Mom and Dad moved ‘back’ to the assisted living facility they had lived in. The dining room was a long walk from their apartment. Mom made it pretty far, but then started to lose her balance. Dad kept on going. She made a suggestion about her care. I said then we’d have to have _____ come 24/7…a caregiver who was coming once in a while. I was worried about money after having someone 24/7 for Dad. Of course, that’s what we did in real life. It didn’t make sense in the dream.

Then Mom announced that she’d decided she was ‘leaving’ Dad and moving to a nursing home. It was odd to me that she said she was leaving him, since what she really meant was moving somewhere else. And I couldn’t understand why she would choose to live in a nursing home. That’s all I remember.

Perhaps I was warning myself about the dangers of passivity. Mom’s dream attitude was pretty much the same in real life. And there was Dad, in the background, moving forward without anyone really noticing. Two parts of myself. And I seem to be resisting the one that has been strongest most of my life. The nursing home is comparable to this apartment. I need to continue on to the dining room. And fill up on what nourishes me.

It’s amazing how much time can be spent trying to figure out the root of personal evils when it’s often tagging along right behind you all the time. I recently spent a week with family, paying close attention to things I’ve uncovered that I want to change. Why I just stop talking when interrupted or challenged. Why I’ve always resisted standing up for my beliefs and opinions. I have a fairly new understanding of my strength, yet I’ve often used it only when the path was clear. An underlying feeling that no one will believe me or take my thoughts seriously. Why I’ve always stuck around, putting up with insensitive behavior.

With ponderings over the past few years, I seemed to have figured it out. But in the last week, I saw it unfold right in front of me. At least the part that still preys on me day to day. I learned that from the time I was small, I gave in to arguments because the only other option was to argue nonstop, as the other party insists they are always right. No matter the evidence to the contrary. And when the evidence presents itself, it’s hidden. I never had the opportunity to even learn that I was right.

As the youngest, my thoughts were giggled at, teased. How could her ideas be valid, she’s just the baby. Now I know they are. Even more than valid…insightful. I know when I’m right. And I recognize the evidence. Yet the struggle continues.

I also seem to be in direct line with my mother and grandmother. As the generations have passed, confidence has grown a bit stronger. I know that Gram wanted more. She worked at Princeton University Library as a single woman before she became a farmer’s wife and her life turned into plucking chickens and boiling water on the stove for the children’s baths. I don’t know the details of her longings, but she had the air of a stately and graceful woman. Not the type to haul and plant and gather eggs.

I believe Mom loved her life as a mother. She took pride in her home and had the support of Dad who would do all of the wallpapering and home decorating that she desired. We lived in nature where she watched her wildflowers grow and peeked at the groundhogs, deer, and periodic egret through the binoculars. But she also had a strong creative urge that was never satisfied. With the perfectionist strain that ran in the family, or perhaps was passed from parent to child through the generations, the creative endeavors she attempted were never good enough and she let them go. Although she always encouraged them in her children… every week-long beach vacation included paint-by-numbers, stained glass, or a homemade craft project like decorating Dad’s old tobacco tins with burlap contact paper and creatures made of small shells.

I’ve thought many times, maybe I can be the one to break some of these patterns. I know that chances are slim I’ll be able to change the innate characteristics of certain people, but maybe in changing myself I can show what’s possible. Especially to myself. Can I break out of the mindset that I need to follow rather than lead? Do things that fulfill me, rather than what I’m supposed to? Can I find a way to relate to people who will always be in my life so that I can still speak my mind without having to fight for the right?

Much of what holds me feels like a shell that needs to be busted…break it large, not a little at a time. I peck away at the smaller things, hoping eventually they will create a weakness in my shell that I can burst through.

It was so incredible out this morning, I went to the lake. I sat by the edge for a while, listening to the water lap, enjoying the mucky smell only lakes have.

The 4th of July was the holiday our extended family would all venture to North Jersey to spend the weekend at my aunt and uncle’s lake house. We ate lunches and dinners at big picnic tables outside – fruit, potato salad, cold cuts…the usual summer fare.

Mornings were cool and quiet. We would wander down to the house for breakfast from the detached garage-turned-guest room where out family stayed. Mom and I emerged from the garage one morning and I said, “Listen, an owl!” That’s when I learned the sound of a mourning dove.

Breakfast was on the screened porch, little individual cereals, grapes, peaches, eggs for those who wanted. Everyone was relaxed and ready to spend the day recreating. Time didn’t matter. The day was guided by the light and our rumbling stomachs.

Dad took me out in the rowboat once – just the two of us. And who should we come across but my uncle who had taken his sailboat out and capsized it in the brisk wind. It was impossible to get back up when that happened, so we gave him a ‘ride’ back to shore.

The atmosphere out on the water was so much different than it looked. So quiet and calm – only the sound of water lapping against the boat, the oars turning in the oarlocks, maybe a faint voice from the other side of the lake.

When my three male cousins were younger, they were quite the pranksters. One year they attached firecrackers to things – the bathroom doorknob, my sister’s suitcase – you never knew when one would go off. Remnants hung from the doorknob for a long time after. Another year they put a smoke bomb in the outdoor storage area under the porch while everyone was breakfasting and yelled “fire!” I was impressed that my aunt was perfectly calm. She’d raised two of the boys, and knew what it was all about. She had quite a sense of humor.

The night of the 4th was for the ‘hootenanny‘ and fireworks. The hootenanny consisted of grilled burgers, hot dogs cooked on sticks over a bonfire, and, of course, sticky s’mores. When it started getting dark, on came the festive colored lights that hung in the trees, and on came the sweatshirts to warm us in the cool night air. The male cousins would row out to an island to shoot fireworks toward the main land so we had a perfect view. My jolly, rotund aunt led us in exaggerated “oohs and “aahs.”

The rest of the evening would be spent just hanging out outside by the bonfire, kids in the grass, adults in folding chairs, all fending off mosquitoes and passing around the Off! It was always a little odd for me, being 4 years younger than the next youngest family member. Just enough of a gap to be ‘little’.

When we went to bed, our family would lie awake for a while, each quietly reading our respective books. One year my book was “The Short Reign of Pippin IV,” the book that Dad was always trying to get someone to read. I think those nights were the best family time I remember.

After ruminating on past Independence Days, I took a brisk walk to the car – past the picnickers, boaters, and families biking…the smells of grilled food, dog walkers, and fathers and sons fishing. By the time I left there were large groups gathered to celebrate the day. I headed back to my cluttered, characterless apartment to prepare my own individual ‘picnic’, watch a DVD and pretend I’m not spending yet another holiday alone.

I hope whoever reads this will bear with me as I haven’t written in many, many years. So the tone and style seen here will change, morph, and hopefully develop. I will be experimenting and discovering as I ponder. I hope to use this blog as a vehicle to get all the stuff out of my head and be able to see it more clearly.

Recently helping my elderly parents for 3-4 years changed me in many ways. I became more assertive to get what was necessary for them. I learned so much about them and our relationships. And about me as a product of the two of them put together. Of course, I think about having taken them for granted for too long, as seems to happen to too many people. But I don’t dwell on that thought because I’m so thankful for what we became before each of them passed.

Mom died in 2004, and I continued to be the main driving force in Dad’s care. That time with him had a huge impact on me. We became buddies. And we had complete trust in each other. I’m seeing now that there are a lot of things I seem to only be able to get myself to do when it’s for someone else, rather than myself.

Having been in limbo since Dad died in 2007, I decided it might be helpful to write some of the random and abstract things in my head to try and make sense of them. Maybe then I can figure out where to go next.