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Heron There & Everywhere

Category Archives: Nostalgia

The Oddities of Dreaming and Missing my Mother

04 Tuesday Dec 2018

Posted by Donna Florack in #family, #sitsblogging, Family, Inspiration, Me, Nostalgia

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

dreams, love, memories, Mother, Personal, socializing

Since I’ve been home on disability, my sleep schedule has been different. I sleep more, and I nap a lot. I also take medication every six hours (four times per day) so I have alarms set that ring every six hours. They do disturb my sleep, but I usually go right back out afterwards.  

Last night I was sitting up, reading, waiting for the last alarm to ring. I’d planned to go to bed as soon as I took my pill. For some reason, I crashed about twenty minutes before it rang. When it went off, I was so sound asleep it scared me. I woke up, heart pounding, dizzy and nauseous, and my first thought was “Where is my mother?”

I can’t explain it, but I was terrified. I sat up to pick up my medicine, and my brain was racing trying to figure out why I had no recent memories of my mother. I couldn’t remember being with her at Thanksgiving, and I couldn’t remember our last conversation. I couldn’t remember if she was in the next room or in some other house somewhere. I was a half a second away from asking my twenty-three year old son where my mother was. 

I am so glad I didn’t. He would’ve thought I’d flipped my lid. My mother has been dead for thirteen years. Of course I have no recent memories of her. She hasn’t been here. 

Our last holidays together (Thanksgiving and Christmas of 2004) are some of the happiest adult memories I have of her. She came to my house for both, she was happy and stayed for several hours both days, and she was talkative and engaging. I believe now these two happy holidays were gifts from her. I don’t know if she knew they’d be her last with us, but she made them good ones. Holidays with my nearly agoraphobic mother were not always happy days, but 2004 was. In January 2005 she had a stroke, and by March that same year, she was gone. 

I know she’s gone. I’ve accepted that and have come to terms with it. Why I thought she was still with us early this morning, I have no idea. I can only guess I was dreaming. It must have been a good dream if I missed her and wanted to find her that badly. 

My mother was once the center of my universe, and I’m assuming I was a big part of hers. She had a hard time sharing me once I began dating although she liked my hubby. She flat-out refused to share me with my husband’s family after I married. She clung to her individual time with me and refused to consider joint celebrations even though it made it hard on me when my boys were little. Looking back now and remembering how much she hated social interactions, I’m more understanding of her reticence.

I’m a little like her that way. I hate social situations, too. I can force myself to get through them, but I am usually covered in flop sweat.  They are hard for me, and I prefer to skip them, but I can do them. My mother never got past her aversion.  She used to tell me she was proud of me and she could never do what I do (interact with others for work and social reasons). She never wanted to or had to.

I was devastated, of course, when she died.  She was all that was good, kind and gentle. She never swore, and she was always a lady. Two things I can’t say about myself. She was also intensely private and shared nothing. Also something I can’t say about myself. I like to think I got the better “soft” parts of her and added in my own sass and attitude.

I’m glad my mother still visits (and socializes) in my dreams. I miss you, Mom. Say hi to Dad. 

Image courtesy of Pinterest

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Holiday Mood

02 Sunday Dec 2018

Posted by Donna Florack in #family, #sitsblogging, #truckerswife, Blogging, Challenges, Family, Health, Holidays, Me, Nostalgia, Random Thoughts, Trucker's Wife

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

c. diff, Humor, wellness

I find myself this year in less of a holiday mood than usual. As the years have passed and my boys have grown from sweet little guys into big, hulking, hairy men, Christmas has definitely lost some of its magic. I try not to feel that way, but it’s true that Christmas is more fun and way more magical through the eyes of a child. Being sick hasn’t improved my mood any. 

