Tag: relationships

A Good Wife

I am my own wife now and I’m finding out just how good I’m going to treat myself.
Am I going to be a good wife or a bad wife?
I didn’t start out very good. I almost starved to death.
I forgot to eat because there was no one to cook for and I didn’t have anybody asking me, what’s to eat, what’s for lunch, what’s for supper, do you want to go out to eat, do you want me to go get something?
I was in a food vacuum, food just didn’t exist.
What I noticed was my deodorant wasn’t working, so I changed brands several times and when that didn’t help, I started to do some research on Google to find out what strange illness I might have that was causing an odor deodorant couldn’t manage.
I found out that I wasn’t putting enough food into my body and that my body was burning muscle to survive. The odor was from being in a state of starvation. I was shocked. I knew I had to eat to live, but I didn’t know I could die from not eating enough.
I had been wasting away and I hadn’t even noticed.
I took off my clothes to take a look at my body and it wasn’t good. Skin and bones.
I couldn’t remember the last time I had been hungry. I had already lost too much weight before my husband and I separated and the scale reported that I’d dropped ten more pounds and I hadn’t even noticed.
I had been eating yogurt and an egg once or twice a week, a couple of spoonfuls of peanut butter every day, but my body was not happy and it wanted some real food.
I learned that once you are in the starvation mode, it gets dangerous. I had to start to eat slowly because starvation damages the heart and I could actually have a heart attack if I started to eat too quickly.
I went to the store and I bought more than just peanut butter, coffee, milk and dog food.
I searched for food that I used to like, so I could tempt myself to eat. I stood there crying because I could barely remember what I liked.
Just shopping for groceries was traumatic. I hadn’t shopped for groceries since my husband retired. We used to joke that he was the wife now and he said I could just write while he took care of cooking, shopping and helped with laundry.
It wasn’t really funny. I stopped shopping a few months after he retired because whatever I brought home wasn’t right, wrong brand, wrong price, wrong flavor. I stopped cooking because he would disagree with the what, the how, the why and the end result. I wasn’t even able to feed the dogs the way he wanted, and if I made my own coffee he would ask why I didn’t have him make it for me.
To some, it looked like I was a pampered princess, but I was actually removed from my kitchen. His at home-ness led to my retirement as a wife. He took over the bills, the kitchen, the shopping and the dogs and I allowed it. I gave up.
So I am my own wife now. It’s been five months, and I am treating myself much better, but it takes awareness and effort. I spoiled my husband and my kids forever, so I know how to do it, I just have to turn that love towards myself.
I started eating slowly. I started cooking for myself for the first time in years. Actual meals. My daughter and grandson come over for supper at least twice a week now and that motivates me to cook. I’ve only gained a pound, but I’m back to my favorite deodorant and it works.
The dogs are happy and well fed, so it turns out that I do know how to feed them. I haven’t cried at the grocery store lately, so I believe I am learning to be a good wife. To myself.

A Note From Grace (My Mom)

grace garden sit

A NOTE FROM GRACE (My Mom)
When my children were growing up and got into their “teenage problem” years, I’d become exasperated with them. I’d think, “They’re just like their father!”
Then, one day the light dawned on me, (Marblehead) because after taking a hard, honest look at myself, I realized; they were just like me. The me I had suppressed and hidden deep inside, where no one else could see. I was as wild and rebellious as they, but I had put up a shield of adult perfection, striving to become the perfect mother that everyone expected me to be.
I have now learned that I need to let this child in me come out to play, or the adult becomes a cold hard shell. I must confess, now that I’m older, I have to do this through my books, and old TV movies.
My mind wants to run through fields of flowers with all my clothes flung aside, but my body slows me down to a stroll through Wal-Mart, wrapped in warm sweaters.

The Pond

THE POND,
By Jodie Lynne

Soft baby ringlets sweeping across her face
Glancing but once to make certain
he’s still in his place.
Her shining dark eyes smile from afar,
So confident, this angel who hasn’t her own fear,
For fear there’s no reason, her goal is quite clear.
Till the slip of a sneaker sucks her foot in the mud
And his arms reach around her,
As he sweeps her up in his hug.
He lets out a sigh, saved her from this fall.
She wiggles out of his tender embrace
Now more than ever she runs with such might,
Determined to catch the quacker
Who’s just taken flight.

