Soccer, soccer, soccer

"Don't judge me by my past, I don't live there anymore," a saying I'd seen on Facebook yesterday, an image of an empty, but beautifully upholstered sofa for an ample illustration.

I believe with our healthy cells rejuvenating and replacing themselves constantly, with all we learn and experience, we change so much that we're not our own past within minutes. I'm not even the same bitter person I was months ago. I'm neither as naive as I once was, nor as hopeful, but not resigned to my fate, still battling the residual secondary trauma issues, excited about the freedom ahead of me, and happy with the contented family now surrounding me.

That those who've criminally bombed out of our family now express many regrets at what they've done, especially those in their 20s, that those in their 30s, and now there's a buncha them, are now positively expressing themselves quite often, my own perspective changing as always, so much junk to either internalize or to process each day, sometimes I'm so emotionally or physically exhausted each night that I've been known to fall asleep with my big fat feet still on the floor, where I'd lain back on my bed to think, only to later wake up with a start in that uncomfortable position, rolling over to try and sleep the rest of the night properly.

I churn through each day systematically at 90 mph and sleep like a dead rock eventually, rejuvenating myself for the next onslaught of stress or joy...hard to predict around here, keeping me on edge.

I came back to Georgia in 1977, here where I was born, leaving coastal Virginia where my Dad had chosen the Virginia Methodist Conference after seminary, like others in the 1950s, leaving the alleged backwardness of the Deep South, but not making it much further than the NC/VA state line, the corner of Southeastern Virginia. We also lived in the DC area for several years, then back to the Tidewater area. I do still deeply miss the water and the sound of seagulls.

To have so many of my friends from those years, folks I've not seen since the 50s, 60s and early 70s, has supremely blessed this voluntary shut-in like crazy, especially as I do still grapple with losing my sister and brother-in-law. There's a FB group of folks from my elementary, junior high school, and high school that's been interesting, to say the least. I'm flat out shocked at the number of folks who've died already.

One of our (my siblings) close friends, a friend of mine as well, since all my sibs and I were born in a four and a half year time span - all four of us, - well this guy, John, had been murdered in his 20s by an angry, possibly scorned woman. ( Scorned? Ya think, Cindy). Another friend messaged me the whereabouts of John's only sibling, a pretty girl who'd hung out with my sister.

I keep hearing from classmates from back then, immediately transporting me to another me. They're the only people who remember the childless Cindy, dang, I was a teenage mom before there was Teen Mom TV, heckfire back then all TV's went offline at 11 p.m...and, at least, I was a married teen mom.

All these young girls getting knocked up nowadays before marriage, including some of my own kids, seriously girls? Dooming the offspring to instant poverty? This is not an opinion, but a fact backed up by statistical evidence. Look at Section 8 housing stats. It grieves me deeply for their future.

Stupid Hollywood glamorizing the cute baby-on-the-hip accessory, susceptible teen girls thinking this is cool when the reality is hard work, sacrifice, menial jobs for the undereducated, and baby mama drama.

Back to reality, to the me I am now, Lord have Mercy, I'm balking and stalling at moving all these houseplants from my room to I-dunno-where-I'm-gonna-safely put 'em all. I'd rather haul wood chips, keep planting or weeding, aerobically mow the immense meadow with a push mower, but it's gotta be done before the rest of the ceiling falls on my hard head, waking me up to find myself drinking hot tea in Heaven with my sister. As fun as it'd be to see her, I gotta finish raising this darling buncha teens first.

Soccer, soccer, soccer right now. I'd kept an eye on Nando through his practice last night, still concerned about the inexplicable neck pain he's had, waiting on his MRI appointment, but I left my older teenage boys down on the field for their practice until nearly nine o'clock, coming back to get them, leaving Grandma here to babysit so my younger kids could get to bed on time.

An aside: Deputy KM - knowing you're there at the park gives me peace of mind. JK, they're good boys. You taught 'em well in D.A.R.E. and they adore you.

My older boys, especially Martin, now 18, are emerging into their reject Mom and all she stands for phase, which I do understand, but Honey Chile, you particularly have another year of school, you still need me, wake up and smell the coffee. CW was grumbling in my office early this morning, a little off put by his BFF Martin's surliness. I'd reminded him, Martin that is, "Dude, I'M your real mom, I'm the only one you remember, I'm the one who cleaned up your barf, changed your youngest brother's goat turd diapers, babied you, loved you, cared for you, can we fast forward through this predictable phase?"

He just stared at me, not hatefully at all, baffled would be a better word. He still sometimes rudely refers to the younger one as Goat Turd, due to the weird consistency of that which I'd dealt with back then, euw, as it inexplicably would fall from his diapers, leaving a trail one might follow after? Go figure. Fortunately he was not a feces smearer, as nearly another entire sibling group was so, thereby making Clorox my own BFF.

Each morning as they all get ready for school, I read the news online, start blogging, get interrupted a thousand times, eventually hit publish, publicly journaled out, cathartically ready to face the morning and all its incessant demands, glad as always when I have a totally uninterrupted day here at home to get it all done, Larry the Cable Guy's "Git 'er done," echoing in my mind each time I think about it, a brain worm certainly. I'd just taped his "Them Idiots," comedy routine, laughing my pathetic butt off, snorting and guffawing, but MLB baseball is not regularly televised enough during Spring Training to keep me occupied.

A day to listen to fascinating podcasts, time flies as I labor doing that which I love, even if it wears me out. I do not remember my own grandmothers, back in the day, genteel women from South Carolina, ever toting a wheelbarrow of anything at all. They had yard men. That both me, and my 82 year old mother, unabashedly love to do so, makes me wonder about us.

Are we just weird dirt grubbers?

Or are the bored, shopaholic women the weird ones? Normal being somewhere in the middle, I'd wager.