Here in lies a collection of things I want need to get off my chest.

Dear Customer, when I am assisting your wife in the store, don’t yell at her. It embarrasses us both and really makes me wonder if you are the cause of that split lip she has.

Dear Friend, when you use my computer and see I have tabs open for “PTSD from Domestic Abuse”, “Depression” and “Finding Help”, don’t raise your eyebrow and say “Really?!?” in that incredulous way. I match 90 percent of the listed symptoms, and we both know my behavior is not exactly normal. You can put on a tuxedo and I can put on The Clone’s old prom dress and we can dance and pretend to laugh, or you can be the rock for me you’ve always been. I’m choosing to give you the benefit of the doubt, because I think you were most likely blind-sided.

Dear Co-Worker, when you call me over to you and we have a little conversation, and then I walk away and your eyes are glued to my butt, I totally know you are staring.

Dear Different Friend, thanks for not thinking I am batchit crazy, even though we both know I am.

Dear Washing Machine, why don’t you run yourself once in a while? You’ve lived here two years now, you know where I keep your soap!

Dear Self, why don’t you stop being so busy and take the time to listen to your own head? Might do you a little bit of good.

Dear God, please help my other friend, the one I haven’t mentioned here so far.

Dear Grandmother, I got side-tracked driving yesterday and headed to your house. I still miss you.

Dear Blank-on-purpose, I’m glad you’ve started looking at me again.

Dear Grandma, thanks for teaching me to make a lemon pie from lemons and not a box. I don’t remember how to do it, but I had such a good time in your kitchen that day.

Dear Daddy, I would give anything if I had just kept you on the phone a little longer the day before you died. I am so very glad you called.

Dear Other Friend, please let me meet you where you are. I’ve got a flashlight and a map, and I am willing to help you out of that place you are in.

*heavily edited from an email I sent recently*

I probably have not told you that my Grandmother had a son named William. He was quite a looker (honest he was, I’ll show you his picture sometime). He was 20 years old when he was killed in service. I’m not sure where. Grandmother was born in 1911, and he was her oldest son. Mama was the baby, born in 1947, so… she said she was a baby when he died, so maybe WWII, but Granddad was also in that war, so, I’m just not sure? Could have been Korea, I suppose. Anyway, anytime that name was mentioned, I didn’t press, because I didn’t want to remind Grandmother or make her dwell on him unnecessarily. Now, that’s the background, and we can move on to the story part of the story.

Grandmother had a bush by her clothesline back in the day, and that bush smelled so good. It smelled like angel’s perfume. I cannot describe it to you beyond that. I’ve never again smelled anything to compare it to. It wasn’t much to look at, kinda scraggly with small red buds that never really opened, but the scent….I can still smell it in my mind. The bush was called a “sweet shrub“. I want one of those one day. Anyway, Grandmother also had 48 bazillion kinds of flowers, sometimes the same from year to year and sometimes different. But one time I asked her what some flower was and she told me it was a “Sweet William”. I was still little and somehow that got jumbled up in my mind, and I thought the bush was the Sweet William, and I thought that for many years until I talked to Mama several years ago about getting a cutting off that “Sweet William bush at Grandmother’s house” and she looked at me as if I had three heads. That was when I finally got it straight in my mind the name of the bush. And then I didn’t wonder about the Sweet William anymore, because I didn’t have many flowers at the time. I never did get a cutting off that bush.

You may recall that I started working in the garden shop in addition to the pharmacy recently and so as I was tidying up one day and looking over the wares, I happened to see seeds for Sweet William. I almost bought some that first time I saw them, and talked myself out of it. I talked myself out of it several more times. Sweet William, if you don’t know, and you probably do, is a biennial. The first year, you get only foliage and the next year, you get blooms of various colors. So, this past week, I finally bought some seeds. Then I found dwarf ones that will bloom this year as well as next and I planted those dwarf seeds in one of those starter greenhouses. After they are ready to go out, I will buy some more peat pellets and plant the tall ones.

So, when you see that flower in the yard, it is for now, but it also for future then and for back then, too. And that is the story of Sweet William.

P.S. Those little greenhouse things are the bombdiggety. Like a little Sahara hotel for your plants that need pampering.

So lately, having had a blast from my own past, I’ve been doing a little time travel. For some reason known only to trained psychologists, hanging out with That One (which is the suckiest blog name ever, but I haven’t thought of a good one yet) has caused me to remember some stuff. Not surprising to anyone that knows me, it is the music of my life that I am remembering first. I quit listening to music for most of the past two decades, because the music I liked wasn’t liked by anyone but me. I didn’t realize how much I missed it until the past couple of weeks, which I have spent building a play list on Limewire. Now the list isn’t all inclusive, it has no Air Supply or Barry Manilow, but the songs on it are ones that I truly enjoy.

