Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Back To The Future

I went back to Cassadaga to get another reading.  There was a whole, heavenly crowd trying to get through to me.  My grandmother was the spokesperson but Edith, John’s mother, couldn’t resist speaking her truth to me.
“Where are your boundaries?” my Grandmother asks.  Edith was harsher, “Kick him to the curb,” referring to her son.  I get my resolve.  I have to do this.  
But, they also say ‘never say never.’ I’m reminded by them that I have free will.  They are definite he is my soulmate, but maybe it wasn’t meant to work out in this lifetime.  It is up to me.  
Edith tells me she is my matchmaker that I am too loving to be alone...she will make sure she puts someone in my path.  She says she had done this once before.  She regrets John didn’t learn his life lesson....to love deeply after heartbreak.  
They say I asked John to come into my life. I question myself. What are the lessons I had with John?  I know one is to love profoundly again.  Another one is for me to define my boundaries.
I hear the chorus from my readers....”DUH!!”
I agree to see him when I return from Hilton Head.  He’s aware that I have been distant.  He asks up front what I am feeling.  I tell him I cannot see him again....no, we cannot be friends....no, I cannot play bridge with him any longer.  I am prepared to lose my place in our social bridge groups...no, we cannot travel together.
He offers alternatives while we are with other people.  I tell him I cannot agree to his conditions.  Absolutely out of the question for me!  I will not be with him if he is not exclusive with me.
We’ve had five years of huge ups and downs....it’s been a roller coaster.  I HATE ROLLER COASTERS!!!  But, I have a love for him and he for me.  It is undeniable.  
I could not have him in my life in any way if I end it. It would have to be a clean break so I could start over again.  How can I give my heart to another if he holds it?
I give him an ultimatum....”We are exclusive or we are nothing.  No alternatives!”  
Our eyes meet.
“This is not a judgment of you.  It is about me...what I must have to go on.  I am prepared to go either way.  You can stay or you can go.  I will be fine with whatever you decide.”
“What happened?”
“I just had an epiphany while we were apart for two weeks and I know what I will deal with and what I won’t.  I am over 60 years old and I DON’T want to be with anyone who doesn’t cherish me.  I want someone who is stable, who is complete with me...someone who is independent, not needy.  Someone who can be my best friend, someone I can talk to about anything...not someone who has certain topics that are off limits.  I may only have one year left in my life and I don’t want to spend it being heartbroken.”
“Wow...you caught me completely off guard.  I don’t want to lose you.  When I look at my future, you are with me.  I dearly love you.  What would you want to do?”
“It’s been five years of cat and mouse games.  There’s no more time.  This is it.  The future is now.  We need to figure out if we can make it work.  We need to live together.”
“Where?”
“I’m not wild about living in your house...that’s where you lived with your ex.  At least, I didn’t live with my husband at my place.”
“The commute from there wouldn’t be so bad, but I still have a lot to do on my house to get it ready to put on the market.”
“Well, maybe, we could live in my house during the week and your house on the weekends.”
“Okay, let’s try it.  Let’s see if it can work.  I know we need a lot of help with communication issues....like when you write things in your blog about me that completely devastate me.  But, I’m the one who has always loved you through it all.  I know it will be a struggle with your children.”
“Their issue is my issue.  The obvious.  I just can’t do that anymore.  I’m hopeful they’ll come around with time.  Plus, Susan will still be around and will meet with us together to help us be the best we can be for each other.”
“My children adore you....and so do I.  I can’t see my life without you in it.  I’m clearing my calendar.  We’ll spend every possible minute together over the next couple of months and then look at how our future stacks up.”
That is our agreement.  For me, that means canceling my trip to Miami next weekend.  Sammy will be disappointed and so will several of my readers.  Yes, he’s nice, accomplished and stable, but I could just never get a real connection.
John and I will be camping in Lily Dale, New York, next weekend...I’m taking him for his first reading by a medium.  I can’t wait to see what message he gets!  Hopefully, Edith will offer him guidance.
I am ending my blog, “60 Year Old Female Looking for Mr. Right.”  Boundaries.  I guess I’m finally defining them.  Our relationship has been too public.  I must give us a fighting chance at making this work. Maybe, I have found Mr. Right.  It’s a love that has survived too much scrutiny and now we must close the door.
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Dear Readers,
Thank you for joining me on this journey of self-reflection.  I so appreciate your support and honesty.  I have a true mixture of sadness and joy.  It’s my first foray into writing and I have loved every minute of it.
John and I are tossing out ideas for the next blog....How does “Hippies in Their Sixties” sound???
Ya gotta laugh!!
Love,
Brenda

Back to Black

    “I don’t understand,
     Why do I stress A man,
     When there’s so many bigger things at hand
     I shouldn’t play myself again,
     I should just be my own best friend,
     Not f--- myself in the head with stupid men.”

