Tag: jeanne marie

Divorce

Jeanne Marie, 1978

Do I love you?

The Most Beautiful Girl

I saved a Valentine’s Day rose from my son for twenty-odd years.
Then, when it fell apart, I still saved the petals with the card which read, “To the most beautiful girl I know, my mom.”
He was sixteen that day when he brought me a rose at work, handsome and a foot taller than me.
And very smart, because while my tears were still messing with my make-up, he hit me up for a loan to buy his girlfriend a dozen roses and I gave it to him with a smile and a hug…
I kinda knew I had been played, but his technique was awesome. He played it so smooth, almost a man.
He is forty now and I know I’m not the most beautiful girl in his world…two other awesome ladies were destined to share that spot and I love them.
Still, every time I come across the faded card, the sweet words and the dried-out petals…I smile.
I close my eyes and for just a moment, I soak in the memory of his surprise visit, back to the moment when to my son, I was the most beautiful girl he knew…

Clutter

Clutter

Some of the Advantages of Getting Older

gracewrites006
By Grace Christine Doucette (My mom)
I can wear a red hat with a green blouse and yellow pants. People just shake their heads and think, “Well, she’s old.”
Strong young men accost me just to put my groceries in my car. As I adjust my wig, they walk away with a smile, thinking, “Well, she’s old.”
I can smile and wink at every handsome man I see, young or old, and receive a smile or wink in return. It’s safe to flirt now, “I’m old.”
People let me cut in at the grocery store checkout line, and they smile when I have to ask, “What’s the date?” “Oh well, she’s old.”
I can add ten years to my age and smile when people say, “You look so good for your age!”
I can ask for directions, and people lead me right to the place. They don’t want me to get lost, cause “I’m old.”
When I go to the laundry mat, I can mix my colors and my whites in one load. I don’t even flinch when an organized woman sorts her laundry and shakes her head at me, thinking, “She’s old.”
The secret no one knows, is that I present this old face to the world, while inside a young woman laughs at my private joke.
“Who’s old? Not me!”
I love to send scribbles to WWTTM and see them emerge legible and in sharp clean print. I can expose my innermost thoughts to you all and you can laugh at me or with me. I’ve found new friends, though you’re far away and I can’t see your faces, you are all near and dear to me.
I’m not sad about getting older, I did it one day at a time. I’m a product of all my yesterdays, the good and the bad. Today I like who I am, and when I look in the mirror I can honestly say, “Well done kiddo, you did the best you could with what you had!”

I’m Beautiful…

I’m Beautiful

The Wedding Heels

I’m trying to de-clutter my life and unravel my mind.
Yesterday, I threw my thirty-five-year-old, size five wedding heels in the trash. I tried on a lot of shoes before I found the perfect heels. They were important. My future mother-in-law bought them for me. She wasn’t impressed by her son marrying a woman with three kids, so they were a peace-offering.
The heels have stuck around. They made the cut every time I packed. They have been with us to fifteen houses and a dozen apartments.
I had hoped to wear them again, maybe on an anniversary, but that’s not going to happen.
My feet are no longer small and petite, and my husband and I have separated.
I looked at the shoes laying there in the trash, taunting me, reminding me of my wedding day, and I pushed them in deeper. I instantly panicked, but I took deep breaths and I walked away.
Later, I carried the bag outside to the trash can.
Today, I was out front tearing open the trash bags. Coffee grounds, dog’s pee papers, egg shells and dirty paper plates, I found.
No shoes.
I gave up easy, compared to my norm.
I’m not a quitter. I held on to those heels for thirty-five years.
I stopped because I knew it was hopeless.
I could save the heels. But I couldn’t save us.
I’m strong and I’m weak. I’m resisting the urge to go back out there now.
I just want the trash truck to come and take the heels away before I give in to my compulsion to bring them back into the house.
If I can leave the heels in the trash, maybe I’ll make it through this after all.
P.S. The trash men came and the shoes have gone to their final resting place.

