(Written By Hennessy)
Autumn.
Fall.
We have come to recognize this season of the year by both names. I prefer autumn. It just sounds prettier and conjures up a nice image in my mind. The colors of the leaves appear to be prettier when I think of autumn. I guess fall is a signal to a change coming, a time when something disappears, and reappears as something else.
Winter.
I am not fond of winter, especially since I live in Cleveland, Ohio. Even though I prefer autumn, things did change for me in my life, and I suppose that is why I don’t like fall. Wake me up, when September ends.
I say that because of my brother, Bill. I lost him in September and, in October, I lost my brother, Mark. Fall; the fall of my brothers. That is why I prefer autumn. Perhaps I fell too after they left me. I wonder if I ever made it back up again. Sometimes I am not so sure now that both of them are not with me anymore. Two people I sometimes think I have let slip from my mind. Two brothers I need yet they don’t answer me when I call to them. The silence is maddening at times; not hearing or seeing them anymore. To have them both gone is just tragically sad for me. I miss them terribly. I wonder a lot what we would have been like as brothers now at this time and age of our respective lives. I can only wonder, as they are not here to let me witness what might have been.
Perhaps this season of change is something that I don’t really understand since I feel so sad that my brothers cannot share in it; this special time of nature. It is rather cruel I feel that we cannot be as family and talk about just how pretty it is now. I do feel rather lost watching the leaves turn to brilliant colors without them. Maybe watching the changes in the leaves is telling me that life changes, and that even though the leaves do disappear, they do return. Could it be that nature is telling me that they are here, and have returned in spirit and are with me now? I will ponder this always and wonder if it is true. When the leaves all come back, are they there? Are they both as full of life as the newly adorned trees are? Can they see me as I see them? I wonder.
When my memory of them rests, I shall never forget what I lost. Wake me up, when September ends. Summer has come to pass, the innocence can never last, wake me up, when September ends. Every memory of walking out the front doorI found the photo of the two that I was looking for. It is hard to say it, but time to say it, good-bye, good-bye my brothers. Let my wishes be those that one day you return to me in spirit, like the returning leaves that left in autumn. May they be bright, full of life, and always wave in the wind, a sign telling me you are there.
I do like autumn, and this change it brings me each crisp day when the leaves are beginning to come down. It helps me relive those days I so wish I could have just one more time. I know there is a time where there will be a return of innocence. Watching as the leaves change, from one shade to the next, makes me aware that you cant keep things constant. Time and change are a given as they never stop for even one minute, one day, one year. Seasons come and go, memories are made in each, yet memories of days from the past are lived during this time as well. Perhaps this is what I long for, a change that brings them back, not just as a memory, but also as my brothers and their spirits. I will continue to watch the leaves change, be swept away by the wind, and think of them and smile. Maybe that breeze is them laughing, speaking to me. I hope so. Till then, I will wake when September ends, and wait for them. Come back Bill and Mark, come back to me. Do you see the tears in my eyes as the sun sets here? Do you see me waiting for you? Let me know when you are here with me. I would love to be your brother once again as my life needs that void filled you left me with. I am not angry, just lonesome for your faces. I miss you. Just wake me when you get here.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Milestone
My friend Jules had been dreading a certain event with a little fear and apprehension. She captured it as best she could in words. She needed to express this for herself and for others, and so, I offered this blog as a safe haven of sorts. Please read and enjoy Jules very first post below. We hope she will continue to contribute here along with Hennessy and me.
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I turned 50 years old this past spring. It was something I had thought about for years - – the reality of actually being a half a century in age. It was not something I was looking forward to. I saw the age of 50 as an end to whatever “youth” was still left in me, as if it was the truly “over the hill” mark. I would no longer be looked at the same way, valued the same way, as if outside forces in my life were all the mattered – what others thought. I felt a certain amount of “stigma” attached to being a 50-year-old woman. For a good five years, I didn’t like saying my age either – I’m 45, 46…” But telling someone I was 49, well, I might as well have said I was already 50. I spent the winter months before my birthday (I am not a winter person anyway) pondering this inevitable birthday with total dread.