As an adult, Thanksgiving was never really all that much fun. It was a lot of hard work. From my very first one as a wife when the turkey wasn’t defrosted and I stood at the sink, running a cold, dead, frozen turkey carcass under the hot water trying to thaw it out and gagging the entire time, and my Gramma, honest to a fault, declaring my very first from scratch pie crust to be “tough” and inedible (yes, and making me cry), it’s always been WORK. I always had my mother and grandmother over, and I rushed around and tried to make it all perfect like it had always been when I was little. After Gramma passed, I had my mother over and the stress there was always wondering if she’d stay or if her social anxiety would get to her and she’d ask to go home as soon as she’d arrived. I understood her issues. Hell, half the time, I shared them. When I’d worked so hard to make it nice for her, and she wouldn’t even sit down and eat with us I was so very hurt. I never told her because that just wasn’t done with my mom. She’d have gotten angry and the solution to her would have been no more visits ever. So I tried every year. I hoped she appreciated the effort. She’s been gone thirteen years so I’ll never know now. 

Thanksgiving here this year was me sick as a dog. 

I watched the parade on TV – one tradition kept. My hubby and boys were here. I believe my hubby made himself a Hormel microwave turkey and dressing meal. 

I had chicken bouillon and toast and slept a lot. I’m not sure what my adult sons fixed themselves.  There was no way I was touching food for anyone else to eat. I was nauseous, and I didn’t want to share the bacterial GI infection. 

So now I look forward to Christmas. I know I should decorate inside the house (we always have a tree) and outside (I always put up lights). I drove to the grocery store last night. First time I’d driven since November 15 and my first lengthy outing (other than a doctor visit). I walked the entire store. I pushed the cart; my sons did all the fetching and carrying. I finish the antibiotic this Wednesday. I am supposed to return to work on Thursday if the blood work I go for Monday or Tuesday is clear and shows no infection/inflammation. 

So, yeah, Christmas. Maybe our fake tree this year, but who cares about outside. Right? It’s the people inside who count. I’ll work on psyching myself up. 

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Everything Wears Out

29 Wednesday Aug 2018

Posted by Donna Florack in #sitsblogging, Challenges, Health, Me, Nostalgia

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Aging, falling apart, health and wellness, wellness

Everything wears out. Cars, appliances, furniture, bodies.  I have learned way more about the human body in the past year than I ever thought I wanted to know. Upper endoscopies, CT scans, x-rays, colonoscopies. I became well acquainted with them all. The heating pad on my belly has become my best friend.

Today as I await the approach of another doctor’s visit to address a new concern that cropped up this morning, I wonder why some folks never seem to have health issues. Others have chronic, life-long problems. Still others have items crop up as they age.

I try to look on the bright side and figure that things could be far worse. I can see, I can hear, I can walk, and most days I function as any other, normal, overweight, 59 year old female does. Things hurt, I move a bit slower, but I get through it. Some days it defeats me, and I long for the days when I felt well, or I long for the days when I can retire and I can pretty much relax 24/7. Then again some days having a job and responsibilities to go off to keeps me sane and keeps me going.

When I was in my 30’s and dealing with children with developmental disabilities, autism, ADHD, diabetes, celiac disease and the special education administrators and so-called regular teachers in the school districts, I used to say that work was my escape. I went there to get away from the hard things I faced at home. Having to deal with all of those people and all of those issues hardened me and made me grow up in so many different ways.

When I was in my 40’s and dealing with death (father-in-law, grandmother, mother and my beloved pets one right after the other) and dealing with the beginnings of the health issues (endometriosis, ovarian cysts, and hysterectomy), I was thrown for a loop. That decade brought me to my knees, and depression threatened. I withdrew from life in many ways.

My 50’s have been a reawakening for me. I grew further and tossed off the sadness, I got two college degrees, I got five tattoos, and I rediscovered the guitar, but then I also found new health challenges.

I’m not sure why we age the way we do. Folks who eat right and stay fit don’t always reap the benefits of their hard work so please don’t tell me I should’ve taken better care of myself. I did the best I could.

Everything wears out. It’s why folks have surgeries to replace or repair things. It’s why we buy new cars, new appliances and new furniture.

So I’ll keep putting one foot in front of the other. It’s all I can do, and I’ll hope for the best.

Image courtesy of Pinterest

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#%&@!#@!

23 Saturday Jun 2018

Posted by Donna Florack in #family, #sitsblogging, #truckerswife, Blogging, creative writing, Family, Humor, Inspiration, Me, Nostalgia, Random Thoughts, Trucker's Wife

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

achievements, fun, intelligence, Personal, personality, profanity, swearing, upbringing, uptight

The nice part about age is you no longer care as much what others think. You dress how you want, look how you please, say what you feel, and do the things you want to do. That was one of the things I admired the most about my grandmother. 

