wet middle of the week

To cry or not to cry, that is the question. My sister tells me I was an emotional little kid. Cried a bunch. I do not have any recollection of that. In fact, once I was in school, my mother (cynically? enviously? generously?) called me Little Miss Sunshine -- a quaintly early 60s kind of label. By the time I was a teenager, I was sad a lot (boyfriend wasn't really behaving much like a proper boyfriend), but tears? I don't think so. And then came menopause. And especially the years just before. I think I cried every single night for maybe a year or two. (I also drank too much wine which I'm sure did not help matters.) Once I started my life with Ed (so, since 2005), my crying stopped. I could credit him with that, or I could admit that I'd finished going through menopause. Or something. In any event, since then, I have rarely cried. People get sick, they die and still, the tears rarely spill out. Depressed? Sure, occasionally. Hurt feelings? Definitely, though not very often. Frustrated with Ed? Sometimes and yes, an outburst of tears may follow, but it's really rare (not the frustration, but the outburst).

Today though, the tears came. I suppose it had been building up. Sick friend, with daily decisions, expenses surrounding that, and yes, frustration with Ed: he's being slow in taking care of a request I made, at the same time that he keeps bringing boxes of old stuff I'd left behind in the farmhouse, even though I'm telling him that this month I do not have the bandwidth to deal with it. Add to all this is my passport issue. Because so much has been going on -- the moves, the moves, the dogs -- three of them!, the moves -- three of them! -- I'd been stalling with my passport renewal. I finally filed an online app a couple of days ago, thinking surely this would go quickly, but today AI told me I am stupid to do this now because I am going on a brief international trip in four weeks and it could well be that I wont get my new passport on time. 

So -- frustrations, worries, tiredness (late nights) and therefore -- tears. 

The thing is, I'm not especially sad. Lots of joy to be found. Roses! Millie! The grands! Ed, just not at the moment! Steffi's House, good books, milky coffee, dark chocolate, a long leisurely breakfast...

The list of happy moments is long. Add to it amazing luck: my passport expires toward the end of January. My trip has me back in the US by the late-middle of October. I am allowed to travel to a Schengen country, so long as I'm back in the U.S. three months before the expiration date. Close call, but I make it with only a few days to spare. 

Still, I feel I owed myself a good cry. It had been too long! (The last tearful spell had been around the departure of Henry then Sadey.)

Millie watched this unraveling of her mama with utter amazement. Ed happened to be here then (he was bringing in those boxes of stuff I wish he had left alone for now) and Millie looked from him, to me, to him again wondering perhaps if she should file him in her brain as an enemy of the people after all, because, was it a coincidence that her beloved mom was crying while he was bringing dangerous explosives and killer weapons into the house and storing them in the basement? (Even in the best of times, Millie is suspicious of boxes.)

I planted two roses and I transplanted some flowers to make more room and during this time Millie either slept or did her famous loopy zoomie run in her garden.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 ("that was fun!")

 

 

She was amply rewarded with a walk in the afternoon to Tati's: Ed met us there and Millie, of course, had a pup cup. 

 

 

 

 ("is there more?")

 

 

 

 

 

There is a FB chat group of gardeners who bought roses from one of the country's small but exceptionally good nurseries (Grace Rose Farm). There are also many, many video clips on FB of people with their doodle stories. When I feel my frustrations mounting. I scroll to either one for a good chuckle. People who are rosarians are obsessive and funny and people who have doodle stories and video clips offer humor that is powerful because it's true. Roses fill your head and doodles fill your heart. 

Still, a good cry is like a good massage -- for a few minutes after, you feel grand.

with so much love...