There was no awakening to the acceptance of being 50. It just came. In retrospect, my biggest critic about this age thing was no one other than myself. I bought into the idea of 50 being something negative, and it was me who attached that label of “over the hill” and “end of youth” to who I am. The Buddha quote, “You are what you think, and with your thoughts you make the world” made a whole lot of sense to me. Maybe turning 50 is something honorable - even if this world is obsessed with youth and being superficial.
I found it was far worse to think about turning 50 than being 50. I had friends who did kind things for my birthday – gave me interesting and unique gifts – friends who treated me to lunch, family who gave me not one but two birthday parties. I quite honestly think that my 50th birthday was possibly one of the nicest, if not the nicest birthday in my memory. It was because others went out of their way to make me feel special. And I did. All 50 years of me.
The actress Jamie Lee Curtis turned 50 last fall, about 5 months before I did. She has, in the past year, embraced who she is, not ashamed to pose on the cover of a magazine in her underwear showing her middle-aged body (she still looked pretty good to me though) with no makeup. She’s okay with her age. Yes, she looks older than she once did but somehow she emits a vitality that to me is far more attractive than being a physically youthful 20 something. I quote her thoughts about aging, “Aging is God’s way of telling me there is no time to waste.” She views life now as a time to shed bad behavior, work on the good, to continue to grow and be happy in who you are. She’s right. In the past year, I’ve worked to drop a few pounds, embark on a walking program for health benefits as well as a time to clear my head of all the crap this world throws at me that I often can’t do a thing about. I like the idea of “shedding” the negatives – the thoughts, the bad habits, a few pounds, and work on making what I can’t change things I move away from, or learn to accept.
“Forty is the old age of youth. Fifty is the youth of old age.”
~Victor Hugo
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I turned 50 years old this past spring. It was something I had thought about for years - – the reality of actually being a half a century in age. It was not something I was looking forward to. I saw the age of 50 as an end to whatever “youth” was still left in me, as if it was the truly “over the hill” mark. I would no longer be looked at the same way, valued the same way, as if outside forces in my life were all the mattered – what others thought. I felt a certain amount of “stigma” attached to being a 50-year-old woman. For a good five years, I didn’t like saying my age either – I’m 45, 46…” But telling someone I was 49, well, I might as well have said I was already 50. I spent the winter months before my birthday (I am not a winter person anyway) pondering this inevitable birthday with total dread.
There was no awakening to the acceptance of being 50. It just came. In retrospect, my biggest critic about this age thing was no one other than myself. I bought into the idea of 50 being something negative, and it was me who attached that label of “over the hill” and “end of youth” to who I am. The Buddha quote, “You are what you think, and with your thoughts you make the world” made a whole lot of sense to me. Maybe turning 50 is something honorable - even if this world is obsessed with youth and being superficial.
I found it was far worse to think about turning 50 than being 50. I had friends who did kind things for my birthday – gave me interesting and unique gifts – friends who treated me to lunch, family who gave me not one but two birthday parties. I quite honestly think that my 50th birthday was possibly one of the nicest, if not the nicest birthday in my memory. It was because others went out of their way to make me feel special. And I did. All 50 years of me.
The actress Jamie Lee Curtis turned 50 last fall, about 5 months before I did. She has, in the past year, embraced who she is, not ashamed to pose on the cover of a magazine in her underwear showing her middle-aged body (she still looked pretty good to me though) with no makeup. She’s okay with her age. Yes, she looks older than she once did but somehow she emits a vitality that to me is far more attractive than being a physically youthful 20 something. I quote her thoughts about aging, “Aging is God’s way of telling me there is no time to waste.” She views life now as a time to shed bad behavior, work on the good, to continue to grow and be happy in who you are. She’s right. In the past year, I’ve worked to drop a few pounds, embark on a walking program for health benefits as well as a time to clear my head of all the crap this world throws at me that I often can’t do a thing about. I like the idea of “shedding” the negatives – the thoughts, the bad habits, a few pounds, and work on making what I can’t change things I move away from, or learn to accept.