Trying to see the Pink…

Trying to see the Pink…

Growing Up When You’re Old

Don’t try to guide me, change me, or direct me because you will lose me.
I have been guided, directed and advised to the point of near death to my spirit and I need to find out who I am and what I want and I need to do it my way.
I need to learn to trust my own choices and my own decisions and to follow my own instincts and I have never demanded that freedom.
I need to go to the grocery store and not stand in front of the peanut butter for thirty minutes, trying to decide which brand or size I should pick up.
I got married at sixteen, straight from my mother’s house and my father’s control.
The only freedom to think for myself that I’ve known since then was the two years when I was on my own with three kids, and even then, I had an overpowering AA sponsor giving me my should’s and should not’s.
I am quirky. I am different. I do not fit in anybody’s box. I will color outside the lines. I will dance in the puddles. I will howl at the moon. I will talk to birds and clouds and puppies. I will wear pink wigs. I will place my bare feet on the earth and ground myself and I will push away anyone who wants to think for me.
I will listen to your opinion. I will take responsibility when I’m wrong. I will not take guilt.
I am not weak, helpless or incompetent. I am not wrong because I have emotions.
I am a butterfly and if you hold me too tight, my wings will break and I will no longer be able to fly.
I am sixty-five years old and I want to fly and I want to think for myself, right or wrong.
I believe I can do it with God’s direction and His is the only direction that I can handle.
When my life is over and I answer to my Maker, I alone will be responsible for my choices.
The choice to let someone else choose for me is over. I don’t want that anymore.
I will follow my heart where it leads because God is my guide and the only one I need to please.
I am your’s God. Where do you want me now?

We are not Chip and Joanna. (Flip This House)

My husband and I tore up a rug in a small room that we wanted to turn into a bedroom.
There was a 100-year-old hardwood floor under the rug and we decided that we were definitely not going to sand it, but we thought about putting a finish on it, so we went to Lowe’s.
We were shopping in different paint aisles and when we met in the middle, we definitely disagreed on what to use on the floor.
I had picked out a porch floor stain and he picked out floor stain.
He said that we couldn’t use my outside porch floor stain because it would smell too bad in the house.
After going back and forth between his gallon and my gallon, I let him decide.
I did ask him to go check with the girl at the paint counter and make sure that it was the safest thing to be using in the house.
Being a man, he quickly scanned the label and decided it was definitely safe and it was the right product.
He even bought the correct brush sponge for applying stain, long handle and all.
We went home all excited and happy, looking forward to our new project.
He opened the can and as he poured the stain into the roller pan, the stain splashed up the side of the wall.
I ran for the bleach wipes and scrubbed most of the dark brown stain off the wallpaper. It left light brown blotches, but as I looked around at the rest of the room I realized it matched the blotches that were part of the pattern. How lucky could we get?
He read the first paragraph of instructions and started to spread the stain.
It smelled pretty bad, but we figured the over powering odor would fade when the stain dried. It didn’t.
By ten o’clock that night, we had matching migraines and he was reading the instructions.
“It’s advised to leave the house for at least a week after applying this product.”
When he read that sentence to me, I almost passed out on the floor; but then again, maybe it was the fumes.
So after a week (they were right) we were able to move our bed out of the dining room and into the little bedroom.
We are not Chip and Joanna.