Could’ve been my words.  Could’ve been the words of so many women aching for Mr. Right.

Not my words....they’re Amy Winehouse’s in her song, “Tears Dry On Their Own.”

I never had a clue.  I didn’t follow her.  I never heard her music until after she died...at age 27.  What did I know?

My son sat me down last week and played her music for me.  I was stunned.  She was a jazz vocalist on her first album, Frank....a 60s soul singer on her second and final album, Back to Black.  She was 19 when her first album was released, 22 when Back to Black won acclaim.  She won five Grammys that year, 2006, including Best Pop Vocal Album.

When I listened to her first album this week, I broke down and sobbed.  My God, her phrasing, her originality, her range.  Her version of the Gershwin classic, “Someone To Watch Over Me,” puts Ella to shame.  “Tenderly,” made famous by Sarah Vaughan, is absolutely uniquely breathtaking. Watch the video on YouTube...she’s 19, beautiful, seemingly naive.   She loved Carol King, making “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” and “To Know Him is to Love Him,” mainstays in her repertoire.

Mostly, she sang her songs....I am no critic....but I would say they’re simple and raw.  She is hungry for love, obsessed by her need for a man.  She’s well aware that she’s destroying herself and hates that she cannot get in control.  In “What Is It About Men,” she sings
     “I’m nurturing, I just wanna do my thing,
     And I’ll take the wrong man as naturally as I sing
     My destructive side has grown a mile wide
     And I question myself again:  what is it ‘bout men?”

And what woman who has chosen the bad boy cannot relate to this???!!!  

In “Wake Up Alone,” she’s trying to recover from a break up...
     “It’s okay in the day I’m staying busy
     Tied up enough so I don’t have to wonder where is he
     Got so sick of crying
     So just lately
     When I catch myself I do a 180
     I stay up clean the house
     At least I’m not drinking
     Run around just so I don’t have to think about thinking
     That silent sense of content
     That everyone gets
     Just disappears soon as the sun sets”

We’ve all been there!!!  You know you’re lying in bed thinking of the man whether you sent him packing or he sent you packing....you have to get a new life and the nights are torture.

“Rehab” talks about the obvious....she just won’t do it.  I’ve had my own battles with drugs, alcohol and cigarettes.  For years, I smoked weed daily...only stopping when I ran for political office.  Not good for my future to be arrested for an illegal substance.  Drinking?  Bingeing, occasionally...I swear I don’t need the 12-Step Program of Alcoholics Anonymous...but maybe I’m fooling myself.  Just like Amy...
‘no, no, no.’  The cigarettes?  Can go without them for years and then start to binge occasionally on them, too.

“Rehab” from Back to Black just undoes me.
     “They tried to make me go to rehab but I said ‘no, no, no’
     Yes I’ve been black but when I come back you’ll know know know
     I ain’t got the time and if my daddy thinks I’m fine
     He’s tried to make me go to rehab but I won’t go go go.”

     “I don’t ever wanna drink again,
     I just ooh I just need a friend,
     I’m not gonna spend ten weeks,
     have everyone think I’m on the mend
     It’s not just my pride
     It’s just ‘til these tears have dried.”

One of her producers remembers her as a teenager sitting in a corner smoking incessantly, a 2-pack a day smoker...she got emphysema in her 20s!

Her rebellion started long before she was even in high school -- acidic relationships, drugs, alcohol...cutting!

She was absorbed in self-destruction until it was time for her to perform...at least, in the early days.  Then, she would hurl those demons aside and produce the most soul stirring rendition of her life for the world to marvel at.  She unashamedly put her life on the line for all to know.  She was nothing if not explicit.

Unfortunately, the world unfamiliar with her depth will only remember her for her self-abuse.

Explicit is why I relate to her.  God knows, I’m out there for the world to see, too...the violent childhood, the need to be loved, the tragedy of dealing with loss from AIDS, raising children singlehandedly, my battle against drinking and cigarettes.  Thank God, I’m blessed with a view of the world through rose colored glasses....I always know things will be better.

Sadly, she evokes the memories of so many of our generation who self-destructed amid forays into their demons taking with them their considerable talent and unpredictable futures.  Janis Joplin....another soul singer I never appreciated until long after her passing.  Jim Morrison...Jimi Hendrix...it’s tragic, heart wrenching.

You think to yourself....HOW COULD THEY???  What about their families?  Their friends?  Their fans?  How could they throw away the amazing gifts they were given?  How could they let their demons be in control?

But, of course, it’s not about their friends and families...It’s about them.  Too much fear, not enough love.

I just have to believe there’s a magnificent chorus on the other side.