Painted Perfect

All the dolls say the China doll has it best.
She lives a perfect life, they know it is blest.
All say with her smile, no one can compete.
She's always so strong, she never sees defeat.
All see her beauty and know her heart is light.
She's always so content, her life is pure delight.

However somethings a China doll cannot share.
Things that other dolls are not aware.
But she can't tell them, they wouldn't care.
Instead she cries softly, "God, why's this my fair?"
While trying to stay grounded and not to despair.

Her life is not perfect, but a struggle every day.
Smiles are feigned, but kept there anyway.
Her strength is waning, she can't keep up the fight.
A heart with few joys, it is heavy, not light.
If they'd look closely, peering behind the fan,
The other dolls would see she's a tearful Raggedy Ann.

I woke up on the wrong side of this weekend

Last weekend...seems so far gone now...one of those unreal weekends where you wake up and it was a dream. That Friday night of news and blur of a Saturday when you passed out at 8pm and where did Sunday go?  It was one of those weekends where your world stops but flies by all at the same time. You're in a daze, disbelieving. Nothing is real, but everything is real, too real. You feign an outer calm or, at best, anger, but inside you're torn apart and, when no one's around, you cry...and almost wreck because you can't see through the tears. 

Friday night was long, though bearable with a friend being there all night...only 4hrs sleep, but I had to get away. Barnes & Nobles afforded some distraction and a caramel machiatto...but I couldn't focus on the book I'd brought, the scenes playing in my mind weren't of Louisiana and a 20yr old mystery coming to light...rather they were of me convincing someone I love to move from home with me. But after less than a year, they left here with less than a week's notice, in itself, that hurt...I'd sit blaming myself for everything..."maybe if I'd done more things, gone out more, did fun things..." I'd have to stop my thoughts and look back to the soft yellow pages of the book that couldn't hold my imagination captive. 

I know it's not my fault, but I can't help but feel that way sometimes, it takes almost a physical effort not to think it.

Last weekend was not cool. Monday morning, as if to top off a particularly rough weekend, I had some rude and mean customer right after 8am. I just laid my head down in defeat, wishing deep within that it was Friday and none of the weekend was real and even heard myself saying "I woke up on the wrong side of this weekend...."

This whole week, starting from last Friday, has been really hard...and I'm not sure what made it hurt the most...my sister getting snappy with me which made me cry, or when I momentarily talked to my mom and she sounded exhausted with life... :-/

Random Rant :-P

I don't think I suffered any repercussions due to my parents letting us go trick or treating and dressing up as harmless things on Halloween...princesses, army men, cats, teachers....

I like the holiday, I actually like October because of it, always holds happy memories :)
I don't have anything really philosophical, but I do agree with this guy... People nowadays really do make too big of a deal about Halloween and twist the meaning. Really, if Catholic parents are being Catholic parents, then their children will grow up learning what Halloween means and will not be warped children.

Once again, it seems to come down to the ever more present fact that Catholics seem to be falling away more and more often from teaching their children about the great feasts of the Church which are dappled all over our calendar, the calendar that the world uses. That's just it, the majority of Catholic parents have become so worldly, that they make the minority tend more towards Jansenism as they do not want to resemble the lax in any way...but the more traditional Catholics go too far all to often, in my opinion.

The traditional Catholics start shutting down where they should be opening up, like in true charity and trying to be friendly with "bad" Catholics to be a good example. Unfortunately, the "good" Catholics ignore and refuse to look at or talk to Catholics who have had the misfortune of falling down.... When really, they should be open to talking to those poor souls, being friendly to them, inviting them over into a good atmosphere. When we don't, that's when we, so called, traditional Catholics, who claim to be better, start becoming as the worldlings who do not want to be "marked" for associating them. No, I'm not suggesting that we go into the fallen souls world, bring them into our world so they can see we are not rejecting them, that we are willing to help and only wait for them.....

Tomorrow isn't an option

I was away at my first year of college in 2004 ...it was a week before Christmas break...I remember my cellphone rang, it had been sitting on my desk, the screen was orange; Home was calling. It was after 10pm, I was a little worried. "Hello?" "Hi Rebecca...how ya doin..." Normally, that may have subdued my worry, but something was wrong. "...your Grandma died..." My mind reeled. I'm not sure if I said it out loud, but in my mind I asked, "..but she's okay, right?" ....then I choked on the tears that started coming as the reality started to hit....