The Little Bedroom

Another Christmas for Grace

My dad was an alcoholic and Christmas was his favorite time of the year to tear up the house, a futile attempt to destroy my mother’s Christmas spirit.
He never succeeded with her, but he made me dread Christmas.
When I was a young mother, I didn’t really celebrate Christmas, not until the kids were toddlers and even then, I just went through the motions for them.
When I was twenty-seven, I got remarried to a man who made a big deal of Christmas.
Until our first Christmas together, I had never put up more than a 2′ ceramic tree, and only because my mom had special ordered it for me.
Our first year together, we put up a 6′ tree with all the trimmings and we surrounded it with presents.
The kids were so excited on Christmas morning and it was contagious.
From that point on, I grew to love Christmas and all that it meant to the kids.
My mom was so proud of me for overcoming my childhood Christmas phobias and soon, I had enough homemade decorations from my mother to cover an entire tree.
I used to love to send her pictures of the tree decorated with her ornaments.
I put up big trees until my youngest moved out, and then I still put up trees, just not as large.
As my kids had kids of their own, I split Mom’s decorations between them and I bought new decorations for me.
Every year, I would do a different theme, bouncing between girly and guy.
All miniature dolls and fairies one year and all Harley-Davidson decorations another year. Pink trees, white trees, purple trees, gold and green. Even a Palm tree one year.
Then, my mom, Grace, died in 2009.
I had a hard time again, but my sister, Cherie, talked me into putting up a tree just for my mom and she sent me butterflies and fairies to decorate it.
That was my first Christmas for Grace.
The next year, it. became a tradition, one tree for Mom, one for me.
Three years ago, my husband and I split up and although I put up a small tree for Mom, I didn’t really celebrate Christmas.
We got back together after seven months and we had two more nice Christmases together, but we separated again this fall, and now here I am, my second Christmas without him in thirty-eight years.
I really didn’t know how I was going to get through it.
I decided the first thing I needed to do was to buy a Christmas tree in a color I had never had before.
I resisted the urge to buy blue for a Blue Christmas, and before I could change my mind, I ordered a turquoise colored Christmas tree. That was in October.
It sat in the box for about a month, while I thought about it.
What would I put on it?
That’s when my sweet friend, Michelle Marie, came to the rescue. She called and offered me enough decorations to do my whole tree. When she brought them to me on Thanksgiving weekend, I was thrilled. They were so beautiful and unlike anything I had ever used before.
My kids came with their kids for Thanksgiving weekend and I asked the three youngest ones to decorate the tree.
Four-year old Mile Mae, got on her daddy’s shoulders to put the star on, and while the entire tree leans, including the star, it’s perfectly imperfect. It’s rather Grinch like, and that was my mom’s favorite movie.
After they were all gone, I brought out some of my little fairies, my mom’s butterflies and a few special ornaments. I added them to the tree. The tree lights are pink and at night, it changes the tree’s color and the walls around it glow.
So, although it is a sad Christmas for me in many ways, I have kept my Christmas spirit going, partly in honor of my mother who refused to let an insane alcoholic destroy her Christmas spirit and partly in honor of myself, because I deserve a happy and blessed Christmas, and yes, I am blessed.
I have fifteen grandkids and five great-grandchildren, a beautiful, warm home, food and everything I need.
I firmly believe Jesus is the reason for the season, but when your grandkids are small, it’s also about glitz and glitter and shiny presents and stockings filled to the brim, hugs and love, Oreo’s and milk, all waiting for them at Grammy’s house.
So this tree is for them, and for my mom, the woman who taught me that your Christmas will become whatever you choose to make it, and for my sister, who wouldn’t let me quit Christmas after my mom died.
Special thanks to Michelle Marie for the perfectly timed decorations and thank you Jesus, for another Christmas and another chance to make memories with my family and friends.

Christmas For Grace

 

 

thinkingpinkx2

thinkingpinkx2

Time’s Ravage

Try to stop the
Hands of time,
Hold this moment
For it is mine.
Try to stop the
Silver in my hair,
Stop time’s ravage
Silent as a tear.
The fat that rests
Upon my thighs,
The damned mirror
With reflective lies.
Why don’t I feel
As old as my face?
Of the youth inside
I see not a trace.
I cannot stop the
Hands of time,
With each day
Its ravages I find.
But time cannot steal
The child inside
It shall not claim
The girl I hide.

To Do More…

I feel the strands stretch
as I leave you at the airport
tearing, ripping, bleeding
straining to be released
struggling to break free
before I bleed out.
Driving away in tears
begging God for healing
aching to be, to do more
than simply survive.

I watch the old woman next door…

I watch the old woman next door. I can’t help it. She has no curtains and as I sit with my coffee, my eyes are drawn to her as she hobbles around her kitchen each morning, staggering with pain, holding her back as she tries to walk, sometimes bent in half with the effort.
I don’t want to watch her, but it’s impossible to look away.
She was young not long ago, not alone, and she raised a family.
Little ones she rocked to sleep, diapers she changed, clothes she washed, shopping for teenagers, parent’s meetings and thousands of meals cooked.
A husband who had dinner on the table every night, years of waiting on people, taking care of people, loving people, and now she’s alone.
Walking is such an effort for her, it hurts me to watch. It takes her hours before she can straighten up.
I don’t know how to help  her.
She’s very stubborn.
She won’t use a cane or a walker. She won’t go to the doctor to see if they can fix her back because she doesn’t want anymore surgeries, she’s had so many.
Every morning she just prays that the pain is not going to last, and by the time the mail comes, she’s usually standing tall, limping a little, but standing tall, and she praises God.
That’s her morning.
I watch the old woman next door. I can’t help it.

