Wednesday's Work Plan

 I had no idea I was going to end up like this. When I was young and full of anger and dreams (fuel, right?) ,  I was sure that I was destined for something REALLY big and important. Something that was going to make a difference in the world and catapult me into fame and fortune. Well, fame, anyway.  I wasn't sure what it was going to be...but I knew for damn sure what it was NOT going to be.  I wasn't going to be a mother.  I wasn't going to be a housewife. I wasn't going to be anybody's secretary. And I wasn't going to stay here in Illinois...in this stilted, backwards, close-minded rural area where I grew up. 

  I was going places, baby.

  To be fair, I did go places. And even though I became a mother at 18, I didn't do a good job of it. And even though I started out my adult life as a fecking housewife, I also wrote for a little newspaper once a week and wrote poetry and kept journals and read like  rabid librarian.  I grew organic gardens and desperately wanted to "Live off the the land" while I smoked pot and took LSD and lived in a fantasy. Lived anywhere except in reality and the present. By the time I was 21, I had lived in 3 states.  And was looking for the next one. (By the time I was 35, I had been in all 50 states, plus Hawaii and South America.) I was unhappy and furious and living a life run rampant. At 24 I did the unspeakable to people from Illinois.  I moved to California. (In case you didn't know, one of the covenants you have infused in your IL born DNA is "Thou shalt NOT live in the land of fruits and nuts.")  Everyone was aghast and I was euphoric. I loved it there. I finally could breathe. I was finally home...this was where I had always belonged.

  I stayed there 20 years.

  All this background bio takes me back to my original thought here.  I didn't know it was going to be like this.  One of my relatives innocently asked me if I thought I would have maybe NOT become an alcoholic if I had just stayed home where I belonged.  I had to burst out laughing. And I told her that I probably wouldn't have lived long enough. I would have shot myself in the head years before.

  I left California for the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina and stayed there 10 years before somehow winding up back here.  I almost feel like I moved back here in an emotional blackout. But I didn't, really.  I had been very badly hurt, almost killed, in an industrial accident. I suddenly wanted to be nearer my family, most of whom live here. Especially that son that I wasn't much of a mother to. He had moved back here some years prior, and I had a sudden obsession with being closer to him, and my sisters and brothers.

  Anyway,  Here I am. Back in the middle west. Getting itchy for garden season. Getting ready to do some spring cleaning in my ratty little house that I love. And some yard work in my very own yard and gardens.  Going to clean carpets today, and get ready for my brother and his family to come Friday for a day together. Got paint to get the living room and kitchen painted this weekend...the boyo is going to come and do it and I'm completely changing the color scheme...still earth tones...but a lovely sweet woodruff sage and a rich pecan for the kitchen. Right now it's all cremes and beiges...it was so dark when we bought it I had to hit the other end of the spectrum and make it light and airy. 6 years later (where has the time gone ?!?!)  it's in dire need of paint (thank you to all my dogs and cats!!) and I'm ready to get 'er done.


  Okay. I've stalled long enough.  That carpet isn't going to clean itself, and I have chickens clamoring to be fed and the world that I have created for myself is a full and satisfying, alcohol-free, sanctuary.


  WHO KNEW ???




Namaste.