I don't care what you do.

I'm not going to be a weaksauce lame wimp-victim.

You can't make me.

The Strong Woman, Okane, of Omi Province, Subduing a Wild Horse

by     Kuniyoshi   

My dear young friend watched me strip things I'd cherished from around the place.  It became as grim and cheerless as my expression and just before i threw everything into the trashcan she gave me the benefit of her experience.  In speaking of tokens and symbols that I'd held dear to me, she told me, "You'll get them back someday.  It'll take time, but you'll be able to like them again."

They went into the trash anyway.  The "someday" she told me about may never happen.

A friend who has lived through and survived breast cancer, a family business' faltering and still failing, moving from her big beautiful garden and her dream house into a small box she treasures because it's home to her and hers shared these words with a woman who had lost something at the center of her heart.

"Life goes on."

This truth wasn't glib and trivial, nor a dismissal of the sad woman's experience.  It's a promise and a challenge.   She was saying, "Life goes on--are you in?" 

This middle of the night, all alone and reflecting on this,  I say that I am, I want to be in, but.

My heart isn't in it. 

My life fits me like someone else's coat these days.  Parts are too roomy, other parts bind and though there are some things I thought would suit, the thing either needs to be tossed out or tailored more to my needs.  I've tried living with it as it is, but I've spent so many hours feeling little but irritation that I'm ready to make those alterations.

Next month I cut that tiny little job I have down by a day per week.  Assuming I can find a substitute for Fridays--and believe me, I'll hunt one down if it kills one of us--I'm enrolling in a couple of art classes  in Madison through the university.  We'll see if my eyes and hands still work together and more importantly, what my mind does when I try to use it.

This doesn't seem like a big change except when I think that I've sent three children to university classes since the last time I paid paid tuition for this student.  I wouldn't have thought of doing it at all if I hadn't asked Stella what in the world I should do with myself.  She gave me the answer with all the ease one person can solve another's quandary.  For once I'm doing the smart thing and taking good advice that I've asked for.

I will tell you the secret of making a strapping 18 year old football player turn ghost white and weave on unsteady knees.  You don't have to touch him.  No poisons or voodoo curses are involved.  All it takes is a determined aunt, a New Year's Resolution, and no escape route.

We're about half way through my nephew's placement here.  Nine months down and nine to go until I drive him to his university dorm, give him incredibly wise advice, hug him goodbye, and drive joyously home again.

He's more agreeable than most young men, I think.  He agrees to all sorts of things like cleaning up his room when I ask him to, but as far as following up his easy acquiesence with actual work, well, that's a completely different story.  He is straight from that parable in the Bible about the two son who are told to do a job by their father.  One says "no" but does as he's told, the other says "yes" and doesn't do it.  Guess which one my nephew does the terrific impression of--go ahead, give it a guess.

In the nine months we have left together, the social worker who is supervising his placement here has charged me with giving him a complete course in adult life skills.  From what I've seen, the guy has the social thing down cold.   He makes plans, he wheedles the use of the car from his uncle, he's gone most nights.  He has a job, too;  it's the best sort of job for someone who has a busy social life.  The restaurant always overbooks staff and sends the extra guy home.  Guess which guy gets sent home every darn time.  Go ahead;  give it a guess.

I've done a pretty good job nagging C. into filling out college applications and he's been accepted at one school and is waiting to hear from another one which he'd rather go to.  I've given him my take on the job situation.  By the middle of June, the boy won't have a cent that he doesn't work for, so he needs to get a job that will let him eat something besides burgers and shakes from the restaurant he "works" at.  Things like vegetables, fruits, and popcorn require actual cash and a job where you're always the extra help that's sent home won't buy you much at the market.  Therefore, a real job is necessary.

The area I've really lagged in is teaching C. how to keep his place clean enough that guests won't be too grossed out by the mess to visit him and clean enough that he won't get himself sick if he chances eating something he gets out of his own kitchen.   He's perfectly content to let me handle those kinds of things and doesn't interfere with my dishwashing, bathroom cleaning, or picking up after everyone.  However that's not going to help him in nine months when his college roommate wants him kicked out of the room C. has turned into a toxic waste site.

And that--and the check-in we have scheduled to have with the social worker next week--is why my Number One New Year's Resolution is to put C. through a nearly painless program in which he'll learn the basics and in which he'll be nagged to do them enough to maybe establish a couple of good habits. 

And that leads me to the secret I promised to share with you, Dear Reader.  If you want to make a musclebound young man weak at the knees, take him into the smallest room in the house, and say, "Your job this month is to clean the bathroom every day.   Here are the cleaning supplies.  You start by cleaning the toilet...."

It works a charm.

I suppose it could be considered reassuring that the earth keeps whirling which makes dark and light alternate in surrounding us, and while a person may be knocked flat for a while, Life just keeps chugging along and the flattened aren't allowed to litter up the side of the road indefinitely.

And so, while I'd have to admit that between being trash-compacted and having the Plague snare me I did no better than limp through the holidays, with the New Year I will sweep myself into a cohesive heap and rejoin the Life parade again.  I'm packing Stella off to an emotional oasis--a visit to see her boyfriend in her college town.  She's got three weeks between semesters and I've loved having her here.   The dynamics of our mother-daughter team have shifted and she and I both take care of each other now.  She can definitely use a break from mothering me and Minneapolis holds the TLC that she really wants.  She'll be back in a few days, as ever torn between wanting to be here with family and wanting to be in Minneapolis with J.

I think I'll be able to concentrate on clearing up a few holiday loose ends.  I want to write a few belated holiday notes to people who are important to me and start putting away holiday things that I only remember seeing when I put them around the house.  I missed a lot of Christmas this year!

And that's why I'm taking a couple days off of work instead of going back when I should.  I don't want to be there for everyone's post-break rapturous accounts of perfect holiday bliss.  I'm not  a good enough actress to be part of it and I'm going to give my fakey smiley face the days off, too.  By Monday the job will keep our attention and if nothing else, I give the job its due.