I've been posting this same R. Crumb cartoon since I started blogging. Some days, you just have to think about Mr. Natural affirming that it don't mean shit to get over your damn self. Facebook is full of self-affirming memes and quotes that are supposed to make us feel better about ourselves and our choices and our efforts and frankly, most of them make me want to gag.
Or at least roll my eyes so hard they threaten to fall out of my head. We're all so self-caring and enlightened and positive, aren't we?
No. No we are not.
Mr. Natural certainly isn't. Get on with your bad self, Mr. Natural might say. It don't mean sheeit.
So yeah, I'm having one of those days. First off, Jessie had to test herself and Levon today because of minor cold symptoms. Although they are negative, I still feel guilty. I knew this would happen.
Fuck me.
And I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about choices I made or didn't make when I was young. I don't really regret them so much because every choice I made has led to this life I lead now which is pretty damn sweet, not to mention Hank, May, Lily, Jessie, Owen, Gibson, August, Maggie, and Levon. But there has been a lot of pondering going on this old wrinkled head of mine, wondering mostly why I never had the courage or determination to really try to do some of the things I wanted to do. There are thousands of reason, I'm sure, or at least a few. Some of them good and some of them simply because I didn't have the backbone, I had the fear instead. Not so much of failure but of making too big of a ripple in the universe in which I live.
I know, I know. I'm being cryptic. Forgive me. I am still afraid of that ripple, that possible rend in the fabric of my life. I think that if you gathered any group of older women (and probably younger, too) in a sort of group therapy way, most of us would have similar stories to tell. The details might differ but the stories themselves would be as familiar as the contents of our purses. Or pockets.
In this mood, I did a little closet purging today. Not nearly enough. But some. Enough to yield two large bags and a box of things to take to the Bad Girls Get Saved By Jesus Thrift Store. It's hard for me to let garments that I have loved go, even if the only way I could ever wear them again is to contract some horrible wasting disease that ended up killing me. I remember where I wore the dresses, the jeans, the blouses, the skirts, how I felt in them, how I looked in them, how I danced or walked or talked in them.
Who I was in them. How much I loved who I was in them for a moment, at least.
So it's hard. I try to shrug off and ignore these feelings and sometimes I can but sometimes I just can't.
I did find a pair of shoes buried at the bottom of a basket in my closet that I have no idea why I stopped wearing.
Not only that, I found a pair of my favorite style Croc flip flops still in the package they were shipped in! I must have ordered two pairs at one point and put one in that basket as spares. AND I found a wrist brace that I've been looking for that I need to start wearing at night. I knew it was here somewhere...
Well, maybe I'll go back and get it and maybe I'll just let some other person who appreciates the art and fine craft of it find it and be thrilled.
Dear Mrs. Moon ... If I had it all to do over again ... I would opt not to! Once is more then enough!
ReplyDeleteFrom the little I know about you ... I know that hat belongs to you! You need to scurry back to the BGGSBJTS before someone else snags it!
Yeah. I'm with you. I wouldn't want to go through it all again either. Maybe a few days for sure, but not the whole thing.
DeleteI think I can live without the hat. I just really loved the craftsmanship of it.
I love those shoes and they look so cute on you! What fun unearth old, forgotten treasures. I had to be so ruthless getting rid of things before we moved down here. And I should have been much more ruthless than I was. After nine years, I still have about 40(!) boxes that I have not unpacked beyond identifying the contents. I have given a lot away and I think I will try to sell some.
ReplyDeleteI suppose we all have things we wish we had tried. And some things we wish we hadn't! But like you, here I am and I am happy for it.
P.S. Cute as it is, you do not need that little hat!
Isn't that insane? Forty boxes of stuff that you have not used in nine years! That I am sure you thought you really had to have. I probably would have too! Wow.
DeleteIf I'd bought that hat I'd hang it on the wall.
That is a great hat! Let hte sunshine ...in...We all think coulda woulda but really we are exactly where we belong. I regret not learning more languages and making the globe my home.I am done now and did enough, choices have diminished to two- live or die.
ReplyDeleteLive or die. Yes. I guess that's it. The basic question, the most primal choice.
DeleteThose are great shoes. I need some winter sandals to wear with socks. I should probably do some closet purging, not that I've got all that much but there is stuff I don't wear and stuff I can no longer wear. As for do-overs, the end result might not be better and could very possibly be far worse. I've got it pretty good right now though went through a lot of shit to get here. I do the what ifs sometimes but really it's an exercise in futility.
ReplyDeleteThey are pretty great shoes. And all purpose, too! I'm glad I found them.
DeleteExercise in futility is right. Moot points to be sure.
When I look back, for better or worse, I try to remember I did the best I could at the time. Sometimes I'm amazed at my courage, sometimes I wonder what I was thinking!
ReplyDeleteI think that describes pretty much how I feel although I am not certain that I tried to do my best at all times. And I feel so guilty about that. But guilt is pretty much my default emotion so...
DeleteI love that little woven hat and your shoes. I need to do a wardrobe purge myself, mine is filled with things that don't belong because there is no other storage here, so everything that has been there since I moved in but never used is going to the nearest thrift store. My wrist braces live in the bedside drawer.
ReplyDeleteI have another wrist brace in the bedside drawer! The one I found yesterday is a more substantial one. I actually got it after a doctor visit. It's a prescription I guess. I never liked it because it's so bulky.
DeleteLike Marcia, if I had to do it all over again I would also opt not to, once is more than enough. There are always those incredible Highs and agonizing Lows in Life and Mr. Natural says it best. I have an abundance of that which I do not need... you photographed and appreciated the sweet little Hat, perhaps that is Enough, any time you hesitate and waffle on a purchase, it's probably something to leave behind.