That August before I'd left for college, I was supposed to have gone to see Grandma, but we ended up not going for some petty reason...and somehow I "just knew" that I'd missed my last chance to see my grandma...I remember that I regretted leaving for college without saying goodbye one last time. I may have thought to call her, but I never did... I guess sometimes God gives us premonitions, it's not just that we're worriers... I felt really bad/guilty/heartbroken for sometime after Grandma died because I'd never gotten to say goodbye and it bothered me for a long time.
Some months after Grandma died, I had three dreams about her for which I thank God.  Now, I don't know that God sent them to relieve the pain in my soul, or if He just allowed that I have random dreams that soothed, but I am thankful for these three:

In my first dream, Grandma came over to our house. I was in total shock seeing her alive, but also excited to see her again, "Hi Grandma!", then I just sat there in my dream thinking and then saying it out loud "but...you're dead...?" she only smiled and kept talking to my mom. She was looking for something it seems, something that Mom had or was making for her, I didn't really know. But I asked her if she was okay, she just smiled and the dream ended. When I woke up, I thanked God that I got to see her one last time, even if it were just a dream.

In the second dream I saw my grandma again, she was in a hospital bed, I was still questioning, "...you're...dead...?" but I was excited and was going to take advantage of seeing her again and went up to visit with her one last time! She was in good spirits and asked if we could do her favorite thing, "do you want to play a last game of cribbage?" so I got a board and we played on her hospital bed. As dreams are the game was gone and there was something about the pink blanket Mom was making her and then I asked, "Grandma, are you okay where you are?" She just looked at me with that smile, like she was happy but at the same time sad, maybe because she wanted to tell me but couldn't or maybe because she couldn't console my pain... and then it all vanished, but I woke up feeling happy to have seen her and played one last game with her. 

The last dream I've ever had of my Grandma I just remember being at a train and then seeing Grandma walk in, didn't know where she was going. I asked, "But you're dead? How, how are you here?" She had this pink blanket that Mom had crocheted for her and said, "I was just picking up this blanket, I needed it before I left." She wasn't on the train yet so I hugged her really close and said goodbye and let her go... as she stood on the moving train I was asking "are you okay where you are Grandma?" Grandma turned and smiled at me with a little sadness in her eyes then said goodbye as the train pulled away and the dream faded.

After those dreams I've never had another with my grandma in them, but I thank God for the consolation, because, it really felt like I had seen her, I had played one last game with her and that I really did give her a final hug and say goodbye.

I never told anyone about the dreams until after the last one, then I told my mom. Mom said she'd just finished a special novena for Grandma's soul a few days before. ...and I just realized something... I told my Mom the dreams after she'd finished it.... the first dream Mom was making a blanket and there was something special about it, the second it was like Grandma was waiting in her hospital bed for something from Mom, and the last dream was Grandma having the blanket my Mom had lovingly made for her, Grandma couldn't leave without it....

Random Review: The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Just went and saw the new movie Sorcerer's Apprentice. Pretty good show, though I was a little disappointed with it at the same time. Perhaps I was expecting a little more development and a little more action overall? Also, the intro to the show was...cheap. It seemed like the intro to Disney's cartoon Aladdin or something "where a dark man waits with a dark purpose" c'mon, it's supposed to be believable, then MAKE it believable. It couldn't be taken very seriously. Not something I was terribly into. OHH!!! what was REALLY cool were the Tessler coils! that was pretty darn awesome :-D 

Anyhow, after watching Sorcerer's Apprentice, I was thinking how more and more it seems that many tv series and movies are using magic and mythical creatures in them---not that I'm adverse to it! lol, I do like vampire shows and magic. Fun to watch. ...but the conversation between the father and daughter in Pirates of the Caribbean comes to mind sometimes with all the magic going on. Elizabeth and her father were talking about pirates and the father was saying he wondered of the impact on his daughter from all the pirate talk and she says, "Actually I find it all fascinating!" to which her father replied "Yes, that's what concerns me."

It seems that our generation is becoming more and more captured by the magical world, I myself enjoy all the magic. But sometimes I stop and think of the conversation between Elizabeth and her father and wonder, "Are we becoming fascinated in that same way?"

It was a month you weighed heavy on my mind
Cutting my heart deeper an inch at a time.
Perhaps I should have seen it, but I was blind
You were acting your pain out in mime.

But what is a friend? a reflection of pain?
Why did you hurt me, to release some shame?
You should have told me, made it quite plain
I'm here to help, I will not blame.

If you'd but told me I'd caress, I'd pray
If you'd display your struggle just to one
Perhaps you could face your demon and say,
I've won.