The Lake

Ah-mazing, I have at least a few minutes of “alone time” to record some thoughts during my lunch hour.  Everyone left me alone here. :)

Today I’m vacation planning… the family vacation kind.  This involves coordinating schedules, boat towing vehicles, and beds in campers with extended family who is also going to the same vacation spot during overlapping times.   The overlap is good.  You need two knowledgeable adults in each boat, and…. There’s only one of me.   Unfortunately spaceman cannot attend.  And my daughter… she’s expressing concern as the last time we were down there, we barely escaped a sinking boat.  Yeah, joy.  Wish us luck that we have no repeats of that fiasco, EVER. lol  (But, Oh the memories! lol)

In all probable reality, this could be our very last trip vacation at Lake Cumberland, boating, swimming, skiing, etc.  My father, who is 77 and has Parkinson’s Disease, is just not able to maintain the equipment and no one is stepping up to take it on for the longer haul.  It looks like my oldest sister’s grandchildren will be the last generation (of 5) in our family to experience the fun and craziness of “family vacations at the lake”.  It’s okay.  Other sides of the extended family (my aunt, cousins) pulled out long ago.  I do wish spaceman could experience this with us, at least once, though.  So, if we can, we will try to do an extended weekend trip later this summer… just not looking good, schedule-wise. :(  It’s kind of like me going down to Virginia to experience his home and filling in all those imagined stories with the REAL place, with REAL memories.  Lake Cumberland is a place I grew up.  Every summer (except one!), we were there having fun boating with extended family.

When I was an infant, all the way through early teenage years, we stayed at my Nana’s trailer.  She had a lot along the river with direct access, down a super steep hill that we had to hold on to a dry-rotted, splintering ski rope to descend/climb.  Back then there was no such thing as tubes.  We had an old semi-truck inner tube we tied a ski rope through the center for “tubing”.  There was no tube “bra”, and careful of that valve stem!  I learned to ski on two skis at 6 years old.  Papaw used to let my younger sister and I sit on the bow of the boat, feet dangling overboard, holding fast to the railing while we bounced over waves at full speed.  That’s completely illegal these days.  There simply wasn’t enough room in the boat except to send a couple people up front like that.  In fact, half the family was invariably left to play off the dock until we’d swing back by and swap out people.  Baths were always taken in the lake at the end of the boating day with floating Ivory brand soap and some shampoo, before ascending the hillside for supper.  I can only recall using the actual bathtub ONCE, and that was after one of our famous 2-mile walks (AKA: “get rid of the kids for a while”) when we brought back freshly picked road-side wild flowers and were eaten up by chiggers by the time we got back.  Such was life!

Back up at the trailer, we played a LOT of card games.  The adults played penny poker or Rook.  The kids played Rook or Uno… or WAR with a deck or two of cards.  There was a mini-pool table in the patio-like add-on section of the trailer, but we rarely played it.  Instead, we chased lizards around the propane tank out back or set off growing “snake fireworks” that left a permanent black mark on the concrete surrounding Pawpaw’s underground cistern.  I can remember one year we went home to Ohio and stopped by the emergency room because ALL four of us kids had inhaled poison ivy smoke from the fire where we burned all our trash. 

Nana always had friends and relatives that would visit while we were on vacation.  They would sit and play poker or team up and string ungodly amounts of green beans and can them.  I can still remember the old fridge that sat out front on the patio, curved corners and a lever that needed pulled upwards to unlatch and open for a cold can of Coke.

