Tonight I feel alone ..not lonely.
I’ve heard the saying a lot.

It’s Xmas eve and I don’t think anyone reads these so WTF!

She just got back from a trip to the west coast to see her aging mother and older brother. She drove for three days to get there through snow and terrible rain. She did nothing but think about him. Her mother. Her job. Her choices. Her family. Her goals.

Why it seems like she’s not loved? She listened to Dust by Patricia Cornwall on CD. She didn’t really like it. She felt like the writing was poor, confusing out of sync. The reading was poor and she only got engaged while driving in snow through the pass with her hazards on in her 2015 Prius.

For most adoptees they usually always feel alone. She has no kids and after spending years with same person, it appears that, they don’t love each other anymore. Or perhaps. She loves him more than he will ever love her. It used to be okay. But now it isn’t.

She knows that.

She has these dreams of them holding hands in Paris. Sitting on the plane with them and gently sleeping on their shoulder. Watching them sleep. Growing old with them. Him making her feel special. She thought about this. Hoping on the long drive they would be by her side. She realized she was sick of doing things alone.

So on Xmas eve while he’s faking smiles or maybe not, she’s alone.

She knows she’ll be ok. She knows that its better to be wanted and alone.
To be touched. Loved.

She’ll never be lonely. She has too many friends all over the world.

So on this holiday think about how your loved and not alone.

Be you…

My mum loves Liam Neeson more than I knew. Sitting in this condo in sunny California with my brother and an aging mum with early memory loss , it’s tough!

Some days she knows how to turn on the TV remote control. Other days she doesn’t. She’s only 76, went to Princeton, raised four children on her own sans child support. I grew up living in nice houses with my own room. Believe me, that would be hard with so many kids. When I was growing up she was saving refugees before it was trendy.

One day in the six grade, I was living by the beach and I came home from school to find three Laotians in my living room cooking rice in a rice cooker on the floor. Two adults were squatting down .With a baby laying on a blanket. My mother never told me they were coming. I just walked in and saw
them there after school.. It was overwhelming at the time. However, they only stayed for a month and soon after my mum relocated them to an apartment in the ID.

Cut to 2008…When she welcomed a mother, two boys and her three daughters into our home from Iraq. They only stayed two nights because she had found them an apartment with The IRC and it was furnished with the help of her church. She taught them all how to drive, found three of them jobs, got one into college who’s now in grad school and did all of this because that’s my mum. We celebrated many Thanksgivings and Xmases with them. She is and always will be an incredible woman.

Now she only likes candy and eating the icing off of chocolate cakes, watching shows about animals, tornados, Bruce Willis or Liam Neeson.

For the past two hours I’ve been hearing about how my brother Trevor should’ve been named Liam and me Lila.

So…. Liam and Lila it is.

By the way she just shushed me because Liam Neeson was speaking.

Whatever….Liam!

As she laid down on the couch next to her youngest child out of four, reading Bella Tuscany by Frances May. She is engrossed in this book. She tunes everything out.

Even us.

Its quiet in this condo. All I hear is a humming sound from the fridge. I’ve only been here three hours. She has a cold, he’s antsy and asks if we want chicken out of a can. Soup he calls it. Then calls me a communist and her an atheist. She has a cold and refuses to drink Kevita flavored with tangerines. He’s yelling drink it! “Mother, drink it! I won’t. You can’t make me, she said. Three sips! He, bellows. Fine, she says, but I am not going to like it.

One. Face.
Two. No, I won’t do it.
Three. Fine.
Now, can I have my grilled cheese.

I just finished driving from one state through two. Long distance trips are fun. Drinking caffeine from divey coffee huts, listening to Dust by Patricia Cornwall. By the way, it made me sleepy so I ended up listening to a funk CD that my old man made me. Oh, calm down, folks say that when they’ve been in a relationship for awhile! Plus, I may not be uttering those words much longer. So, I need to get it out here.

Okay, I can recall when I made my first mix tape for a guy I really liked. I don’t remember his name. That’s not saying much is it. It had a lot of Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson on it.

Driving for nine hours to me isn’t that much. You think, and think and think.

