heart of stone

ive had a plastic snowman juice cup size of wine. the good kind. it was on sale for $4.95. why don't they just say $5? anyway, it's white zinfandel only it’s pink. why is white wine pink? idid pick it for the color though. it looked soft. in vino veritas. so here is some truth. i’m inebriated. i cannot hold my liquor. my Dragon thought it was hysterical, because i am a funny inebriated person. i hate the word drunk. Dragon said i never got drunk because i never drank enough to qualify. he said when i got inebriated i would finally liberally use contractions. he liked that i relaxed enough to use contractions. here’s another truth. when i was in college, i joined a math club. i used to have a shirt that said, “don’t drink and derive.” and i didn’t. i didn’t have my first drink of alcohol until i was 20. it was after my mother died and my father had kicked me out.

here’s another truth. when i was in high school, i was the astronomy nerd, as in the only one. i read every book i could get my hands on. i wanted to go to the moon. funny, isn’t it? i’ve been looking at the moon my whole life and wishing i could get away. get away from my childhood. get away from people who called me Fluke. get away from my first husband. and now get away from here so i can find him. i want to find my Dragon. the full moon was so cold and silvery the night he died. i hope he wasn’t cold.

but i digress.

my high school had a planetarium. i was such a good student that i was the only one who was trusted to run the planetarium and give the shows for the elementary school kids who came. my Dragon loved that. we’d lie out on the beach below the house we’d rented and i’d point out the constellations and the stars. we kept talking about getting a really good telescope when we had the money and i’d asked for a camera mount so i could take photos of, well, yes, the moon, but also Mars and Jupiter, and maybe out towards Saturn.

as it was though, our money went for the kids and food and that was enough for me. we had such a great time. the cove was my whole world and i never wanted to leave it. i could take photos of the moon rising up over our house without a telescope.

i love him. i miss him. he gave me so much that money can’t ever get you. he worried about not being able to give me the things i never had. i kept telling him i'd had some things but i’d never had love. he gave me love. he wanted to give me the house we both fell in love with though and that would have been nice. we would have had a great time saving it.

but all i wanted was him. he gave me confidence in myself. he thought i had talent. he loved my art. all of it. he understood me when i told him i had so many thoughts and ideas and that i had to use different mediums. stained glass, sculptures, woodcarvings, paintings, sewing, and photography. he bought me a really nice camera. my first digital actually. i’d always been a 35mm snob but film costs so he bought me the digital and turned me lose.

these guys are so hard to get. digital was perfect in that i could just delete rather than agonize over the negatives.

but my digital is failing. it’s grinding and i’m losing pixels. ld. so old and worn out. i went outside to take photos of the moon and i started crying tonight about it sounds so sad inside, and because the moon will be full Tuesday or Wednesday. so i had a plastic cup of wine. it has snowmen on it. i got a set of 8 at the dollar store for Christmas. they are so jolly and the red cup makes the pink white zinfandel seem so festive. but very little is lightening my mood tonight because my camera is slowly dying.

i know, i can get another one. but this is the one my Dragon got me. it has memories. it’s the one that took the last photos of him, on that day. hours before he died. smiling his “why do you need another photo of me” smile. because he is handsome. and wonderful. and strong. and he loves me and i love him and i want to touch him. i want to talk to him. i want to be near him again.

i’ve been without him for so long now and i guess, you know, depending upon fate, it’s only just getting started.

my tinnitus is bad tonight. i turned off the television a long time ago and just have music playing.

so the heart of stone. we had this friend who was a widower. a lobsterman. i think i’ve mentioned him before. he lent us the scuba gear to swim to the island. he told us about the house we lived in. he knew we rented but we had rented for 18 months. it was ironic that we were so quickly accepted in town. we found out from the lobsterman that it was because the locals saw us out in every kind of weather there was. and people liked my sculptures and paintings. i was accepted as an artist. my Dragon was accepted because, well, i mean look at him. he’s cute. he’s gregarious. people just gravitated to him. he is adorable.

anyway, heart of stone. i have to stay on task.

the lobsterman said that down on the rocks by our house was a heart that was naturally cut into the granite. he said few of the locals knew of it either. it was one of those magic things that you find and keep to yourself. you pass it along only to those you feel would appreciate it. he said he liked that we held hands where ever we walked, and the fact that we’d walk from the house on the cove all the way into town and out onto the Neck. he liked that about us. he could tell we were close.