Up To My Heart In Mud

I would live without you if only I could…
Wanting you, needing you, I hate it all.
Tears fall each night
Sometimes they fall
all frigging day too.
I walk the floors
I climb the walls
I turn it off, I turn it on
Who I am depends on you.
Spinning in circles like wet lettuce
shedding its water
I try to shed my love for you.
I don’t love you
I don’t love you
But, oh God help me, God help me
Because I do…I do, I do love you..
Should love make me bleed?
Should love leave me
Hungry for your touch
Empty with a desperate need?
Now I know my long saved passion
Has simply gone to waste,
Thirty-odd years of being loved
Loved just enough so that
I didn’t pack that old suitcase.
Loved you for so long as
Every night you turned away
With one excuse or another
They all sounded the same.
I don’t want to hurt anymore.
Down to a choice…nothing or pain
Your words turn me inside out
And I go blank…shut down
I have no words to say.
I am no longer in the game.
You ask what about all the years
That we have been side by side
And I ask what about today.
What about me?
How long can my hurt hide?
Dreams of running, death and blood
Is this love or is it quicksand?
All I know for sure is that
I’m up to my heart in mud.

No More

No More

Less

Less

A Candle’s Flame

A Candle’s Flame

Hunger

Hunger

Where Is…

Where is…

Love Like Water

JM, 1986

Mercy Killing

I’m laying our marriage down
putting it to sleep
a mercy killing that for us is best
laying till death do we part promises to rest.
I’m unplugging the life support
so maybe I can revive my heart
because there is more pain than love left.
a bed where passion died a horrible death
a living room where loyalty was beat
a kitchen you drove me out of
because I couldn’t do it right.
I wish I could cremate us
instead of dismantling us piece by piece
but I suppose that’s exactly what we’ve done
burnt our bridges until two now exist as ones.

Death of a Marriage, Rest in Peace. 1978

Death of a Marriage, Rest in Peace


I didn’t even know that you were sick
and now you’re dead.
Destroyed by a disease born
inside two people who couldn’t see
that love should come first
forsake all others, as God said.
But there is so much I didn’t know about you.
I never guessed that someday you would be deceased.
How can I bury you, when to me you’re still alive?
How will I ever feel whole, with part of me
inside your corpse, which hangs in the closet of my mind?
JM, 1978

Divorce

Jeanne Marie, 1978

Do I love you?

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.

Thank You

Have I ever thanked you for all the nights
you sat on your cold bathroom floor
talking me into staying alive,
for praying me sober when I was lost in the swamp,
for holding me close when my heart was broken,
for standing by my side when everyone else
walked away because I was wrong?
Have I ever thanked you for never judging me,
for never giving up on me,
for seeing my beauty
when all I could see was my ugly,
for being my sister, my best friend,
my go-to person for every pain and every joy?
Have I ever thanked you for introducing me to Jesus,
for your powerful prayers
when my daughter was dead in the water,
for your face that she saw as she came up, alive?
God places angels in our lives, and you are mine.
I am me because you loved me through.
For embracing me, for accepting the mission
with all of your heart, my sister, I thank you.

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

 

 

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.

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.

Love Can Be Twisted

Love can be twisted, love can be cruel.
Love can tear you to pieces and turn you into a fool.
Love can grow wings and fly you to the moon
then it can take you to hell and whoops!
Here you go! A flight to the stars,
crashing back down, way too soon!
Love will take you everywhere
oh that silly love, it will take you so far!
Love will take you to places
where you don’t even remember who you are!
What drew you together, you might never know
were you just like his mother
or was it your smile that once
sparkled like sun, your glitter and bows?
You grabbed each other’s hands
and you said Yes! Yes! I do and I do!
Love codependent was playing a game
turning your smarts inside out, flipping
your brain to mush, all sticky, icky and goo.
Up, up and up, oh so high you did go!
Then in snuck the Oh no’s! How could you’s?
The you coulda’s, The I woulda’s, The I don’t know if I shoulda’s.
The same ‘ol I’m sorry’s, I’m not’s, I love you’s and I dont’s!
When you try to end it, all you can see is the good’s.
You cry too much and you scream, I won’t give up…
Oh NO, I wont! Wait! Maybe I should?
I bet I don’t!
Love comes down, right down to the floor
to memories of passion
that don’t live here anymore.
Alive only in your silly, girly head
and all of a sudden you’re not speaking
even though you still snuggle in bed.
Too many years you each play the games,
you play and you play till you’re half insane.
It comes to this is your’s and this is mine time
don’t worry baby, my mama don’t hate you,
I will always love you’s and you will be fine’s.
Dr Seuss taught me about Green Eggs and Ham,
he never once, no, not ever, did he warn me
I’d have to let go of my one love’s hand.
Love can be twisted, love can be cruel
Love can tear you to pieces and turn you into a fool.