I passed through rain, snow, rain and fog. Exciting yes? Not really.

I starting thinking about when we’re young and the image of beauty we see. I always remember my mother looking stunning. She’d wear long brown boots with an inside zipper, a long corduroy skirt, a blue blouse with a matching blazer. It was the seventies. She also had long red hair and bright red lips. By seeing that everyday, I knew I had a lot to live up to. She rocked it.

Up until 12 years old, I had been a tomboy. I mean sneakers, shorts, red tube socks and a basketball. Then I discovered lip gloss. The good kind with the roller ball that went effortlessly over my lips with a glossy finish. That thing was trouble. It kicked me off.

Then blue eye shadow. If you’ve been reading this blog you’re up to speed. Disco necklaces, hair straighteners, black eye liner, black high heels and panty hose.

Since I started dating in my teens, I’ve always wanted to look good for ya.
Since my twenties I’ve always cared how I LOOK. I still do.
I love makeup and hair products…..

I do all this….to look good for ya

Every day shit happens and people go on with their daily lives. I believe people go through different events that effect them emotionally and personally. I can only speak for my friends and myself.
Don’t get me wrong, there are terrible things that happen daily in our country and worse in others. As of late mass gun shootings. I grieve for all of the folks who lost family and loved ones. Syria, India, human trafficking, the list is endless with world trauma. We as humans of_____can only deal with our lives. Day to day.

But today a good friend of mine, let’s call her “Celina” may possibly be ending a nine year relationship. Some folks might say she’s an idiot for being with a man who belongs to someone else. Who cares for others but her. Who tries and wants to please everyone but her. She told me, that she’s madly in love with this man and shares her feelings with him when possible. She’s raw, open, wears her heart on her sleeves. Cries, rarely, but when she does it doesn’t look pretty. You know, clenched hands, blotchy eyes, curled lips! Ugly face! Gives everything and waits and waits to no response. She’s strong. As she’s told me he is reserved, quiet, non confrontational, closed and unexpressive. He can share, be there, laugh, be patient, supportive.

She wants to believe deep down that he really loves her and would move mountains for her. But we all know happy endings only last in films. I didn’t want to tell her, but relationships of this nature don’t last. Even in Fatal Attraction it didn’t end well. Alex was shot in the bathtub, when she resurfaced and everyone thought she had drowned. Let’s not forget Unfaithful with a beautiful Diane Lane and Richard Gere kills her lover, the lovely Oliver Martinez.

Only Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy made it work for over 23 years and the guy who created wonder woman.

Look it up.

To him it’s business as usual..
As for my friend it’s, why couldn’t we have just taken a meeting?

Do you remember your first crush? Mine was_____.wait! For legality purposes, let’s call him….” TS”.
I would see him by the trampoline after school in the gym. It was the second grade folks, settle down. He was tall, worked his afro, wore brown cords and a blue shirt. He had the craziest laugh and would say some corny jokes. I dug him. We were a couple for one week. Holding hands in the cafeteria, beating him at jacks, sharing green apple now and laters.
Ah bliss.

The Celebrity
When I was 15 years old I loved two things, basketball and Jessica Lange. I saw her in Tootsie and was totally smitten. She was thirty one, gorgeous and a grin that gave me butterflies. She may have been younger.  My first celebrity crush. Then she was in Frances, a movie about Frances Farmers life. It was shot in West Seattle and I kind of know someone who broke into the house and stole a rock. What happened to this rock? Who knows?
Same year, I bought Rolling Stone magazine as she was on the cover. I still have it in a box. I should frame it.

Then a few months later there was the film premiere of “Frances” shown at the paramount theater. I sat in the balcony, alone in the front row. I don’t remember what I was wearing. But I remember feeling strong, confident, happy, nervous and very caught up in my first premier.

My last crush was on a man I met many moons ago. When I first him, we had coffee and spoke for hours it was the best foreplay I had in years. After our first meeting he messaged me and said, “you have beautiful eyes, you get that a lot right?”

He was hot, refined, funny, strong, smart, an amazing conversationalist. Sex was amazing. Butterflies always stayed with me before and after I saw him.

Ah bliss.