so he thought we’d appreciate the heart of stone. he said he doubted the owners of the house knew it was there. they lived in New York and bought the house sight unseen and only ever rented it. it was an investment for them. how they could not live there, even as summer people, was beyond us but it was our good fortune to get to live there.

so we went out looking for the heart of stone. there’s a lot of rock out there. Rockport isn’t just a metaphor. it took us 3 weeks to find it. but we did. and every day we went to look at it. it’s on the side of a huge boulder that is turned toward the ocean. and it is true. the heart is naturally cut. looking at it, it is a definite heart. touching it, it is rough and uneven. like life. life has always been rough and uneven for me. until my Dragon. he saved me. he loves me. i cannot think of it in the past tense.

tonight, with my snowman cup of pink white zinfandel helping me accept the upcoming demise of the camera my Dragon bought me, i am going to make believe the heart of stone was there for my Dragon and me.

i guess the pink white zinfandel is wearing off. i have stopped relaxing my sentence patterns. i have stopped thinking in contractions. i am sitting here with an empty red, plastic cup with snowmen on it and i have typed away the mind fuzzies.

at this point, at this time of night, my Dragon would have smiled his worldly, devilish smile, winked at me and said, “here love, have just half a cup more. i’ll make sure you get to bed alright.”

i sorely miss his laugh.

because Dan said it was okay...

and i've finished the wine.

i zapped the last enchilada - i can get four meals from the enchilada meal i make. anyway, i'm appropriately tipsy and will have morning after regrets but hey, what is life without a few of those. BORING. and i've always been boring. i'm the good girl but that is my public persona. my secret dark side is - drum roll - the one who says what she thinks. i've never had that moment of "and then i heard myself say." well, i'm properly (or improperly) fortified by old wine so here it is in all is tacky, witchy glory.

Resentful - by me. *takes a bow* (i shortened it and didn't repeat myself from the shorter thingy about my daughter's mother-in-law.)

this has been festering for quite some time. it needs to be expunged.

i am resentful of certain people and i have to be honest and admit i am a bit envious of others. i wish i had some good fortune come my way.

first off, i need to go on my knees and humble myself and say i have gotten some gifts of cash for food that i sorely needed, and the enormous gift of being allowed to go to Camp Widow next August. when i think about it, i still cannot wrap my mind around the how and why of it. i cannot understand what i have done to receive such a blessing. i can never repay this gift; not unless i sell my books and become a well-paid author. i will never see enough money to repay this opportunity to go be with people. and by that i mean get out of my apartment and actually see other people that aren't scanning my groceries or embroidery floss purchases. i am so grateful and honored and in vino veritas, i do not feel i have earned it. but i want to go so much. i want to be part of something once, be in a group photo, to have my name on a list. i'll figure out how to handle the embarrassment of being the poor country mouse later. i just want to take some time to thank my fairy godmothers and God for this chance to be included.

not for the poison that i need to expel. i know of a lot of widows and widowers from online and from the group who are going away for Christmas, going other places that they have chosen to go to. and i want them to all have lovely vacations of peace and renewal of their souls. they all deserve it so much for what they've been through. i'd just like to go somewhere to. if i had the money, i'd take my dogs and go to the beach and stare at the vastness and collect shells and think about my Dragon.

my daughter has to work Christmas Eve until 6 and then go to her in-laws for some big do. i covered this in the precious =0\ post. read it and weep. i did after the phone call today. why she wanted to reinforce this, i don't know. and after having two coffee mugs of wine, i know i don't want to know. i just know there's an invisible line in the sand and i have to wonder if she doesn't like me, yet she keeps telling me how creative i am, artistic - hear the sucking up? does she want me to make her something for free? did i miss the giant hammer hitting me on the head? i'm tipsy here. i don't know. i'm just killing time until "Ghost Adventures" comes on at 9. the most un-Christmasy show i could find.

i think it was her reference to her son qualifying her reasons for not inviting me that got really confusing. "We'll have couples here. A woman alone at a party of couples isn't right."