Women Who Think Too Much, by Jeanne Marie

Buy “Women Who Think Too Much”  Digital Book

A wake-up call for women who are sleep-walking through their lives,
accepting emotional, verbal or physical abuse.

REVIEWS

Maggie Mae

Amen…

Amen…

Spirit Whispers 4

Hold still my child.
You’ve been running too much and you’ve been thinking too much.
Hold still. Just breathe.
What do you feel?
Do you feel me in the air you’re breathing?
Do you feel me in the soft breeze that’s kissing your face?
Do you hear me when the birds are singing to you?
Do you see me when the butterfly lands on your shoulder?
I’m all around you.
Hold still my child, feel my presence.

Jesus, all I know…

When the pain reaches a point
that I think I’ll explode if I let out one breath
what do I do?
Jesus, all I know is to give it to you.
When the pain builds up until
there is nothing else left
Jesus, all I know is to give it to you.

Do it this different this time…

Do it this different this time.
Don’t do the same thing.
Please, I’m begging you.
You get the same results every time.
A crushed spirit and a broken heart.
Do it different this time.
Don’t let him charm you.
Don’t let his voice soothe you.
Don’t pretend that his arms are safe..
He’s not safe for you.
Trust your instincts.
Do it different this time.
Don’t fall under his magical spell when he whispers, I love you.
Yes it’s true.
Not safe, but true.
Learn to take care of yourself.
Do it different this time.

It’s December

It’s December.
We start out searching for the perfect presents for our kids and we spend our lives trying to find them something they will love, so that we can hand it to them and watch their little faces light up.
Like the Cabbage Patch doll that was impossible to get,  but we got one and the Transformer that was not to be found, but we found one.
Presents that just for a minute, light up their eyes.
It’s December and there is not much time left to find the perfect presents.
I have so many presents, but they are spread all over my house and all tangled up in my mind, and they are not wrapped pretty.
I don’t know if I’ll have time to put on the ribbons and the bows before I leave.
I want to leave them self-confidence and emotional  security.
I want them to know that they were loved unconditionally by their mama.
I want them to be strong, without me.
I want them to keep all the good that I have given them in their hearts.
I want them to know that I was a person too…not just their mother.
I want them to forgive me…I know I made mistakes and I take responsibility for those mistakes.
I want them to forgive their own mistakes and not regret them every night, as I have done.
I want to leave them my boxes and boxes of  writing, all neatly edited and put together, but I don’t think that will ever happen because I write too much.
December has come so quickly.
I don’t know where the other 11 months went. One day I was 17 and now I’m 65.
One day, I had no wrinkles and suddenly they have appeared all over my face and neck, and I as look in the mirror, I say, “Wow, you are old, young lady. You may be young on the inside, but your body shows the time.”
My presents are not wrapped, but I will wrap what I can before I go, and I pray that it is enough to light up their faces when they remember me.
It’s December.

This moment…

This moment…

Women Who Think Too Much, by Jeanne Marie in E-book again!

This book is a wake up call to women sleeping through their lives, accepting emotional, verbal or physical abuse.

Now available in Ebook format at these locations!

Creator of the popular newsletter, “Women Who Think Too Much,” published from 1997 to 1998, Jeanne Marie has had ample experience in flipping over everyday actions to expose the dark underbelly.
Her fearsome narrative will draw you in long before she slaps you with her reality meter, turning your preconceived notions of her subtitles, A No Help At All Handbook and How to become codependent in 12 easy slips, upside down.
If you get confused as to where the heck the author is heading, you can end the suspense by reading Slap One first.
An accountable victim, her writing is vulnerable with an awareness that is empowering.
The result is not at all preachy, condescending, alarmist or worst of all, sappy.
You will find yourself laughing out loud regarding scenarios that should make you cry, like the circling ladies in Kmart, the perverted mailman, etc.
Written from personal experience and presented in the mood of an honest chat with a trusted girlfriend, this unique perspective on love gone awry is as entertaining as it is enlightening.
The author has a very sharp sense of humor and she lets it fly without losing the gravity of her subject.
Terrifying examples shine a revealing light on the painful truths of codependency.
Highly entertaining while touching you in raw spots that you didn’t even know you had, the only promise given is that you will never be able to unread this book.

DK, review 2013

You are my sunshine…

You are my sunshine…