“Forty is the old age of youth. Fifty is the youth of old age.”
~Victor Hugo
Monday, September 08, 2008
On Year Later...
They said to me: "It will be interesting to see where your life is a year from now…”
A year after I lost my job because I wouldn’t move/conform …
A year after I lost my work-friends…some who lost their jobs for the same reason as me…some who hung on but wondered for how long…
A year after I lost my comfort zone…
A year after I lost my seniority, vacation, freedom…
A year after I lost my “untouchable-ness” and security and semi-golden-girlness…
After several years of just losing it all…
I’m still here.
My one-year work anniversary came and went like any other day. No congratulations, no cake, no pop, no mention, no nothing. The day before, my boss offered some semblance of recognition but only because he would be out of town the next few days and knew I considered that a “gift” in and of itself! Plus I reminded him repeatedly (think monetarily here) but to no avail.
My former boss would have remembered.
Mostly, I just wanted the raise. The rest I knew.
At my former gig, they would have had my review and raise prepared ahead of time. I would have received a commemorative key chain and, much smoke would have been blown up my ass. I wouldn’t realize it until years later, of course.
Supposedly my review and raise will be forthcoming.
Have I mentioned I’m jaded?
Too bad when he came to visit or rather made his “rounds” (as I like to call them) today, I was on the phone…all I got was the handshake…not the never-ending type…no shoulder squeeze…barely a gaze into the eyes because I was on an unimportant phone call.
Working.
Of course he couldn’t be expected to realize… but part of me can’t help but wonder if there would be some minute flash of disappointment across his face for the lack of knowing or not being foretold… that after all the changes, they didn’t do right by "one of us”. Especially the “one of us” he felt compelled to issue a bonus too. (It seems that a bonus in general is done rarely and whole-heartedly, unlike reviews.)
A year after I lost my work-friends…some who lost their jobs for the same reason as me…some who hung on but wondered for how long…
A year after I lost my comfort zone…
A year after I lost my seniority, vacation, freedom…
A year after I lost my “untouchable-ness” and security and semi-golden-girlness…
After several years of just losing it all…
I’m still here.
My one-year work anniversary came and went like any other day. No congratulations, no cake, no pop, no mention, no nothing. The day before, my boss offered some semblance of recognition but only because he would be out of town the next few days and knew I considered that a “gift” in and of itself! Plus I reminded him repeatedly (think monetarily here) but to no avail.
My former boss would have remembered.
Mostly, I just wanted the raise. The rest I knew.
At my former gig, they would have had my review and raise prepared ahead of time. I would have received a commemorative key chain and, much smoke would have been blown up my ass. I wouldn’t realize it until years later, of course.
Supposedly my review and raise will be forthcoming.
Have I mentioned I’m jaded?
Too bad when he came to visit or rather made his “rounds” (as I like to call them) today, I was on the phone…all I got was the handshake…not the never-ending type…no shoulder squeeze…barely a gaze into the eyes because I was on an unimportant phone call.
Working.
Of course he couldn’t be expected to realize… but part of me can’t help but wonder if there would be some minute flash of disappointment across his face for the lack of knowing or not being foretold… that after all the changes, they didn’t do right by "one of us”. Especially the “one of us” he felt compelled to issue a bonus too. (It seems that a bonus in general is done rarely and whole-heartedly, unlike reviews.)
The “one of us” who had to answer all the tough questions with honesty and integrity because she was going to give him a chance and a very ever-elusive piece of trust to eventually break into fragments. Probably.
They don’t know what it’s like outside of “their” realm of reality. Sometimes you need to go outside the bubble and beyond the gate to see the real world that exists.
I think it’s high time I burst the bubble.
They don’t know what it’s like outside of “their” realm of reality. Sometimes you need to go outside the bubble and beyond the gate to see the real world that exists.
I think it’s high time I burst the bubble.
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