i'll be alone on Christmas Day until around 4. i'll wake up alone. eat breakfast alone. i plan on sewing until my daughter is allowed to break free from her in-laws to come get me for our own private time together. my son-in-law told me that he and my daughter will leave as soon as they possibly can. he has never been fond of his mother or her behavior and now less so. we'll have our own supper together. Mexican food. my son-in-law's dad will be there as well. i don't know how i'll be feeling but i won't have to put on my "game face."

my son will be in New England to keep the peace. we think of him as our UN ambassador. he was claimed early on while my daughter was ignored by her dad. since the divorce, i have had him once on Christmas Eve. he was allowed to come see my Dragon and me in our house by the ocean by 5 PM and then he had to leave by 10 AM Christmas morning. it was full dark by the time he arrived. his father interrupted us 5 times with phone calls reminding him of his duty to his "real family." the next morning, 4 more phone calls demanding to know when he was leaving to "come home." it was a tense Christmas. my son felt pulled. i told him it was okay to go. i could not allow him to have that kind of pressure on him. he is my child. i want him to have peace. he knew that and was relieved because his father knows exactly what part of the body to set the stones on and stack them up. i didn't cry until after he left. my Dragon and i went for a long, long walk on the beach of our cove. we had been very firmly put in our place. that's when we first started talking about when we had money, that we would be able to have a little bit of power, but we would use it "only for good." for all his skills as a Marine, for what he did when he went off on missions, my Dragon was (is) a gentle soul. he can pulverize you in an instant but he'd hate himself in the morning, unless he felt you deserved it. we would never have made demands of our kids. we were considered the "happy, relaxing home."

i resent my ex for this. i resent that he took all the money out of the bank accounts, took the stocks, the 401K, and the house. i let him because he made assurances that i needed to. pointless to go into details. accept that it was the a prudent move, the safest one for me and my kids. my Dragon and i took care of my kids. he was in international business and i've been waiting on the release of money from a deal he worked on very hard. his associate that brought him in is now under federal investigation by both the US and Canada for it being a ponzi scheme or a pyramid scheme. i turned over all the documents to the feds. they came back to me with, "we're sorry but your husband was lied to. there is no money. at best (this person) will get 25 - 30 years in prison." my poor Dragon. i'm glad he doesn't know. only for this one reason as i glad he died before we found out.

i resent my ex's wife. she has the lie. that's all she knows about me. lies. of course i could be lying to all of you but then i'd certainly be living better, have some place to go for Christmas, and wouldn't let people talk down to me. if i had all the money he told his new wife i had, i'd have a lot more friends. and if i was lying, i'd be able to pay for my own trip to Camp Widow. she came to my daughter's wedding and talked of her own daughter's wedding plans. her daughter is getting married in 2011. they have hired a wedding planner and a dress designer to create her dress. i begged for $500 for my daughter's dress (his daughter, too) and i essentially remade the dress to fit her and to be styled like she wanted. i made everything. "so homespun, but it's nice. i mean it's as nice as you can make it. my daughter is getting....." la de da. on the other hand, she has all the money. his money. she won't let him hold out on her. she's already gone through 3 other husbands. my ex is her 4th so i guess i'm lucky to get from him what i do even if i do have to write submissive letters and present my monetary needs in bulleted copy format.

see? i am resentful. oh, and i looked terrible. "you look so tired. i guess you're not over losing (my husband)." no. it was barely 7 months then.

i am resentful of my daughter's mother-in-law. she is Facebook friends with my ex's wife. i see it all on Facebook. i roll my eyes but it stings. i don't know why. i would not want to be friends with either of them. they are neither one very kind. being in their circle would be risky for my feelings and i can't spare mine right now. i still feel left out to see their little back and forths. i am very lonely.

sadly, i am a bad person. i am resentful. i wish i had a friend. i wish i had free therapy. i wish but all i'm told is to keep looking and working to be a better friend. i'm told it's my own fault. i was told to "make some freebies." oh, God. really? is that all it would take? for me to provide free labor in trade for someone to be nice to me? and as for a grief counselor, "you really have to want it to find it."

i went to the widow's group one more time. i caved. i'm not proud. i was so lonely. it was okay. the facilitator recognized, finally, that i'm in a bad way. she saw the "loneliness in your eyes." she admitted she'd read my emails to her. she also admitted that she had not written back because she couldn't help me. if you don't have money, you can't get help. it made me like a loser. i walked away.

