After reading Kenyon's Taking Down The Tree

I was thinking as I read this Kenyon poem about my childhood and what I can remember about Christmas trees, ornaments, fanfare. I discovered this:

I have no memory of where my mother kept Christmas ornaments. As a matter of fact, I can't recall one single ornament from our Christmas trees through my childhood years. I can recall tinsel and large Christmas lights. Other than that, there is absolutely no memory of my mother or father getting down the ornaments or getting them out of a closet or out of boxes or out from under beds. There is no memory of going to get a Christmas tree. I do not know if we went to grocery store parking lots or makeshift Christmas tree lots or if we had artificial trees. No memory whatsoever. I say that with some level of alarm. I have a decent memory (unfortunately, I tend to remember the adverse events of my life more than the positive ones). So, why no memory of ornaments, where they were kept, what they looked like, my mother decorating the tree, buying the tree. It's like my mind is a dry erase board and all of the red and green ink has been wiped off and the cleaner applied to be sure not one little speck of red or green remain. Hmmmm. If anyone reads this, please share your memories of Christmas or of ornaments you remember or what you recall about your trees throughout your childhood years and who decorated them. I would love to read your stories.

I have decided that if I get no responses to this on FB, I will leave FB again. Hardly anyone comments on my page. I am not finding what I need there. I am not finding it anywhere.  I need friendship. 

Cacti

🎼We three kings of cacti ignored/thirsted and longed as our human ignored/our need for water, nutrients and shelter/hoping for wonders from afar.🎼 Poor, dead cacti. I wouldn't have thought about them and haven't thought about them, but I was sitting on my porch hoping to see Animal Control show up (which they didn't). I don't want any dogs or cats in the shelter, but the people across the street have two dogs running wild, and I have an elderly dog going out back to potty. I don't want her attacked. The two across the street are pit bull mixes. They seem to be young, but I don't know anything about them. They were in my backyard late yesterday afternoon and again today. They were in the street, and I was fearful they would get hit by a car. So, as I was watching and waiting, I was humming to my dead cacti.

Fail

So, basically, my take on how things worked out just represents what a failure on many levels I am and have been all of my life. I am crying. I need to cry. I am so tired of feeling like this. 

I also don't like it when people try to run my life and tell me what to do. And, I don't like it when the person I live with can't figure out that towels need to be washed.

Wondering

So, I made appetizers to eat for lunch Christmas Eve day as I thought that would hold us all over until I cooked a big meal that evening (beef stroganoff), which I did not end up cooking.  Lauren said they were coming that morning, and Wes texted that he was on his way around 10 or so, so appetizers sounded like a great planning strategy on my part only it wasn't. Lauren, Jon, and the babies left later than they had planned to leave and got McDonald's on the way, so they weren't hungry. Wes was hungry when he got here but filled up on the chips and salsa (I had not cooked the stuffed mushrooms, wings, nor cranberry brie tarts yet), so I had these foods arranged on the table: chips and salsa, herbed oyster crackers, buffalo and plain chicken wings, cranberry brie tarts, and stuffed mushrooms. I had queso with rotel in the crock pot, and spiced nuts and magic cookie bars in the dining room. I also had homemade chocolate chip cookie dough in the fridge for Santa.

Lauren didn't eat. She said she was sick and was afraid she was getting the flu. Jon didn't eat because he ate at McD's and the kids didn't eat because they ate at McD's. Wes ate a wing or two and a few of the mushrooms. Robin ate several of the brie tarts and lots of magic cookie bars. There was still a table full of food out at 3, so I scrapped the idea of cooking stroganoff thinking we could just eat what was already cooked. I had already prepped the asparagus and had peeled, seeded, and cubed the butternut squash to be cooked that night, but none of that got cooked.

I still needed to prepare the overnight blueberry French toast casserole, so I did that and made Santa some cookies, but I only baked a dozen and kept the rest of the dough in the fridge.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I didn't plan well.  I spent 339 dollars and worked hard but really didn't have to and didn't need to.  I just can't seem to get these holiday plan things figured out.  Is there a lesson in this for me?  I guess the lesson is eat out on Christmas Eve, forget about trying to have some kind of traditional meal, and just continue to do a Christmas day brunch.  I feel exhausted, but I guess what I feel the most is that all of those things I attempted to do really didn't matter.

The kids don't expect it nor do they seem to care particularly about a tradition. I put the pressure on myself.

Christmas brunch didn't go much better. It took a long time to make everything, and Linda and crew were really late this year, so we didn't start eating until two (plan was for 1:00). Wes and Jon hardly said anything during brunch, and then Jon disappeared to the porch and didn't interact at all with Linda, Elizabeth, and Bradley. I overcooked the French toast casserole (slightly--it was still good) and hardly any of the potatoes got eaten though everyone said they were good--just "rich."  Sigh.

I guess I am just feeling like a failure. What other reason would all of it be bothering me so much?

Zollie and Keen had a big time, and they made me smile often.  Christmas is about the children.

Turned into

I have turned into my mother, only worse. At my age, she was not an obese drunk. She drank and got drunk, but she was not morbidly obese.  She was a recluse of sorts. She let some people come in to visit her.  I don't have anyone to let in.

I was thinking today that if I left Madisonville and moved away, no one would miss me.  No one comes to see me.  How can someone miss someone they never visit nor have lunch with nor go to the movies with nor does one single thing with (ending sentences on prepositions--who gives a shit).

Becca texted me and is coming over Friday night.  She will be the first person other than family and my neighbor to come and see me since last December.  I can't imagine what it would be like to have friends. To have a dear friend.  Someone you spend time with.  Someone who comes to see you. Someone who loves you through the years.  I haven't been the most receptive person, but it's not like anyone tried that hard.  I feel like I just don't have much value in terms of anyone thinking I'd be a great friend for life.  I don't know why.  I suppose I am either too unlikeable long term, too distant, too uninteresting, too ---I don't know why people don't like me enough to make a long-term investment in me.  I only know that solitude is all I have, and I don't even have that.  Constantly, constantly, constantly, Robin is standing over me, behind me, next to me, across from me asking the same questions over and over and over.  I don't want to be alone.

I don't want to die and I don't want Robin to die. I want to learn how to live like this until I die and not expect anything more.  I can't keep thinking about Robin and wishing he had more.  That's up to him. 

Fuck fuck fuck fuck.  I don't know what I did in the before this life to have ended up like I am.  What did I do?  I must have been a royal shitass.

Making it

I have made it to 9:00. I have been ready to fall asleep since 6:30.

liddle donnie

iddle donnie did run

when others made fun

of his juvenile tirades.

so he got on his plane

and flew into the rain

of laughter filling the heavens.

he took to his phone, pain

deep in his groin, as the Bevins

of elections past surrounded.

in his typical tantrum style,

he wore out his smile

and added more orange

to his fading toupee. His words

fell like hail on the shell of his jail

the sad wings of the presidential

Boeing. His ignorant crowd

in their ignorance cloud,

cried, "False truths" though their

voices, like boomerangs, return

to his ignorant crowd,