Sunday Evening

Greetings all. It is a lovely Sunday evening.

I am pain free. This may not sound like a big thing to anyone else. But I had a migraine this morning. Took the pain meds, and stayed in a dim quiet room until the pain receded. Of course that left me spacy all day.

I've been having more migraines lately. Stress, I think. I need to not tie myself in such knots about what I want. But I'm a very A type personality. So that's hard. And sometimes, when things have been particularly difficult for a particularly long time, the body rebels. Which is why I've been having so many health problems lately. My body is telling me to chill out. Wise advice, if I could only DO it.

The mystery is almost finished. I'm SOOOOO close. I'd like to think I'll have it done by the end of the day tomorrow, but I know that's not really likely. I always am a bit optimistic about how much I can accomplish in a day. There are days the words just FLY from my fingers, and I NEED to be able to type as fast as I do. Then there are days that they just won't come at all. And you never know which it will be. I do know that it's best if I write at least a little every single day. Which, of course, is hard. Life does try to interfere.

Happy news. The barn swallows that nested on my front porch have hatched their nestlings. Of course this makes them a little nutso trying to keep up with feeding the babies, and trying to protect the nest -- which is right above my front door. I'm trying to use the back door more for a few days, and am staying inside. I'm just so glad they're there. It is considered extremely good luck to have birds nest on your porch. Besides, they're just lovely. And oh do they provide entertainment for the kitties. Good for the birds that there's thick glass windows protecting them from my fierce hunters!

I was reflecting on how much I enjoy adulthood. It's so funny to me. People tell teenagers "These are the best years of your life." I suppose there are folks for which that is true. But, as I've probably posted a million times, when my aunt told me that (I was fifteen or sixteen at the time), I turned to her and said, in utter deadpan (and partial seriousness) "Then shoot me now."

High school life in the small town midwest in the 70s was not kind to a weird creative type heavy on the sarcasm and with goth leanings. (Before goth became a movement and was at least acknowledged as existing let alone achieved anything remotely close to cool or even anti-establishmentarianistic-cool). To say I was viewed as "odd" is putting it both mildly and politely.

My life got (and is continuing to get) progressively better as I got/get older. I found out who I am. I actually got so I mostly LIKE who I am. (Mostly. Oh, I'd change a few things, and I will forever be tinkering with the package, but mostly I'm okay with me.) And I discovered that I like the city. Urban life suits me. (Which is why I'm heading back there).

So when my son (an bit of an odd, creative type, heavy on the sarcasm and so forth --hmnnn, wonder where he might have gotten that?) was not happy in his school years I told him truthfully. "It gets better. Really." He tells me that information helped. Having heard the old drone about "best years of your life" he was fairly terrified that life was going to seriously suck.

Now, I do think there are folks out there for whom high school is the high point. And while I don't mean to be negative, the thought makes me a little sad. Because I would HATE to think that I was going to live into my eighties or nineties, and that the best things to happen to me were over before I was 18! But maybe they don't. Maybe it's okay for them. I do know that they seem to go through life with a level of expectation/confidence that the rest of us never quite seem to achieve.

I mean, let's face it. I'm doing OK. I'm living my dream. I write books. Something I've wanted to do since I was -- um, 4. I'm making good money at it, and I am winning awards. People actually ask for (and value) my autograph. How weird is that? I get to be on panels, correspond and chat with artists whose work I've loved, and who I've admired practically forever, and aspired to be like. AND THEY TREAT ME LIKE AN EQUAL. (Now that is REALLY weird.) And the cool thing is, they're real, nice people. And some of them even have the same odd quirks I do.

BUT with all of that, I still feel self-conscious. I still hate the way I look in the pictures and videos that are an inevitable part of life.

(Side bar here. My mother and sister got on me a few years back. They were going through the family photos and realized there were NONE of me other than the big family portrait. Because, I'd made SURE I was always the one behind the camera! Now they know I hate how I look, but that just GOT to them. And they said that "damn it, you're part of this family, and we're going to have the evidence to prove it! When the descendants look through the family shots, YOU WILL BE THERE! So that I am now trapped into photos on every occasion.)

In my own head I'm still the "odd one." (If life is Roseanne, I am Darlene, only much, much, older.) I go out in public, and I don't have that "aura" that the former sports stars and cheerleaders have, that expectation. There's no logical reason for me not to. But I just don't.

Of course I could be full of . . . ahem . . . BEANS. Because when I'm on a roll, I'm ON A ROLL. Life shines a little brighter, the music plays, and TA DAH! I just wish I were on a roll a little more often.

Then again, don't we all?