i had received an email from an unknown person who told me to go through Social Services. i did some checking. if you cannot pay, they put you in the system and then you lose quite a bit of freedom. they assign you a caseworker who will come out to spot check and "help" me "allocate funds for housing, food, and mental health." they feel that if you need something for free, then i need to be watched as if i were a criminal or an idiot. if i go into the system, i become a non-person and all because i asked for free grief counseling. i don't want someone to take control of my life. my ex did that. still does. i just want someone to talk to. i believed the person who i talked to. she works for Social Services.

i cannot find a church that has a priest that isn't too busy to just sit and talk to me. i sort of resent that, too. the priests back in Rockport, MA weren't too busy to make an appointment to meet with a parishioner. i guess churches down here are bigger and the priests are more isolated. they all have staff that protect them. that's sad. i feel very small and unimportant in a place where even the poorest of the poor should be able to be seen and heard.

i am having a bad day. i realized that i am back to where i was before i met the Dragon. i am unseen, unheard, and uncared about. i am no one's friend (online friends excluded). i am talking about real people. human contact. i have no one to tell little stories about my Dragon to. my daughter doesn't know what to say. she wants me to be better. she wants her old mom back. she wants me to be strong again. she remembers me standing up to her dad and deflecting all his rage onto myself. she remembers me going toe-to-toe with him during one of his rage binges over $5 spent on crayons and sidewalk chalk. she wants her lioness mom back.

but i am so tired. i am lonely. the woman whom i thought might be my friend doesn't have it in her, or i'm not someone she wishes to spend time with. she has too many other friends who have money and cars and can go and do things with her. she didn't exactly say it like that. she said, "i have other friends who have cars and can meet me. you're a bit out of the way." and "well, i didn't think you'd want to spend the money so i didn't ask you." i have to admit that it hurts to be spoken to this way.

i have fallen through the cracks. i hope i get the VA benefits so i might be more of a person in the eyes of people who need me to have money and transportation to be seen and cared about. i resent them for this though. i am a human being. whether or not i can pay for movie tickets or fancy meals out doesn't lessen what is in my heart and mind. i am a decent person. i have never been vicious or cruel. i have a soft heart. i am a sensitive soul. i am a good listener. i have an offbeat sense of humor. i am very well read, intelligent, and intuitive to others feelings. i can be a fun girl. my Dragon thought so and he was very much from the popular table. everyone wanted to be friends with the Dragon. i became cool by proximity. now that he's gone, i feel like Penelope, Odysseus's wife. people want things from me and do not care for my feelings. only Odysseus came home.

i cry easily now. i have a store of tears i never let go of while i was married to the ex. it would have been detrimental to let go. but now, i cry. i miss my Dragon in whose arms i had found such love and comfort. i miss his smile and his deep voice. i miss his friendship. i miss seeing the love in his eyes. i don't see that anymore. no one touches me except a hug from my daughter, and my son when he's allowed to come. my Dragon died but i became the ghost. my presence is felt but i am not seen.

i resent life being so cruel for the last 5 decades. i've had things but at an awful price. from a mother who would strike at a moment's notice and criticize and berate me to a husband who echoed her behavior. then to a man who means the moon and stars to me only to watch him died, stricken, gasping for air. the horror of being unable to save him haunts me. the terror of being left alone in a world that does not care very much makes me feel like i'm drowning.

but then i find out that strangers care. i get kind comments and mail. i get to go to Camp Widow. and i am heartsick to hear me tell myself, "it's because they don't really know you. after 30 minutes they'll be glad to go into a workshop to get away from you."

well, i'm exercising to tone up and i'm changing my hair. i'm going to sew some new clothes and hope i look bohemian and artistic rather than "homespun." i'm going to keep a lid on my loneliness so i don't talk too much. i want to be someone my fairy godmothers don't feel like they wasted their money on. and that's the kind of time i've had, that i would say that to myself, that enough people have treated me that way that i would think of it. i almost want to check the comments box to keep this uncommentable to protect myself. i'm fragile and afraid of what others will say to all this. but then

1. Dan said it was okay.

2. i've had two coffee cups of wine.

and 3. best of all, my Dragon would say, "*uck'em." and then he'd smile his dragon smile.