Nana sold her trailer, lots, and gave my parents the boat when Pawpaw got too bad with his Alzheimer’s disease.  Funny we are in the same sort of situation now with my dad and his Parkinson’s.  I miss that place.  Once a year, we usually boat up the Cumberland River just to drive by the old dock, point to it and tell our kids a few stories from days long ago.  I can remember one day I decided I could swim across the river to the other bank all by myself.  It’s a long swim for a child, and boats speed through that river not expecting to find a lone swimmer suddenly in their path.  I got a good yelling at for that one after having to turn back half-way there.  But, I’ve always been the one who is “most likely to get lost” in any crowd. lol  I get ideas that pop in my head and BAM! I’m gone.  It happened at King’s Island once, a popular amusement park in Cincinnati. *sigh*  As an adult, my “wandering” requires more planning. ;)

After Nana sold the property at the lake, we took to camping in our travel trailer at a nearby state park for a few years.  We even tent camped one trip (never to be repeated lol).  In time, we found a “new home” at a private camp ground where my parents have 2 trailers (one travel trailer, one fifth-wheel camper), both with a permanent deck or patio and facing one another.  That’s the only spot my kids have ever known at the lake… and that’s what we are considering giving up after this season.  It’s a big deal.  Part of me knows it’s time to move on, that change can never be stopped, and all life occurs in cycles.  But part of me hates the idea of not having that place anymore.  I’m 42. I’ve been vacationing at the lake for 42 years.  It’s safe to say  I’m going to miss it and that I would really like spaceman to know it, experience it, at least once.  It’s just not necessarily in the cards. :(

He's Both of That

On the way home from my older sister house this evening, I was really appreciating the music from Xavier Rudd.  Low tech digeridoo music first got my attention when I was big time into the band Gaelic Storm.  I had a little crush on the guy who played it, too.  Somewhere there's of picture of him posing for the camera while offering a kiss on my cheek.  Later I heard he had quit the band.  I think he was really missing his family life back home.  But I digress.  I also have the cutest picture of the lead singer and I.  He's got such puppy dog eyes. (double digress?  let's triple it...) It's funny to think of people touring like that, becoming a surrogate family.  I bet that could be really difficult to get used to, to constantly wander even when you eventually feel like putting down roots.  Roots can be so good.  They can also suck ass like my [family member] does right now.  (No, not my brother.)  But that may be a blog for another day.

This digeridoo music, you have to hear it...  Seriously, give it a minute or two, put headphones on if you can.  Go for it. I'll wait:




