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Sadness to Gladness to Gladness to Sadness or…Dear Lord please stop the madness!!!

/ Anelemc / 1 Comment

Glad…

Cooking red kidney beans and coconut rice requested by your sister who is, inappetent and lies dying from breast cancer in a hospital bed.

Sad…

You deliver the goods on the 2nd day of her request and she dies on the third day without tasting a morsel.

SAD…

You do not cook red beans with coconut rice for a long time…

Glad…

…until you decide to make the coconut rice for yourself and buy the red beans subconsciously at Key Food.

Sad…

…when you realize the beans you bought are the red kidney beans you avoided for who knows how long because you have yet to recover from the red kidney beans and coconut rice incident from so long ago when your sister died from breast cancer.

GLAD…

…because your daughter who avoided red kidney beans like a deadly virus, accidently eats the red kidney beans mixed in with the coconut rice you made, because her mind was discombobulated in a strange way which is normal for her on any given day, but not on this day when her mind went far right instead of staying centered.

Glad but Sad…

My tía Nina (Bernice) died from breast cancer so long ago and mom, my mom did not take her passing lightly. I was by her side when the midnight call came letting us know Nina passed on. Mom cried, cried and cried, as I cried, cried and cried ions later when I lost Pi. I did not cry for my aunt at the time, as I was the crutch to hold my mom upright. I did not visit my aunt Nina (Bernice) during the hospital stay. My memories of her were meant to stay in the past, before the cancer: beautiful, dressed to the best, makeup and hair perfectly coiffed. At times, I say, bullshit to that excuse that acts as comfort when fear probably allowed that excuse of not visiting acceptable.

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Mom and Nina were not the best of friends when they reunited in America after going their separate ways in Honduras. Mom, was sent away with an aunt who lived in Jamaica to be raised in a culture that didn’t accept the ‘coolie shitting callaloo’ looking Indian girl,  while Nina stayed in Honduras, going to school and perfecting her spanish language skills. Once the sisters reunited, got over the female drama, they traveled all over the Caribbean and became quite close.

My tía Nina (Bernice) always paid attention to me while the others (the Honduran aunts and uncles) had no time for the Jamaican blood that ran through my veins and made me the ‘other’ in their eyes.

Ma and Tia Nina in Ja096

I was not aware of the red kidney beans and coconut rice that transpired between them. Actually, I found out today. Mom cried when she told me how upset she was about Nina not eating the comfort food she requested before passing. I reminded her, how happy I was to eat it yesterday. SIMG_1538he smiled…and made another pot of it for my weeks’ lunch…

 

Out of gladness comes sadness and out of sadness comes gladness…

Tia Nina018 (2)

2013

/ Anelemc / 2 Comments

2013 arrived and was not greeted with the usual resolutions such as those made in 2012:

Lose weight

Limit alcohol intake

Penguin run – frequently and on a schedule

Living situation-Move out

Change job or get a better job with better location and better pay

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The resolutions of 2012 are now discarded. The New Year of 2013 came at midnight when the clock struck twelve and casted the resolutions of the old into an ‘unresolved’ imaginary bin stored in the back of my brain.

But, the consequence of making those resolutions in 2012 were severe:

Instead of losing weight I gained ten more pounds

Alcohol –a lil bit more instead of a lil bit less

Penguin run-what is that again?

Living situation-the move out turned into the barely living, drowning in frustration at my financial inability to move out

Same job and definitely no better location and no raise let alone a Christmas bonus

This year, with the new, New Year approaching, instead of the usual in my bed by 10pm sleep induced reception, I was awake. And no,  I did not watch the dreadful ball drop on TV for it triggers memories of a New Year’s past in which my butt was fondled and molested in the melee of a crowd gone wild while watching the old ball (sans the 2,688 Waterford crystal triangles)  drop live and in person in the pre-Giuliani Times Square.

But, this year there are no resolutions.