Gramma lived until 98, and she was well known for speaking her mind. She was funny, sweet, and irreverent as hell. All the borderline raunchy expressions we knew as kids, we picked up from Gramma. My mother wouldn’t allow us to say “hell” or even “damn” at home. I remember sitting and giggling with Gramma (my mother’s mother) at some funny thing she’d said or something we’d seen together. 

2BC35592-15FB-468A-B585-3DF8E0C411ACBecause I couldn’t swear at home, of course, I swore like a sailor away from home. I swore at school all the time. My mother always thought swear words showed a lack of intelligence. I loved my mother, but I can see now that my mother was uptight and prissy as hell. Where she got that from, I don’t have a clue. Gramma was a stitch, and my aunt (my mother’s sister) was a lot of fun, too. 

I remember my mother being horrified when my aunt MaryEllen said, “If you can’t beat them, join them” about swearing (and her own teenaged children). In hindsight, my mother’s method didn’t work either. Her strict rules (she yelled at my poor father once when he said “kick him in the balls” when he got excited yelling at a televised football game) only made me want to rebel more. She didn’t make me more refined or softer spoken. 

F6367446-4A8D-456D-AEEB-5298DF5C3482This was a woman who watched AND laughed at Monty Python sketches, for pity’s sake. She had a sense of humor, but  she didn’t swear. Her favorite expression when arguing with my Dad was, “Oh, go soak your head!” I will admit that I have told my sweet hubby far worse in the heat of battle. 

I am who I am. As far as my mother goes, I might’ve respected her rules more if she hadn’t been so ridiculous about allowing others to speak freely. So what if I said “fuck” on the day of my father’s funeral? I was 28 years old, and she yelled at me like I was 7. So what if my father said “balls”? I do believe that was the only borderline thing I ever heard that man say. He never swore, at least not in front of my mother, but I can guaran-damn-tee it that he swore at work. 

I remember a conversation once when he was discussing his coworkers who were all older men than he was. He said something about how they all farted and they all cussed. My mother was thrilled, of course. She probably thought they were corrupting my Dad. He spent five years in the Army during WWII. Does she think the soldiers were all non swearing, gentle-bred men? It was the Army and it was WARtime!

I often think my mother would be disappointed in how I’ve turned out. I’m happier than I’ve ever been, rough edges and all. Sometimes I cringe internally when I hear myself (thanks, Mom). I swear more than my trucker husband does. My oldest son got worse at his first job. He worked at a car dealership with a bunch of guys, older mechanics. He came home with funny stories about one guy nicknamed “Hippy” who swore every other word. You had to laugh at some of the things this guy came up with. My youngest son swears, too. Who cares?

I know. My mother would. But my mother has been gone thirteen years. So I swear. I have five tattoos. I have pink highlights in my long, naturally curly hair. I wear black fingernail polish, leggings and rock band t-shirts. 

I also have two college degrees, one earned with a 4.0 GPA. I’ve worked since I was 19 (forty years). I’ve been married (according to Date Calculator) 10,451 days or 28 years, 7 months, and 12 days. I have two adult sons, 27 and 22. I have my own home, and I pay my bills on time. I read. I write. I play the guitar. I may not be outgoing, but I can fake it. I may not be a great housekeeper, but I’d rather do other things than clean. I may swear, but I don’t drink or do drugs. 

488723EF-9C98-4247-8212-234CD07D1636I can hear Toby Keith singing, “How Do You Like Me Now?”

I’m not positive my mother would like all of my rough edges (many of which popped out after she died), but I hope she’d find enough here to be proud of raising. 

How do you like me now, Mom? And I’m really not sorry I posted the word ‘fuck’ online for all the world to see. Shit happens. 

Images courtesy of Pinterest

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Donna Florack

About Me

I have been married for 29 years to the love of my life. I am a trucker’s wife, Mom to two adult sons, a blogger, a full-time writer, a music lover, a budding guitarist, an avid reader, a wildlife lover, an amateur photographer, and a full-time employee. I can be reached at donna@heronthereeverywhere.us

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