Like it?  I have many such non-lyrical songs I used to buy in my CD-buying years.  I still use CDs in my 2001 car, but those I burn myself.  It used to be every few months I go through the top 200 songs of the day and create a CD to listen to during my long drives to and from work each workday.   Music is one of my great joys, just to listen and let the music play me.  Low tech, kind of techno, add some spiritual elements and lyrics... I love that.
And so it was, I was enjoying my tunes and yet thinking back across my day, a stressful day... one I will remember for the rest of my life... but also one in which spaceman was there to hear me fumble while dealing with a super strong physical-emotional gut-instinct kind of 180-degree decison-rendering day.  Yeah, I didn't really know how else to write that sentence and still get close to describing how I felt.  You have to say it with stress and with a cadence.  
Do you ever get an instinctual feeling that overtakes you physically?  I've had plenty of instinctual feelings that have affected me to varying degrees emotionally (empathetic), but it's been rare when I have been over-taken in a physical response that elicits the emotion like an electromagnetical current seeking it's matching end... pulling from the inside out.  Those happen out of sheer force of emotion.  And today, for the first time, I woke up like that... and even though I had been fighting the flu the day before, I instantly knew this did not stem from any flu.  
I was not happy with my decision on how to handle a certain family situation.  I felt like I had made the wrong decision, but the other stance was also not a viable option and I just couldn't remain as status quo.  I could not find the wise answer; the wisdom in me kept finding giant gaping worries in my decisions.  And since I had woken up early after having slept so much the day before, I decided to do a tarot reading on it before work... the second one before work this week, on the same subject.  It's been a looong week, trying to figure this one out.  And today my gut told me I had better rethink it, only I couldn't figure out the message that was being conveyed to me.  As an empath, the messages come in the form of feelings.  Normally, they are more assurances than a blazing fire alarm.  Today was a 5-alarm fire.
The reading didn't tell me enough, not enough to know what my gut was trying to tell me.  Some clues, yes, but other cards just were far more positive than I could relate with...  so either I misinterpreted something vital in the reading, or there is some direct good that is going to come out of this.  I'm having a hard time believing the intended good will grow like a seed into a tree.  My decision was one of lifetime-long significance, no matter the outcome.  I was declaring my side, forced into making a decision by my own conscience.  And because my conscience was so severely bothering me, I did eventually understand the content of my emotion.  It had chimed up once before earlier in the week... in fact, that was why I was contemplating this all week.  But I had to make sure I wasn't being coerced, from any direction.  I needed to look within for my own answers.  
Tarot reading tossed aside, I made it off to work, in a gloomy mood.  About an hour after I arrived, spaceman chimed through messenger.  He is also an empath, and knowing he feels in a similiar kind of way at times, well... we have always told each other our feelings, always.  So, I let loose, trying to explain my morning.  We had talked about it at least once earlier in the week, I'm sure.  Only now I was in serious distress.  He listens to everything I say and digests it as food.  He tells me how much it means to him that I share with him so intimately.  It's the kind of connection he's craved.  And I have craved it, too.  I'm just being myself, and him his-self, and together we support one another, as we have each dreamed of having in a relationship.
He did not tell me what to do.  That would have been easy, I'm sure.  No.  He wants to support me in whatever I decide.  But boy did he listen!  Sometimes I worry if I should feel bad for him, dealing with me. lol  It was one such thought that came to me as I was driving home in the car tonight, mingling emotional rides on Xavier Rudd music with thoughts of today's craziness.
Do you really like listening to my crazy day or are you just being supportive?  You do both actually... you do both. So sweet <3
He was there for me...  again.   I love this man; I truly do.  

A Big Decision Looming

Well I was going to write about my crappy week with my crappy dental experience (shit happens, I love my dentist).  But it seems there is something bigger to ponder, family drama that has gone on too long and too painfully.  I have remained neutral throughout this situation, hoping that in due time it will work itself out.  But after so many attempts by one party to try to repair the break, the other party is stubbornly refusing to budge even after receiving the efforts that have been requested.  I get that there were issues on both sides of the fence. I get that it's complicated.  But there comes a point when one party's suffering is so great that I feel compelled to step in.  I have long since been both parties confidant in these matters, so I have the benefit of both sides of the story.  Both know I have both sides.  And yes, it is tough to be in the middle like that, but truly, this is not a pain for me.  

There have been times in my life when I have remained silent until a breaking point comes... and I never know when that point will hit... but sometimes those points occur.  When the situation tilts grossly unfairly, I sense this convalescing of moments that invoke me to take a stand.  It happened once with my older sister's marriage (sleezy (ex)husband).  It happened once with a neighbor and friend's so called friend, whom I had to report to the police for child abuse and sexual abuse suspicions.  And it seems to be happening again... both parties I'm related to, both parties I love with my whole being.  But sometimes gross disparities occur, of which someone is not remotely attempting to correct.  Sometimes it is necessary to intervene, because not doing so is severely compounding the pain of the injured party.  Sometimes people get so distraught, they ask for and need intervention.  I have purposefully not taken sides for well over a year.  I don't want to see either party hurting, but I cannot sit back and let the actions of the one destroy the other, either.  Not when so many efforts have been made to rectify it, all outright rejected no matter how much they said they wanted or needed those efforts.  

I have a great deal of thinking to do before Saturday.  

*Gawd I miss protected posting in xanga, because then I would spell out the whole situation and get your informed advice. *sigh*

And in case you're wondering, this has nothing to do with my brother.  Although as a side note, I did leave him a note on his bed this morning, asking him to come up with a date he feels he can be out by.  I ask nicely the first time.  With no action on that front, I will set the date myself.  But... we'll see.