It also has new to me songs on it, by folks like Bobby Blue Bland. And oldies by Roy Orbison. And contemporary Christian stuff. And He Stopped Loving Her Today, which is the song I hate to love. I cry every time I sing it, and I sing it every time I hear it, and I cry every time I sing it. I tried to copy and paste a few of the titles, but that didn’t work so well, and I am not about to type them all out. That sucks, but not as bad as Mesothelioma cancer.

Ok, time to wrap this up and get ready for work. Which is too bad, cause I do have a lot more to say, LOL!

So, I have mentioned before on this blog that I do love a motorcycle. I used to ride with my dad on his bike, and it is just such a …freedom. Wind blowing, seat vibrating, nothing but you and the road. And the back of your driver if you happen to be riding … on the back, LOL! Daddy quit driving a bike when I was in my late teens, and I have missed it ever since.

I rode with a friend not too long ago. I just realized today that it had been 20 years between rides. Funny, though, you don’t forget how to do it. Climb on, slide to the back rest. Hands on his sides, and nothing else matters. It’s still freedom. And if your question to me is ever, “do you want to ride”, and I trust you, my answer is ‘”yes”. You might as well ask me if I want to breathe.

So anyway, here is the helmet I used to wear. Mama threw it away right after I took this picture. It wasn’t roadworthy anymore, but….dang.

On this day, I woke up at 5am and wrote a letter to a friend of long standing. It took nine pieces of stationery to craft a 2.5 page letter. I mailed it from the post office, since I didn’t have a stamp. Two weeks later, there still hasn’t been a reply. And I’m okay with that, because that’s not why I wrote it. It’s not like I asked about beach vacation rentals and can’t move on until I hear back.

On February 7th, I had our youth over for a wee party. We had pizza and wings and music provided by Guitar Guy.

After Papa and Grandma died, my aunt and I were talking about the house they lived in. She mentioned that she wanted to build happy memories now in the house they lived in, and to have those good memories to move forward with. I heard her words, but my heart did not grasp what she was saying until this night.

Some pretty bad things had happened to her there in that house, see. Death and hurt and anger and pain. Sometimes, you need to replace all that. You need to apply fresh mental paint to a place. I did that to my room on this night, started building happy memories in a place that had very recently been painful. And when that started happening, I realized exactly what Aunt Lady meant.

She’s pretty darn smart, that gal.

Did you know that smell is the most evocative of the senses? It is powerful. My Grand-dad has been dead now 20 years, and he quit farming 10 before that, but if I smell a sun-warmed field, I am instantly moved back in time. I am young again, and he is still alive. And wood smoke is the scent of Papa, and he is laughing and saying “Denise, you are cuckoo.” Green beans simmering on the stove with bacon in them, that’s Grandma, and a nursing home is my Grandmother. (I have to add that I hope with time, more pleasant smells will bring her to mind.)

Anyway, you know that old shampoo commercial that goes “I’m gonna wash that man right outta my hair”? That’s sorta what I did on the 31st.

When you are waiting for something, good or bad, why is it that time just slows to a crawl? I mean, I recognize this is, like, the eternal question, right after “where did I come from”? But I always thought it applied to good stuff, and now I am finding that I was wrong. It doesn’t matter what you are waiting on, and it doesn’t matter if you are wearing one of the fancy Festina watches, or a $6 one from Wal-Mart, you will be checking it, and it will seem to stop.

So why is that? Is it because wen we are waiting, we are so focused on how much time is left? Like this morning, my question is do I have enough, and then when Grandmother was dying, it was “Can I please have more?” combined with ‘Dear Lord, this needs to be over, for her sake.”

You know, I woke up Sunday morning about 3am, with tears on my face. I was dreaming about her death, and in my dream, I was just crying out “no, no, no”. I was on my knees on the floor, but I wasn’t praying. I just couldn’t stand up. Not letting myself grieve like I needed to when she died was probably one of the biggest mistakes I have ever made.

They say that we dream so that our subconscious can deal with things that our waking minds cannot deal with. I hope this is true. And don’t take this personally (you know who you are), but please don’t ever encourage someone to keep up a good front when faced with a cataclysmic event. And don’t assume that it isn’t an issue for them just because it isn’t for you. I wonder if I had cried then, would I still be crying now?

And Dear God help me when my mind decides to tackle Papa and Grandma.