds of pictures of the flowers, wondering
when is somebody going to mow the lawn?
Jeanne Marie, 2016
Like a shamed puppy
I crawl into bed
when he is sound asleep,
hoping for a covert cuddle
from my owner’s hand.
Longing to feel his fingers
run through my messy hair.
Timid, I snuggle and wiggle
under the soft, heavy quilt
until I am against his warm body.
A body I once knew as well as my own.
Stupid. Hoping that even in his sleep
he’ll notice that I’m there.
Beside him, seeking comfort
from a closed, cold heart,
aching to be wanted.
Something?
Anything?
Desperate, aching for intimacy
he cannot give, hoping,
despite hopes shattered in the past
wanting him to love me
the way that he once did,
more than I want air to breathe
more than I want food,
clothes or a roof over my head.
As tears soak my pillow
I remember why
I moved into the bedroom down the hall,
a million miles away, moving away
from the nightly reminder…
He doesn’t want me and
though he says he loves me and he
protects me, tries to take care of me,
even in his sleep he pushes me away.
He used to draw me closer
and wrap his body around mine
even as he slept, he wanted me close.
So here in this home, I stay where I belong
just a shamed puppy who has done no wrong.
The passion is gone and it will never return
That much I guarantee, of this I’m sure
that in this house the fire will not burn.
Jeanne Marie, 2015
How long can her love last without being fed, without being nurtured or returned? A cold shoulder, an angry face.
When a woman’s love is set aside, rejected, it will starve itself to death, after breaking her heart from the inside out.
All that will be left is the casing that once covered her most precious asset, her heart.
As her heart shreds, she needs to find new ways to get her oxygen. She needs her heart to pump blood so that she can breathe. Each gaping, gasping wound demands to be filled…she can’t breathe…she can’t breathe…what will ease the excruciating pain in her heart, her lungs, her soul?
What will soothe the hurting?
Grandbabies, puppies, flowers and ice cream? Rain drops, snowflakes, chocolate and sunshine? Rainbows and Pink Angels? Cigarettes and her antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds? Worst scenario…Southern Comfort and razor blades? Janis Joplin rising from the ashes?
Round and round, up to down, sideways, backwards, seldom standing straight, respite always temporary, pain pushing her into the ground.
Wait.
The door to her self-inflicted hell is open.
Will she walk out?
YES.
A feather in the wind kinda woman…
she’s slipping and swirling
her way to freedom.
The angels will inspire
the happy will beckon
and away she will float.
Door gently closes behind her
as she drifts all the way
oh, so high
all the way done
all the way gone.
When I look in my mirror, I remind me of you.
I see the pain you couldn’t hide.
I see the weariness in your soft brown eyes.
I see your careworn face beneath my disguise.
I see your strength as you faced each day.
I see the sadness that colored your ways.
I see the exact same streaks of greying hair.
I see your courage even though I’m aware
of times when your load was so heavy,
it was far to much for you to bear.
I see your wrinkles, I see your lines.
I see your shadow behind my eyes.
When I look in my mirror I remind me of you.
My first question was, why not everyday? Several women (angrily) asked me that same question when I posted or re-blogged articles related to domestic violence, emotional, verbal or sexual abuse. Well, I told them that I wondered that too, and that I didn’t name the dedication, I was just trying to honor the victims and the survivors because I come from that country and I am fluent in that language.
The question I have asked myself repeatedly this month is this: What does national awareness do for the victims? Does it change the abuser’s mind? Does he (or she) say, “Damn it! I’m not going to swear and scream at you until National Domestic Violence Awareness Month is over, you lucky bitch!”
Does he pay the bills, buy some food, keep his hands off his daughter because it’s National Domestic Violence Awareness Month?
Will the family have a month of peace? Will her neighbor buy ice for her black eye?
The abusers and the victims are all too aware of what domestic violence is and the people who don’t acknowledge it all year long because it’s easier to look away, well they don’t give a flying fig that this month is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month either.
The women who go to shelters expecting to find a way out, expecting someone to teach them how to stand on their own two feet, hoping for training so that they can get a job that will support them and their kids in the future, what do they think about National Domestic Violence Awareness Month?
How about asking the ones who returned home because the shelter was lacking in anything but a whole new set of rules, a bed and some used clothes.
The shelters where women in my family have gone provided a time out, nothing more. If you run a shelter that provides therapy, job training, education, legal representation and daycare, I apologize and I’d also like your hot line phone number.
I will post articles about abuse in October anyway, hoping that even one woman might find the courage to grab her babies and run for safety.
I have read the survivor’s stories and I have read the “he killed her” stories.
I have a “he killed her” story. I had a cousin who was murdered in front of her young son, while living in a shelter.
I cry and I hold every victim’s and every survivor’s story that I have ever read or witnessed in my heart. Including my own.
Victims and abusers, survivors and inflictors, well, to them every month is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. They just don’t talk about it.
So as this official National Domestic Violence Awareness Month begins, I feel helpless. I have no answers, no help for the millions who will go to bed hungry, crying and/or bruised tonight. For those who will sleep in their cars because it is safer than their home or because they have no home and friends and family are sick of helping them only to see them go back to the abuser.
I have tears, but Lord knows, they already have enough tears of their own.
Maybe we could make everyday Domestic Violence Awareness Day.
Cry until you laugh…Women Who Think Too Much by Jeanne Marie
A No Help At All Handbook
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