I am spending the weekend alone which isn't such a shock but this weekend I am not particularly inspired to do anything. I did pull weeds yesterday morning but that is about the only routine thing I have done. I usually have a least a to do list my head but I decided to just do nothing.
This isn't something I am at all comfortable doing and lets just say that my idea of doing nothing can sometimes translate into another persons doing a lot. I talked to my sister for a couple of hours yesterday while she fixed herself lunch and then walked to the bottom of her property and pulled weeds while we talked. Our friendship is growing as she realizes we are more the same then she imagined.
Today I got up and decided to clean my home office and move towards changing it into a studio. I don't really like this room and when I bring work home I sit at the dining room table. The office is paneled at the bottom and has a large bookcase a perfect set up for a working space. It is northeast facing and seems dark and uninviting. I painted it a saturated blue to contrast with the dark paneling but it made it worse. I do write my blog here but that is really it.
To start the cleaning process I first took the two last boxes of my old business files upstairs. When I got there I faced a bed covered with family photos. A few months ago I started looking at mostly my mothers family photos and got too overwhelmed and left it. Today I decided to put them away and move on and then I stumbled upon my parents wedding album. It is the original with thick white pages with plastic on both sides of each page. It has no cover or order and some of the plastic has cracked.
This album used to be kept in the bottom drawer of my mothers secretary. As a child I loved to pull it out regularly and look at my parents getting married. I have often thought of creating a new album but this one has a smell that reminds me of my childhood. Probably off gases of the plastic they used back then but I could bear to get rid of the original album.
Today I brought it downstairs and started scanning the pictures. I want to make a digital photo album for my sister. Along with the wedding the album has all the professional pictures of our family. Ones with Santa and a few during a time when my mom bought one of those packages from Olan Mills. I have added a few random photos I have found over the years.
My mother had dreams for herself and for us. She made every moment count with her entrepreneur spirit she made our lives feel full and safe. She kept us motivated and everything at our house was organized and drama free. Her own family growing up was plagued with addiction and lived drama to drama this sometimes invaded our lives with phone calls in the middle of the night. She always downplayed the situation and everything went back to normal.
Looking at my little family today starting with my mothers late teenage years. She was at a dinner getting and award for vocational leadership to the last professional family picture just before she got sick. Her smile from the first picture change from genuine to fake to even forced in the last one. She gave up her own ambitions mostly at the direction of the church. It was a choice she made and certainly had nothing to do with my father who would have joined the circus to be with her.
Her mother and the indoctrination she received from her church kept her on the straight and narrow. She chose that path and lived it with her whole heart and would not be happy about me writing this. We make choices based on what we know and who is influencing us day to day. My dad raised a Methodist loved the rigidity of my mothers religion. He didn't like to make decisions for himself so it was great to have the church do this for him.
Looking at all the pictures together has helped me to see the bigger picture and where I come from. I can see where everything is a choice and how I can choose again. My mother didn't choose to get sick but I think she lived against who she really was and that can make you sick. I only remember her wanting to get well for my father. Anything treatment he found she would try. In the end because she had to have faith she couldn't be honest with us girls that she wasn't going to make it.
I am glad my sister and I are getting closer. We have been alone most of our lives emotionally and spiritually with only our faith to get us through. I am grateful for my family history and the values both my parents gave to me. It has served me well.
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