ReplyDeleteDoes't it seem like the lows come far more frequently than the highs? I don't know. But just thinking about doing it all over makes me exhausted.
DeleteYou're probably right about the hat.
Is it really called the Bad Girls Get Saved By Jesus Thrift Store? Or did you just make that up? I googled it and what came back was a "Bless Our Hearts" reference. Seems to me that much of my secret life has been a struggle between order and chaos. Chaos is too easily dismissed in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteI made it up. It's really called the Children's Lighthouse Home.
DeleteOrder and chaos. Yeah. I think I worry way too much about order and will do almost anything to avoid chaos.
I will soon turn 68 and find that I am often wondering about som
ReplyDeleteLove the hat! But yeah, it kind of defeats the purpose to donate bags of stuff and then buy more stuff. Then again, that's life, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteI'm sure all of us -- men too! -- can look back at our lives and mull over choices we made or did not make, and how doing something different might have altered our path. But as you said, if you'd done that, you wouldn't be where you are now!
Yeah, but exchanging two bags and a box for one smallish hat isn't so bad. Right? Ha! There were vases I did not buy...
DeleteI guess when I was talking about women, I was thinking about my own situation where I made decisions that were definitely based on cultural norms and those come from the patriarchy. Sorry if that sounds crazy but I think it's true. There are things that women have to consider that men just do not because we bear and (mostly) raise the children.
And no, I would not trade the what-ifs for the here-I-am.
Oh my,sorry,it took off on me! I meant to say some of my choices way back when. Somehow it all worked out. Or so I tell myself.
ReplyDeleteWell, we have to tell ourselves that, don't we?
DeleteThere's a book called "The Midnight Libaray" by Matt Haig that is about the choices we make in life and what would happen if we made different choices. It was an interesting read.
ReplyDeleteI regret many of the choices I made sadly, bad choices, things that hurt others and myself. I don't think I could have done things differently but I wish I could have. Would life be easier if we lived it backwards?
I'm stuck at home again with a cold and waiting for a PCR test, again. I've never had so many colds as I have had this winter and this time I can't even blame it on Jack. He's been gone all week with his mama and her mom.
My hubby is mad as hell after our meeting yesterday with Gracie, her family and the social worker. I'm more sad and resigned. Sigh.
Hi Pixie, I think you mentioned The Midnight Library before and since I like Matt Haig I reckon I have to read it. But you know, I'm pretty sure we all made bad choices in the past (viz, my marriage) - if only we could have benefitted from hindsight then. Oh, and I hope the PCR test is negative. You're right covid or not, there does seem to be a few nasty bugs going round too - maybe we're all just run down and exhausted. I'm sure YOU are!
DeleteI have read The Midnight Library and did enjoy it. I like Matt Haig a lot.
DeleteI suppose life might be easier if we lived it backwards but that ain't gonna happen.
Pixie, I'm so sorry that you're having to go through all the things you're going through and both your and your husbands reactions are normal although different. I hope you don't have covid.
Ms. Treader- I think most of us probably went into our first marriages with some sort of crazy blinders on but we certainly did not go into them thinking, "Gee. Wonder how I can fuck my life up?" We did what we did for whatever reasons we did it and now we are older and hopefully wiser.
I know what you mean about finding old clothes that you loved but no longer fit into (don't we all)! It brings back our carefree youthful days, I reckon. There used to be a programme on in the UK called "What Not To Wear", and whenever a woman would wax lyrical about that beautiful old dress they would have her put it on. It kinda brought home that it was maybe time to get rid once they saw all the ripples of blubber tearing at the seams. Works for me anyway!
ReplyDeleteOh god! That is a very terrible and frightening image! A cruel shock of reality when one was floating on nostalgia and memory.
DeleteSounds like the lyrics to that song, "I did it my way", right? Regrets and all of that... We can't go back and change anything and why waste our time now fretting about that. I do that all of the time but I want to appreciate and cherish what I have. It is a hard thing to work on...
ReplyDeleteYep. I can hear Frank Sinatra singing that song in my head. "Regrets? I've had a few..."
DeleteAnd it IS a hard thing to work on, not fretting about what we can't change. But I think it is okay to grieve at the perceived losses. At least a little bit.
Wasn't there a Crumb cartoon with a Mr Natural kind of guy saying "What if the world is completely sane?" We had it stuck on a fridge somewhere. (If only.)
ReplyDeleteI posted another R. Crumb cartoon once where he said "The whole universe is completely insane."
ReplyDeleteLook here and see if it's what you're remembering.
https://www.blessourhearts.net/2011/10/whats-it-all-mean-mr-natural-part-ii.html
The man just told me it was this one: https://samim.io/p/2021-08-28-the-whole-universe-is-completely-insane/
Deleteand that he PERSONALLY tippexed away the "in" to provide a more positive vibe. He tells me this now, after almost 40 years.
Oh, Lord. That is so crazy. And, well, sort of sweet.
DeleteI believe I am the epitome of not throwing away enough.
ReplyDeleteI understand these ruminations. I sometimes think we might be the same person having different lives if that makes sense. It kind of does to me. The irony is, you made a great big ripple in the universe by publishing here. We all found our way to you here and now you are part of so many of our lives, beloved, rippling on. Hugs dear Mary. I am grateful there is you.
ReplyDeleteI have been regretting throwing out my velvet flares studded with little steel stars which I wore when I was 20. They were very worn, didn't fit me anymore and I had been carefully storing them all these years. Why? What's it all about. Seems like Mr. Natural is the only one with a sensible answer!
ReplyDelete