Attempting to construct resolutions for 2013 may be good in keeping with the spirit of the New Year thingy but if 2012’s resolution results are an indication of what will come, I think I’ll pass this year.  There’s no need to go through the ‘unresolved’ feelings of disappointment at not meeting impossible expectations. No point in shoving the disappointment into my brain where it will stagnate and fester turning into the unrequited resolve of the resolutions.  And no, the toxicity of that mess will not migrate to mi alma (my soul) for clutter and suffocation are not allowed to reside there, only torment, bliss and friction of every emotional kind.

Instead of resolutions, I welcome subtle and easy changes towards achieving goals.  Subtle, like breathing in and out and so easy as in not having to think too much about the process itself.

The subtle and easy changes require a difference each day in the way I think and do things. All things, from putting on my socks (left first instead of right) to the amount of pep milk (a little one day, a lot the next) in my coffee. I will take a slightly different route while walking the street, like walking on the opposite side of the streets I walk down.

My subtle and easy approach towards tackling larger goals will bring results.

Some of the goals I’ve set in motion involve learning and practicing meditation, consuming less meat and enrolling in a running program. Subtle and easy. Attending meditative classes, abstaining from meat until the weekends, running with a group instead of alone-just doing those little things which are subtle and so easy will lead me to obtainable goals. meditation 001

A lil Griping…

/ Anelemc / 2 Comments

I know few people who enjoy spending 30-40 hours working for a company that is not their own. I know few people who own a business and I know few people who enjoy spending those hours with co-workers from hell.  I am one of those few people that I know.  I am also one of the millions of busy worker bees not seen on TV bragging about my wonderful fourteen hour a day job at a Fortune 500. Instead I gripe-no, it is not complaining for gripers are unique in their own right as the word gripe is. For me, griping is done silently, in the form of internal dialogue-not to be confused with voices barking out psychotic orders.

When griping graduates to redundancy and excuses are used up and I can no longer blame myself, I blame GOD and angrily ask, “Why are you punishing me? What sin did I commit that deserves this unjust reward? Where are the guardian angels, the spiritual ones, the keepers and watchers of anguished souls?  Why can I not win the lottery? If you let me win, I’d never complain about anything…EVER…again!

Of course, my questions go without response. At God’s doorstep, questions are presented and often left under the ‘Welcome’ mat. HE does not operate the way I would like HIM to and who am I to tell HIM what to do? HE may also not give me what I demand and after time has passed and I am mad at him again, I realize what was given turns out to be what was needed.

After the tantrums, the whining and sniffling centered on my wretched circumstances brought on by my own poor planning subsides- I pray. My prayers surprise me for I pray in gratitude mode, sending out thanks for the stuff that is going right, for the stuff I do have, for the stuff I enjoy and the people, I enjoy doing stuff with.

When I pray, HE listens and when I don’t, HE listens- to the silence. 

At times, I pray for better circumstance such as the time the “C” diagnosis came for a short visit, an uninvited guest who decided to move into mom, my mom’s colon. The eviction chemo was trying and draining on mí alma (my soul).  I prayed, screamed, hollered and read aloud Mathew 7 with a concentrated effort on the ask and it will be given to you part. The asking, begging and bargaining on my part was relentless. And now, three years later, I thank HIM every week, after receiving communion for saving my mom and allowing the chemo to do its’ job.

Griping about work-now back to the beginning of all this.

In due time, once the fog has rolled out or better yet after the first three weeks in this new position, I  am able to see the commonality shared with the so-called co-workers from hell.  We love to eat lunch and enjoy doing so. I will eat healthy, they will not.  I believe in integrity and working hard regardless of the crap pay and the lack of Thank Yous from the higher ups while the co-workers complain and back stab one another, smiling, as they walk out the door fifteen minutes before quitting time, well, so much for commonality.

I need to and have to work. No choice, for the bills gotta be paid and the insurance must be active. So I work, begrudgingly for I’d rather be home writing, chasing the internet, FBing, emailing and sometimes just basically wasting time while my fingers punch in alphabet keys.

Wasting time does not pay the bills-so I work, begrudgingly.

A lil griping relieves the frustration and the tension.